Singularity: Demons in Paradise

Chapters

Chapter 1: Haunting Nightmares
Defying the Laws Of the World
Mixed Feelings
Pain Is Better Than Nothing
CMC...Best Troublemakers Ever
A Warm Bath, Clean(er) Clothes... And Lots of Explaining
Darkness meets Death
The Feeling of Being Watched
Meeting the Egghead
Citizen... Or Not?
Stressing the Pink
Getting a Job...
Check...
Darkness Rising
What Do You Do... When Peace Is No Longer An Option?
A New Name For Darkness
...Mate
Crash And Burn
Darkness Again
Lurker In the Shadows
Behind Enemy Lines
Renko Meets the Doctor
The Questions, They Never End
The Growing Storm

Chapter 1: Haunting Nightmares

Princess Luna Jolted awake in her bed for what felt like the millionth time in the past few weeks. It had been more than a year since the Elements of Harmony had freed her from the darkness of Nightmare moon, Yet ever since Nightmare Night she had become haunted by new nightmares. Each week the nightmare would be of the same world, but a different scene. The sky was always dark, the ground was covered in blood and debris, and she could always hear the sounds of monsters and screaming. In every dream she saw creatures that looked like the "Humans" that her sister Celestia had described, but they would soon be replaced... slaughtered by monsters that could not feel pain. One island, the only place the monsters seemed to be, was left abandoned by the humans in an attempt to forget their mistake. It wasn't enough though... as whatever military power that ruled that world sent soldiers to the island. Something had changed their ruler's mind about the island quite drastically. Luna rubbed her temples as she tried to clear her mind, it was well past midnight and she knew that she had many royal matters to attend to in the morning, but these nightmares were becoming more and more gruesome. The monsters fed on the flesh of the living and she couldn't possibly think of how anything in the world could possibly exist like that.

"I guess that I will have to speak with Tia about it..." She thought miserably, "... I don't know what else I'm supposed to do, my time alone was only able to help my powers to a certain point... and they weren't even my powers, they were HERS!..." She hated the thought of Nightmare moon still being a part of her, but she learned to deal with her own personal darkness. She couldn't comprehend what these nightmares meant though, she only hoped that her older sister could shed some light on the subject. Despite all the horrors she had been seeing, her little pun had made her chuckle a little.

Unfortunately, with her sleep disturbed by the nightmares, she could only try to keep herself busy until her sister awoke. So she decided to get out of bed and down to the kitchens wo make herself a cup of warm tea, she didn't even care what kind they had down there, she just wanted something to soothe her thoughts.

Luna walked along the palace grounds, just watching her beautiful night pass by before her, and she smiled a little. The beauty of her night had always been a comforting thought, even if nopony else thought so. She walked along in silence, trying to figure out the meaning of the dreams, her hoofsteps clattered almost silently along the stone brick walkways. By the time she had finally reached the kitchen she was showing all of the problems her reduced amount of sleep had been giving her, her wings were ruffled, her mane had even stopped with its magical waving.

She quickly made herself some hot water and looked for any tea that she could. Even though it was regular tea, she shook her head, it would have to do. After pouring the water and adding the tea she sat at one of the chairs in the room and began to drink.

Luna hadn't realized that she was shivering until she drank her first sip, and each successive one reduced the amount of shivering, when she finally stopped she was halfway through her fourth cup. She sighed as she finished and placed the cup in the sink, mentally apologizing to whoever had to wash the dishes in the morning.

After climbing back into bed and covering up with the blankets that she had become so accustomed to now, she began to drift back to sleep, praying that she wouldn't go back to that hellish place once more. Fortunately for her, the fates had decided to be nice to her for the rest of the night, and did not cloud her mind with death and decay.

The next morning, she didn't look too much better, the typical signs of a horrid sleep and exhaustion painted her features. She slowly made her way to her personal bathroom and decided not to call any of her servants, today she wanted to think on her own before talking to her older sister, and she couldn't stand to let anyone see her in such a horrid state. As she ran the hot water she had noticed that once again she was shivering, as if it were cold outside and in the castle, but she knew that the mages of the castle used their magic to keep the temperature at a comfortable level and that they were in the middle of the summer season. She quickly finished her bath and dried herself off. She just wanted to get to the bottom of the problem while trying to organize the question that she wanted to ask her sister. The brush that she began using felt good as she ran it through her mane, as if somepony had hoof-crafted it to be perfect for her, she took a second to look at her image in the mirror and screamed in shock at the thing she saw.

Two hoofmaidens burst through the door, thinking that their charge had been attacked, and one was looking around frantically for an attacker while the other quickly rushed to Luna's side to help her up.

"Your Highness... are you alright? We heard a scream and thought that you had been attacked..." The teal unicorn informed her with concern in her voice.

"I was not attacked Miss Star Snip..." Luna replied, trying to regain her composure, "...It was just my mind playing tricks on me..." She let Star Snip help her up and with a little hope she cast a glance at the mirror once again, and she visibly relaxed at what she saw, only her own scared visage looked back at her. She then turned to her concerned hoofmaidens and dismissed them with a message for her Celestia.

"I want you to tell anyone that tries to stop you that you have a very important message for my sister. Tell her that I wish to speak to her face-to-face, I will be waiting in the gardens." She took off into the sky before either of them could disagree, so they had no choice but to obey.

Ten minutes later a very confused-looking Celestia walked out to the gardens, she had dismissed her guards because she wanted to talk to her sister alone, she had been growing increasingly worried about what was making Luna look as if she hadn't slept for weeks. Celestia couldn't have prepared for the sight of how her sister looked no matter how much she had waited, it took all of her willpower not to run straight to her sister and hold her close, Luna looked like she had been crying the entire time she had waited for her and Celestia's look had changed from confusion to concern as she picked up her pace.

She took a seat on Luna's right side and held her wing out around her sister, Luna quickly accepted the show of kindness by latching onto Celestia in a tight hug, Celestia could feel her sister's sobs as she waited for Luna to begin her story. Celestia held held her sister close as Luna began to speak, at first it came between gasping breaths, after a minute or so Luna finally began to speak coherently.

"Tia... I... I'm scared... When I finally thought I was done with seeing darkness, and evil, and pain... These nightmares have haunted my sleep." Luna spoke with an occasional sob piercing her sentences. Celestia hugged her tighter to try and reassure her that she was safe.

"The nightmares were filled with those creatures you called humans..." Luna started, "...But... But after... After a huge explosion these strange... Monsters appeared, Tia they swarmed an entire island and killed everyone that they could find." The rememberance only served to make Luna break into a new wave of sobs, and Celestia did the only thing she could, Celestia patiently waited for her sister to continue.

"Every week the Island the dream took place on was the same, but the location on the island changed... each nightmare showed the humans being killed by monsters that felt no pain when hit with the human's weapons." Luna had begun to calm down, but Tia knew better than to stop with her embrace, as the eldest she had waited for a thousand years for her sister to accept her again as she now did. "...It was horrible, the monsters would kill the humans, and after killing them they would consume the flesh of the dead."

Nearly a half-hour went by, with luna trying to describe in as much detail to her sister what the nightmares would show her, and Celestia never stopped hugging her. When Luna had finally finished her story she let go of her sister and Celestia did the same. With a muttered 'thank you' Luna told her sister that she could get back to her royal duties. Celestia got up and began to walk away, but turned to her sister after a couple steps, she spoke in a soft and sweet voice.

"Remember dear sister, all a nightmare is... is a dream that you haven't shaped into a dream yet." When Luna had given her a bit of a small smile she added one more thing, "...You certainly look like you need time to clear your head, so I'll handle all of the royal matters today." And with that she left her sister to her own devices.

Defying the Laws Of the World

Luna now sat in her room, the moon had already risen with her help because she refused to let Tia do it, and she contemplated going to sleep. She feared what her newest nightmare would be, since it was now the beginning of the week again, she didn't want to go to sleep. In the end though, the desire for sleep won out over the fear of the nightmares, she soon found herself slipping under the covers praying to the fates that maybe this nightmare wouldn't be as bad. Luna closed her eyes and gently drifted off into the world that was supposed to be hers.

Luna knew there was something different about this dream, she wasn't gliding over the island like in her previous dreams, she was looking at her surroundings from the ground. She saw all the flora of the island had been mutated into what could've passed as monstrous plants, glowing an eerie orange color. Another thing that set her off as this dream being different was that she wasn't in control of her actions. She was moving, but she wasn't moving on her own accord. After a few minutes of travel through the ruins of whatever buildings had been on the island in the first place, she finally was coming close to the target of her travels, her gaze drifted to a structure that looked like a ruined hollow pillar with a giant beam of orange light shooting out of it. Several thoughts passed through her mind as she looked at the strange, familiar glow. Her mind finally settled on one though.

"...How many times... How many times have I come to this place, and tried to destroy it... Or rule it, or sacrifice myself... The time stream will never be fixed like that... I know that I have to do something different... But I don't know what... YET."

Luna knew that she was seeing through the eyes of one of the humans because she was holding some sort of weapon in her front... Hooves? Or hands?... She didn't know which to say, and she was keeping her balance on two legs. As she finally approached the tower-structure that her long travels had been focused on, she spotted a figure standing just outside the first door. The human was old, most likely male due to how his physique was built more 'blocky' than the curves of females, and was probably a scientist due to the sole fact that he had no weapon. Upon her approach the old man spoke first.

"So, Renko... I see you made it without getting hurt too badly, now all we have to do is install the final modification to the TMD and you will be able to go back in time and destroy the singularity." Luna felt an unexpected twinge of regret as if she knew something bad was going to happen to the innocent man. Luna was a little surprised by the response she gave back in a male voice.

"Into the fires of hell to stop the beast..." Luna heard a small, almost completely missable twitch of sadness in the voice as he spoke to the scientist. Without a word they both proceeded into what Luna felt looked like a fortress, there were devices everywhere that had long since been left unused by their original operators, it would have been indistinguishable as she saw the body she was in walk over to a strange device that opened up and revealed several different types of weapons. After a few seconds of browsing 'Renko' upgraded and chose two weapons; the Kalashnikov-SNV1 and the Centurion. He purchased as much ammo as he could and used a separate device to make sure he had all the TMD perks and equipment that he needed.

He and the scientist spoke for a minute before continuing further into the labs. Luna's dream kept skipping to what she guessed was further into the labs until the man came upon a lever-looking object. With the practice of doing such a thing several times, Renko placed his hand on the switch and pushed it forward, the machine clamped onto the device on his left arm and began to alter it. The mechanical whirring went on for a few seconds before stopping, the light that the device had changed from the similar orange color to a light blue color, Renko flexed his hand as he got more used to the new power emanating from the device. He left the room that held the upgrade machine and decided to test out his new power, which fotunately happened to be the armored super-soldiers that his enemy now had clogging the halls, with a few bursts of blue energy pulsing from his palm Renko had the soldiers dead at his feet.

"oh yeah... I could get used to this..." He thought darkly. Renko quickly pressed on to the main chamber where the core of the singularity was being held, easily tearing through any creature that was between him and his goal, a Zek had leapt on him and managed to remove his sniper rifle before being blasted into the opposite wall by an Uber Pulse (not lying, that's what they actually called it in the game). He quickly got himself to his feet and continued his journey, Luna was surprised at how fast the man was healing from wounds that would've killed any of the other humans, he only turned his attention away from the path once and pointed the TMD at a bunch of faded chalk. With a quick expulsion of E99 energy the chrono-note became easily readable...

What if this was supposed to happen?

Renko shuddered at the surrealism of his own handwriting, how many times had he gone through this island to stop the singularity, he sighed as he realized he had lost count after the first few.

"no matter what I do, I always find myself going back through this island, and repeating my moves... does this mean that I've now eperienced the definition of insanity?" he thought with a morbid depression. Luna couldn't believe her mind, this human had not only made a journey across an island filled with monsters waiting to make him their next meal, but he had made the journey more times than he could count. The amount of pity she had for this man almost seemed to reach out through him from the nightmare. He continued on, walking up several flights of stairs until he reached the room where the central core for the singularity. Once inside he saw the scientist again, the man gave him the instructions to use the E99 bomb to destroy the singularity and put an end to the chaos once and for all, and without a word he opened up a time rift to fifty years prior and set the bomb. The scientists in the lab fled as they realized what was happening and he could only watch as the bomb charged to it's full power. As the flash in time faded, he looked around to see that nothing had changed from when he left it. A cold and dark laughter emanated from behind him and he turned to see the one man that he had devoted his journey to stop... Chancellor Demichev, Ruler of earth. Demichev had a handgun similar to Renko's pointed at the head of the old scientist.

"So..." Chancellor Demichev began, "...you thought that just by going back in time and destroying the machine everything would change?" he questioned with sarcasm, "...all I had to do was build a new one, and it begins your journey all over again..." He knocked the scientist to the ground with the barrel of his gun and said in a cold voice, "...Only the victors write the history books..."

The world seemed to move in slow motion as Demichev attempted to shoot Renko, but Renko beat his speed as he drew the Centurion and landed a quick shot to Demichev's shoulder, Demichev fell to the ground and dropped his weapon several feet away. The scientist, sure of the fact that Demichev was no longer a threat, got to his feet slowly and repeated the last thing that Demichev had said.

"That's it! Only the victors rewrite the history books! Renko, it was not Demichev who was the anomaly... It was you! You need to go back in time and stop yourself from saving Demichev in the burning building." Luna felt like she would've been nauseated at how this man was just casually talking about leaving another of his race to die. All their attention was caught by the form of Demichev, struggling to get up off the floor, without a weapon Renko let the man get up and voice his opinion.

"you mean to make him go back in time and kill himself... that certainly sounds like a pleasant idea..." Demichev's voice still was filled with sarcasm, and even Luna admitted that this man, no matter how terrible, had a point. Demichev took a step forward and decided to place his offer on the table, "...Join me, and together we can have a power that others could only dream of... an entire world to rule!" But the Scientist stepped forward to interject.

"Is this what you would like to rule? A world of death, chaos, and fear?" The man asked in an accusatory tone, which Demichev countered coldly.

"No leader is without his critics... All you have to do is prove your loyalty to me by killing Barisov... Now choose..." Both men stood a couple steps away from Renko, and it only took him a few seconds to make the choice, Luna could feel the sadness that weighed on this poor man's heart as he made his decision, and all she could do was watch as the man quickly brought his gun up and made another shot.

Demichev clutched the new wound in his chest as he fell to the floor, the color quickly drained from his face until his chest slowed to a still. The scientist, Barisov, leaned over to look at the body.

"You killed him..." Barisov said with disbelief, "...You just killed the most powerful man in the world" Luna was shocked at how Barisov was surprised at Renko's move, but was taken aback as the man continued talking, "...But that still does not change the fact that you need to go back in time to kill yourself and stop the time anomaly..." Luna still couldn't believe that anypony could be as calloused as these humans over something as tragic as death.

Barisov's look turned to shock as Renko turned the iron sights on the Scientist, which surprised Luna as well, but the princess soon realized why Renko had been so sad when speaking with Barisov.

"R-Renko... what are you doing?!" Barisov asked with a look of terror on his face.

"I'm truly sorry Doctor Barisov... But no matter who I chose between you two, the Soviet union still will control the world..."

"Is that really your reason to kill me?" Barisov replied, trying to find out why the barrel of a very deadly handgun was now pointed at him.

"No... it's because whichever choice I go with, I still end up wandering this island to do the exact same thing... expecting a different result... I've come to know insanity as the only constant in my life, but I intend to end it here. Without you or Demichev to stop me, I'll finally be able to get off this rock and use the now unlimited power you have given me.

Barisov's eyes widened in fear as it dawned on him the only outcome of this encounter. Renko pulled the trigger and with a loud "BANG!" Barisov now held his chest in surface of the floor.

With a blink Luna now found herself seeing through the eyes of Barisov as he made his last few breaths. Renko now stood over him and Luna saw the face of the man she had followed in her most recent nightmare, the same face that she had seen in the mirror earlier that day, but this time he had more than just the look of a killer. Even though his eyes showed torment and pain and anger, Luna saw the unmissable look of true sadness, she saw a sadness that showed the man regretted ever being born into such a nightmare. Renko walked away into the darkness that crept its way through Barisov's vision.

As the man's vision finally was eclipsed by the darkness Luna bolted upright in her bed. She had to shield her eyes as she realized that the sun was now up, once her eyes had adjusted to the light she saw both of her Hoofmaidens looking at her in surprise.

"A-are you alright Princess?" Star Snip asked with a slightly confused look.

"Actually... yes I am... I certainly am..." Luna replied, she noted the tone of surprise in her voice as she spoke. "...I actually managed to sleep through an entire night without waking up in a cold sweat..." She couldn't believe what had happened, but she wanted to speak with Tia.

"Um... Miss Snip..." Luna began tentatively

"Yes Your Highness?" The teal unicorn replied, standing at attention almost as if she was a guard.

"I... I would like you to have somepony let my sister know I wish to speak with her later, same place as yesterday." Luna said, he voice seemed like she was surprised about the mere fact that she could talk. She flew out the window and landed in the gardens, she began to trot around and observe all the plants that their servants had planted, upon reaching the pond that had several chairs laid around it she promptly took a seat and waited for her sister.

Mixed Feelings

Celestia found herself, once again, out in the gardens. She had a slightly suspicious look as the day seemed far better than yesterday. Upon arriving at the pond she knew her sister liked, she saw Luna staring out curiously over the water, the young princess looked almost as if she had never seen water before.

This time Celestia took a seat next to her sister and waited for Luna to start speaking, she was close enough to give her a hug of reassurance, but she stayed far enough away to let her sister have some space. After several long minutes of silence Luna finally spoke up.

"Tia... I had a new... well... I don't know whether to call it a dream or a nightmare..." She began in a wavering tone.

"Did this one upset you as well Luna?" Celestia asked with a curious tone.

"Strangely enough... no." Luna replied, looking confused at her own answer, "Today I woke up as if from a dream, but the place I had been was still a nightmare, this time I was looking through the eyes of a very conflicted person who had fought his way across the island to try and stop a loop in time." Celestia nodded slowly, letting her sister know she understood what Luna meant. "...His thoughts told me that he had died so many times, and had journeyed across the island more times than he could remember. I watched him enter a tower-like building that was half-destroyed and fight his way through countless monsters and even warriors of his own race, he killed each and every one without batting an eye, he was trained to kill. Some sort of device attached to his left arm..." Luna raised her left hoof for emphasis, "...Let him travel through time as though it were only an inconvenience."

Celestia was impressed at the thought of a device like that, when even her protoge was only able to go back in time for a few seconds, but her attention was quickly drawn back to her sister as the tale went on.

"He did what he did because he wanted to try and save the world, but no matter what he did, he always found himself on the island once again fighting the creatures that only consumed flesh. The thing that intrigued me was that no matter what he fought, none of the creatures could kill him the way that they had with other soldiers, it was as if he was some sort of super-soldier. He healed any wounds that he had sustained while fighting when there were none of the creatures around, and with only a few shots, he managed to take down more of the creatures than I thought could possibly fit on that island with far greater ease than the armored soldiers were able." Celestia reached out a wing to let her sister to let her know that she still had nothing to fear. Luna accepted the offer and leaned into the soft feathers of her sister's wing.

"I saw the whole thing through his eyes, and when it finally came for him to make the choice again, he killed two important members of his race without any hint of regret." Luna's body began to shake, but then she pressed herself deeper into her sister's wing, she stopped shaking shortly after and continued. "... The first of the two he killed was the tyrant who ruled the world. The other human, a scientist, was an innocent man trying to keep the entire world from becoming a nightmare." Luna held back a tear and took a deep breath before continuing, "...But the man who's eyes I was seeing out of... A soldier by the name Renko... He knew that following either person's plan would send him back through his journey once again, so he killed both of the men and left the island with only an apology to the innocent scientist." Celestia brought her sister close to her own body, she noticed that Luna was shaking again, she could sense how cold her sister was feeling when she described the nightmare.

"As Renko left... I saw him through the eyes of the scientist... He looked like a killer, but there was also something more... A pain, a sadness of losing oneself, a pain I felt when I was... N-Night-..." Luna buried her face in her sister's side as she struggled to even say the name of the monster that had plagued her for so many years, and Celestia understood her sister's pain.

"I understand, sweet sister, I have seen many visions of similar value from times before our rule... Before mother helped shape Equestria into what it is today. You have no need to fear such a terrible burden now that you are with me, the bonds of our family will keep us together through any sort of trouble, you have my word." Celestia whispered in her sister's ear, she raised her head and exhaled a breath that she hadn't even realized she had been holding, Celestia looked down at her sister with happiness as she noticed that Luna was beginning to drift off to sleep once again.

"I think that I can handle one more day on my own..." she thought with a small smile, "...Lulu needs to have a bit more rest and I believe she'll be back to herself in no time." Celestia's horn glowed a beautiful golden color before she and Luna were teleported into Luna's room. She used her magic to levitate her sister onto the bed, she walked silently over to where she had placed her sister, and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek in the hopes that Luna would have a calmer slumber.

Luna once again saw through the eyes of the man named Renko, the dream was far different this time, and Renko almost seemed... Happy. He was in the middle of a makeshift headquarters, one that Luna knew she had seen somewhere but couldn't quite put her hoof on, she could hear him giving orders to other soldiers dressed in what she guessed to be military uniforms. When he had finished talking to the group of soldiers he looked around at all the people in the room, many were operating devices that were consistent with radar and other such pre-detection means, he hid a sigh as he thought about how so few of them were truly familiar with fighting the way he was.

In the midst of his recollections another soldier came up to him, although he had what looked like a band on his upper-left arm, the band on his arm was white with a red plus-sign on it. Luna recognized it as a medical symbol since all the hospitals of Equestria had similar ones adorning them. The younger soldier gave Renko a salute before the older man addressed him.

"...At ease corporal... What's the damage...?" Luna heard the question and was no less confused how calm this man was in the face of danger.

"So far the eastern seaboard is facing an amount of Reverts that is making it hard for them to keep their numbers and morale up... Our southern borders aren't looking so good either. It seems that the device called the Singularity is only serving to increase the strength of the Reverts near the Island."

"So... Back to that old rock... Just great..." Renko replied with a sigh, and the medic looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean sir?" he asked, confused as to how his leader was so familiar with the island.

"Katorga-12 is the island where this hell-hole started Corporal, and that's where the singularity is, so I need to go to the island and destroy it myself." With a meaningful pause he looked to one of the soldiers sitting at a radio-transmitter. "Get a Kasatka ready, I want it ready to fly by the time I get there and I want a full load of gear so I'm not stuck on the island without a radio."

He walked down the hall, contemplating exactly how he would try to destroy the singularity, his mind continued to drift to the different types of eperiments with E99 that his scientists were doing. All of the weapons were being implemented with the element so that they could kill Reverts faster, he had even taken the time to take apart and rebuild several of the weapons to the point where he understood the weapon far better than his soldiers. The thing that hung him up though, was how it had been more than a year since he had killed Demichev and Barisov, the scientist's face still haunted his sleep even though he had tried to bring himself to rationalize why he had simply made a grab for power.

"Maybe destroying the singularity in this time will help me make peace with Barisov as my men continue their defence against the monsters. Maybe I can finally rest without having to worry about more innocent people dying than the ones that already have." his mind drifted to a quote that he didn't know the origin of, "...don't weep for the dead, for they have found peace... Weep for the living, for they find pain." Renko almost couldn't believe how true that quote was. If Luna was able to control a physical body, her jaw would've dropped as she heard the thoughts coming from this man. She was amazed at how fear had been long since stripped from the man's mind, only pain served as the emotion that kept him going, Luna couldn't understand what sort of journey could possibly leave anyone standing... let alone commanding an entire nation without breaking down into madness.

Pain Is Better Than Nothing

Renko sat alone in the helicopter, he listened to the steady beat of the blades through the air as he waited for takeoff, he had specifically told his men that he would be doing a solo mission onto the island. The others had thought he finally lost his mind when he told them his reason.

"...It's less fun when there isn't a challenge... and when I'm alone against these creatures, it's a well-recieved challenge." None of the other soldiers dared argue with him because they knew the limitless power that the TMD bestowed upon him, but he knew that they all wanted to stop him, and he understood how they felt on the matter. He sat in silence as the chopper took him on the long journey to the Island that he never wanted to set foot on again. How many times had he crossed the island, how many times had he wished the nightmare would just end, enough to know that he had to do something to wipe the singularity... and the island it was on... from the face of the earth. He knew what he had to do as the chopper landed about a kilometer from the singularity, he quickly made his way along the rubble-strewn streets toward the orange beam that shot into the sky, he had ordered the chopper to take off and only come back if he gave them the order. When he finally reached the building he took a deep breath before walking inside, as if it would help him complete this final decision. After several long minutes of walking through the abandoned labs he finally approached the room where the singularity was being emitted from, he took a quick look around and saw the place exactly as he had left it, a sigh escaped his lips as he walked closer to the beam of orange light.

Luna was curious as to what the man was going to try and do, he hadn't brought any sort of explosive with him, he didn't even have the bomb from the last time that he was there. A sudden realization dawned on her as she saw the man lift his left hand so that the device he wore was now facing the strange core of the beam.

"he's going to try and use the device to cause a chain-reaction and destroy the singularity and the island... he has truly lost his drive to live..." Luna thought, she felt as if she had been stabbed with a very cold metal blade.

Upon simply willing the device attached to his arm to expell E99 energy and merge it with the core he felt the vibrations in the room as the reactor began to gain too much power to handle, he knew that he couldn't relent in his plan though.

"Even if this kills me... I know it will stop you once and for all..." he spoke in a low growl as if the beam could hear him or respond to what he said.

When the reactor couldn't take any more unbalancing the beam seemed to collapse into a small white ball, Renko had begun to breathe a sigh of relief... as did Luna... at the sight. Before he could finish though, an explosion rocketed out from the core that blinded and deafened both Luna and Renko, both of them could feel an earth-shaking event had happened.

Renko, believing that he was now dead, opened his eyes to see a place that seemed to shimmer with every color of the rainbow. He began to look around the place, trying to discern whether this was heaven or purgatory, when his eyes fell upon a creature standing opposite of him.

When Luna had finally blinked away the blindness she saw herself face-to-face with the human whose eyes she had been looking through during her dreams. Both of them had no idea how to regard each other... As Luna only knew of him as a human, but had no knowledge of him other than that... Renko had to blink his eyes just to make sure he wasn't looking at a Revert.

"no... I'm not... Reverts are humans who have gone even further than physical deformities to become monsters, but this thing... it seems to lack any sort of hostile or predatory stance, as if it's just as curious about me as I am of it..." Any sort of thought process was halted as another light blinded the two of them once again, this time coming from Renko's left, when they had both recovered their vision another equine creature was standing between them.

Renko stood amazed at how beautiful the creature was... It had hair as red as fire, but as flowing as a peaceful river. The hair on it's hide was as white as snow, while her presence made her seem as tough as the earth itself. When she finally spoke, Renko felt as if the gentlest of winds were flowing over him.

"Sergeant Nathaniel Renko..." He was taken a little by surprise since this creature knew his name, but he went along with it, "...I believe you have now met my daughter, Princess Luna..." with a flex of a wing the larger equine indicated the blue-coated one.

Renko gave a slight nod, and Luna couldn't believe that she was seeing her mother once again.

"That's good... Because even though your mission had proven to be a success... it was not as successful as you had hoped." Renko couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Is the Singularity still active? Did I die? What am I doing here?" All those thoughts rushed through his head as if they were a train with no brakes, and he turned his gaze upward as the large equine began to laugh.

"Fear not, your efforts to destroy the device were successful, and by taking the singularity and the TMD out of the same time period you managed to keep the human race from being consumed by those monsters." Renko felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. "but they are still a threat to the place where I am sending you... unfortunately, Without the Singularity the TMD would not normally work... but I am giving you an alternate method to draw upon the power that rests in your hand." Renko looked at the device attached to his hand and saw that the normal glow that it usually had was now gone, he turned his gaze once more back to the creature that was speaking with him.

"You need to find my daughter, and have her help you with overcoming this darkness..." she sighed, as if it hurt her to even think of putting her own daughter through such a thing. "there are many good lives in the world now, all I ask... is that you help protect as many as you can..." With another blinding flash both Luna and Renko felt as if they were falling down to the ground.

Luna awoke with a start and groggily looked around to see where she had fallen asleep at, confused at how she ended up in her room, and even more confused when her head began to pound with a migrane.

Renko felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of him, when he opened his eyes he saw himself staring through the canopy of a forest, it took a great deal of effort to get himself up on his elbows and drag himself to a nook in the nearest tree. He looked down at his left hand and saw that the TMD was glowing the same blue color it had been before, and he contemplated on what the mysterious creature meant when she told him about an alternative power he would use. With exhaustion finally overtaking him, Renko closed his eyes and attempted to sleep. Other than his own ragged breathing, the only thing he could sense about himself was that his entire body hurt, so he gave himself something to think about.

"At least pain is better than feeling nothing at all..." Was the only thought coursing through his mind as he finally slipped from the realm of conscious to the dream world.

CMC...Best Troublemakers Ever

Renko put a hand in front of his eyes as the rays of the sun beat down on his face, when his eyes adjusted he looked around, he noticed that he was sitting in front of a stream. Two main thoughts flashed through his mind; Get shelter and gather food. He believed the former would be easier after he saw that the only weapon he had on him was his handgun, so he set off in search of a cave or something of the sort. He followed the river, hoping it would lead him to either a cave or a town... preferably the latter. After what he guessed to be about twenty minutes of walking he found himself at the edge of the forest, on a hill, overlooking what seemed to be a really old-fashioned village. Something about the village made him feel a bit better... He couldn't tell if it was the wooden houses with thatched roofs, or if it was the houses that seemed to be artfully cobbled together, but he knew that there was something about this village that he liked.

"Heh... maybe I can even get a warm shower and wash this damn blood off my clothes..." he thought with a smirk. As he took a step forward he heard several screams coming from his left, with a quick turn of his head he saw three tiny horse-creatures being chased by a wolf made completely out of wood, the mere fact that they sounded like the screams of children drove his steps toward the beast and it's prey.

Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom were running for their lives from the biggest Timberwolf they had ever seen, but the creature now had them trapped with no way to escape. They had shouted as loud as they could to try to get anypony to show up to save them, but they were now all trembling in fear as the hulking beast slowly walked closer to them... savoring the time that it had to place fear into it's prey.

"Leave them alone you big chunk of firewood!" came a shout from the sky as a streak that was illuminated by all the colors of the rainbow collided with the timberwolf, sending it reeling into a nearby boulder, the creature seemed to shatter upon contact. Hovering in the air where the creature had been standing only moments before was a cyan-colored pegasus mare with a rainbow mane, she threw a look to all of the smaller ponies, the sight had managed to stop Renko in his tracks. He hadn't been seen... yet. The cyan mare drifted to the ground before speaking to the little ponies.

"You three are in big trouble, how many times do we have to tell you to stay away from the Everfree forest?!" She huffed, which caused the fillies to cringe a little at her harsh words, Renko even felt sorry for the little ones. Then he saw that the cyan pony was going to continue, he hid behind one of the larger boulders as he tried to listen to the conversation.

"You three are lucky that AJ and I were passing through this way, otherwise that thing could've killed you!" Each of the fillies hung their heads in shame as she spoke.

"Well... she's got a point..." Renko thought, before his attention was caught by another voice.

"Ah... Rainbow... Ah think ya should think about gettin' them out of here... Because Wolfy here don't wanna quit jus' yet." The voice came from an orange pony that didn't have wings or the horn that was on the little white filly's head, but it could've been easily hidden by the stetson hat that she was wearing.

Everyone's gaze turned to the timberwolf that had now re-formed itself next to the rock it had shattered on.

"Oh yeah... I forgot they could do that..." Rainbow Dash replied with an apologetic tone.

Renko couldn't believe his eyes, but then again, he also believed that he had slipped into the point of insanity long before now. Even though the creature had pulled itself together, Renko could still see the spot where the pony, Rainbow Dash, had struck it.

"So... it's not invincible, you just have to keep hitting it until it doesn't get back up... I'm certainly used to that."' He thought darkly.

Rainbow Dash quickly charged at the creature in an attempt to give Applejack time to get the fillies away from the beast, but the beast brought a massive claw down on her and managed to swipe her away like a pesky fly, the creature then turned it's attention to applejack as she charged with an attempt to buck it off balance. When her rear hooves connected with the creature it wobbled a little before grabbing one of them and swinging her around like a toy. Applejack landed facefirst into the dirt several feet away, the timberwolf began its walk closer to her, the fillies scrambled over to her in an attempt to try and coax her into getting up but her entire body was dazed from the hit. She could only watch as the creature loomed ever closer to finally get its kill.

"HEY UGLY!" shouted a male voice, and the timberwolf turned to the sound of the noise, Renko stood about thirty feet away with the boulder he had been hiding behind hovering in the air next to him encased in a blue glow.

"How about you taste this!" He shouted as he used the TMD's stasis and pulse function to hurl the boulder at the creature. It managed to avoid the boulder, but the distraction was all he needed as everyone turned their attention to him, Renko held his hand at eye level... daring the creature to come at him. Rainbow dash, Applejack, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders all looked in confusion at the creature that managed to chuck a large boulder at the timberwolf. The timberwolf took the bait and began to charge, Renko smiled as he waited for it to draw itself away from its victims, once it was within its own striking distance he let the device drain the energy from the creature.

The timberwolf howled in pain as its body began to rot and crumble to dust in mere seconds. Renko dropped to one knee, breathing heavily, it finally dawned on him what that female creature meant.

"The TMD draws on my stamina now... Just peachy. I need to make a mental note not to do that too often." His entire left arm was numb and as he tried to lift it he only muttered one word.

"...Ow..." It didn't even hurt, but that was the only word that came to mind as he tried to move his hand farther than a few inches. When feeling returned to Applejack's body and sense returned to the unconscious Rainbow Dash all of the ponies walked over to where Renko knelt. He clutched his left arm as if it were going to fall off at any second and he was breathing heavily, he looked up to see the stares of several ponies, he noticed that the three small horses were covering their snouts with their front hooves.

"Can't say I blame 'em... I probably don't smell like a flower patch." He chided. As the orange pony was about to speak, he used his right hand to let her know to wait a second, then he spoke.

"...I... I know... that this... certainly looks weird..." he said in between breaths, he took a minute to regain his breath in order to speak coherently, "I've already accepted the fact that I might've gone insane, especially with what I'm seeing now, but I would really like to know if there is anywhere I can take a shower at. If I can be allowed to take a shower, I will answer whatever questions I can."

A Warm Bath, Clean(er) Clothes... And Lots of Explaining

Applejack led the way back to her family's farm, staying away from the center of town for obvious reasons, each member of the group kept an eye on Renko as if wondering whether he was an alien or not. The three fillies eyed the device on his arm curiously, wondering what other stuff it could do, but none of them got close enough to touch it as if they thought it was poisonous.

When they got to the farm Applejack led Renko to the barn where a metal tub, large enough for a cow, was located.

"Well... it ain't a shower... but at least ya can get yerself and yer clothes clean" Applejack explained.

"It's fine, I've had worse to work with before." After several 'thank you's and a bit of help filling the tub the group left Renko to wash up

Rainbow Dash was walking next to Applejack on their way back to the farmhouse with the Cutie Mark Crusaders when she began speaking again.

"Applejack! What in Celesita's name makes you think that whatever that thing is should be able to stay with us?" Her voice was barely a hushed whisper, "Did you see the look in its eyes? That thing is a killer! And on that note, What about the weird lightshow it did with that timberwolf combined with the fact that it's dead now!"

"Rainbow, I can understand your concern... but he can't be all bad, seeing as how he came to our rescue when that timberwolf was about to make a meal out of us. I didn't hear you voicing any of your concerns when he kept you from gettin' eaten." The orange mare countered.

"But what if it decides to kill us just like it killed that timberwolf, can you imagine how that must've felt!?" The cyan mare replied.

"I highly doubt that, he did tell us that he'd explain everythin' when he was done with that bath. Now, if you could go get Twilight, I think she might be able to help us out."

"Why do you need me to get Twilight?" Rainbow asked.

"Because since it don't look like he can fly, he seems to have abilities that a unicorn would... so she might be able to help figure out exactly what he is." Applejack stated bluntly.

The first thing Renko noticed was that he could actually take off the TMD here without needing some sort of complicated device. He slowly began to accept that he was no longer in the world of nightmares anymore and that he could quite possibly be in a world where no real threats existed outside of the creatures that attacked those children.

Twilight had just arrived at the Apple farm when Renko finally finished scrubbing most of the blood out of his clothes, as he waited for his clothes to air-dry, Applejack explained what happened to her, Rainbow and the crusaders earlier that day. Spike, knowing just how Twilight was, was already in the middle of writing the letter to Celestia when Twilight told him to start writing.

"Already halfway done..." Spike replied and he laughed at the confused look she gave him, "Twilight... I know so much about how you act I already knew you would want this in a letter to the princess." He explained. When he finished writing he used his green flames to deliver the letter right to the princess. As the letter dissapeared in a cloud of smoke Twilight gathered her two friends and began to discuss what was going on.

"Ok, so what do we know...?" She began.

"We know that he has the power to kill whatever he wants!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, a hint of panic was in her voice and only grew the more she thought about it.

"AND we also know that despite that power he has to easily kill us, he risked his neck to save us." Applejack added.

"Ok, and what have you seen of his powers?" Twilight asked with concern.

"He can levitate stuff like you unicorns can." Applejack replied.

"... And he managed to emit this blue light from his front hoof and turned that timberwolf into nothing but rotted wood and dust." Rainbow added with a glare to AJ, trying to emphasize her point.

"...He really does sound dangerous if he can do that... not even the best Chronomancer can do something like that with ease..." Twilight thought, understanding why Rainbow Dash was a little nervous around the guy.

"Well I doubt he can do it too often because even you saw how exhausted he looked after doin' that!" Applejack retorted. Twilight knew that if she didn't stop them her friends would get into another fight over something that needs a level head to solve. She pulled her friends apart and shouted.

"You two need to get a grip! We already know that he is dangerous... I've let the princess know that, but we've also figured out that he is capable of rational thinking and isn't acting hostile towards us in any way."

-----------------------------------Meanwhile At the Barn---------------------------------------------------

Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle made their way over to the open barn door. Just outside the door the group stopped to try and figure out what they were going to do.

"Ok... so far he doesn't seem mean..." Apple Bloom began.

"He also smelled really bad..." Sweetie Belle added, remembering the smell of the man before.

"And AJ let him take a bath so I bet he doesn't smell anywhere near as bad as before." Scootaloo countered.

"Why don't we just try to talk to him... He did save us from that timberwolf after all..." Apple Bloom continued. At that point all three of them smiled and gave each other a high-hoof.

"Cutie Mark Crusaders: Creature Investigators!" They cheered in unison. As Apple Bloom approached the door she noticed that she was the only one approaching the door.

"What are you guys doing? And why am I going in alone?" she asked with irritation.

"Well... it was your idea... so you should do it." Scootaloo replied. Apple Bloom's mouth hung open at what her friend had told her.

"It's because you're too chicken to go in with me isn't it?!" She accused.

While Apple Bloom and Scootaloo bickered back and forth between who would go in to speak with the strange creature, Sweetie Belle had already started trotting inside.

Renko, fortunately fully clothed... even if he hadn't managed to get all the blood out, turned to see a tiny horse with a horn on it's head slowly approaching him. From everything he saw, the little creature had no intention of hurting him, and it's posture told him that this thing was curious. He slowly turned, so as not to startle the little thing, and sat down to bring himself as close to eye-level as he could with it. By the way the creature carried itself Renko assumed that it was a female child of whatever kind of creatures they really were.

Sweetie Belle sat down a couple feet from the person and got ready to ask her first question. After several quiet seconds she found the one she wanted and asked.

"So... what are you...?" she asked, trying to make her voice sound only curious and nothing else. Renko decided to be honest.

"Besides... what do I have to lose... I still have the TMD so I know I can make a getaway." He thought.

"I'm a human... What about you?" He answered.

"I'm a unicorn... Where are you from?" She continued her lines of questioning.

"these things must have some sort of educational system... they speak the same language as me, she's asking quite point-driven questions... even if they are simple. It's kinda enjoyable to be talking to a child again." he thought with a gentle smile.

Sweetie Belle noticed the man's face change from the hardened warrior to something much kinder, and she smiled in return.

"I'm from the United States of America." He answered. The little unicorn looked at him with a sideways glance.

"I'm in school and Cherilee has never talked about a place with that name, I pay attention to her geography classes..." She paused for a second, then asked another question, "Are you an alien?"

There was no doubt the question took him by surprise, but he quickly formulated an answer.

"Actually... If I'm right, I'm from WAY back in the past. Mostly because I'm a time traveller." he answered, he knew it was a long shot, but he had to say something even if he didn't know exactly why he was here. A very happy feeling managed to wash over him as he saw the little unicorn's face go from interested to incredibly happy.

"I TOLD SCOOTALOO THAT CREATURES USED TO EXIST HERE BEFORE PONIES!" She squealed happily, "She owes me five bits now!"

The sudden outburst caught her friends by surprise and they both stopped arguing to look in the door. Their jaws dropped as they saw Sweetie Belle dancing some sort of victory dance, and the person they were supposed to be talking to was trying to hold back laughter.

Darkness meets Death

Twilight had sent Rainbow dash out to gather the rest of her friends when the Princess' letter arrived via Spike, the note had told her that she should not approach the man unless required to stop him from hurting somepony and to wait for Luna and her night guards to arrive. Within minutes the rest of her friends had arrived to the orchard and Twilight explained to them what was going on.

"Applejack has been watching the barn to make sure that this person didn't escape into the orchard, so far she hasn't seen him leave." Twilight informed them.

"So he's new here?" A pink-coated, cotton candy-esque haired, hyper pony asked the lavender mare. "We should throw him a party so he has a bunch of friends and no longer needs to feel sad that he's alone here!"

"Pinkie... Focus!" A pearl-white mare scolded, "We're not here to throw him a party, we're here to make sure he stays put until the Princess arrives."

"Then what am I supposed to do with this 'Welcome to Ponyville' cake that I made for him?" Pinkie Pie asked Rarity as she seemed to move a three-layer cake into view.

"I don't know, but you can't give it to HIM..." Rarity complained, as if the thought of a creature that had shown up and turned a timberwolf into rotten wood was a very disgusting idea, which... in a way... it was.

Twilight massaged her head with her hooves as she tried to get over the argument that Pinkie and Rarity were having, it didn't help knowing that this creature could kill a full-grown timberwolf with only a thought and a flash of blue light.

Luna saw the remains of the timberwolf from her sky chariot as her guards flew her towards the Apple farm, she truly felt sorry for the poor animal, but she couldn't help thinking that the creature deserved it for attacking her subjects. She soon landed in front of the house and was met by her sister's protoge.

"Princess Luna, it's good to see you again." The lavender mare said as she bowed in respect to Luna.

"It is good to see thee again as well Twilight Sparkle." Luna replied with a smile, but then her face changed to a look of seriousness as her mind went back to the reason why she arrived.

"Can you take me to see him?" She asked Twilight.

"Of course, he's in the barn around back, Applejack kept her eye on the barn to make sure he hadn't left." Twilight replied with a proud smile.

It only took a minute or two for Luna, Twilight, and Luna's personal guards to reach the barn. The sight that met them when the night guards opened the doors was one none of them expected.

Renko sat on the gound with three fillies in front of him, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and as the barn door was opened by the guards all their eyes had shifted to the entrance. Everypony present seemed to have a neutral look plastered on their face, wondering who was going to make the first move.

The human looked at Luna and she realized that he didn't have as much blood on him or his clothes as the last time she saw him, as well as the fact that he didn't carry the stench of blood and death. The first to move was one of her guards, tensing as he began to ready his weapon for a fight. Luna streached out a wing and told him to stop, when she looked back, the human had tensed his left hand and the device attached to it began to glow a light blue color.

The few seconds it had taken both soldiers to ready their 'weapons' reminded her of a mage battle, where both unicorns' horns would glow their respective color as they tried to estimate their opponent's next move, she decided to try and defuse the situation before anypony did anything rash. She cleared her throat before she began speaking in order to get the human's attention.

"...My name is Princess Luna, I am one of the rulers of Equestria... I have come here to try and find out more about why you are here, can you understand my language?" She hoped with all the will she had that this man wouldn't try to do anything stupid.

Renko stood as slowly as he could, at first placing his hands in positions that he hoped still translated to the fact that he didn't want to fight... He'd had enough with fighting, it was a good feeling now that he finally had someone... anyone... that wasn't trying to kill him just because he existed. When he finally stood he slowly lowered his left hand to his side, and raised his right hand in a salute, his training in the military had taught him to respect authority no matter who it was.

"Sergeant Nathaniel Renko." He recited, his training had drilled into him that unless he was able to speak with a representative from his embassy he was only to recite his name and rank to any sort of captor, whether they wanted peace or not, even though he had a pretty good idea that there would no longer be any sort of United States embassy left.

All of the guards seemed to relax a bit as they noticed that he was willing to cooperate, but none of them took their eyes off of the device on his left arm. Luna was greatly relieved that this man wasn't as ruthless as she was worried he would be.

"At ease sergeant..." Luna stated, and Renko got himself into a more comfortable standing position. "My guards will escort you to a secure location where you can be assessed as to whether you are a threat to our society or not." she continued, Renko had a confused look on his face... but he didn't question what he was told. The guards soon escorted him off the property and onto one of the sky-chariots as they flew him back to Canterlot.

The trip went by as if his mind was fast forwarding it's way to being holed up inside of what looked like an interrogation room. He no longer had his handgun with him, but he still had the TMD, he had managed to convince the guards that it was like their horns and that he had a near-impossible time removing it without a special machine... which wasn't completely a lie. He was leaning against the back wall when one of the night guards walked in and spoke to him.

"Is there anything you would like to drink before the evaluation begins...?" Renko judged by the voice that this pony was male, and he could see it with the more muscular-shaped physiology, he took a second before answering.

"...Do you guys happen to have coffee? I haven't been able to have that in a long time." The guard nodded, and when asked if he wanted anything with it Renko told him just the coffee, nothing else. Several minutes went by before the guard entered again carrying the coffee, the guard set the tray on the table and sat on the opposite side of the room that Renko was on, Renko walked over to the cup and began to drink. He was feeling much better now that he was actually able to drink coffee again, the beverage began to help him warm up from the inside out, and the guard patiently waited for him to finish.

When Renko finally placed the mug on the table the guard began to speak.

"Now that drinks are out of the way, let's get to business..." The unicorn began, his grey-blue fur and black mane seemed to almost blend into the stone walls that made the interrogation room, his amber-colored eyes scanned Renko as if daring him to try to make a move. And Renko examined the stallion in return, noting particularly how this one didn't have wings, his eyes stopped and examined the guard's horn interestingly as he levitated the mug away from Renko.

"Could it be...? No, there's no way, could there?" Renko thought with piqued interest as he recalled the stasis function of the TMD that let him levitate objects of an insurmountable weight. His attention was drawn back to the guard's piercing gaze as the unicorn cleared his throat.

"First and foremost, why are you here?" The guard asked in a relatively bored tone, one that made Renko think of a way to just get on his nerves in general, Renko had never really liked answering the questions of captors.

"Well..." he began, making sure the guard was paying attention, "...I'm being interrogated on the sole knowledge that I rescued not one, but five innocent civilians from a creature that was willingly attempting to kill them." Hi finished his sentence with mock seriousness and smiled a little as he saw the telltale signs of getting on someone's nerves, from the vein beginning to throb in the guard's temple to the slow breathing that one has to do in order to calm themselves, he suppressed as chuckle now that he knew he could find himself some good 'ol fashioned entertainment.

The interrogation seemed to draw on for almost an hour and each of the guards that were listening in to the proceedings were grumbling in frustration as the man gave them nothing to prove that he was either an enemy or an ally.

"You look like a soldier, you act like a soldier, who are you allied with?" The guard's temper was reaching it's end since all this human was doing was evading answers with half-truths.

"I'm the leader of what is left of something that no longer exists." Renko replied, the look on his face was the best poker face the guard had ever had the displeasure of interrogating, but the guard could barely hold back the fact that he was not pleased with any of Renko's answers.

"Do you even know what we are trying to do here?" The guard growled and Renko did his best to give a convincing clueless shrug. "We're trying to find out whether you are able to be trusted within our walls and nation!" The guard had obviously reached the point where his frustration was being held back with barely any more restraint.

Neither of the guards had noticed Princess Luna enter the room like the shadow she could become and even the attention within the interrogation room seemed to be drawn to the noise of the guard's armor as they fell over in shock. The guards quickly got back up and were quickly sputtering as many apologies as they could think of, silencing immediately when Luna held up a hoof. Renko believed that he had a feeling as to why he heard the commotion behind what he knew was a one-way mirror (or is it two-way? I forget), he straightened his posture a bit more because of his assumption, so he decided that he'd say something that could certainly help them more than the small amount of intel he did have.

"Well, now that your Princess is here... I actually have something to tell you that could influence your thoughts on my loyalties." He paused as the guard turned back to him, the unicorn actually hadn't expected Renko to be honest about anything right now, the statement had apparently caught the guard by surprise. He listened intently to Renko now, even the guards in the room behind the mirror and Luna were now focused on what he had to say, he took a deep breath before continuing.

"In the amount of time it took for your Princess to get here, I could've easily killed you..." He pointed at the guard, "...Destroyed that door..." Once again, he indicated what he was speaking about, "...Killed every guard you have behind that mirror between me and the outside..." He paused as understanding finally dawned on the grey-blue unicorn's face, even Luna was surprised at how he considered the royal guard to be such easy fare, Renko happily continued his speech.

"...And most likely left the city with only a trail of corpses to indicate that I had been there." He savored the look of fear that flashed across the guard's face as he spoke, "But I didn't. I let you guys bring me in, I let you take me down here to interrogate me, and I saved members of your society... I don't know exactly what this means to you guys, but I'm just as confused about why I'm here as you are." He sat back and watched as his explanation sank in, he waited for the guard's response to whether he was going to get out of this room any time soon or not, and the guard got up from where he was sitting and left the room with a shocked look on his face.

"Well... I think I made a good impression..." Renko thought with a cocky smile. Luna couldn't believe what she heard, and the tidal wave of emotions she was feeling right now didn't help, she couldn't understand how this human could be so cold as to inform her guard on how easily he assumed her soldiers could be beaten... and that he had the gall to sit there and smile as his interrogator left the room.

The Feeling of Being Watched

Luna stared at the human sitting across the mirror from her, his expression had changed from a smile back to his cold stare, she felt as if his cold blue eyes were staring into her soul. Despite her anger at how he had described his ability to leave, she knew that the man was bluffing, Luna actually was barely holding back a smug smile. The reports that her night guards had gotten from the elements of honesty and loyalty had informed her that even though he had immense power, it drew heavily on his strength, he couldn't use whatever powers he had as often as he made it sound.

Renko moved from where he was leaning against the wall and sat down in one of the weird chairs, he was relieved to find that they were incredibly comfortable, despite the amount of trouble he was most likely in... He couldn't help but feel a bit safer than when he was on Katorga-12.

"...Then again, none of the beings here have outright tried to kill me... All they have been trying to do is figure out whether I'm too dangerous to be let out in public, which is right to assume, and all I've been doing is let them know that I'm certainly dangerous but I'm not here to kill them." He looked down to the table he was sitting at and sighed. In this brief instant of vulnerability a horrible feeling washed over him, as if he was being watched by something once more out to get him, he tensed as his guard went back up and his eyes began searching the room.

Luna and several of the guards around her saw Renko tense up almost immediately after he had sighed. Luna pitied the man when she saw the sigh. He looked like a person who had lost everything in life, and she knew his pain, she knew how he felt because many times during her imprisonment as nightmare moon she had done the same thing. Everyone in the room seemed to tense as the device on the man's arm began to emit a soft blue glow that pulsed every few seconds.

"He's looking for something, something that shouldn't be there... but what?" As the thought passed through her mind though, Renko's tension seemed to lower and the device began to dim. The light didn't go out completely but Luna could tell that he was only readying to defend himself if the need arose. She looked to two of her unicorn guards and quickly ordered them to cast shielding spells on them in case Renko tried anything, she planned on giving her verdict in person, Luna was only slightly concerned that Celestia may not agree with her decision... but then thought of a compromise that she hoped would make her sister happy.

Renko's attention shot to the door as it opened to let in two of the guards that looked identical to the one that had been interrogating him, and a slightly taller pony that he remembered from his vision with the strange female spirit, the taller pony stood behind the guards and her gaze fell on him as if daring him to try something stupid. He hadn't noticed it before but now that he wasn't being arrested he noticed the taller pony's mane and tail were different from the others he had seen, they seemed to be made of chunks of the night sky, and it waved as if there were an invisible wind within the room that only this pony's hair could feel. When he began to let his gaze examine the guards he noticed that both of their horns had a sort of dark-blue aura radiating from them.

"...It must be a coincidence... I haven't seen a single revert since I arrived, unless that large creature was one, and not one trace of E99 energy... There's no way that these creatures could've harnessed the power of E99, there's not even any machines of the sort around here!" The more he saw about the ponies with the horns, the more he saw similarities between them and the TMD. Before he could continue thinking, the larger blue pony, the larger female cleared her throat to get his attention.

Luna stood opposite of Renko before she spoke, she was flanked by her shield-emitting guards to keep them both from being taken down in one hit, when she was sure she had her attention she began to inform him of her decision.

"First and Foremost, since you have not shown any hostile actions against our race we have not found you to be an immediate threat, we will be releasing you shortly." Renko smiled a little when he heard her decision, but went solemn when Luna indicated that she wasn't finished yet.

"Unfortunately, because you possess such dangerous power you shall be assigned a squad of guards to evaluate whether or not you are a threat or not upon release." The man looked like someone had just given him a papercut, but then thought about it for a second before he replied.

"...It sounds fair, we wouldn't want the civvies to think that I was there to kill them, needless violence just isn't in my nature." Luna noticed both of her guards become physically tense when Renko had spoken to her without proper respect, but she told them to let it go and they went back to their statuesque positions. Luna continued to inform Renko of what was to happen from here on out.

"...Furthermore, you will be treated as an ambassador as long as you stay within the laws of our land... All purchases will be funded by the royal treasury after being approved by both my sister and I, we will allow you a small house near the castle to stay in... and should you for any reason try to go somewhere without the assigned guards you will be considered a threat to be imprisioned immediately." Renko waited a few moments to think about the offer, mainly to think of how to word his response carefully because of the reactions of the two guards near her.

"Alright... Your Highness..." he agreed, adding the honorific when he saw the guards beginning to tense again.

"These guys must be very well-trained or ridiculously loyal if they react like that when someone doesn't mention titles." He was impressed by the guards' reactions. As he was led out by the Princess and her guards, he couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had been watching him in that interrogation room was not a good sign.

A mist made of pure darkness moved swiftly through the dimly lit crystal-mining caverns beneath canterlot, the mist moved as though it had an intellegence all its own. As it moved over a few crystals their lights dimmed, the dormant energy locked within them drained in an instant, after several minutes of gathering energy the misty darkness began to condense itself into a solid shape. Several dark, evil hues could be seen from within the mist; blood-red, dark-orange, and even a dark violet color until they faded from sight. Standing where the mist had once been was a figure, tall... Human in appearance, the only thing that was different was that everything about it was midnight-black, except for it's eyes, its eyes were a dark bloodstain-red. The creature began to let it's arms rest at it's side, on the left arm there was a device... one left long forgotten in the memories of the world... the lights being emitted from the device pulsed an orange color. As it opened it's mouth to speak an evil hiss escaped its mouth, forming words.

"I should thank Renko for bringing the Singularity to the world again... In fact, there's much I should thank him for, I'll be seeing you soon Renko..." The creature gave an evil, twisted, sadistic laugh aimed towards the castle nestled in the mountain above.

Meeting the Egghead

Out in the courtyard Renko had a different view of the ponies, guards in gold armor patrolled the grounds while other ponies in very high-class formalwear strutted around as if they were the most important things in the world.

"...Well, society doesn't seem to have changed much..." He thought with a sigh. His gaze drifted around as he walked until he was abruptly stopped by one of the night guards in front of him, only then did he see several ponies that weren't wearing noble clothes, his gaze caught on a lavender unicorn... the one that he had seen when the night guards arrested him. She was busy talking to a pony that was as tall as he was, the tall one had a coat that was almost blindingly white, he noticed that this one's mane seemed to sway in an invisible wind like the blue one's had.

"Something about that mane is different, out of all the ponies I have seen only two have manes that float on an untouchable wind, the floating mane must mean that this one is the blue one's sister... Since the blue one's orders had been to get anything approved by both of them it must mean that this is a diarchy... not bad..."

Renko's thoughts were cut short as the white alicorn's attention was directed to the group around him, the lavender unicorn's attention followed the larger one when she realized the white one had stopped talking, she had a slightly confused look as she spoke to her sister.

"Luna... what was your decision regarding this human?" She asked as her gaze was affixed to Renko and Luna replied in turn.

"...Since he has not shown hostile actions towards us I've decided to consider him an ambassador..." Luna noticed that Celestia's emotions were showing a little bit of doubt, "...But there are restrictions..." She quickly added, "He will have a small home within the city, he is to be accompanied by a unit of guards at any time when he leaves the home, and even though the royal treasury will be funding his purchases he will have to get them approved by the both of us." Luna was expecting a few dissapointed words, but she was taken by surprise when Celestia began to gently smile once again.

"And he has agreed to these terms?" Celestia asked her sister.

"Yes, the guards assigned to him will evaluate his actions over the course of several weeks and if they deem that he is indeed an ally he may be granted citizenship... since it seems that he will be unable to travel to his homeland..." Luna explained. Celestia gave her a nod and turned her attention back to the lavender unicorn that had a mane that was a bit darker than her fur with a pink-violet stripe running down it.

"Twilight... If this man wishes to, you may learn from him about his powers... be sure to document anything that he is willing to inform you of." Celestia's smile threatened to break into a laugh as her student's face began to light up with excitement, since she did find it funny she settled with a small chuckle.

"I will be attending to the court today, if I am correct everything will be done by this afternoon in time for dinner... I would like to see you both there tonight." Celestia said with a warm smile before walking away. Renko had his hands in his pockets, he thought about something for a second before he spoke.

"...Since my clothes still have a decent amount of bloodstains on them, could anyone point me in the direction of the nearest clothes store so that I can buy a different set of clothes?" his looks drifted from one pony to the next until the the lavender pony spoke up.

"Actually my friends decided to come with me to canterlot after your arrest because they all wanted to meet you. One of them, my friend Rarity, is an amazing seamstress and I believe she would be happy to give you a new set of clothes." Renko nodded a thank you and proceeded to walk with her, the squad of night guards followed him, but Princess luna bid them farewell... explaining that she had her own royal duties to attend to.

Once the group started moving again Renko turned to the lavender unicorn and asked her a question.

"So... What's your name? I didn't really catch it back there..." Twilight turned her head toward him and replied with a voice that was barely restraining a schoolchild-like giggle.

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, I will be the one documenting your powers for the princesses, what's yours?" She was smiling when she had asked her question, the more he gazed at the smile... the more Renko wanted to smile back, but Renko knew that there wasn't time for smiles and games. Despite the fact that he was allowed outside of a jail cell, he was still a prisoner within the city until he proved that he wasn't there to kill them. He decided to answer since there wasn't much of a point ignoring her.

"My name is Sergeant Nathaniel Renko... I'm guessing that you and I are going to become good friends over the next few weeks..." Despite the sarcasm he had placed on the second half of his sentence, Twilight seemed to have not had a grasp of sarcasm since she beamed broadly at the knowledge that she was going to learn so much about him, he had to sigh as Twilight got a bit of an enthusiastic bounce in her step.

Citizen... Or Not?

It had been three weeks since Renko arrived in a land filled with ponies, he had spent three weeks learning everything he could about them, he had been here three weeks and still couldn't figure out why he was here. His sweat was beading in a small pool below his face as he did handstand-push-ups next to his bed, he may be a civilian now but military habits were hard for him to break, he had been speaking with a unicorn that went by the name of Shining Armor for a chance to be a part of the royal guard when his final evaluation came. So far Captain Armor had been intrigued, even hopeful, about how Renko could use his powers to assist in the defense of Equestria. Renko had been completely cooperative to a point, he had no problem informing Twilight Sparkle of his powers and he had even demonstrated a few for her, but no matter how much they tried to get him to let them examine the TMD he refused.

"This device is incredibly powerful, and dangerous... It has the ability to manipulate the flow of time to a very drastic extent. This kind of power is not something that should be available to anyone... I just happened to have obtained it because of an event that completely reshaped my world." It was the answer that he gave them every time, and after a while they got the point and had stopped asking, but today Twilight had made a point of showing up and asking Renko why... why he refused to share the knowledge of his power. After letting the mare stand in silence until he had finished his exercise he finally replied.

"...Imagine being able to go back in time to any point in history... such as when Princess Luna became nightmare moon..." he began, and continued when Twilight indicated she understood, "...Then imagine what would happen if you had convinced her not to become Nightmare moon, how much different would your life be if you hadn't had to overcome the obstacles that she had placed before you... would you have your friends? would you even be Celestia's protegee?" The stunned, thoughtful look was all Renko needed to know that she began to understand, "...A radiation spike let me travel back in time fifty years before I had gotten stranded on the Island of Katorga-12, I saved a man who was supposed to have died in a burning building and he lived on to take over the world with weapons more powerful than anyone thought was possible, I had to use this device to not only traverse the island, but time itself to fix what I had screwed up...and no matter what I did, time remained as messed up all because I saved a man who was supposed to die... I spent what felt like a lifetime on that island, I had no idea how many times I made a journey through hordes of flesh-eating mutants... I had lost count of the soldiers I had killed... I just wanted to get off that god-forsaken rock..." Renko's gaze dropped to his feet and he sighed, in that moment... he looked like he had taken on years to his appearance, and Twilight felt guilty about bringing up the subject.

Twilight had a look of pity on her face as she saw the man, who only a mere five minutes ago looked like a healthy soldier, seem to age into a veteran of a war that never seemed to end. She bit her lip as she tried to think of something that could possibly make Renko feel better, but only one thought came to mind, and she decided to go with it.

She closed her eyes as she quickly gave Renko a tight hug, he had jumped in surprise at the sudden contact, but he made no attempt to break the hug... instead he held his hands around her, saying a silent prayer to whatever fates were watching him, thanking fate for giving him a chance to feel human again.

After a few minutes the two of them ended the hug and Renko tried to say 'thank you' but the words seemed to get choked up in his throat, Twilight placed a hoof on his knee and explained to him.

"It's ok, you're my friend now... And I knew that you needed somepony to help you feel better again... that's what friends are for." She said with a smile, "I'll see you in Celestia's court this afternoon... Today is the day you get a chance to become a true member of our society." She gave a small squeal of joy at the end of her statement, but Renko placed his hand on her hoof before she could leave. He had a slightly sad, but hopeful, look in his eyes.

"No, I'll never be able to be a true member of your society... I'm a human, and there are no humans left on this world, but I'll be happy to be an honorary member... that could at least help my chances on getting a spot in the military, since I'm only good at being a soldier." He chuckled as he finished his sentence, coaxing a chuckle from Twilight as well before she left. Renko now sat alone in his house, with nothing but the memories of a world made of nightmares and the memories of the past three weeks, despite everything he had been through he only wanted to keep being a soldier.

"...At least I'll be a soldier with friends..." He muttered to himself, remembering his old captain, "...you know what they say about military intelligence..." he muttered as he remembered what his friend had said before an EMP burst had thrown them to the island that started their nightmare.

His attention was taken by a sharp knocking at the door, he quickly got off his bed and went downstairs to answer it. Sure enough, when he opened the door, there were two royal guards waiting to escort him to the court where the final verdict on whether or not he should be a permanent member of their society would take place. He quickly locked his door and let the guards know he was ready to leave, he followed them to a carriage that took them all directly to the front gate of the castle. After he got out of the castle the guards paid the carriage driver and continued to take him to the court, Renko spotted several of the guards that he had begun to make friends with since he had been considered an ambassador, they walked at a brisk pace but Renko managed to cast wayward glances at the architecture and artwork of the building.

The large double-doors of the courtroom swung open from the inside to allow them entrance, Renko took the initiative and stepped into the room, once inside the doors he saw the two alicorns Luna and Celestia... along with several other ponies he had guessed to be nobles. Many of the nobles looked absolutely disgusted at the fact that they had to grace him with their presence, a certain white unicorn with a blonde mane seemed to be outright horrified that he was in attendance, while many others were quite intrigued by the being now standing before them. Most of the nobles began to murmer among themselves as to what they would guess would happen to Renko, whether he would be banished from the land, put to death because he was too dangerous to keep around, some even thought that he may get off the hook and be allowed to live among them.

Celestia cleared her throat and immediately the murmurs silenced, she looked around the room at each member in attendance before looking to Renko.

"You are in this court today to learn whether or not you are allowed to remain within our borders, this decision has been given time to fully assess how much of a risk you are to equestrian society, and whether you have the rational thought that can keep that risk down... do you understand the reason for the court?" She questioned, she never really liked being surrounded by all these stuck-up nobles... but she did have to make the decision publicly known, she wanted to get moving quickly with the trial so that she could return to the breakfast that was being made for her and her guests: The Elements of Harmony.

"Yes I do Your Highness..." Renko replied with a bow, of all the things he had learned while he was waiting for his guards to assess him, he had made sure to learn how to address the princess in public.

"Good, now... upon initial investigations you were found armed with a weapon of a lethal variety, correct?" She really wanted to finish this in time for breakfast.

"Maybe Miss Applejack even helped the cooks prepare something nice..." she thought before Renko's answer interrupted her train of thought.

"Yes, that is correct..." He replied without showing any emotion.

"What kind of weapon was it?" She had to stop her mind from drifting off to breakfast if she wanted to get this done.

"A Centurion model E99 revolver Your Majesty..." Once again in the same emotionless tone.

"Was this weapon used in any attempt on a pony's life before you were apprehended?" She knew the answer, and had even had her guards triple-check every pony between Ponyville and Canterlot to make sure.

"No it wasn't... such a weapon was designed only for personal defense." Renko's answers came as if he had expected such a line of questioning, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back in a stance that kept him from feeling too much fatigue from standing. Fortunately the rest of the danger questions went by quick, each one being proved by the royal guards that he had not made any attempt to murder anypony.

"Describe your encounter in Ponyville..." She ordered in a gentle tone. Renko obliged and explained in detail how he had been simply looking for a place to rest when he had heard the three young ponies call for help, two other ponies had already made it to the scene before he had and he had decided to watch for an opening in the creature's defenses. When he got to the part where he used the TMD to bring the creature down by aging it rapidly several of the nobles had worried looks, and the white unicorn with the blonde mane stared at him with a hateful look in his eyes, but they were reassured when Rainbow Dash and Applejack testified to the fact that he had not made any attempt to hurt them.

Content with the information, Celestia called the squad of guards that had been in charge of Renko to know where they stood on the matter, after hearing her guards' opinions she dismissed them and readied herself to give the final verdict.

"Sergeant Nathaniel Renko..." When Celestia addressed him he stood a bit straighter and resisted the urge to salute, "...From the information presented to me, with this court as witness, I grant you full citizenship under the condition that you follow all laws that we have in place." Renko actually had to release the oxygen that he had been holding hostage as he heard her speak and he decided to thank her in return.

"It is an honor to be a part of your society... I humbly accept this offer that you have bestowed upon me." He took a deep bow as he spoke, doing his best to keep the guards around him from getting tense, he wasn't doing it out of code though... he was doing it out of true respect. Celestia dismissed the court and invited Renko and the Elements of Harmony to sit in at breakfast with her and her sister.

Renko sat at the table, only staring at the plate of food that was in front of him, his brow had been furrowed into a state of confusion as he tried to puzzle something out. Luna was the first to notice.

"Sergeant Renko... is there something wrong with the food?" she asked with concern. Renko shook his head as if snapping out of a daze.

"Wha- Oh! No, there's nothing wrong... I've just had troubled thoughts as of late..." He explained. Since he had started living here he had to pretty much become a vegetarian, which meant he had to stop eating cooked meat, but he'd had no problems with the conversion since the nightmare he had witnessed had left him without a desire for meat ever again. His thoughts focused on the dark presence he had felt a while ago, one that had begun to tug at the back of his thoughts in recent days.

"I believe I know how you feel..." Luna replied with a sigh.

"Don't suppose you happen to have an idea on what could help then?" He questioned with a half-hearted smile. Luna tossed a glance at Twilight, who was one of the ponies now paying attention to their conversation, before she began speaking.

"I found out from a special friend of mine that all it takes is friends to help get you through troubled times." She smiled as she spoke and somehow Renko felt a bit better, somehow... he believed what she was saying.

"It's been a long time since I put my trust into anyone... and maybe now I finally have a reason to... She seems to know a similar experience, I wouldn't doubt it since Twilight told me about her time as Nightmare Moon, such traumatic events can start to eat at anyone's mind." He thought with a dash of happiness. Before he could continue his thoughts Twilight voiced an thought that had been bothering her for the past several minutes.

"Pinkie? Are you ok? You haven't spoken a word since you sat down and you haven't even touched your food?" Everyone now looked at the pink mare who continued to sit with a silent smile, until she deflated like a baloon, making everyone start looking around in surprise for the energetic mare. After a few seconds passed and everyone was beginning to get ready to plan a search party a blur of pink came down from the celing shouting...

"SSSSSSUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIISSSSEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The resounding crash from her impact had startled the man she landed in front of and he was sent backwards on a collision course with the floor. The second Renko felt the back of his head slam against the floor his vision blurred and he could only see splotches of color as his vision faded to black, he heard several voices... but they were too muffled for him to make out clearly... As his vision faded he felt the dark presence once again, this time it spoke to him with a demonic-sounding hiss.

"...I have everything I need... Except the true TMD... But since it will only work while you use it... I will find reasons to make you serve me until your usefulness has run out... Fortunately for you and your 'friends' I don't need you yet and you can spend some time recovering from your injuries." Renko tried to ask the feeling a question, through thought or voice, but nothing came to him since he couldn't think straight or hear the sound of his own voice.

His dulled ability to feel gave him hope as he lost consciousness, he prayed that the thing he now laid on was a hospital bed...

Stressing the Pink

Renko opened his eyes and sighed when he realized that it was dark out, he turned his head and noticed a rather large window to look out of and view the night sky, he gazed at each star as he tried to think about what the voice had meant when it spoke to him.

"What did it mean... Does the singularity still exist... but just out of phase with this time?" The more he thought about it the more he didn't want to, it only left him with more questions as he tried to figure out the answers, he groaned a bit as he turned his head back to look at the ceiling. A noise to his left caught his attention but he couldn't turn his head enough to see, a sweet and familiar voice spoke to him.

"I see you are enjoying my beautiful night... It is one of the few things I still enjoy anymore." Renko gave a small sigh before he gave his response.

"I used to enjoy the night... It helped me to relax before my waking nightmare happened... It was good to see a night that wasn't plagued by the orange glow of E99 energy again." Luna smiled a bit as she listened to him, they spoke for several minutes before Luna finally ended their conversation.

"I think you should sleep now so that you can wake up during visiting hours, there are several ponies who are worried about you, but I'm glad that I was able to speak with you in private... I don't get a chance to speak with anyone like that. Pinkie pie, the Element of Laughter, will certainly be smothering you in apologies tomorrow if she finds out you're awake... She had no intention of hurting you and was the first one to get you off the floor, she carried you all the way here without a word... I even think she cried a little bit when she was sitting by your side."

"I understand that she didn't do it on purpose... I... Under... Stand..." Renko mumbled as he drifted back to sleep. Luna gave him a small kiss on the cheek before turning into a mist of space and flew out of the room.

Renko's sleep was hardly restful, his nightmares were still filled with the monsters he spent an eternity slaying, but the monsters of his nightmares had begun to show less and less of themselves. Each night after he had met Princess Luna his nightmares had been plagued less and less by the reverts and the horrible things they were capable of. The next morning... Renko would be greeted by an event that he never thought would happen in his entire life... but for now, he was safe in a bed, he fell asleep gazing out at the night sky.

Renko blinked his eyes as the sun beamed through the gaps in the shades, he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the light, he had to take a second to register the sea of colors in front of him... mostly because that's all he had before a pink blur quickly wrapped her front hooves around him and quickly apologized faster than he thought was possible, her apology was a blur of words since she didn't even stop to breathe.

"OhRenkoI'msosorryIneverthoughtthatyouwouldgethurtIwouldn'thavedoneitifIthoughtyouwouldgethurtIonlywantedtosurpriseyou!!!!!" Any possible meaning of what she had said was lost to most in attendance but that didn't stop Renko from trying to reassure the sobbing pink pony.

"Pinkie... It's ok... I've been through enough that it's gonna take a lot more than that to do any serious damage..." He tried to sound as convincing as possible, he felt a stab of pity as pinkie brought her face up to look him in the eye, her deep-blue eyes were bloodshot... most likely because how she was crying so much. Rainbow Dash was sitting on his other side and she explained why her friend was so different now.

"...Well... She did think that her surprise might've accidently killed you, with all the blood that we saw we certainly thought so, she was so worried about you that she was actually waiting in the waiting room the entire time you've been in here crying her eyes out." Once again Pinkie buried her face in Renko's chest and began another string of words that he assumed was another breathless apology, Renko let his hand fall to her shoulder and he tried to let her know that he was alright.

"Pinkie... I'm serious, I've been attacked by creatures that would sooner kill anything that moved than anything else, I've survived much worse." Her sobs began to slow down a little as everypony in the room were surprised at how calm Renko was... Except for Luna, she knew what he meant because she had seen the monsters he had fought, she had been trying for the past several weeks to stop Renko's nightmares. Luna gave a small smile when she noticed that Renko wasn't as worried over his nightmares anymore. Luna clasped her forehooves together, getting everyone's attention, she wanted to make sure that none of them missed what she was about to say.

"The doctors had informed me that the Sergeant here would be making a full recovery in two days time, I've given Captain Armor a request to test your skill to see if you can become a member of the Royal Guards, all-in-all you should have most needs set up for you by the time you are able to leave." Twilight was impressed by how quickly Luna was beginning to speak like the modern ponies instead of how she had spoken a thousand years ago. Luna smiled at Renko and he had given a silent nod of understanding. Everypony gave a final goodbye to him, Twilight gave him the present she brought with her, the lavender unicorn placed a book on his lap to at least keep him entertained while he waited in the infirmary. She explained that her friends needed to get back to Ponyville but that she would stop in tomorrow to see how he was doing.

Getting a Job...

Twilight trotted into the hospital waiting room, this time she had company, she smiled at the stallion that had walked in with her. The stallion had a white coat and his mane was a two-tone mix of blue, his cutie mark was an ornate shield, and his golden Royal Guard armor had a radiant glow as if the armor itself was magical.

"So... Shining... Do you really think that Renko has what it takes to be in the Guard?" Twilight asked the stallion.

"Well, if he's been trained as a soldier I don't see why not, many of the other guards have taken a liking to him so I bet he'll fit right in." Shining Armor explained. Twilight gave a warm smile to her brother as she walked with him to Renko's room. When they entered, they saw him sitting awake and reading the book Twilight gave him, Shining Armor had to do a double-take to make sure he was seeing the right book.

"StarSwirl's guide to Chronomancy? What does she think she's doing giving him a book like that?" His thoughts stopped when Renko closed the book and placed it on the side table. There was an awkward silence in the air as each one waited for the other to speak. Shining could see the killer instinct hidden deep in the man's eyes, he also noticed that the man was certainly as tall... If not taller... than Princess Celestia. The man's gaze had an unnerving quality to it, as if he could kill and not feel a single shred of remorse. He had to fight back a shudder before he finally spoke.

"My name is Captain Shining Armor, commander of the magical defenses of Canterlot, I'm here to interview you for a job in the Royal Guard." Renko noticed something about the stallion as soon as he had began speaking, the unicorn was actually afraid of him, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and let Shining proceed with the interview.

The interview went along similarly to the court hearing. Shining would ask Renko about his experience in the field and Renko would answer. When everything was all said and done Shining shook Renko's hand and said that once Renko got out of the hospital, he would have a job to pay for housing and other expenses. Shining bid them both goodbye, but Twilight decided that she wanted to stay with Renko a little longer since she had time before her scheduled meeting with the princess.

"So... Renko... How did you like the book I let you borrow?" Twilight asked with a kind smile.

"It's quite interesting, there's information in that book that many of the scientists on Katorga-12 would've killed just to get a small portion of... and all of it done... without the desire to rule the world... You ponies sure are different from many humans I knew about." Renko replied, thinking back on all the governments of his time vying for world domination, he sighed as he thought about all the friends he had lost because of conflict with another country. A long silence passed between them before Renko spoke again.

"It never gets easy..." Twilight cocked her head in confusion, her expression asking him to elaborate, "...No matter how much I fight, no matter how many I kill, there's always more death waiting for me around the corner..." Twilight hesitated for a few seconds, deciding whether to give the man a hug like she had the morning of his trial or let him sit, waiting for him to indicate that he needed a friendly gesture.

Renko let himself slowly fall back into a resting position, letting what was left of his wounds heal so that he could begin his new training with the guard, Twilight gave a small sigh before walking out of the room, she gazed at the clock on a nearby wall, she had only a few more minutes to get to the room where she was meeting the princess so she took off at a fast trot.

Renko only gazed up at the ceiling, he hated feeling the way he did, whenever he closed his eyes he would see the hideous visages of the monsters that had conquered and laid waste to the island of Katorga-12... The monsters that he had to fight his way through countless times.

"At least I have a way to pay the bills now..." he thought with a small chuckle.

The next day, around noon, Renko was released from the hospital. The doctors were astounded by how fast all the wounds he had sustained had healed, Renko had only chuckled at their confusion as he thought of the field medic training that he had to learn on his own. He was escorted out of the hospital by one of the nurses and he bid her farewell as he made his way over to the barracks. His thoughts trailed off as he wandered through the castle, anypony who tried to catch his attention was faced with absolutely nothing, he spoke to noone as he walked through the corridors towards the Royal Guard barracks.

"Three weeks... Three weeks, two days... and six hours..." A smile managed to show on his face as he walked, "I can finally be sure that time is not repeating... Finally, I can look at a calendar and know that time has passed..." Renko's thoughts were cut short as one of the Guards blocked his path, because of the way their armor worked Renko had a hard time figuring out why this specific guard was stopping him, then the guard spoke.

"Renko, it's good to see you're still alive... It's me, Moon Shimmer, The unicorn who was the first to explain about the Guards..." The charcoal unicorn stallion gave him a knowing smile as Renko actually began to show the realization on his face.

"Oh! ...I thought that you were a pale yellow stallion though?" Renko puzzled, he knew that there was something off because he had taken notice of the little things like how each type of guard looked almost identical to the others... give or take minor differences in height and build... all of the Pegusai guards were pure white, the unicorns were charcoal-grey, and all the earth ponies were dirt-brown, he knew that there couldn't possibly be that many ponies that were that similar. In fact, he had noted through his travels just wandering canterlot itself that no two ponies...save for the guards... had exactly the same look to them, whether the civilians had even just a minor adjustment to the saturation or tint of their coats. He knew for a fact that when he met Moon Shimmer the stallion was a pale yellow with a brown-black mane, and now the charcoal grey pony in front of him was telling Renko that he was Moon Shimmer. The guard had to stifle a laugh at Renko's expense before explaining.

"Being a unicorn, I know more about the armor of the Royal guards than the other types of ponies. All guard armor is enchanted to project a certain appearance onto the wearer, these enchantments were decided a long time ago and just became routine as the years went on, the only ponies whose armor does not change their outward appearance are the higher officers like Captain Armor... his coat is white, unlike the charcoal grey of all the soldiers under his command."

Renko was hooked on what the stallion was saying, he had even started walking with Moon Shimmer so that he could learn mre on his way to the barracks, he nodded while taking in every word.

"This is amazing... It almost mimicks the United States military, but in the military we had patches that said our rank and name, these guys... these guys have everything individual about them erased to give a sense of unity to Equestrian military." His train of thought happened to stop in time as they approached the castle barracks, he could hear the sounds of military training coming from the other side of the door. It was like music to his ears as he heard the barking of commands to fresh recruits who thought that they had what it took to be in the military, but something was off, he was expecting a drill sergeant to be yelling at and demeaning the recruits like they had when he was in boot camp. As he opened the door he noticed that a couple officers who happened to be in the room turned their attention from the fifty-plus recruits doing 'midday excercise' to him but none of them seemed to be bothered in the least by his curious looks. he examined every part of the room that he could, trying to find out if there was a prank going on, but not one officer was doing anything to demean the troops... in fact... they were actually encouraging them.

"Nope... No way! This does not make good soldiers, soldiers are trained with fighting instincts... Not praise. They fight because it's their duty, not because someone will praise them for it, most of the time soldiers even get insulted for how ready they are to take someone's life." It took a lot of willpower not to grind his teeth in frustration. Unfortunately for him, he knew that when he joined the military here he was going to be starting on the same low rung of the military ladder that the recruits in front of him were on, he was going to have to set an example.

Renko quickly found his way to Captain Armor and gave him a salute, when the captain told him to rest he began speaking about his concerns regarding their training method. After the Captain had silently let him concern his opinions he spoke.

"I understand that that may be the case where you are from, but here we haven't had to draft soldiers... They volunteer for the job... and they all have the dedication to push themselves into being the best soldiers they can. We certainly do things differently here, and I understand that it concerns you, but this is how we've done our training for years and it still has yet to give us soldiers that aren't ready for duty." As much as it bothered him, Renko nodded his head respectfully, he saluted once again before Shining Armor informed him of his new schedule.

From that day on... It was just like boot camp all over again, well, except without the drill sergeant saying that he was going to make you eat what you didn't clean out of the toilets with your toothbrush.

Check...

"Six months... Six months, three weeks, two days... and two hours... I've been here for a quarter of a year, and still nothing is out of place... well... except for the rising hostilities with Minotaurus and Equestria, I quickly rose through the ranks... even surpassing Moon Shimmer due to how easy it was for me to get through everything they sent at me. Practicing with the TMD helped me feel less fatigue when using my abilities, except for aging living creatures... they wouldn't let me practice that for obvious reasons... But aging objects and moving them still only requires minimal effort, I noticed that I could control the force of a pulse... using less or more energy depending on how damaging I wanted the effect to be, I even began working with a way to make it effect specific things instead of areas in order to keep allies from getting hurt."

"...'Why am I explaining all of this to you?' you may ask. It is because I've already accepted the fact that I might be insane, so holding a one sided conversation with an audience that may or may not be there is the only way to pass time on a long sky-chariot trip without looking over the side and wishing I was on the ground already."

Renko chuckled as he finished thinking, he couldn't help thinking he was crazy after everything he went through, but everything stopped as he noticed that the chariot was losing altitude. His entire squad was being sent to reinforce Ponyville's defenses in the case that any confrontation may escalate into a small war with Equestria against Minotaurus, they were divided evenly among three chariots, his corps was composed entirely of unicorns that specialized in defensive combat magic. Moon Shimmer tossed a glance at his CO before the chariots touched down.

They all filed out of the chariots and Renko gave the 'ok' for the pegusai to return to canterlot after some rest. Renko shouldered the rifle that he had custom ordered the parts for, his mind drifted back to when he had ordered them, Shining Armor had been surprised about how accurately Renko remembered the parts of the weapon.

"Captain Armor, I need to ask you a favor..." Renko said to his CO as they happened to be walking down the same corridor, he had been meaning to ask the captian about it but he hadn't been able to find the time, now he and the captain were able to talk a bit more casually as they walked.

"What is it Sergeant?" Shining had asked him, even if it was a little gruff.

"I understand that the guards use swords and spears to fight with... but I was trained in the methods of using rifles... as I have begun hearing rumors that the griffons use." Renko watched as the Captain gave him a look that told him to continue explaining.

"There is a type of rifle that I'm very accustomed to, as I had to build it, take it apart, and rebuild it until I could build one in my sleep." Shining actually let a small laugh out since he had recently began to understand a few of Renko's jokes. "It's called an M16 assault rifle, I can have all of the mechanical specs to you by this afternoon, all I would need is the parts and I could assemble it myself. It would certainly give us an advantage should the minotaurs decide to actually attack us." Shining explained that he was willing to give the idea sme thought and agreed as long as Renko got him all the specs he needed for the parts. It took a week before all the parts had arrived, and only a minute before Renko had them all in their proper place, the only thing he lacked was ammunition at the time.

They had extrapolated the design of the Centurion's bullets with a few of the crystals that were close to the entrance of the Canterlot Crystal Mines. It stunned Renko how similar the crystals were to E99 energy... As if they were a far more concentrated and stable version of E99. Within days he had a fully built M16A4 with plenty of ammo to go with it.

Renko stopped in one of the two taverns that were in the town, The Bucking Mare, he placed his bag at his feet and took out a portable chess set that he had bought several weeks prior to his deployment. He had gone so far as to teach Moon Shimmer how to play, and in the few weeks that they had been playing, he quickly showed Renko that he was an equal as far as strategy games went. Renko's gaze drifted to a charcoal-grey unicorn stallion that walked in as he finished his thought, the unicorn smiled a mischievious smile and trotted over to him, Renko spoke as soon as the unicorn was mere feet from him.

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear... I was just about to set up a game of chess... wanna play?" Moon Shimmer gave a mock thoughtful look before taking a seat opposite him, they both only ordered water when the waitress came around, both of them began a greatly contested game of wits and strategy as she left. More than half of the pieces had already been removed from the board by the time the waitress had come back, every time one of them would move the other would make a move to counter the other's advance, all that was left was a few pawns, both kings, both queens, and one knight each. The battle raged all over the board as each would get the other's king in check before either would move their king into a more defensible position, neither one let emotions give away any amount of uneasyness, it was as if it were a battle being raged by two masters in the art of war. As Renko said 'Check' for what felt like the thirtieth time in a minute Moon Shimmer pondered his next move, his king was surrounded on every exit, Renko had his king backed against a wall. Before he could form the levitation spell to forfeit the game though, there was a few loud screams from outside and a sick squishing sound, Renko and the rest of the guards were outside in seconds... and most of the ponies that now saw the scene before them threatened to be sick with what they saw.

A petit aquamarine pegasus mare with a yellow mane lay on the street before them with her throat slashed open, Renko sighed as he knew he could do nothing for the dying mare, and next to her, sobbing uncontrollably, was a light-brown earth mare with a matching mane. Renko cautiously walked over to the brown mare and asked what happened, it was difficult, but not impossible, to understand her through the sobs.

"A... A monster... appeared... out of nowhere... And attacked before... Either of us... Knew what happened..." Any further information the mare had was lost among another round of sobs. Renko slowly knelt down and placed his rifle beside him as he placed a hand on her shoulder, her bloodshot green eyes met his and he couldn't bring himself to say anything that could help.

Out of his peripheral vision he saw something he had hoped to never see again after he left Katorga-12, a faint blue outline with two hovering blue-white lights for eyes made its way toward them. It was too close for him to dodge, but he used the hand that was on the mare's shoulder to move her out of the way... unfortunately that hand also had his TMD on it so he couldn't slow down the creature as it blinked into existence. Only one thought passed through his mind as the creature's claw caught him in the chest and sent him sprawling.

"...Fucking Zeks..."

The next thing that Renko saw as the impact of the blow knocked the wind out of him and sent him flying was dirt as he fell to the ground facedown. He struggled to bring his head up and he was shocked at what he saw, the blue, deformed, human-looking creature had its hands out in front of it as if it were holding something. Mere miliseconds later a red metal barrel blinked into existence in the creature's grasp, it raised the barrel above its head and prepared to throw it, hesitating for only a split-second when one of Renko's soldiers ordered the creature to drop the barrel. Without concern for its own safety it threw the barrel, but Renko had managed to recover from the blow and made a reflexive counterattack. As the barrel sailed through the air the metal began to corrode and shrink with rust in a blue light until it was barely anything but a large, rusty paperweight levitating in front of Renko's outstreached hand. The creature, thinking that it now had an opening in Renko's defenses, charged forward at a speed that nopony thought it could haul it's deformed bulk. Renko chuckled inwardly as the remains of the oil drum fell and he had a clear line of sight to the Zek, in a flash of blue light the creature became outlined in an orange glow as it seemed to move in incredibly-slow motion. Renko walked purposefully over to the creature, drawing his Centurion as he walked, and brought the barrel of his handgun to the creature's temple and spoke.

"I. Hate. Zeks!" he said, placing emphasis on each word before pulling the trigger, the familiar report of the gunshot echoed through the street and the creature seemed to recoil back from the bullet in the same slow motion for a few seconds before returning to normal speed and crumpling to the ground. He was breathing hard from the exertion that he had so quickly placed his body under in such a short time but he refused to take a knee, he watched the creature crumble to dust with the killer's look that his soldiers had heard about but hadn't seen, even some of his own guards flinched a little at the anger radiating from the stare. Renko now understood why he was here... and he was furious.

"I thought I destroyed the singularity? I thought that all the Reverts died when the Singularity exploded?! How can there possibly be reverts here when there is no evidence of human life other than me on this planet!?" Each thought only fueled his anger, much to the point where his soldiers didn't dare speak in his presence, even Moon Shimmer was intimidated by the human. Renko had managed to overhear a conversation between two guards who hadn't noticed him yet, and he felt a small stab of regret as he heard their words.

"...the look he was giving that thing after it died... I'm surprised that the Princess didn't send a letter asking who could've been shedding so much anger, I was standing ten feet from the guy and I felt like he was going to tear my head off..." The guard had clasped his front hooves over his mouth as he finally noticed Renko. All three of them stood in an uncomfortable silence, each waiting for somepony to break it first, but the lower ranking guards didn't dare break the silence purely out of fear of punishment. Renko gave a single sigh before he gave his orders.

"I have already informed the other squads in the area, but I want everyone to be combat ready in less than a moment's notice, and I want all unicorns who are decent spellcasters to work on maintaining an anti-teleportation spell around the town. Do I make myself clear?" Both of the guards straightened and saluted with a nod before taking off to join the other squads. Renko didn't bother to turn around before speaking to what seemed to just be the air around him.

"I know you're there Corporal... I do believe we still have a game of chess to finish..."

Moon Shimmer stepped out from around the corner of the building behind Renko and replied.

"...In all honesty, we both know that you won that round..." Moon's face was contorted into a grimace as he spoke, feeling pity for the Sergeant.

"There were still too many casualties... I was played for a fool for most of the battle... And when I got checked, I pulled a move that was far too risky under normal circumstances... and was even more under that circumstance. It just happened to work." Moon trotted slowly up to Renko and explained something.

"Sometimes it takes risks to win battles, casualties happen...however undesireable, but it takes true will to win a battle when the odds are stacked against you." He quickly turned and began walking off to his post, but was stopped after a few feet by Renko.

"Thank you... this will only be more painful the longer this war draws on." Moon gave him a knowing smile before replying.

"I was simply talking about chess... but the term certainly does apply to most things in life..." Without another word he turned and walked off to his post, leaving Renko alone on the street with only his thoughts to accompany him in the fading light. He wished he could d something other than just stand there and feel miserable, but he didn't even know the mare's name, he knew that when he got to the military barracks that were set up in Ponyville he would have a lot of explaining to do for Twilight. He had no idea who he'd actually be talking to when he got there.

Darkness Rising

The princesses both felt the life of one of their subjects fade from existence and a burst of pure anger and hatred pulse from the same location mere seconds after the ending of their subject's life. Celestia could feel a wave of tears trying to force itself from her, but with practiced control she managed to hold them back, Luna on the other hoof, was actually crying. Celestia felt a pang of regret, knowing that her sister had never had to deal with problems like this before, she wanted to comfort her sister but Luna flinched when Celestia offered her wing. Luna continued to cry for what felt like an eternity to her, she had even flinched when she hadn't realized that she was afraid of being touched, after waiting another minute Celestia gingerly draped her wing over her sister in an attempt to calm her. Luna's sobs slowly began to subside as Celestia let her own body heat warm her sister, when Luna was finally done crying she spoke.

"Tia... What was that?!" She looked like she was going to break into tears but before Celestia could answer her sister's question she continued, "I felt like every happy emotion had suddenly been violently ripped from my chest... the only emotion left was sadness... and... and..." Celestia quickly pulled her sister closer before she began to sob again.

"I don't truly know what that was dear sister... but I certainly plan to find out, I will have the guards ready a chariot for us so that we can reach Ponyville as soon as possible." Luna noticed the slightly darker tone her sister had as her head shot up, and several thoughts blurred their way into her mind, the most prominent being.

"Oh no... Did Renko... Kill?" Her heart was hammering in her chest as she boarded a sky chariot, in her panic she had almost forgot to raise the moon but she and her sister did their respective duties on the way to Ponyville. It was dark by the time they got to the town and both noticed the large, almost transparent, yellow bubble encasing the town. They quickly identified it as an anti-teleportation spell as they landed on the outskirts of the barracks set at the edge of town. All of the guards were noticably on-edge when they touched down. A large earth pony that had royal armor covering his maroon coat bowed to the princesses before explaining that they were needed immediately in the command room, and that the Elements of Harmony were already there to be debriefed on the situation.

There was no doubt that Renko was surprised when he opened the command tent's flap, he was only expecting an impatient Twilight sparkle, he was actually faced with all of the Elements of Harmony and BOTH of the Princesses. He quickly closed the flap and one of the higher officers cast a spell to keep anyone outside the tent from hearing them. Thus, the questions began...

"What happened?"

"Earlier today there was an attack outside of the Bucking Mare Tavern, when Corporal Moon Shimmer and I arrived on the scene of the attack a pegasus mare was lying dead in the street with her friend crying over the body." Renko answered, remembering the horrid scene that had played out in front of him.

Fluttershy visibly cringed at the thought of a dead pony lying in the street.

"We still have yet to identify the body..." Renko continued as he shot an irritated glance to one of the officers in the tent, "...but after the initial inquiry as to what happened the creature attacked from where it was hiding..." Renko knew that very few of the ponies that were in present company would believe the answer to the question he knew they would ask, Luna proceeded to ask the question.

"Where had it been hiding?" The look in her face made Renko regret ever trying to think of the answer.

"It was hiding out-of-phase with our time, I've had experience fighting creatures like it and hoped that the Anti-teleportation spell you see around the town would keep more from trying to attack." The officers gave a suspicious glance to Renko, but he couldn't tell the emotions on Celestia's face, he was actually afraid... afraid that he had failed in his duty to protect... failed to stop what he had come to stop. The question she asked next took him a little off guard but he had quickly formulated the answer.

"What creature was it?" Celestia's tone was more expectant than angry, which is what actually took Renko off-guard.

"It was a revert... more specifically a Zek, this specific kind has the ability to 'blink' almost at will by shifting out-of-phase with the time it is in. When the creature is phased out it becomes temporarily invincible unless some force were to bring it back into phase." Celestia nodded with an expression that showed she was thinking about his explanation, then she decided to ask for a bit more information.

"What are Reverts?" All the eyes in the room that hadn't already been on Renko were now turned to him and he felt the combined intensity of their curious gazes.

"They... They are mutants... They are humans mutated into monsters by E99 radiation." Everypony in the room had a look of shock on their face, except fluttershy... she had a look that was a mix of fear and pity, as if she had no idea which emotion she wanted to feel. As the shock of what Renko had said sank in, it was Twilight who asked the next question.

"Why did you kill it? we could've captured it and learned more about them." The look that she got from Renko made her wish that she had never asked the question, his eyes narrowed dangerously as he directed his full attention to her.

"...These things kill... These monsters devour the flesh of the living and do not stop moving until you kill them. Zeks are some of the most dangerous reverts because no mere shackles can restrain them, even my ability to age creatures only slows their movements temporarily, these monsters have no conscience... only the hunger for warm blood and fresh meat that drives them to kill anything that moves." All the ponies in the room except for celestia visibly recoiled at the anger now radiating from Renko once more, his gaze had returned to the merciless killer's gaze that he had stared down the corpse of the Zek with, but Celestia clearing her throat brought him back to his senses and it showed as he worked to bring his emotions under control. He took a deep breath before continuing.

"...Those monsters should have been dead far before your time, the fact that these monsters are in this world only bears a bad omen for anyone who lives in this world. Since I've only been in Canterlot and Ponyville I have no idea if other parts of the world have been affected like this, but I can say without a doubt that if they are, I may be the only thing that can get rid of them." looks of disbelief were exchanged between each of the guards in the room until Rainbow Dash got in Renko's face, she prepared to take him up on his challenge.

"From what I heard you killed that creature without trying, I bet I could beat them easier! These things picked the wrong town to mess with, and I'm gonna make sure about that!" She had expected him to sigh and try to give the usual rebuttals to her challenges that everypony else did, she was surprised when he started laughing, but his laugh was much darker and even though she didn't want to admit it... It scared her...

"Well... if you think you can take on these things go right ahead. You had better not make a mistake when fighting them though... and you had better be prepared to kill them... because I can tell you exactly how they would kill you." He paused for a second as what he was saying sank in and the cyan mare backed off a little, he kept going... she started this verbal chess game and he was going to win.

"First; they will tear your wings off at the joints making several deep bleeding cuts in the area around your wings, Then they will proceed to rip you limb from limb... enjoying every dying scream you make as they rip the still-bleeding muscle from your limbs that they tore off, and as you finally think that you will slip into unconsciousness they begin to tear the rest of your body to shreds... bringing you a pain that you could never have imagined possible as you spent your final breath wishing that this nightmare never started." His words had brought a stab of fear to all in attendance, even Celestia had faltered in her attempt at keeping a straight face.

"You are not the first to hear, or feel, of what reverts do to their victims. I lost many soldiers, and even my own life many times over to these creatures... I know everything about them now, they do not show mercy to their prey... And I will not show mercy to them. Now, unless anyone has any further questions, I will retire to my tent with the Princess' approval." He turned to Celestia and Luna and gave a respectful bow as he waited for them to dismiss him. He couldn't shake the feeling... but somehow, he had actually enjoyed the reactions he had gotten out of them, he couldn't understand why he enjoyed it at all...

The shadow construct that called itself The Darkness stood outside of the anti-teleportation spell that surrounded Ponyville. He chuckled to himself as his senses had picked up on the fear that was now radiating from the entire town, he could only imagine the fun that he was going to have with these ponies now that they were trying to find out more about the monster that he had released into their town.

"Nothing they can do will stop them... they follow my orders, and move when and where I tell them to. I will finally be able to crush anything that I want." He felt a strange cold sensation, as if he were feeling regret... like he had told someone about some horror waiting to happen.

The feeling was gone almost as soon as it had come though, and he stood in confusion as to why he had felt such a feeling like regret. His form began to waver and become a cloud of slithering darkness once more as it flew through the night towards the ruins of the old castle.

What Do You Do... When Peace Is No Longer An Option?

Renko sat on his bed looking down at the TMD, all the emotions that he thought he had suppressed long ago were now flooding through him in a torrent that threatened to break any shred of sanity that he bothered to call his own.

"Why? Why does it have to happen here? This world is one of peace... for the most part... Even the lack of a desire for military technology shows that these creatures couldn't have possibly been the cause of the reverts..." the thoughts buzzed through his head like a swarm of angry bees, he had refused to go to the funeral of the pegasus that had died yesterday because he couldn't bring himself to face anyone that knew the mare. He knew that even though they would thank him for killing the monster that killed her they would be wishing that he had been there sooner to try and stop it from happening in the first place... And to be honest, he wished he had been there too.

He wanted to be alone to try and gather his thoughts, he had been far more rattled by this experience than he thought he was because he was struggling to keep his composure.

Luna stood outside the tent, debating whether to enter or not, she wanted to speak with him alone about the creatures. She could feel the pain that the human felt on the inside, she felt pity for the man because it was the same pain that she felt while she was on the moon. After spending about a minute trying to decide on what to do she cautiously opened the flap of the tent, she saw him sitting on the bed trying to compose himself so she waited a few seconds before clearing her throat to let him know that she was there, he turned his gaze toward her and she saw the same look in his eyes that she had when she was looking through the eyes of Dr. Barisov.

For the longest time neither of them dared break the silence, both tried to figure out how to break the silence without seeming offensive to the other, Luna was the first to speak.

"Sergeant... I... I want to talk to you about what you told Miss Rainbow Dash..." She saw the guilty look on his face when she had mentioned his outburst at the element of Loyalty.

"I'm sorry... I- I was still feeling the anger of knowing that those monsters are roaming the world once again... I shouldn't have snapped like that at her and I want to apologize... But I'm not sure that she would accept my apology, mostly because I didn't lie when I spoke to her." A hint of shame was evident in his voice as he attempted to express his sincerest apologies. Luna walked over to him and stood only about a foot away, making Renko withdraw a little in the process, she made sure to look into his eyes before she continued speaking... which wasn't all that hard to do when he was sitting down.

"Sergeant Renko. My mother, Queen Faust, brought you to this time because she must've known we would need your help. I would like you to help us with learning how to defend ourselves against this threat that you say you know so much about." She saw the confused look Renko gave her and tried to smile but all she managed was a somber grin before Renko replied.

"...Is this a request, Your Highness... Or an order?" Luna actually managed to smile coyly before replying.

"...Both..." And with that she walked out of the tent.

Renko knew as he began working throughout the town that far more defenses would be needed and all the parts, mixed with the special ammunition made from the caves beneath Canterlot, had to be fashioned with the knowledge that there may be no time left.

"Only one monster has been sighted so far... But that can't be the only one, what could possibly be making them wait to lay waste to this country?" he thought with increasing confusion as he walked along the area where the parts that had already come in were being put together. The unicorn guards that were not already trained in offensive combat magic were learning to use their levitate ability to fire the rifles, he couldn't help but feel a pinch of pride as each one focused on their targets... several were not only using levitation to hold the guns in place but they were also working on reducing the recoil of the weapons, even if it was with greater effort. The earth pony guards were using modified versions of the Kasimov-SNV9 with various optical sights for different ranges, while the pegusai were learning to use the same weapons while flying... but without the sniper optics.

The only thing that Renko was getting increasingly worried about was how their armor would be less effective against the reverts, but Celestia had reassured him several times that their armor was enchanted with not just an aesthetic enchantment but enchantments that reduced the damage that they took from incoming attacks as well.

Renko settled in and began practicing with his own rifle on one of the firing ranges, many of the townsfolk were worried by the sheer amount of noise coming from the impromptu-camp but none of them except for the Elements of Harmony voiced any objections after Celestia had informed them that these noises were the guards learning how to better defend her subjects. None of the Elements had voiced their concern in public, but they were more than eager to question the actions that the military was taking in purchasing the parts for weapons of war... Except for Fluttershy, she kept herself quiet while in the ever watchful presence of the guards... apparently Renko's speech to Rainbow Dash had done what he intended it to. All of his thoughts were drowned out by the sound of gunfire as he began shooting at several targets that had been set up.

-----------------------------------Meanwhile... In the ruins of the old royal palace----------------------------------------

The Darkness sat on the ruined throne, shifting his weight to make himself more comfortable, something about the ruins of the castle made him desire something... more. He knew that he couldn't bring the palace back to what it originally had been, but he also didn't want to send his soldiers out all at once, he drummed his fingers on the throne as he thought about his next move in this oversized chess game.

"What to do... what... to... do... I could certainly use a tick to scout the area, find out exactly what they're doing... if anything at all since I know that not even the sergeant knows of my existence." He thought evily as his features began to change once again. His skin took on more of a paler color to where it was caucasian in appearance, his hair stayed black but was grown out a little longer than Renko's. His outfit seemed to change from black military fatigues to something that seemed more like the outfit an Elite Spetsnaz wore. His face now looked exactly like Renko's except for one small detail... His eyes were still blood-red instead of Renko's brown eyes.

He extended his hand forward and the outline of a creature began to glow before him. After a few seconds there was a blue flash and a small insect-like creature was being suspended in the air in front of him. He placed it on the ground and it waited for him to give his instructions.

"I have chosen you only to spy on my enemies, do not attack. Now go!" With a flourish of the TMD on his arm the small creature scurried out of the throne room obediently seeking out the only other source of TMD energy.

Renko breathed a sigh of relief as he emptied his third clip into the targets, he finally felt better now that he was among training soldiers once again, even his own squad were noticing that his attitude had improved while he was shooting. The sound of gunfire brought his thoughts back to being a soldier, a soldier needs to keep their senses under fire, when you're under attack from a creature that doesn't use guns you tend to become overwhelmed by your senses. He quickly stowed his gun after he put the safety back on and got into a standing position, a small cough behind him made him turn and expect the ever-fearful Fluttershy to be standing behind him, but the pony he saw when he turned around made sure to grab his attention purely because of who is was.

Renko and Rainbow Dash looked at each other for a while before Dash began pawing nervously at the ground. Renko knew that this was not something the mare usually did so his curiosity got the better of him.

"Um... Rainbow Dash... You do know that civilians are not supposed to be here... right?" the tone of confusion in his voice certainly made her even more nervous about being there but she answered anyway.

"I... I came here because I wanted to apologize to you about how I got in your face yesterday... I shouldn't have done that, and I'm really sorry..." She brought her right hoof behind her left one much how a nervous schoolgirl would as she apologized but Renko understood what she meant.

"If anything I should apologize to you, it wasn't right of me to put you on the spot like that... even if the facts were true." Rainbow Dash began to broghten a little bit at what he had said, in fact, she almost looked like a heavy weight had been lifted off of her shoulders.

A small insect-like creature was lurking in the shadows, its thorax glowed a bright orange color as well as the area where its eyes should be, it was scanning the immediate area for the information its master wanted. It could already tell that its master was not going to be pleased with what it saw, the ponies were already training with weapons that could harm the reverts, it had to be quick to return to its master.

A New Name For Darkness

The Darkness paced once again in the throne room of the palace ruins, his thoughts were his only company... well... other than the orange splatter at the foot of the throne.

"How!? How could my predictions have been off?! There is no way these creatures were supposed to access E99 technology! Not even HE had enough E99 material to make that many weapons...unless... unless my calculations were off and these creatures posessed raw E99 the whole time..." The Darkness stopped in his angered pacing and looked toward a small portal-esque object floating in the air near him, his thoughts then drifted to something that made him a bit happier.

"Even if I cannot bring the Singularity back online... I can still bring my soldiers through time, and even these ponies wouldn't stand a chance against my elite spetsnaz soldiers." He raised his TMD at the portal and gave it energy. Immediately the portal expanded to about human size and he quickly stepped into the past, where all his soldiers lay in wait for his commands.

Several uniformed men saluted as their commander walked through the portal that had suddenly appeared in the command chamber. When their leader stepped out of the portal only one man moved toward him, the man wore the uniform of what certainly seemed to be a high-ranking officer, he bowed deeply before speaking.

"What are your orders Emperor Renko?" The Darkness smiled as he remembered his name once again, he had a lot of work to do.

"I want a squad of lurkers and a battalion of bruisers through the next portal I create, I have another time to conquer." the evil Renko replied to the officer with a cruel smile.

Nearly twenty minutes later Emperor Renko stood in front of a small army of elite spetsnaz soldiers, each one armed in Anti-E99 armor and carrying special weapons that utilized E99 energy. As he gazed at each soldier lined up before him a silly thought passed through his mind.

"It almost looks like I have an entire army of robots, each one armed to their eyeballs in weapons that could bring down even the most fortified bunker... It does my heart proud." With a twisted smile he quickly turned to face the opposite direction of his soldiers, his frown only faltered when he noticed the light of the singularity in the distance was faltering once again.

"Oh well... not my problem soon enough..." He thought as he raised his hand to create another portal in front of him. This one was big enough to let at least five soldiers stand shoulder-to-shoulder on their way through. He was the first to step through, followed shortly after by his soldiers, as he made his way to the throne his soldiers seemed to fill up the entirety of the main hall. He scanned the growing crowd of soldiers and waited for them to stop entering the room before speaking.

"This world is ripe for conquest, its residents have never known bloodshed as you have. This shall be our fortress, but it is not yet complete and it is vulnerable... That is why you are here, I want you all to secure this location so that none who come here before it's complete leave the premises." With a nod he dismissed his soldiers, they all saluted at once before turning on their heels and moving to different locations of the castle. A man that looked about the same height as Emperor Renko walked up to him from the shadows, he wore a full-face gasmask and his uniform was similar to the other soldiers but sleeker he also wore something that looked like a hooded trenchcoat that had an almost invisible hex design, he bent down into a bow before speaking to his leader.

"Emperor, how shall Serpent squad serve you?" The question was immediately answered as the lurker saw his master tense with anger.

"The citizens of this world have an ally that is not like them... I want you to bring him here so that I may convince him to switch sides." The man in the hooded trenchcoat was confused as he thought about his master's orders, but none of his confusion showed in his voice as he prodded for more information.

"What does this man look like sire?" Emperor Renko brought his hands together and began drumming his fingers together as he replied with a cruel smile.

"You couldn't possibly miss him... he sticks out like a sore thumb since he is taking no measures to disguise himself." With a bow the lurker seemed to vanish into the shadows, seeking his new target.

...Mate

Nathaniel Renko was now sitting at an empty booth in Sugarcube Corner, the entire store was really quiet now... which he liked because it helped him think, he sat there silently playing a game of chess that seemed to be in the middle of a match against an imaginary opponent.

"Ok... pawn is gone on both sides, knights and other important pieces still have yet to move to their tactical positions...neither side has an opening to take the king or queen..." he sat trying to think of a move that wouldn't end the game in a stalemate, then his attention caught something.

A chess set was splayed out in front of Emperor Renko, as if he was playing against an opponent who had left in the middle of the game, he tried to think of a way to keep the game moving. He could see that his bishop could take a knight that was defending the queen... but he would have to lure the piece into a more vulnerable position. He sat for nearly a minute before an idea jumped into his head.

"That's it! use a pawn to draw out their defenses... then use the better pieces to blindside them."

A pawn was threatening to remove enough of Nathan's defense to give his unseen opponent a chance at his king. He quickly moved one of his knights to intercept the pawn, the knight's attack stopped short only one square but managed to keep the opposing pawn from advancing.

The Emperor saw that his opponent's knight had stopped his pawn from advancing but he smiled as he quickly brought his bishop, that he had placed several turns ago, down to bear on the opposing side and took the queen without any interference. He chuckled to himself as he thought about what his latest move meant.

"Well... the war rages on, but I have certainly taken down a piece that is crucial to your defense... you probably won't realize it until it is too late." He continued his chuckling as he moved the opposing pieces on his board.

Nathan did a small curse to himself as he realized too late that the pawn had only been a decoy when his hand had reached for the white bishop that took his queen while his piece was defenseless. He decided to keep going, he used his next few moves to bring one of his bishops, his other knight, and his rook to take several of his opponent's pieces, his opponent was able to use his moves to bring down nearly half the number of pieces Nathan took, the remainder of his pieces were rapidly approaching his opponent's king when his gaze fell to where his king was placed in the formation known as the "King's Castle" since he had been playing against an invisible opponent and he had focused on his own moves the second white knight moved in to take his king. His hand trembled as he picked up the knight piece and turned his hand to get a better look at it.

Emperor Renko looked at the knight in his hand with pride, then a little pity, he thought about how his little war had gone and felt that his final move had been far too easy.

"You should really pay attention to your surroundings, otherwise you could die like the rest." His thoughts flashed back to Katorga-12, how he could remember all the times that Nathaniel Renko died in his attempt to stop the Singularity.

"Maybe I can draw their attention soon enough to strike the decisive blow and make my victory that much easier." He chuckled at his own evil thoughts before placing the pieces in their container and putting his game back where he had it.

Mrs. Cake trotted over to Renko as he finished placing the pieces of his chess game in their container.

"It's time to go now, we gotta close up for the night..." Her face had more of a worried look than anything else, and Renko understood her fear. In the short time that he had been in Ponyville so far he had learned so much about the innocent families that seemed to be about to get thrown in harm's way just to defeat an evil that they could not comprehend, he felt a stab of pity as he thought of what might befall Ponyville if whatever was out there finally came looking for him.

"I will have to do everything possible to make sure this town stays safe, I cannot have what happened on Katorga-12 to happen here..." he mentally vowed before turning to Mrs. Cake and replying.

"I understand, I was just putting the pieces to my chess game away. I hope you have a safe night, see you tomorrow." he gave her a casual wave as he walked out of the store and down the road that led to the barracks. Each step he took seemed to be weighted down until it felt like each foot was five times more than what it normally weighed.

Upon entering the barracks he saw members of all the different types of guards walking around holding the rifles that had been custom-made for them, each one packed incredibly lethal stopping power and in the short amount of time that they had to practice with the weapons... most of them learned really quick how to shoot their new "full-metal-crossbows"

Renko stifled a chuckle before finding his tent, he walked in and collapsed onto the bed, the nightmares that he called memories returned in full force as he tried to get another night of rest.

Luna was afraid, she wanted to help Renko's mind feel more at ease when he slept... but the nightmares she saw plaguing his mind only made her more afraid to touch them lest she lose her own sanity in the process.

"If that's what it means to be insane... I hope that none of our subjects have to experience such traumatic events..." She sat alone in her personal tent as she tried to figure out how she could possibly help Renko but no idea came to her. She was worried for the human, she wanted to be able to reach out to him like Twilight Sparkle had for her and let him know that he was with friends that would be loyal to him no matter what. Each day that went by as discussions of a temporary truce between Equestria and Minotaurus were nerve-wracking because of how Renko explained that when a revert was spotted, it wasn't the only revert in the area. Everypony seemed to be on edge except for two... a certain pink enigma, and cross-eyed grey mailmare.

Crash And Burn

Renko sat in Sugarcube corner, his gun was laying on the booth seat next to him, Pinkie pie was talking up a storm to him while he and Twilight just watched in silent boredom as they both still could not believe that the pink pony could possibly talk on-and-on the way she did.

"So Twilight, how much did you learn about Renko when he was in canterlot with you? Are you two dating? are you two going to be sharing the library when all of this blows over?" Twilight and Renko both had an embarrassed blush on their cheeks as they realized where pinkie had gotten to in the conversation, Twilight tried to respond but ber brain couldn't register how to put a sentence together because of what she knew her friend was suggesting... so Renko answered first.

"Pinkie, we are just friends, I stay at the barracks now... and will be with all the other guards when we get called back to canterl-" His statement was cut off as he saw Pinkie begin to violently twitch, shudder, and whatever else her "Pinkie Sense" allowed. As soon as she stopped both Renko and Twilight had their mouths open, surprised that Pinkie hadn't broken her neck in what looked like a siezure.

"That one was a doozie..." she began, turning to Twilight, "...Even bigger than the one that predicted that you'd believe in my Pinkie Sense." Renko began to reach for his gun, he knew that if this 'Doozie' meant what he thought it did... there were about to be more deaths on his hands. His thoughts were answered almost a silent minute later when he began to hear screaming, the girls and him rushed ouside quickly. Renko barked orders to each of the elements.

"Rainbow Dash, I want you to warn Luna that we have more reverts in town. Everyone else... I want you to round up the survivors and get them to the barracks." They all gave confirming nods as Renko dashed off toward the screaming. His body threatened to completely stop him as he saw the massacre that had happened near the edge of town.

"All these innocent civilians... all of them... and I couldn't save them... What good is a device that goes through time if I can't save anyone with it." He thought as a feeling of soul-shattering cold washed over him, the feeling didn't last though, his gaze fell to a group of reverts that were feeding on the fresher corpses and the fury of his memories began to fill his mind. He no longer cared if these monsters were close-combat killers, he wanted every single last one of them dead at his feet... even that was at least a little compensation for what happened. He shouldered his M16 and charged toward them guns-a-blazin'.

Luna had heard the screams even before the element of loyalty warned her about the monsters, she had readied four guards that were to join her in the fray after Rainbow had left, a snag caught her mid-way out of the barracks though. Before she had time to react, all of her guards were slaughtered, as if they had been attacked by an invisible assailant. She tried turning to get some sort of glimpse of her attacker but she only saw the bodies of her guards strewn about the area. When her gaze came back towards Ponyville's direction she saw a creature that was shaped like Sergeant Renko, his features were masked by a full bodysuit, but she knew that this creature was no ally.

Despite her attempt to throw up a defensive shield, the creature managed to get to her before she could cast the spell, the creature's hand locked around her throat and a massive electric charge shot through her body. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the creature standing over her giving orders to several others like it.

Sweetie Belle was being chased by what looked like an overgrown bug, there were several thoughts going through her head at the time but only one stuck out the most.

"...And Applejack told me that my fear of bugs was irrational..." she sped along the street in panic and tried to turn enough times to try and confuse the creature that was chasing her. Unfortunately, everything came to a screeching halt as one of her turns placed her at a dead end.

"Now why did I have to go and do that...?" she squeaked in fear as she heard the chittering sounds of the giant bug coming to get her, the ominous orange glow that it gave off before coming into view scared her almost as much as the evil bug-looking creature did. Her pupils shrank in fear as the creature began to creep closer and closer to her, she held her hooves out in front of her and waited for the pain to come.

A small echoing explosion brought her back to her senses and she saw nothing left of the creature except for an orange puddle of goo, she looked around to try and find her savior, her eyes fell upon a guard that was at the end of the alley. The unicorn stallion had just brought his rifle to a resting position and quickly went to check on the filly he saved.

"Are you ok?" He asked while he lifted the filly onto his back.

"I-I think so..." She stuttered, truth be told she was actually thanking Luna and Celestia that she was alive.

Moon Shimmer had just dropped Sweetie Belle off with her sister when he could hear more gunfire coming from town square. He dashed off as quickly as he could to try and help his sergeant, he and several of his guards were surprised by the sight that greeted them when they got to town square though. The corpses of many of the townsfolk were strewn about as if feral beasts had rampaged through the town, the corpses of the monsters... that they had learned from Renko were reverts... were similarly strewn about riddled with bullet holes and others even looked blasted apart, but the final thing that shocked them was Renko sitting against Town Hall with several bleeding wounds. Moon Shimmer was the first to his side.

"What happened... We need to get you a medic..." He blustered before shouting out for a medic to get his flank over to them. Renko gave a sly smile that quickly turned into a grimace as a wave of pain shot through him.

"Don't... Worry... I've been... Through... Worse than... This, You... Should've seen... Me when... I was... on... Katorga-12... There were... a lot... more..." Renko's breathing had been incredibly labored, but the medic that came to his aid had almost forced him to shut up and allow them to put him on a streacher. Moon Shimmer knew that his friend was tough, but the grotesque display of power that was evident on the remains of the reverts proved that he was a killing machine, a new wave of fear spread through him as he thought about what Renko was able to do.

Renko had gotten up off the streacher when he saw the entrance of the barracks, the bodies of the guards had looked like they had been attacked before they could even draw their weapons, Renko fell to his knees as he realized that they were lunar guards. His heart sank even lower when he heard that Princess Luna was not among them, that had been the straw that broke the camel's back, sadness flooded his entire body as he looked upon the devastation that had happened in the wake of the reverts. He brought his hands to his face in order to cover the shame that he had been feeling, none moved to stop him... out of respect, kindness, or fear he did not know or care... all he knew was that he had won the battle... but lost the war. He turned his sight sharply to his right when he felt a hoof on his shoulder, his mind was grabbed by a pair of light-blue eyes. He began to realize that he was looking at his friend Pinkie before he noticed something different about her, she had a pitying look in her eyes and her hair was almost perfectly straight, she closed her eyes and pulled him into a tight hug... not caring whether his blood or the blood of the reverts got on her. He did not refuse, in fact, he held her back because he knew that she needed it as much as he did.

He didn't know when he had broken the hug, nor when he had gotten up and limped off to the hospital tent, all he knew was that he now laid on one of the tables staring up at the top of the tent. He had a mask that was pumping oxygen into his lungs on his face, his body was bandaged in so many places that the doctors thought that they would need to mummify him to make the process easier. Everything was silent, except for the beeping of the heart-monitor and even that was low, the silence made Renko feel horrid... he knew that as soon as he recovered he would have to explain to Celestia what happened, but until then he only had silence to accompany him, Luna had been ponynapped and he had nothing to go on except for a bunch of dead reverts. Despite all of the hardening and tempering that he had gone through in the military, he now began to silently sob, each one made the beeps on the heart monitor fluctuate.

Darkness Again

Twilight stood across from Princess Celestia, her gaze had fallen to look at her lavender tail and the shuffling of her hooves as she watched her mentor's composure begin to collapse under the stress of recent events, as soon as spike had sent the letter informing of Luna's dissapearance Celestia had her guards turn the chariot around immediately and descended toward ponyville. It pained Twilight to see her mentor like this, but knew that Celestia needed somepony since she could not appear this emotional to her subjects, there was something strange about watching somepony that had a deity status among her subjects just... fall to pieces as a thousand years of life seemed to be crashing down on her at once... every plague, every monster attack, every war that had happened... it all seemed to be too much for her.

Twilight mustered up the courage to do something that she hoped would help Celestia, she swallowed her hesitation and trotted over to Celestia, she embraced the larger pony in a hug without a word. The initial touch had confused Celestia for a second as Twilight hugged around her mid-section, but after the intial shock subsided she embraced Twilight and tried not to let too much emotion flow from her so that she did not appear too stressed when she spoke with anypony else. The hug kept Celestia from feeling alone and gave her somepony whose shoulder she could release her emotions to, for once in the many years that she had been alive... she felt much better with this one simple hug.

Lurker 4-1 was kneeling in front of Emperor Renko, the dark-blue pony was still unconscious in a nearby cage, the feeling of tension from the soldier was almost palpable until Renko issued his order.

"I want you to take a note to them... one telling them that their dear princess is in these ruins. Have no illusions that you are going there and back without trouble... there will certainly be others in your way on your way to the camp, and I want you to directly deliver this note to the other Renko... but if you should manage to get back here in one piece I will certainly reward your efforts... now go!" Renko finished with a dismissive wave, Lurker 4-1 nodded and quickly left. Emperor Renko walked over to the cage when he noticed the prisoner begin to wake up.

Luna's eyes barely focused as she began to look around the room she was in, something was familiar to her but she couldn't pinpoint what it was, it wasn't until her mind registered the throne in the room that she realized that she was in the ruins of her old castle. The next thing that came into focus was the cage she was being held in, she began to panic a little as she tried to figure out how she got in this situation.

"Ok... I heard screaming in ponyville... I got my guards aound... my guards were kill-" her mind paused mid-thought as she remembered her loyal guards, the guards who vowed to view her life before theirs, she began to feel an unnatural cold flow over her... threatening to break her mind.

"NO! Not this time you monster! I will not let you take control!" she thought as she tried to fight the familiar, yet foreign, influence trying to take over her mind. The presence answered as if it had a consciousness of its own.

"I will not be considered such, I am the proper ruler of the night... not some pathetic foal who can't stand to let her guards do their job." The voice was cold, it was evil and it was one that she knew all too well.

"Nightmare Moon! You are not the ruler of the night, you are a parasite that feeds only on anger and jealousy, you do not deserve to dwell within me... you deserve only destruction but the Elements only broke your hold over me, you should consider yourself lucky that I do not banish you to the depths of Tartarus." The threat seemed to silence the horror that resided within her, she felt at least a little better as the presence receeded to the back of her mind. A cold voice that she thought she recognized brought her back to the room that she was in.

"Well, you seem to be having a problem with E99 energy radiation... I could see it, but the thing that is quite interesting is how you managed to fight the change..." A look of surprised horror passed over her face as a rush of emotions began to flow through her, one of them being a massive rush of anger at the person she saw standing in front of her.

"Renko?! HOW DARE YOU!" If the volume of her Royal Canterlot Voice caught him off guard he did not show it, he only chuckled as he began to understand her confusion. She began to yell at him once again.

"HOW DARE YOU PONYNAP ME! YOU AGREED TO ABIDE BY OUR LAWS! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE, YOU WILL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS BETRAYAL!" The Renko she saw only smiled as she charged a spell to break out of the cage, he openly laughed as she tried to unleash the spell, the spell itself seemed to get absorbed by the cage itself and got redirected at her with the same charge from every bar. Her vision blurred as the spell left smoke radiating from her body. Renko only laughed as he walked away, he knew that everything was going to plan.

"Now I just need to throw obstacles in his way that require him to use the TMD" he thought evily.

Lurker In the Shadows

Lurker four-one rushed through the trees, the soldier was panting heavily when the military camp came into view, the soldier streached and took a few deep breaths before sneaking inside.

Renko was sitting at a conference table that had been set up in the largest tent of the camp, he sat across from Celestia and he was growing increasingly nervous, the Princess had not said a single word since he had entered as well as kept the best poker face that Renko had ever seen. The princess had a look on her face that seemed to just radiate her dissapointment, Renko had to use all of his willpower to not flinch at the look. He had certainly encountered horrible visages of monsters that would haunt him for the rest of his life, but somehow, this one look made his mind cringe in fear more than any monster that was trying to kill him could. Several long minutes passed by before Celestia finally spoke.

"Did anypony see the attack?" Her voice had the same undertone that her gaze did as she spoke. When everypony shook their head she sighed.

"So nopony has any sort of lead as to where my sister may be... And we are sitting here without anypony trying to come up with an idea of where to search." Her question that she had been saying had actually sounded more like an edged statement that most of the guards in attenance had recoiled from, Renko could only sit and wait to be lectured on his failures the way his old drill sergeants would do whenever he was too exhausted to do push-up number two-hundred.

"I want you all to find whatever leads you can in order to track down my sister, that is all... Dismissed" Renko quickly got up and left the tent, he didn't want to stay in there any longer than he had to. There was something about losing Luna that really hit him harder than anything else that had happened to him so far.

"Even with the corpses of the guards... the revert attack had to have been a decoy... None of the guards were brutally killed, they had all been shot-" Renko's thoughts were caught when Twilight trotted up to him, she had an incredibly serious look on her face and REnko had an idea as to what she would say... But he decided to humor her and let her ask anyway.

"Renko... I have a feeling that those monsters came from the everfree."

"Why do you think that?" Renko asked with mild interest, she hadn't actually asked what he thought she would.

"They started their attack closer toward the edge of town that was bordering the Everfree, if what you said about those creatures is true, they wouldn't wait to cross town in hiding to get to anypony that they... they could..." Renko made a small sigh as he listened to the mare choke on the last word of the sentence, he could understand that she didn't want to admit to herself how viscious those monsters could be. Everypony in the immediate area got into a wary defense stance when a mechanized voice rang through the area, every soldier was looking in every direction in order to find the source of the voice, a movement in the corner of Renko's eye caught his attention and he brought his gaze to a human-figure stepping out from behind one of the tents. Immediately any and all weapons were pointed at the intruder, it didn't help comfort anypony that this intruder had a rifle that was similar to Renko's, several tense moments passed before the intruder dropped the gun to the ground and addressed Renko.

"I am Lurker Four-One and I know the location of the equine that you are looking for." The guards that had lowered their sights a fraction of a centimeter had them trained on the kill-spots that they believed this creature had, Renko had a curious... yet cautious... look as he responded to this human.

"What should make me believe that you are not trying to lead me into a trap and leave this town defenseless?" The soldier contemplated whether to tell them the truth or lie.

"Well... If I lie, that pony's gonna either point me out as part of the squad that killed her soldiers or the one that struck her... If I tell the truth... I'm as good as being a prisoner, either way I'm probably going to die... Why not, What else do I have to lose...?"

"I now where she is... Because it was my squad that took her." as the guards all moved in around the soldier, they were all surprised at how quickly Renko moved to the other human, Ranko already had his left hand around the soldier's throat and his centurion pointed at the soldier's forehead. He spoke his next words in a low, angry growl.

"What is going to stop me from splattering your brain all over the ground after you tell me? Give me one good reason why I should let you live." The soldier had made no flinch or recoil to indicate that his threat had any effect.

"Because the man who sent me expects me to die anyway, if I return... he will kill me, if I don't return... He'll believe that you killed me. If I'm alive, I can get you to his HQ and you can save that blue pony."

Twilight finally had built up the nerve to speak now that she had heard plenty of this new human's babble about the princess, she let out a growl as she stomped closer.

"You do not get to speak about the Princess like that! You are a horrid monster, the only thing that separates you from the ones that Renko already killed is the ability to speak!" Tears were edging the mare's eyes as she felt an immense wave of anger wash over her, she now understood why Renko was so willing to kill the reverts... the only thing that she wanted to see happen to this human was the worst punishment possible.

Celestia snapped to attention as she felt waves of anger flow through the camp, the first source she recognized was Renko, then several of her guards... but then one that she had felt so few times that she had almost forgotten who it was. Twilight's anger pained her the most because she knew that Twilight had enough power to kill if given the chance and the knowledge. With newfound resolve Celestia quickly made her way over to the gathering of her soldiers and tried to figure out the commotion.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the human that Renko had his gun drawn against, the possibility of more than one human in her world was staggering, for so long humans were believed to no longer exist, now there were more that just seemed to be popping into existence. She shook herself to get her composure and pointedly made her way to the front of the group, even though her soldiers moved out of her way, they never took their sights off of the second human.

"Renko, what is going on here?" she asked with her well-known calm tone, it only took him a fraction of a second to respond.

"This soldier is the leader of the squad that ponynapped Luna." He replied through gritted teeth. Renko was taken by surprise as the soldier he had by the throat was enveloped in a golden aura and taken from his grasp, he watched silently as the soldier was levitated over to Celestia, all of the soldiers visibly relaxed as they saw Celestia hold the prisoner as if the soldier was frozen in stone. Celestia had a furious look in her eye as she brought the soldier to eye level with her, she removed the human's mask and was slightly surprised when she looked at the scarred face. The soldier had rounded, feminine facial features. She had a look of hopelessness as Celestia stared her down, the tension in the air was so thick that one of the guards thought that he would choke on it.

"Why... Did... You... Take... Luna...?" each word was laced with anger as she spoke, even the prisoner blinked since she couldn't recoil in fear.

"I did it, because I was ordered to... I know exactly where she was, and I was sent on a suicide mission to tell you where she is just so you can try to stop the Emperor..." None of the bodies in attendance could possibly believe that getting the information was that easy, but surely enough... after locking their new prisoner up in a special tent surrounded by guards and a barrier spell, Renko managed to convince Celestia to let him take his squad to the location that the woman had told them about, Twilight urged Celestia to let her and the other elements accompany him to the ruins of the royal castle because they already knew how to get there. The only pony who was against going into the forest was Fluttershy... for obvious reasons.

Behind Enemy Lines

Renko now trudged through the forest with the elements of harmony and his squadmates; Moon Shimmer the unicorn, Fog Cloud the pegasus and Lightning Runner the earth pony. The mares were surrounded on all sides by Renko's squad so that they were less vulnerable to attack, it was also the only way that Renko was able to get Fluttershy to come along... even with the fact that she was clinging to Applejack in fear... Safety in numbers right?... Right?

The slog through the forest was actually surprisingly uneventful, in fact, the rest of his squad actually looked bored. He took this moment to ask his friends something.

"Ok, I know that you six are the elements of harmony and whatnot... But why did you have to come here?" Each member of the group pawed at the ground nervously, not even Twilight could actually think of a good reason. Well, everypony except Rainbow Dash, she had a smug look on her face as she flew low to the ground.

"We're here to help you defeat the guy that took Princess Luna, our job is to protect Equestria." She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that Renko found incredibly irritating. He tried his best not to be completely blunt with her was incredibly blunt with her as he spoke.

"Don't you remember what those creatures looked like? do you not remember the Zek that killed that civilian a few days ago? Do you not remember the corpses of the guards that were created because 'some guy' ordered his own trained assassins, one of which we have locked up by the way, to capture the princess? Sounds to me like you're not really doing your job if that's what your job entails." the mix of anger and skepticism that radiated from his face and voice didn't have the desired effect though, instead of making the mare back off it only managed to egg her on... Which only made her get in Renko's face as she spoke.

"Those sights are something that I'm certain to never forget, as well as anypony who saw those sights... But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to try and save the princess if there's a chance to get her back." Rainbow's speech had managed to tug a, albeit slightly, more confidant grin from all the ponies... Except fluttershy, who was still trembling near Applejack.

"At least she's not cowering in fear anymore... if there's actually a difference..." Renko thought before formulating a counter-argument.

"And what if you are forced to choose between your life OR something else's? Where I come from, it's kill or be killed... and these monsters are the cause of that mindset... Are you willing to kill something that is standing between you and your princess?" The look on Rainbow's face was enough to tell him what he needed her to know, she still had that look of defiance she had since the beginning of the conversation, but a flash of apprehension had shown itself in her eyes. He now knew without looking that each of the others now also had to think about the possibility of their hooves never being truly clean again after this.

Renko signaled the group to get down as low as they could as they reached a river, he quickly scanned the area, trying to locate any telltale signs of revert occupation.

"Oh Renko... It seems that I may need to persuade myself to use the TMD" the evil Renko said with mild enthusiasm, "But what to throw in your way... I certainly know that a devourer could force you to use the TMD but I don't have enough energy to create one of those... Maybe... No, I need more energy for that too..." He gave a pensive stroke to the goatee that was now growing on his chin as he finally thought of something to use.

"That's perfect! I know that he could handle one with minimal effort, but a group would require him to expend plenty of E99 energy." The Emperor gave an evil chuckle as he raised his TMD in the direction of the river, with a practiced hand a discharge of E99 energy was expelled from the device. He braced himself against the railing of the balcony as he felt his form flicker.

"I will not fade... I will continue, I will be the last one standing when all this is over." his thoughts were laced with anger as he looked towards the river, with several deep breaths he had managed to once again retain a solid form.

Renko barely managed to dodge a swipe from one of the Zeks that had shown up and were now surrounding them with ease. He couldn't understand how they had just been able to jump out from what seemed to be nowhere, he had already spent a lot of his stamina trying to just slow down the creatures. Out of all the unexpected help however, he had to give the girls credit... for the most part... Rainbow wasn't a good fighter, but she managed to easily keep the Zeks busy.

"Maybe I really had underestimated her speed... I really will have to apologize for that when I get back because I know that she's gonna brag as much as she can about this." he would've given a dejected sigh, but he was a bit busy shooting at a monster that wanted to eat his face... threat dictated that the monster be handled before the sigh was.

He also noticed that Applejack certainly had good strength behind her kicks, not many humans would've been able to kick a Zek into a tree, yet she had done it as a reflex when one managed to scratch her across the leg. Even Twilight and pinkie were holding their own against the creatures. Twilight had thrown up a shield to protect Fluttershy, Rarity and herself. Pinkie was knocking the Zeks away with some strange cannon that she seemed to have pulled out of nowhere.

"I'll have to ask her about that later..." he noted mentally.

"Are you sure that these creatures are actually that strong?" Twilight asked as two Zeks began hammering on her shield, "These things aren't even doing that much damage to my shield..." Renko couldn't believe what he was hearing, he knew for a fact from the rounds being sounded off by his teammates that they were certainly having trouble with these Zeks.

"No... There's no way that these civilians are having an easy time fighting these things."

"Ah reckon ah agree with Twilight." Applejack added as she bucked another Zek in the face, sending it into another tree before Moon Shimmer let off a round in it's face."These things aren't as strong as you said they were... are you sure that these things are from your time?"

At that point Renko was growing unsure of himself, he had certainly tested his physical capabilities against the other guards. He knew that the other guards were just as capable as him in combat, then a thought began to dawn on him.

"Are... Are the elements of harmony... Actually the strongest ponies in existence?" He never had the opportunity to spar against any of them, so he actually had no idea if it was true.

Renko Meets the Doctor

The entire group seemed evenly matched against the Zeks, Renko's stamina ebbed slowly away as he used his powers to slow down the monsters, each of the monsters themselves seemed to be picking up strength to use in their attacks. Renko's hopes of getting out of the battle without too much damage began to run short as he heard the clicking sound of an empty last magazine in his rifle. He quickly switched to using his Centurion and did what he could to keep the monsters off of his squad.

The strangest form of assistance came as the creatures' figures began to fade and distort, they writhed as if in agony as the process continued, after several seconds there was nothing left to remind anyone of the presence of any of these monsters save for the few bodies that littered the clearing. The air itself was tense as the group waited to see if this was supposed to be some sort of ploy to get them to let down their guard, after it became apparent that the Zeks weren't coming back the group heaved a collective sigh of relief. Renko took a knee as he tried to catch his breath, the fight had taken more stamina from him that he would rather admit, but he couldn't wait for too long... He wanted to end whatever was causing this problem before it could get any worse.

The group's attention was captured by a strange whirring sound, all eyes turned to something that looked like a blue phonebooth materializing in the center of the clearing. Every soldier's weapons were trained on the booth as it solidified, Renko could tell that there were occupants because he could barely hear voices, tension was back in Renko's squad as the occupants opened the door too locked in conversation to immediately notice the weapons pointed at them.

"...You see Derpy, I told you I'd get us back to Ponyville safely... We probably just ended up on the other side of tow-" The chestnut-colored earth stallion that was initially speaking was cut off mid sentence when he registered the weapons pointed at him.

"Is everything ok Doctor? You kinda just stopped talking..." The second voice was undeniably female and Rainbow Dash couldn't shae the feeling that she had heard it somewhere before, her suspicions were confirmed when a grey pegasus mare stepped out of the box only to be met with the same view the stallion had.

"Well... This is certainly not what I was epecting Ponyville to look like...wait... You're a human?!" The stallion had begun with a look of confusion between the guards until his gaze ended it's travels on Renko.

"Yeah, I am, so what?" Renko asked with obvious irritation.

"I thought that there were no humans in this universe... How are you even existing here?" The Doctor asked with growing enthusiasm.

"All I know is that there is something causing a disturbance in time and it's affecting this time by placing creatures that should never have existed in this time here... and apparently me being a human is the best way for me to handle it." The Doctor's eyes widened as a look of realization dawned on him.

"DERPY! This is the space-time anomaly the computer was picking up! We have to help them!" He was almost bouncing up and down in a way that reminded him of Pinkie Pie.

"Fine... Just make sure you can handle yourselves if things start to get rough." Renko replied as he lowered his weapon and began to make the trudge along toward the castle ruins. The chestnut stallion and the grey mare followed the group... a little confused as to why the soldiers were now carrying guns. A thought egged the Doctor's thoughts as he walked along, he finally walked a little closer to Twilight and asked the question that was bothering him.

"Is this supposed to be some sort of major historical event? I only ask because I noticed that the Elements of Harmony are in this group." Twilight was going to answer but Renko answered without turning his gaze away from the path in front of them.

"If this mission succeeds... This event will have never happened in history..."

Out of all the things that made The Doctor and his assistant nervous, it was events that were never supposed to happen being forced to happen so that they could be erased from history.

The rest of the journey to the castle ruins went along quietly, too quietly for Renko to find to his liking, even the rest of his squad was nervously looking around for any signs of danger. None of the elements looked like the quiet was bothering them too much, Renko knew that they would soon have a reason to fear those ruins... he just didn't know what there was to fear.

The Questions, They Never End

"I wonder... why would ponies have a need for guns... and awfully powerful-looking ones at that..." The Doctor wondered to himself, he couldn't understand why anypony that could be close to what Derpy was like would have a use for them. "I guess... War truly doesn't change..." he thought with a sigh.

Derpy noticed this and walked a little bit closer to him, "It's ok... We're gonna get through this just like we got through everything else..." She smiled broadly when she noticed him get a little grin.

Renko stopped the group just short of the edge of the clearing that led to the castle.

"Everyone get down!" He commanded in a harsh whisper, a few rustles could be heard by anyone who was within about ten feet.

"Why are we stopping here?" Rainbow Dash asked in a similar harsh whisper, "We should go in and knock some heads around until they give us the Princess back!" Renko sighed, knowing that Rainbow had no idea whose head she was trying to knock around.

"You understand that without lifting a hoof... or finger... or whatever this mastermind has at the end of his arm they managed to capture the princess... Who is supposed to be far stronger than any of you. These monsters will be here in force, and if they are led by another human... there will be more soldiers where that Lurker came from." Renko gave a dejected sigh as he leaned to the side of the bush to get a good look at the castle. He saw several soldiers in armor that was similar to the Elite Spetsnaz that he had fought in the past.

"Well... I can only hope that they aren't wearing anything bulletproof... at least I can grab a gun and get back to doing what I do best..." he thought with ironic happiness. He turned back to the rest of the group and began to come up with a plan in a hushed whisper.

"Ok, I can't bring any of you who aren't trained as soldiers because the beings we are about to face have guns that they are... honestly... better trained than anyone else with."

The Doctor waved a hoof to get Renko's attention before asking his question, "What exactly is going on here? As far as I've been able to find out, Humans aren't supposed to exist in this world... Would you care to explain just WHY everything has become far more violent in Equestria?" The Doctor had expected more of an angry glare to answer his question, which he also assumed everypony else was expecting, but he was thrown for a loop when Renko finally looked him in the eyes. The Doctor could see the eyes of a tired soldier that just wanted to go home, he could see pain... sadness... even, a kind of lonliness in Renko's eyes.

"I am here because my original plan to stop a superweapon either failed... or... well... there is no other explanation, A superweapon that was never supposed to be harnessed by humans had not been destroyed completely and I have to make sure it gets destroyed." Renko gave an almost unnoticable sigh as he turned to the rest of the group.

"Where I'm from... Death is an everyday occurence, I wanted it to stop... so I tried to stop the source of the Reverts... something went wrong with my plan and now I'm here, I know it has something to do with the Singularity so I have to stop it." With one final look that seemed to put all the questions to rest, Renko continued to explain how they were going to get into the building... at least, until Twilight pointed out a large, unprotected, opening in the defenses with a scrying spell

Emperor Renko walked from the balcony he was standing on, with a snap of his fingers the rest of his lurker team appeared as if they had materialized out of thin air. He only spoke one sentence to them before they left for their new objective.

"Kill the remaining ruler..."

He walked back out to the balcony once more, he could feel the presence of the Other Renko getting much closer... He also felt the E99 energy flowing through his body a bit more than before.

"I will not be lost to oblivion, I will be the one to take the world and unite it under one unending power... and after I kill you, there will be noone left who could possibly stop me." The Emperor braced himself against the wall of the castle as visions flashed before his eyes; The deaths of the innocents on the island, the deaths of soldiers that opposed him, the countless monsters he had faced in an unending nightmare... but worst of all were the memories of him dying... over... and over... and over again. He no longer knew if they were memories of his or the alternate Renko's that died to do what he had succeeded in doing.

"How many of them were there? how was I the one that made it out of all the possibilities? The questions never cease, they only continue... no matter how much stronger I get MORE QUESTIONS ALWAYS FIND ME!" He slammed his fist hard against the rock of the archway in frustration as he finished his thoughts. As he slid down to his knees he could feel the emotions that he had long forgotten, had they always been there? had he just never had time to focus because of the panic of survival in a hostile wasteland? he still could not think of answers. Each unanswered question would bring more emotion, and each time he felt an emotion he thought of another question that he couldn't answer... To him it had become a violent cycle of question, anger, repress, repeat. The one constant in his life had become his anger, anger at everything... it gave him clarity, it gave him a reason to ignore everything else... without anger, he would've succumb to madness long ago. He buried his face in his hands and tried to wipe away the pain that came with the emotions, and at first it seemed to work, until he thought about it again.

The Growing Storm

Lurker 4-1

I gathered my thoughts as I stood in the growing darkness, which was not unfamiliar to me, I stood an thought about the mission that Emperor Renko gave me. Why did he not give me any more information than the target wasn't like the ponies that roamed around the town? My team spotted two equines that were larger than the others, and at first we believed that the dark-blue one was our target because all the others had lighter coats of hair, but then what walked up to the two took us completely by surprise...

Emperor Renko walked up to the two of them, as soon as the large white one got on the chariot and left I immediately radioed Emperor Renko for an explanation. The thing that caught me off was that when the transmission was picked up by the emperor, the Renko in front of me was not the one talking. Upon asking about the "other Renko" the Emperor's response was a laugh, he told me that this other man was my target.

I knew that my team could handle the guards in between us and the other Renko, but it was the man himself that posed the most problem... It was when I saw the dark-blue pony separate from Renko's group with her own guards that I hatched a plan, I would only need a distraction and I could capture the Dark blue female. The strange thing is that I could see, even from a distance, that the emotions expressed in the female's eyes were emotions that could be seen in a one-sided love. Did this Renko get one of these... Animals... to fall in love with him?! If he had, he certainly did not show that he shared the same emotion, this could make it easier to lure this Renko to the Emperor.

I let the emperor know that he can send a few more Reverts out as a distraction, when he questioned my intentions for using the reverts I answered simply.

"Whether the Other Renko stops them or not, it will give me the opening I need to capture a very important hostage." He agreed with an evil smile on his face and commenced to summon up several reverts and a group of phase ticks. He turned to me as he sent the monsters to do their job.

"You have ten minutes before they reach the town, get your men in position and mae the capture as quickly as possible. the fact that they have a TMD an several E99 guns on their side means that the length of the battle may be short." I left with a bow and quickly re-grouped with my men, it was far too easy to get into position and wait for the bullets to call us into action, we could see the Dark-Blue pony's location from where we stood in the shadows of the military outpost.