Chapter 1: The awakening.
Somewhere near changeling territory.
6:00 A.M. 50 feet underground. March. Tuesday. 2013
In an old abandoned city of silver & gold where the glow stones shined brightly, there used to inhabit a strange, dark, and yet highly advanced civillization of ponies that now lie in ruins, small pieces of gold, rubble, and bones of both young and old of the highly advanced ponies. Down an old rugged road, near an abandoned, broken down factory, is an ancient research facility where inside, 30 floors down, lies a room containing several pods, most of which are broken down and rusted. Inside a few of the remaining operational pods rests the last sole surviviors of these ancient ponies. A light on one of the pods flickers on and off, signaling that the pod is about to permanently shut down from its exhausted systems, but will first release whoever it contained for over the past 3 centuries and two decades.
The pod wheeshed, then jammed when it was 2/3's open. A hoof rose from inside the pod, then another, reaching for the rim of the pod, pulling itself up. Thus raised the first released ancient pony. Its coat, though mostly covered in stange armor, was an army green and its mane and mid-sized tail was hunter green. Its base armor color was grey, and the trim was shiny cobalt blue. On its helmet, an ice blue visor covered the front of its eyes. Its metal boots on both its front and hind legs were the same grey with cobalt trim as its armor.
The newly released pony tried to get out of its pod and fell to the ground as it realized it forgot its armor was a little heavy. The pony slowly got on it legs, shook its head a little and looked around to see what has changed over the years it was asleep. "???, Uugh..., my head! That's gonna hurt. Well... better get the others; otherwise, my brother will get them out of their pods. Speaking of which, it looks as though my pod has finally died out. Well, let's see who's here to wake up."
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The pony walked around the other pods trying to find one of the other surviviors. As soon as it found one that had somepony in it, he looked closely to see if he could recognize whoever was inside."???, Dang it! Why?? Of all the ponies I could of found inside the pods, why'd it have to be you?" The pony grunted and then tried to release out of the pod the pony it seemed to despise. When it opened the pod, the pony inside slowly got up shook its head and looked at who released it.
"??? Nightshade...? Is that you?? You look a little different from when we got into the pods."
Nightshade sighed, "Yes, Paranoid... yes, it's me, now get out before I decide to-"[b/]
Before Nightshade finished, Paranoid got out of the pod and looked at himself through some glass on another pod to find that he had his mahogany coat, his brown mane and tail were a little longer, his base red with brown trim armor, his helmet looking like the same old red base with brown trim & brown visor covering his eyes. His front and hindleg boots were still the same red base brown trim. Paranoid sighed with relief.
Paranoid was relieved. "Oh, thank... the lord... I'm still me." Looking at Nightshade, Paranoid said, **"But I'm still surprised that you were the one to wake me up so... thanks... for waking me up."**
Nightshade was a little confused with that fact that he was thanked by somepony that the he hated. Nightshade shook his head and said, **"Let's... just... get the other guys out before this gets more weird than that one time during the simulation battle match we had in that weird map turn into a board game glitch."**
Paranoid said, **"You go left, I go right. Sound cool?"**
Nightshade agreed, **"Fine by me."**
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They both started their searches for their fellow surviviors. When they found a flickering pod with somepony in it they didn't judge who it was, they just opened it. Their searches were easy because there were five other blinking pods and one by one they were opened. One of the pods Paranoid opened suprised him which he than said , **"Whoa... so that's where you three boys were! I was afraid you weren't going to make it!"**
Inside the pod were three young colts that were still sleeping. Two of them were twins and the last one held no similar characteristics, except for the dark blue coat that all three of them had.
Paranoid tried to wake them up. **"Helloooo.... wake uuup!" None of them answered. He tried to wake them up again, only this time he used a different method. His eyes glowed as he had picked up the colt on the left with his magic out of the pod. He giggled a little, then dropped the foal on the ground. (Thunk!) The colt quickly lifted its head, looking in different directions to figure out what just happened.**
***"???, Who! What! Where! Why!" He then looked at Paranoid, who was giggling at the sight of the colt's reponse. It angrily spoke to Paranoid. *"???, What the hell was that for!?"** The colt grew silent when he looked around the area, then at the pod that kept him and the other two alive.**
*"???, Well...," Paranoid smirked, "yeah. Now, Crash, if you're done looking around, I suggest you get your brother and your friend out of that pod before it closes permanently."*
Crash blinked, "wait! What?! These things are - "
Paranoid said, **"Oh yeah, now quit messing around and get Bash & Rock out of there before it does."**
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While Paranoid was busy with Crash getting his friends out, Nightshade had already awakened two other pods but they didn't have his brother. He wondered for a moment on what might've happened to his brother. Nighshade groaned, **"Ugh, I awakened the medic/mechanic & the musle of the team, but still no sign of my brother... (sigh)... Where are you Tombstone, where are you??"**
The medic/mechanic walked over to Nightshade and asked him, **"What are you thinking about?"**
Nightshade only told him, **"Just diagnose those who have been released from the pods and then report back to me."**
*"???, Why should I report back to you?? You're not in charge, you don't have any right to order me, Malice, or any of us around. I'll only take orders from the prince. Where is he by the way?"*
Nightshade sighed, **"He's getting Crash, Bash, and Rock out of their pod they've slept in for three centuries. We've been here for three centuries, Roger."**
Roger blinked, **"We've been here for that long? No wounder everything looks crappier than when we got here."**
Malice growled, **"Maybe both of you should stop talking for a minute and look at the calender over there."He points to an old looking calender, Nightshade and Roger took a look over at the calender and were shocked to see the calender saying the year was 2013! All of them were stunned to know that they had been in the pods for three milleniums and two decades.**
Paranoid remarked, **"Hey guys, I'm back and look who I found!"**
Crash and Bash grinned, **" Watts uuuupppp!!"**
Nightshade frowned, **"Umm... Paranoid... what the f*** man?"**
Paranoid shrugged, **"What?? I only woke up three kids. What's wrong with waking up three kids that could probably help us later on after a few training sessions with Dread? Am I right, Dread?"**
They all looked around woundering where their friend was until one of them realized they hadn't released him yet.
Bash moaned, **"Oh crud! We forgot about him! He was in the pod third row behind us!"**
Rock groaned, **"Let's stop screwing around and just go get him before it's too late."**
Crash called out as he chased after them not wanting to be left behind, **"Wait for me guys!"**
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While the trio went to get their friend, everypony else was trying to think of a few plans for when they got out of the underground lab and got to the surface, while at the same time trying to comprehend their current situation.
Nightshade said, **"Ok... so... what do we know so far and can we speed this up? I'm still trying to find my brother."**
Roger seemed confused. **"You still haven't found him yet? I thought that-"**
Nightshade responded, **"Yeah,I thought so too, but no... not yet. Hope he's okay."**
*Paranoid suggested, *"Let's just move on to a different topic for now. I'm sure we'll find him soon, cause without him we don't have much morality to be perfectly honest, but thats just me. What about you, Malice?" Paranoid looked toward Malice only to find that he was spacing out from the moment he'd been released. Paranoid rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding me? Really? Really?? You need to learn to let the past go, Malice, you really do. Are you even listening to me???"****
*Unfortunately, Malice wasn't paying any attention to anything that was going on at the moment.*
*Back with the trio, they had located the pod which contained their friend who they forgot to wake up. The boys struggled opening the pod, but they managed. Crash said, *"Phew! Finally got it open."****
*Bash complained, *"It took us twenty minutes!" While the twins were distracted with each other, they didn't notice their newly awakened friend trying to climb out of the pod until he fell on the ground on the other side where the boys were standing. Rock was the only one that noticed, so he left the twins to their bickering at each other to see if Dread wasn't hurt upon falling out of his pod.****
*Dread moaned, *"Uuugh... that was not well calculated."****
*Rock asked, concerned, *"Hey, you okay? Oh, and don't worry about your friends. Most of them are already up and about. We're just missing one more pony."****
*Dread coughed, *"Yeah... I think I'll manage. Thanks for the update. Now tell me who's missing and where are the twins that were with you?"****
*Rock replied, *"They'll be fine. They're on the other side of your pod, probably still arguing with each other and as for who we're missing, it's Nightshade's older brother, Tombstone."****
*Dread said, *"Well then... shall we get the twins and join up with the rest of the group?"****
*And they did just that.*
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*When the young colts and Dread regrouped with the others, almost everypony was happy to see the brains of the team awake again, but Nightshade was still worried about his brother and went off to find him on his own.*
*Paranoid saw Nightshade slowly walking away, so Paranoid decided to have the rest of the group go looking for Nightshade's brother while he spoke with him. At the same time, everypony needed to look for an exit out of the underground ruins so they could find a new home on the surface. Paranoid thought he might as well explain to Nightshade that once they found his brother, got out of the underground ruins, and found a new home, he better not try to pick a fight. Paranoid didn't know what the locals of the future would think since they were living relics.*
*Paranoid said, *"Hey, Nightshade, wait up! Before you go storming off, let me explain a few things."****
*Nightshade groaned, *"Ugh... fine, shoot."****
*Paranoid began, *"Okay, first thing, as soon as we find your brother we will be looking for a way out of here and we can't leave anypony behind. Second thing, once we do get out of here, don't. Ever. And I mean ever. Challenge me to a fight to try and take my position as leader cause if you do... I. Will not. Hold back on killing you, Got it?"****
*Nightshade responded with a smirk. *"Nightshade, Cool on the first one, but... no promises on the second"****
*Paranoid continued, *"Which brings me... to the problem that all of us will try to handle as best as we can, which is to say that once we get out of here and find civilization, we do not use our magic. Reasons for the restriction are because of what will the locals of the future think if they saw something that didn't seem possible. They might freak out and contact their local law enforcements. Am I making myself clear here?"****
*Nightshade wasn't happy to hear the bad news, but Paranoid was right on the fact that if something from the past had been seen in public of the future, it could interfere with the plan that was already in motion. Nightshade took a deep breath and said in a disapointed tone, *"Fine..., whatever, let's... just find my brother."****
*Paranoid said with a small smile, *"Good, now wait here I'll go get the others and explain what I discussed with you. Then, we find your brother, get the heck out of here, find civilization, and finally we figure out how we wipe out the bastard who killed most of our entire race."****
***Nightshade replied, *"But... the M12 is offline."******
*Paranoid looked at Nightshade with a more serious and emotionless expression as his eyes filled with anger and a lust for revenge. *"That. Thing. Was only part of his plan. The rest... we need... more than our combined might. We need to look for special artifacts that will grant us power beyond our wildest imaginations, but we need to get them without causing any trouble. Otherwise, we can kiss this planet of organic life goodbye and say hello to a world of machines... all controlled by... King Rage the 1st... my grandfather. He's responsible and he's gonna pay... somehow... someway... he's gonna pay."****
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*After Paranoid had finished talking with the rest of the group, they all went in search of their last companion within the remains of the abandoned research facility. During their search, each of them found a few old chests. They were rusted shut and the electric locks on them were broken. Paranoid tried to pick the locks with some of the parts that fell off years ago, but it was no use, the makeshift lockpicks broke. Roger tried to open the electric locks on the chests, only to find all the circuits inside the locks were broken beyond repair. The twins and Rock tried to zap the locks open with thier dark electric magic, but had no luck. Everyone else didn't have any ideas on how to open the chests until Dread came up with an idea that worked. Dread walked up to the locks, examined it and began to form an ice hammer with his magic which he than used to smash the locks off and opened the chests.*
***Paranoid was surprised to see such a barbaric thing and by the smart one of the team, it really boggled his mind but moved on to see what was in the chests. In the first chest he found a few small jugs of oil, in the second he found an air-tight container. Paranoid studdered," Uh, I, eh, um, I... don't even... dah f*ck it let's just open it, I don't care anymore."* When he opened the air-tight chest he found a bunch of spare metal parts that don't go to anything. Paranoid was then asked by Roger to see if he could use those parts for an idea that dawned on him. Paranoid was unsure if he should give Roger the parts but didn't give much thought since time wasn't really on his side so he just let him have the parts and thought to himself, "One part of me says that I shouldn't let him but the other part says let him have his fun... ah well, whatever works I guess." When Paranoid opened the third chest he found something very interesting. He grinned devilishly and said with a chuckle, "This... will be very ,very useful eh hehe."He then turned to Roger & Dread holding in his hoof something that intriged both of them while Nightshade and the young colts was left to wonder the question " what did he find thats so interesting?" Malice on the other hand... wasn't even paying attention when they first found the chests or even when Dread broke the locks on them, he just stood there very quietly. Paranoid eyes widen as he looked toward Nightshade and the young colts with a cheerful grin and asked them "Nightshade, kids, do you know what these are?"****
*Nightshade rolled his eyes, not wanting to play any guessing games, the colts were curious however but were unsure of what Paranoid was showing them, so in thier response to his question they shook their heads, Paranoind was a little dissapointed but just rolled with it, telling them *"These here boys... are special A=Class unreleased helmet-visor upgrades, these will give our helmets special abilitys and we have the firsts ones, isn't that awesome how we found these things?[b/]****
***Nightshade responded in a rather unamused tone *"Perry incase you haven't noticed we're in a-"[b/] before he finished his sentence, the trio of young colts interrupted him as they asked *"What kind of abilities do they have?" in which Paranoid was more than happy to explain. *"The first chip which will go to Malice is a special**********
