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// A Monkey's Uncle 
// Story: Equestria's Dark Heroes 
// by CMNiall 
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Mike was worried by the sad look from the doctor and his worries were only compounded when he noticed Celestia also wore a worried expression.
“Rainbow Dash will be fine.” The doctor stated which earned a sigh of relief from the princess but Mike hadn’t paid quite close enough attention.
“Oh the cruel fates-” the mutant mercenary began, throwing up his arms in a dramatic fashion but stopped short, looking at the doctor “Wait, what?”
“Yes, she’ll be fine. She suffered some bruising and has a nasty bump on her head but she’ll be fine.” He responded, though his sad look had not yet left his face.
“But why the hell do you look so sad?” Mike asked as he pointed a semi-accusing finger at the doctor.
“My marefriend broke up with me yesterday.” He answered indignantly, receiving only a blank stare from Mike until his mind processed that a marefriend was the pony equivalent of a girlfriend.
“Sorry to hear that, mate.” He responded caught somewhere between relief and annoyance but before he could continue in any manner Mike noticed his vision slowly growing hazier by the minute. “I may have lost a lot of blood, stitch me up already.” he stated with his voice trailing off as he slowly lost consciousness.
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“So, what do we do now?” Dante asked the group after Mike had departed and Rarity had recovered from her overly dramatic faint. 
“I guess we should look around for anyone that got hurt.” Megumi answered, receiving a general nod of approval from the rest of the group.
“Alright, we shall split into three teams.” Mathias ordered but before had the chance to explain he was interrupted by one intellectual unicorn.
“Wouldn’t we be able to cover more ground alone?” Twilight asked, weary of the large, armoured man.
“Aye, but what number of the populace would not run upon the sight of unknown creatures?” he asked somewhat rhetorically. Twilight opened her mouth to respond but decided against it. She thought it best to not waste time with pointless conversation when ponies’ lives could be on the line. Mathias was about to split the group up but was interrupted once more, this time by a guard pony running towards them.
“We need your help!” he exclaimed, panting as though he’d just run a marathon. “We got almost everypony to safety but there’s a group of fillies trapped in a house that’s ready to collapse!”
“Well what are we waiting for?” Dante asked before taking off down the street the guard had come from.
“Always on the move.” Mathias sighed before following after his comrade with Megumi picking up Mike’s jacket and following after him with the ponies in tow. After a short six minute trek the group laid eyes upon the damaged stone structure. It was a large two story building that resembled the kind you might find in medieval times.
“About time you guys showed up.” Dante smirked from atop the building across from their destination but let a worried expression show momentarily when he heard the cries for help from the fillies in the house as part of the roof gave way before recomposing his calm, cool exterior. 
“We have to help them!” Megumi exclaimed running forward before Mathias caught her arm.
“Hold, young one.” He said calmly, preventing her from freeing the fillies.
“But-“ she began before Mathias held up a finger for silence.
“The wrong move could bury them under a tonne of rubble. We must approach this situation carefully.” He explained and Megumi, gritting her teeth, nodded in compliance. As she stopped struggling Mathias released her and cautiously made his way over to the destroyed building. “How many of you are in there?” he asked the trapped fillies but their only response was fearful whimpering, which Mathias supposed was a natural reaction to this kind of situation.
“There’s five of them.” The guard pony who had originally informed the group of this situation replied. Mathias nodded and began formulating a plan. Saving small children from collapsing buildings usually wasn’t in his job description so he had only his basic knowledge of architecture at his disposal, but with such limited knowledge of this old fashioned design of building he was at a loss until upon closer inspection an idea dawned on him. 
“I’m going to cut down part of this wall.” He stated simply but Twilight, having read a number of books on architecture, saw the apparent flaw in his plan.
“But if that’s a load bearing wall you’ll bring the whole house down!” she exclaimed worried at this seemingly reckless idea.
“It is a load bearing wall, but it’s damaged.” Mathias explained pointing to several cracks at the wall’s base. “I shall cut down the wall and be its replacement. That should buy enough time for the younglings to escape.” Finished explaining Mathias drew his power sword and in rapid succession cut a large triangle out of the wall, kicked it in, then replaced it with his own body as a support. The Space Marine’s plan seemed to have worked for the moment and three terrified fillies ran out from between his legs crying. Mathias let out a sigh of relief but stopped short. “Three? Where are the other two?”
One filly, a dark green earth pony mare with an emerald green mane and tail answered “Gemstone and Sweet Tooth are trapped under wood and stuff.” She said between sniffles.  Megumi noticed that another wall was about to buckle under the weight of the roof and ran to it, holding the wall in place with her vectors. 
“Someone do something!” Megumi shouted, struggling under the weight of the wall. Wasting no further time Twilight teleported into the crumbling house to rescue the fillies, finding them trapped under piles of debris. She began using her telekinesis-like magic to lift the debris off one of the fillies when a strut holding up the second floor began to give way. Twilight let out a small scream before Dante slid under Mathias’ legs and into the house then braced himself to hold up the strut and effectively the second floor. Twilight stole a glance at the demon hunter before freeing the fillies and teleporting them out. With the ponies safe Dante quickly slid out as the house collapsed in on itself. 
He got up, dusting himself off before saying, with his ever-present grin “Well, that was fun.” Meanwhile Twilight was checking the fillies for injuries but gave a relieved sigh when she found nothing worse than a few bumps and scratches. 
“You said you had evacuated all the other civilians, is that true?” Mathias asked as he approached the guard who had fetched them.
“Y-yes, these fillies were the only ones we had difficulty rescuing.” The guard replied, somewhat shaken by the size of the Space Marine now that he was no longer in a slight panic trying to save the fillies. 
“If everypony’s safe we can check on Dash and that other fella.” Applejack stated, worried about her friend’s possible condition. That idea was quickly agreed upon by her friends and Megumi, whom raced off to the palace infirmary while Dante and Mathias only followed due to a lack of anything better to do.
Minutes later the entourage entered the medical room to find an unconscious Mike lying on a bed fully bandaged and a similarly unconscious Rainbow Dash on the bed to the right of Mike’s. Megumi set the mutant’s shredded aviator jacket down on a table but as she did so a small metal vial slipped out of one of the pockets. Curious, she picked it up and examined it, finding it had a cap with what appeared to be a grate on the top which she could only turn a quarter to the left, opening the grate just enough to allow vapours to escape. Having no other way to examine to contents of the vial she sniffed the grate, finding the stench of whatever it contained horrid.
“Gah, that stinks!” Megumi exclaimed as she pulled the vial away from her nose and almost gaging, earning a chuckle from Dante. Mathias removed his helmet and gently took the vial from Megumi, giving it a sniff.
“Hmm, it seems this vial contains chemicals that, when in contact with oxygen, produces a rancid smelling vapour which can bring anyone who smells it back to full consciousness.” He explained as he walked over to Mike and held the grated end of the vial to the unconscious man’s nose. Everyone/pony in the room watched with anticipation for fifteen seconds before Mike began to move. He slowly sat up, holding his head with his left hand.
“So that’s what it feels like to be woken up by that stuff.” He said as he rubbed his head and slowly got to his feet, stifling a yawn. “Should we wake her up too?” Mike asked, pointing a wavering finger at the cyan pegasus who lay still. He held it up to her and moments later the ever cocky Rainbow Dash was awake.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” Mike greeted her as he screwed the cap of his vial shut and slipped it into his pocket.
“What happened?” Rainbow asked, her memory of recent events hazy.
“Basically” Mike began with an ever so slightly condescending tone “You rushed into a fight you had no chance of winning.”
“Oh yeah? Well I’m not the pony covered in bandages” Rainbow Dash retorted having heard Mike’s tone. 
But the mutant only shrugged “And our large friend here fought Carnage the longest but has nary a scratch on him.” He said jerking a thumb at Mathias.
“About that.” The Space Marine interjected. “This ‘Carnage’, tell us what you know of it.”
“A symbiotic alien which in my universe we simply call a Symbiot bonded to Cletus Cassidy. It gave him the run of the mill super human attributes, you know, strength, agility, reflexes, and the ability to mold the Symbiot into different shapes plus the Symbiot is nearly indestructible by conventional means, it’s only weakness being very, very loud sounds and extreme heat. Oh, and it’s a mass murdering psychopath, but Cassidy was already one before bonding with the ‘Carnage’ Symbiot. ” Mike explained, stretching as he finished. “So should we with talk with Sunny now that we stopped the destruction of her kingdom?”
“I suppose that would be best.” Twilight answered, slightly shaken by the fact that Mike had so casually talked about a mass murderer like they were common, the other five element bearers however didn’t seem to notice and were happily chatting among themselves as they walked. 
As they talked and followed Twilight Megumi walked up beside Mike “Here’s your coat” She said with a somewhat cheery smile as she handed him the shredded remains of his jacket. 
“Well you’re in an awfully good mood.” Mike replied with a slight smile.
“We saved some fillies while you were getting bandaged.” She stated with a truly sincere smile.
“Ah, that would explain it.” Mike said but shortly noticed a curious look from Megumi accompanied by a ‘what?’.  “Well, you played the hero. That has a way making people feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” He answered as he slipped on the remnants of his aviator jacket but as he did so an L shaped piece of metal tore through a ripped inner pocket, one he had custom made to holster a unique weapon. The weapon clattered to the ground, gaining the attention of the other 9 members of the group though only the ‘humans’ knew what it was. Mike held out his left hand and the object floated into his grasp while Twilight voiced her curiosity first.
“What is that?” She asked as she walked over to the mutant who still held the object.
“It’s a gun. A pistol to be more precise. And if you want the details it’s a custom 1911 pistol, copper plated with finely detailed engravings of the Celtic variety.” Mike answered with slight pride but continued when he saw Applejack open her mouth to speak. “Before you ask a gun is basically a weapon that fires projectiles at high velocity.” 
“But you told that guard earlier you didn’t have any weapons!” Twilight half shouted, angry that anypony would lie about something so dangerous as a weapon.
“I’m a stranger in a foreign universe, what would you expect?” Mike inquired before adding “And besides, a smart merc never reveals all his tricks at once.” 
“Whatever.” Twilight huffed “Let’s just go talk to the Princess and see what she thinks we should do with you.”
In the throne room there were numerous ponies sweeping up the glass from the window Carnage had shattered and Princess Celestia was talking with some unicorn colt who had a blue mane and white coat. Upon noticing the group both Celestia and the unicorn approached them.
“Ah yes and these are the humans that stopped the monster” Celestia said to the unicorn, who quietly scrutinized them before Celestia introduced him “And this is Shining Armour, my captain of the guard.”
“Hold up.” Dante cut in “All you Unicorns can use telepathy, right?”
“Telekinesis.” Mike corrected, glancing at Shining Armour and Twilight’s cutie marks.
“Right, anyway, why didn’t a bunch of the unicorn guards just prop up the collapsing building?”
“We were spread thin escorting all the civilians to safety, we number less than 100 total.” Shining Armour retorted though he didn’t seem sour about the fact that his guards had needed outside help.
“That makes sense.” Mike said before completely switching the topic for lack of caring where this one headed “So you and Twinkles are brother and sister, am I right?”
Twilight and her brother shared a shocked look before looking at Mike and asking simultaneously “How did you know?” 
Mike shrugged before answering in his best Sherlock Holmes impression “Elementary my dear ponies. The marks on you hindquarters are quite similar. I recall my cohort mentioning cutie marks indicate your special gift which is designated before you even know what it is yourselves. In which case it is not unreasonable to make the assumption that cutie marks work in a way not unlike genetics in which case you would inherit some aspects from each parent and so your gifts would not be dissimilar either. And should that be the case it would then be a reasonable assumption that one of your parents was an intellectual of some sort while the other had some sort of military career.” He finished with a smug look and received shocked looks not only from Twilight and Shining Armour but the rest of the humans, the main six, and even Celestia.
“Yeah, our mom was a guard and our dad was a teacher.” Shining Armour said with disbelief.
Twilight merely shook her head and stuttered “Th- that was… wow.”
Mike revelled in their shock and awe and smirked “I’m not just a pretty face.” 
“Wait a minute!” Pinkie exclaimed as she cartoonishly (yes, it’s a word, shut up) zipped in front of Mike “the Cakes are Earth ponies and have two babies, one’s a Unicorn and the other’s a Pegasus.”
Mike was now the one wearing a look of shock “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”