It took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness of her environment. The once dreary dark cavern now replaced with the brightly lit lobby of the presumed temple. Walking to the center of new space she finally cleared her eyes, only for the floor to sink slightly again activating buck knows what. Her mind raced and wing muscles tensed in anticipation for any deadly traps to spring out at her. When no bottomless pits opened to swallow her from below or giant blades swung from above, she relaxed slightly. Her near perfect Pegasus hearing detecting the scrape of metal on metal above her. Looking up she beheld a glass sarcophagus, the trim of each pane covered in styled golden ornamentation. The intricate detail of its opulence was quickly lost as the mechanisms grinded the fine decoration to powder in shear determination to their purpose. The coffin was fixed high into the far wall of the room, just below the curved dome of the ceiling. She watched mesmerized at the coffins panes slowly achieved their goal and free its occupant. ‘wait’ she thought, ‘if it opens there isn’t it going to…’
Splat!
The corpse unceremoniously fell from its bed to meet the floor. Cadance stared incredulously. She found herself silently reasoning that some other mechanism must have failed, as while even though the room here was much cleaner than the one she came from, the room was still overgrown with vines in places. So, the wild vegetation must have prevented some gear from turning and moving the body from its current position to a more dignified place for inspection. Yes, that must be it. For surely no one would have gone to all the trouble of constructing this place, let alone the gate itself, for some lame office prank. She turned her bewildered gaze from the mysteriously malfunctioning mechanism for marehandling mummies to the corpse itself.
Tombs usually weren’t built for the fun of it after all, figuring out who this figure was might help her locate where she was and how to get back to Canterlot. According to what she remembered from high school the Roamans where a pre-celestial era civilization built on the backs of slaves gained through conquest. Meaning she could be in the old homelands of Roam, which was now in the griffon kingdom across the sea. Or she could be in the farthest reaches eastern or western reaches of the equestrian continent itself, the old empire having never truly penetrated the new continent’s heart due to nomadic barbarian tribes that dominated the land in that time. So best case scenario she could rally the guard from the rest of equestrian to retake the city. Worse case scenario she’d be late traveling across Griffinstone buying mercenaries to aid her, then rallying the troops upon making landfall. But first she’d need to get to the surface, which meant… ugh, more caves.
She reached the body now, lost in thought as she’d traveled the length of the tomb, and she noticed something peculiar about it. It was huge, at least as big as the diarch of the sun herself. It was clearly a unicorn, the bone protruding proudly from its armored head, the armor covered every inch of its body in fact, and she couldn’t find a seam seemingly anywhere. Its legs ended not I hooves but in… paw of some kind, its hands held five fingers each, rather than the pony norm of four. None of it seemed to add up, of course its armor would be strange, tombs such as these were never built for common soldiers of course so he must have been some great warrior or high-status politician, but his was just… alien. The architecture seemed less and less ancient the more she studied it, too advanced, the gate (she finally remembered) was only recently proposed as a mathematical theory not ever realized as a reality. The figure’s helm was unrecognizable, no banner, no tail, nothing seemed to fit or make any sense.
Until the corpse began to rise.
***
For Evan everything hurt. His muscles felt non-existent, like his whole body was under a heavy rock. He sensed an extension on his head like he’d permanently bent the tip of his baseball cap.
‘I wonder if this is what being drunk feels like.’ He’d stayed up late with his clan last night, farming the derelict over and over for mutagen samples. ‘Curse DE and its ludicrous building requirements and damn the Hema specifically.’ He sneered to the universe. Based on his current physical condition he could only guess he’d hit the limit and just collapsed on the floor. ‘Now,’ he recounted to himself ‘Presuming I haven’t slept through an entire day from one sleepless night I shouldn’t have work today. Not that it hurts to check though.’ It was after all that same diligence that was definitely going to get him promoted. Or so he thought.
Slowly he stirred myself from the hard cold floor, bringing his hand to his brow to nurse my thundering headache. As he did, he noticed something strange about his arm. Metal slabs did cover his body, his entire body in fact. Metal that curved over his head in a very familiar, iconic (not Ubisoft iconic), shape. Excalibur, first of the Warframes.
His first thought was, ‘cool.’
His second, ‘how?’
His third, ‘what… the… FUUUUUU-‘
“uh… um… h-hello?”
His head turned sharply right to face the new presence in the room. It was… a pink horse. A pink horse with wings. With huge eyes, button nose, and a… horn on its head? In short, it was the most adorable little mumble bumble and it needed snuggy-wuggies NOW! Unable to control himself Evan subconsciously activated his powers and dashed immediately to grab the fluffly little bird-horse in his strong mechanical grip.
***
Cadence was in a very weird place right now. One minute she was hopelessly lost in a deep dark cave, the next she found what she thought might be her way out, only to stumble on some big fancy crypt instead. Now the occupant from said crypt was furiously nuzzling and petting her. Very weird, very weird indeed. “Uhmmm, excuse me mister c-could you maybe put me down please?” she asked hesitantly. To her surprise the creature stopped its intimate greetings and reluctantly complied. Setting her gingerly on the floor as though one would a child that just told its parent they disliked riding on their guardians’ shoulders. “T-thank you.” She barely squeaked out dusting herself off in a futile attempt to straighten out her muck matted coat. The figure loomed over her, silent and imposing yet also strangely comforting. She watched the chest of its metal clad frame rise and fall to imitate breathing, yet she saw no air move near or around where its mouth should be. Its eye-less, mouth-less, and snout-less face was marked with only a single line, jagged like fangs at two points where one might expect eyes to fall on any other pony face. She wasn’t sure what to expect from it, whether that line would open to a fang riddled maw of a monster or open to the gaze of an old wise warrior, she couldn’t tell. But it hadn’t tried to kill her yet, in fact it had just done the opposite. It was lonely. It also might know the way out. “My name is Princess Mi Amour Cadenza,” she recited with a curtsy, “my friends just call me Cadance though. Uh, what’s yours?” She sweat a little. She wasn’t one to curtsy normally, except to Celestia or Luna when she first met them, but the air power that seemed to slumber beneath the frame of this strange creature before her seemed to silently demand it.
She paused in semi-shock as the creature silently returned the gesture, following it with a series of dignified hand gestures as if to introduce itself, but remained silent all the same. Finally, he moved as if he was asking some kind of question, motioning to her as if waiting for a response.
The lone alicorn could only tilt her head in confusion, “Uh… I’m sorry I can’t understand you sir, do you speak equish, or at all?” she watched mutely as the silent figure tried desperately produce some utterance of a sound. it first calmly tried to speak, then motioned to its throat as if it was being strangled, only to finally conclude with some bizarre dance of fury. She idly wondered if her newfound companion would be alright.
***
“I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM!!! KILLL ME NOW GOD! OH GOD KILL ME NOW!!! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
***
Yeah he’d be fine.
An unceremonious crack echoed though the room, its occupants glancing up to the source of the disturbance to witness sparks fly from the shaking frame of the void gate. The low monotonous drone from the portal’s engine, that had been so easy to ignore before now, began to spike and drone in uncomfortable volumes. Like the screeching of a dying kettle. Its closure was not without protest however, as the room now shook as if from an earthquake, the crack growing and splintering into sections.
The warrior had only seconds to act and he used them. Grabbing the plushy pink pony in his arms he sprang towards the wall from which his sarcophagus still hung, bending his legs like a tightly wound spring against the wall. Pushing off the surface of the wall only after reaching peak tension with his limbs, they soured towards the pulsing liquid doorway that would separate them from certain death. Rocks the size of large earth ponies fell all around the fleeing figures who were left miraculously unscathed by the debris. Everything seemed to slow around them as they traveled. Cadance though pressed tightly to the creature’s chest, could still make out the flight of pebbles and stones as they seemed to fall like feathers in her adrenaline-fueled vision. Finally, they reached the portal.
They came flying out. But just before crashing into the dirt, the figure jumped in midair, righting himself and bringing the two of them to land solidly on their feet. Turning to see the danger they had just narrowly avoided, pony and human bore witness to the collapse of what was left of the failing pocket dimension. Large chunks of marble and golden spires falling atop each other in a deadly pile where the two had previously been conversing. They stayed like that awhile, watching the tower fall, the gate’s connection sputtering and breaking like a broken window, duplicating some areas and blacking out others entirely. A place of history was there, a bed of slumber for a warrior without a call, technology far beyond the wildest dreams of fiction to this world. Its once pristine structures now forever lost to the void. The two figures sat in utter silence for several minutes afterwards, watching the ancient system struggle in futility to function before shutting down for the last time. It may have also caught fire.
“WHAT THE ABSOLUTE BUCK!?!?”
Cadence took it well.