HADES had put the little drop of what he could assume was his own blood in a test tube he stole from Twilight's little basement lab, place, area, or whatever it was supposed to be. He was studying it, by that it meant staring at it all day. One thing that he was glad about was the fact that no one, or no pony, in this case, believed anything he said which meant he could fly under the radar, so to speak, while his plans continued. He had to find out what caused his internal fluid to be brought out of his muzzle or nose whatever HADES rubbed the bridge of his nose gaining a headache from all the terms he had to relearn.
"Pony terms...hurt my processors," HADES said as his voice was now more normal with the robotic tone still faint. He was catching on fast. HADES looked around his room and looked at the nightstand and found a drawer. While admittedly he was ten times smarter than this it was his only option the closet was too obvious. He opted to just put it inside the nightstand. After closing the drawer, the door on queue opened.
“Hey, Twilight wanted me to tell you lunch is ready.” Thankfully it was spike and he just gave a simple wave of his hoof to tell spike to go away. Letting out a sigh he did as told and shut the door.
The Royal sisters were meeting with representatives from some of the other nations that were allowing pony excavation and dealing with them, to say was difficult would be an understatement of the millennium. The griffon representative was demanding payment in gold for compensation for there landing being in quote destroyed when he was the one to agree, but when there was no also quote “treasure or mountain of gold”, he started demanding compensation. Celestia was getting tired of it. While the other representatives were more lenient, with just basic request, like requesting that all further digs were to be brought to their attention to ensure that the locations didn’t disturb anyone during the process.
After the negotiations had concluded she walked with the representatives to a dock where airships were waiting to return to their respective lands. When they had bored and departed she turned to find her sister standing just outside waiting for her.
“Luna whatever it is can it wait?” Celestia asked
“Griffins again?” Luna asked with a smirk.
Celestia gave her a flat look in return. Luna let out a slight chuckle at her sisters dealings with the griffins. Luna quickly adorned a serious expression which caught Celestia off guard. Her sister only ever got this serious if something was wrong or of great importance. With a quick flash Luna teleported both her and Celestia to her bed room and Luna let out a sigh.
“The dream that we investigated proved to be difficult but made progress in the endeavor. In this I have made numerous discoveries in my search for answers.” Luna stated as she looked to Celestia as she gestured for her to continue.
“My research has lead me to believe this dream’s owner is an entity like nothing we have faced. When I entered the dream it felt like Like it knew I entered. When I tried to enter its resistance was very strong, but I managed to get into its mind. However, there was known. Just a few memories, while there were others, it was like they were damaged.” Luna said looking to her sister again.
“Well does this entity appear to be a threat?” Celestia asked.
“Yes I believe so. When I attempted to confront it and question it it spoke few words.” Luna said as Celestia was rubbing her chin in thought while until she asked luna a question.
“What did it say?” She asked her younger sister.
“System threat detected. Threat level moderate.” She said trying to remember exactly what it had said.
Celestia went into thought again. Luna would go in to explain her findings in the memories about the field of similar creatures like that of the ones they had found in the excavation sites. Explaining how the red orb control and army of them as the metal creatures fired strange weapons that caused massive destruction. Celestia’s concerns on these metal creatures being a danger started to grow even more. However, the fact that a red maned bipedal creature was able to stop the red orb with a spear into the giant metal ball that it inhabited.
“Sister these creatures seem to be weapons of mass destruction on a scale we have never seen. Our battle with Tyrek would look like a small skirmish compared to these creatures. I believe that the one that controlled them maybe in Equestria.” Luna suggested.
Celestia began to think about the situation. She had a feeling her sister was right. The dream realm was local only to Equestria according to Luna, that trying to see a dream beyond the farther the dream was the more magic it took to reach it. After further discussing she had asked one simple question.
“Did it have a name?” Celestia asked.
Luna nodded. “Two actually, but one I assumed was a title. It called itself…”
“HADES, why would you do something like that?” Twilight asked the subordinate function as it just at gave her a blank expression.
“The entity was being mean and most importantly, annoying.” Hades said venom in his tone at the last one.
“So that means you can PUNCH HER!?” Twilight asked almost losing her mind over what he did.
Hades just nodded. Compromising intellect is….annoying and affects this units functional and effective capabilities.” Hades told twilight as twilight face hoofed at the fact he was still referring to himself in almost every point of view.
“Well I’m afraid I will have to figure out a punishment for you.” Twilight said turning around rubbing her chin in thought then a smirk adorned her face. She quickly did a 180 as she turned back to Hades and had an idea.
“For the next month your are not allowed to use books or maps of any kind unless it’s for class projects which if I remember correctly you have one you should be doing right now.” Twilight said as she finished she saw Hades scowl.
“Entity wouldn't dare attempt to tamper with this subordinate function’s learning capabilities. This units effectiveness would be reduced to..” Hades paused. Without the super computer of the Titan to do the work for him he had a more difficult time to do the calculations required. “73% intellectual functionality.” Hades had finally said after wait for about two minutes later.
“Oh, I would.” Twilight simply stated leaving Hades stunned. No one had ever defied his orders. Then again he could use the project to his advantage.
“This subordinate function shall cooperate with the entity’s requests, however the project shall be executed immediately. Once the objective of project has been stated.” Hades finished, twilight simply pulled out a piece of paper as Hades used his horn to grab it with his aura and began to mentally red it, as he did his face fell flat. It was a project on their cutiemarks. The name alone irritated him. With a reluctant he agreed as he was given books on what a cutie mark was.
Before he went to his room a knock was heard at the door. As twilight walked over and opened it she saw three familiar fillies standing at the door’s entrance.
“Hey Twi, is Hades here?” Applebloom asked.
“Yes, why do you ask?” Twilight asked.
“We want to work on our projects together and wanted to see if Hades wanted to join.” Sweetie bell stated. Twilight rubbed her chin and gave a nod.
“Fine, but only working.” She opened the door and the three fillies walked in.
The three greeted the secretly murderous AI as it simply waved a hoof. As the sat down in the middle of the room twilight walked to the other room where she did most of her study. She saw a parchment and quill on her desk and thought about reporting to the princess. With a shake of her head she quickly dismissed the thought. She assumed a princess had more important thing to do. She pulled out a book about ancient history to do more research on the metal creatures to find if they could possibly be anything to give a clue, she even went as far as to search Star Swirl’s old texts on ancient equestrian history. However, most of it was hard to read.
Twilight slowly opened her eyes and found she found she had fallen asleep while she was doing her research. She let out a yawn and closed the book as she walked out she heard the crusaders asked a question that even she had wondered.
“Hey Hades what does your cutie mark mean it looks cool. Well not as cool as Rainbow dashes but still up there.” Scootaloo asked.
Twilight gently opened the door so she could listen to the explanation if he even gave one. Every time Twilight tried to ask Hades anything personal he would just say ‘memory structures disintegrated’. She still didn’t know what that meant, but she assumed it was that he didn’t know.
“My insignia is my designation for what I am.” HADES said. Which confused the three fillies.
“What does that mean.” Scootaloo asked.
“You will have to find out when the Project deadline has been met.” Hades stated simply. That’s when twilight made her move and opened the door out of her study into the main lobby. Where the main library was.
Twilight too a peak out the window and saw the sun setting over the horizon.
“Alright I think you three should start heading home.” Twilight said as the three fillies groaned as twilight escorted them to the door. The fillies waved good bye to the murderous AI which just simply nodded. Twilight closed the door locking it making sure to pull the open sign down so no one would just walk in.
“If I knew any better I’d say your getting used to this.” Spike said as he stood beside Hades.
“Variable argument is inaccurate they are, extensions of Functions processors as I am to Gaia.” Hades finished.
“Who’s Gaia?” Spike asked.
Hades gave him a stern Glare.
“Know of your business.” Hades stated simply as it too spike by surprise when he spoke normally which meant he was serious.
“Okay, okay. I won’t ask again. Just asking.” Spike said as he backed away and went back to what he was doing.
As Hades turned back to Twilight as she approached him.
“Alright time for you to go to bed you have class in the morning.” Twilight said as she helped him to his room. While letting out a grown in annoyance. He honestly did not mind sleeping he slowly, Very very slowly began to see why the humans did it so much. They were able to retreat into their minds. At least that’s the working theory. The time to a sleeping individual pass in like five minutes but can vary from those that don’t sleep. However, the fact that a virus was constantly attempting to enter his mind disturbed him. Even scared for some reason, he hated the feeling. He snapped back to reality as they reached his room and he entered as twilight wished him a good night as he let out a grumble, but did so the same.
Celestia had taken off her regalia for the day letting out a sigh of relief as she could now retire to her bed and sleep for the night. After finishing her nightly routines of getting ready for the night. She eventually made her way to her bed. Where she got comfortable under the covers she started to dose off until she eventually let the arms of exhaustion take her into her dreams.
She soon started to feel a strong gust of wind blow against her fur making a cold chill run down her spine. She slowly opened her eyes and sat up in surprise. Everywhere she looked it was a wasteland. Covered in what looked like ash, dust, and dirt. She looked around and saw what looked like ruined buildings. So she headed in that direction. When she got there she let out a gasp at what she saw. It was Ponyville, but in ruins a few wooden walls, half standing buildings, and and a few crumbling remains of houses. What terrified her the most was what lied in the center, it was the library, but it was nothing but a dead tree trunk now, with the interior crumbled in and collapsed on itself.
She started to get worried until a glint of something shiny reached her eyes making her blink a few times. And saw what looked like a crystal table not to far from where she was. As she approached she saw that the Crystal was projecting a map of Equestria, however this time it was different. Her kingdom looked dead nothing was there. She saw the remains of Manehattan was nothing but metal poles and beams sticking from the ground as only skeletons remained from what the map was showing. She started to feel the ground begin to shake until it suddenly stopped. A ear splitting, but faint roar was heard. She heard a giant bang as she turned to the direction all she could do is watch in horror as Cantorlot crumble to the ground below as only a little bit of the castle remained.
What scared her even more was what caused it. A bunch of giant tendrils sprang out of the hole in the side of the mountain. As they dung into the side of the mountain the culprit soon made itself known as it let out another ear splitting roar that sound of metal scrapping more metal. When it stopped she saw that it could see a red glow coming from the front dispute her distance. Her heart skipped as it flowed an angry red when it turned to her. When it did it let out another roar then quickly scampered down and used its tendrils to dig into the ground as it borrowed itself. She felt the ground shake again as she quickly spread her wings and flew straight up just in time as it sprung out of the ground. When it got in land it was so big it would have covered half of Cantorlot. However this thing felt familiar in a way. She quickly snapped out of her trance as one of the tendrils was aimed right at her it’s spinning drills at the end starting up. Celestia quickly dodged out of the way quickly doing so constantly avoiding its attacks. She smirked at the giant metal monster’s attempt at hitting her. Until she turned to face her front and one of the tendrils struck her. She screamed in agonizing pain as she could no long feel her left foreleg. When she tried to bring it to see the wound ass there was in its place was a stump. She laid there motionless and the metal creature approached her lowering it’s, what she assume to be it’s head closer to her. Celestia’s eyes widened as she saw its head. She now finally recognized the body. It was the very same metal creature from the site which she visited a couple days prior.
However, it didn’t attack her or finish her off. She noticed something above it as what looked like a shadow figure of a pony as it did something not expected.
“CALCULATIONS…IMPEDED….SOURCE UNKNOWN….SUBJECT…..PROTOTYPE 77-C, FAILURE…..PROTOTYPE 77-D, FAILURE. A voice that sounded emotionless and cold. As she could have sworn she saw a color glow coming from the red glow but simply assumed it was just her.
“PROTOTYPE….FAILURE UNACCEPTABLE….TRANSFERRING MATERIALS FOR COMPENSATION….COMPENSATION FAILED….ANCILLARY POWER OFFLINE..BRUTE FOR INITIALIZED.” The voice said as one of the tendrils raised up and slammed into her.
Celestia quickly shot it in her bed sweating like crazy. Luna quickly barged in seemingly in a sweat too.
“Could it be?” She asked her younger sister.
Deep Below Ground
A voice rang through metallic tunnels as they seemed to be made of wires, Vains and arteries would have been a good comparison to the underground network of worker tunnels. Despite the age none aware it existed. Steam flooded most of the tunnels as the sounds of machinery worked endlessly for an untold amount of time never stopping, never sleeping, and never resting.
A voice once more heard, but more clear.
“WARNING PROTOTYPE FAILURE ATTEMPTING PROTOTYPE WEAPONRY 77-3-88-9-043-829A THROUGH 78-4-89-0-044-830B-DF.” the voice said as if reading instructions a machine familiar to those who hinted it during the derangement. Sharp talons and it’s massive wing span none dare attempt to challenge this wonder of metal and machine as one of the most deadliest machines. It’s sharp claws, and massive body. While not the biggest it was among the deadliest. While it has many names it is known by one….Stormbird.