//------------------------------// // 5. ......And a New Foe // Story: A Soldier's March (Abandoned) // by Diokno44 //------------------------------// "You!" Micheal yelled, staring at the man in front of him. The bodies of Royal Guards lay at his feet, a layer of dust and ash covered his charcoal grey-almost black uniform. The skull belt buckle looked worn. "Yez, it is I, herr Greene. How vice to zee you again." The German accent stated. The man was Commandant Johan Heinzburg, one of the most evil men to walk the Earth, only a few years older than Micheal. He had served as a guard in Aushwitz, torturing his prisoners every chance he got, and for a time worked with Dr. Mengele, the Butcher of Aushwitz, who performed horrific experiments and surgeries on the Jewish prisoners. One of Micheal's friends, a boy named Andrew Hakovich had been one such victim, having chloroform injected into his eye sockets, as Mengele had hoped to change Andrew's chocolate brown eyes into azure blue, he failed, and Andrew was unceremoniously hurled into an oven to burn, like so many others. Johan was the sniper who had shot Brian, and the very man who begged mercy of Micheal. "How are you here? I thought demons couldn't enter a paradise like this!" Micheal mocked Johan. The only thing the Waffen SS officer did was straighten out his cap over his straw-yellow hair, smirk in a cruel fashion, and pull out an ebony-plated polished silver Luger from a pocket in his somewhat rumpled jacket. "Demon? Me? Oh come now Greene, zurely you of all people would know that you are not a Saint Peter either, don't you remember the Privateer's Brigade, that gang you ran with a few years back, with my, urgh, "noble" cousin Markus?" Johan said, reloading his Luger with some bullets from a pouch at his waist, a faint smirk gracing his lightly-tanned face. Micheal flinched at this reminder. He had palled around with a man named Markus Hanston, a German-Dutch boy.The gang didn't do anything particularly bad, some minor thefts, some jewelry or a pocket watch, some late night muggings on the southern end of downtown San Francisco, maybe a beating of witness, but nothing like murder or torture, nothing like what the Nazis had done. "So what, you'll never get out of here, not with the palace crawling with Royal and Night Guards. Looks like your roulette's ended up on black, buddy blank." Micheal said, a small grin appearing on his face, a faint stubble rubbing against his lips. By now, Celestia and the others had caught up with Micheal and Brian, with Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Rarity, Shining Armor, and Cadence pointing their horns at Johan, each glowing with a sparking version of their natural auras. Johan started laughing a hollow, almost demonic laugh as he stared at the five unicorns aiming their horns at him, ready to fire at will. "Do you really think you vere the only ones with magic around here?" Johan said, raising the tossing the pistol in his left hand, raising it, while his right gloved hand glowed with an obsidian black aura. "Well,ladies, I vust take mine leave of you, ta ta." Before firing the pistol, the bullet hitting the ground near Twilight, causing her to fall back a bit, as his hand pulsed, and Johan disappeared in black smoke, blowing out the barred window of the cell he had been kept captive in for the last few days since his arrival. Everyone coughed at the trail he left behind. "How in Heaven was he able to do that?" Brian asked loudly, after coughing into the sleeve of his army coat. Celestia and Luna puzzled over this, before gasping and using telekinesis to grab a dusty tome the size of Luna's XBUCK 360, and placing it upon the conference table, flipping open to a page somewhere in the middle. "We know where we have seen such a force before. It is the power of Hel, ruler of Hel, the land of the damned near Asgard. This "Johan" must have made a deal with her somehow." Luna said, placing a hoof at the picture of Hel. Everyone looked at the picture of Hel. The picture, who appeared to be female, had a masculine looking face. The being, apparently Hel, was holding a dull golden spear, with a large dog-like creature at her feet, prowling the ground. A huge tree was behind the being, looking both beautiful and foreboding at the same time, a sense of dread hung in the air. "So, what yer sayin is, this Johan fellar made a deal with this here Hel lady, and now can use magic?" Applejack asked, fixing her stetson which had tipped to the left somewhat in the wind created by Heinzburg's escape. Celestia and Luna simultaneously nodded, a grim look on their faces. "Hel is a very powerful being, one of the few ponies, or beings who managed to beat her were our parents, Queen Solaria and King Terran." Celestia said, a smile coming to her face as she remembered fond memories of their parents. "Well, why don't we call them up and go whoop Hel's flank?!" Rainbow Dash stated, slapping a hoof to another, floating a few feet off the ground, a smug smirk on her snout. "Mommy and Daddy have bee busy running Aetherium, a land in another plane of reality. It would take quite large amount of power to breach the gaps between the worlds of Equestria and Aetherium, and open the portal. If we want to get there, we have to start at once, Luna, can you please get the supplies?" Celestia asked, trying to remember how to open the portal. It had been centuries since they had last visited, a few months before Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon. Luna came back a few minutes later, carrying a large satchel with her magic, placing it onto the table, glowing, magic-infused chalk sticks stuck out of the satchel as it was placed down. "Now, we can begin the ritual." Celestia said, grabbing a piece of glowing emerald green chalk, and began drawing a circle in the center of the room. Micheal and the others picked up a piece of chalk, with either hand, hoof, wing, mouth, or magic, and began aiding Celestia in creating the Circle. But, unbeknownst to the group, a dark presence watched them from the safety of the shadows outside the window. Chuckling softly, the feminine voice said, in a calm tone, "You will not stop my plans, my little ponies, and human outsiders." before fading in a puff of dark grey smoke, disappearing into the calm and the hush of the night time sky.