//------------------------------// // The Forest Part 3: Upgraded // Story: The Guardian // by InsaneBatPony //------------------------------// 1 Luna lay on her small and dirty mattress. She had stopped crying but her heart continued to ache. Her eyes were heavy and were threatening to close at any moment. Her heart still ached from her encounter with Night Wind. She had caused him to become what he is because of her selfishness all that time ago. Her transformation had turned her into Nightmare Moon and during her and Celestia's last fight she had destroyed everything, forcing Celestia to move to Canterlot and murdering her closest friend as a filly. Luna hugged herself tighter and closed her eyes. She laid there for a time before she forced herself to get up from her lowly mattress. She rubbed the tiredness from her eyes and left the room, hoping it would give her some relief. As she walked around the former castle grand her memories flooded her mind both fond and ill gotten. She walked and walked; the castle seeming to go on forever, just as she had remembered it. Her hooves sounded on the cobblestone and she took in the familiar sound letting her memories flood her mind; bringing a smile to her face as she walked on. She heard another sound coming from around her. The ghosts of the castle were still present in that place as Luna had witnessed before with Night Wind. Perhaps it was another coming to torment her. Luna did not go near the sound but instead ignored it and moved on. The grey cobblestone and grey stone began to dampen her mood even more so than it already was. Luna focused her eyes on her next destination in the castle and moved at a constant pace. She entered the open room and found the remnants of the previous occupant laying in a tattered mess of wood, worn paper and rusted metal. She went over and looked through the remains and found no sign of who it used to belong to. She separated the different materials and piled them accordingly. She needed to occupy her mind and this was the way to do it at the moment. When she had finished piling up the clutter she found a glass bottle that was dirty with age and the color had faded from its exterior. She picked it up with her magic and threw it to the side. The bottle smashed on impact and the sound drew her attention to it. Among the broken pieces of glass was a rolled up paper that looked almost new. Intrigued, Luna lifted it to her with her magic and carefully undid its string. The words were somewhat faded but readable and the ink had become a copper color instead of its usual black. She read the note. Another lost; another gained, and then lost once more. My heart aches for my sister, my dearest Luna. Though not the first, loved like the last. Ahava why did you have to die? Ahava, Ahava, oh Ahava. It came from the skies and tore you asunder. The great metal beast from the sky, it took you from me. Though another claimed your place and made my heart less ache. Luna, dearest Luna. From where you came I do not know. And why you came, a mystery yet still. My sister, my sister, where did you go? The Great Nightmare has foalnapped you. Where did you go? Now in the Moon you reside. Come back to me one day, I cannot face life on my own, though I must. You were loved so much more than you could have known. Why did you have to go? The ponies of Equestria did not mean to hurt you. I hurt you so much more. The loneliness I could never understand. Oh where have you gone? Luna dropped the note to the ground, refusing to look at it any longer. She hastily left the room and continued her traveling the castle, a haze in her eyes. She stopped and sat leaning against the wall behind her and looked out into the blue skies above. The note had had an expected but unwelcome emotion rise in her stomach; regret. “Why was I so selfish then?” she asked herself. “Only you can answer that,” a sweet, feminine voice said. Luna looked around quickly, her pulse elevating. “Please don’t be another ghost,” she whimpered. “I’m no ghost. Call me a construct if you would.” Luna looked for the apparition the voice belonged to but she found nothing. “Where are you?” “Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see me at all; at least, for now. I do not have the capability at the moment to physically manifest to you here or anywhere at the moment.” “Why are you talking to me?” Luna asked, unsure of what to think. “Dear child, I can talk to whomever I wish. You have no control over me.” Luna harrumphed and scowled at nothing. “Do not scowl like a spoiled brat. I know even more about you than you know and I can use that against you anytime I wish to,” the voice said angrily. “Who are you spirit? I demand to know!” Luna yelled. “Insolent brat!” the voice roared. “No one but the Masters may demand anything from me!” Luna growled and stood up quickly. She puffed and stomped down the hallways once more, her mood turned from sadness to pure anger. She could hear the voice saying things to her but she ignored such noise and continued on her anger filled way. She smirked triumphantly as she could no longer hear the voice saying anything. She stopped and listened. Nothing. She smiled again and let her previous anger slip away as Celestia had taught her shortly after her return to Equestria. Her clopping hooves moved at a quickened pace, almost a skip. She began to hum a happy tune as she had defeated the disembodied voice in the castle. She heard something fall behind her and a high pitched screeching pierced her ear drums. She turned around and saw a rusted metallic abomination emerge from behind one of the walls. “Ignore me will you?!” the Voice yelled, “I’ll turn you into a corpse!” Luna looked at the horror before her. It stood on six legs and had a large swinging tail behind it attached to a series of tubes and drums. Its head held large blue eyes and a mouth filled with spinning blades. “What abomination is that?” Luna asked, highly worried. “This little old thing?” the Voice cooed. “This is designate Seripath. That’s all you need to know.” Seripath, as it was called, raised its tail above its head and the barrels began to spin. Luna cringed at the sound of the rusted metal scraping against whatever was spinning it. The barrels ignited and released bright flashes of light. Luna felt something hot burn its way past her and she felt a blistering pain in her leg. She jumped out of the way and into another room, pinning herself against a wall and out of its sight. She looked down at her burning leg and found a small scrape were a tiny projectile had grazed her. She closed the wound with her magic and numbed the pain at the same time. She made a mental note to avoid the tail’s spinning barrels at all cost. She heard it moving and nearly got impaled as one of its legs smashed through the wall she pinned herself against. She shot a spell at it and flew into the air. She looked down at the abomination and tried to look for weakness but before she could find it crippling pain shot through her wing to her spine. A torrent of feathers flew all over and Luna found herself falling to the ground below. She maneuvered to the ground and crashed onto the cobblestone floor. “Where’s Volos when you need him?” she asked under her breath has she began running to her next hiding place casting a shield over herself, as the next wave of projectiles came. 2 Volos' world had become nothing more than an empty, dark void. He could feel the needles pricking into his muscle tissues and he could feel the heat of the welding torches and the burn of hot metal binding onto his steel alloy skeleton. His audio receptors picked up the metallic scraping and clanking of metal and the hiss of hydraulic systems. There were a series of clanks and crashes as whatever it was impacted his body. His throat burned from whatever it was that had burned it earlier. He felt the compression on his body lift and the table moved to its upright position and the restraints on his wrists and legs were already undone. He slid of the table and fell to the ground. The metal of the floor caved under the new weight and Volos laid still, everything shutting down except his internal computer screen. Systems reboot initiated… … …System Rebooting… Volos’ vision became clear again and he looked up from the floor. He groaned deeply and got to one knee. He shook his head and felt new weight to it as well as heard the rest of his body making new sounds than what it was supposed to. He stood uneasily and studied the feeling and sight of his new body. He noticed that the floor was lower than he remembered it and that he felt bulkier. “Finally the upgrades are done,” Athena said through the audio system. Volos looked up to the console where Athena’s voice emulated from. “It will take while for you to get used to the upgrades but once you do, you’ll be near unstoppable.” Volos grunted. He continued to look himself over the best he could manage and found that all of him was made larger by some degree. His legs were now encased a glistening black metal with silver accent around the knee guards and lower shin guards. His chest piece had a symbol emblazoned on the front in the same silver as the leg accents. The same accents adorned his forearm plating and up to his shoulder pads. The guard on his left shoulder held the same symbol on it and the other side it had the Roman Numeral one. “If you haven’t noticed already you’re quite larger than you once were. Your height has been raised by two extra feet, making your total height ten Standard American Feet. And your width has increased by three Standard American Feet making you a total of eight Standard American Feet across.” Volos whistled. “Yes that is exceptionally large, I would have to agree. The Masters wanted you to be big I suppose; but who am I to question our makers. Also your new armored casing is made from an experimental alloy named Perma-Nine. Its properties are unknown to me as well as its resiliency to damage. Extreme caution is urged when engaging in combat.” A panel on the wall spun revealing a large room filled with two weapons. The smaller of the two was colored gold with and had a golden glowing chamber by the butt of the weapon. The larger was a simply designed weapon with a chrome color casing and a large black rectangular piece coming from the bottom and a grip by the butt. Volos walked up to them and picked one up in each hand. He walked out and held them out in front of him. “The Masters have been truly generous to you Volos. You hold the Mark Twelve Burning Sun Chain Pistol. It uses a small superheated plasma core based on the design of the Death’s Door weapon developed in 2842 by the Syrian Republic of Russia scientists and can fire ten rounds in automatic mode before a cool down is required as well as fifteen single round bursts. The other weapon you hold is the Mark Eight Hell’s Fire Automatic Rifle. It fires .88 Caliber Standard projectiles that are tipped with high explosives and are rocket propelled. This particular weapon can be modified for field operations with attachments and modified ammunitions; however, these modifications are not listed in this database.” Volos lowered the weapons to his sides after looking at them longer. The weapons flew from his hands and latched to magnets on each armor plate. Hooks then secured the weapons in place for transport. Startled by the magnets grabbing the weapons from him he jumped slightly, not expecting the strong magnetic field. The lights in the room flickered. And the room shook. “It sounds like something is happening upstairs,” Athena proclaimed calmly. “It would appear that my drone Seripath has engaged your companion in battle. You'd better hurry. You wouldn't want her to get killed.” Athena chuckled lightly and the monitors flickered off and the console went dark once more. Roaring, Volos slammed a massive fist into the console caving it in on his enclosed hand so that the two halves slammed into one another. He grabbed his new Hell’s Fire Rifle from his hip and held it in his hands. It fit perfectly in his grip and he squeezed the grip hard with his right hand. A deep gravelly rage fuelled voice emanated from the armored helmet. “Time to die.” Volos pulled the slider and chambered the round.