CPS Chronicles: Nightmares and Wormholes

by Largefish8


Chapter 4

MLP Fic pt 4


Darius sat in his quarters and sighed. The last week had been hard on him and his men. The problems that the local magi energy field had caused had been fixed but there was still no sign of the rogue merc. However, the reconnaissance seemed to strongly hint that they were the only humans upon this planet. Darius sighed "Captains log: More then a few men are muttering. The board have given us strict instructions to not return to control without the AI lynch stole...that we're alone here...that we're not getting home. Morales at an all time low. I haven’t been able to say that the board hasn't even communicated..." he said before a incoming comm appeared on his computers screen.

Darius paused his recording and shifted his attention to the computer screen. "This had better be good news," he said to himself. The Executive Genetics logo appeared on the screen for a second before a enshadowed room appeared and the gravelly tone of a splitter said "Report, Darius." "Well, as you already know, we've...cornered Lynch on an uncharted planet. He can't leave it, but neither can we," said Darius. "We don’t care for your excuses, Darius. That A.I that the mercenary stole has information that will link us to everything ranging from Kurata's operation to the Sy Yong incident. Its alot more valuable then YOU are." said a female voice. The speakers icy tone suggested that, given the choice, the voices owner would have no qualm about killing everything to make sure the AI was dealt with...Darius included.

"We're trying the best we can," said Darius, "But the natives aren't of...the usual humanoid variety." "No excuses. The N.S.C has no presence at your location. If anything gets in your way...shoot it." said a third, human voice with unconcealed contempt. "You're lightyears from the nearest NSC monitored sector." said the splitter voice. "Now get out there and prove that you can do what we pay you for...clean this mess up...or don't bother to return." before the screen went blank. Darius realised he’d been sweating...calls with the board of directors usually did that.

"Collins...tell me you have a lead." he said, managing to stop his voice from shaking. Collins voice came back through the comm. "Echo 4 has a lead they're following up on..." "Then let's stop fooling around," said Darius. "The sooner we've rubbed out that overconfident gun for hire and got back the boards property, the sooner we're out of this madhouse." he added, turning off the comm and saying with relief "Finally, some good news."

...

Everfree Forest

Matt looked up at the ruined castle and said, "Ok, why are we wasting our time with looking around some old ruins?" Twilight looked over and said "This is the place where we got our elements of harmony. I've been wanting to come back and explore for months. Who knows what old books or scrolls are still here?" her voice sounding excited. Matt looked up and said to himself, a bit annoyed at being woken up ay 7am for the trip "Looks like the perfect place to catch asthma from dust inhalation."

"I had to bring you along," said Twilight, "There might be a few monsters that would come here that are too much for me to handle on my own." Matt said to himself "Of course." before saying out loud. "You do know I don’t do 'leaving monsters alive' well? I doubt Fluttershy will like it if I vaporise a few locals." "You don't have to vaporize them, just scare them off," said Twilight. Matt sighed and said "We do remember the manticore two days ago? My chest still has phantom pains from that tail." He rubbed his chest on cue. The medical nanites had healed it straight almost at once but there were still a few aches, as if it was still there.

"Well, we should be safe now," said Twilight, "The animals seem to avoid this place." "Gee, I wonder why?" said Matt sarcastically, looking up at the ruins again. Something about the place set his teeth on edge. "You know...you can check it out...I'm gonna stay out here." he said. "Fine, just keep an eye out for anything that could be trouble," said Twilight.

...

As soon as Twilight had gone inside, Matt turned his comm on and said quietly “Aria...you still tracking that Exo Gene comm traffic? I do NOT want a surprise.” "Still monitoring," said Aria. "Fine...just keep an ear to the ground." said Matt, looking around nervously. Aria said in her usual monotone voice "I do not have ears, sir."

...

Twilight had decided to start her search in the very room where she and her friends had defeated Nightmare Moon the previous year. Not much had changed from that night, even down to the hoofprints in the dirt on the floor. Still, she felt that there was more in this castle. Surely the five elements were the only things in here. Her search of the room didn’t reveal much however, except for a few dusty tomes in a connecting room. This however was not much, newer versions at her home in Ponyville, except for one, entitled 'Legends of the Stars and Sky'.

"Hmm... I wonder what this one is about," said Twilight before lifting the book up to her face. There was a click from the bookshelf as soon as Twilight had removed the book, followed by another as the bookshelf moved aside to reveal a staircase, probably leading into the cliff the castle was built on. Twilight was so surprised she dropped the book onto the ground. "Wow...didn't expect that." she said to herself before stopping as a faint voice, almost like a breath of wind seeming to come from the staircase. Twilight said to herself nervously "Ok...definitely didn’t expect that."

A large part of her said she should stay away from the staircase, but her curiosity urged her forward. The staircase seemed to have been built after the castle had been complete, several of the stones looking less worn then their companions above ground. The staircase finally came out into a surprisingly pristine room, a large opal in the ceiling, over a set of armor with a crescent moon on it. Twilight was quick to realise what this armour was. “Nightmare Moons armour?" she said, partly in awe and partly in fear. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching her.

She carefully probed the armour with her magic, sensing something. However, before she could work out what she was sensing, the ground suddenly shook with a dull boom followed by the 'ratatatatat' of the weapons Matt used. "What's going on up there?" asked Twilight as she started up the stairs, levitating the armour after her after noting how the ceiling shook and cracked.

...

Matt ducked as another hail of gunfire shattered the stone over his cover. "Hey, Aria...have you found them yet?" he yelled sarcastically into his comm before firing his blaster at one of the Exo Gene mercs, sending the guy sprawling with a smoking wound in his chest. "There are currently 13 mercenaries in the area, including yourself," said Aria, "Three of which are dead." "Yes, I was the one who shot them." snapped Matt, losing his cool a bit before peering out to see the remaining 8 mercs...wait...Aria had said 13...not 12. He turned in time to see the merc who had flanked around swinging his rifle butt towards him.

...

Twilight had gotten up the stairs to see several bipedal beings like Matt but clad in white carapace-like armour and with full face-covering helmets surrounding him. However, unlike Matt they did not look friendly at all. Matt had been forced into a kneeling position and had his hands tied. To Twilights horror, one of the other humans punched Matt before saying “Ok...lets do this easy...you tell us where you stashed the A.I and you don’t get handed over to Darius." said the puncher. One of the others chuckled coldly and said in an amused tone "Yeah...the colonel is seriously pissed at you, dragging us to this madhouse."

"Glad to know I'm doing my job," said Matt. "You don’t get it. You pissed off the wrong people. You're gonna die one way or the others...depends what speed you wanna die at." said the first merc. Twilight took a step back in horror at those dark words and jumped as a piece of rubble fell down. The mercs all turned to where the noise came from before they turned to Matt. The first merc said "Ok...who else is here, Lynch?" Matt smirked and said "Puff the magic dragon." which earned him another punch across the jaw.

"Ok, funny guy, let's see you make jokes with a piece of you missing," said one merc, igniting an energy knife before saying to another, "What do you think, eye or nose?" Twilight actually yelped at this. This time the mercs did look in her direction, one of them raising a rifle. "Ok...come on out or we blow you out." said one, pulling an orb off his belt. Twilight hesitated for a minute before thinking, 'Ok, these people can't be reasoned with. And I don't think just charging in would do any good. I'll have to use my magic.'

...

Echo Team were still aiming at where the noises had come from before somehow managing to prevent their mouths dropping as a purple unicorn walked into view. "What the smeg?" said one, in a distant voice. "You guys leave Matt alone or...or else," said the unicorn, sounding terrified. The mercs, hardened veterans to a man all started laughing. "Oh yeah? What're you gonna do? Magic you and Lynch away in a puff of smoke?" said one of the mercs, with a sneer.

The unicorn smiled at that and said "Now that you mention it..." before her horn glowed, the unicorn vanishing in a flash of light, a second later, a surprised Matt also vanishing. The mercs stared dumbfounded for a second before their leader pointed at the doorway that the unicorn had emerged from and said angrily "The fuck? Harrison...check that door that thing came from."

Harrison walked towards the door, muttering something about 'hallucinogens in the air'. The team waited until Harrison came back, carrying several pieces of armour. "Just this stuff, sir. Should be worth something at a trade station." The squad captain said in a tired voice "Colonel Darius is gonna blow a fuse..."

...

Not too far away, Matt was lying in a dazed and singed heap not too far from Twilight. "Please...warn me...next time." said Matt, in a shaking voice, trying to forget the unpleasant feeling that the teleport had caused. "Sorry," said Twilight, "I've been trying to improve that spell."

"Its ok. Its not the first roasting I ever got..." said Matt, still dazed before Twilight looked worried. "What?" he said. Twilight said "They're taking that armour I found. If thats what I think it is...I don’t think they should be touching it." Matt peered up to see the merc team looking at the armour Twilight had found, one trying to use a knife to pry the silver crescent moon off it. "I thought you guys were a non-warring race," said Matt. "We are. I think thats Nightmare Moons armour...but it can’t be. We beat her." said Twilight. Matt looked at Twilight before saying cautiously "I get the feeling that I wouldn’t have wanted to meet this person."

"She was Celestia's sister, Princess Luna," said Twilight, "When they first ruled together, Celestia was the one who made the sun rise and brought day while Luna was the one who made the moon rise and brought night. But Luna eventually became jealous and bitter that the ponies played during the day and slept during the night." "Wow...and I thought me and Chloe were dysfunc...garrgh." said Matt, grabbing his head as the armor glowed blood red, The Echo 4 mercs also letting out cries of pain and grabbing their own heads as the armour let loose an ear splitting shrieking noise.

"Matt? What's wrong?" asked Twilight in concern, the noise having no effect on her. Matt had fallen to the floor, making pained noises. Twilight looked up as a scream came from other mercs. She was in time to see a black mist shoot from the armour, engulfing the mercs. One turned and ran for it while another, screaming at an unseen sight, fired, hitting a third merc. "What's going on?" cried Twilight. The rest of the mercs were now completely terrified, despite nothing being there except for the glowing armour. They were shooting wildly in any direction, evidenced when a few rounds hit the rock Twilight and Matt were behind.

Twilight turned to Matt who was whimpering something about ‘the infected’ and said urgently, "Matt, you need to snap out of it. Whatever you're seeing, it isn't real." Matt didn’t seem to be focussing properly before the armour let loose another shriek, causing Matt to scream again and pass out. The other mercs, closer were not so lucky, collapsing dead, judging from the blood coming from their noses and mouths.

Twilight looked in shock over the scene, not sure what to grasp. Just then, the armour turned, the empty eyeholes pointing directly at Twilight. This was too much for her and the pony fainted herself.

...

She came too to see what she thought at first was a red eyed monster. Twilight screamed and bolted back, her horn started glowing to hit the monster with a spell. The 'monster’ however held up its hands and said in Matts voice. "Wow...hold up there." Twilight lowered her glow to see the 'monster' was only Matt, whose eyes were looking bloodshot. "Oh, sorry," said Twilight, "You scared me for a second."

"Then you probably don’t wanna see our friends over there." said Matt, glaring at where two of the drones from his ship were pushing the armour into a container they had brought, a sign claiming the container as ‘hazardous’. "That...thing cooked those guys brains...and it almost did the same to me." said Matt, glaring harshly at the armour before saying to it "You're fooling nobody." "Wait, the armour did it?" asked Twilight. "I dunno what did it...but I’ve seen exo gene lackies stare down things worse then you...no offence, Twilight. Thats the only reason I can think of." said Matt.

"But it's only armour," said Twilight, "Ok, it may have been Nightmare Moon's armour, but it shouldn't be able to do anything without someone controlling it." "You willing to take that chance? Something scared these guys to death then microwaved their brains like popcorn for good measure." said Matt, before saying darkly "Either way...I'm locking it up in my ship armoury until we know for sure. Better safe then sorry." "I suppose it's for the best," said Twilight. Matt nodded before heading off back towards his ship, the drones carrying the container.

...

Darius looked at the ships medic in partial disbelief before looking thriugh the observaton window at the restrained member of Echo unit...the only one to have returned. "...and you say he was a gibbering wreck when he came back? Wheres the rest of Echo 4?" he said. "From what I've been able to make out from his rabble, they've had their brains fried." said the medic. "What the hell coulda done that? We don’t equip our teams with anything less then the best. Did he say who did it?" said Darius, sounding shocked at the thought of almost an entire team erased so easily. "Uh, I'm pretty sure he was just babbling when he said that," said the medic. "What did he say?" said Darius, harshly. "Uh, a purple unicorn did it," said the medic.

"What?" said Darius bluntly. The medic shrugged and said "You wanted to know. We can’t check his equipment cam cause there was a gigantic magi surge at the time." Darius blinked and said, "Well, we need to find a logical explanation. I don't want a repeat of this." "We have been able to get the frequency of the magi surge that we presume is what killed Echo and drove Private Johnson off the deep end." said the medic. Darius glared "Get Echo 1 and 2 suited up for heavy combat. I want them to find out who or what did this to my men." he said angrily.

...

Matt didn’t stop worrying about what had happened to the team Darius had sent. He refused to leave the ship for the next few days, having Aria listen in case any other teams turned up to either find out what had happened or to get revenge. He and Twilight had also both agreed to keep the find of the armour to themselves at least until they found out what had killed the mercenaries and nearly killed Matt.

However, on the fourth evening, he was forced to head out to Applejacks farm to stock up on food. Applejack had allowed him to take a few apples from the trees near to the edge of Everfree as long as he didn't get greedy. Matt usually did his 'harvest' after the sun had set to avoid unwanted attention so was surprised to bump into Applejack herself as he arrived.

"Bit late to be out, isn’t it?" he said cheerfully as he came out of the tree line.

"I'm just making sure you won't be rustling any more apples than you need," said Applejack, suspiciously.

"I haven’t been out the ship since my trip with Twilight. I've been living off survival rations." said Matt, confused.

"Then how comes the trees here have been losing so many apples?" demanded Applejack. She nodded up towards some trees, where several branches were barren of apples.

Matt looked up at the evidence. "Smeg." he said to himself before saying "Maybe Darius has a team in the area. Aria can only listen so much. You probably heard about the close call me and Twilight had. Just be careful...these guys do not play games."

"Yeah, I heard about it, alright," said Applejack, "How did you two get out of that pickle?"

"Uh...dumb luck mostly," said Matt, the response carefully worded.

Applejack frowned at that, having gotten the same question dodge when she had asked Twilight. However, she also knew when someone wasn’t gonna talk so she dropped it.

Matt, on his own part, mentally sighed with relief when Applejack seemed to drop the subject and said "I'll keep an extra eye out...if they were really looking for trouble, they'd have marched into town." Matt then headed over to a tree that looked like it still had some ripe apples on it, vanishing from sight among the trees.

Applejack watched Matt walk out of sight before sighing. The missing apples were probably just one of the Everfree forests inhabitants after a free lunch. She was about to go make sure Matt hadn’t gotten lost in the orchard when she heard footsteps coming from the forest...lots of footsteps. She quickly hid behind one tree, keeping an eye out for whoever or whatever was coming. Just over half a dozen humans came into view, heading for the apple trees.

One said in a cocky voice "Apples again, sarge? It’s bad enough we lost our rations to that manticore but having to eat this smeg?" "Would you rather eat roots?" replied a voice. "It'd at least be a change." said the first voice again, its owner kicking an apple out of the trees.

A third, female voice said "Don't forget, we need firewood. Thermal flares aren’t any good without wood to burn." "Do I look like a woodchopper?" asked the first voice.

"Just shoot a few branches down." said a new voice, one of the humans pulling out a rifle. Applejack snorted with anger. "Poachin' apples is bad enough, but no one's choppin' down our trees," she grumbled before she charged out.

...

Echo 1 had spent the last 4 days in misery. First, a manticore of all things had attacked their camp. Their dropship had survived but they’d lost half their supplies. Then, they'd lost 3 men to some kind of lizard/chicken hybrid with a very...unique stare...and now some talking orange pony was in front of them.

"What the hell is that?" said Corporal Higgins. One of the men, who had taken a bite from an apple, stared at the fruit in question before throwing it away. "Ok, I think something's wrong with these apples," he said.

The orange pony seemed to get annoyed at that. "What? First, y'all poach our apples, now you're insultin' em?" it said angrily.

Sergeant Andrews grinned as three of his men had gotten behind the local. "Yeah...so what?" he said, pulling out his pistol, only for one of his corporals to say "Darius said no collateral casualties." "It's a smegging horse," said Andrews, "I doubt he'd even care."

"Jenkins gibbered something about talking ponies...maybe this one knows something?" said one of the troopers behind Applejack, adding nastily "Plus I don’t like it when farm animals talk back."

One of the troopers behind Applejack pulled out a stick and clicked it on, causing electricity to crackle from the end of it. But Applejack wasn't about to let herself get zapped by some two bit apple poacher and kicked out behind with her hind legs. The trooper took the kick to his chest and was sent into the tree behind him with a crunch, a visible dent in his armours chestplate.

One of the other troopers snapped out of his shock first and growled "You little..." only to receive a buck himself, sending him spinning like a top before he fell.

The third one aimed a downward attack, only to find AJ had moved. "Oh cra..." he began before being bucked in the visor of his helmet, instantly knocked out.

A fourth one moved in, wielding his energy knife to stab Applejack, but Applejack kicked him as well, only lower than the others. Collins and Andrews winced, their eyes watering in male sympathy although their female teammate just laughed. Andrews finally clicked his blaster to stun and fired, catching Applejack on the left hind leg and knocking her to the ground, dazing her.

He walked towards her, glaring and saying icily "You're worse then Lynch. Now then...how'd you take out echo 4? You don't look capable of reducing people to gibbering wrecks." before pausing and looking at the squealing trooper, adding "...most of the time."

"I ain’t never met anypony named Echo." said Applejack, wincing from the numbness the blast had caused.

"The last stable memory Captain Jenkins had was one of you freaks...so DON’T LIE!" said Andrews, yelling the last part and pointing his blaster, having set it back to kill.

"I don't know what happened to them cause I never met em," said Applejack, glaring defiantly at Andrews.

Andrews glared back and clicked his blaster. "Maybe I should blow a limb off? Pains always a good motivator..." before the merc jerked, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, smoke rising from where a blast had hit. The other mercs raised their guns as more stunner blasts shot around em.

"Its the NSC. Grab the sarge..." yelled Collins, panicking.

The troopers quickly picked up their stunned sergeant and ran for it, several of them limping, particularly the one with his hands between his legs. Matt came into view a half minute later, firing his blaster after the mercs before looking over at Applejack and running over.

"Damn...you ok? Lucky their sergeant got such a good pair of lungs." he said, concerned.

"I'm fine," said Applejack, "I don't think they hurt me. Though I can't feel much of my flank."

"Its just a stun round. Its literally sent your leg to sleep. It'll be fine in a few minutes." said Matt, peering around, adding jokingly "Shame I gotta hide, otherwise I could just run for help."

"Ah, tain't nothing to fret about," said Applejack, "Them apple rustlers will think twice before poaching here again."

"Yeah...I saw one of them. Man, you fight dirty." said Matt, grinning. "I was aiming for his diaphragm, but he moved a bit," said Applejack, returning the grin. Matt looked up before aiming his wrist comp and firing a flare from its launcher.

"That ought to get some attention and some help. What were those guys asking about, anyway?" he said.

"About what happened to their friends," said Applejack. "Oh..." said Matt, his voice going distant before asking "Did they mention any specifics?" "Only that their friends went crazy," said Applejack, "But you'd know more than me, wouldn't you?"

Matt said "I wouldn’t know." with certain truth, given that he’d almost ended up in the same boat. Matt sighed and said "I'd better go...your little sister knows me but nobody else does and I do not wanna see the inside of a jail cell."

Applejack stared after Matt as he grabbed some of the fallen apples and ran back into the tree line just as Big Mac came into view. She may not have been a certified genius, but her element of harmony meant that she could tell a falsehood when she heard one from a mile away.

...

It was the same nightmare again. Canterlot in flames...blurry machines hovering over the streets, firing energy pulses at movement. Twilight ducked down and covered her head with her hooves as a store front was hit by a pulse blast and blossomed into a fireball. The culprit shot away while humans, wearing the same gear as the ones from Luna’s old castle walked into view and past her hiding place. Blasts of energy were quickly reducing the beautiful houses and buildings into rubble, with the citizens screaming and running for their lives. Twilight could only watch as some citizens ran into the sight of the humans on the ground...and their guns.

"Twilight!" called two voices. Twilight turned to see a blue unicorn stallion with two crescent moons for a cutie mark and a unicorn mare with purple mane and hair with three purple stars for her cutie mark. "Mom? Dad?" asked Twilight. Her parents looked in her direction and ran over. "Twilight...thank Celestia you're alright...when we heard what happened to ponyville..." said her mother, anxiously. "What? What about Ponyville?" asked Twilight. "They burnt it to the ground...They said nopony escaped in time." said her father, sadly. "What? But that's impossible," said Twilight.

Her father said "We're sorry about your friends...but the city needs your help. You're the only one other then the princesses who can stand up to them..." "I don't know," said Twilight, "Those guys look really tough. Shouldn't we try to find Princess Celestia?" "There's no time." said her mother, urgently, looking over her shoulder. "We can't wait any longer," said her father, "Where is Matt?" Twilight sighed "I'm having the dream again. You’ve never met Matt." she said to herself, before walking over to a wall and headbutting it.

...

Twilight opened her eyes to find herself back in the library. "This dream is really getting old," she said to herself. Spike was downstairs, already up and dealing with his chores. "Hi there, Twi. Same nightmare?" he said, in greeting. "I think the fifth time," said Twilight, "Slightly different. This time, it was my parents asking where Matt was." "That human living in the forest? When are you gonna let me meet this guy?" said Spike. Twilight sighed and said "He’s not exactly sociable." "Ah, he can't be that bad," said Spike, cheerfully.

Twilight conjured a vision in her head of Matt, a creature that seemed a single, very small step from taking a one way dive off sanity...a person who always carried one of his weird energy weapons with him. "Maybe next time." she said in compromise. After all, the human had already had one close call with a manticore so he would have to come out soon. "You know, the weird thing about these dreams is that they seem so...fake," said Twilight. "Uh, they're dreams, they're not supposed to be real," said Spike.

Twilight smiled at that. I know, silly. There's just...something off about them...like they're scripted." she said before the library door burst open and the CMC trio burst in, all talking at once. "Whoa, whoa, slow down girls," said Twilight, "I can't understand you talking like that." The crusaders stopped talking for a minute to take breaths before Applebloom said in a upset and frantic voice "Some of those varmints that Matt said were after him got big sis." "What? Applejack's in trouble?" asked Spike.

"They were hustlin the apple trees last night. Applejack surprised em. Matt wuz there and helped to chase em off but they got her." said Applebloom, gloomily. "We have to go after her, immediately," said Twilight. Scootaloo said "They didn’t take her but she was limping when we saw her." "Oh, that's not as bad," said Twilight, "I think I have a book on healing spells in here."

...

Twilight, Spike and the CMC headed down to Sweet Apple Acres to where Applejack could be seen, helping pull a apple wagon. The clear difference was a bandage around her left hind leg and the flank above it. "Twilight. Nice of you to drop by." she said in greeting as she spotted them. "Are you hurt?" asked Twilight, "I've learned some healing spells recently that could..." Applejack went wide eyed for a second. "No thank you, sugarcube. Ah still remember whut happened when you performed a healing spell on angel." she said.

"Well, Angel was a little small for his age anyways," said Twilight, "And he turned back to normal...eventually." "Yeah...doc said ah'll be fine in a couple of days so there ain’t no need to put yourself out...and Matt said he's gonna make sure the rest of them stay in the forest huntin ghosts." said Applejack, just concealing a sigh of relief. "Did you say ghost?" asked Applebloom nervously.

"Don’t worry, applebloom. Just repeatin what Matt said. You know he talks a bit weird." said Applejack, thinking of Matts habit of screaming the word 'smeg' over and over when annoyed. "Well, those varmints better not mess with our orchards again," said Applebloom, enthusiastically. "Ah don’t think they were after the apples...kept askin about their buddies." said Applejack. "What buddies?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Some of them tried to get me and Matt when I was visiting Luna's old castle. We just got away." said Twilight. "So they have friends that are lost in Everfree Forest?" asked Sweetie Belle. "Ah don't think they're friends." said Applejack, to herself. "Hey, maybe we can earn our cutie marks by guarding the apples," said Scootaloo. The two ponies both said "NO!" at the same time, earning an 'Awww.' from the crusaders. Applejack sighed and said "These humans aren't like Matt."

"They're very dangerous," said Twilight, "And they don't play nice at all." Applebloom said "Like that cockatrice we met with Fluttershy?" Twilight said "As bad, yes." "Ah, just when I thought Everfree Forest was getting safe enough to explore in," said Scootaloo. Twilight sighed as the Cutie Mark Crusaders left before she said "Are you sure you're ok, Applejack?"

"Now, now, it's nothing to worry about," said Applejack, "I'll be fine in a few days and I'll be getting back to work." "Just be careful." said Twilight with concern. Applejack sighed "Those nightmares again?" she said before saying "They're just nightmares, hun. They're not the future." "I know that," said Twilight, sighing "But these don't feel like ordinary dreams." "Just ignore em. You can always wake up from dreams." said Applejack, with a smile. "Now don’t you worry none. Ah'll be fine." "If you're sure," said Twilight, "Just don't try to overexert yourself."

...

Meanwhile...

Andrews was not in a good mood. "I can't believe that...smeghead shot me in the back." he was ranting, a bandage round his head where he had hit it when he’d fallen down. "Well, you're hardly the one who suffered the most pain," said one of the men. "Yeah, the way Ted's whining, you'd think he'll never have kids," said another. Lance-Corporal Andrea laughed to herself, saying "Men." under her breath before seeing a few dropships flying into view. "Uh oh...guys...the other teams are back." she said.

"Maybe they have some good news," said one of the men. The first dropship landed as Andrew said "Yeah...like they found the target on the other side of this rock." The looks on the faces of the mercs coming out though seemed to indicate that Andrews’ theory wasn't likely. "Well, status report," snapped Andrews. "Shut it, Dave. We've had a crappy week...This place is worse then Mythicos for wierd smeg." said one of the team leaders before noticing the wrecked camp. "What the smeg happened here while we were gone?" he said with amusement.

"We tried gathering apples from the orchard, but we ran into a security problem," said Andrea. "This place looks like a manticore hit it." said a merc coming from the last dropship before noticing Andrews' glare "Man. Sucks to be you." he said. "I'm in a bad mood right now, the 'I will shoot whoever bothers me too much' kind of mood," said Andrew. "Cool it...we managed to work out where the target is. Its practically next door." said the first merc again, smirking.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" asked Andrews in an annoyed tone. "Coming from the center of that tow..." began a merc and everyone jumped back as Andrews screamed 'WHYYYYYYYY?'

...

That night Twilight was getting ready for bed. However, she was feeling a bit of anticipation about going to sleep. She looked at herself in the mirror and sighed before saying to herself "Applejacks right...it was just a dream." before getting into bed and shutting her eyes

...

Outside the town, two of echo's mercs pushed what looked like a pole with a disc glued to the top into the soft ground. "This is Night light. Last Psy-sleepers in place. Nobodies gonna wake up tonight. Its all clear." said one merc. "Then start them up," said the voice on the other side of the comm. "Roger that. It'll cover the forest too so if Lynch is camped there, we won’t get interruptions from him either." said the merc. "Brilliant...lets get this done. You saw the magi readings from that city nearby...I do not wanna meet its owner." said the voice again, a mix of agreement coming over the comm.

"How come we're stuck on Psy-sleeper duty?" said the other merc, as a dropship flew over. The first merc said "The sleepers'll keep anyone who was asleep when they came on, asleep till we're done...including the target. We gotta make sure nothing damages the network." "So what if we nod off?" asked the other merc. "We were awake when it turned on. Unless someone stuns us...we'll stay awake." said the first merc, sighing as he did so. The second merc said "So nobody can wake up."

"Yes, yes, we've been over this," said the first merc, "Why do you keep asking that?" "Because I think I saw something moving in the trees," said the second merc. The first merc looked at the nearby orchard. The network type units the duo had set up had to be set up evenly and it was dumb luck that this one had been set up near where the crazy orange pony that had nailed Ted was. "It can’t be...that hat wearer again...could it?" said the second one, holding his blaster rifle in shaking hands.

The two of them slowly approached the treeline, looking for anything suspicious. After a few minutes of shining their lights through the trees, the first merc sighed "Man...I'm jumpy. You shoulda seen..." he began in relief, not finishing as Matt, who had been spending the night keeping an eye on the farm from the everfree treeline and, who up until that moment had been sneaking up, punched the first merc across the jaw hard enough to spin him before blasting the second with his plasma magnum.

Matt then noticed the psy sleeper. "As much as I need the sleep, I don't need it that much," said Matt before blasting it. He had, of course only overheard part of what the mercs had spoken about, otherwise he might not have shot it. As the psy sleeper powered down, the wrist comp on one of the downed mercs began to beep urgently.

...

Meanwhile, the rest of echo looked up as their dropship took position. "Ok...lets move. I want whatever the target is stunned and ready to go in 10 minutes..." said Andrews. As the troopers headed in the direction of the signal, they were not impressed by the scenery. "Sheesh, do they have any kind of paint that's not too bright," said one. "I've seen dollhouses less silly-looking than these," said another.

"Remember...no shooting unless you meet a psy immune." said their squad leader, referring to the slang name for the rare cases of individuals immune to psy sleepers. "I half hope there is a few." muttered the merc that had mentioned the doll house comment. They stopped, looking at a tree house...as in a house inside a tree. "Signals coming from there...some kinda magi lock on the door." said the tech with the scanner. Andrews sighed and pointed to the others. "I want a perimeter. I don’t want any chances. Davis...open that damn door. I want out of this toyland as soon as possible." he said. The tech sighed "One mythicos lockpick special coming up...in 10 minutes." he said.

"You have 5," said Andrews. "This isn’t like a normal lockpick. You want me to pick the lock or vaporise 3 square blocks?" said Davis, irritated. "Just get to work on it," said Andrews. "Fine...just give me peace and quiet to do it." said Davis, before turning to work on the lock.

...

Squad 2 was near to the wierd candy building, one of them poking its side. "How the smeg did they manage this?" the merc commented thoughtfully. The other merc was trying to call the sleeper team. "Night Light...harrison, you there?" he was saying, annoyed at no answer.

However, between the candy building and their attempts to contact the sleeper team, the mercs failed to notice when one merc that was standing next to an alley was suddenly pulled out of sight. Another merc finally got an alert. "Guys...we got a problem. Psy Sleeper 2 and 4 just auto deactivated...and sleeper 3 is sending a system crash alarm." he said, urgently. "That can't be, double check," said another.

"I'll go check it out. If one of them got damaged, all the others will turn off...then so much for a quiet mission." said the merc, running in the direction of the outskirts. Just then, one of the mercs looked around and said, "Hey, where's George?" The two remaining mercs raised their rifles and shone the attached searchlights around. "George. This ain’t funny." yelled the first merc, neither of them noticing a light coming on in the building behind them. Matt was slipping out of the alley, 'George' knocked out, tied up and propped up behind him and the mercs stun stick in his hand.

He was getting just within striking range of one of the mercs when the door of the candy building opened and one of its owners appeared. "What's going on out here?" asked Mr. Cake in a tired voice. The two mercs turned, raising their rifles automatically and it would have ended badly for Mr Cake then and there, had Matt not brought the stun stick down on the left mercs gun arm, before firing the liberated gun at the other. He turned to the shocked pony and said "I’d get inside and stay there if I was you..." as four more echo mercs, having heard the gunfire, ran into view. "Its Lynch...waste that smeghead." yelled one of them and opened fire.

Mr. Cake wasted no time shutting and locking the door. The mercs however let loose with everything they had. Matt ran for it down an alley, the hogtied George glaring at him as he ran by.

...

Andrews jumped as the sound of gunfire was heard, several lights turning on in the surrounding houses. "What the hell is going on, perimeter? And why the smeg can I see activity from the locals?" he yelled into his comm. "It's Lynch," came the reply, "The bastard's probably messed with the sleepers. We got locals waking up all over the place" "Fine...weapons free. I have had enough of this smegged up dimension." said Andrews angrily, before switching channels. "Eyeball. Put that dropship to use...Nobody leaves till we're finished." he said. The reply said "Not a problem, man."

...

Of course, with the gunfire and the psy sleepers down, no pony was asleep anymore. As a matter of fact, practically every single one was running and screaming, mainly towards the edge of Ponyville. None of the fleeing ponies seemed to notice that any mercs taking aim at them tended to get shot rather quick. Two ponies, a sea green unicorn with a lute cutie mark and a white earth pony with three wrapped sweets as hers were at the head, the unicorn calling out "Come on, Bonbon. We're almost at the canterlot road." "We'll be safe there, Lyra," said Bonbon with relief.

The two ponies turned the corner onto the final road leading out to Canterlot before what looked like a metallic hawk screamed overhead and hovered facing the road, before firing a hail of energy rounds and creating a wall of flames.

...

Eyeballs pilot smirked as the two ponies fled into a building. "This is eyeball...doors are locked. Nobodies leaving this party." he said with a evil grin. He hadn’t had this much fun in years...

...

Matt ducked behind a stand that happened to be standing across the street from Carousel Boutique. Echo squad had also set up opposite, ignoring the panicking locals for now, probably in favour of bagging the no doubt astronomically high bounty that their employers had on Matt.

Matt peered out and had to duck back as several pulse rounds nearly removed his head. He turned to the side to see Sweetie belle and Rarity peering out and motioned for them to stay there, firing blindly over his cover, a yell indicating he’d hit one of echo.

"Rarity, what's going on?" asked Sweetie Belle in a frightened voice. "I'm not quite sure," said Rarity, staying calm for her little sisters sake "But I believe it's best we stay inside." One merc fired a few random rounds at the duo before Matt fired the last of his captured SMG and sent the offending merc sprawling. Matt pulled out his plasma magnum and shot another merc before a lucky shot sent his gun flying out his hand and into the open ground between his cover and the boutique. "Smeg," said Matt, the crossfire discouraging a retrieval.

...

Twilight opened her eyes to find herself in what looked like a pure black void. "Twilight." said a voice behind her and she turned to see her parents, just like in the other dreams. This time however, they didn’t look frightened...they looked deadly serious. "Mom, Dad, what's going on?" asked Twilight. "Twilight...your friends are in danger." said her father, his horn glowing and what looked like a hole in the void appeared, showing the main street of Ponyville near the boutique, where Echo were raining a merciless hail of fire on Matts cover.

"Oh my gosh, I must do something," said Twilight, in shock. She immediately galloped at the view, only for it to vanish into mist. Her mother said in a grim voice "You don’t have enough magic to stop them all. There are too many of the humans." "But I can't stay here and do nothing," said Twilight in horror. Her father said in the same grim voice "Let us help you. Together we can stop them." "You sure? This may be a bit much for you and if you got hurt..." said Twilight. Her mother said, with a smile. "My daughter...together we can do anything."

"You really think so?" asked Twilight in a unsure voice, looking at the re-emerged view. Her father said with a identical smile "Of course we can, My daughter." before holding his hoof out. Twilight probably should have been more wary about her parents' smiles and the strange look in their eye, but the desperate situation going on didn't leave much time for careful thinking. As a result, as she held out her own hoof, she failed to notice the star speckled smoke heading towards her.

...

Back in reality, Matt had his head covered as the round impacts sent splinters around him before waving to Rarity. He’d seen her and Twilight levitate stuff...surely they could levitate his gun over...it was only a matter of time before echo worked out he was defenceless. "What is Matt waving about?" asked Sweetie Belle. "I'm not sure," said Rarity, "I think he's trying to make us look at something." Matt made pointing motions to where his gun lay in the grass before a shot nearly blew his hand off and he backed further into cover.

"I think he's pointing at that stick thingy," said Sweetie Belle pointing at the plasma magnum. Rarity looked where her little sister was pointing before catching on and nodding at Matt. With a little concentration, she easily used her magic to slide the gun over to Matt, but she also noticed the sparking dent in the side.

...

Matt readied the blaster and noticed the dent, followed by the guns computer saying "Danger...recoil dampener is damaged...please do not discharge this weapon until a qualified Archeon and Recaris technician can replace the damaged component." "Sorry, no A&R repair shops here," said Matt. A footstep got his attention and Matt turned to see a echo merc flanking him. He didn’t waste time aiming at the merc and firing. The result was quite impressive. The blast sent the echo merc flying back into a pile of crates with a smoking hole in his armour while unfortunately the recoil also sent Matt flying backwards into Carousel boutique, over the heads of the two unicorns and into the far wall with a painful sounding crunch.

"Ok, gonna need to find an A&R repair shop," winced Matt. Rarity and Sweetie Belle and ran over. "My goodness, are you alright?" said Rarity in shock. Matt said weakly "I don’t think so." confirming as when he tried to move, his vision blurred from pain. One of his ribs must have broke, despite his armour. His medical nanites would fix it...but they might knock him out to do so.

"Should I get some bandages?" asked Sweetie Belle. "Nah...I'll be fine." said Matt before hearing a voice outside say "Ok, Lynch...you come on out before we turn this building and its inhabitants into a colander." "Ok, this is trouble," said Matt. "You got ten seconds to come on out...and we might leave a few survivors." said the merc outside, earning a few nasty laughs from his fellow teammates.

...

Davis grinned as the lock finally clicked. "Yo, boss. We're in...wow...magi levels are going nuts." he said, looking as his scanner began to beep like crazy. "There's no way they can spike that fast," said Andrews. Davis looked at the readings again, the readout flashing red as the levels shot past the danger level. "Shit...target must be awake." he swore, backing up from the door. Andrews glared at his men. "Kick the door...if darius wants this alive, he can clone it." He walked forward, kicked the door and died with the rest of his team as a blast of psy-energy engulfed him.

...

Eyeball's pilot watched in shock as what looked like a blast of star speckled smoke shot out the door, engulfing Andrews and his team. "What the hell?" he said in shock, spinning his ship around for a clear shot. Suddenly, the dropship's sensors picked up a magi reading that was almost off the scale. The pilot looked ahead to see the smoke swirling to a single spot, apparently getting ready to leave. The pilot glared and said angrily "Nobody wastes my teammates and gets away." before firing.

However, the shots didn't appear to do anything at all. "What? How could that thing still be standing?" said the pilot before a crippling pain shot through his head. The pilot screamed as blood came out of his nose and eyes, before he slumped over the controls, dead as a dodo.

...

Matt, Rarity and Sweetie Belle were worryingly waiting for the mercs to storm before the trio heard panicked yells outside. Matt limped over to the door and was in time to see echo's gunship spiralling out of sight, a fireball burst into the air just outside the town. "Uh, that's a good thing, right?" asked Sweetie Belle.

Matt turned to see several mercs firing in panic at a shape covered in shadowy smoke. The shape sent out several tendrils of smoke that hit the echo troopers, leaving nothing behind. The others were running for their lives. Sweetie Belle said “Is it over?” in a small voice. "It might be, but I'm going to make sure the job's finished," said Matt before staggering for the door. "Matt, I don't think you should move like that," said Rarity.

Matt didn’t seem to be listening as he grabbed a discarded blaster and shot a retreating Echo merc in the back, vaporising him before trying to aim at another, "Attacking me...I can take...attacking...people who...can’t...fight...back...is...." he said, angrily, his voice slurring before he fell on his face, out cold.

Just then, the starry smoke started swirling into a maelstrom in the sky. And enough of it lifted from the ground to reveal that they were actually the greatly extended mane and tail of an odd-looking unicorn. Rarity stared in shock as she recognised the cutie mark on the newcomer. "Twilight?" she said in shock.

The unicorn turned to look at Rarity, though 'unicorn' may not apply so well. A pair of black wings suddenly extended from her shoulders...except that they weren't merely wings like on a black Pegasus, but completely black, like they were made of shadow. However, the rest of the unicorn had the same familiar colors. Rarity and Sweetie Belle took a nervous step back as the unicorn turned to look at them before a hail of energy rounds from more echo survivors shot past her.

The unicorn turned towards the mercs and her eyes and horn glowed dark purple. The troopers took a step back nervously before the ground seemed to open under them, black holes under their feet swallowing the luckless mercs. The mercs didn't have long to scream before they disappeared completely. The ponies looked terrified as 'Twilight' or whoever that was turned her head towards them before saying with a cruel sneer "Isn’t any pony going to thank me?"

Just then, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew down. "What was all that scary noise?" asked Fluttershy. "It woke me up in the middle of a racing dream," said Dash a little sourly. Dash's voice trailed off to see some of Matt's targets laying down, as well as Matt himself, the embers of 'Eyeballs' fire block and the smoke from the aforementioned downed dropship outside town. It also fell on the dark alicorn hovering in front of the library tree.

"Nightmare Moon? But I thought she changed back to Luna," said Rainbow Dash. The alicorn turned its gaze on the pegasi and said "Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash...do you like the new me?" Fluttershy nearly stopped flapping her wings in shock. "Tw-tw-Twilight?" asked Fluttershy in a shaking voice. Rainbow dash, naturally was more to the point. "Twilight? Are you crazy? How did this happen?" she said, in shock. Behind her, the other ponies in the town were coming out of hiding.

Twilight looked at the ponies' frightened faces. They feared her, they feared her power. And for some reason, it felt really good. As a matter of fact, it was quite intoxicating. She turned to look at the horrified and frightened faces of the citizens of ponyville before at the faces of her friends...no...former friends. What need had a goddess for friends? Rarity was saying in a concerned voice. "Twilight...you have to stop this. This...power you've used...its dangerous."

"Only to those who lack the knowledge to control it, and I possess plenty of that," said Twilight, proudly. This...power you've used...its dangerous." Fluttershy said in a small voice "Please...Twilight. You have to give this magic up...if you don’t mind....sorry."

"Give it up? Why on Equestria would I want to give this up?" said Twilight, "I am all-powerful." Some of the ponies looked towards Canterlot where a dozen or so royal guard could be seen heading towards the town. Rainbow Dash glared "You're gonna give up that power if I have to make you. Its too dangerous." she said, flaring her wings to take off only for several black tendrils to tangle her up painfully. "So thats it..." said twilight darkly.

Unnoticed by the ponies, Matt was started to stir. His ribs weren't completely healed and his head felt like a blacksmith's anvil, but he was at least conscious. The other ponies were backing up in horror as Twilight descended down to ground level. "So, you're jealous...you want my power for yourself." she said, squeezing the tendrils with each harsh word. "No...not...at...all..." gasped Rainbow Dash.

While the ponies were watching in horror, Matt was working with his wrist comp. "C'mon, anything, a bazooka, a stun grenade," he muttered. The wrist comp's however replied, "No available weapons are capable of damaging target." "Smeg..." said Matt to himself as Twilight said harshly "Well...I don’t need you anymore..." Matt sighed and reached for the blaster next to him. "Ok...time out," he said, firing a few rounds. While it didn’t do anything, it did make the proto-goddess release her grip on Rainbow Dash.

Twilight's eyes blazed with fury, as well as dark magical energies. "Who dares attack me?" she demanded. The crowd had scattered again when Matt had fired, revealing Matt, barely managing to sit up, the blaster in his hand shaking. "Told you...that armour was...bad news." he said, weakly. Just then, Applejack and Pinkie Pie arrived to see Matt shooting at a dark winged version of Twilight. "What in tarnation's going on?" asked Applejack. "Is it Nightmare Night already?" asked Pinkie. The two of them didn't get much time to process the situation as Princess Celestia and her guards flew down from the sky.

Celestia looked...well, the only word to describe her mood was 'fuming'. A group of creatures had attacked her subjects and only luck had stopped deaths. Her angry look turned to shock as she saw the other alicorn...more so as recognition dawned. Twilight hissed a bit at the brightness of Celestia's coat. She felt an urge to extinguish that brightness, but common sense told her now was not the best time. Celestia looked at Twilight and said in a sad tone "Oh...twilight...what have you done?"

Twilight's mane and tail flared as she said, "I am no longer your student. Now I am the master." The two alicorns glared before both looking down when matt said in a slurred voice "Oh, shut up. WHY DOES EVIL DO CORNY LINES?" Unfortunately, Celestia was distracted by Matt enough to take her eyes of Twilight. Twilight took advantage of this as she seemed to disappear into the starry smoke of her mane and tail. "We will meet again, Celestia. And next time, I won't be so merciful."

Matt, realising what he'd just inadvertedly caused said weakly "Oh...bugger." before he passed out again. While the townsponies weren't very sure about what had just happened, they did know that there was at least one of the attackers was still alive and he had just passed out. The remaining Mane six, getting a good idea what the furious ponies had in mind for Matt, got in the way. "Y'all crazy? He ain't done a thing wrong." said Applejack.

"He's one of the attackers," said one of the ponies. "They tried to destroy our town," said another. Rarity said angrily to the pony "Don’t be so foolish. He is as much their enemy. He stopped them hurting me and my sister." "How can we be sure?" demanded the same pony. Pinkie said with her classic bounciness "Don’t be silly. He may be a bit grumpy-wumpy and look a bit strange but he’s not a bad guy." "Enough," said Celestia, "This is a matter that concerns the safety of all of Equestria. I shall see to this...stranger."

The ponies parted as Celestia walked up to the human and looked at him closely. The human looked like a young adult...barely out of his teens but there was a...air. He’d seen too much for someone his years. Applejack said desperately "He ain’t like those others..." only to stop as Celestia said softly "I have to be sure.", her horn glowing.

...

Matt opened his eyes and experienced the headache from hell and to be in a cell. He didn’t expect to be standing on a floating island in a void he’d never expected to see ever again. "Oh boy...well, I can safely say the chronicler isn’t responsible this time." he said, in a tired voice, turning to see a castle not unlike the caste he and Twilight had explored...but not ruined. "I'm pretty sure there weren't any buildings the last time I was here," said Matt when he heard some voices from the direction of said castle.

Matt automatically reached for his holstered weapon, his hand almost there before he remembered that all the other convexity visits had not given him a gun, so he was surprised to find his blaster in its usual place. "Ok...now this is weird." he said to himself in a shaken voice before heading through the gates. The scene he saw was an equestrian being backed into a corner by two Black 13 mercenaries. "Hey...what the smeg are you doing?" said Matt, angrily. The first of the mercs turned to say in a nasty voice "None of your business. This is our contract. Combine confeds have been after this guy for years."

"I only ate a few leaves!" cried the pony, "How was I supposed to know that rose bush belonged to someone important?" Matt stared. He heard that the Combine Confederation had a strict law system to the point on insanity but this was new. "You're kidding, right? You're arresting him for having a snack?" he said to the black 13 duo. "That rose bush happened to belong to a high-ranking member of the Council and he was rather distraught to have his prized roses maimed," said one of the mercs.

Matt said coldly "Then I expect you have the papers to do this." The right merc said with a smirk "Fuck papers...this guys worth 150k per merc." The other gave his companion a glare and said more reasonably "You don’t even know this guy." Matt looked at the pony and seemed to hear a gentle female voice saying faintly "Would you act to help a pony you have never met?"

Matt looked over his shoulder, looking for the speaker and asked, "What was that?" "Oh, please," said one of the mercs, "That's the oldest trick in the book." Matt looked at the pleading face of the pony before at the mercs, one saying "You coming quietly or do we have to deliver damaged goods?" as they drew their blasters. Matt rolled his eyes and said "I'm gonna regret this." before pulling his own blaster and shooting the two mercs blaster hands, disarming them. "Get lost." he said to the two mercs, who without their weapons suddenly had a loss of courage. The two mercs looked at each other before running away.

Matt turned to the pony to see it staring at him with unnerving intensity. "You have heart..." it said with worrying calm, before adding "...but do you have the courage to sacrifice everything?" before Matt's vision was blinded, changing to a burning starship corridor, a AI saying "Warning: Core breach. General Order 13 in effect. All hands, abandon ship."

"What is this, a video game?" asked Matt, already getting annoyed. A NSC crewman, bleeding from a cut on his forehead ran from a side corridor, guiding a family along. "Lynch...what the hell? Get your butt in gear. Combines torn us a new one. Help me get these civvies to the lifepods." the crewman yelled. Matt was a bit confused about his surroundings, but was quick to react to this new environment.

As he ran along, he spotted a name on the side of the corridor, the 'NSS Triton'. He stopped for a second at that. It had been a colony ship that had been ambushed by Combine raiders...the incident that had sparked the Combine/NSC war. He'd only read about it, he hadn’t even been born when it had taken place. "Dammit, Lynch...move your ass." yelled the crewman before an explosion threw him back, dead. The children in the family screamed in terror at that. Matt said desperately “Ok...lets move." It may be some in a dream, but he’d felt the heat from the blast as real as anything.

However, the children were too scared to move an inch. Matt said, soothingly "Come on...I know you're scared. Ancients know I am. However, the sooner you get to the pods, the sooner you're to safety." The children still looked terrified, but they moved forwards a little. Their mother said, a doctor judging from her white uniform, with the nametag 'Dr C' visible, the rest burnt away. "Come on, children. Sgt Lynch is here to help us."

"That's right, I'm-" started Matt before pausing. He didn't say what his name was. Was he wearing a nametag? The AI shook him from his thoughts when it said calmly "Core meltdown imminent. Detonation in 3 minutes." "Ok, no time to dawdle," said Matt, "Let's get moving." The corridors led to a row of 'lifepod' class escape shuttle hatches. A pilot was prepping the only open one. "Come on...we're leaving yesterday." the pilot yelled before noticing the number. "Sorry, man. Only room for three." he said solemnly.

"Don't tell me you didn't stock this ship with enough lifepods," said Matt. "We did, but the Combine blew up about two-fifths of them," said the pilot. Dr C said sadly "I will stay. Go with the sergeant, children." gently pushing her charges towards the shuttle. Matt said "No way you can stay here...its a death sentence." "There's not enough room for all of us," said Dr. C, "Just look after my children for me." Matt grabbed her by the shoulders and said "This place is gonna go up like the fourth of july." before saying with his usual grin "I'll go to the launch bays...maybe there's a starfury still in dock?" before pushing her into the arms of the pilot. "You're not gonna make it in time," said the pilot.

"Whats your point?" said Matt. The pilot rolled his eyes and said "Your funeral...good luck, man." before getting into the shuttle. Dr C's smile was the last thing Matt saw before the hatch shut and the light above turned red as a 'whomph' was heard, indicating the shuttle had launched. Matt sat down on the floor just as he heard the same voice from earlier say "Willing to sacrifice even your life for people you never met." Matt glared up at the ceiling "Who the smeg are you? Get out of my head." The voice didn’t seem to listen, saying "But are you willing to swallow your pride?" before his vision white’d out again.

...

Matt shook his head as he looked around his new settings. "Ok, where's the hidden camera?" he said. His hearing stopped ringing to hear a raid siren and screaming. Matt shook the vision clear to almost be knocked down in a tide of panic. Matt's eyes spun a bit as he stood back up. "Where's the fire?" he asked in a dizzy voice.

Matt looked up to see a familiar sign. "No...anywhere but here..." he said in a terrified voice. The sign said 'Welcome to Sy Yong Colony.' He looked down at himself to see he was wearing the armour of a colony special security officer, basically a SWAT officer. A scream got his attention to see a colonist pinned down by what looked like a hybrid of human and reptile...an infected. "When will these nightmare morality lessons end?" said Matt before he charged at the infected.

The infected raised its head as Matt charged and easily backhanded Matt back, before dragging its prey into a sewer grating. Matt got up again and pulled his rifle off its grip on his armour, firing as another infected group charged into view, all the time screaming "NO NO NO NO!" almost insanely. His arm ached and he looked down to see a very real slash in his arm from the backhand. At that, it occurred that it was possibly likely that he could die...especially in this hell. His armours comm beeped "This is dispatch to all units in the market area. What the fuck is going on down there? We're getting flatlines across the board."

Matt paused before activating the comm, "Uh, this is security, we've got a breach." "We read you...Alpha 6. We're getting emergency calls across the colony. We have 4 tac teams ready to move..." said the dispatch tech. "Uh, that's probably not the best option," said Matt. "We're getting dozens of emergency calls from your sector...we're gonna send those..." said dispatch only for Matt to cut him off. "No...its a meat grinder down here. Anyone you send down won't leave intact...and they definately won't leave human." he yelled.

"What do you mean 'won't leave human'," said the voice on the other end. There was swearing on the other end and the voice said, "I knew they were getting too far with their research." "Ok, kid. We're getting a hovership to you...sit tight. Helps on the way." said Dispatch, only for Matt to swear himself "NO...I don't need help...nobodies dying to help me." he said. A snarl got his attention and Matt turned to see an infected behind him. "Oh crap." Matt said, tiredly.

The infected opened its mouth, but instead of a snarl, the voice from before said, "You have failed." Matt, who was wincing, expecting a mauling, opened one eye. "Pardon?" The infected said "However...it is clear you do not reject help from pride...rather to take danger off of others." Matt paused and said, "Ok, is the part where the Matrix Agent shows up?" The infected grabbed Matt by his collar at that before saying "No...this is when you wake." before his vision whited out again.

...

When Matt woke up, he was aware he was being constricted. At first, he thought they were manacles, but he then realized they were bandages. He managed to look over at his wrist computer to see a display indicating the nanites had finished healing the injuries ages ago. Something had kept him out cold longer. "Man...when I oversleep..." Matt said to himself, before pushing himself up to a sitting position to see two white pegasi in golden armour at the doorway, their backs to him.

The soldier in him, placed after his subliminal flash training, sneered at the fact they weren't keeping an eye on him as well as listing all the ways Matt could get past them. His more sensible part told him that there were probably more guards outside. He craned his neck to look at himself. Apparently, the ponies, probably through inexperience with his species, had overdid it with the bandages.

He carefully tore the bandages away to see that he still had a few bruises, such small injuries usually being ignored by medi-nanites. "Well...could be worse." he muttered to himself just as a pink haired white pony, a red cross on her flank, came in. Matt, to his internal shame, reached for his empty holster from the surprise.

"No offence, miss..." said Matt, apologetically leaving the ending hanging The pony said soothingly "I'm nurse Redheart. You're in Ponyville urgent care clinic." Matt couldn’t help noticing the tone of voice was the sort that would be used to someone a inch away from snapping or who was on a high ledge. "Well, Nurse Redheart, thanks for the treatment, but I heal a bit faster than you think," said Matt.

Matt said as kindly as he could "Well, I'll be leaving then...those insults to my species can't have gotten far." He didn’t get far, the two pegasi on guard, blocking his way with their wings. "Excuse me." he said in a annoyed voice. "Can't let you go," said one. "Orders from the Princess," said the other. "I could move you myself." said Matt, his temper rising. He'd had the night from hell, including being attacked by 3 squads of exo gene mercs, blasted into a wall by his own gun and to top it off, had a re-enactment of his own personal nightmare.

"The Princess will want a word with you eventually," said one. "You're not going anywhere until she does," said the other. Matt sighed and walked back to the bed and muttered in splitter "I hate this planet."

...

It was an hour before the guards parted to let Celestia in. Matt had his head in his hands, deep enough in thought not to hear her come in. "You're awake." she said, her voice making Matt jump. Matt looked up at Celestia and said, "Uh, I think I have a lot of explaining to do." Celestia didn't say anything, leaving the sort of silence that begs to be filled. Matt sighed and began to say "I didn't plan to land here..." before muttering something in splitter.

"I think you might want to start with who you are and where you came from," said Celestia. Matt sighed and began to explain, starting with the disastrous mission to retrieve Aria, the destruction of Anaconda Colony before finally telling what had happened at the castle. "It was my fault. I shoulda vaporised that armour as soon as I could see straight." he said bitterly.

"You couldn't have done anything," said Celestia. "But if I had-" started Matt. "No, you really wouldn't have been able to do anything," said Celestia, "NightMare Moon's armour destroyed those other beings when they damaged it. You wouldn't have done any better." Matt thought back to how the armour had only killed echo after one of them had tried to prize the crescent moon off it. "That...thing in Twilights got a name?" he said, bitterly.

"I'm sure you've heard of how my sister was corrupted by her own envy," said Celestia. "Not really...I’ve been hiding in the forest nearby for the last week. I'm guessing I haven’t exactly got a fan club outside." said Matt in the same bitter voice. "Ages ago, Luna and I ruled over Equestria, I watched over the day, she commanded the night. But since the ponies slept during the night, she eventually grew bitter over how much more praise they had for the day than the night..." said Celestia.

...

Matt sat back and listened patiently as Celestia told how eventually her sister, Luna's bitterness grew so much that one night she refused to let the sun rise, becoming the creature known as Nightmare Moon. Celestia had been forced to banish her to the moon for a thousand years until recently she had returned and been cured by Twilight and her friends.

"Ok, so I'm assuming that Luna was as completely surprised as you were when you heard about the armour," said Matt. "She was...surprised." said Celestia sadly, remembering how upset her sister had been. Matt said "Good thing I locked that junk up good and tight. To get past my security, you'd need to be..." Celestia finished sadly "...an alicorn." "Er, I'm assuming that's what you are, right?" asked Matt.

Celestia nodded sadly. Matt turned his wrist comp on and said "Aria...lock the ship down...nothing in or out until I get there...if I get there." "I do not mean to detain you," said Celestia, "But as you can see, a great threat is upon Equestria and I need to make sure I know where you stand." "Those jerks killed an entire colony to get Aria back. They're criminals and an insult to mercenaries everywhere." said Matt, his temper rising.

"I cannot pass judgement about those other beings until I am certain," said Celestia, "But I fear Twilight might be a more imminent threat." Matt stopped at that "Yeah..." he said sadly before saying "As long as she doesn’t get the armour..." "If she puts it on, it would be almost certainly impossible to remove it," said Celestia before pausing and adding, "Or bring the real Twilight back."

Matt seemed to stare ahead at nothing. Celestia didn't say anything. When she had peered into his mind, she had seen a sad soul, barely holding together under repeated losses...one standing out in particular. Those kind of spectres did not leave a person easily. Matt finally said "There must be some way...I can get that armour anywhere you want...including the sun if needed."

"I think I could provide the latter," said Celestia, "But right now, I need you to keep it away from Twilight. And also, we need to find out how Nightmare Moon could get a hold over her in the first place." "What I don’t get is, how could this...thing exist still? She's a part of your sister after all." said Matt, thoughtfully. Matt's comp beeped and Aria's voice said, "I believe I may have an answer to that." "Aria? I told you about listening in..." began Matt, only for Aria to cut him off.

"The laws of physics, concerning the conservation of energy, state that energy cannot be truly destroyed, it can only be transformed," said Aria. "Yeah, but it also can't be created, remember?" said Matt. "Are you forgetting the magi addendum?" asked Aria, "Magi can be removed, but it is not deleted, but rather dispersed." "Crud...Nightmare moon probably made a spare...it acted like a lifeboat after Twilight and company kicked her out of Luna." said Matt.

One of the pegasus guards cleared his throat and said, "Pardon my interruption, but are you suggestion that we are dealing with the ghost of Nightmare Moon's magic?" "Why not? I've seen weirder...alot weirder." said Matt. "While Luna may have given up her attempts to overthrow daytime, it would appear the will to do so lived on separate from her," said Celestia. Matt looked at his wristcomp and said "Aria...try and come up with a game plan."

"Matt, are you certain you know what you are dealing with?" asked Celestia. "This is my fault. Its only right that I try and fix it." said Matt, getting up. "That's not what I-" started Celestia before Matt went outside. Celestia sighed and said, "He would have found out eventually, but I think I should have prepared him."

...

When Matt walked out of the clinic, he found Twilight's friends waiting for him. He also found several other ponies he didn't know and did not look happy to see him. Matt looked around, glaring at one pony who was giving him the evil eye before rolling his own eyes and walking over to the five. “Hey, girls.” He said, gloomily.

"Hi Matt," said Fluttershy, in a small voice. "Uh, we probably would have introduced you to everypony a little better than this," said Rarity. "Yeah, like throwing a welcome party like we did for Twi-" started Pinkie before she quickly covered her mouth. Matt winced to himself before he turned back and said "Don't worry about it." He turned to see several ponies behind him. "Yes?" he said, snapping.

The ponies backed up a little, apparently they weren't wanting to test Matt's temper. Matt glared at them before rubbing his forehead. "Lets go. Your princess wants me to make sure I keep my hands on something." he said.

...

The Mane Six, or Mane Five as it was at the moment, followed Matt down the trench towards his ship. "So, you're saying you found NightMare Moon's spare armor in the castle?" said Rainbow Dash, shocked. Matt sighed "Yeah." he said, tired and jumped as Rainbow Dash said angrily "Why didn’t you and Twilight say anything?" Matt turned to glare and said "It was my idea not to say anything. What do you think would have happened if we'd said 'Hey, guess what we found? An armour that melts brains’."

"You should have turned it in to Celestia," said Fluttershy. "Uh, you expect Her Highness to believe that Twilight just found the armour by herself?" said Matt, "And I was trying to stay out of the public eye, remember?" Applejack said "Can't say that you're gonna be able to stay out of sight now." Matt sighed "Yup...and I'll have to face the music when this is over. Least nobody'll get into my...MY SHIP!" said Matt as he crested the edge of the hole his ship rested in and shrieking the last part in horror.

The place looked like the aftermath of a massacre. Parts of drones, small parts in some cases, were scattered everywhere. The remaining spider drones were scuttling around and trying to pick up the mess. But Matt was more likely concerned about the damage to his ship. The ponies ran up at Matt's outburst to see the damage. "Whoa nelly. Looks like a dust devil hit this place." said Applejack in surprise at the damage. Matt was just saying 'Muh.' over and over with a distant expression of horror.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Dash. "Ooh, I think I saw the same look when a family of rabbits saw their home sat on by a bear," said Fluttershy in her timid voice, gently poking Matt. Applejack waved a hoof in front of Matt and said "Y'all alright? Its just a ship. You can fix this easily." Matt suddenly yelled "RIGHT!" making the ponies jump back before he walked down into the crater. "I've had ENOUGH...this is 3 weeks of work...3 WEEKS. I need to kill something...please let the guilty party still be here." he said apparently to himself with a manic glare on his face.

"Uh, Matt doesn't really mean 'kill', right?" asked Fluttershy. A yell of 'ARIA...WHERE'S MY SMEGGING ION CANNON?' made the others exchange nervous glances. "I’m not saying...In your state of mind, there’s no telling what you’ll shoot." said Aria's voice, "Please repeat request within proper hearing range." Matt glared "Who did this?" he snarled, not noticing the ponies coming up cautiously. Aria's voice sounded unsure "I cannot say for sure...they appear to be members of Exo-Genes Echo 3 mercenary team. I detained them in the vault area and flooded it with Dyamedes petrification gas...however it has not effected them."

Matt seemed to become rational for a little bit, "I'm not sure which is more unnerving, that we have Dyamedes petrification gas or that it didn't work." "They appear to be trying to breach the vault. The door itself is at 12%. " said Aria. "Ok, Aria, fetch me my hunting blaster, I have a lot of steam to blow off," said Matt with a dark glare.

...

The inside of the ship was even worse, the only clear way in was via the cargo bay ramp, which had been forced down. "Wow...echo's been taking their vitamins." said Matt, shining a light up the ramp. "Uh, you sure you want to go in there all by your lonesome?" asked Applejack. Matt looked up before saying "I think so" a bit nervously. The bay in view was only lit by a few flickers, probably caused by damage.

"Maybe we should come along," said Rainbow Dash. "Ok...but just don’t do anything dumb. I do not wanna see what their gear does to living things" said Matt, seriously before going slowly up the ramp, stopping at a locker just inside and pulling a laser rifle out of it. "I'd offer you girls some weapons, but I don't think you can hold them properly," said Matt. The group slowly walked into the cargo bay, Rainbow Dash stopping for a second to look at a four wheeled machine in the corner.

"Uh, I wouldn't touch that," said Matt, "It's a little temperamental." Rainbow Dash looked at the innocent looking machine. "I'm not gonna break it." she said to Matt who said casually "Ok...but it's more heavily armed then I usually am." Dash gulped a bit and walked the other way from the vehicle. Matt finally stopped at the end of a row of crates and peered round the corner. "There they are." he muttered, pointing to a human shaped figure hunched at the door leaving into the main ship, lights flashing from the doorway.

"Uh, you're not really going to hurt them, are you?" asked Fluttershy, nervously. "No...I wanna know what they want from my vault." said Matt before jumping out of cover and yelling "FREEZE, SMEGHEAD!" aiming his rifle at them. To his personal surprise the figure didn’t even jump. "Ok, I am in a very bad mood today, so no fooling around," said Matt, "Just turn around before I blast off what makes your backside your backside."

The other ponies peered out as Matt advanced on the figure before saying "Did you not hear me? After what you pulled in town, I am in a killing mood...I said FREEZE!" before hitting the guy with his rifles butt. The figure staggered before making a guttural snarling. "Dude, you need to gargle," said Matt, "Have you been shouting yourself hoarse?" The ponies watched as the echo merc at that point turned to face Matt who yelled "BLOODY HELL!" and fired, blasting the merc back through the door.

The ponies gave yelps of fright. "I can't believe you just shot him!" cried Pinkie Pie. "Girls, get back, get far away," said Matt, "This guy is nothing but bad news." Rainbow Dash said "I don’t think he’s gonna be a problem." darkly. Matt said "Oh really?" looking back as the 'dead' merc pulled himself up and practically roared. Matt gibbered "Why is it always the bloody undead?" before the merc walked into view.

The 'merc' didn't look like the ones seen in town. Mainly because his flesh was replaced with fire, but still not covering enough. "I think I know how they beat my drones...time to run." said Matt, in a shaking voice before the merc, whatever he was now, threw a blast of energy that just missed the group and blew several crates to pieces. "Ok, not so hard to believe you shot him now," said Pinkie.

The 'thing' ran past the ponies, heading for Matt who sidestepped down an alley of crates. It was clear that the mercs transformation had not boosted his brainpower...but it had made him persistent...such as dealing with the thing that had blasted him off his feet. "Ugh, that is the most repulsive creature I've ever seen," said Rarity. "Doesn't look like the friendliest thing I've ever seen either," said Rainbow Dash.

The thing the merc had been turned into snarled before making a pitching throw motion. A second later, a blast of familiar star speckled smoke blasted through another crate nearby, the ponies seeing Matt dodging another such blast from the creature. Suddenly, it was deadly clear what these things wanted from the vault. The Mane Five ran towards the vault, only to see two more monsters trying to burn their way in. Rainbow Dash said "Hey...ugly." causing the two mercs turned monsters to stop and turn slowly to fix their glowing eyes on the group. "Uh, you have a plan, right?" asked Rarity, nervously.

One of the creatures said "Oh...you lot. This time, you'll find stopping me a little more difficult." "Uh, does that voice sound familiar?" asked Fluttershy, backing up. The thing laughed coldly while its companion continued to burn its way in and said smugly. "This time you won’t be able to use your precious elements to stop me."

"Yep, that sounds like who Ah'm thinking of," said Applejack. "Uh, so what do we do?" asked Fluttershy. The merc laughed as the vault door finally fell inside and its fellow walked in, grabbing a container marked with a post-it note that said 'Never ever open...ever' before the first said "Nothing...except saying goodbye to your friend and your precious day." The two undead mercs suddenly started sinking into the ground, and yet they didn't leave a hole. "Ooh, this is bad," said Pinkie, for once not looking bouncy.

"At least they're gone." said Fluttershy faintly before a scream from the cargo bay reminded them that not all of them had left. "Uh oh." they said in unison.

...

Matt screamed as he was thrown into a supply crate. "I hate undead." he said dizzily, before shaking his head to stop his eyes spinning. The merc grabbed Matt before slamming him into a wall again and again and again before throwing him down again. "You've been eating your greens, haven’t you." said Matt in a dazed voice before being grabbed by the foot. "Erm...surrender?" tried Matt, being held at eye level before being thrown across the bay to land in front of the old combine Combat SUV he'd brought a year or two ago. "Ooooh...pretty stars." he said, with the faint smile of the heavily concussed.

The merc growled before picking Matt up. "Aw, Mom, do I have to get up now?" said Matt in the same dazed tone. The ponies ran into view to see the thing holding Matt down on the hood of his SUV and readying a fireball. "Hey, ugly." yelled Dash, causing the merc monster to turn and receive a rock bucked into his face. He practically roared and threw Matt at them.

The ponies got out of the way, but Matt ended up crashing against the wall again. "Thanks for catching me." he said dizzily, upside down against the wall. The merc monster threw his fireball, brought his fist down angrily on the vehicle when it missed and charged at the group before the SUV beeped. A voice said "Vandalism detected...commencing judicial responce in accordance with Confederation code 21-F." before a beam of energy shot out and hit the merc in the back.

The merc suddenly exploded into several bony bits. The pieces rained down with the skull ending up at the ponies' feet. The fire in the sockets quickly dimmed and went out. Matt got up, wincing as various limbs supplied their complaints at him over being a punching bag before saying "And thats why nobody touches it" "You ok there?" asked Rainbow Dash. "I'm fine, are you two fine?" said Matt, looking at Rainbow Dash unsteadily before falling over. "Back to the clinic for him," said Rarity, firmly.

"No...I'm fine." said Matt, shaking his head before saying "Tell me they didn’t get it." "Uh, they kinda did," said Pinkie, Matt swearing the party ponies hair looked a bit deflated. Matt sighed before thinking. "There's only one place they'll be taking it." he said after a bit.

...

Luna's castle

Everfree forest

The two ex-mercs emerged from the floor, holding the container they had taken from the Skyraid before slashing the seal open and reverently removing the armor, holding it up to the alicorn on the rooms podium. "Excellent," said Twilight, "Soon, the Final Twilight will fall upon Equestria and darkness shall reign over light." A small part of the true Twilight said, only visible or audible to the alicorn "My friends will stop you. You won’t be able to do this."

"You forget, you're the centerpiece of their group," replied the alicorn, "Without you, their Elements of Harmony won't be able to stop me." With that, Twilight Moon laughed as her 'weaker' side looked down in sadness before vanishing. "Now then, all we need do is wait until the moon has entered perigee," said Twilight Moon.

...

Since there were few other places that they know where Twilight Moon would have gone, Matt and the Mane Five were heading through Everfree Forest to the ruins of the castle where they had found the armour. Matt had walked ahead, deciding to not bother the five after all that had happened so far. As such, he was the only one to hear Aria on the comm. "Sir...I have finished simulations. I have come to the conclusion that we do not have the facilities for containment." she said.

"Gee, ya think?" said Matt with great sarcasm. "I have uploaded a new weapon to your wrist computer nano constructor. The IRV-200's specialized ammo will be enough to terminate the hostile lifeform before she can become a threat. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, that ‘hostile lifeform’ happens to be a friend, just a friend who's not in control at the moment," said Matt. "A 'friend' who has already killed and reanimated 12 members of echo, breached top of the line security measures and attempted to choke Miss dash to death." said Aria with frustrating logic.

"I prefer to try exorcism before execution," said Matt. Aria didn’t say anything to that before signing off. A second later, Matt's wrist comp beeped to confirm a weapon pattern had been downloaded. "I think I'll keep that as a final resort," said Matt. The castle came into view at that. It was alot different. "Wow..." said Matt faintly. The castle had been practically restored to good as new quality, no sign of any decay visible.

"How does a castle get rebuilt that quickly?" asked Matt, staring in surprise at what had been a ruin under a week ago. As if on cue, a cloud of the star speckled smoke that Twilight moon and Nightmare moon had liked surrounded one of the few broken towers. When it vanished, the tower was good as new. "Thats how." said Rarity. "Ooh, I bet she could set up a great party with that," said Pinkie Pie with a cheerful grin. "Yeah, her coronation/victory party," said Rainbow Dash, darkly

Matt said "Well, lets go crash the housewarming." readying his blaster rifle. Applejack had spotted movement at the gates and said "Ah think those guys may not want us in." pointing to where two more of the merc minions were standing, clearly on guard. "Oh, how will we get past them?" asked Fluttershy, "They're really tough."

Matt shrugged before saying to himself "It'll save lockpicking time." before opening a secondary attachment on his rifle and loading an orb. "You know what they say...when in doubt, C4...or in this case...G14." he said, firing the orb between the two guards who turned to follow it until it stuck in the doorframe. The guards didn't have much time to look before the orb exploded, with a lot of force. The blast itself removed the door, doorframe, most of the wall surrounding it and of course, the zombie mercs.

"Great, now let's go through before she covers it back up," said Matt. The group ran through the 'doorway' just in time as more smoke surrounded and repaired the damage. Matt couldn't shake the feeling he’d just charged into another problem. "Ok...now then, If I was possessed by pure evil...where would I be?" he said before seeing the ponies glares "What? Its a normal question." he said innocently.

"If I were, I would probably want to be in the place of greatest importance," said Rarity. "Like the throne room?" suggested Pinkie. "That sounds exact...what makes you think that?" said Matt, confused. Pinkie pointed a hoof at a set of open double doors where a glow was emanating. "Smart arse." muttered Matt to himself. "Now, do we have a plan for getting Twilight back?" asked Applejack. "I'm working on it." said Matt, more to himself. A memory of aria's 'solution' came up before he said "Yeah...definately working on it."

The group slowly headed up to the double doors and peered in. The throne room had gotten a small improvement in the form of a large opal in the ceiling, under which hovered the armour pilfered from the skyraids vault. The room itself was deserted. "What's with the big rock?" asked Rainbow Dash. Matt looked at his wrist comp and brought up the scanner, only for the magi scanner to go off the chart. "Thats alot of magic...who wants to bet its not friendly magic?" he said.

"I've never seen a gem that size before," said Rarity, "It must be filled to burst with magic." Matt looked up at it. "I don't like it." he said, thoughtfully, adding "Lets grab the armor and I'll 'open' the door again." "What if it's a trap?" asked Applejack. "I don’t wanna find out what happens if Twilight puts that stuff on." said Matt, walking out towards the armor.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut. "Oh smeg," said Matt, suddenly worried. The ponies had also jumped when the door shot shut. Matt said in an annoyed voice "I do not want to hear 'I told you so'." before aiming his blaster at the closed doors. "Don’t worry...this won’t hold us for long." he said cheerfully. He fired several rounds at the door, but the door didn't even get a scratch. Rainbow Dash said sarcastically "That worked well." earning a glare from Matt.

"Now there's fine craftsmanship," said Applejack, impressed. "We could use a set of doors like this for our barn." "Not now," snapped Matt, spotting the attempts to wind him up. Matt sighed before reaching for the armour, only for a flash of light to occur and for him to be thrown into a pillar. "I think I don’t have touchy feely rights." he said weakly before noticing smoke flowing into the room. "This is not good," said Fluttershy, nervously.

The smoke shot up to the throne before imploding into the shape of Twilight Moon. "Twilight...how's your day been?" said Matt, mock cheerfully. "Soon, there shall be no more day, only night," said Twilight Moon smugly. Applejack spoke up next "This is wrong, Twi. This isn’t you." she said, trying to get through whatever was pulling her friends strings. "You never wanted that much power," said Fluttershy, "All you ever wanted was to help your friends."

Twilight glared at Fluttershy "That was the old me." she said angrily. "Twilight, you don't really want to give up being friends, do you?" asked Rainbow Dash. Twilight turned her glare, full of contempt on the cyan pegasus. "A goddess doesn’t need friends." before her gaze widened and she sent a blast out, knocking Matt, who had been trying to pull the armour off the plinth, off his feet.

Matt was sent straight into a pillar, causing a few cracks in it. There was a brief pause before Matt said, "I'm okay." Twilight glared at Matt before levitating the breastplate of the armour over to her and slipping it on, the armour shifting to fit better. "Much better." she said, her eyes getting a creepy green glow. "You don't really want to wear that drab thing," said Rarity, "I mean, that thing is begging for a good polishing and it has dust coated in all the greaves. I can see the rust stains from here."

Twilight sneered and said "That may work on dragons and diamond dogs...but not on me." "You know, you could really spruce up this place," said Pinkie Pie, "If you got enough decorations, you could throw the biggest party in Equestria and be able to invite everybody." Twilight simply said "Why invite peasants?" Matt turned to see several minions phasing in. "Girls...problems..." he said nervously as Twilight said "Now what to do with you?"

"Uh, you wouldn't want to make us undead," said Matt, "I look terrible in bare bones." "I wasn’t thinking of killing you. I would prefer it if you all saw sense." said Twilight glaring at the minions who stopped in their approach. Pinkie Pie looked around before she said, "I don't see Sense. What does she look like?" "I require advisors...ponies I can trust..." began Twilight, only to wince as Matt yelled "Not if you threw in a portal home and a ham sandwich."

"Silence!" snapped Twilight Moon before knocking Matt into a wall. "Note to self: mouth off at villains only if you can avoid their blasts," groaned Matt. Twilight levitated Matt up and threw him out the doors, which opened briefly. A dozen or so minions could be seen waiting before the doors slammed. "Now that we have no interruptions..." she said before several blasts of her mist shot out, hitting her friends.

...

Rainbow Dash woke up with a headache. "Did someone drop a bowling ball on my head?" she groaned. "Hey, Dash. You ok? It's almost time for our performance." said a voice. Rainbow Dash turned to see Spitfire, one of the wonderbolts. "What? Our performance?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Yeah, everyone wants to watch all the Wonderbolts perform, right?" said Spitfire. Rainbow Dash was just staring, trying to process what Spitfire was saying, her mind stuck in her usual 'fan girl’ mode of just being spoken too by one of her lifelong heroes.

"C'mon, everyone's waiting for us," said Spitfire. Rainbow Dash shook herself from her mental state of 'ohmygoshohmygosh' to see her reflection. She was wearing a wonderbolt uniform. "What? How did I...what happened to twilight?" she said in shock. "She's out there with all your other friends," said Spitfire, "We don't want to keep them waiting, do we?" Dash just shook her head. "The last thing I remember was at Luna's old castle..." she began.

"Oh, that whole Twilight Moon was months ago," said Spitfire, "I can't believe you're still thinking on that." Rainbow shook her head. What Spitfire was saying did make sense but she also remembered how Nightmare moon had used hallucinations against them so she decided to try something. "So...we going to use the Buccaneer blaze move in todays display?" she said.

"Oh sure," said Spitfire, cheerfully "That'll definitely impress them all." Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed. "You're not Spitfire. The wonderbolts never used that move. I made that myself." she said, angrily "None of this is real." At those words, the room seemed to blur and warp.

...

Meanwhile, Applejack was rubbing her head as she was getting. "What in blue blazes hit me?" she asked. The farmer pony looked around the room she was in, confused. It definitely wasn’t the castle, posh furnishings, modern clothing...it reminded her of Carousel Boutique. Only there was a particularly noticeable apple motif about the place, with everything either being apple-shaped or have pictures of apples on them.

Applejack looked around the room,. coming to the window to see the orchard...but the farm looked wrong, resembling a mansion instead. "Ok, something's not right here," said Applejack.

Applejack looked around one last time before deciding to find out what the hay was going on. She opened the door and immediately Apple Bloom tackled her. "Big sis. You're awake. We all thought that mind leech had got ya good." she said to Applejack, happily. "What? One of those varmints was on me?" asked Applejack.

"Yeah...It got ya as you were checkin’ one of the fields." said Apple Bloom, clearly happy that her sister was ok. "Well, that makes sense, Ah guess," said Applejack. "By the way, Granny Smith wanted ta see ya," said Apple Bloom. Applejack perked up at that "Really? Ah'd best go see her." she said, her and Apple Bloom trotting out.

Applejack paused when she saw a large golden fountain with various apple-shaped spouts. "Ah don't recall a fountain being there," she said. Apple Bloom looked puzzled at that and said "We've had that fountain for years." "You'd think Ah'd remember something as gaudy and impractical as that," said Applejack. "That thar mind leech again. We had it after you got a loada new clients durin the gala." said Apple Bloom.

Applejack paused before asking, "Uh, how long was I out?" Apple Bloom said "A few months. We were all really worried." "Ok, uh, where's Granny Smith now?" asked Applejack. "In the dinin’ room." said Applebloom, leading the way down some stairs to a set of double doors, also emblazoned with the apple symbol. "You think we got a few too many apples around here?" asked Applejack.

Apple Bloom laughed at that before the doors opened and Applejack saw her grandmother, Granny Smith but with one noticeable difference. "Applejack...you're finally awake." said Granny Smith, happily and trotting over...with no zimmer frame. "Granny, you look...great," said Applejack with surprise. Granny Smith smiled warmly "So are you. If it weren’t for you, Ah'd still be usin that old walkin frame."

"Your hip's all better?" asked Applejack. "Ever since y'all raised that money to get it all fixed up." said Granny Smith. "Well, it's great to see you movin' about," said Applejack. Just then, Applejack heard laughter. She turned to see Big Macintosh walking in, a mare at either side. "Oh, Big Mac, you are positively the finest stallion in Equestria," said one. "Not to mention the handsomest," said the other. Applejack just stared in shock at this. This was definitely not normal.

"Scuse me, ladies," said Big Macintosh, "But I'd like a little time with my kin, if ya'll don't mind." After the two mare had left, Applejack finally said "Big Mac, what the hay has gotten into you? Ah'd have thought you'd have been bushed doin the applebuckin by yourself." The others laughed loudly at that before Granny Smith said, "We don't do the applebuckin' anymore. We've got several workers doin' it for us." "And these neat apple-picking machines," said Apple Bloom. "Eyup," agreed Macintosh.

Applejack's eyes narrowed at that. "The apple clan ah know wouldn't let the farm be handled by anypony but themselves..." she said, as the air seemed to ripple, whatever illusion at work starting to come undone as the orange pony questioned it. "And they certainly waste their time lazing about with all these eccentric doodads and whatnots," she added. With those final words the room seemed to melt before a flash of light blinded Applejack...

...

When Fluttershy opened her eyes, she was surprised to find herself back in her house. "Oh, was it all a dream?" she asked, looking around.

She looked around nervously at the room before seeing that everything seemed to be normal. "Well, I better check on my patients," she said, flapping her wings and flying out of bed.

She flew up to the rooms birdhouse and said happily to its occupant "Oh...you're looking much better today."
The robin turned to her and said, "Yes I am, thanks to you." Fluttershy stared in shock for a moment before shooting back with a "EEEEEE!"

A squirrel came out of its nest and asked, "Fluttershy, what's wrong?" Fluttershy shot behind the sofa and peered out shaking "Y-y-you're talking." she said ina terrified voice "You can hear us talk?" asked the squirrel. "Why not?" said the robin, "She is the best veterinarian in Equestria." Fluttershy stared and said shaking "I...I am?"

"Well of course," said the squirrel, "No one knows how to take care of animals better than you." Fluttershy looked at the animals in her home. "Erm...you've never spoken before." she said quietly "Maybe you just weren't listening," said a mouse right next to her.

Fluttershy jumped back at surprise. sure that the mouse hadn’t been there a second ago. "But is it really any surprise?" said the mouse, "After all, Fluttershy is the best nurse." "Oh yes," said a hedgehog nearby. "No one greater," said a turtle sitting on a chair. "The greatest nurse ever," said a magpie perched on a shelf. Fluttershy looked around to see more talking animals praising her.

Fluttershy, despite everything and her own shock at the last few minutes, felt a bit flattered at the praise she was getting from the unlikeliest of sources.

"Say, Fluttershy shouldn't just be our nurse," said a snow owl, "She should be our queen!" Almost immediately, all the animals started chanting, "All hail Queen Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy looked worried at that "Erm...I'm not sure thats a..." she began in her small voice before the chanting drowned it out.

Eventualy, Fluttershy couldn't take it anymore and shouted, "QUIET!" This immediately stopped the animals' chanting. "Oh, sorry," she said, "But I have something to say."

The animals stared as her as she said “I don’t want to be queen or anything like that. I'm happy just looking after you all."
"But you have to be our queen," said the robin. "No one else would be better," said the mouse.
"But I don’t want to be..." said Fluttershy, backing up a bit. The group or animals were starting to seem less friendly.
"But we want you to be," said the squirrel. "Shouldn't you want what we want?" asked the owl.

Fluttershy gulped and said "Thats not what I want?" One of the animals said "What about at the gala?" and Fluttershy looked even more worried...realising you’re in a figment of your imagination will do that." "I admit that I don't like be avoided," said Fluttershy, "But too much attention is as bad as not enough attention."

The room seemed to be rippling at that. "But you do want to be loved." said the animals, all at once this time. "Yes I do," said Fluttershy, "But I think the love of my real friends is more important."

At that, white shining cracks appeared in the room before Fluttershy was forced to cover her eyes as the light turned blinding…

The girls may have been struggling with their morals, but Matt was definitely not. His opinion of 'if it's trying to kill me, I have to kill it back' was proving to be completely right.

These minions were almost human in their appearance compared to the one from the ship, moving quickly to cover and still using their old firearms. This didn’t mean fighting them was easier, quite the opposite in fact. "JUST DIE ALREADY!" screamed Matt from his cover as one of the minions soaked up several rounds without any effect.

The minions just fired back at Matt, perforating the area around him. "If there's anything worse than evil minions, its evil minions who don't provide me any material for witty comebacks," said Matt to himself.

He peered around his cover to try and find anything he could use. "Why can’t life be more like video games and provide explosive barrels?" he muttered before looking up and grinning. An old chandelier, covered in rust from age was handing just above the minions. Matts eyes followed the chain securing it to the pillar next to him. "That works too." he said before shooting the chain.

The chain broke and the chandelier started falling. The minions looked up just before it came crashing down at them. Matt looked over his cover to see the carnage, but one minion had completely avoided by standing in the middle where the open area of the chandelier was. "Strange, that normally works," said Matt.

...

Pinkie looked around as the world blurred into another vision for the 5th time in as many minutes. "This is great...who are you gonna be this time?" she said happily to the blur. Eventually, it stopped blurring and formed into her old home at the rock farm. Pinkie looked around before saying "You did this already."

The world shredded apart and a boiling cloud of darkness appeared in front of her. "Oh for darkness' sake!" snapped a voice within the cloud, "What does it take to tempt you?" "Well...I do like to party..." began Pinkie before the same voice interrupted her "THATS IT.,.YOU CAN GO...JUST GO AWAY!!!" Pinkie Pie frowned and asked, "What? No party?" "NO...Just go away...what is wrong with your brain?" snapped the cloud before the world flashed...

...

Rarity looked around at her new surroundings, which appeared to be a formal dance like the Grand Galloping Gala. She looked around, a little confused, given her last memory had been of her and the others at Luna's old castle in everfree. However, such thoughts left via the window when she heard one of the guards call "Announcing, Lady Rarity of Ponyville."

"Ooh, I've always wanted to be announced," said Rarity as she trotted forward. She was about to walk forward when a familier, but unwelcome voice from memory said "Shall we?" Rarity turned around to see a very handsome white unicorn stallion standing there. "You!" she snapped. It was indeed Prince Blueblood, the unicorn who had more or less ruined the gala for Rarity with his selfish attitude. At this point however, he seemed more surprised. "M'lady? What is wrong?" he said, sounding genuinely surprised at her outburst.

"You think that I would want to be within 6 feet of you after what happened?" snapped Rarity. Prince Blueblood now looked genuinely surprised "Are you alright, my dear?" he said sounding concerned. "My dear? I doubt you've ever said that to anyone, except your own reflection," said Rarity. "My dear? Did you have that silly dream again?" said Blueblood, starting to sound relieved. "And what sily dream would that be?" asked Rarity. "The one where the gala was some ind of disaster." said Blueblood.

"But it was, Applejack's cake got all over my dress...when you pushed me into the way to save your sorry hide from being soiled," said Rarity, her tone becoming less unpleasant. Blueblood laughed pleasantly "Thats the exact same dream you’ve been having." "That wasn't a dream, I know it was real," said Rarity.

"The doctors say its caused by stress. Now then, dear, come and mingle." said Blueblood pleasently. "I wouldn't go in there with you if you were the last stallion in Equestria," said Rarity. "Rarity, please...what is wrong with you?" said Blueblood in a hurt tone of voice. "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with this whole picture?" snapped Rarity, "Anyone who knows Prince Blueblood for even one minute would know that this isn't even close to what he's really like." Blueblood took a step back from the sheer fury, managing to say 'How dare..." before Rarity continued.

"And another thing, I've been meaning to give you a piece of my mind ever since that awful Gala. Using me as a shield to avoid getting dirty is one thing, but you have been an intolerable jerk that entire night! Have you ever even heard of the term 'chivalry'?" she yelled, finally venting all the fury that was built up on that night.

Blueblood just stared before the room seemed to ripple like water in front of Rarity as she continued "A true gentleman would have opened a door for a lady instead of making her, or place his coat over a puddle instead of making her drape a part of her dress over. Not to mention he wouldn't have eaten both plates. I don't think you even bothered to learn my name!" As soon as her hoof made contact, the world seemed to flare...

...

Twilight Moon glared as each of her spells seemed to flicker as the minds being targeted spotted the illusions. "Why isn’t this working?" she said before hearing a hissing and looking up to see the double doors explode open, destroying the minions that had been on guard. When the dust and smoked cleared, Matt stood there. "Ok, the only reason that's keeping me from blasting you to Kingdom Come is because you're in my friend's body," said Matt, "So do me a favor and evict yourself so I can blast you to Kingdom Come."

Matt looked around to see the others floating in energy orbs, though Pinkies was flickering alot. "What the smeg?" he said before the orbs glowed and shattered. Twilight Moon glared at Matt and said, "I have not yet begun to fight." "Yeah...about your minions...they're suddenly very flat." said Matt, taunting. "I still have more to use," said Twilight Moon before her horn started to glow. Matt looked before saying “I think your batteries need chan...” before he was bucked in the side by Applejack.

Matt was knocked into a wall before he said reproachfully, "Ow, what was that for?" "Ah...Ah can’t control mahself...Look out." said Applejack, effort clear in her voice before she yelled out her warning. Matt looked up to see Rainbow Dash coming in to knock him down. "What the?" Matt said, rolling to avoid it as Twilight Moon laughed, walking towards the now glowing remaining armour sections. Matt glared at her and said, "Mind control? Really? That is low even for you." "Oh, it's not their minds, I'm controlling, just their bodies," said Twilight Moon.

Matt managed to dodge another swoop from Rainbow and was hit in the side by Fluttershy who immediately squeaked "Oh...I'm so sorry...I didn’t mean to...Oh...sorry." apologising again as she scored a second hit. "Thats...fine." wheezed Matt. Rarity was struggling to keep her hooves still, but she still found herself charging towards Matt. "This is going to hurt," she said as she slammed into Matt.

Matt was sent sprawling and rolling across the ground to hit the far wall. He opened his eyes slowly, expecting to have a brand new hole in his chest, only to see he was fine. "Oh thank god for stab-proof armour." he said, relieved before hearing a noise and being forced to dodge a levitated rock. "I'm sorry, I really don't want to be doing this," said Rarity.

"I...can see that." said Matt, weakly looking at the boulder embedded in the wall. Twilight Moon however was getting ready to seal her new host by putting the last part of the armor, the helmet on. She stopped briefly to watch Matt dodging the various attacks. "Rather spry for a two-legger," she said, "But it'll not matter very soon." Matt obviously heard cause he yelled out "Bite me, you parasite."

"Oh well, time to assume my godhood," said Twilight Moon. She was about to levitate the armor on when Pinkies face popped into view. "Godhood? That sounds like fun...but aren't you a girl...so it should be goddess-hood, right?" she said hyperactively. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be attacking the human.” Said Twilight Moon, angrily. "Why would I wanna attack him, silly?" said Pinkie, cheerfully. "Because I'm ordering you to," said Twilight Moon, her horn glowing. Pinkie looked expectant before saying "What happens now?"

"What, but how? My magic can't be resisted by mere mortals, let alone a pony with no magical abilities at all," said Twilight Moon. "Silly pony. Why would I wanna beat up Matt?" said Pinkie with a grin, only to be levitated up and shot into Matt. "Ow...oh...hi, Pinkie." said Matt weakly. "Hi Matt, are we playing a new game?" asked Pinkie Pie. Matt looked up "Yeah...I believe its called death tag...and we're it." he said sarcastically.

"Four against two doesn't sound very fair," said Pinkie Pie, who Matt realised didnlt know and probably had never even heard of the word ‘sarcasm’. Matt sighed and said, "Pinkie, here's a little lesson for you: evil doesn't play fair. That's why it's considered bad." Pinkie said in a worryingly devious voice “Nopony can beat me at tag." Matt inched away “Thats...good?" he said uncertain and slightly worried by Pinkies expression. "Just watch and learn," said Pinkie.

Twilight's horn flared and the remaining four ponies shot at Pinkie and Matt who went opposite directions. Matt looked over his shoulder to see Pinkie effortlessly dodge Fluttershy and Applejacks lunges. Matt saw Rarity and Rainbow Dash coming at him as well. "Sorry about this, girls," he said before grabbing the sides of their heads and smacking them together.

Matt winced as the two flopped down out cold. "I'm gonna deserve the next rock." he said to himself before Aria's voice came over the comm. "Captain?" Matt was backing up from Rarity and Rainbow, as it turned out whatever was controlling them did not need consciousness judging from the way that their unconscious bodies had gotten up. "NOT NOW!" he yelled.

"If I may, I think I've observed a simple means to eliminate this dilemma," said Aria. "Really? And what is that?" he said, sarcastically while seeing Twilight levitating the helmet up. "The source of magi energy is not the armour, it's merely a receiver," said Aria, "The power is actually coming from a particularly large crystal that's nearby."

Matt looked up to see the giant crystal in the roof above the armor. "That? Its huge." he said before having to move to avoid Rarity. "Yes it is," said Aria, "One has to wonder what geological activity took place to produce a crystal that size. I mean, can you imagine the sheer mass of the deposits"

"Can I just blast the thing back into the bloody fifth dimension?" snapped Matt, barely avoiding Dash's attack. "Well, that should work," said Aria, "Of course, it may be simpler to use a sonic vibration to weaken..." "Yeah, sure, whatever," said Matt before pointing his blaster up and firing at the crystal.

The blasts seemed to dent the crystal but it was clear Matt needed more firepower. Before he could think of anything, what felt like a freight transport hit him in the side and across the room. Twilight extinguished her horn from the telekinesis blast and levitated the last part on before heading to where Matt was slumped in the open doorway.

"Clever of you to deduce the source of my powers," said Twilight Moon, "But it makes no difference. You cannot stop me, nothing can. The sun shall never rise again and Equestria will be dark forever. And I shall reign supreme over all. That only leaves the question of what to do with you?" "Well...first...make sure..." began Matt, dazed. Twilight Moon leaned in and said sarcastically "Yes?" only for Matt to roll over to reveal he had one of the minions energy blasters from earlier "Make sure I don't land near a gun." he finished before firing a shot that skimmed past the wide eyed Twilight Moons head.

The blast shot up and hit the crystal, causing a series of cracks to radiate all over it and energy to leak through them. Twilight Moon looked at it in horror before turning back to glare at Matt. "Have a nice day." taunted Matt before passing out as his medi-nanites went back to work. The crystal itself let out a shrieking noise before exploding, a ring of energy shooting out.

Suddenly, Twilight Moon felt like she being torn apart from the inside out. The pain slowly diminished when a thick cloud of darkness exited through her mouth. The ponies watched as the cloud seemed to spread out, escaping through the cracks, Rainbow Dash and Rarity waking up from matt's earlier attempt to stop them trying to kill him. Their watching was drawn from the thud of Twilight, now back to normal, collapsing out cold...oh and the rumbling as the dark magic holding the renovations up vanished as well.

"Uh, I think we need ta be moseying on along," said Applejack. The ponies ran over to Matt and Twilight and started trying to drag them, but with the roof literally cracking. "Guys, we gotta move it, faster," said Rainbow Dash. "Matt's too heavy," said Rarity. "Maybe he should try Weight Watchers," said Pinkie Pie, cheerfully. "It's a little too late for that," said Applejack. "I hear it's never too late if you really stick with the program," said Pinkie Pie. The group looked up at a sickening crack as a support pillar leaned towards them...and everything froze.

...

Mr Black walked, seemingly out of nowhere and looked at the vision in front of him before sighing and walking over to Matts frozen form. "You do make my job difficult...any other universe and I’d let that pillar crush you." he said. Then Mr. Black looked around and said, "Now, let's see, is there any way to save the lot of you and make it look like it was just pure luck?"

He looked around the room, walked around the collapsing pillar and at other places before shaking his head. "Ah well....I tried," he said before clicking his fingers, the group teleporting away.

...

The girls' screams continued where they had left off literally a second ago, however, it was no longer accompanied by the sound of collapsing castle in the same way. Rainbow Dash was the first to speak. "Ok...what the hay just happened?" Rarity looked backwards towards the re-ruined castle and asked, "Weren't we just in there a second ago?"

Fluttershy looked at Twilight and Matt. "We need to get them back to Ponyville quickly." she said urgently. "Uh, Matt ain't really welcome there, remember?" said Applejack. "He's hurt badly. Nopony would be so heartless especially after how he helped to rescue twilight." said Fluttershy, sounding shocked at the thought that Matt might be left to fend for himself.

"Maybe we should take him to the farm, it's less public there," said Applejack. "He needs a doctor." said Fluttershy, firmly. "I think Fluttershy's right," said Pinkie, "He does look pretty bad."

...

Matt opened his eyes to see a familiar roof. "Oh...not again." he said before raising his head to see the same winged unicorn from last time. "I'd get up...but I think my ribs are on fire." he said weakly, laying back. "You may rest," said Princess Celestia, "You have had a most trying experience." "I've had worse..." said Matt, more or less to himself before adding "How's Twilight?"

"Still resting," said Celestia, "My sister's former essence fed on much of her energy." "Good riddance to that...thing." said Matt, a little darkly before saying "So....what happens to me now?" "That is a good question," said Celestia, "This world is not your home, is it?" "No...my homes a long way away...too far away." said Matt, seemingly fascinated by the roof in the way he continued to look at it.

"I couldn;t leave if I wanted...My ships too heavily damaged for now...and the people who attacked town...their ships up there somewhere...and its alot bigger." He added. Celesita blinked and said, "I see, but it sounds like you could use a place to stay for a while." Matt made a pained chuckle "Hah...I doubt the locals will like me as a neighbour." he said. "I can arrange for a secluded home, somewhere you can have the privacy you need," said Celestia.

"I won’t take anything for free...thats not me...but I can make sure that Darius and his men leave you alone..." said Matt, adding "I'm not going to let other people get hurt because of me...not anymore." "I understand," said Celestia, "It is very noble of you to be so concerned for others, but you might want to consider about how hurt you are yourself." Matt said "I'll...take it under advisement. Thank you."

"Don't worry, we shall have you back on your hooves in no time," said Celestia. "Feet...back on my feet." said Matt, chuckling again. "Oh, right," said Celestia, suddenly looking embarrassed and worried. Her tone caused Matt to shoot upright and pull the covers off his feet to see they were still in their boots. He could have sworn he heard the princess chuckling to herself as she left.

Matt immediately felt his vertebrate crying out in protest and lied back down. "Ok, just take it easy, rest and recover," he said to himself.

...

<Log activated>

Well...so much for hiding...thanks to Darius and his goon squad, I'm currently the bane of the town and to top it off, I had to prevent a doomsday today. And not from Darius, but from Twilight of all people. But you can't blame someone for being the unwilling host of darkness personified.

However, you can blame the stupid merc who's had enough tangles with this sorta magic to spot bad mojo a mile off. I shoulda spotted it when it took out that squad and had it vaporised in the ships incinerator. That won’t happen again. At least the local boss is friendly...

...

Everfree Forest

Darius looked out at the teams sweeping the ruins. The losses that Echo had suffered meant that it had taken nearly 36 hours for Darius to prepare a second team only for them to arrive too late. "Have you slackers found anything yet?" snapped Darius, "I don't want to have to try one of those locals for a meal."

"The only thing we found was some kinda helmet...only thing with thst energy residue left. We found some other bits...but they're torn apart." said one of the troopers, nodding over to where two others in combat hazmats were putting an armoured helmet into a container.

Darius glanced at the helmet, which looked like it was made for one of those unicorns. "Well, keep it storage, that thing gives me the creeps," he said. "Ok...wheels up in 5. I want us out of here before sunrise." he yelled, he and his men heading to the dropship. A few of the troopers had noticed the crescent moon on the front of the helmet. Unfortunately none of them knew who Nightmare Moon was...