The Spiral Saga: Operation Lazarus

by Kleptoshark

Chapter 3

Jetzul woke up with a throbbing headache, as would be expected after being kicked and trampled by two divisions of guards after throwing a motor-propelled sawblade at their sovereigns. He was still unable to fathom how the spinning weapon had frozen in midair as it sailed towards them. Obviously they had promptly confiscated his extra sawblades from his belt after they had beaten him senseless.

Jetzul slowly regained his footing, and assessed his surroundings. The armoured quadrupeds who had half-trampled him were standing in a circle around him, in front of him were two more regal-appearing creatures, with coats of sun-silver white and shadowsteel black.

He carelessly spat some blood on the ground, before addressing the two creatures.

“Why have you spared me?” Jetzul went straight to the point; he was never one to stand on ceremony.

The bright-coated creature straightened up, “A number of my subjects have gone missing,” she began, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

Jetzul waved his hand dismissively, “Yes, that would probably be us,” he wheezed slightly from bruises on his neck, “so what do you want to know?”

At this, the dark-coloured one spoke up, “We must know how you have arrived here, why you have done so, and how we can arrange for the return of our subjects.”

Jetzul chuckled, “I will answer your questions as best I can, but you may not like what you hear.” He inhaled unevenly before continuing. The Ghostmane sergeant gladly, almost boastfully explained how his brilliant species, the Gremlins, had created a dimensional rift that allowed them to travel between their world and this one. However he remained tight-lipped on the matter of why exactly they arrived, other than they wanted information on the nature of this dimension, and capturing sentient life would be an easier way of learning the lay of the land.

“Now tell us: how do we get them back?” The white creature, who introduced herself as ‘Celestia’, leaned in, an intense glare in her eye.

An amused, yet crestfallen look crossed Jetzul’s face, who had been bracing himself for this question.

“I’m afraid that is impossible.” He sighed before continuing, “I assume you wouldn't know what a power generator is?” he cocked an eyebrow at them. “It wasn’t like we just stepped through a hole in the wall, the amount of energy needed is probably well beyond your means. Unless my superior decides to send more of my kind through, in which I highly doubt you’ll be in a position to negotiate with whoever he sends through. Your subjects are as stranded in my dimension as I am in yours.”

Jetzul knew what was coming next. All leaders tended to react the same way to bad news: throwing a fit and having someone killed. The Gremlin sergeant resolved that he would not be dragged off, crying and moaning; he would go forth, and confront his death with honour. He prostrated himself before the princesses.

“Execute me: My blood will satiate the injuries caused to you and your domain.”

A good minute passed in silence before the Gremlin sergeant lifted his head from the ground, to find the princesses giving him a very shocked expression.

“We… don’t…” Luna began decisively, completely fazed by the unorthodox request.

“We do not perform executions,” Celestia rejoined, “it isn’t my place to make claims about your own society, but your blood certainly won’t solve anything.”

“Then are you going to just let me go?” Jetzul cocked an eyebrow sarcastically.

“Of course not,” said Luna, regaining her composure, “we shall have you held for further questioning.”

Jetzul rolled his eyes sarcastically as the guards clamped a pair of shackles onto his wrists.

“Oh good,” he drawled, “I can’t wait for that.”

~~~

As the Equestrians stranded on Cradle were escorted down the catwalks, they couldn’t help but gaze in awe of their surroundings. It seemed as if they were trapped in one giant clockwork watch, looking up, they could see miles and miles of giant, slowly turning gears perfectly interlocked with each other. Beyond that the faintest shards of sunlight filtered through the maze of gears to strike random locations around the facility. Looking around them yielded an equally astounding view. All around them was machinery of all purposes, belching exhaust and making various whirring and clicking noises. On catwalks below and above them patrols of soldiers marched along, some of which were comprised entirely of androids. Several of the more solid catwalks were lined with sandbags and barbed wire, many of which were guarded by curious bipedal machines, twitching as engine pipes on their backs coughed out plumes of exhaust.

Their impromptu tour ended in front of a nine-foot ornate steel double door, where another gremlin was waiting to meet them. Rainbow Dash noted with a smirk that this was the same gremlin she had beaten up prior to being captured. His mask was hanging at his belt, leaving his face bare to show that his cheek, eyebrow, and lip were plastered with adhesive bandages, in addition, a larger bandage covered his broken nose, a small trickle of blood seeping through the dressing. The Gremlin sneered in response to her snide look, stepping forward to address the group as a whole.

“Listen up!” He growled, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “You are about to enter the presence of Grand Master Herex, The Whispering Venom, you will not speak unless spoken to, you will answer all questions quickly and concisely, and you will not do anything stupid, or rash, understand?! Any questions before we proceed?” He loomed over the group, daring them to speak up. Rainbow Dash raised a hoof.

“Yeah, I got a question: is your nose feelin’ better yet?” She asked with a grin.

Rejyk said nothing, but glowered at her angrily, silently containing his rage.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’?” Dash knew she was pushing her luck, but she was enjoying herself too much.

The Ghostmane officer remained silent, turning around to push open the steel doors in front of them.

Inside the double doors an equally astonishing vista awaited the Equestrians. They were in a room with a ceiling high enough to rival the Canterlot Palace. Lining the walls were monitors and screens of all sizes, displaying everything from security feeds to status reports. Rejyk closed the doors behind the group as they entered, which caused an almost eerie silence to overtake the room as the cacophony from outside was suddenly muffled, leaving the only noise being the gentle hum of the monitors and the distant, titanic rumbles of the gears outside. Sitting at the end of the room was a gremlin wearing a large black scarf, lounging in a throne. He stood up as the group was ushered towards him, and threw his arms wide in a welcoming gesture.

“Salutations,” he purred, “first off, let me apologize for the way you have been treated here, I’m afraid I was not… explicit enough in my orders.” He gave a scathing look at Rejyk, who recoiled as if struck.

“I certainly hope no lasting damage has been done.” The Gremlin leader cooed apologetically.

The attention in the room seemed to shift to Rainbow Dash’s bandaged flank.

“I’ll live.” she assured them casually.

The Gremlin gave a nod of satisfaction before continuing, “As you have been no doubt informed, I am Herex.” He bowed low to the assembled creatures before him, “However, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, for I do not know your names.”

Herex retained his amiable, almost friendly expression as he listened to the group recite their names, although he wrinkled his nose slightly at hearing ‘Rainbow Dash’ and ‘Twilight Sparkle’. He began pacing around the Equestrians in circles with a toothy smile on his face, much akin to a fox examining a henhouse. His long scarf dragged along the ground behind him, giving him the impression of wearing a cape or cloak.

“You must let us go,” Rarity demanded, drawing herself up to her full height and regally tilting her nose, “you have no right to keep us here.”

Herex gave a low, amused chuckle.

“I’m fairly certain you’re in no position to negotiate,” he said. Herex’s tone was still amiable, but his statement was quite obviously a threat, “but perhaps we can come an agreement, hmm?” he paused, before continuing, “What I want is information, provide me this, and I may give… consideration to your release.”

~~~

Hahn had finished reworking his PDA into a short-range radio. He did regret brushing off the quadrupeds when they approached him, but he assumed that there would be time for a proper introduction when the threat of death wasn’t looming over him. He pressed the radio transmitter against the side of his head, letting the antennae on his helmet amplify nearby signals.

I probably look like a complete idiot doing this. Hahn thought bitterly. He tucked the PDA in between his head and his shoulder, and leaned into a corner of the cell, obscuring the rewired radio from being seen from outside the cell. He was just about to speak an SOS message into the receiver when gremlin radio chatter sparked at him from the transponder. He realized with a start that he forgot to encrypt his signal to siphon out gremlin transmissions. He took a moment to decide that he would wait a moment, to glean any knowledge about the gremlins’ plans before making the appropriate adjustments. He was intrigued by what he heard; apparently those odd creatures he had been sharing a cell with were inter-dimensional travellers. This was intriguing to the technician, but his real interest was focused on some sort of new, destructive technology the gremlins were working on…

~~~

Jetzul feigned sleep in his cell aboard a prisoner car bound for ‘Canterlot’. He had absolutely no idea what the ‘ponies’ had in mind for him, and he was definitely not going to stick around to find out. He had spent the first night of the train ride carefully analyzing the guards’ schedule. The guards interchanged between the gold-plated ones and the bat-winged guards. Jetzul’s plan was to play on the mutual distrust between the two, and create enough of an opportunity for him to escape. He ran his hand through the coarse material of his scarf: It was made from miracloth fabric; tough enough to easily support his weight, yet soft and supple. The gremlin had even managed to steal a fork that he could use to pick the lock on the cell; the fools had actually believed him when he claimed that gremlins can digest metal, and that he had eaten the piece of silverware in a misunderstanding. The Ghostmane sergeant heard the sound of footsteps dying away, the guards having finished their shift, and quickly sprang into action.

In the guard’s car, a Royal Guard unicorn by the name of Quintus felt himself being shaken awake.

“Come on, it’s our shift.” Another Royal Guard was pushing him awake.

Quintus groggily dragged himself out of his cot, yawning as he donned his golden armour. He and his colleague sleepily shuffled over to the car where the prisoner was being kept. Upon entering, the Royal Guard was surprised that the gremlin prisoner didn’t have some snarky comment for them; no matter what time of day or night it was, the next shift would always be greeted by some sort of moan from the ungrateful whelp, complaining about service quality and acting as if he owned the place.

Maybe he finally learned his lesson… thought the guard, wearily shuffling by the cell. He peeked in to see what the prisoner was doing.

Oh, just hanging around… mused Quintus, nothing wrong with tha-

The guard immediately performed a double-take. The prisoner was hanging from the rafters, his scarf had been tied into a noose, and he swung slightly with the movement of the train car. The guardpony’s sleepiness left him immediately, and he ordered his colleague to open the cell while using his magic to cut the impromptu noose. After what felt like an eternity the Guard finally got the cell door opened, and they both rushed in.

“What happened?”

The gremlin prisoner coughed and weakly pointed toward the door they had entered from, allowing their imaginations to fill in the gaps.

“The Lunar Guards…” Quintus hissed under his breath, “Come on,” He gestured for his colleague to follow him out of the cell, “I’m going to have a discussion with those Lunar thugs about proper prisoner treatment.”

The Royal Guards locked the cell door behind them, and left for the guards’ car. As soon as Jetzul heard the raised voices from the next car over, he jumped to his feet, laughing.

Incompetents! The gremlin sergeant thought to himself, That’s the oldest trick in the book! And they actually fell for it!

Using his stolen eating utensil, Jetzul made quick work of the padlock, threw open the door, and hurled himself out the window opposite his cell. Years of stealth training allowed Jetzul to roll harmlessly and silently across the ground, and he bounded off into the night, still chuckling.

~~~

Hahn was about to make the final adjustments to his short-range radio when he heard the metallic echo from footsteps down the hallway. He quickly hid his miniature escape plan under his tabard, and slumped back into his corner of the cell, his arms crossed over his chest. As the footsteps grew closer he could also hear voices of protest mixed in. He didn’t pay much attention to what words were being wasted, but by the shrill accent of the voice he judged that it belonged to the snowy white creature with the purple mane. Hahn remained still as a pair of guards forced the group back inside of the cell, by this point the purple quadruped was almost pleading for the white creature to show discretion.

“Please Rarity, let it go, there’s nothing we can do.”

“No, I won’t be quiet!” the creature named ‘Rarity’ retorted, “They have no right to keep us here-“

The Gremlin jailer leaned in and gripped the cell bars with a paw, “Shut up, or I’ll-“

“-You’ll what, share your fleas with us?” Hahn asked bitterly, “Oh, I am absolutely quaking with fear.”

The Jailer’s gaze turned to Hahn with a scowl, yet his expression quickly turned to a sadistic smile.

“You,” he pointed at Hahn with a declarative finger, “the Schemers are going to torture you when they're done picking at your pitiful carcass, I’ll-"

“-pull out my arms, and stick them back down my throat, yes?” Hahn cut off the jailer again, nonchalantly examining his fingernails, “Thank you for informing me, I wasn’t already completely aware of your intentions. And don’t worry, I do actually find your input scintillating and useful.”

The gremlin snarled, and pulled out his stun bat, and was stopped by one of the other guards putting a firm hand on his shoulder. The angry jailer let out another snarl before sheathing his stun bat again. He pointed at Hahn and pulled his thumb across his throat in a threatening gesture before stalking off down the corridor.

Hahn paused for just a moment, and then removed the jerry-rigged radio from his tabard, making the final adjustments. The purple quadruped paced back and forth through the cell, obviously deep in thought.

“Come on, girls, think!” she encouraged them, “We can get out of here, if we just put our heads together!”

Spike glanced over to Hahn.

“Ask him,” he suggested, “I’m sure he wants out of here just as much as we do.”

“Yes,” Rarity concurred, “I’m sure he’s been deep in thought planning on how to get us out of here.” Her voice had a passive-aggressive tone to it, and she said it just loud enough for him to notice.

Hahn cocked his head at them, “Way ahead of you. In fact, while you were busy having tea with our gracious host…” he waved his rewired PDA in the air.

The group merely gave him a blank expression. Hahn smacked an armoured gauntlet against the front of his helmet, and gave a deep sigh. He decided that it might help to humour them.

“This,” he started, “is a rewired Yolek mk.8 Personal Organization Device, standard issue. As of the current moment I have rewired it to be a two-way, short-wave, encrypted communication relay.” He gave a condescending huff as their blank expressions continued, “And… I can use it to get us out of here. Now if you could just stop with the incessant stream of questions, I can start using it.”

Hahn spent a moment taking in their slightly offended expressions, waiting to see if they were capable of completing such a simple request. He gave another huff.

“Thank you.” He adjusted a dial on the handheld, and held it up to his face. “This is ‘Vox Rationis’, broadcasting on an encrypted channel, any Knights within the vicinity, please respond.”

He clicked a button on the PDA and held it against the right side of his head. Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Now wha-?”

“Shhh!” Hahn pressed a finger to where his mouth would be. The cyan pegasus’s complied, but with thinning patience. Within a moment a static noise could be heard, and a voice crackled in over a small amount of static.

“This is recon knight ‘Hauberk’, responding to a distress call, is that you, Hahn?” the voice apparently knew him.

“Of course-” Hahn started.

“Ha! I’d recognise that stuck-up tone anywhere!” the voice stated victoriously, the Equestrians traded a few smug looks at hearing this, “Alright, I’ve triangulated your frequency, sit tight. I’ll be right with you. ‘Hauberk’, over and out.” There was a small burst of static, and then the radio frequency turned to a small, continuous blipping noise.

For a moment, Hahn felt the urge to smack the radio against the wall, but he refrained.

“See? I told you it would work.” He turned off the volume on the radio to muffle the blipping, and stored it safely in one of his utility pouches.

Spike shifted nervously, “So, how long until your friend shows up?”

Hahn’s smug demeanour wilted somewhat at this question. “Well, most response forces would take about eight to ten minutes… Rhendon is a loose cannon, though; I’d give him twenty minutes.” He paused for a moment, “…and that’s being generous.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “Well buck that, then.” She scoffed, “Can’t we just-?”

“-Break open the lock?” Hahn chided, “I’ve tried that.” He assured them, “The cell is sealed by a magnetized combination pad. It’ll only break from an elemental shock surge.”

“Elemen-?” Spike started.

“Meaning a photonic blast, such as an arcane power manipulation.”

“Arcane?” Twilight asked, “You mean like magic and-?”

“What? No. I’m talking about a basic psychic energy manipulation,” Hahn scoffed, “let’s try to say on the same page, here.”

Twilight regarded the knight for a moment.

“So basically magic-?”

Hahn performed another face-palm.

“Fine, if you want to call it something out of a child’s book, then yes, ‘magic’.” Hahn uttered.

A sudden hush came over the room, and Hahn felt everyone in the cell staring at him. He sighed, “What now?”

Twilight merely walked over to the cell bars, a pensive look on her face, “So you’re saying that if I managed to send an electric-?”

Hahn cut her off, again, “Well to answer the first part of the question, not ‘you’ specifically, because that’s impossible.” he paused, “However, theoretically, yes, an electrical surge will be sufficient to break open the lock.”

A smug grin crossed Spike’s face. “Go on, Twi,” he urged her, “show him how it’s done.”

Twilight looked back at the Spiral Knight, making sure she had his attention, he regarded her coolly, his head cocked slightly to one side. She flashed him a smile, turned back to the cell bars, and began concentrating. A magenta aura appeared around her horn, and a small rain cloud began manifesting next to the lock. Hahn stood to his feet, and walked over to the bars, a rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Twilight poured magical energy into the storm cloud, and small arcs of electricity cascaded from it. She poured another effort of magical energy into the cloud, and a lightning bolt arced forth from the cloud, into the lock, making a satisfying sizzling noise as the circuits inside of the lock were promptly fried. The lock fell to the ground with a clattering noise.

Twilight gave a satisfied “Hah” and turned back to Hahn with a smug expression. Her grin was completely lost on Hahn, who was staring at the cloud, utterly stunned. For once, he was struck speechless. Rarity pushed open the cell door and trotted out.

“Well, enough of that dreariness,” the white unicorn huffed, “come along, girls!”

“Yeah, let’s blow this popsicle stand!” cheered Rainbow Dash, darting out of the cell.

Twilight and Spike exited, and Twilight finally turned back to Hahn, “Well?” she asked, mimicking his matter-of-fact tone, “Are you coming or not?”

“Y-yes, of course.” Hahn muttered, tentatively stepping out of the cell.

Spike tugged on Twilight’s tail insistently. “Umm, Twilight?” Twilight turned to see what Spike was going on about.

“What is it-? Oh.”

At the end of the hallway were two gremlin jailers, to say that their slack-jawed expression could be described as ‘completely flabbergasted’ would have been a gross understatement. The group of escapees and the two guards stared at each other for at least a minute. One of the guards was holding a mug of rationed caffeine, after a time of shocked staring the mug slipped out of his hand and clattered on the iron floor. The sudden noise seemed to snap the two parties out of their trance. One the jailers slowly pointed a finger at them.

“Y-You’re not supposed to be-?”

“RUN!” Hahn shouted, and the convicts rushed off in the opposite direction. One of the jailers gave chase, while the other one slammed a bright red button next to where he was leaning, causing an obnoxious alarm to sound throughout the stratum.

~~~

Herex was in the middle of a report when he heard the alarm sounding from outside of his command room. He guessed with depressing accuracy what the problem was before the intercom sparked, telling him that the new ‘guests’ had escaped. The gremlin commander rose, and set off towards a communication uplink located in the corner of his command centre. He jumped into a chair at his personal command station, and turned on a manual override button, which would broadcast him to every station, every terminal, and every radio throughout his domain. He leaned forward, letting the video recorder take in every detail of his charred face, and began his message.

~~~

The fugitives were running along the catwalks when they heard Herex’s broadcast.

“You can all thank the incompetent fools guarding cell block eight for allowing our new guests to escape.” Boomed his voice, “I expect the entire unit to find and apprehend them, one way or another. I need not remind you what the price of failure is. Do not let them leave this facility!”

At the end of the catwalk, a bipedal machine carrying a sword and a shield rounded the corner, the motor on its back releasing black smoke into the air. Hahn put all of his momentum and strength into a punch, hoping that a well-placed right-jab could at least stun the sentient mech. His fist landed squarely over the machine’s central eye.

*CLANNNNG*

Hahn recoiled, clutching at his bruised knuckles, and ducked a counter-swing from the machine’s sword. Twilight’s horn shined with energy, and a purple-coloured laser shot forth from her horn to slam into the machine, melting the android on impact. The group continued onward, running past the pile of half-melted scrap metal.

The fugitives had passed off of the catwalks, running into an assembly zone. A lesser gremlin wearing a grease-stained beige tunic moved to block their path, raising a palm and commanding them to stop. Hahn barely slowed down to body-check the smaller creature into a wall, before continuing. As they ran past the partially dazed Gremlin, he lashed out and grabbed at one of the escapees streaking past him, which happened to be Rarity. She fell and tumbled gracelessly, landing in a heap. She tried to get back on her legs, but felt a foot slam into her side, pinning her to the floor. She looked up to see an angry gremlin looming over her.

“I’ll be picking my teeth with your bones!” he growled, poising a two-handled hammer over his head. He very well may have fulfilled his statement, too, if a green-and-purple ball of fury hadn’t slammed squarely into his chest, knocking him off his feet.

“NO-!”

*whack*

“-PONY-!”

*whump*

“-HURTS-!”

*crunch*

“-RARITY-!” Spike screamed, furiously slamming his fists into the stunned gremlin’s face.

Hahn returned, and pried Spike off of the bruised gremlin. “I think he’s had enough, lover boy.”

Spike was still flailing his balled claws at the creature as he was pulled off of the beaten gremlin. The creature’s goggles were missing a lens, revealing a terrified yellow eye staring out at him, and several teeth were missing from its jaw. The gremlin curled up in a fetal position, cowering in fear of the scaly abomination.

“We have to keep moving.” Hahn turned back to Rarity, “Can you walk?”

“I think I’ll be able to-” Rarity started.

“-That’s the spirit.” Hahn interrupted, picking Rarity up and placing the white unicorn back on her legs. “Not much farther now, the elevator is just up ahea-”

Hahn looked up, a squad of gremlins were blocking off their escape route, and a trio of automatons blocked a side route. Twilight tried firing a burst of magic at the machines. In unison, the metal bipeds raised their shields and locked them together, the laser dissipated in a harmless shower of sparks against the shield wall. Hahn turned to the way they had been going, and was disheartened to see a single, burly gremlin wielding a flamethrower in each hand, a single red optic in the centre of his welding mask glowered at them. Rainbow Dash tried charging him, and the larger gremlin released a massive gout of flame into the air, forcing Rainbow Dash to crash-land near the other fugitives to avoid being set alight. From behind where Hahn was standing, the Spiral Knight could hear one the gremlins let out a bark of laughter. The group of escapees backed into a defensive circle.

“Well,” Rarity despaired, “I guess this is it, then, it’s been nice knowing all of you.”

The Equestrians muttered their agreement. Hahn desperately tried to think of a way out the situation, and he remembered his PDA, he pulled it out, and noted a timer he had placed on it.

00:02
00:01
00:00

*Fsh-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht! PWING!*

The gremlin wielding the flamethrowers staggered forward suddenly. There was a distinctive hissing noise coming from behind him. The Gremlin incinerator sniffed the air curiously. He leaned over to check his petrol supply, which had a thin, blue jet of flame spurting from it.

The gremlin groaned in frustration, “Aw, shi-”

The unfortunate creature’s fuel tank ruptured into a ball of flame, his suit was flame-retardant, but the force of the blast was enough to slam the surly soldier face-first into the iron flooring, knocking him out instantly. Spike raised a claw to shield his eyes from the blast, he lowered his claw and looked up to see… another knight.

Strutting out from behind the fallen brute was a biped wearing armour similar to Hahn’s. This knight was clothed in gleaming silver plate gauntlets and boots. His tabard was similar in fashion to Hahn’s, but it was coloured a dull maroon. Despite having similarly oversized-looking gloves, the new knight’s boots were a much closer fit, running up to knee-height where his baggy trousers were packed into them. This new combatant was wearing a silver-plated crash helmet, a bright red streak adorning the top. A pair of chinstraps hung loosely from the sides of the helmet. Despite the open-fronted nature of the helmet, the only detail of a face that could be made out was a pair of inquisitive scarlet eyes; the rest was shrouded in darkness. Spike also noticed that the knight was wearing a large barrel-shaped object across his back, with a radio antenna protruding from one side. Clutched in his hand was an object that bore similarity to a Gryphon crossbow, except that it had a circular belt mounted under where the crossbow bolt would’ve been kept, with several dangerously glowing crystals stored on it. This curious figure called out to them.

“I thought I told you sit tight, Hahn!”

“And you told me you’d be ‘right with us’, Rhendon!” Hahn shot back. “You’re late; I was timing you.”

The knight known as ‘Rhendon’ merely sighed, pulled out a sword from his belt, and passed it to Hahn. The Biotech Knight grabbed the sword out of the air, turning to face the gremlins and constructs which were fast approaching them.

“Let’s go to work.” Rhendon chuckled.

The Equestrians merely stood back while the two knights beat back their pursuers. Hahn was not a particularly adept swordsman, but he manipulated the blade well enough to force back the small cluster of poorly-trained gremlins and their bulky machines. Rhendon joined in by unleashing salvoes of glimmering crystal shards from his handheld mechanism into anything that got around Hahn’s swordsmanship. Within a few moments the surviving gremlins were sent scampering back down the hallway, their numbers thinned and their machines dismembered.

“Right,” Rhendon dusted himself off, and turned to Hahn, “first things first, who and what are these things?” He pointed at the Equestrians.

“Hey,” Rainbow Dash responded angrily, “’these things’ can talk.”

The red-silver knight jumped back in surprise, “Whoa! Sorry about that, I didn’t mean-”

“Is this really the best time?!” Hahn yelled exasperatedly.

“Fair enough,” Rhendon sighed, “there’ll be time for hellos and handshakes when we’re aboard the elevator.”

“The elevator?” Twilight asked, unfamiliar with the term.

Hahn inhaled as if he were about to explain, but he halted himself, instead providing a cryptic “You’ll see,” as he motioned towards a mechanism at a dead end hallway.

The two Spiral Knights jogged over to the large square metal grate, and Rhendon sat down heavily, rubbing his aching ankles. The ponies uneasily followed them onto the marked area.

“So, what happens now?” Rarity asked.

“Now,” Rhendon responded, getting to his feet, “we get this thing going.”

He nodded to Hahn, and they both flicked open small metal plates on the palms of their hands, and pressed their palms against a small control panel attached to the grating. Immediately, safety bars popped up and locked into place around the square area, and a pair of rails shot down from above, slamming into the flooring next to them.

“What’s going on?” Spike asked nervously.

The platform began gliding upwards, sliding along the two rails as it made its way toward the faint glimmer of light above. Twilight stared upwards at the slowly, but steadily approaching light while Rhendon introduced himself to the rest of the group.

“Where is thing taking us?” The purple unicorn finally asked.

“To our home away from home,” Rhendon answered, “to Haven.”

Comments

[Kleptoshark]

By the way, everyone, if you're looking for other Spiral Knights crossovers be sure to check out Spiral Knight Mares and Ponies and the Alpha Team.

[Tiroth]

Well now, this is an interesting fic. Nice to see an SK crossover here (and thanks for the links to the others). I just have one minor question at the moment - didn't Seerus survive Operation: Crimson Hammer? I've beaten him up plenty of times, and don't recall seeing a body anywhere.

[Kleptoshark]

1397183

Well, it's one of those implied things that he survives, since all you find of him is his damaged mask. It'll come into play further down the line...

[ResidentZeldaBau5z]

1125512
Best 000 game ever!
Knight: Bookdrake.
Hit me up.

[The Maelstrom]

1353202
Spiral Knight Mares?
Hmm...Sounds familiar...
Pretty neat story, man, really hope you continue it soon