Human

by DannyJ

Chapter 23: Braving the Elements

"Along the north western coast of Equestria, just south of the fishing village known as Catch, lies a long stretch of scorched earth where once there were fields, and an entire beach of glass. This land is known as Dragon's Fury, and was the site of the battle colloquially referred to as the Roasting.

In a coordinated effort involving no less than twelve Equestrian allied dragons, the Spider Legion invasion force camp situated on the beach in this location was attacked and destroyed under the order of then-captain Shining Armor, as part of the final, crushing blow that led to Equestria's victory in the Equestria-Legion war of '08.

The Legion remnants, following the defeat of the Legion proper, were scattered throughout Equestria for a remaining two years, during which time most of them were eventually rounded up and executed for war crimes, at the direction of Princess Luna.

Modern historians have come to condemn the acts taken against the surviving veterans of the Legion, stating that the known destruction of the Legion's homeland of Arachnia and the 'no mercy' policy of Equestria post-war, effectively makes Equestria responsible for the genocide of the spiders.

Others however, have argued that the aggression with which the Legion remnants continued their activities and atrocities committed by the Legion proper during the war, more than warrant the actions taken against them, and that the death of the spiders as a race was an unavoidable consequence of the proper punishments being levied against war criminals, with only the spiders themselves to blame for their ultimate fate.

In the end, the Spider Legion's rise and fall was naught but a tragic tale in the footnotes of history, of a nation driven mad by desperation, which simply did terrible things out of necessity.

Whether this refers to the Legion or Equestria is a matter still debated."

-Final defeat, extract from History of the Spider Legion and associated conflicts.

***

Chain Mail poked his head through the door into the clinic, where Night Shroud was directing a number of ponies in lab coats. Over on the other side of the room, Explodey laid in a chair staring at the ceiling, and Sliske floated next to him, free of any host.

"Private Night Shroud?" he said, "You called?"

"Oh, yes," the batpony replied, "Give me a moment...Uh...Doctor? Could you...?"

A yellow unicorn mare with a blue mane and glasses trotted over to Chain Mail's side levitating a number of glass cylinders that seemed not to have any kind of lid, but which had coloured pipes coming form the top. They all contained different things. One had some kind of white powder, another was full of blue liquid, and another appeared to contain an unknown gel.

"If you could stay still, captain," she requested.

He stood in place while the mare called over another pony in a lab coat. They both crouched down next to him, and the second pony withdrew a screwdriver and some other tools and began to open up a side panel to his armour.

"So, how goes the research?" he asked Night Shroud.

"Awful. We've still got nothing for Sliske, and Explodey's results absolutely terrify me. On the other hoof, it turns out we do have some qualified doctors leftover from Canterlot who stayed behind to help, so we don't have to rely solely on my sub-par training anymore. Now my job is mostly management."

Chain Mail winced as he felt a needle jabbing his side and heard a clang of metal.

"Explodey's condition. It's nothing serious, I hope?"

"Deadly fucking serious, captain. Every single pony who shared physical contact with Explodey should have died several times over. They're not, so I think we're safe, but it should be noted that he is still a freak."

"Well I knew that already."

"Either way, I've looked at his test results, and it's never been more obvious that he was created by a psychotic elder god. He probably shares a lot more in common with the humans than we first thought."

Chain Mail thought back to the grinning human in the yellow hardhat he had met in the false reality.

"I think you may be onto something. How's he taking the news?"

"He's quiet right now. He just got back from the afterlife again. He and Sliske had me cook up a poison capable of killing him, so he could go see your friend Broad Sword. He stayed dead for about fifteen minutes, but he says it was even less from his perspective."

The captain's eyes widened.

"Really?"

He tried to turn to face Sliske and Explodey, but was held in place by the doctors, who were now replacing the armour panel. Instead he just turned his head.

"Did you meet Broad Sword?" he asked.

Explodey looked in his direction, surprisingly lacking his usual enthusiasm.

"Yeah. For a bit. Never got to say much to him though."

"Is he doing okay up there?"

"Never got the chance to ask. I assume he is."

"Hmm."

"Done."

The mare stood up again and gave him a smile.

"Your drug supplies have been replenished in full," she explained, "What little was left over we placed into the reserve. What you've got should last you at least six months."

"And after that?"

"Then you're going to have to obtain or brew up some more. For good measure we put the recipes on your onboard database."

"Well, that's a big help, but how do you even know how to use my database? I can't even use my database! I can't use half the systems on this armour."

"My special talent is computers."

Chain Mail looked at her flank to see a picture of a computer monitor like the ones found in Secopolis and across the Prometheus.

"...But...Equestria doesn't have computers...Those only exist on this ship and in Secopolis...That's a human thing...And...Aren't you an Equestrian?"

"Yeah. Can you even imagine what it's like when your special talent is something that didn't even exist for most of your life? I'm glad it does now though. Saves me the trouble of having to invent computers myself."

"...Uh...huh...Anyway, Night Shroud. I just wanted to let you know that we've arrived at the mountain. You, Explodey and Sliske need to meet with the rest of us in the cargo hold in a few minutes, and we'll venture out. We've got a long climb before we reach the village."

"Am I really needed for this?" he grumbled.

"If you don't want to go to Mt. Celestia with me, that's fine. I'll just do it by myself."

"...Wait, what?"

***

"So remind me again why we aren't just flying up to the village?" asked Soft Spoken.

"The Harmonites are a stubborn bunch, unfortunately," Luna replied.

The princess knocked on the door to the armoury with a hoof, and it opened up to reveal Gold Coin, Ancient Tome and a few royal guards all carrying heavy saddlebags full of weapons that they had collected. Nothing quite as heavy as the minigun they stole from the Mages' Guild however. In the interest of keeping things light, the earth pony had abandoned it.

Without a word, Luna and Softy turned away and continued their walk down the corridor. Gold Coin nodded at them and gestured for Tome and the guards to follow, and they all marched out in a line carrying the equipment that had been chosen for the soldiers on the journey, mostly swords and maces.

"Access to the village is heavily restricted. The frozen north is crawling with demons, so before you can enter, you have to prove that you are not a demon, or else they will attack. This applies to even myself and Celestia, as demons can easily imitate the forms of ponies as well, or possess them."

"And climbing the mountain on hoof proves that we aren't demons? How does that work?" asked Softy.

"It's not climbing the mountains. It is that we must light the seven torches. The pathway up Mt. Celestia is a difficult one, but alongside it are seven stone beacons, made by ponies pure of heart and sound of mind, so they say. They must be aflame before the village will open its gates and allow entrance, and they may only be activated by righteous ponies.

"Any creature of evil that comes in contact with them simply burst into flames themselves instead of lighting the fires. And if you are righteous and being deceived or forced by evil to light the beacons for them, then you too will be unable to light them, and you too will cause all evil that touches you to die a painful death by fire."

"That sounds harsh," Gold Coin commented.

Luna nodded.

"It is, but understand that 'evil' as the torches define it usually means the demons that regularly menace the village and its inhabitants. Fire is one of the kinder ways one can destroy a demon. It is comparatively fast. To show love, or friendship, to a creature of such darkness...That, for them, is true agony."

***

"ALRIGHT!" Second shouted, "I have reached Secopolis at long last, and I've finally got some answers. Turns out that the Prometheus did indeed leave the airport, but never arrived here. So something's happened to it. No idea what. I assume it either got stolen or shot down, but either way it can't be too hard to find. In the meantime, they're arranged for a helicopter that will come and pick us up. We have business there to take care of."

"But sir," Silver protested, "Who will hold Canterlot?"

"No-one. Because I don't care about Canterlot. Let the zombies have it. All that matters is that we are back here in time for the final battle. Anything that happens to this place in the meantime is inconsequential. There's nothing of value here."

"True dat," Thug Lyfe agreed.

Silver gave him a suspicious look.

"But before we set off, I do want to check out some of the caves and mines below Canterlot. I don't know why, but I just get the strangest feeling that that's where the story wants me to go. There may be something plot relevant down there that I need to discover. Since this is explicitly story related, or at least that's what my hunch tells me, I will want to be on screen for it. That means you can't come, Thug Lyfe."

"Damn, man."

"Sorry."

"I's cool."

"Also I forgot to lock the gates to the palace last night and there are some zombies roaming the halls. Thug Lyfe unfortunately does not have a shot of Authority, and thus may be the victim of attacks. He has a weapon to defend himself, but he may still be overwhelmed. Therefore, Silver, you're in charge of protecting him."

The pegasus mare raised an eyebrow.

"Really, sir?"

"Yes. Be vigilant. Any number of things in this ruined, post apocalyptic city could bring your zebra companion to a most untimely demise. Take your eyes off him for a second, he could be dead the next. You would not believe just how easy it is for him to be accidentally killed in a number of painful and tragic ways, and that would be bad."

Silver smiled evilly.

"Yes, sir. Yes it would."

***

"OKAY, PONIES! ALL IN LINE!"

It was startling how commanding Chain Mail could be. A number of royal guards followed his order and lined up in a single long row in front of the ramp leading up into the cargo hold. The captain marched back and forth in front of the line, while his friends and the Brotherhood of Man all gathered behind him in an unorganised cluster.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood immediately in front of the group, but remained still instead of pacing like the captain as he gave his speech. Rising up behind them was the mountain itself, tall and rocky. A lot of stone was exposed from this angle, but it was still very snowy, particularly higher up and closer to the peak. No life of any kind could be seen could be seen, but there was a good view of the edge of the village they were heading to.

"NOW! Today, we're all going to Mt. Celestia."

"All of us sir?" asked one of the guards at the front.

"ALL OF US!" Chain Mail confirmed, "At once no less! Now soldiers, I hope you're all prepared for this. The task ahead will be long and hard-"

"Isn't that a given sir?" another guard interrupted.

"Why yes, I suppose it is now that you mention it. Still though, as you may have noticed from the sheer size, you'll all have a bit of a climb ahead of you."

"I've handled bigger," said one of them smugly.

"Oooh..." the others all responded in unison.

"Impressive, soldier!" the captain replied, "You must tell us all about it later, when we go for drinks."

"It was quite an adventure, sir."

"No doubt. Also there's a lot of snow around. For that and other reasons, things might get slippery."

"Also a given," pointed out another guard.

"And you also may have noticed that the weather is rather shit, so we have a few unicorn mages on hoof, and they'll be momentarily casting some warming spells to make sure you don't freeze in your armour."

"Wait, we're doing it outside, sir?"

"Absolutely! I too would like to use the Prometheus, but apparently the Harmonites have some weird...thing...Before we can access their village, we have to do this religious ritual about lighting some fires, and that requires actually climbing, otherwise we'd just fly up. So yeah."

"Damn, this is starting to sound really complicated," said one of them, "I can't even begin to imagine the physics of how we're going to do this, especially if all of us need to be involved."

"Yeah, is there even enough room for everypony?"

"What if we don't want to?"

Everypony all turned their attention to a single royal guard at the end.

"What was that, private?" asked Chain Mail with a hint of warning in his voice.

"Well...What if we don't want to go to Mt. Celestia? It's old, and grey, and not much to look at anymore."

Chain Mail looked over his shoulder at both the mountain and the princesses, who both seemed confused.

"...Well, that's true..." the captain said carefully, "However, orders are still orders, I remind you."

"...I'm sorry sir, I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of this mountain."

"Hmmm..." the earth pony pondered, "Princess, what would you recommend?"

Celestia was giving him an odd look.

"...We are talking about climbing a mountain, aren't we?"

"Of course, princess. What else would we be talking about?"

"Yes, sister, I too am curious. What else could this conversation be about?" asked Luna, "So far it seems to pertain mostly to mountains and the climbing thereof."

"I'm a little embarrassed to say..."

"Well whisper it to me then."

The older sister leaned over and whispered into Luna's ear. After a few seconds, the dark alicorn pulled away in shock and stared at Celestia, blushing.

"Sister!" she chided, "Get your mind out of the gutter!"

"But-"

"Oh, wait, THAT'S what you..." said Chain Mail, "Oh...OH! Princess, ugh. I can't believe you. We're just having an innocent discussion about mountains. What's wrong with you?!"

"Wait, so we're not talking about having sex with the princess?" asked one of the guards bluntly, "Phew. Glad for that. I'm pretty sure that'd count as necrophilia now anyway."

Chain Mail facehoofed so hard, he bruised his face.

"Honestly, the fucking idiots I have to work with..." he muttered, "OKAY! JUST TO BE CLEAR, NOPONY HERE IS HAVING SEX TONIGHT!"

There was a collective groan.

"Is that just with the princesses?" asked one, "Can we still have sex with each other?"

"What? Umm...I guess so."

The guards all cheered.

"YEAH!"

"ALRIGHT!"

There was an exchange of brohoofs and manly flexing, followed by assurances that the presence of Private Sunshine in the planned royal guard orgy later made it most certainly straight.

"Well...If we're done here, can all of you please get back into formation so we can begin the climb? I want to reach the village before the day is out! We only have so much sunlight!"

The guards scrambled to get back in line, while Chain Mail turned to go speak to his friends again. He instead found his path blocked by Princess Celestia, who was giving him the evil eye.

"I'm watching you, captain," she warned, "I may be old, but don't think for a second I won't know when you're making crude jokes and trying to disguise it. I'm not that out of touch."

"I..."

He tried to think of an excuse, but just sighed instead.

"Sorry, your majesty."

"That's better."

***

The insides of the mountain were once concealed, hidden away from the outside world and only accessible by teleportation or some very well hidden entrances. Canterlot was an old city, with a long history.

It hid many secrets beneath its surface. Underground labyrinths built by the ponies of long ago, the crystal mines that were dug out by greedy unicorns, and in the darkest depths there were even remnants of the very early pony tribes, who had made homes in the natural caves before they could build cities.

Normally all these relics of history would be unreachable except by those actively looking for them, but since Second and Nathan's final battle, the mountain was broken open. Levitating in the middle of the valley formed between the two halves of the old mountain, Second could see multiple levels of the labyrinths and mines, now exposed to the elements.

The place called to him. He could hear the siren sound from within the depths. Not the outermost parts though. Deeper. Some of the ancient caves and ruins further in were still hidden. And that was where he was needed.

One way or another, the story needed to advance. He flew down, and into the labyrinth.

***

Silver stood on the battlements of Canterlot Castle, staring out into the distance. From Canterlot, one could see the city of Secopolis where a large part of the Everfree Forest used to be. It was not as easily visible as it should have been, but the city had a number of defences to make it more concealed.

As a child of Secopolis, she could see it clear as day. The illusion spells had no effect on her, because it was the city of her birth. All of Second's creations were different from normal ponies in subtle ways, though that usually manifested in the form of talents and expertise in areas Equestrians ponies wouldn't know about, or in-built knowledge of the human world and its customs, or just that ability to see Secopolis despite it appearing just as forest from a distance to other ponies.

Of course, then you had the special cases, like Explodey McGee, who had been blessed by Second with extraordinary power, or Host, who had been created an alicorn. His was the power to create ponies in any shape or form he saw fit, or as he had demonstrated with Thug Lyfe, to change them into what he wanted.

She wondered if he would ever decide to change her.

'Not that he'll ever even notice me,' she thought bitterly, 'As long as that damned zebra has his favour...'

She glanced behind her to see Thug Lyfe wandering around aimlessly, staring up at the sky or admiring the scenery.

He needs to die.

But how? That was the question...

...I need my power armour...

***

The trek up the mountain was proving a difficult one. Of the seven torches, they'd passed three so far, though only two of those really counted as actual accomplishments because the very first one was at the beginning of the path before they had even began the climb.

Princess Luna had suggested that since there were seven of them too, that each of the Elements of Harmony should light one torch. No real purpose or anything, but she thought that symbolism of it was nice. Really, it didn't even have to be them. One of the soldiers could just as easily light the torches while the rest of them marched on, but she insisted.

Hero's journey or something.

"So who's lighting the next one?" Soft Spoken asked wearily.

"I am!" Mystic proclaimed.

"Mystic's doing the next one!"

"Thank you Softy, we heard," Gold Coin replied, "Shut up."

"You're in a bad mood," Chain Mail commented.

"I can literally feel the ice forming around my balls. Sorry if I seem a little cranky."

"Well you should have worn some thicker clothes, idiot."

Gold Coin's eye twitched, and he turned to the floating cloud of darkness to his left.

"Don't you start too, you freak of nature! You can't even feel the cold, so you can't comment on it!"

"How do you know I can't feel the cold?" asked Sliske, "For all you know, sakrassi could be even more sensitive to temperature than ponies."

"And ARE you?!"

"Well...no. But you didn't know that."

"In fact, I did know that, by virtue of guessing correctly based on evidence. So shut up."

"Has anypony ever told you that you're really unpleasant sometimes?"

"Yes. Shut up."

"Sliske, stop trying to talk to him," Chain Mail advised, "It's not going to work."

The alien sighed. Telepathically. He thought about a sighing sound. Because you can't actually sigh without lungs. It was weird.

"It didn't always used to be like this. I once had acres of land, and an empire with no rival. I ruled over many and enjoyed only the finest luxuries. Nothing by pony standards, but in Zarlan society...I lived a king, I did. And then I came to this planet...and look what happened to me then..."

"Tell me about Zarlow then."

Sliske gave Chain Mail an odd look.

"Come on. Help pass the time. Give us all something to focus on other than the cold."

"Well...My first host was the warrior king of the Zarlan empire, known as General Sliske the Destroyer-"

"Wait a second!" Softy interrupted, "You mean you took your name from your first host? You're not really called Sliske?"

Sliske snarled at him.

"I AM CALLED SLISKE!" he insisted, "...I told you...Sakrassi aren't...people. We're primal. Nameless and without identity. It's not like I would have ever been given a name of my own. I'm Sliske, because I became Sliske. We mentally become our first hosts. From the moment I possessed the general, I was him."

"So...Wait," said Gold Coin, "I'm a bit lost here. How does this factor into your personality as of now?"

"Every new host I take, I gain their memories. Memories are what make us. They form who we are. I had a base personality, which was basically General Sliske's, and every new host's memories change me in subtle ways. They make me something different. I'm a composite of every host I ever took, with the general being the dominant part of me. Though even he has been drowned out in time. I still like to imagine the general as the definitive version of myself."

"I thought your definitive version of yourself was a black unicorn mare?"

Sliske scowled.

"Too many pony hosts. I've spent most of my life on this planet or orbiting it. You locals keep changing me. Being me is very confusing as far as gender goes. My first ever host was a male zarlan, and that's the base personality that the rest of me is built upon. However, most of the hosts I've taken while on this planet were mares, specifically unicorns, because for some reason there was a three to one ratio of mares to stallions one thousand years ago, though it seems a bit more even as of late."

"So what even are we supposed to think of you as?" asked Chain Mail, "Should we even bother applying gender pronouns to you?"

"It is ultimately futile. Normally I get called either he or she depending on the sex of my current host. When I'm in this form I honestly couldn't say what to call me, though most of you ponies insist on thinking of me as a male, to simplify things in your own mind at least."

"Well what would you prefer? Would you want us to call you he or she?"

"You might as well be trying to apply gender pronouns to a sponge."

"Well what do you think of yourself as?"

"A sakrassi."

"STOP BEING DELIBERATELY VAGUE!" Chain Mail shouted.

"Get fucked, captain."

"Oh, for the love of-" Gold Coin grumbled, "SLISKE! Answer this question: Would you read a celebrity gossip magazine by choice?"

"I might."

"Sliske's a mare. There. Argument over."

***

The cold stone walls of the labyrinth surrounded Second on all sides. Behind him, daylight was pouring in from the rooms that could be seen from the valley, one of which he had just entered through. That light wouldn't reach all the way into the depths of the labyrinth, so he had plucked a torch off the wall in preparation. Once he ran out of sunshine, he'd light it and use that to find the rest of the way.

These old caverns and corridors held a lot of history in them. To most, their stories would have been lost to time. Second knew them though. He had written those stories.

To Everything There is a Season was the fourth episode he wrote, which took place mid-season four. A great epic compressed into twenty two minutes, styled after previous historical episodes like Hearth's Warming Eve. He told the story of the founding of Canterlot and the early days of Equestria when Princess Celestia first came into power too.

Through flashbacks and history lessons in other episodes he had written, he'd also told stories of the War of the Night, the origins of alicorn princesses, and Discord's reign as well. He wrote a lot of those history pieces.

In a way, it was what gave him his power. You could say that he had specialised in world building, because that was usually what his episodes did. They expanded on Equestria and especially its ancient past.

His was the power over history. He told the origins of everything and how it all came to be. Sliske he had particular power over, because he had created him directly. But in a way, he had created a lot of Equestria. He had power over the whole world to some degree. It just wasn't a lot of power. Not enough to do anything of note.

"...Wait."

Second stopped in his tracks. He recognised this hallway, and not in the way he recognised normal set pieces from the show. No, he recognised this as a real place. It was somewhere he had been before.

"No..."

He stepped forward into the darkened corridor, and recognised it in full. This was the hallway , the place where he first saw the man in black, where he stood before he entered that room with the mirrors.

It was the place from his nightmare.

***

Silver Vein returned to the roof again, this time properly prepared. A suit of yellow power armour around her, damaged but working, ensured that she was safe from anything either the zombies or the zebra could dish out. She needed the protection, just in case.

"Thug Lyfe!" she called out, "We need to get off this roof right now! There are zombies coming!"

"Aww shit!" the zebra cried in distress, "Get me outta here! I don't wanna get eaten by some hungry-ass shambling nigga!"

"Don't worry! I shall carry you off the roof to safety!"

"No way, bitch. Imma 'fraid of heights!"

"Umm..."

"C'mon. Stairs are THIS way."

Silver Vein ran over and blocked the way to the stairs.

"NO! That's where the zombies are coming in from!"

"'s cool. We can take the other stairwell!"

"That one has zombies too!"

Thug Lyfe raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well...how many?"

"Umm...dozens!"

"...Shiiieeet, man. Guess we're gonna have to turn dis into a fire fight."

Silver was getting annoyed now.

"Really. I can pick you up and we can fly down to ground level right now."

"Why ground level, ho?! Ain't it easier t' just find a defensible position in the motherfucking castle?!"

Silver's eye twitched.

Fuck it.

Thug Lyfe turned and fled as the mare whipped out her suit's heavy weapons and began to bombard the rooftop of Canterlot Castle with explosives. For good measure, she also covered the area in a steady stream of bullets and energy beams.

"DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE! I WANT YOU TO DIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"

From above the din of the explosions, lasers and gunfire, a voice called out.

"BITCH, YOU TRIPPIN'!"

***

"My turn!" Mystic announced.

The colt carried a lit torch with his magic and placed it within the large stone beacon at the side of the path. It was shaped like a giant pot, but with a square cut out the side so that you could see within it. The beacon had no firewood or flammable gas inside it. The fire by itself was enough to light it, such was the magic of these extremely pointless beacons.

No really, why were these even here? Wouldn't having just one of them at the actual entrance of the village serve the same purpose of keeping out evildoers without requiring that multiple flight capable ponies climb a mountain by hoof?

Clearly these things were built by sadists.

"Hooray," Gold Coin said, sounding bored, "Next one? Come on, ponies."

"You're lighting the next one, you miserable fuck," Chain Mail replied.

"Whatever you say, cappy."

Luna frowned as she trotted out in front of him.

"What is your problem?" she asked in concern, "You're way crankier than usual."

"Why, it's fucking cold, your majesty," Gold Coin answered, "Not sure if you've noticed, but it is."

"And that's why we've all had warming spells cast on us."

"I haven't."

Oh. Ohhhhh...

"...Are you saying I should have had it?"

Luna smiled awkwardly. Gold Coin turned around to face the nearest group of soldiers.

"WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO CAST THE WARMING SPELL ON ME?!" he demanded, "BECAUSE WHOEVER IT WAS, YOU DIDN'T!"

"It was me!"

The earth pony whipped his head around and looked back to the front of the train of ponies. A short way further up the mountain, Ancient Tome was smiling cheerfully at him and waving a hoof.

"That's it, Tome! You're a dead pony!"

Gold Coin charged up the path, pushing aside his friends and the other soldiers and chasing after the bearded unicorn. Once he came within range he lunged at him, but Tome teleported before he could reach and left the business pony face down in the snow.

"Oops, too slow!" he taunted as he appeared behind him again.

"GET BACK HERE!"

And thus began a game of a cat and mouse. As the rest of the ponies all slowly made their way up the mountain path towards the fifth beacon torch thingy, Gold Coin and Ancient Tome alternately moved up and down. The latter teleported all over the place and the former gave chase, always failing to reach his enemy by mere seconds before he disappeared in another flash of light.

"OH! So close!"

"I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU!"

"Nearly, but not good enough!"

"WHEN I CATCH YOU, YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"

"Come and get me, Goldie!"

"STOP FUCKING RUNNING!"

"I'm right behind you!"

"RAAGGGHH!"

"Or, I was!"

"AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"You're quite a sad, slow little pony, aren't you, Goldie?"

"I am surrounded by children," Soft Spoken commented as he rolled his eyes.

He looked over to Chain Mail, who he had just noticed had stopped dead in his tracks and was staring off at something behind him.

"Chains? What is it?" the old stallion asked.

The captain raised a hoof to point over his shoulder. Softy turned to look, and his eyes went wide.

"Oh...dear..."

A streak of orange and silver shot towards them. A group of pegasi followed behind it in a 'V' formation. As they approached, they all caught fire.

"TOME! GOLDIE!" Chain Mail screamed.

The royal guards and the other ponies present all finally noticed their attackers and drew their weapons. Gold Coin and Ancient Tome even stopped their chase, and the unicorn pulled out his sword in preparation, just in case this was something his magic couldn't deal with. The princesses took to the air as well, along with all the pegasus guards.

"FORMATION NINETEEN!"

The captain put his helmet on and activated the artificial wings, preparing to take to the sky himself. The burning ponies came closer and closer.

Suddenly, all of them except the leader exploded. Body parts flew out in all directions, and where before there had been pegasi, now there were dozens of gigantic demons falling from the sky down towards the mountain, most of them twice the size of the princesses.

They fell almost to the bottom of the mountain, actually really far away from where they were. Those demons would have a lot of climbing to do before they reached them. Chain Mail considered this for a split second, wondering why they had chosen to fall down there instead of raining down right on top of them. Then he noticed the single one still coming towards them.

Sun Rise.

"NO WAIT! GET ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW!" he shouted.

Too late. Sun Rise shot forward, breaking the sound barrier. He streaked right past the mountain and flew off behind them. At the precise point he had gone supersonic, a ring of fire exploded outwards.

It hit the mountain, and all the snow that was near it melted. It hit a few ponies lower down on the winding trail and incinerated them in seconds. And the force of the shockwave knocked all the airborne ponies right out of the sky, including the princesses, who tumbled down and landed right next to them.

It wasn't just the pegasi either. Everypony all fell to their knees from the sheer force of Sun Rise's move, while the pony himself flew away leaving a trail of fire in his wake.

It was a trick that had ran in his family for generations. All the way back to Rainbow Dash, every one of them that had made it into the Wonderbolts usually had their own version of it, and their own name for it, but most knew it by the name of the original. The sonic rainboom.

"Owww..." Gold Coin groaned as he pulled himself up again, "What just...happened...?"

"TIME TO DIE, MORTALS!"

The demons that had fallen to the bottom of the mountain were back. It had taken them seconds to scale the entire thing. And now there were eight of them, completely untouched so far, and standing over the fallen bodies of the royal guard. And more of them were coming.

This was going to be a slaughter.

***

Second looked at the corridor before him. In his dream, he had stood here. At the other end of it had stood the man in black. The doors all along the corridor were locked, save for two. One, the man in black had vanished into, and another, Second had entered himself, which had led him into the hall of mirrors.

This time, he wanted to take a look at the other door. The one the man in black had gone to.

He walked to the other end of the corridor and tried the door. Unlike in the dream, he found it locked. This wasn't a problem though. What kind of elder god was stopped by a wooden door? He didn't even need to kick it. A tap of his finger on the knob and a stern look caused it to automatically open for him.

The human looked inside, and recoiled.

"EUGH! What happened in here?!" he cried out as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose with it.

Corpses. Rotting corpses everywhere. The fact that there was flesh on them means that they must have died recently, but there was no real reason for anyone to have recently been down here. Who even were these ponies? What were they doing here? How did they reach this room?

More importantly, what was the purpose of this room? It was completely featureless aside from the bodies. Just an empty room. The door was a normal wooden door with a standard lock, so it probably wasn't a prison. Storage room, maybe? Was this place connected to the mines, or the older parts of the underground? Most likely mines. But...

No. The mines were far above here. This didn't make any sense. Something more was going on here.

"There must be some..."

Howard stopped. He walked further into the room and looked at the other side of the door. He just had a feeling that he should. There was a paper note there, waiting for him. The ink was fresh too. He tore it off the wall and examined it.

Lord Second,

You are moving in a direction that the Pantheon of B does not approve of.

Cease your plans to overthrow us immediately, or else you will be seeing more and more of your little minions ending up here. Especially the ones that are important to you.

Surrender to the narrative, and you may yet survive this adventure.

Yours sincerely, Johnson B. Garrick,

Show runner and supervising director,

My Little Pony: Future Imperfect

He stared at the paper for a second.

"...They're calling G5 'Future Imperfect'?" he asked aloud, "As in, after the Star Trek episode?"

Second's arm dropped back to his side and he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. He sighed deeply, and then looked around the rest of the room. So these corpses were his minions? Apparently so. He didn't recognise most of them, but then again, he probably wouldn't.

No wait. Actually yes. One of them was an alicorn, so that was probably Host. She wasn't recognisable anymore, because her fiery mane had burned out and she was rotting, but...still...Oh, and that one there had the standard commander's armour, so that might have been Throatfuck. Or as he liked to call him, Ulysses. And there was also a pegasus with an odd hat that may or may not have been Buckshot, short-lived brother of Commander Bullseye.

How'd they get here again? They had all died in Secopolis last he had checked.

Oh wait, that's right. I'm living in a world where making sense is antithetical to accomplishing things.

"Alright," he said, speaking to the ceiling, "I've given it some thought, and come to a decision. And that is that you can go fuck yourself, Mister Garrick. I mean it too. Go fuck yourself, with a rusty shovel, no lube, and don't stop until you're torn in half."

The door slammed closed behind him. Second jumped at the sound and tried to force it open again, but suddenly not even his powers were effective. There was a stirring. The bodies began to sit up, and all of them were making an unearthly moaning. There was a flash of green fire in front of the human, and a scroll appeared floating in the air in front of him.

It unfurled to reveal two words.

Wrong answer.

***

Silver ran down the spiral staircase after the zebra, launching grenade after grenade down the steps and hoping that it detonated before she caught up with it. Sometimes she even came close to hitting her actual target.

"GET BACK HERE AND DIE!" she screamed.

"You's a crazy bitch!" Thug Lyfe shouted back.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and ran off through an archway into a corridor. Seconds later, Silver reached the bottom too, and ran through the same arch to see Thug Lyfe running in the distance. Or, at least, a shape that resembled him. The corridor wasn't lit, so she couldn't tell.

"Fire in the hole!"

She launched two missiles down the corridor in his general direction. One struck the floor several feet away from the zebra and sent him flying through the air with the force of the explosion, while one actually hit the ceiling and caused a cave in.

There was a rumbling, and Silver turned her head away as debris fell down and blocked her path ahead. Mostly it was rubble, but there was also the occasional bit of furniture from the upper floors. In fact, an alicorn-sized bathtub laid upside down on top of the pile like a giant crown, making this wreckage the most regal debris of them all.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Thug Lyfe's voice crowed from the other side, "Can't get me now, can ya, bitch?!"

"I've got more grenades!" Silver shouted back, amplifying her voice with the armour's speakers.

"Do ya now?"

"Yes I do! And I'm going to keep throwing explosives at you until you stop living!"

"Well ain't that just a fucking- THINK FAST!"

Thug Lyfe's head popped out from behind one of the lower parts of the pile of rubble, revealing that he now had the 9MM pistol given to him by Second held in his teeth. Somehow, he managed to fire it. It wasn't clear how. Silver was also not happy to learn that the zebra had access to armour piercing rounds.

"OW!" she screamed, "YOU SHOT ME IN THE LEG!"

Silver launched another missile down the corridor and limped back out of the archway to safety while her foe fired more shots behind her, which whizzed past her helmet and barely missed.

"Oh, you are dead...You are SO dead!" she muttered.

She felt a jab in her flank as the Butterfly armour injected a mixture of a healing solution and a painkiller. Ten minutes would clear up that bullet wound. That assumed though that she wasn't going to get shot again.

That zebra had gone quiet.

"I know you're still there!" she shouted, "I'm not done with you!"

No response.

Where could he have-

CRASH!

The wall had exploded. The terrified mare jumped away from it in shock. She looked back at the place where there was once a solid marble wall and part of a staircase, and instead saw a grinning zebra driving a bulldozer.

"WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THAT?!"

"Payback's a bitch, an' so are you!"

He fired his gun at her again, which he was now holding in one of his hooves as if he had an invisible hand and fingers, and with his other hoof he moved the gear stick and caused the bulldozer to lurch forwards.

Silver had no choice but to take flight and flee down the corridor she had just blocked off at the other end, hoping to find another way. She certainly couldn't walk given the state of her leg. And behind her, she heard the bulldozer turn in her direction to give chase, and the sound of more gunfire from Thug Lyfe.

"Quit running, ho! Get yo skanky ass back here!"

***

"TARTARUS SHALL BE AVENGED!"

Soft Spoken jumped to the side just in time to avoid a huge red claw slicing him in half. Instead, it scraped along the ground and carved a deep wound in the rock, as if it were a knife cutting through butter. The monster roared and lunged at him again.

Nearby, another demon grabbed one of the royal guards and smashed him against a rock, crushing him into red paste which he smeared everywhere. Two other royal guards attacked it with swords. They only came up to the demon's waistline, but that just put it in the perfect position to get stabbed in the kneecap, causing it to fall over screaming.

"BACK! BACK I SAY!"

One of the bigger demons, probably a leader of some kind, grasped its claws around Princess Luna and was trying to tear her wings off. It wasn't making any progress though, and the dark alicorn thrashed about until she freed a hoof. The moment she was no longer restrained, she hit her attacker in the face, causing a sickening crack as she snapped its neck in a single blow.

Celestia was far less brutal with her attacks, but was nonetheless showing sufficient fighting prowess. Gold Coin cowered as a demon stood over him, ready to kill, but the undead princess slammed into its side and knocked it off the mountain trail and down into the snowy abyss below. He got up and jumped to the side as another, smaller demon attempted to tackle her, and found itself struck by a bolt of magical lightning called from above.

"They're coming in stronger from the south!" Chain Mail shouted over the din, "Cover our rears!"

The captain staggered over to the lit beacon further down the trail, which was where the designated safe point was. A single other royal guard and Soft Spoken were recuperating there while the battle raged around them.

"Chains! What happened to you?!" asked Softy, "Where's Mystic?! I can't see him anywhere!"

The side of the captain's black armour had been cut open by a demon's claws, and revealed more layers of metal and exposed circuits underneath. A patch of what may have been skin was also revealed, but it was just bare skin, lacking his white coat, and was horribly burned as well.

"I'm fine, but I don't see Mystic either!" he gasped, "Just give me a minute, I think the medical systems are still onli- AGGGGGGGH!"

He fell to the ground in pain, clutching the damaged area.

"I DON'T THINK THIS THING IS WORKING RIGHT!" he screamed.

"Sir?! Are you okay?" asked the royal guard, "Can I help?!"

Chain Mail's eyes opened, and he looked over at the guard. Another pegasus, and he still had his wings. That gave him an idea.

"No. I have another job for you, private! Get back to the Prometheus! Go to the cargo hold, and wake up Spike the Eternal. Tell him we've got demons!"

The guard saluted.

"Aye, sir!"

The guard took flight and turned to the south, heading down the mountain towards the parked airship. As he did, the two remaining ponies looked up at the sky again, and saw Sun Rise had turned around and was heading back towards them, ready for a second strike.

"Softy..." he groaned, "You've got armour, you can fly. This one's on you."

***

A number of corpses began to rise up and shamble over towards Second. This would have been creepy and terrifying, but he had already seen thousands of them in the past few days, all of which he was directly responsible for creating. Zombies at this point were not something scary and intimidating. They were just another thing.

Not that he wanted those creatures anywhere near him.

He backed against the door as they approached. As they came closer, their eyes began glowing green too, and a strange vapour of the same colour escaped from their mouths. They continued to groan and shuffle as always, except now one of them, Commander Throatfuck to be precise, seemed to suddenly gain the ability of speech.

"You killed us..." he said in an echoey, distorted voice.

Second titled his head.

"Did you just speak?"

The zombie pinned him against the wall and leaned in close, so that Second was staring into its vacant, dead eyes. It repeated its earlier statement.

"You...killed...us..."

The human's response was to furrow his brow in confusion.

"No. No I really didn't."

The zombies all stood still around him. Zombie Throatfuck backed off, but remained the closest to him. There wasn't much they could actually do to him. They just stood and stared at him through their glowing green eyes, being unsettling.

"You killed us," they chanted in unison.

"...Again. No I didn't."

"You killed us."

They really weren't doing anything at all now. Just repeating themselves. It was annoying.

"Okay, fine. If you say so. Apparently I killed you. You had nothing to do with it, of course! It's not like any of you lack proper self-preservation instincts. Nope. It's ALL my fault! And now that we've established it's my fault...What are you gonna do about it, you ugly motherfuckers?"

They all stood by silently. Second slowly began to smile.

"Oh...I see what this is. Your whole plan was to...Ohohoho! You were hoping to play off the horrible emotional burden I am no doubt feeling because you all died, and try to guilt-trip me into submission!"

He pointed a finger at the resurrected corpses of his former minions and burst out laughing.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The zombies all looked to each other, though their facial expressions didn't change.

"Hahaha...heh...Oh wow...Your whole plan relied on me feeling remorse. Oh God, you guys are idiots!"

Still grinning, he lunged forward and grabbed Commander Throatfuck by the remains of his mane with his left hand. He curled his right into a fist, and smashed it through his face, like he was punching through a hollowed out pumpkin. Seconds later, he tore it out again, this time clutching an equine brain, which he held up to show the others.

"I made all of you!" he proclaimed, "You are my creations! Your life is mine to play with and throw away as I see fit, and no-one can tell me otherwise! The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away!"

He threw the once again lifeless body of the commander aside and crushed the brain in his hand.

"Any objections?"

The zombies didn't say a word or move an inch. They all just immediately evaporated into green smoke, which floated away as if through some unseen, invisible ventilation in the ceiling. Even the commander vanished. As they did, another load of green smoke of a slightly different hue flittered through the air and manifested into a scroll, just like the last one.

You have made a foolish decision here today. The Pantheon will be seeing you soon.

***

There are some times in your life, like when you're flying through a palace covered from head to hoof in power armour, nursing a crippled leg, being chased by a gangsta-stereotype zebra in a bulldozer, who keeps firing at you and crashing through walls, that you just have to stop and ask yourself how it came to this.

Silver Vein however had no intention of stopping. As far as she was concerned, this was a pretty average day for a trooper in Second's army. It was a far sight closer to normalcy than getting caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and your orders being to support the zombies.

"IMMA GET YOU, BITCH! THINK YOU CAN FUCK WITH ME?! I LEAVE YOUR WHOLE FAMILY FULLA LEAD!"

Of course, this was still rather strange.

Silver rounded a corner and found herself in a large, long hall with high ceilings. The best part about it though, was that it had windows near the top. Expensive, stained glass windows, which nonetheless were easily broken and could provide an escape route.

She smiled as she gained altitude, and the Butterfly model power armour kicked into gear as the miniguns whirled to life and fired at the window until there wasn't a window anymore.

"I'M COMING FOR YO ASS!

The bulldozer came around the corner too. Or, it cut through the corner. Thug Lyfe fired the pistol at her two more times, and then stopped to reload. Silver took the opportunity to fly out the now glass-less window.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she emerged into the fresh air of Canterlot. She was actually really high up. The corridor she had been in was on the upper levels of the palace, and it was at the very edge of the castle. Below the window she had exited from was a sheer drop. Had she not been flight capable, she would have crawled out of that window and fallen from halfway up Canterlot mountain all the way down into the river.

Then she smiled, as she realised exactly what was going to happen next.

She took off her helmet so that she could see properly, and take in the full beauty of the scene. A hole was punched in the wall below the window she came from. A bulldozer flew out of it. Driving it was a very surprised and angry zebra, who barely glanced at her in his panic as he fell to his probable death.

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch..."

There was a distant splashing sound far below.

"HA!" Silver shouted, "Dumb fuck! That'll teach you! Nopony is sir's favourite except ME!"

She closed her eyes and hovered in place, smiling in satisfaction for a minute. Then she opened them abruptly.

"Wow, I just straight up killed a guy because I was jealous," she realised.

She held up her hooves and looked at them.

"...I'm beginning to think that sir is a bad influence on me."

***

A trail of flame followed behind Sun Rise as he picked up speed. He was reaching the critical point before he could pull off another ring of fire, and he had timed it to perfection. It would occur the moment he was above the mountain trail, and it'd incinerate most of the ponies present below.

Sorry it had to end this way, Tomey.

The cone had already began to form around his fore hooves, and he could feel himself coming closer. Just a little further, and-

WHAM!

The former Wonderbolt was snapped out of his thoughts and sent reeling off to the side as something large and metal slammed into him and knocked him off-course. He flapped his wings and caught himself before he fell, grunting in frustration. His ribs ached where he had been hit, and he was certain that a bruise would come up there.

While he was assessing himself, there was a streak of blue in front of him, and suddenly he found himself face to face with a cyan pegasus with a white mane. It took him a moment to recognise that it wasn't actually the pony's natural colour. He was wearing Secopolis power armour, Rainbow model.

"Give it up now, sonny!" he warned, "I don't like fighting, but if you force me to, I will stop you!"

Sun Rise's cybernetic eye lit up, and the armoured pony dodged out of the way before he unleashed a laser blast from it which burned a black line into the rock below them and sliced a royal guard in half.

That just brought more attention to him though. And now that there was no danger of a second ring of fire, the other pegasi were getting confident. Night Shroud led the charge as a number of the winged royal guards took to the sky, all of them looking for a chance to test their mettle against the legendary former Wonderbolt.

Arguably his biggest mistake though was being distracted by the flock of pegasi heading his way. He shouldn't have taken his eyes off Soft Spoken, not even for a second. Because while he wasn't looking, the old stallion had put some distance between himself and Sun Rise, and taken the time to align his targeting software. The demonic cyborg noticed all too late what was being aimed at him.

"Oh...shit..."

Softy's suit fired the missile launcher.

***

After exiting the room, Second promptly checked all the other locked doors in the corridor. One of them was open and of course led into the hall of mirrors, but he didn't want that one. He wanted to check the rest of them first to see if they also held anything of significance. They were all locked in the dream while the other two were not, so he assumed they were irrelevant, but it never hurt to check.

Just as he suspected, they were all empty, featureless rooms just like the one where the bodies were before. He would have gone with his guess that they were all store rooms, but thinking more about it, these rooms were probably only here because he had a scene here.

Nathan had said that they were planning this movie trilogy to have a "meta" plot. That meant that the Studio B staff and this Johnson guy were making avatars of themselves as the main villains of the story, who he would eventually team up with the heroes to defeat. And he had sensed that these scenes would be relevant to the story. So him being antagonised by the Pantheon of B through things like those zombies back there was part of the movie's story.

These rooms didn't have any real reason to be here. They were just here because that was part of the story. No real rhyme or reason.

"...Morons..." he muttered.

Well, nothing else for it.

With an underlying sense of dread, he moved over to the final door. He grabbed the handle and opened it, and stepped through into the hall of mirrors.

***

At the bottom of Canterlot mountain, a very angry zebra breached the surface of the river.

"...Aw HELL no! This nigga DID NOT just make me fall off a mountain!"

He looked up at the palace he had fallen from, and could find no trace of his assailant anywhere.

"Imma kill somepony for dis shit!"

***

There was a flash of light, and two unicorns appeared inside the cave. The entrance was small and barely let in any natural light, but through it, one could see the mountain trail a little way below, where the battle continued to rage.

"LET ME GO, DAD! LET ME GO!"

Ancient Tome released his grip on Mystic Chant, and the colt fell to the floor in a heap. As he struggled to get up again, the older unicorn walked over to the entrance to the cave to peer out at the rest of the battle.

"Take me back!" Mystic demanded, "I can help them!"

"No, you, can't," Tome replied firmly, "Sliske's been with you too long. You've started to get it into your head that you're meant to fight, and that you stand more chance than all those trained professional soldiers dying in numbers out there. Well I'm not having it! Whatever you may think of me, son, I am not going to let you run out into danger. You're staying here where's it's safe."

"But dad-!"

"NO. I am not arguing this with you! Stay here, and do as you are told!"

Mystic glared at him, but said nothing. He just stood still, silently fuming. Tome was wary, but took this as a sign of acceptance. With another flash, he was gone again.

***

The explosion as Softy's missile struck its target drew the attention of everypony on the mountain trail below, distracting them, however briefly, and resulting in some grievous injuries. More guards continued to drop down dead, Iron Hoof suffered a brutal beating at the hands of a lesser demon, and Celestia also got slapped around quite a bit before she regained her concentration and magically launched her opponent down the trail into the beacon, where he immediately caught fire and burned alive.

Up in the air meanwhile, the smoke finally cleared, and Softy gawked as he saw Sun Rise emerge unscathed from the explosion. He immediately rocketed forward and smashed into the armoured stallion. He attacked the wings with his laser eyes and shot them off, causing him to fall to his most certain death.

Sun Rise then turned his attention to the approaching flock of pegasi. By now there was no time to build up speed for a ring of fire, so it was time for conventional aerial combat. Fortunately, that was what he was best at.

The cyberpony darted between them, twisting around in the air in a seemingly random pattern to throw off any attempt to anticipate his next move or react in time to stop him. Every time he was at the right angle, he bucked with his hind legs or struck with a single fore hoof, usually aiming for the face to knock his targets unconscious.

Others he aimed for the wings, just like with Softy, aiming to cripple instead of kill but almost certainly killing them anyway thanks to the sheer drop. Their armour made attempting to hit them in the body or the back of the head extremely pointless, but it had several glaring weak points that he exploited again and again.

After he had taken down half a dozen of them, the rest flew outwards more to get out of his range. He charged the laser eye again as he went for the closest remaining pony, whom he beat to death in seconds. Once it was at full power, he activated it and spun around in a circle, taking down seven more guards in a single attack.

"Equestria will fall!" he proclaimed, "Long live the New Human Empire!"

He instinctively dodged to the side, and a batpony flew up in front of him with an outstretched hoof, having clearly been attempting to hit him from underneath.

"You're going down, Sun Rise!" shouted Night Shroud.

The demented cyborg grinned.

"Finally a challenge!"

***

Mirrors.

Just like in the dream, the old ancient hall was full of mirrors either side of him. Well, he called the mirrors, but they could have been anything. Windows? Portals? He wasn't sure. He just went with mirrors because that sounded right, but they showed anything but his reflection. Through each of them all that could be seen was a cloudy mist.

He suspected that the mists would reveal something if he looked into them more closely. Just like in the dream. So he went to the one immediately to his left and stood before it. Back in the dream, this one had shown him Celestia walking in the mists, before she had noticed and attacked him. He wondered if it was the same here.

No. It was not.

Instead, the mists parted to reveal the desolate surface of the moon. He could tell it was the moon from the green and blue planet hanging in the sky above it. Just behind it, he could see the sun, and the ground was all white and dusty.

In the middle of it, Princess Luna sat on her haunches, staring up at the planet mournfully. More notably, it was season one Luna, with the plain blue hair instead of whatever her mane was made of now.

He reached out and tapped on the surface of the mirror, seeing if he could get her attention, like he had with Celestia in the dream. No response though.

"Hmm," he said, "Well this is uninteresting."

Second walked across to the opposite side of the room. In the dream, this one had briefly showed him Spike opening his eye. And this time...

Well, this time the mirror revealed an image of Ponyville as of the era of the show, burning under a blood red sky. He could see demons prowling around the streets. Several background ponies he recognised were running around the town screaming in fear. One of the demons grabbed a minor character called Thunderlane and tore him limb from limb.

The human backed slowly away from the mirror until it returned to mist.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, "Someone has a sick mind."

He looked at the mirror more closely, trying to see if it had any distinguishing markings that set it apart from the previous one. He was sure that the mirrors were all linked, all showing different things, but all connected by a theme. What was the difference though...?

Aha!

This mirror had a symbol above it. It was tiny, but it was definitely something. It was a symbol of a dragon claw.

"So...dragon claw...and..."

He turned over to looked at the mirror that had shown him Luna. Above that was a different symbol, which confirmed his theory. The mirrors were all about a different character from the show. The one showing the ruined Ponyville was obviously Spike, and the one showing Luna on the moon was obviously...

Celestia?

Yeah. The symbol above the mirror which had shown Luna was Celestia's cutie mark. Not Luna's. So that made it the Celestia mirror, right?

...I don't get it.

***

Silver winced as she felt the bullet being pushed out of her leg wound, but gave a sigh of relief as it fell away and the flesh began to regrow over it. The drugs the suit had administered eased the pain and fixed the damage, and she was never more thankful for it. There was a helpful ding! in her helmet's audio sensors to indicate that she was back in peak condition again.

"Finally, I can take this off!"

She took off her helmet first, and then began to remove the rest of the power armour piece by piece. It took her a few minutes, but she was soon unrestrained by the heavy suit and stretched her wings and limbs in celebration.

Thoughts of Thug Lyfe entered her mind. She was already regretting killing him. Mostly because murder was wrong, but it'd be dishonest to imply that she wasn't also worried about what Second would think, considering Thug Lyfe was important to his plans. He was going to be so mad!

A zombie shuffled past, moaning as it walked down the mountain.

"What am I going to do?!" Silver whispered to herself, "Sir is going to find out I killed his new favourite minion! Then I'll never be his favourite again! What will he do to me?!"

She laid down in the grass and looked out across the landscape. She was sitting near the edge of a cliff overlooking the pathway down Canterlot mountain, just outside the main gates to the city. Down below, zombies were dotted all over the place. The fall of Canterlot yesterday had meant that there was no new fresh meat around the city, so the zombies ever since last night had began to move down the mountain towards the outlying settlements.

Silver sighed.

"...I guess I'll have to tell him the truth."

"Uuughhh..." cried a zombie somewhere behind her.

The pegasus looked over her shoulder, and saw that it wasn't just one or two, but a whole cluster of zombies shuffling out of Canterlot to head down the trail.

That's odd...They don't usually all head out together like this...

There was a sound of gunfire down below. Silver froze in place as she realised that the only ones who had access to guns in this city were her, Second and the zebra.

Feeling apprehensive, she inched along the ground until she was at the very edge of the cliff, and she peered down over the edge, at the winding pathway the zombies were following. She saw a number of them further down the trail falling down in pools of blood as their heads exploded, and a striped figure fighting his way through them.

Carried on the wind, she heard his voice.

"Keep tryin' to eat me, will ya?! I kill all y'all bitch-ass undead niggas!"

Oh, joy. He survived.

***

Explodey charged at one of the larger demons and impaled it with his horn. The monster screamed, and dropped Gold Coin, who scrambled away while trying to stand up again. It reached down and grabbed him instead, pulling him out of its chest and biting his head off and swallowing it, before tossing his lifeless body aside.

"MORTAL!" it screamed at Gold Coin, "YOU SHALL BURN IN THE ETERNAL FIRES!"

The demon stepped forward, preparing to massacre the helpless earth pony, when it noticed something. There was a load of green sludge crawling up his leg.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"

It slithered up his body and began to move towards his mouth and crawl down his throat.

"WHAT?! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The demon's screams were soon drowned out and devolved into gurgling as he choked on the disgusting slime. He didn't quite die yet though, instead clutching his belly in pain as it bulged outwards. There was an explosion, and demon body parts went flying all over the snowy battlefield and soaked it red with blood.

Where the creature had stood before, now there was Explodey, covered in blood as well.

"Ewwww!" he screamed, "I'm covered in blood! Get it off, get it off, get it off!"

He ran around in circles in a panic, freaked out by the new circumstances. Gold Coin just stood off to the side, watching the scene with no small amount of concern for the not-unicorn.

Then he was snapped out of his thoughts as three more demons came crawling up from side of the trail behind him, apparently emerging from the lower side of the mountain. Where were they all coming from?! He had seen exactly how many demons there were when Sun Rise first attacked, and he was certain his friends and the princesses alone had killed more than there initially were.

And yet there was still a substantial number of demons, and the battle continued to rage on. These demons were discreetly teleporting in reinforcements, and if they could do that, then this battle was well and truly hopeless. It was just a matter of how long they could last before-

"Zu fen krii pah se fin nivahriin sivaasse!"

A purple dragon swooped down over them and grabbed all three of the demons that had just appeared his claws. He flew further up the mountain trail where nopony had reached yet and landed. He stood just on his back legs, so he towered over the entire battlefield.

Spike held up the demons in his hand, opened his mouth, and burned them alive for all the demonic horde to see.

"THE ETERNAL COMES!" screamed one of the demons.

"VENGEANCE WILL BE OURS!" added another.

"LORD TIRAC WILL RULE AGAIN!"

The demons all immediately dropped what they were doing, abandoned the fight with the ponies, and all rushed the dragon.

***

Second decided to check as many of the mirrors as possible. He wanted to see what all of them had to show him. He counted twenty one of them in all. Ten of them on either side of the hall, plus a single one at the very end, opposite the door he had come in from. The twenty first mirror was of course the one he had seen the demon in before. He decided he would check that one last.

So, he had found Celestia's and Spike's so far. What did the others have to offer?

Well, one of the mirrors had sported Fluttershy's cutie mark of the three butterflies, interestingly enough, and had shown him an image of a barren and lifeless wasteland. That was it. Nothing happened, it was just the static image of the wasteland.

The next one he had consulted had been Sliske's. He knew it was Sliske's, even if he didn't know what the symbol of a rearing blue unicorn meant, because this mirror depicted an image that he recognised from his imagination, of the sakrassi home world of Zarlow, as seen from orbit, burning.

Moving onto the next mirror, he found it playing a strange scene of himself dressed up like a king sitting in Celestia's throne. A look at the symbol for this mirror showed that it was of an apple that had been bitten into with a coin sticking out of it. He didn't remember the cutie mark of every pony he’d met, but he was fairly sure that this mirror was associated with that yellow earth pony, Gold Coin.

"Hmm..." he pondered, "Me as king...Huh..."

He still wasn't sure what these mirrors were showing exactly. The linked person's worst fear? Their most traumatic memory? Well, it couldn't be the latter because some of these things never happened. At the very least, he had never dressed up in that exact outfit. He was going to guess that these were worst fears.

The fear theory made sense. Gold Coin feared him winning. Fluttershy feared the idea of a lifeless world, apparently. Spike feared...Armageddon was the only way to describe that horror. And he guessed Celestia feared her little sister being alone again. Which was an odd thing for her to fear the most, considering all the things that had happened to her.

Though Sliske's one didn't make sense. How could he fear Zarlow burning? Zarlow had already burned a long time ago. What, was he afraid of the lifeless husk of his planet spontaneously catching fire for a second time and burning all those poor, defenceless ashes?

Well, let's check the other mirrors, and see if my guess is right.

Rainbow Dash's mirror showed her failing. Made sense. Pinkie Pie and Twilight both feared the same thing, that being the end of their friendship with the rest of the main six. Applejack had a variant on this where she lost her friendship with the others, but hers also showed her family dying in disturbing ways.

Disturbing for most people, at least. Second however burst out laughing at the image of Applebloom falling down a flight of stairs and cracking her head open like a watermelon. It was just so darkly comic. He was hoping for Rarity's mirror next, but they were randomly arranged with no pattern in mind, so not all the main six or all the new heroes were together. No, in fact his next mirror was Explodey's.

Explodey was afraid of giant mantis men taking over the world.

Moving on.

Luna! He had found Luna's mirror. And as if he hadn't guessed it already, her worst fear was...actually not going back to the moon. Her worst fear was her sister shouting at her. At least that's what it looked like. None of the mirrors had audio, unlike in his dream where he had clearly heard the sound of Celestia's fire attack in her mirror. So the image of Celestia shouting at her sister could be interpreted multiple ways.

And next up is...oh...

This was the mirror he had seen his son in, back in the dream. And following the trends, that made this one his mirror, right? He glanced up at this mirror's symbol, which was a large black number one. One for First? He assumed that was what it meant.

...What did Anthony fear most then?

He stepped forward and waited as the mist cleared. And it revealed...a reflection. Nothing strange in it either. It was just a reflection of the hall that he was in, and himself standing there looking at the mirror.

Howard didn't really want to think about what that could mean.

***

Thug Lyfe had taken barely any time at all to get all the way up the mountain. Silver had wanted to change back into the Butterfly power armour, but she hadn't had enough time. By the time she had reactivated the suit's computer systems and commanded it to open again, the zebra was almost upon her.

In the end, she just decided to abandon her armour and fly away naked. She had wings, he didn't, so she could probably escape to safety until he ran out of ammo. And that had to be soon, because he was firing that pistol like it was a machine gun.

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!"

She barrel rolled to the side to avoid another bullet as he continued to fire at her. Already he had expended three entire clips trying to shoot her down. The chase had taken them back into Canterlot proper now, and Silver was slowly putting distance between her and the zebra. He could run like an Olympian though. She was going to have trouble losing him.

Maybe if I land in the upper floor of one of these taller buildings and then fly back to the palace to find sir while he climbs it by the stairs to get to me...

Silver never got to finish that thought though.

BLAM!

Thug Lyfe shot again, and this time he hit her.

"AGHH!" Silver cried out.

Blood streaked from her right wing, and the pegasus dropped out the sky.

***

The demons were all busy rushing Spike and getting themselves roasted now, allowing the rest of the army to fall back to lower down on the trail where they were safer. The beacon was the natural place to congregate, but only those right next to it were truly "safe", and that space was reserved for the injured.

Chain Mail groaned as he stepped away from the beacon to approach the royal sisters.

"How are we, princess?" he asked.

"Not good," Celestia answered, "Those monsters killed a lot of good ponies. What about you? Are you badly hurt?"

The captain looked at the massive hole in the side of his armour.

"A little."

"Chains!"

Gold Coin, Explodey and Iron Hoof came out of the crowd of ponies to his right, most of them looking a little bloodier now, though Explodey was as always completely uninjured.

"I can't find Softy, Mystic or Sliske!" Gold Coin asked, "Where are they?!"

"I sent Softy to stop Sun Rise, but I think he lost a wing. Not seen either of the others."

"What?!"

Gold Coin ran over to the edge of the trail and looked into the emptiness below. There were a number of bodies down there, most of them pegasus soldiers that had been downed by Sun Rise, who speaking of, was still kicking the shit out of Night Shroud a little way above them. One of those down there could have been Softy.

"Shit...I need to go down and help him."

"No way!" Chain Mail disagreed, "It's too dangerous, and Sun Rise or a demon could pick you off at any time if you go alone. You stay here, and I'll go look for Softy. I've at least got better protection."

"You're crippled!"

"Am not!"

Explodey poked Chain Mail's exposed flesh through the hole in the armour. He immediately fell on his side and screamed.

"AAAAGHHHHH! DON'T FUCKING DO THAT, EXPLODEY!"

"Sorry."

"Guys, I dealt with your demon problem."

The friends turned their attention back to Spike, who was now on all fours and sitting atop a great pile of ash, and with not a demon in sight. The dragon looked very pleased with himself.

"Now, all that leaves is-"

Right on cue, a bloodied and beaten Night Shroud fell onto the mountain trail between Spike and the surviving ponies. Sun Rise followed right after, landing right on top of him.

CRUNCH!

The batpony winced as the orange pegasus broke several of his bones in just that single motion. Sun Rise pressed a metallic hoof against his forehead, and turned to look at Princess Celestia, who he gave a psychotic grin.

"Princess! I am thinking of a number between one and twelve! If you can guess it right, I won't kill this worthless mutant."

Celestia was caught off guard. She didn't know how to respond to that.

"Fifteen seconds, princess!" Sun Rise urged.

"Ahhh...! Umm...! Six!" she answered.

His smile became much more subdued.

"Tsk, tsk," he replied, "Wrong answer. You could have saved him, but you failed. Don't ever forget that this is your fault."

Before anypony could stop him, he raised his hoof and brought it down, and crushed Night Shroud's head.

"NO!"

Sun Rise spread his wings and shot straight up before any guards could rush him or Spike could burn him to death, cackling all the way.

"Come on!" he taunted, "Let's see you try and stop me! Sun Rise is now taking all comers!"

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant spider wielding eight swords flying through the air.

"FOR THE LEGION!"

***

Broad Sword, it turned out, still had a mirror even though he was now dead. Then again, so were the original main six, so it wasn't exactly strange that a dead pony had a mirror, but Second still thought it odd that he was deemed worthy of a mirror when he was no longer a relevant character. Unless of course he was going to get resurrected somehow later on, like Celestia was?

Hmm...

Either way, his greatest fear was being outed as a homosexual and becoming a social pariah for it. Which was a stupid thing to worry about, because if you asked the crazy fandom then Equestria was at least seventy percent homosexuals, and he hadn't seen much yet to contradict that.

The next few mirrors contained equally stupid things. Soft Spoken was afraid of vampires, which weren't even real anyway, Rarity had some fashion-related bullshit, and if Mystic Chant's mirror was anything to go by, he still believed in the bogeyman.

Also interesting was the fact that the Equestrian version of the bogeyman was a generic human.

"Which one is this...?" Second muttered as he moved to the next one.

This mirror seemed to be portraying the fall of Equestria and the collapse of pony civilization, beginning with the death of both princesses, subsequently descending into lawlessness and chaos, and ending with Discord breaking loose and ruining whatever was left. It was very vivid as well.

"...Is this one Chain Mail's...?"

The symbol was of a map with a pin in it. Was that Chain Mail's cutie mark? What did it represent?

Well, the next mirror's symbol was two crossed swords laying over an actual chain mail, superimposed over an Equestrian flag, and that seemed a much more likely candidate for Chain Mail's cutie mark for obvious reasons. So he had no idea who the last one was connected to if this was Chain Mail. The new mirror was much more ambiguous, and simply showed a skeletal unicorn in a cloak, levitating a scythe with his magic. Second guessed that it represented a fear of death. Maybe. Perhaps.

And then there was...

"...The fuck?"

The symbol over this mirror was a three. Just like there was a one over Anthony's. It was a stylised sort of three which was a lot curlier than how one would normally write it. In fact, he recognised the font. That was French script.

I can recognise font types on sight and remember their names. What is wrong with me?

Well whoever this was, the mirror claimed that they were terrified of the Lovecraft mythos, because a look through it revealed the sight of a fuck ugly monster that could only be described as Lovecraftian. Howard had to turn away from it for fear of being blinded by its hideousness, and did not begrudge the mystery person fearing whatever that was at all.

"Okay, just two left."

Second stood in front of the penultimate mirror and waited for the mists to part. As they did, he looked up at the mirror's symbol to see another unfamiliar mark. Wait. No, he had seen that somewhere before. It was an unnaturally sharp pickaxe embedded in a lump of rock, the side of which had a single vein of-

"Wait, why the fuck does Silver get a mirror?!"

The mists cleared, and Silver's memories revealed what she feared the most.

It was gangsta zebras driving bulldozers.

"...There is something wrong with that mare."

***

Silver ran behind another building to take cover. Bullets whizzed past in the street she had just came from. A voice called out to her.

"You are NOT getting out of here alive!"

"You've got to run out of ammo eventually!" Silver shouted back.

Thug Lyfe came around the corner, and the two stood barely a single step apart. He held the gun in his hoof still, and smiled at her.

"Ain't gonna be soon, bitch!"

"Hiyah!"

Silver jumped into the air and kicked the zebra in the face with her back legs. Thug Lyfe was launched across the street and smacked into a wall, leaving cracks where he hit and dropping the gun. Silver rolled over and uprighted herself mid-air, and landed perfectly.

She followed up by charging across the streets to tackle Thug Lyfe, but he pulled himself out of the wall he was embedded in just in time to jump out of her way. Thug Lyfe stood straight up on his hind legs. Silver charged him again, but he flipped over and landed on all fours behind her. She tried to react, but he then bucked her into a nearby street light.

CLANG!

She staggered slightly, disoriented by the blow to the head, but noticed when he was moving to hit her again and rolled to the side. The zebra grinned maniacally and bit the street light with his teeth, and to her horror he ripped the whole thing out of the ground and began to swing it like a huge buster sword.

"Come on, bitch! That all you got?!"

The pegasus gritted her teeth and ran at him.

"YAAAAAAAAAGH!" she screamed.

Silver jumped as he swung the street light, and by either great fortune or great skill managed to land right on the tip of it. She ran along the narrow metal pole until she was right in his face and knocked him back on his ass with a blow to the face. By bad luck, one of his teeth got caught on the edge of the street light and was ripped out of his mouth as she hit him.

He landed on his back a little way down the street. Silver got up on her hind legs just as he had and taunted her fallen opponent, daring him to come over and try again.

Thug Lyfe growled as he flipped back onto his hooves, and then jumped almost ten feet into the air from a stationary position. He hit the wall of the nearest building and ran sideways along it in a physics defying display of badassery, before leaping off right at the end and launching himself through the air towards Silver.

"NOW YOU GONNA DIE!"

Silver saw him coming. She raised a leg and blocked his initial strike. She followed up with a series of kicks, juggling him about. She struck him twelve times before he hit the ground, and finished up with one final stomp to a very sensitive area.

"AGGGGGHHHHHHHH!" Thug Lyfe cried.

He began crying and grabbed his crotch.

"AWWW SHIT, NIGGA! MY POOR FUCKING BALLS!"

***

Sun Rise was knocked back down onto the trail. The royal guards all instinctively backed away in fear as the spider followed after. Sun Rise groaned as he stood up again, but the spider jumped into the air and spun around while holding out each of his swords.

He turned into a brown and grey spinning disc of death, and the pegasus' chest and face, at least in the places where they were still organic, were carved up like a cabbage stuck in a blender. The metal parts sparked when they were hit and soon had massive scratches all over the previously flawless surfaces.

"AGHHHHhhh..."

What began as a scream of pain soon turned into a choking and gasping as Sun Rise noticed his throat had been cut open, and blood began to pour from his mouth.

"...Re...re..." he struggled to say, "Retreat..."

Everyone present, including the spider, all flinched slightly as a dark hole appeared in the ground where Sun Rise was standing, and let out an ominous red light. From the blackened ground, demonic hands rose up and grabbed the former Wonderbolt. He did not attempt to fight them as they dragged him down below.

Once he was gone, the red light vanished, and the blackened ground returned to its usual grey stony colour, only a pentagram symbol remaining. The spider turned to Princess Celestia. He placed all of his swords back in their respective scabbards, which were attached to his underbelly, and bowed respectfully.

"Greetings, your highnesses," he said in a pleasant, yet formal manner, "We have been expecting you. The spider elders wished me to welcome you to Mt. Celestia, and asked that I might escort your party the rest of the way to New Arachnia."

"Thank you," Celestia replied, "It's very nice to meet you...?"

"Legionnaire Arcelio. And likewise. Please follow me, for the weather gets worse the longer we wait. I trust you have no desire to be caught in another demonic snowstorm?"

As Arcelio walked away, Gold Coin just stared in disbelief.

"What the fuck just happened?!"

***

Second approached his mirror, marked by the number two in French script, following the style of his son and the mystery man. It was the one that showed him the demon before, in the dream, before he burned to death.

"Is it going to be fire?" he wondered, "I know what I'm afraid of. It's going to be fire."

The mists vanished. It wasn't fire.

"...Oh...Of course...I can't believe I never realised..."

END

Author's notes:

They're going to learn from the spiders how to be the best.

I mentioned in a blog that this chapter would be thirty thousand words long. However, as you may have noticed, it is not. This is because I made a new discovery during the course of editing, and that is that I am a retard. I pasted the story into the document I do the spellcheck in twice and didn't even notice it, even when I corrected the same mistakes multiple times and kept wondering why it was making me do them twice. Sorry.

So yeah, I guess it really is just late because I'm a fuck-up. The actual word count is roughly fifteen thousand. I'm sorry. Rest assured, I have already cut myself with a red hot knife and poured salt in the wounds in recompense. On the flipside though, this does still push Human past the 300K word count mark, so there's that.

I also never actually delivered on my promise of showing Steroid Abuser this chapter. I'll get to him later. Again, sorry.

Please don't kill me.

Next Chapter: Old guys dispensing sagely wisdom.

Oh, and by the way...

Comments

[gforce]

I do so love this story.

[Kurohitsugi]

Me gusta.

[KingOfTheMuffins]

You did not just insult LeBron James, nigga!

Just kiddin'.

"DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE! I WANT YOU TO DIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"
From above the din of the explosions, lasers and gunfire, a voice called out.
"BITCH, YOU TRIPPIN'!"

Shit gonna get get real....

[DarrParrot]

This shit was bangin yo.

[DannyJ]

1280692

I'm just going to throw out there that I don't follow basketball or know anything like LeBron James, so whatever reference to him you think you caught is not one.

[StatusQo]

Thug Lyfe is best Zebra!

[Faust]

*sees Human in the featured box*

OH MY GOD JUST END ALREADY.

This story has gotten so ridiculous, makes little sense, but connects in so many ways... Bravo, good sir.

[cs95]

haha that spider part

[Signia]

Fuck yeah.

[KingOfTheMuffins]

1280710

I'm just pulling your leg. Also, good job on the chapter :D.

[DannyJ]

1280856

Thank you.

[Voronar]

Finally! I've been waiting for this for a while. Time to read I guess.

[KingOfTheMuffins]

1280862

You're welcome. Now get back to writing or you shall be punished for crimes against humanity.

[StyrofoamPie]

Just....wow. I shouldn't read stories this funny when everyone is trying to sleep.

[Impoxdragon]

Isn't it spelt "boogeyman" instead of "bogeyman"?

[Armalite]

Just a question, how does a spider, with eight legs, hold eights swords and still move? Never mind, I just like the image of it just sliding around on it's stomach and slicing the shit out of everything in sight while trippy music plays in the background.

[DannyJ]

1281051

Not according to British spellchecks.

1281527

Well, it wasn't shown this chapter, but the actual explanation is that whenever they're on the ground, the spiders use any two of their swords as stilts to stand bipedal-y and use the other six to ruin your day. I was just going to go with the most comical mental image I could come up with, but I can't decide if your idea is sillier than mine or not.

[Garion]

i.imgur.com/2NGTo.gif
What have i become, a man that just posts gifs as responses, shame on me

[StachePony]

..........................................!?

[DavidPony]

lol loved the mount celestia joke
also love the fact that the zombies tried to guilt trip lord second

[viconis]

urah lol

[Cognito]

As far as I'm concerned, your chapters are the only steroid abusers I need

[sillyfillybowilly]

Damnit! When will Silver get the love she deserves?!

[The Gargoyle]

Damn fine chapter, loved the heavy amounts of Silver and Second.
Try harder Silver!!!!! Either you or that zebra is eventually not gonna get back up, and my money isn't on the guy without a special mirror for them. (Also I think you just invented a new phobia)
Loved all the references to other things, and to Shades of Grey, no idea who the map mirror is for though.
AND DAMN TO HELL ALL CLIFF HANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24202372.jpg
Really builds the suspense though, nice placement.

Silver is best pony, still want that cenatur, and can't wait for more!
P.S.1281596 I don't know if it's racist, But i keep forgetting your british. if that you be and i'm not double wrong...
and though it means very little from me. You iz forgiven!

[Asylum]

I empathize with third, Lovecraftian horrors are horrors for a reason...

Also two quick questions that i doubt you will answer.

1. Who did that mystery mirror belong to? I have no idea who could have a map as their symbol...

2. Is there any chance at all of Discord getting free? Even as a joke chapter? It would be amazing to have both Second and Discord fucking with Equestria...

[Ledomare]

FUUUUCK
IT'S LIKE ANTHROPOLOGY ALL OVER AGAIN
ONE MILLION TABLE FLIPS

...yeah. So good work!

[DannyJ]

1283020

i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2011/4/26/d7c5b09f-bc97-41f4-930d-6a1eb544856c.jpg

Not changing it though. Punch still sounds better to me than punt, rhymes be damned.

1283536

I is British mate, coz I eat fish n' chips and when I go 'ome I drink a cuppa tea and 'ave me crumpets while writin' Human. Cor blimey! Sure beats workin' in the coal mines all day!

1283808

>1. Who did that mystery mirror belong to? I have no idea who could have a map as their symbol...

Well, spoilers. Sorry. You won't be finding out who it is for a while though. That's setting up something for waaaaaaay later.

>2. Is there any chance at all of Discord getting free? Even as a joke chapter? It would be amazing to have both Second and Discord fucking with Equestria...

While that would indeed be hilarious, I'm afraid not. At least not in Human.

1284001

Any comparison to Anthropology is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, so thank you!

[norsefire]

Silver takes the chapter by storm.

[derpyvio]

70% of all Equestrians being homosexual? ...Sounds about right. We sure are one crazy ass fandom.

Another great chapter not seeing any grammar errors, story is still going strong and I like it but you already know that.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, what are your toughts so far on series 7 of Doctor Who?

[DannyJ]

1285336

Every episode so far has made me orgasm in delight, and I'm waiting for there to be gang warfare in the streets over which one is the best, so I can go out and break some skulls for Team Dinosaurs.

[The Gargoyle]

1284265
That definetly be racist, but I wont forget now. I have this nagging feeling though that i'll feel guilty next time I see John Oliver..

[The Gargoyle]

1285336 These 3 episodes remind me of the 9th doctor. I have no idea where they're going with this, but then again I never do.
REALLY excited though!

[derpyvio]

1285367
Man Dinosaurs on a spaceship sure was a good one. A town called Mercy was also realy good when The Doctor mentioned The Master I was like 'OMGYESYESYESFTW'. I'm a big fan of The Master if you couldn't tell, when he took over the world with a song that was just so badass.

Anyway what are your toughts on the Ponds leaving and the new companion The Doctor will get? The actress that played Oswin in Asylum of the Daleks, she will be the new companion. I like her she's good.

[DannyJ]

1285484

No idea what to think. It hasn't happened yet. I'll make a judgement when it comes.

[derpyvio]

1285498
Well then the christmas special can't come fast enough, unless of course we'll be blown to shit, mutilated or all around ripped limb from limb on December 21st... Fuck it I'd rather all that happen then not see new Doctor Who.

1285469
Well this story arc is called 'Doctor Who?', in the first episode The Daleks forgot about The Doctor and asked "Doctor who?". River Doesn't know The Doctor's real name yet so it might be revealed to her this series.

[Silver Wind]

Silver for best minion~ and potential gf for Second

[Ledomare]

1284265
This story has a lot in common with Anthropology: good writing, dynamic characters, humans being involved... and horrific cliffhangers.

[Nasty Mister Monket]

...
You fucker. That is a nasty cliffhanger.

And I will concede. Thug Lyfe is a badass. But Silver is better. If she doesn't win you know we will all be quite disappointed.

On another note, I am arachnophobic. Please don't get particularly descriptive of the Spider Legionaries, thanks? I'd be much obliged.

[dark magshin]

More Silver Vein?
All of my YES

[Total Eclipse]

1283274

IDK, but I pray for her.

------------------------------------------

I like how it was finally decided to refer to Sliske as a female.

[Mr AJ]

Spiders with swords? huh. (grabs laptop and runs screaming down the street.)

[Jack Ass Knife]

1280694

Ah, we meet again, Darr.

[Always Breakfast]

This story just keeps getting more batshit insane, but at least it's the good kind

And obviously, First was afraid of malevolently-placed cliffhangers.

[PsychoticDoc]

I think this is my favourite story on this entire site. silver's parts are my most favourite, then a tie between the new mane six and second's parts as second. i am not even sure why my favourites are placed in a reverse double reach around of the importance of characters, but whatever

[Ahikam]

i seem to recognize the end of the story from the Doctor Who episode 'the God Complex.' Each room contains the fear of someone, and you don't know what it is before you look, but when you look, you say to yourself 'it could never have been anything else.'

[Griffomo13]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr

[scienceandponies]

15,000 words? Screw slee-actually no, I really do need to sleep. Better put that off until tomorrow.

[scienceandponies]

Aw fuck it. I'll read it anyway.

[Theangryman]

Wait, there was meant to be 30,000 words in this chapter?

I feel cheated, yet oddly fulfilled by what's already here. Good going?

[kajisora]

You would not believe just how easy it is for him to be accidentally killed in a number of painful and tragic ways, and that would be bad."

....
Subtle Second, very subtle
We have come to expect such from you.

In other news, yes, dinosaurs! On a spaceship!
Honestly, I can't imagine a place i'd rather find a dinosaur. If only because it would mean being on a spaceship