Ch. 1 The Rift

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"Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death."

–Major Robert S. Johnson, USAF

Chapter 1: The Rift

"Got a ping back from the ROW. Pack of Hybrids down below!"

"Goamann confirm reading again?"

"Ping reads correct! Twenty of the bastards escorting Cleansers!"

"All wings on me, dive into the thick of them."

"Yes Leader."

"Acknowledged Leader."

"Copy that Lead."

"I hear you Lead!"

Five cruising crescent shaped objects began to go into a forty five degree slope downwards towards a shoal of organic looking metal constructs that were quickly closing distance. The black sparrows had begun to pick their targets, the underside of their bellies had opened up to reveal rectangular blocks with uneven surfaces in their design. A plate near the transparent hood of where the pilot sat fell into the craft as another internal object jutted forth two feet out of the body. The cone of fuel burning copper green which propelled the five aerial vehicles spouted from the center of the sharp edges of the waning moons. Beneath the engine two rudder-like fins ejected from the metal machine, violently spinning from the speed and wake of the fighter.

They were eager to sting and claim their day's kill, but the one lunar vessel as dark as night maintained the formation with the zig zag line of dark red down its back. The others kept their place behind the Leader knowing one mistake then would cost them dearly in the first encounter. The alpha leader began to hasten their approach like a hawk with a pigeon in its sights, only instead of a fat flying rat the images of ghastly tubular enemy bombers were their prey. Long barges with ribbed sides and a strange hood that extended from the front to the back made a lazy crawl to some unknown destination, their numerous fins which gusted exhaust along with the primary propulsion twitched and moved. High winds from the tumultuous weather of Thanalos II that hung low to the ground seemed to hassle the alien invaders even at their altitude. It was a pleasurable note to take in which further egged on the fighter craft.

"Strike 2 I got a lock on!"

"Strike 3 defending Strike 2, incoming turret fire!"

"I'm with you Strike 4 you have a bomber turret on you!"

Escort fighters of the Arch Enemy had begun to fire at Flight Da'gon, having picked them up on their sensors. Sickle shaped strike craft diverged from the bomber protection web and fired wildly at the incoming five fighters. Xenos weaponry let loose homing munitions which zipped through the air and towards the small crescent vessels with godly ease.

"OHHHHhhhh Frak!!!"

"Missiles!! Watch yourself Strike 2!!"

"Strike five stung one Cleanser!"

"Strike three defending 2!!"

An enormous blue blast erupted from one of the barges of the vile foe, it detonated like a kerosene tank set off by high heat. Its carcass began to gently flow downwards into the sea of electric clouds rambling like a severed high voltage cord. The very clouds welcomed the newest death with open arms as arks of electricity touched the hulk until it disappeared beneath the sea of storms. What short joy it brought to Flight Da'gon was momentary at best as their ROW pinged even more targets all around them.

"Bad guys inbound watch your six strike two!"

"Strike three go east now!!"

As the entire wing flew past the bomber squadron and its protective escorts, the assailants were well on their way to being struck down by retaliatory fire. No sooner had they reached far beyond their targets did missiles begin to surge forwards towards their crafts, many deploying countermeasures or simply jerking and turning radically to throw off the homing projectiles. Strike two and three were breathing heavily into their microphones as their last minute attempts to throw off a wall of missiles nearly cost them their lives.

"Strike two status? Strike three status?" Lead asked over the comm.

There was nothing to lead as the fighters continued swaying and turning maddeningly as even more projectiles were given birth towards their utter destruction. No one could focus on one another as the entire sky became embroiled in mechanical vehicles which each sought the destruction of those alien to them. Flight Da'gon however managed to turn the entire encounter into their favor when the two pilots managed to shake off the chasing demons of the skies. Using radical moves to evade, their would be deaths became acts of valor which saved the operation by merely staying alive.

Several more Arch Enemy bombers were stung as the pilots pushed onward, harrowing the enemy with all their strength. Yet, it would not be the same for the next pass as the very air around them began to sport tears, some were jagged and longer than six heavy cargo ships nose to tail while others were enough for a fighter craft to slip through. It was as if the heavens were parting through reality as bright white light so mighty no one could look directly at them. Both sides flinched as their canopies shone from the multiple sources of heavenly illumination, fighters swung away from chases as the enemy bombers dived down beneath the orb of lacerations.

In the confusion, there were casualties from the panic to regain some kind of sight in the air. Hybrids fleeing away from the area zipped and snapped with near hits to Flight Da'gon, it was then that the losses were incurred.

"I've been HIT!!"

"Who's hit!?!!"

....

"WHO'S HIT!!??"

"I... can't tell but... I think Strike Four's going down!"

Goumann's swift ship managed to clear enough of the ruptures where he could swing his head around to get a visual. What he saw struck a cord in his very heart as his vessel shuddered in sympathy, he swallowed the lump in his throat as he said those very words of Fourth Strike. His breath heavy from excitement knowing he could have been Strike Four while he was within the affected zone. There were three trailing smoking objects each going their separate ways in three directions, two of which were clearly the grotesque forms of the Hybrids albeit in pieces. The other was Strike Four and he knew it was friendly by the three white dots on both wings even as they separated from the main body, those marks were Riedel's Harbinger and the record of his kills. He had become an ace only three days ago, when their sortie had been created and sent to Vol's Reach to help drive off enemy air support. Each of those kills were escorts while most of everyone else had gotten their own tally from the support ships in the battlefield. Riedel never quite received the short party by the fitters and the team upon the news, congratulations and the little festivity had fallen deaf upon his person. That side of the pilot was what Goumann knew after their sixth sortie out, after Riedel had scored his first kill and then his second before they had to leave for more fuel. He was not someone who took a life and swayed it off as if it were nothing, it stuck to him like a scar that would never heal. It seemed then that Riedel finally found respite from his ailments of his own kills, he probably found peace as all of those who were dead did.

In the wide arch Goumann had let his ship travel in a longitudinal path, he let himself drop his defenses to see Riedel's vessel fall further down for a few more seconds before the fuel cells of the craft detonated. A pilots cremation in the massive aerial war being waged upon the homeworld, one which the death toll kept mounting with each day. Fragments blossomed downwards just as pink lightning arched before the debris, the mourning had been snipped off quickly by Hybrids on Goumann's tail. In a desperate attempt to escape the flares of energy lances, Goumann swerved the craft as the cockpit blared the lock on warning he quickly ignored while turning his head in each every way to keep a single eye on the foe hot on his tracks. His body jutting left to right as he narrowly avoided hits to his fighter, the canopy lit every few seconds from enemy strikes as if a flash bang erupted overhead. In a stroke of bad luck he pulled a muscle in his neck in the panic that kept him from swiveling about. Wincing from the sharp pain, he pushed the stick up and had inadvertently drove his plane into one of the tears. It was far too late to do anything about it as his eyes shut tight when the error was realized.

Tailed by three foes, the pilot entered through the blinding lavender light and into a whole new world which he had little time to even perceive as the dashboard howled the the lock on the Arch Enemy still had.

Goumann swerved his craft to the right sharply which tugged the G force against his body beyond the perimeters of the defenses of his ship, feeling gravity pull at his blood with such intensity that his soul almost felt like it was being ripped away. More spears of enemy fire passed overhead as he evaded certain death still, recovering from the dimensional gateway he hit every flap and pulled up to stall his speed. Coming to a stop and breaking in mid air just soon enough to put the three Hybrids before him and his gun sights. Feeling ire over the destruction the aliens had brought upon his world, Goumann bared his teeth in a ferocious scowl as the opportunity for a kill came forth. With a deep guttural yell, he depressed the trigger with his thumb to send searing lances of bright blue beams which struck forth with zealous speed and detonated the foes who had fallen in a near straight line in confusion. Before they had time to break apart, his munitions found home and burned through the strange metal of their hulls with ease. Whatever engines they had were punctured, armaments detonated, and wings were torn off by the damage alone.

He had no time to register the new world he had been transported to, but in that instance of victory his ship sailed straight through the debris of the alien ships as they slowly broke apart at the speed they were going. His Harbinger passed through the rain of disaster which lacerated the wings and cracked the reinforced canopy of his cockpit. One lucky piece of armor ripped through his engine that powered the fighter and cut all propulsion dry, red lights flashed as a mechanical voice initiated alarms. Yet Goumann was far too worn out by the three days of constant flights that drained his spirits till all that was left had been the manifestation of self preservation and dogged determination. Having lost close to two thirds of his home to the onslaught, he managed through with little sleep and fewer meals as the Arch Enemy did all it could to hamper supply lines. Having dispatched the Hybrids in one volley left the pilot feeling strongly accomplished and satisfied, masking his alertness to the fact that his ship was then falling down into a dropping slope.

He did not even attempt to pull up, not that he could, as his entire viewing ports saw a forest of some kind quickly enveloping his vision. Three kills in one shot was an accomplishment never before achieved, if he wasn't an ace then he was at this point. A point where he blacked out just before his interceptor leveled out and sliced through trees before breaking apart scaring all wildlife within his landing path.

The Castle Of Friendship....

When all the song and dance was concluded for Twilight's new home and now the Castle of Friendship, the sky detonated in a huge array of lavender light as rips emerged after the castle had formed. Four objects roared through the air up above Ponyville through one of the parted seams of time and space, one being seemingly pursued by three others of different shape and design. Everypony looked up and watched the ending dogfight bleed through as the lead object suddenly slow down and then spew thin lines of light into the chasers. They broke apart almost instantly as the attacker washed through their broken bodies and soon began to emit smoke itself.

Twilight and Discord watched as the mysterious show ended with the black moon crash landing in the Everfree. Even more so as the jagged injuries of reality closed back up and vanish before everypony's eyes. When festivities should have been underway with Pinkie Pie leading the way, there was a solemn silence over the town after what was seen. Something bad had happened and it needed investigation as soon as possible, but what hamper to the joy after defeating Tirek would mean for the future of Equestria was still largely unknown even as Rainbow Dash punched it towards the crash site. Her rainbow colored after image pointing to the direction of the object in the dangerous forest only Zecora knew how to traverse.

Discord coughed into is taloned hand, "Well it seems things have gotten rather out of hand once again. Care to join me in seeing how our new 'friend' is Princess Twilight?" he grinned softly.

Before she could return an answer, the draconequus snapped his talons together and instantly teleported the two near the location of interest.

Not far from the crash zone did two other entities emerge from other tears. Beyond the attention of Discord were the forms of Sunset's Demon form and Midnight Sparkle who floated downward into the Everfree. Both of which were cautious of each other yet nonetheless waited for the other to react or move so much as a finger.

As it stood, the two godly entities gauged each other curiously before they said a single word. The cartoonish world they were thrusted upon held so many questions to ask, but at the time they knew they had no chance of getting answers. Even as the aerial battle overhead roared loudly, they were heavily focused on one another as the magic from both their forms gave off an impressive aura.

Ch. 2 Double, Double Toil and Trouble

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You lived and died alone, especially in fighters. Fighters. Somehow, despite everything, that word had not become sterile. You slipped into the hollow cockpit and strapped and plugged yourself into the machine. The canopy ground shut and sealed you off. Your oxygen, your very breath, you carried into the chilled vacuum, in a steel bottle.

— James Salter, The Hunters, 1956.

"Koltar?"

....

"Koltar?"

Someone called out, through the noise of the hanger bay the man managed to discern his own name being hollered out over the mechanics and machine. The massive fortified strike craft storage area would be akin to huge ant colony with workers moving to and fro, the low overhanging ceiling as with the rest of the structure a staunch dull gray. Three rows of long rectangular illuminates glared sterile white light down upon the chaos of the hidden airbase. Workers, airmen, soldiers, and logicians bumped shoulders as they made their way through to their destination, the constant collisions had long since outplayed any apologies normally given.

To either of the far sides of the trapezoidal construct were the awaiting Harbingers, Interceptors, and the two last remaining Typhoons which were the pinnacle of Thanalos Navy in the region. From the black crescent shaped outdated fighters that were the Harbingers, to the inverted beige flower-like Interceptors that were at least capable of a decent dogfight. The glorious white Typhoons were the largest vehicles in the bay standing out to be admired and respected, no other base within a land carriers range had any on call. Though powerful and fast, with the latest in guided munitions and powerful bolt cannons they could not hold the front alone as intended.

"KOLTAR!!" a female pilot rushed over to the paused man being jostled by rushing bodies, both were in their armored flight suits waiting for the alarm of their suit to head out.

"Helga? Something the matter?" he asked, feeling the slight chaffing his suit created from the past two days worth of missions. He was due for a mandatory rest period within the next four hours if the gods allowed.

Koltar awaited the fellow pilot as she wormed through a group of fitters moving a fresh Bolt Cannon on a roller cart to a new ship. Using his left hand he swept it through his chestnut brown hair cut low to the scalp, wiping the sweat from his forehead from the heat generated inside the hanger. The roughness of his callused hand provided some pleasure as it scraped the skin a little, but the cool sensation of moisture had been well welcomed then.

"I just finished talking to one of the controllers, caught them having a smoke by the R.O.W. building. Managed to get some info on the enemy's movement... and how we're fairing as well." Helga had arrived with an initial mirth at seeing a fellow pilot, but the news seemed to sour her demeanor as it became apparent things were far from proper.

Being far too exhausted these days he had little emotion to give and gestured for her to continue, she pushed back strands of gold hair matting on her forehead from perspiration. Her cream white skin bore the marks of shrapnel from a month ago, having engaged a pack of Hybrids harassing a fuel convoy and received a near fatal hit on the nose of her Harbinger. Regardless, she still was attractive if one could look beyond her dog headed determination and recklessness which bordered on suicide when the chips were down. One would dub her an alpha and few really wanted to get close to her, she was all that remained of the Venerated.

"They've taken aerial dominance over half the planet now, the War Council has ordered a full retreat of all the armies that were engaging the vanguard elements. General Argent, Sir Thomas, and even Baltazar have begun to pull their forces out of the contested border. They're going to try and mount one last offensive after the shiners realize they'll have to cross the lowlands to go any further. The bots won't be able to go by land because of the storms, so they think they'll go by air. Landing their machines will be the most vulnerable they'll ever be and every squadron is being amassed to counter their spearhead. Soooo..." she tapped the small sapphire embedded on the clavicle guard of her suit, the alarm module that called them to the briefing room.

"So no more escort, recon, or sting missions huh? We're going to see one hell of an air battle so soon? Wonder how they expect this to work." he bemoaned the facts that were the horrible condition of the current air capable craft, "We don't have the numbers let alone the supplies."

Feeling a slap to his shoulders as Helga tapped them in an attempt to cheer up the tired fighter pilot, "When is it ever easy? Besides you got me right?" she grinned with pride and confidence.

The strange thing was, he heard the last word she spoke and it seemed to draw out just as his sight blacked out into an abyss darker than the souls of the Arch Enemy. He should have felt startled in the least but the suddenness seemed to bring him a sense of relief like laying down in his quarters for the rare bed rest allowed with the combat stims they constantly took. His whole body felt the rush of cool water flow over his essence, just like the crystal clear waters of the coast of Triniban, his home on Thanalos II. Those years long before the cancer that arose from the depths of space began to burn every world they came across.

Soon there was nothing at all, not a breath, not even a touch of movement as all of reality seemed to no longer exist. Just his mind and the thoughts which dragged at a snails pace, what else that could be done?

He wondered what happened that brought him into nothingness, why had Helga disappeared? What was he doing before this? Was he still fighting in the air and merely blacked out from exerting too much G-force onto his body? Questions upon questions went on as if time no longer played a part in his current reality in an agonizing fashion, which of his gods did he offend to place him in such a world?

Then, as if being brought out of the depths of the deep blue of Nemundia from nearly drowning, his body shot up and slammed into the seat of his Harbinger. That alone sent a throbbing shot of body wide pain as his eyes shot open, his lungs breathing in and out like the speed of a defense turret squeezing off proximity rounds at invading Hybrids. It was as if he died only to be brought back, his fractured HUD flickered as it tried to bring up his status only to have warnings and alarms in red nearly blind his groggy vision. The pain becoming steadily sharper leading to his limbs to fidget as if to get away, but his seat harness and deflating airbags stopped any real gain.

In a panic, Koltar's eyes zipped every which way to figure out where he was and why he was suffering so much. His hands managed to get some range then began to grope for the buckles on his chest even as his fingers ached as if he'd gone a round of Hammer Stone at the pub back home. Regardless of the dark gloves encasing them it was a journey in itself to gain the escape of the shackles. To which as he undid the final clasp, the flight suit then auto injected a serum directly into his heart with a quick puncture from a retractable syringe. It pierced the skin with ease, through the port in his sternum where behind was the vital life giving organ pumping maddeningly from his torment. There were no words for the reception he gave to the medical protocol, it was just the topping on the cake as far as he knew.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Raggedly breathing, he ripped off his protective headgear and tossed it at the ruined console before him where the interface was shattered. The combination of painkillers and combat stims did their work almost instantly as they were inserted directly into his bloodstream. The effects cleared his head though he scowled at having to experience the rejuvenation process all pilots had to go through before their first virgin combat flight. The concoction snaked its way through each artery, vein, and down to the capillaries where they could bring peace and calm to the user.

Letting out a breath he quickly took in and held for a time, he bemoaned his condition as the torture of the crash landing faded into prickling needles along his body. A slight ring developed in his ears though it was nothing to shake a stick at, his mind allowed to perceive for the first time and the sight was not pleasent.

It became very obvious he was still inside his fighter though not in the air as he had been as bits of memory started to float into the surface. The reinforced canopy of the cockpit looked as if it had seen better days as had the console below and to his sides. Cracks in the silica cap threatened to give with a thick dense trunk of some kind of tree having landed upon the vessel. The interior of his ship sported bends and strain from his crash landing. Dials, meters, switches, and buttons which should be lit up were dead as was the Harbinger which seemed to be kissing the trunk of some kind of tree of which had been snapped in half by the impact. He had little way of looking about but something of the terrain he could see with mounds of earth consuming half of the visibility. Beyond the rich chocolate soil was an endless view of underbrush and more trees, vines hung like lazy serpents, and a few pot marks through the thick foliage showed a clear sky up above. He falls back into his seat from observing his surroundings, huffing once as his body still in the process of recovery detested much movement yet.

"I... I was in the air... I shot them down..." he rubbed his face calmly before looking at the gauntlet interface on his right arm, it too slightly damaged yet functioning.

The broken blue panel displaying his vitals and the suits condition had the same images as his helmet did. The nanobots of the suits medical supplies had been administered into his system and repaired what amounted to serious list of injuries he sustained. He had two more shots left in the module and five more of the Rejuv injections, feeling glad he took the medicae's advice to keep an extra stock of either just in case from a few weeks ago. The pain had to have come from the immediate work of the minuscule machines, their rapid pace usually generated heat that thankfully caused no damage. Though the nerves flared where ever they worked giving a sensation that one was on fire.

With a deep sigh he looked back to his battered helmet before putting it back on, groaning in the act as he cleared the HUD of the alert messages. Shifting through the options he found the comms device and reset it, the crash somehow screwed with the device with the Harbinger's own link obliterated.

"Lead this is Goumann... do you... copy Lead?" he spoke still catching his breath into the microphone only to wait through silence.

"Lead? Are you there?" a second attempt and still nothing.

He reset the module again and tried several more times before giving up, the pings he sent out provided no receivers. It was as if he was all alone, which made no outright sense as some kind of frequency should be available to listen in on. Yet there was no such channel to be heard even from command or the controllers. Turning to the last option he beckoned to the on board A.I. that dwelled within his suit, a very old model he usually hesitated with.

"Alice? Are you there?" he looked at the only layer of protection between him and the outside environment, enjoying the gel layer which had ruptured and clotted any loss of air from inside the cockpit.

'Lieutenant Goumann.' the drone of the robotic voice replied far from any female tone to be expected with the name Alice.

"Alice, what happened to me?" he inquired as his hands roamed for the kits and pouches in their proper compartments that were largely undamaged.

'Request accepted, Lieutenant you dispatched three enemy escorts and proceeded to lose consciousness from exhaustion. Your ship flew through the wreckage as you increased speed and your engine was damaged in the process. After losing control you fell into a stabilized fall from the autopilot after your vitals fell below operational perimeters and the ship's systems could not contact you. The landing has crippled the vehicle and a large conifer abruptly stopped the ship. Which now rests atop of you.'

"Alice where am I and why can I not reach anyone? I keep pinging them and there's nothing, no response?" he continued on using a folding blade to help the airbags flatten quicker so he could attach his sidearm to his suit.

'During the engagement, an anomaly I cannot discern disrupted the battle, you flew through one of the anomalies while being pursued. We are currently off world. There is no Thanalos II, we are stranded on an unknown world.'

Looking around to ensure he missed nothing, relaxed that the suit worked its magic on his injuries so quickly, "How do you know this?"

'Before the enemy locked onto the ship, I managed to use the Harbingers sensors to scan the anomalies and again after we emerged through one. The data I analyzed leads me to this conclusion, the Arch Enemy may have used a new weapon. To what ends I am unable to determine, it is beyond my capabilities as a Gen Four model.'

Ready as he'd ever be, Goumann took another look at the alien forest his wrecked ship nestled into and this time less winded by it. The vegetation looked like any normal fauna, there were even animals he recognized fleeting nervously away from the scene. The feel of a xeno world to be sure permeated the area with a faint whiff of lurking dread. One he would have to survive and find a way back home if at all possible. Perhaps where ever he was sent to was under Dominion or allied controlled space, since for one it was not a burning ember common to Arch Enemy held worlds or those they scoured.

"Alice is the air toxic?" he craned his neck about as a few cracks erupted along the contact area with the fallen lumber.

'Before the ship crashed, sensors indicated no harmful elements other than a unique type of radiation unknown to me. I recommend caution.'

"Breathable then?" he found the pull handle that should be powerful enough to push the annihilated tree off.

'The atmosphere is suitable for human habitation. Recommend maintaining sterility until further testing can be done, I will need an hour before an accurate measurement can be ascertained.'

Hearing those words he pulled hard and thanked his helmet's thick armor and noise dampeners as the canopy jettisoned, the bolts that kept it in place shot out into the air. Letting the expulsion system use enough force to rocket the shell to the left with the trunk as it slid off and onto the broken left wing, the pulse of pressure a mere thud to the pilot.

"I'll keep this on just in case then. Any chance of a map or layout you got?" he tapped his helmet and hoped the computer thought of everything, his model wasn't exactly the current one given to true navy pilots yet it still proved useful.

'I procured a rudimentary map before the ship lost power, there is a small village of some kind to the northwest of our location. I have no further information at this time.'

Scanning his surroundings, Goumann rolled his shoulders feeling a grateful numbness from the medication. His smoking ravaged vessel plumed thin columns of black oily smoke from the engines fuel source, trailing from rips and fractures in the metal chassis. It barely looked anything like the Harbinger he had rode for the past two years as a Security Forces aerial asset before being conscripted into the navy. A small ping of emotional hurt touched the man deep in his chest, no longer did it look like a waning moon as both wings were since sheered off. Even through the thick armor it was rent down to the core after punching through a long line of trees, some remained standing which hinted at some point he cartwheeled.

If he crashed so spectacularly, the chances of the locales being aware of him were high thus he'd have to be very alert for whomever called this world home. He'd come back and find a way to send out a distress call, but for the moment security and curiosity were on the top of his list. Even the Security Forces taught their pilots to study their immediate area first rather than erecting a defense of some kind or calling for help, unlike the true navy pilots a S.F. officer wouldn't be some sheep waiting for the wolves to close in on.

Jumping down onto the disturbed earth pile to the grassy ground, he set off to recon in hopes that the denizens were easy to talk to. What he didn't realize however were the embedded chunks of Hybrid metal still in his craft. Jagged pieces of xenos armor that shook and moved like a tick trying to free itself, all the while they started to absorb some of the Harbinger into themselves. They were growing...

Several miles away

Corrupted Sunset Shimmer and Midnight Sparkle continued to wordlessly gauge each other, looking over the other as an equal threat. The purple witch beheld the demon like a scientist would a dissection specimen, marveling at the tattered wings, the black sclera, beaming ice blue eyes, living hair that acted like a fire blazing, and the royal crown atop her head. Magic that was all around them unlike the world she left failed to draw Midnight's attention away as she sensed a higher yield in the demoness, akin to how a high powered laser pointer was to a spot light. The floating aberration emitted magic so dense and limitless as it seemed that it tantalized wicked mage into breaking the silence. She too suspended in the air by her own might as her wings spread outwards of their own accord.

"My my my, so much magic you have? Mind letting me study you?! I must learn how you have so much, I need to learn everything about magic!" she asked with a savage hunger as her emotions salivated with potential avenues of boundless reserves to allow further research and testing of the amazing energy.

Sunset merely gave a disinterested frown with bored eyes and hands on her hips. She gazed upon the ascended being before her, sensing much unintentional malice through the pursuit of want and greed of wisdom. Her demon form let her pick up on the negativity others exuded, but unlike the Rainbooms who were more of vindictive through honest reasons this female was a bucket case contained around the awe of magic. Possessing black avian wings unlike her bat-like appendages, there was a strong well of magic inside her which showed through the eye wear and the unicorn horn of glowing blue light upon her humanoid form. Her hair aflame dancing in the breeze of the natural ephemeral mana winds of Equestria, her wardrobe was rather impressive she had to admit though not practical in the least. This one spoke a tone which soured her demeanor quickly, hungry for power and wanting to know about it, about the crown on her very head most likely.

Sunset began to realize that the other girl wanted to take her power for her own, preventing her from becoming the ruler she was destined to be. Just like Celestia did so long ago, just as the other princess who came to the human world tried to do, after all she worked for and those she stepped on to reach the top. The abomination was far beneath her and she could feel it, not even worth the problem of dealing with at all.

With a fake smile, "Ohhh I'm so sorry to nip this little meet and greet in the butt, but I have more pressing matters to attend to." she brushed off Midnight and began to turn away to find out where she ended up, if she what she had seen was correct before jumping through the portal she was home once again. Sure there was no zombie army to use as cannon fodder, being in the magic infused atmosphere gave her the additional power to feel like a one person force to be reckoned with.

Her sun colored tail whipping the air as an added insult, sending Midnight from a dumbstruck response to fury, "I must know all I can, I need to... I... HAVE TO!!"

Sending a hand out, Sparkle fired off a blast of magic that seared the air as it zipped towards Shimmer who immediately erected a barrier to deflect it. The beam of mana headed off to the left and tore into a few thick pines with ease, the demon did not take kindly to the attack. With a deep monstrous growl she turned around, forcing magic to her clawed hands and lashing out before her. Blades of mana surged forth at Midnight with the intensity of the sun causing her to teleport blindly away as her sight was compromised. Vanishing in the nick of time, the lash of magic cut through a few hundred meters worth of forest and shrubbery cleanly like a butchers knife. Birds and rodents squealed and cried as they were jarred from their homes, a manticore roared as it ran away spooked.

"Don't triffle with me worm!" she yelled before a lance of magic lanced before her face.

Quickly looking up to the sky above the trees she honed in on her attacker, using her wings and power to elevate herself in a rush. Midnight had taken to strafing her waiting for another move, she used her vast intellect and inquisitive nature to study the demon and in no time find the source of the magic she could taste at the tip of her tongue. She'd yet to figure out the magical element that was the crown, far too driven and clouded judgement to hone in on it.

"I will learn everything there is to know about magic, especially why you have so much!" Midnight cackled with her hands glowing with a primed spell she crafted on the go.

"I won't lose the power I earned! I deserve it! And I shall RULE Equestria as I was meant to do!" with a powerful flap of the wings, Sunset dashed towards Midnight intent on silencing the other.

Moments Ago

Discord had teleported Princess Twilight to the very start of the long skid mark in the earth that the strange object had created. Before their very eyes stood a rough jagged path of scythed trees and torn dirt from the object. It was obvious whatever landed so catastrophically was built for endurance as the destruction went on for hundreds of meters as it appeared. Some bits of obsidian decorated the way forward, hinting at not so good state the thing was likely in.

Twilight huffed in annoyance, "Why did you just take us here and not bring the others?"

The chimeric god of chaos simply giggled at her annoyance, "Well if you must know, you and I are the most capable of the bundle. Judging from what I saw, the battle with Tirek must have been so powerful it lead to a weakening between worlds normally prevented by the laws of nature? Now I've traveled across the planes myself back in my younger days and I must tell you... it's not all pretty poison joke plants and Hydras." he gave her a mentors eye for her own good before fading back into his jovial self.

The alicorn took a moment to let the idea sink in before it became evident, "I... I guess you're right about that, but did I really do that? Did I... what did I?"

Discord soon sported a detective's outfit complete with a monocle and a fake pipe blowing bubbles and feathered seed pods with each breath. The brown tones in his suit gave him very business kind of look, yet concerning who he was it was just mere play.

"Normally you'd never be able to open portals between universes, not even Celestia herself could do it nor Lulu in her wildest dreams! The fact is you were given three wells from three alicorns to combat Mr. Ruffle Puff and by merely exercising the power you had then, likely acted as a bubble which broke the waters surface. It's the first time I've seen it happen in this realm mind you, from what I can guess? The battle must have had a lingering effect..." he puffed a cloud of cotton candy from his pipe as he pondered to himself.

Considering the ramifications of the titanic struggle either of the two had been embroiled in, it did seem likely that using all the princesses magic to fight Tirek would do such a thing. Twilight felt responsible when the destruction of the Golden Oaks Library had sparked the rage within her at everything the centaur had done, yet what else was there to do before the final piece to the box was found? She hoped that whatever came through was friendly and not another monster, just as her thoughts went to the possibility that there were other tears that dumped others across Equestria. Discord hummed loudly like the sound of a the apple cider fabricator the two unicorn brothers used against Applejack back then.

"Time waits for no one Princess! The longer we take the more likely our guest has left the crater it made." he said as Twilight finally joined alongside with him when he floated over the ground. Studying every ounce of damage to the Everfree, Fluttershy would have a cow over the restoration she'd need to do besides the damage Tirek caused. There would likely be a large number of homes plenty of animals had just lost.

Ch. 3 Are You Mental?

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Ten minutes into the trek into the ominous and confusing forest jungle hybrid, Lt. Goumann soon found himself in a very strange and unexpected world that even he found unbelievable. Once the hype from the drugs wore off, his mental faculties started to turn their gears and began to formulate questions that needed answers.

Though what was the most pressing was the very obvious and one he feared was the truth, the humor in it sprouting from the last few months of welcoming death if just to get some winks of sleep. From the bunkers of Thanalos II to this venerable garden of eden the pilot gandered around himself with each step he took, no scorched zone from bombs nor violent electrical storms in the skies. So alike yet different from his homeworld.

The time came when he finally asked what buzzed about his head like the mosquitoes which physically surrounded him in an attempt to feed, "Alice, are you there?"

'Yes pilot, what can I be assistance of?' it replied robotically.

Goumann breathed in slowly as he stopped before a small bog, "You and I both know the enemy would never use a weapon which sends enemy forces to another world especially one so livable as this." he let out his breath, "So what are the odds that I am dead? That this is the afterlife or the experience of death in the process? That you... you're nothing but a figment of my imagination trying to cope with death itself?"

Even though he expected an immediate response there came none, Alice hesitated as it seemed and it urked the human towards more questions as seconds became a minute. Sure the thought was more of a jovial tap on reality, yet was he really ready to acknowledge that this was a dream of a dead mind as it slowly shut down?

"Alice?"

'I'm afraid I cannot answer that theory Lt. Goumann, while true the Arch Enemy would never have such a weapon out of plausibility. I have calculated that we should continue to consider that we have still traveled to another world through some means entirely whether by the Arch Enemy or not. You did witness a fellow wingman collide and burn after running into other Hyrids? Did you not?' it asked.

Goumann bent down and put a finger into the murky water where the dragonflies began assailing the flying biters around him for an easy meal. Tapping the water's surface sent ripples outward which faded into oblivion, he could feel the coolness of the water as if it were no more real than he.

'My calculations narrow down our chances at a teleportation or wormhole to be our better chance of a reason for being here rather than death.'

"Well that makes it easier to go with then?" he bemoaned begrudgingly as he trudged on.

Birds flew away from him as did rodents which scampered into the underbrush out of threat of being eaten. Leaving only the foliage in its density to remain as his audience and acquaintance, trees to shrubs stood solemnly quiet as he journeyed by them taking the path of least resistance. His spirit wavered as the battle from which he was caste away from was likely over or still going on without him and Lead was very much pissed at his absence. Chuckling at the thought of the waste of anger from his superior, the pilot still felt guilty about not being there to die with the rest. To fall in the service of the homeworld where many were perishing each day in the throes of the final conflict.

With a head held low and one hand on his belt pack, the human fighter pilot trudged on without paying any attention to his surroundings as he rightly should have. It caused him greatly in his initial plans as something overhead sped over the tree tops as silently as an owl. Though his suit had several sensors they were limited in their range and diversity, being an S.F. pilot never meant you'd get the proper gear or high end equipment as the A.F.G.S.

No sooner had the covert sky shark circled him seven times did it finally make its strike, the blue blur dashed off and made a reverse towards the pilot. Reaching top speed for an ambush the organic mass blasted past tree limbs and branches with the ease of a vectored engine hitting a pigeon. She traveled a good ways away until finally homing in on their target with precision accuracy. Immediately using her forelimbs to make first contact, sending Goumann into the muddy ground face first before he could even realize what was going on. Before the shock and pain of the impact could be felt, his vision simply rushed towards the grassy ground with a custard clay dirt beneath it that swallowed half his frontal helmet portion. Every micro camera lens which fed the visual points into the HUD simply showed darkness as he struggled to get back to his feet.

Having no means to clean his visor, Goumann feebly wiped away what he could and peered through the far flanks of his vision to see what had come upon him. He had no luck as the thing blasted by and pushed him into the ground once again, ire turning into a mix of fear and rage as his sight was denied to him. Yet for all the need to lash out, the warning that Alice gave him stalled any attempts to yank off his protective layer of armor and recycled air for a moment of revenge. A small rune on the bottom left of his digital display warned of the very radiation that might be hazardous to him, and it came from his assailant.

Another pass had the pilot on his back with his hands in the air as they tried to reach for his sidearm, something wanted to keep him down rather than kill him. So if it was not of the Arch Enemy's perpetration than who? Surely if it were Lindwyrm trooper he'd already have a few holes in his body his fist could fit into, they were not the type to take prisoners nor was that ever an option. Dazed, shocked, and frustrated the lingering chems still kept his brain on the prize that was to stay alive and he reacted accordingly.

"ALICE!!!" he cried out, "Target now!!"

'Calculating...'

He rolled to the side before risking another jarring flip front over, his helmet's overlapping v-shaped segments coated in grim lifted up and spread outward. Revealing the reflective armor grade glass shell of his visor, though the muck still penetrated past the frontal layer and gaining a grunt of disdain.

'Target biological... no signs of Arch Enemy signatures. Possible local wildlife, recommend stun rounds to prevent potential upset with the natives who might view...'

"Alice! Don't care, loading Medusa!" his head swiveling around as he tried to keep some what of an eye on the blue animal, his hands groped for the right magazine holder all the while.

Popping out the lethal penetration rounds, the metal box thudding with a dull clank on the grass near his knees. He swiftly pinched the ammunition with quivering hands and slapped it into the pistol which glowed with an eerie blue light near the barrel. With the safety off the oscillating magnets had enough time to warm up and readied to catapult the cartridge at its intended target. Just in time as well, Goumann had equipped himself for combat just as the blue blur came back with such speed his instincts saved him from yet another collision. By twirling to the left onto a thorny bush he was but mere inches away from the creature whose afterimage seemed to sport more than the powder blue skin or armor.

As it zipped up through the tree canopy up above the pilot cursed to himself for the near mistake.

"What in the... Alice, am I being attacked by chameleon or an advertisement spam?! The damn things spectrum!!?!" he spat as he removed himself from the bramble.

'My scan is still being processed, six limbs... hair... body structure familiar to terrestrial animals of Thanalos...'

"NOT helping!" he needed to know if it had anything other than smacking into whatever it deemed a threat, did it have a stinger or venomous quills?

The thing that accosted him moved too fast for his human eyes to perceive, but the A.I. still had one last backup camera safely guarded by the visor. Still, being an S.F. pilot hampered his abilities to defend himself quicker and efficiently, his life was on the lines due to the cuts to the budget on military expenses. The generals figured the front line technological marvels would be enough for any defense, making the S.F. little more than peace keepers and border patrollers.

‘Target locked, to your left pilot.’

With the sensation of sweat pouring from every inch of his skin, he haggard through his body’s slow reaction to what his brain commanded. From the guiding words of Alice, to the red rune on his HUD, the position of himself to the trajectory of the enemy he messily aimed at where the blue blur would be coming from. No sooner did he do so had his peripheral vision caught the disturbance of the leaves as sunlight shot down into the boggy zone. His eyes widened as his heart pumped with fury, his left hand holding the firearm that shivered in and around the shot grouping which would find home.

The index finger depressed the trigger hard out of anxiousness putting the barrel just high enough to send the bullet higher than needed. There was no boom, not crack in the air as the mechanism of the sidearm sucked the capsule out at high velocity. The hollow point tipped shell raced towards the beasts anticipated route, the entire round essentially an electric field generator that activated upon proximity.

Everything happened so quickly that the only visible affirmation that Goumann’s shot did clip the assailant was the bright white blare and a short lived hum before the blue blur missed the fighter pilot and careened into the dense undergrowth of the Everfree. Though by then he simple looked in awe at having hit the thing when he knew it should have missed, he was never the best shot with a weapon in his hands. Put him into an aircraft and he could hold his own even if he had rarely shot down an actual foe and not a transport or runaway barge.

‘Target neutralized pilot, the effect will last for an unknown amount of time. I suggest you leave the area before it recovers.’

Deep breathes drew from his mouth agape, the wash of adrenaline overwhelmed the lingering chems as if he had ice cold water thrown on him. He could feel every blood vessel pulsing, his eye twitching, the finger still holding down the trigger for a moment longer until he finally released himself.

‘Pilot, respond, pilot?’

Goumann slowly turned his head to the visible path through the shrubbery behind him. The flight suit crinkling and rubbing against armor and fabric that sounded much louder than it did. What had he shot?

‘Pilot? Lieutenant Goumann?’

Something inside him however forced his limbs to act, in the dwindling high of his own biological chemistry with the synthetic junk. He had to see what it was, like any good pilot worth his weight in metal and fuel you had to make sure the enemy was shot out of the sky. Otherwise if they survived and damaged, they were usually like a cornered animal and would come back to haunt your flight. Your mistake could doom another pilot not expecting a wounded bird to sting them.

‘Pilot I do not recommend this course of action.’

Heeding no attention the man jogged onwards, with his weapon at the ready should the shot prove ineffective other than jostling the animal. He ignored the puddles of mud he trampled through that made his approach loud and alarming, branches and twigs crunched under the armored boots. Pouches, gear, and belt straps tapped and juggled to every lift of the leg with each step that lasted the whole three minutes of the tracking before the thing was finally found.

Even Alice was rather curious at the reveal, when Goumann came to a stop in a clearing and there was his quarry. His pistol trained yet wobbling at the unbelievable sight of the six limbed wildlife, he froze in place as both Alice and he tried to accept what they were looking at.

If Lead was there with him, it would have been the first time he’d see his C.O. look shocked and weirded out. The Madam was always the machine type, due to her post she couldn’t display much emotion other than anger for being shouldered with what the real fly boys should be doing. What a sight it would have been, because from where he stood he gandered at a Trokilican of his home if only compact and miniature. Wings which were too small to give lift or much of a hover if its bones were hollow and light, a mane of many colors which had to be artificial stunned his eyes. Even the tail had the same mirroring octopi spectrum as the head, dirtied with leaves and wood though nonetheless magnificent to view.

Large ears were moving about as they tracked his presence, it oddly enough had a dexterous range of movement with its limbs. He came upon it as it did a human thing and rubbed its ridiculously large eyes compared to the size of its skull. It could still move and it seemed as though the stun shot did nothing to its muscles and only affected its vision. While not a good thing that his only less than lethal option had barely an effect on the creature, he hoped it was smart enough to find him a big enough threat to stay away from.

‘Unable to analyze, the unknown radiation is emanating from the mutant. Warning. Sensors indicating a spike of the radiation, your suit will not survive such exposure pilot.’

“Are you saying it’s contaminated?!” his mental facilities began to function properly.

‘Recommend evacuation of area around target.’

Goumann realized his mistake and started to step back slowly just as the blue horse started to regain their vision. It scowled at first as it tried to see through the blobs of color that gave way eventually, all the while it spoke words though he couldn’t understand them. It freaked the pilot out far more than its dexterity, the fact that it had vocalizations that were not whining or snorts meant he was defiantly not on a human controlled world. There were humans and then there were animals with predators of varying degrees making the exception.

The blue fur coated animal spat out what could only be vehement curses as it rubbed its eyes, “What the hay was that!?!”

Rainbow Dash squinted through what was visible and scanned around herself, eventually gazing upon the monster she sought to subdue by any means. He stood in a manner that appeared to be fearful and it empowered the pegasi, though she still couldn’t make as much of a course of flight so much as stand. The two faced off with one of them attempting to leave.

“Hey you!!? Ya you ya stinky ole compost heap! Don’t run away… stay and fight or are ya a wuss!?” the mare beckoned though her words reached no ears.

Ch. 4 The Mediator part 1

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Ch. 4 The Mediator

From the high balcony of the Crystal Castle of Friendship stood the two princesses as they watched in wait, given the best view of what was going on in their recovering kingdom. What was to be a crowning achievement for Celestia's proud former student became a mess of a celebration from what she suspected was a magical anomaly. In hindsight, it may not have been the best idea to have transferred so much magic into her fellow alicorn and use it in a titanic battle against another godly entity who had nearly all of Equestria’s magic at their disposal. There had never been such a high concentration of ethereal energies in the atmosphere since the fateful day she had to fight her own sister, even then it had been only the two of them engaged in struggle. Twilight had been imbued with not one, or two, but three mana wells from the eldest alicorns in Equestria on top of her own magnificent power. It left the alabaster diarch to wonder what else might have come through besides the flying bats that destroyed one another and the two beings that appeared to be going at one another.

From the golden railing of the viewing area to the left two very dangerous individuals had caught their eyes as spell after spell had been discharged in an act of violence against the other. Identifiable only by the magic they exuded and expended at such a high rate that the princesses could sense even from afar as they were. Luna seemed to tense up upon feeling one of them in particular, it reminded her of something she'd rather forget and subdue to long lost memory. The Royal Guards seemed to share her reaction as the armored pegasi surrounding Ponyville gazed at the yellow and purple dots that zipped and darted every which way like dragonflies fighting over a mate.

Something sinister wafted from that battleground as well as the mysterious birds that first drew everypony’s attention. The unknown fighting entities which tore up the sky attracted even more fear and worry from the ponies. Pure magic in its destructive form attempted to spear through one another, the lone wolf earning its kill soon dived into the Everfree after a successful hunt with such speed and impact there still lingered a dust trail even after it long since crashed. Every guard was as eager as a fox to jump the rabbit, however their duty bound code meant they had to wait for the command to be let loose and ensure the populace was safe or not. They may have never really seen any action outside the Changeling invasion, but their hearts and spirits were in the right places.

Discord had vanished with Twilight only minutes ago with her friends baffled as the fastest flyer among them vanished soon after. Celestia still did not intervene as she studied the ever evolving situation heeding no advisement of her Royal Guard. She knew the eldritch chaos god was truly reformed after suffering from Tirek's betrayal, from him she had nothing to worry about and trusted in his faith in friendship. Though Twilight’s friends were at a loss of what to do about it as they had always gone together to face danger with open hooves. It took both her sister and herself to calm them down before they could arrive at the viewing deck to oversee the growing trouble.

Standing proud and defiant against the new threat Luna wore a solemn face as her wings fluffed in anxiousness, "Sister... I believe we have a bit of a quandary on our doorstep do we not?"

The larger sibling seemed to show no emotion as her brilliant and benevolent orbs gazed upon the two sites where one tore the forest asunder. Thousands of years had her trained to remain calm in such circumstances and treat it like a game of chess rather than in the moment. A strange catalyst had ruptured the barrier between realms as it seemed and new things poured forth, yet to act on the unknown so quickly would only welcome disaster for that she was sure. One had to know what they were dealing with first before sending in a task force, as at least Discord and Twilight would be powerful enough to make a hasty retreat. If she sent her guards to the other location that battle of magic as they witnessed would likely decimate any contingent they’d send and she would never sacrifice her ponies to gain knowledge of the threat.

"Yes... yes that we do my dear sister, but to leap into Tartarus's arms would not be to the benefit of our little ponies. Perhaps we should wait until the timing is right, after all Discord and Twilight are to meet our first guests of tonight. For the others..." she sighed, "I fear we will see them in a later time." Celestia sighed sending her sight upon the blurs of darkness and fire.

Princess Luna stood unaffected as if she knew what her sister meant, "Verily my sister, we shall await the proper time to act then even if I disagree with the strategy. Shall I inform the Royal Guard to maintain the perimeter instead?"

Celestia nodded solemnly, "Please do sister, this is a fight that cannot be stopped before it reaches maturity. Thus we shall take a back seat till the time is right even if it pains me to do so. Have the other elements of harmony secured before Twilight returns, something is happening for a reason and I cannot let her friends interrupt the progress." Luna noticed the stern body tone taken, “Even if one of them has taken it upon them to go forth alone.”

As if sensing what was being alluded to Luna obliged, "Very well, I shall speak to the Captain of the Guard. My Night Guard will step up patrols for those other two, they I cannot let slide. For one... I feel akin too… a very dark kinship."

Luna’s hoof steps signaled her departure as well as the later click of the balconey doors, leaving Celestia to herself as she continued to monitor the situation.

The Crash Site

It took a few minutes of teleportation to reach the smoke columns of whatever came to Equestria, having paid a visit to the other downed objects it took along with it. While little came of interest to Discord, Twilight had become completely enthralled over the metallic vessels rent and torn from falling from the heavens above. From what she remembered seeing, the strange unidentified flying objects had been categorized as two separate factions as it became clear when they attacked each other. When the sole member of group 2 as Twilight organized them into had been chased and attacked, group 1 seemed to be slow to act when the tables were turned. As evident of their corpses and thankfully possessing nothing biological, leading to perhaps being some form of golem or puppet with a singular mission.

Everypony who watched saw group 2 receive some kind of aggression whether it was magic based or not she was not certain. Yet it responded by swiftly overcoming them and seemed to simply give up upon attaining victory which perplexed her still. They appeared to have simply darted downwards at terminal velocity and then level out nearing the Everfree leaving the trail they followed in their death fall. When they finally reached the specimens that had attacked group 2 it was only then that she realized the speed and durability the machines had, the crescent shapes had come to rest dug deeply into the rich soil of the chaotic forest with only half the carcasses showing. Even if they were shattered by group 2’s retaliation their forms nonetheless withstood the impact like lawn darts. Nothing survived the thirty feet wide landing zones where trees shattered like glass, shrubs smoldered as kindling, foliage obliterated beyond recognition, and the smell of something rank filled the air.

“Wow… these things… machines I think? They are really too alien for even me to make sense of?” Twilight gasped as she closed in on the husks.

Glowing blue goo seeped from the innards of the Hybrids which smelled sulphurous with a mix of mint for a combination that gagged the young princess’s senses. To her dismay Discord seemed to enjoy the fragrance and even summon a glass bottle to contain what he could gather for who knew what purpose the chaos god had in store.

He noticed how close she was getting to touching the xeno substance even he was unsure of, “Careful there little Twily, I may not be a scientist here…” he summoned a lab coat and glasses while vanishing the container of the goo’s essence, “But I dare say if you touch that awful muck you may be in for a hefty surprise!” to which his head ballooned like an over inflated ball until it ruptured into a spray of muffins that bounced about on the forest floor.

The pastries danced on the ground before running away in fear as Discord’s head rose from his neck much to Sparkle’s shock. Looking back at the strange goo, she began to wonder if the metallic objects were somehow alive. Were they a race of sentient machines, how did they even function let alone come into being?

“How would you know tha… right, chaos powers.” She shook her head after realizing the redundant question which needn’t be asked, “It appears as if these unidentified flying objects were attacking that large hawk-like one, but it got the better of them. I saw it fire something… maybe a beam of magic…”

Using a spell she conjured a small wooden stand with five test tubes in the slots, she then had a special pair of tongs appear before her. Using the tool to clasp the glass containers she quickly took samples of the gelatinous material and fragments of the metal scattered about. Being extra careful to not even let her magic touch the specimens, she soon had what would be a very tricky but enjoyable research mission to study the wreckage. If Discord’s caution was anything to go by then she’d have to ask Celestia to relocate the crash site. Probably even the very ground it fell on to prevent contamination to the environment or the local water aquifer that sat underneath the Everfree. There was no telling what other worldly contaminants might poison their world, to which she realized she was part of the source.

“Do you know something I don’t Discord?” she asked as the vials and their stand were encased in a clear glass box she sealed with her magic and poofed it away back at her lab.

Discord waved his taloned claw where the lab coat vanished in lue of a safari getup, “I’m afraid I can’t say anything more about the intruders, I was far too busy enjoying the chaos coming from the portal they came through among other things. And MY I must say it was quite the disaster in the making, a shame I can’t tune in and watch it unfurl.” He said as he pulled out a pair of binoculars to spy the still long path of destruction they had to trek.

“So my initial assumptions were correct, they were fighting each other…” she gazed sadly at the constructs, the thought of warring kingdoms displeased her natural affinity to friendship and problem solving. What would drive the two parties to seek one another’s end in such a violent way? Could they not have made peace at some point before committing such a heinous act of fighting?

Taking a mental note to seek a way of replicating the tears and the variables of accessing the world the UFO’s came from, she gandered at the very ones with a mournful frown. Very large and sleek in design, very foreign in design and in appearance far beyond what she'd ever seen in her whole life and the books of every library she’d been to. They bore very minute similarities to the human world’s cars and airplanes, machines far advanced beyond anything Equestria had and triple where Sunset Shimmer lived in. Upon a more acute inspection her eyes beheld each and every fragment as their shimmering surface undulated like it were alive and well. Something metal shouldn’t be fluid unless molten or possessing a very low melting point, then again armor shouldn’t be as such for it would be weak and worthless.

Her horn glowed as a scanning spell was activated, one which would determine the type of material the shards and husks were composed of if they bore any semblance to what Equis had. Twilight closed her eyes and let the spell take effect, the wave of magic snaked out of the tip of her horn and shot towards the samples. In moments she’d have some kind of answer or at the very least a negative to whatever composed them.

Discord stood behind her as he barely cared for the details, he had seen where they came from once the tears occurred. His unique magic that was chaos could put an eye and ear anywhere even with his own still attached, there was such disorder going on in that particular universe. Though just as unacquainted with the ravaged machines as Twilight was, Discord had an innate sense for trouble and the lively things which jittered like crazy ants shouted danger more than himself among the ponies.

He noticed the young alicorn close distance with the alien fragments, he also noticed how they seemed to be even more active the closer proximity the two parties closed with. Two and two put together and it became all too clear of what to do, chaos was brewing right before the former Lord and his friend need not know the consequence of risk.

"Wooooww!! These specimens are definitely not of anything Equestrian knowledge that's for sure! Primary, secondary, and tertiary scanning spells detect no magic on them unlike anything we’ve creat..." she said as she was teleported away from the shaking metal parts vibrating maddeningly faster with each passing second like a rattlesnakes tail.

Even as she was pulled away she was able to see the innards of the debris that showed some kind of skeleton made of the same material as the armor plates. Everything moved like water disturbed by a breezy day though what made the young alicorn ever more excited despite Discord’s sudden surprise behavior were the crystal clear sheets within that had lines and dots trapped within their glassy shapes. The only thing she could remember that was in any way similar was the rune inscribed instruments at the Crystal Empire her brother and sister-in-law preceded over. Though they were far antiquated with what she just witnessed, something very advanced and intelligent had entered their world and they were at war with one another. The question was were they friendly to ponies and every other race of Equestria?

Once she found herself a few steps away from where she had been she jolted from her thoughts as her head shot towards the draconequis in irritation. Her sincerity bore no roots as the serpent noodle simply smirked and dusted himself off, snapping his taloned eagle claw as his magic went to work. The debris of the destroyed machines were removed with the blink of an eye leaving only their impact craters as any sign of their existence. While that tripped Sparkles alarm bell, before she could say a single word the two were teleported away to the actual landing spot of the black hawk or what was left of it.

“Now really my dear, I would have thought you’d have been a bit more careful around the unknown? I’m rather shocked you would risk catching the ‘Blues’ or something worse like I had… if you remember that as fondly as I do?” He grinned at her lack of containment procedures she should have used.

It dawned on her like a rampaging Ursa Minor on how unprepared she was to begin with let alone disregarded any potential foreign illness and disease. Vaccines and booster shots in Equestria were necessary annually to stave off microscopic invaders from the likes of the pandemics of yor. The Horn Blight virus, Wing Rot bacteria, Balding’s Syndrome, Hoof Fleas, and every parasite known to the Health Ministry had become the headliners for medical checkups before and after trips outside the kingdom.

Her muzzle scrunched up as she mentally berated herself for being so enthralled by the discovery of aliens that she nearly could have caught something incurable. Who knew what they brought with them and what it could do to ponies, her wings jittered before a thought arose as to what happened to the machines.

“What did you do with the specimens Discord?” she cocked an eyebrow inquisitively at the deity curious into whether she might still have a chance to study the foreign golemns.

He had been too busy taking pictures of the destroyed ship for his own scrap book with an old timey camera with exploding powder for the flash to answer immediately. Of course the camera was what detonated leaving behind a few flapping photos falling like a pendulum tilting side to side ever gracefully towards the ground. His tail scooped them up before the scrap book of numerous shapes collaged into a jagged hard cover, the pages flapped loudly open coming to rest upon two blank sheets. A snap of a claw and the images were merged into the keepsake which soon left the world rocketing away like a firework.

“Pocket dimension ohhhh miss smarty pants! Where else did you think I’d put them? I may be the former Lord of Chaos, but even I’m not that careless… besides we still have something else that needs tending to. As you can see.” He snickered before teleporting the two of them further down the crash site to the broken Harbinger, the black hawk all had seen dewing its opposition.

Twilight’s wings opened up in eagerness at the thought of meeting an actual alien and what it might look like, stowing away her curiosity for the ravaged vessel, “Please at least promise me you’ll let me inspect the foreign objects at a later date and time?!” she asked looking up to him as her legs and magic wanted to already go after the male or female or perhaps genderless beast of technology and wonder.

With a shake of his head he agreed, “What wouldn’t I do for my best friends Twilight?!”

Knowing he was at least for then keeping to his word, “Good, now… where was I? Oh yes, to find the operator of this vehicle or airship… aircraft?” she pondered as her hooves took their first steps around the unknown this time instead of right at it.

The lover of chaos and its once mighty champion waited a moment before taking an invisible staircase up into the air and above the Harbinger. Though unbeknownst to the young alicorn his antics had reason while giving him a good bird’s eye view of the embedded jagged ball mauled by the torn trees it so hastily balled through. Where it finally came to rest impressed Twilight beyond her reasoning if her quick assessment of what it likely weighed, its speed, the distance it traveled, and the probability of survival both ways intrigued her like a fresh untouched library filled with unread material. Going by the thickness of the tree trunks she was positively floored with discerning and analyzing the metal substance of the new ship. Perhaps if she could replicate it then it would benefit Equestria greatly from new armor for the guards to safer trains and ships, as any that might run ashore or derail wouldn’t be harmed after renovations. She was pretty sure even an Ursa Major wouldn’t even dent town bunkers in case of an attack, possibly even dragon fire couldn’t melt the chassis of the shattered craft.

“Wow… unlike group 1 this construct here seems less advanced. There are no crystalline pieces in any of the shorn areas, just circuitry and pipes… so they are advanced yet not as far as the others. It also lacks the fluid nature of the other specimens, though I wonder if that is something to do with degradation of their components? So many factors to consider! I do hope the subject is indeed alive, the probability is not looking good based on my calculations. Even if this thing made it this far relatively in one piece, minus the apparatus.” Sparkle sighed as she rounded where the right wing would be, instead sparked tendrils of wires and leaking fluids which were less interesting than the goo of the other ships.

Twilight could sense a magical barrier surrounding the alien craft, Discord was thankfully on top of it all as his signature extended even to the fragments behind them. His containment magic allowed her to continue slowly walking further towards the prow or at least she thought it was. Too much of it had gouged out the earth and vegetation to make deeper investigations of its design, but she pushed onwards with the prize keeping her content with the loss of initial findings.

“By Celestia!?! This thing has to be piloted by maybe five individuals with the girth of its core alone!” she marveled at the steps it was taking to arrive where she hoped to reach.

Discord however had since beaten her to the destination still standing on his imaginary catwalk, which meowed with each step surprisingly, “Well my dear I think it’ll be safe to assume we are looking for a single thing or unless they are small compact creatures which can fit in this little thing of a throne seat?”

He pointed to a disturbed trail of greenery leading from what had to be the compartment for a driver of some kind hinted at the remains of a glass canopy. Twilight had of course teleported over to get a better view only to see the damage of the seat from which she suspected something had operated the airship from. Drawing near she focused not on the metal monster itself but where the grass and shrubs had been broken and trounced upon. A live specimen indeed would yield far greater knowledge than the wrecks themselves and it took over her mind with vigorous joy. The scientist in her noticed no blood trail nor anything off about the foot imprints in the Everfree soil, meaning they had survived and could be interviewed without problems from injury or so she hoped.

“Looks like we got ourselves an extraterrestrial organism to find!” she hopped in place thinking about the volumes of books she’d write about meeting and studying the alien alone not to mention the technology and her reverse engineering for Equestria.

Somewhere not far in the forest…

“That thing sounded like a teenage girl!?! HOW!!” Goumann shouted to no one as his mind barely held onto slivers of sanity, with heavy footsteps shaking his words.

‘Pilot, I highly recommend you cease your erratic route and rest.’ Alice droned as the man had taken to another mad sprint anywhere away from the talking animal.

He had pushed his legs past the point of burning and aching till he managed to clear the choking flora of the environment. The gnarled bushes, clawing branches, dense tree trunks, and hanging coils of thick ivy had given way to umbrella-like ash trees though most were dead and rotting amidst the bubbling mire of wetlands. The transition would have clicked even in his foolishness had he not run into other denizens of the untamed wilderness earlier before

Prior to escaping the deeper parts of the Everfree, Goumann had leapt over a downed conifer where he landed both feet onto what appeared to be floating rock in a lazy creek. It had quickly become alive, he did not miss a second in getting further away from whatever that Trokilican look alike was. He barely gave a passing glance behind him as the very rock squirmed as it splashed in the water becoming larger with each thrash at what had disturbed it. A head of something large enough to probably bisect him snapped at the air with jaws long and tapered at the end. A single clamp reverberated even in his helmet as he continued on, the unknown thing hissed at the fleeing human with thankfully no pursuit to be had as seconds went on.

It would not be the last of further occurrences as no soon had he left that unknown monster did he collide into another after five minutes of tiresome running. He mistakenly looked back one last time for that camouflaged beast in the creek which in his momentum had earned a hard object to his pelvis, some kind of amalgamation of timber and kindling that scattered about. He quickly fell forward tumbling to a stop against a tall tree root which bruised his back with the misery of shrapnel in a losing dogfight to the Hybrids. A memory he suppressed when multiple growls of menacing nature emanated before him tearing his attention from his busted back.

He groaned both out of the agony of his bruised spine and muscle in addition to the enflamed lungs, his vision swam from hyperventilation that lead to a high of sorts. His chest rose and fell almost as quick as an anti air platform fired at a live target, on his side trying to rise back up with extreme difficulty the animal noise continued to grow louder. The audio of his headset vibrated to the point it became a loud buzz that continued to force more adrenaline into his system out of alarm. The hum of which herald one of the most dangerous intelligent predators of his home out of semblance, in a questionable reality that he was in he couldn’t help but look up to confirm what he heard.

‘Pilot you must rise. I am administering forty milliliters of Modafinil now.’ The computer announced following a sharp sting to the thigh from the thick plate armor protecting it.

Goumann’s vision drank in the startling visage of dream worthy entities as if the other things weren’t enough. He winced at the sudden injection but it was not enough to distract him from the new threat before him as ridiculous as it was to acknowledge. In all his life the Trokilican mutant was the most he’d ever think could frighten him aside dying in aerial combat, what put it to shame were the child’s play project equivalent to the terrible Verok of the flatlands. Canids that had evolved on Thanalos II naturally became the most fearful indigenous life forms ever to exist since the colony was established. How these stick built versions might fair in comparison were what filled the pilot’s mind with unquestionable terror.

Further paralyzing him was the pile of debris he had rammed which had begun to reassemble itself into another wood constructed Verok. He wondered if they could be killed or were they a nightmare thought which he’d suffer being torn and mauled. Their maws were indeed intended for rending as splintered jagged wood chips that appeared eager to sink their pointed ends in his body. Glowing green eyes made them all the more demonic and akin to some of the shock troops of the Arch Enemy he’d seen in data slates passed around in the mess hall. The pack of seven stood ready to jump him waiting for the final piece of branch to find its place in the angriest of the Verok.

‘Pilot! Move!’ Alice blared into his ears shaking him of his stupor before the illogical constructs who then began to draw upon him ever more tense and ready to leap.

Ignoring his back pain the man simply flung himself over the tree root which had caught his tumble, then used it to sprint away with vigor. He could feel the ease of which he could go forth into the clearing mire of the forest, where the limbs of his body barely complained as they powered him on. Throat tasting of blood ceased to send any sensation of fire as his diaphragm went into overdrive. A howl from behind him signaled the start of the next chase by the indigenous life, it was an all too familiar call he knew as a child when he too had run into the terrible furred engines of violence.

‘Pilot, your suit is not rated for combat. I recommend we evade capture by the unknown fauna. Follow the coordinates I mapped out on your HUD and you should be able to escape them.’ Alice said as the moving diagram moved to the bottom right of his visor flashed green to signal his attention.

“I’m… not going… to be… anything’s… FOOD!!” he yelled before forcing his run even further, breathing through pursed lips erratically in an attempt to maximize his air intake.

Seconds became minutes as the thudding limbs of the Verok fakes behind him grew louder and louder like a chorus of drums. The ground had started to soften under each step into the latest zone he meandered into, wherever Alice figured would save him he had no choice in the matter.

‘Pilot. We are heading into a water laden area. Be advised do not step on any rocks.’ a loud squelch echoed in the audio of the helmet followed the warning, but instead of doing so it gave Goumann an idea.

Knowing the plotted course might save him, there was some insurance he could muster up to at least knock a few of the beasts down. He had no incendiary rounds for his weapon nor anything that could kill something that was not biological in nature. Thinking of all else the rock thing he encountered before had to be in this swampy area no doubt from what little he knew of Thanalos’s own ecosystem. Changing directions to the next waypoint he soon found what he was looking for, more floating slabs of slate welcomed his spirits. Throwing all risk to the wind he went for the shore edge where a series of the submerged dangers lurked in a good enough pattern he could use them to get to the other shore past the water’s edge.

Planting both feet on the soggy marsh where the water lapped he tensed his thighs and took the bound forward, the drug worked his mind from fear into a more computing line of thought. The moment he landed he went to the next one where once his foot made contact he was off to the next concealed peril, repeating left and right till he rolled over the shoulder into the tall reeds of safety. No sooner had he take back to flight did he hear yelps, hisses, barks, squeals, and rock slamming against rock. Wood fractured and snapped giving Goumann the best hope he could ever wish for in his fight for survival, his luck bank flooded with good luck as his pursuers were done for by the obscured menace of the cloudy waters.

Alice spoke up again once he was out of danger, ‘I recommend you not take such risky tactics Pilot.’

Goumann slipped once and then twice after three more giant strides which finally after throwing off his balance just enough he stumbled from exhaustion slowly working through the drug dosage. The human caught the awkward gait on a large exposed boulder with his helmet taking the brunt of the impact that lead to a long crack on the glass visor. An insignificant leak from the breach signaled alarms all over the HUD while the shaken airman snapped out of his frightened madness breathing heavily completely out of it. His arms dragged along the rock as he gave into rest, he fought hard against it though there was no stopping the demands of the physiology that made him.

Numerous warnings blared into the man’s ears and for a moment that was all the world to him as if he were in the vacuum of space, of course for him it likely was. The standard suit he was issued was a recycled one and like the Harbinger he flew it was dated and lacked the latest upgrades to prolong certain things. For him he was informed by a blinking timer on the upper portion of the HUD, small text underneath it had labeled the decreasing value of time as the remainder of air still pressurized in the suit leaked out. Once it was gone and vented into the new world he’d have to take off his helmet to breath the other world’s atmosphere knowing the radiation still existed all around him. The layer of metal and polymer that protected him would no longer serve a purpose and he would die a very horrible death. All from being scared by a powder blue animal with spectrum mane that could vocalize his language and had attacked him.

‘Pilot I recommend rest for ten minutes. We do not have a repair kit on hand to seal the breach, however, we can salvage a torch from the Harbinger. The plasma core should still be functional and I can aid in accessing what power it still has to remedy a weld.’ Alice explained though the words fell on tone deaf ears.

Goumann released the huge rock and let himself fall to the soggy algae and decaying bacteria floor covered ground where bull frogs hopped along. His back to the granite and legs spread outwards pointed towards where he came back from, reality came back home that never felt more cold and lonely for him. The air leaking unsettled him and welcomed the past he had tried to keep away, he stared into nothingness as his breathing leveled out and the anger of his muscles waltzing in. There was no way other than to ask Alice how far he had run but from how he was beginning to feel it would take more than the Regen serum to help him back to his feet. It was not for the lack of wanting to try, he just kept feeling as if he was already dead and this was his limbo where soon he’d see the next life.

A notion accompanied by the other five times he nearly bit the dust in his bird and the one before it. Those five occasions created by himself just like the present because he couldn’t keep his wits together for the better when the table was flipped and the chips were tossed to oblivion. It nearly ended him when he flew through the debris cloud of the Hybrids and now he would die of radiation poisoning soon. Ever since landing he thought he was dead and dreaming, the talking creatures who threatened him only bolstered that idea even though he had Alice talking to him all the while. It would be his luck that such an end was deserving of a pitiful pilot as he.

“I never wanted… to be a flyer.” He mumbled feeling sweat flow down his face even as the air cooling system of his suit tried to aid his deteriorating condition.

Alice repeated the new objective that might save him, but was it worth it after flying through a portal to another world?

“Heh… it was no portal… you dingus.” he reflexively chuckled with no mirth behind it.

The forest had opened up into a bog of some kind, the dense thickness of the vile forest off several hundred feet away to which he felt somehow impressed over. Trees were far less in number where he was and he could see that the sun could be witnessed easily though he didn’t bother to look up. His grim coated boots with oozing mud and mud shone in the sun’s light as flies started to swarm over the human’s protective armor. Black winged things just like the ones from home, darted at each other to claim a space and feed. They too saw their ends soon enough as the nearby amphibians hopped closer to the inactive man and fed off the free feast. Their pink tongues darting out to stick onto an unsuspecting fly and drawn in to the waiting stomach.

‘Pilot please respond?’

Goumann took a deep breath, “That was no light… I crashed into something, I had to have.”

The timer drew closer to the halfway marker as he sat immobile with the initial soup of drugs injected into him after the crash. He was always the strongest of everyone else in terms of his liver they said, he’d always drunk others under the table. The medics at the med bay joked with him that they always kept three doses of everything should he ever end up on a gurney.

‘You are running out of time Pilot. If you cannot respond I will administer another regenerative dosage instead of Modafinil’ Alice soon turned its complacent behavior into a more aggressive one.

He laughed at the threat over the very painful procedure, “I’m dead Alice… so what? I hurt a little and then nothing. I’m a dead man anyways… separated from my flight… lost on an alien world we don’t even know if there are humans here… and my girl… she’s gone.”

‘Pilot, you are not of sound mind. Please rise and head to the crash site. I have marked it on your map.’ Alice still tried once more for the lesser of the painful choices.

The crack on his visor grew five more inches with a loud ting, “Alice stop.”

‘I cannot Goumann, I am your charge and you are my mission to keep alive. Proceed to the…’

“Then… my friend we are stuck in space with no ship floating in the astral void.” He quipped shooing away a large frog that tried to bite at his gloved fingers like they were worms.

He was never one for the air corps, even being in the Security Force had only been out of necessity when the Arch Enemy had come to target his world. He had been drafted and torn out of his peaceful loving life as an ordinary citizen thrust into the section thirty nine looking for troublemakers trying to make use of the impending doom. So many other colony worlds lost and they had been next, thus the trucking of illegal contraband for those with money became a huge problem for many reasons. He was good at the stick and that was why he was inducted, flying was almost his forte yet his marksmanship skill not so much. No one disobeyed the Imperial Office and when the aliens came as the planet’s initial defenders were swiped aside effortlessly, many like him were pushed in to fill the massive void in ranks. By then he knew his time was borrowed, if the best of their navy couldn’t do a thing, what was a hunter of narco runners going to do to aliens?

‘That does not compute, Pilot I will inject you with another dosage in ten seconds if you do not comply.’ Alice warned for a final time.

He giggled like a giddy child, “Do it, won’t change the fact that we’re screwed even if we come across anyone competent to help us. Records showed off planet incidents had years ahead of them before they were eventually returned home if it still existed. Do you want me to live through that Alice? To go back to a charnel husk that they burned?!”

One of his free arms groped for something until they came across a large stone that fit into his hand just right beside him. Quickly, Goumann tossed the object out into the swamp waters surrounding the path he was on, it skipped for a bit before halting after the third slosh of the skip.

Alice remained quiet as its psychological programming conflicted itself in how to respond, “The Arch Enemy had already gained a foothold on my home planet Alice, where we were both born. They threw folks like me at them and what do you expect the figures to be of success to failure ratio? Give me a good number you stupid machine!”

Still no response from the program, he took solace in it even though he knew it mattered not. He wouldn’t let the limbo reality screw him of his sanity even more, for he was a careful man and not one to fool twice.

“That’s what I figured.” He sighed giving into a complete restful stance against the stone behind him as the ground rumbled with a body trembling tremor.

The bayou around him seemed to come alive as long meters thick scaly tubes rose from the waters slowly yet agonizingly fast. His eyes swam back and forth as both his flanks were consumed by rising objects followed by a ghastly smell which started to ravage his soul through his sense of smell. The churning swamp created plumes of translucent greenish yellow gas that started to accumulate around him encroaching his position.

‘Pilot, you must move from this location if you are to survive. I am detecting another lifeform of massive proportions behind you.’ Alice warned.

Goumann laughed, “Like I care! This is all all a lie and I want to die. I just… want to… go away.”

Following the end of one of the pipe-like things came a head of some sort frilled with red hair that ended in a serrated jaw like some unruly mandible hair. Five if he counted correctly rose from the disgusting mix of thick soupy muck, the water surged over the land he sat on just enough to barely reach him before receding back into their normal range. His body could no longer tolerate the amount of combat stimulants before it started to give in to unconsciousness. Yet he was able to see where the things went which hovered far above him. Vivid emerald eyes shone with black irises, they eyed him like a god judging a mortal for their sins and that he knew he was full of packaging. All sets of eyes bore into his soul yet he felt no fear, it was befitting of him to be in such a situation amidst the unknown as he returned their ire.

“Come… get some!” he smirked.

‘Pilot you need to run!’ Alice called out just as the eyes drew closer to him.

It felt as if his body was raised upwards towards the oculars, yet in reality he was meeting them by their own unique approach. Their shadow could not give any visual to their fang filled mouths eager to devour the new morsel which had stumbled upon them. Yet as he sat oblivious to his coming doom a quick blur of blue flashed before his sight just as he faded into unconsciousness from the overdose of stimulants.

“Screw… thi…th…thi… up… yours.” He murmured before darkness overtook him.

Ch. 5 The Mediator part 2

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The world felt wrong, it felt off in so many ways that a mere thought was a challenge up a steep sheer of a cliff with no gear. It even hurt to think of why existing seemed to be a determent at all, given the fact that there was nothing to see nor feel tangibly with wavering hands and legs. Panic immediately washed in like a surging tide from a cyclone, far worse than the many near death flights Goumann had taken part in.

He flailed wildly as he tried to get his bearings in the void of oblivion, each muscle in his body seemed to tug of their own want. Even his body desired to find ground as much as him with no sight nor sound to signal something was nearby. His flight suit was the sole thing any of his nerves detected, not that it helped his situation any better. He huffed and groaned fearing a reality in which his loyal Harbinger had been clipped by the bastard enemy, and shrapnel had blinded him somehow. In a free fall from high up it was likely his skin was overstimulated by the rushing air to the point that he was numb to anything beyond what chaffed. The theory proved enough for him to go into an all out madness as his life neared its brutal end, as a mere splat on solid ground or a broken bag of meat and bone on the hard surface of the Thanalos ocean.

"RRRrrrrrraaaaggghhhh!!!!" he shouted trying to fight the inevitable that seemed so plausible.

"NOOOOOO!!!" he cried as no thoughts of his past life came back to visit him as some pilots often said happened to a dead bird in the air.

Almost by merely believing the notion that he was indeed about to die, the air became tangible but not in the fashion he expected it to be. It grew from a mild wisp to the strength of an office air unit, not some gale force speed which should be rippling the fabric of his light armor. Everything began to feel more wrong than it was already, doubt seeped through as to if he was actually falling from his fighter. Even as his mind screamed a gruesome finality to his meager exhausted existence, to the point he felt the liquid sorrow wet the corners of his eyes. Something within him held out and as it did so had the world of nothingness become viable, a clicking sound penetrated the veil around him like a pin needle through a balloon.

"I WON'T!!" and with those words did his sight come back to him, with all else trudging along behind as if they were a convoy of fuel barges trying to keep up with the Judicator class hoverdynes.

There he was sweating in his basic uniform of the S.F.A.D. in front of his fellow pilots, who were just then turning to stare at him for his sudden outburst. They were inside the briefing room the command center had set up temporarily after the Arch Enemy had made planet fall, the entire base at the time was a hastily fabricated line of structures put together with construction scrap. The tent they currently stood in waved and undulated with the gusts outside, whipping like a loose tarp on a scrap truck passing through residential zones. Where they all were a large rectangular screen played out the damning news no one wanted to hear nor believe. It was the dire moment that marked the end of his waking conscious life outside the Harbinger and mere patrols of uneventful nature.

Right on the bright screen was the footage of the other colony worlds of his people, Bartholomew the algal world to Korthax Nine which he had seen only on pic screens ever since he was but a toddler. All eight planets including Thanalos II comprised the United Planetary Systems, now only one remained as the images kept flowing through. Nothing but burnt floating rocks remained of the once vibrant naturally lively worlds which rarely existed in the universe he was born into. They were gems and future prospects that stabilized all life with vast resources to subsist on, but evident in the scrolling characters of the news feed was the call to arms by the government.

The day that the last world was finally told of the true threat and what it had done to their brothers and sisters light years away. Labeled as the wild fire which threatened his species down to the last woman and child, locusts bent on absolute genocide from the handiwork they left behind. There had been stories that spread months ago from the time he had been posted along city borders to target black market peddlers. That some great evil was coming soon and every civilian from the slums to the towering flats of the inner city suddenly demanded illegal items out of fear. The confirmation came upon the arrival of the sweeping tide of destruction within their solar system, but also at the time when they had sent a vanguard force to begin probing their defenses.

"Goumann? You won't what? Won't die to these... der mistkerl?!" Cutburth asked as he tried to ease the already tense air.

The Madam had eyed him from the corner of her vision but paid no heed to his outburst, almost as if she understood his reaction. She was always the level headed one and had to be being the Flight's lead, but most importantly she still had empathy where others tossed it away like unwanted garbage. It helped keep the squadron together as things curtailed further down the rabbit hole over the past few months since their unit formed.

Guzman joined in, "Hijo de la chingada! I had family on Madre de Agua too, course I won' let them get away with this! We're gonna get some kills before they even land a shot on us!" he said with fervor and cursed in his language that tickled Goumann enough to bring down his shock of being taken back to the Day of Resistance.

"We're going to burn their hides for this. Each and every last one of them." said the quiet one of them all.

Riedel remained speechless at Heinrich's statement, much like Madam he too was far beyond invested in the revelations that came forth. Simply content to watch the drone captured photos of Eva's Pride, nothing but ashes and structural bones of buildings that had stood immaculate before the slaughter. The death toll fluttered across in yellow numbers but by then Goumann remained confused and still, unsure if he was really dead or perhaps he had been asleep from the drugs they began to give them by then. Experimental stuff the likes of which bordered on potions from magic folk of the poorer areas, tales and folklore crawled through the ranks when things began to grow suspicious. Now that the war had come home and the cocktails of stimulants injected into them from small doses, sleep was a godsend for pilots.

"I'm... back?" he asked in a near whisper before another gust of wind rattled the tent, only it wasn't the wind which caused it.

Something big swooped overhead which was followed by a deafening sound, one which forced everyone to the ground and knocked down the display screen. It was as if a wall of air nearly pushed the hastily erected tarp right of its anchors, sending dust through the flaps of the door along with the screams of others outside. Goumann slammed himself into the bare dirt below him and covered his head as he closed his eyes in hopes that any wayward debris didn't hit him. His ears were sullied once more by a ringing sound this time, it squealed to the point nothing else came through.

"NO! Not again... not again!" he shouted as his words were muffled by the soil pressed against his mouth, his forehead beginning to hurt from the pressure he put on his skull out of safety.

He waited and waited for another detonation or even a sign that another enemy bomber was making a second go. That eventuality never came however, snorting out the dust particles he inadvertently breathed in being in the position that he was he began to relax if slightly. Still the ringing persisted if only degrading slowly that he could hear only the clip clop of hooves, his hands released his head and he lifted himself just enough to scan around him. Gone was the tent and his comrades who had hit the ground as well, just a vast expanse of white in every direction completely the opposite to when he awoke. His throat no longer felt racked by the soil that he sucked in accidentally nor was he even smelling the clay. It was as if it hadn't ever happened.

"Creature? Thou art not harmed, you may relax your fears." a woman beckoned from afar, an echo fading away into the endless horizon.

"Oh please Luna! After that short movie trailer I'm certain he's scared out of his wits. But I must say such chaos of the likes just tickles my funny bone." a man soon joined with a laugh.

Goumann continued to look further and further up until he saw before him floating down from the white sky two beings which threw him for a loop. A four legged Troikillican and some nightmare mish mosh of a thing as long as a Devil's Tongue. The sight of which froze the pilot in place while his heart rate jumped, he could feel the beats in his throat that nearly sickened him. Fear once more embraced him in its bosom upon the landing of the deep indigo hued mammal with wings, the horn that could gore him caught his attention even more.

"I must be having a long death's dream... or I'm zapping out on chems. Please... please let it be death soon!" he whispered quietly while failing for force movement in his legs.

The chimeric creature vanished with a pop and suddenly reappeared in front of his face, reforming into the height of an ammo canister. Goumann finally moved and backwards he collapsed over his scrambling feet, he was too dumbfounded to go further as the nightmare continued.

"Be careful with the foreign creature Discord! I don't think I can keep the link..." the mythical beast started to explain before being loudly interrupted.

A sharp gasp escaped the fighter pilots mouth as if a sharp stab had punctured his chest, and in that instant he blinked. Opening his eyes his body convulsed in tandem with the cold feel of a metal surface below his skin where cloth hadn't covered. There above his prone form was a wooden planked ceiling with an oil lamp flickering overhead above his feet. Something kept him strapped down as his limbs met resistance, he let his body continue fighting while he devoted his jostled mind make heads or tails of where he was.

He let a loose sentence bounce around his head in the terror that devoured his ever action, 'I'm dead! This is death! Never ending... never ending!!'

Then from the left side of his sight an alabaster mutant troikill with a coral pink mane popped up and held a flash light to his eyes using its mouth to hold it. His eyes were uncoordinated as the zipped every which way to assess the next freakishly new thing that sought to torment him.

The light stung the back of the socket as both pupils were seemingly checked, but there was more to come as he heard other voices coming to like the volume level of a stereo had been lowered. The thing came back with a syringe which freaked him out even more as he saw the pointed tip glimmer in the meager light of the room. His struggling ceased but his chest rose and shrank as fast as the old engine blocks of junkers, something in his mouth kept him from speaking much less move his jaws. He bit into it repeatedly to try and stop the injection of whatever was in the glass tube, but the fabric as it felt to be resisted any attempts to break the obstruction.

In seconds the man felt something enter his blood stream, the pinch was nothing compared to the distress of the nightmare. Everything began to feel like the world was slowing down though he was not tired in the least, letting him have the chance to ponder even if for a half a minute.

'A depressant? A truth serum? Cyanide?! What's in me!!?' he asked himself sensing his pulsing heart lose momentum.

His nose had been the loudest of his presence having been inhaling air at a prodigious rate when he came to, it too joined the rest of the situation as his lungs calmed into normal repetitions. Though the burning muscles associated with his fight to escape came at his alert mind with a punishment like going on a forty-two hour mission, in addition to a lack of sleep on top of it.

"Pilot?" Alice's familiar robotic voice asked, shattering what was left of his understanding of the reality if it was anything at all.

"Pilot?" the A.I. inquired again, no answer still.

Ch. 6 The Mediator part 3

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The lunar princess heaved heavily as her connection to the alien was violently severed, she laid on a large olive green cushion Twilight supplied through Spike. With much of her weight thankfully supported she was able to endure the mental bond she knew was dangerous as it was experimental in her realm of magic. Discord however seemed to be lolling on a cot that he created seemingly unaffected by the nature of their trek, even go so far as to yawn a little as his dragon tail with the white tuft of fur swayed gentle below him. What was her unique and sole role in the universe he practiced with such a relaxed state that only one of his being could simply enjoy unaffected. The last of the ponies had filed out to leave them in peace and to take the alien to another room for monitoring, it had a blue shield surrounding the stretcher it was placed upon. Guards far too busy keeping an eye on it left Luna to Twilight's care, their immediate fears were snagged like a net on rocks.

Twilight and Spike were worried at first by the way Luna had awoken from the dreamscape, accompanied by scanning equipment she had installed on a moments notice which were beeping and sounding small alarms at the life signs they detected, "Princess Luna!? Are you okay? Is there anything wrong?"

Spike added as he waddled up to the night blue alicorn equally concerned, "Princess what happened in there? Did you see some kind of ghastly nightmarish dream only an evil metal alien can create!!?!"

Pinpricks were nearly all that were of the royal sister's eyes, her breath slowly stabilized after coming to her surroundings once the spell had fully disintegrated. A few stray lines of her mane stuck out, the mental strain to adapt to the neural patterns of the foreigner had been far more demanding than she thought. She brought a hoof to her head just below the horn and rubbed the spot to soothe the headache that came upon her like a malevolent Ursa Major.

The creature she had merged minds was by then long gone on trotting speed, for containment procedures of airborne illness it could not linger any longer as it also required medical attention. Yet that was not what even came to her alertness as the reality they were in came to question, just before being ripped away from interacting with the other worldly life form there were things she saw. Flashes of its life that only added to her worry of what was to come, in all her life even her fateful battle with her sister was nowhere on par with the terrible sights she could only fathom their meaning.

"Princess Luna?" the lavender mare pleaded again though softer in tone seeing the signs of magical exertion upon the mare of godly powers, she could read the troubling expressions as clear as day.

Luna groaned as she willed herself past the throbbing in the cranium, "I am fine everypony... just... give me a passing moment to readjust my hoof hold." she winced again as more flashes of another's life came to her like a slap to the muzzle.

"Whoa?! She must have seen something horrible!" the little dracling seemed taken aback by the state of one of Equestria's rulers.

Discord darkly chuckled to himself even if he was heard, "You haven't even hit the icing on the cake my dear boy? Merely the cherry on top... still haven't touched the sprinkles either." he said as the two observed the clickable slide show device strapped to his face he browsed leisurely.

"What does that mean?" Twilight's assistant shivered at the knees, she made a note to tone down his comic book habit for his sake.

"Do you know what happened in there Discord? Surely you know since you jumped in after Luna despite Celestia's warning." Twilight pressed worried that he had done something for his own amusement.

The lazing deity seemed too busy looking in awe at what was in each slide to answer, vocally affirmative in that matter much to Twilight's chagrin. She gave him a little rope to which he simply wagged his tail just a little as if something delightful had occurred, which it only took ten shakes before she snapped. Her worry for the princess and the concern with what others were tearing the Everfree apart egged her on.

"DISCORD!!" she shouted though it did not help Luna in the slightest.

Spike cowered even more if only out of fear that Twilight knew the grander view of the terror that remained unspoken, "Huh? Did you say something?"

"You saw what happened in there, tell me what you and Luna saw?! Please?" she demanded if more so pleaded sincerely.

Her voice echoed in the empty guest room they occupied, the mineral walls bouncing her high tone of voice, it was enough to get the mischief maker to stop dallying and react to her. Maybe she was assertive enough or perhaps his little game was at an end, she had no way of telling the difference and waited for him to face her fully. Luna mumbled something as she consoled her aching brain, she wouldn't have any part of the proceeding interaction for the repercussions she continued to endured.

"You really wish to know? I mean really... truly... unadulterated truth? This won't be as if you're studying it's little ship after all?" he returned back at her as he lifted the device off his eyes, his red irises honing onto her own.

Twilight took a step forward to prove his provocation, "I did this Discord! I... somehow fighting Tirek brought our world into a dangerous situation! The princess and you saw what was in that creatures mind, we both saw what it operated and it's not mechanical carriage that juices apples for cider! I went over the intial scan I did before you took them away. And the facts only just came to me while you two went in."

The room grew silent at her anxious response, the little drake stepped away seeing some kind of confrontation taking place too big for him to join in. It was rare to see his surrogate mother and best friend act so boldly, but when she did it was usually with good reason or reckless assumption. In this case he was sure she only meant well by pushing back.

"I'm glad you and I were the first to come across the crashed wreck, but... I was also terrified when Princess Celestia told me about another two beings fighting a battle all their own! From what I've been told one of them has been described as Sunset Shimmer during her possession of my crown. That means this involves something far greater than even Celestia or I can even comprehend as to how she's even out there... and fighting something just as equally powerful. I also know the mindset she's in with that form she has, its revenge Discord... we're facing another potential Tirek in her magical capability if she's anything like she was at Canterlot High!"

Rather than appear empathetic Discord seemed still faced as he heard her out, "You don't say? I was wondering why I sensed another you out there... well maybe two of you which means three I believe?" he counted on his lion's paw as if it were a hard equation he was trying to work out, equally confusing the mare and the dracling.

The young alicorn faltered slightly before she regained a resolute stance, her stern expression melted as she too tried to figure out what he meant. Rather than expect some kind of joke or pun, the draconequis seemed to appear serious for once even if he called upon a large bankers calculator to do unnecessary math that she could figure.

He poofed away the cot after one ding of the machine, slide show machine leaving himself as he appeared before her with his upper limbs on his sides like a parent judging their foal for misbehaving. His lead lowered down till they were at eye level, taking in her eagerness to remedy the issue at hand. Even though there were more questions to be answered, he still seemed to find joy in making her uncomfortable still.

"My dear you couldn't be more right on the matter! We have a herd of cats to corral and so little time, so in stead of giving a boring lecture over what we saw... how about a trailer preview to the movie itself before it makes its debut here in Equestria!?" he fabulously proclaimed with a plum of confetti erupting behind him with spotlights shining, a large door to a theater which rose from the floor to send them to some ill begotten room.

"Discord I..." she tried to resist his comical waste of time only to be cut off by some gymnastics of his own with the smell of popcorn floating into the room.

With a swift shot of his right lion's paw he grasped his own tail and yanked it free, turning it into a straight staff of which he twirled about like a baton. Hosting a smile on his muzzle he performed a quaint act that managed to awe even Spike before the last few spins ended in the tip of the disembodied appendage pointing directly at Twilight's horn. She of course gasped and shrank back out of surprise, but she noticed that Discord hadn't pushed the act any further past uneasiness.

He grinned before his eagle's claw had appeared above her head and patted her like a pet dog, "Let us not waste anymore time shall we? After all where there's one mouse in the grain silo there are bound to be more, so where are the cats which hunt them in the shadows?" he said much to her confusion.

The theater doors opened up with a creaky hinge reminiscent of an abandoned house, Spike vaulted onto Twilight's back already feeling his crest trying to stand up to make himself look bigger. He knew Discord's idea of fun but in the times they were in there was a likely chance he might up his game. As held back as he tried to be his claws did grasp onto the furry skin beneath him and earned a yelp coupled with a scorning gaze back at his fright induced roughness.

His green emerald eyes caught hers and he retracted his sharp digits away, "Sorry about that?" he smiled sheepishly.

"Come on come on, we can't dilly dally now or else the Everfree might not even be left by the time we see the snippet!" Discord chimed in a tune, popping in and out of reality from his spot near the two and then at the double doors.

Twilight used her wings to readjust the little dragon on her spine, making sure he would not fall off and claw her by accident, "I'd ask for a brief explanation but somehow this is as quick as you'll be." she sighed.

Her hooves trotted on the reflective glass-like floor tapping along the way as Spike and her headed to the impromptu movie viewing. The sound of their departure spurned Luna enough from her agonizing stupor, just barely surfacing above the water that clouded awareness to regain some of her bearings. Through cracked eyes that rumbled as a broken rim of a wheel on a store cart, the elder alicorn tried to speak up in protest only for her tongue to get caught by itself. Mentally cursing herself for being so rash and not ceasing the escapade when Discord joined in.

Before she looked up in time to see the lavender purple blurs disappear from her waving vision, a long serpentine form swam after them before golden doors and a red rug were all that was left of the scene. She regretted going into the creatures brain so recklessly, but she'd feel twice as bad if Discord was up to something that would cause anypony harm no matter if he had changed from Tirek's betrayal. Of all the ponies in Equestria she still had some wariness about the chimeric being and his unpredictable nature, having been capable of turning the tables already she wasn't trusting all the way. It was he who broke the connection and placed her into such a horrid state, a mistake that she'd never forget.

Luna laid down onto cushion she'd sat on and set about casting a recovery spell when the pulsing headache had finally lifted enough to do so. She'd be down for a spell that she knew just from the rate of magic that trickled out of her horn, she'd weather it without complaint. After all that had happened in the span of a day, it would be up to Twilight's uniqueness to withstand the devious Discord and work things in her favor. Yet it was not the magical backfire which concerned her in the least bit, it would be heavenly to suffer even a year's worth if it was all she had to take after that dream dive.

She began to hear the sounds which hit her right as she left the consciousness of the creature right after Discord woke him up. Even for the waking moment of the exiting the magic she used to force her way into the foreign mind had its own nature, and that nature was what she called 'Echo's of Memories'.

They came at her like buzzing hornets, a single line which made it through like an arrow flying clearly into a thicket to hit its mark.

Screams, nothing but screaming...

'Bertrom Lander, this is Bertrom Lander... anyone copy!!?!' something frantically beckoned for a response leading the lunar diarch to gasp as a portion of her brain twitched in response, the squirming muscle that shouldn't even exist in that part of her anatomy.

Yelling in the background came through the garbled and messy message, almost overcoming the words being spoken over a radio, if she remembered the introduction into modern Equestria she received from Twilight after her reformation.

'We're taking fire from en... zzzzz... civilians onboard!'

There was more but it fazed out into static, all within a breath's intake. Luna stunned as more information gradually boiled into her forethoughts.

Ch. 7 Precautions

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A door busted inwards with a violent bang as the knob impacted the wall next to it, hooves bucked it in with just enough pressure to undo the lock without harming the frame. First came two white ponies in golden armor, their steely gazes trained on every furniture and item in the scarcely occupied spartanesque room. Little more than a bed, a nightstand with a crystal glow lamp, a small drawer, and a desk lay before the new occupants to behold much less inspect. The drab unit with its crystal floor, walls, and ceiling barely even given enough rags to call it homely even by Zen followers, but it was to the delight of the guards who needed to do nothing to allow the others in.

First came another warrior equine whose hooves clacked on the hard mineral ground, their armor jostling as it scraped against itself with each movement made. Equally as imposing as they lead a floating gurney behind them, the pony soldier gently stood aside to allow the rest through. A team of lab coated animals flanked and trailed behind the long stretcher which held Goumann still in his flight armor, the man unconscious and unmoving like a rock in a flowing stream. A light flickered overhead and broadcast much needed light for anything to even see clearly without stubbing themselves in the few furnishings around. A slight sizzling sound erupted before the bloom of illumination was born, the horn of another guard pony who was one of the last to enter had caste the spell for the situation at hoof.

"Thankyou Seargent, we'll be needing that for the next few hours if not days." said one of the more casually dressed of the eleven plus the man who'd entered, a stallion with glasses and a two toned pasture green coat who looked as if they could use a year off.

The dull brown unicorn guard nodded sincerely as his illuminated bony protrusion shone a few levels dimmer than the spell itself, "Princess Celestia has ordered us to provide anything you may need for the VIP, we will work in shifts so that you may receive the sight you need to carry out the work. For whatever that thing is."

"It's not a thing..." one of the nurses mumbled under her breath.

Of the five apparent medical staff assigned to the subdued biped, two unicorn nurses moved the patient to the center of the room with their horns blazing holding his weight and the metal gurney. The mares strained visibly though they did their best to show some resilience besides the exhausted lines under their eyes, a Strawberry Mint and Keen Suture dubbed by the name tags hanging on necklaces identified themselves to the guards. Unlike their usual cards that glued to their fur during duties at the hospital, the guards had given them something more special inclined for the royal assignment they'd been forced into.

A white coated mare with pink mane and tail locks took position beside Goumann's head as she checked for any signs of distress. Finding none nor any cracks in the metal and fabric aerial armor beside the one which existed in the helmet's visor, she looked to the others with a very pleased smile as beads of sweat started to flow from her forehead. Among the five she showed the most stress, then again she was the first to see the creature who freaked out before her. All she had done was enter the room where she beheld the sleeping victim held in stasis, assured by the guards it wouldn't wake. Shortly then she was told to inspect it whilst Princess Luna investigated the dreams of the foreigner, of course how couldn't she feel positive with so many capable warriors on standby covering all entryways and weapons pointed at the entity?

She would have given two years worth of her salary and committed to overtime in the magical intensive unit if only she'd known. That moment she went to see what could even be done to an 'Alien' as she overheard one of the earth pony soldiers, a simple flashlight was all she used in order to peer past the haze of the shielding aura around it. Instantly the shape reminded her of a monkey or great ape from Zebrica, using her wits she pointed and clicked the lumin stick towards the faceless head with a mirror-like eye. As freaked out as she should have been she maintained her professionalism and tried to find any kind of pupil if not figure out what was an eyeball and where the cranium began.

Then it gasped for air in a mechanical way like the Iron Lungs for the breathless, her heart skipped three beats with an almost soul sucking cavity left in the wake. Yet she kept still as if moving might trigger an attack, the new patient reacted violently to waking which could only mean the Princess had either left its mind or it was fighting her off. Knowing she was well out of her league and needed more help along her line rather than the warriors she beckoned for her colleagues who were behind her stuck at the inspection barrier. Seeing the nearest doctor still seconds from being let in she looked back just in time to see something on the chest of the alien click and whirl as a dentist drill would sound.

'What in Celestia's name?!!' she froze just as the guards noticed and began to move in.

Some kind of armature of many joints disconnected itself from the metallic workings, at he tip chamber no bigger than a three pencil widths before what appeared to be a needle acted hastily. A pink liquid filled glass tube shot forth into the forward appliance that completed either a weapon or a syringe, the likes she couldn't fathom at least not in her current terror and intrigue dominated status. In seconds the so called weapon struck the neck of the alien and it calmed down, just as she was yanked away in time for additional magic to be applied to the already strong barrier. That was ten minutes ago, a long ten minutes which her blood still felt the remnants of adrenaline keeping her alert.

The mare gave a nod in satisfaction, "You did good girls, let's get ready to dive into the unknown shall we? Doctor? Where do we begin?" the nurse turned to the other two of her group who had engaged in small conversations with the guard before them.

Before responding, the maroon Ph.D gave a list from his coat pocket over to the soldier to took it eagerly, "We'll need these ASAP, there's no telling how injured the patient is and I cannot begin treatment without testing its physiology before administering any medication to ease any suffering." he affirmed before the mage left in a hurry, "Nurse Redheart, were you able to grab anything on the way here? I see you have a satchel with you?"

The stallion inquired as his eyes settled on the human, nearing closer as curiosity set in without the hustle of the Royal Guards pushing them to the castle. It had been a long thirty minutes from the hospital as it were and being torn away from those he swore to care for since he earned his job there. Yet when the command to attend another injured patient came straight from the Princesses themselves and with word that substitutes from Canterlot would be flown in to take his spot temporarily, he and the rest had no way of saying no. It was not until they neared Ponyville's castle that they were informed of why they were so abruptly grabbed from their stationed posts. Why they had to see somepony else when they themselves only recently recovered from Tirek the Red's hunger for magic, how badly needed they were already by their many charges whose conditions worsened by the magical deprivation placed upon them.

"Marvelous isn't it Nurse Redheart?!" whispered Dr. Acute Scope, his hooves stopping him just inches from the still shimmering stasis field that contained the foreign being and whatever unknown microbes or contagions that might be in its very air.

Redheart clipped off the one sided canvas medical bag that he had asked about and set it down two feet from the gurney. As she began to carefully organize what items and tools she managed to bring, the good doctor continued. His heart which ached for the ponies he should be rightly overseeing himself gave way to the light of saving the life from something beyond their comprehension. A sentiment the nurses however were less inclined to be as passionate about, they were already nearing the end of their long double shifts prolonged by the centaurs rampage and the desperate attempt to continue treatment for the hospitalized without magic.

"Until we can get an X-ray of its anatomy... I can only speculate what it is composed of?! To think the Biologis courses they made every student and graduate learn by heart, from the lowly cragodile golems to the rare spirits of the Lunar Ocean! I never would have expected all those nights burning all of the listed anatomical models and mana diagrams into my memory for just this occasion..." Dr. Acute seemed to quiver a smile at the corners of his mouth, though the awe held firm.

Nurse Strawberry cleared her throat, "Canterlot University's Medical Wing did host the honors for the most data on available species in the kingdom Doctor? We all had to learn about every possible patient we may be called to care for, ponies an non-equines in nature."

"Nothing from another world much less what this poor lad endured." Nurse Suture sighed as she brushed a curly lock of her messy mane from her eyes.

The second doctor joined Redheart as he used a sterilization spell to clean the work space the tool were placed on, the rush of magic forced any microscopic organism aside for as long as he kept the spell anchored. The teal stallion himself was one of the newly hired specialists who had a long list in his background of studies, how such a capable doctor ended upon in Ponyville General was beyond her want to know though the other staff rumored about it.

"Thank you Doctor Steam, I didn't have the time to grab a towel or tray." she expressed her gratitude through tired eyes and weary smile.

Goodwill Steam was his full name she remembered, always the last one of the hospital staff to be on the ball of such things, "Don't worry Nurse Redheart, I wouldn't fault you for it not with all this." he gestured towards the guards and the alien with his head.

"Simply breathtaking!" the other doctor sounded out again as he worked down the patients body with a superficial analysis.

"Seems we best be getting to work indeed, ya?" Dr. Steam chuckled at his superior's enthusiasm to which Redheart agreed.

With the armored ponies standing by ready for another reaction from the still creature, the unicorn nurses went to work themselves without a command. Their horns glowed softly as they erected another barrier around the heads of every medical pony present, a bubble formed as if blown by a foal that shone under the light of the unicorn's spell still above them.

"Perfect, thank you." said Dr. Acute, "Now first things first before we can even begin to help this poor creature... is to extract sample from it! I asked for our hematologist and they should be here within minutes if they are using portals to move our needed equipment and staff, so let us make haste."

Dr. Steam interjected, "Doctor? I'm afraid we won't have the luxury of hasty acquisition, I overheard something that there's another battle going on a few miles from here. Something about a level 2 threat level, so they're keeping magical acts to a minimum. That's as much as I know however..."

"Splendid, just splendid!" Nurse Strawberry shook her head as the spell she was about to caste fizzled out, peering at the guards nearby grimly.

Dr. Acute snapped up and starred at his youthful college, "You're not joking!?"

"I'm afraid not. Sargent? I'm sorry I did not get your name?" Dr. Steam looked to the unicorn guard who held the illumination orb alive for the healthcare to be given.

"Please elaborate on this? Our ability to help our patient cannot face such a decline of services!" the bullheaded nature of Scope poked through, much to the chagrin of his help who knew how sour he could get when obstructions arose in his line of work.

The air in the room seemed to go quiet, aside from the breathes of the armored guards and the others little else seemed o transgress. Both doctors gazed upon the lone officer who commanded the small detail in charge of the VIP, the nurses seemed to look to each other questioningly as if the famous doctor might even get them ejected from caring for the alien. Redheart however seemed unmoved, she knew where this was going to go having been at Ponyville General for the number of years under Dr. Acute. He would get his way for the sake of the needy, something about his special talent and empathy many others spoke of in both hushed tones and simple gossip.

The officer however remained impassive as a statue as he calmly replied, "Yes, as was just mentioned we have another hostile force present in the kingdom, I myself do not know much else nor can I say of what. Princess Celestia has enacted a Threat level 2 as the battle is magical and it is feared to be another Code Epsilon, therefore magic such as portal gateways have been banned until further notice. I'm sorry for the inconvien..."

The good doctor stepped forward before he stood muzzle to muzzle with the guard, all eyes upon the two with baited breath. At what seemed like a shouting match might occur and an arrest for the professional for unruly behavior against a soldier of the kingdom, devolved into nothing less than an educational moment for the very officer himself.

"Then let me make sure you understand what it is that we're facing right now. We have no idea what the patient is, what lives on and in it, and if we do not help it right away and learn about its physiology. Shall I bring up the infamous Horn Blight two centuries ago? The one caused by fungi where upon maturation the spores were spread by aerial dispersal? Now to use this example, if this creature decays from expiration... what unstoppable viral and bacterial pathogens might prosper that heat, chemical, and magical applications cannot kill? Just as the superbug which caused mass infection in Balitmare during the longest coldest winter they had three years ago which no antibiotic nor spell could remedy!"

The guard pulled back from the facts being placed before his hooves, "How can you excuse the denial of healthcare to this victim of circumstance and not expect repercussions if it's life is not given a single care? The commandments of Ponyville Hospital of medicine... secure, contain, study, and heal. Without the ability to study we cannot heal it, without data of what lives on it we cannot treat our own if something manages to escape containment! As a Guard of the Crown surely even you would fear seeing our Princesses brought low by foreign illness? Maybe a macrophages amoeba that eats at the brain or our neural pathways that facilitate magical capabilities!? The possibilities are endless as dangerous as they are! Do... I... make... myself... clear!"

The two were touching nose tips with the good doctor's lack of sleep and frayed nerves from excitement and anxiety pushing his angle of approach. Dr. Steam watched the shortly lived conversation end with the officer nodding vigorously in agreement, his horn flickering as his hold on the illumination spell wavered. He had heard about the good doctor, the sayings many at the university spoke of in jest but to see it happen was something else. Unlike others he knew who would have been more concerned over making themselves famous by investigating what was better a corpse to them than a live patient to heal. Acute Scope just seemed so caring in every word, it prickled at his own heart to see such caution for not just the alien but for all of Equestria.

"Rrrrii right!! Lt. Sledge!? Commandeer as many chariots we can use to move the supplies here by yesterday!" the mud colored pony ordered hoping to please the situation, "And get as many ponies as you need pulling the loads in!"

Another guard in the room saluted though with uncertainty in his eyes, he vacated quickly and vanished down the long hallway outside. Satisfied with the improvement, Dr. Acute smiled as he stepped a hoof back with such a quick turn of face.

"There, all anypony needs is a brief history lesson and we learn from our mistakes! So... back to the problem at hand." the stallion rejoined the medical team as if nothing had transpired, the other guards seemed weary of him by their anxious tails that swished about more than usual.

Redheart swallowed trying to wet her dry throat, "Yes Doctor, shall we begin extracting a piece of its 'skin' for research?"

"Shall I find a vein for blood sampling while Nurse Keen oversee's stasis shielding over all samples?" Nurse Strawberry added.

"Spot on my wonderful nurses! Spot on! Dr. Steam? Will you be so happy as to assist me in mapping out a general anatomical mapping with a full body scan? Since you are more than qualified would you prefer the skeletal or exoskeleton investigation or the tissue cartography?" Dr. Acute asked merrily as he stood side by side Steam.

"This is going to be a long treatment I'm looking forward to its conclusion." the teal pony commented before summoning the magic which trickled in to his horn still reluctant after not long ago having been ripped from his body by the centaur fell mage.

Ch. 8 Dire Caution

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Somewhere over Appleloosa...

Ponies in the little desert town, with its one large orchard of apple trees, had taken to watching the wide open sky as if gazing into the sun itself. Mares, stallions, and foals alike had ceased their daily routines with a hoof or hat to keep the white blazing light from damaging their sensitive eyes as they remained glued to the vast expanse. Still they kept looking despite the occasional pain when they happened to look too quickly towards a new spot. The two main pathways in the little hab town had frozen carriages, workers, and all as they were taken by some attraction which drew upon their internal instincts to become alert like prairie dogs at their burrow.

Only one pony seemed to be unaffected by the captivated masses as they rushed from one building to another, a silver gray mare with a bank tellers uniform. She galloped out of the town bank and into the doors of the adjacent building that had the label of Town Hall, too excited with a crucial message to notice anything off around her. A parchment gripped by her teeth flapped in her stride, a bum rush to get a message through had her barreling into the doorway and fumbled onto the wooden floor like a loose tumbleweed. Inside a lone secretary sat at the front desk up ahead, a teal mare with manilla mane seemed utterly bored as she stamped a few papers to what obviously was a common occurence in the lobby. A clock on the desk chimed at the hour.

"Clumsy as always I see?" she sighed with a passing glance at the scrambling bank teller.

The one in question felt the new bruise forming on her left forearm near the elbow she used to buffer her fall, the paper folded in her mouth only slightly creased. The mare winced as she moved back to her hooves and trudged onward with only a few feet away from the recipient of the notification.

"High Stakes, the door's unlocked and he' not in a meeting. I'll ring you in." said the neutral office worker droned as she pressed something behind the high rise front of the desk, a tiny bell above the door loudly rang.

"Ttthaaakkkuuuu!!" High muffled as she trotted sheepishly with a blush past the desk, her bun styled mane slightly disheveled from her tumble and long work day was a second thought.

She pushed the wooden way open, a wall of fresh apple pie wafted into her like a thick woolen blanket. The sunny day poured into the large room through six windows of six panes of glass each, giving the soft burnished oak interior a welcoming treat. Furnishings were small as was to the humble nature of the mayor of the town, the gentle stallion had only enough to entreat business ponies who stopped by. A few decorative tables, some local artisans works of art, and of course the very mayor's desk itself. It was a gift from the foals of the school during its first years, talented little ones they were who carved beautiful yet simple designs and images into the faces of the earthly furniture. Yet in such a rush as Stakes was in, she had never been able to give it much attention as to what the colts and fillies etched into it.

Huffing through her nose to steady her heart, she noticed Mayor Lucky Prospect already awaiting her with his hooves on his desk and a smile on his Clydesdale muzzle. He always looked gruff and hardy, yet in both public and private he had been nothing but a gentlecolt despite his parents lineage. Already he nodded to her to speak with his full attention upon her, the Dunskin coat ever soft on the eyes with the darker patch on the tip of his snout.

"THhhirrr!!" she tried to speak and realized the paper still remained inbetween her teeth.

A quick release to unclench her jaws and her hoof caught the slightly wet parcel which caused her to look away from her mishap.

"I'm sorry sir..." her shyness born of shame took root yet before it grew past a seedling it was trimmed from the base by the deep calming voice of Mayor Prospect.

"Don't be so harsh on yourself High Stakes, I'm sure whatever you bring to me is important but not the kind to lambaste yourself with? Go on?" the rumble gave a quiver in her heart from his southern accent, but still she remained reserved and denied eye contact.

She cleared her throat and hoofed the paper over to be grasped, "A gold miner says he's hit a rich vein, but not of gold."

The official leaned over and took the parchment, ignoring the area of dampness to read the contents, "Platinum? Huh? Never thought the region had such a source... tell me what do you know of it? Is it that valuable?" he inquired with a raised brow.

High gave an affirmative shake of the head that she nearly made herself dizzy, "Yes sir! Currently the ore is valued at one thousand bits per ounce on the market, Number Crunch said Canterlot's School for Gifted Unicorns and the Alchemy Academy in Van Hoover is offering bids for new sources as well! Promising two thousand bits or full government assistance for as long as the vein can be mined and thirty years after which. The gold miner says he's willing to go halves with the town and relinquish the vein to the town's ownership... says he's set for life from what he's seen."

The gruff stallion seemed enamored at the idea and held his initial reaction until he had a full grasp of the situation, it was a painful five minutes in which he took a sip of water from a glass mug. High Stakes felt her heart surge as she kept herself still, but in the end it was too much to be in the Mayor's presence. So she stood up and walked to the farther wall near the windows to admire the paintings, such a decision was not meant to be taken lightly. As even a bank teller herself knew of the dangers of mines and the processing of the ores, there was another settlement miles to the west doomed by a spill of the toxic byproduct known as WASH. It had since been inhabitable, a fate she hoped wouldn't befall Appleloosa especially with Prospect at the head of it who had a good head on his neck.

She gazed at the few seven foot tall paintings she could see without making too much noise, they were all of the town's history and its founders. Oil paintings of rather amazing quality had moderate detail paid attention to the outlands look such as large rancher hats, vests, and the fancy dresses that would drop every jaw in the saloon. There was the first mayor and his family, the Apple family who ran the orchard that supplied the red delicious, the bank owner himself, and a strange wide blue eye as wide as the window picture frame itself that starred back at the viewer.

High Stakes peered at the then disturbing painting not having remembered ever seeing it before, it was a questioning piece of art that the mayor would ever consider tasteful. She felt a chill run down her spine when her own vision detected a slight jerk of the giant black viper pupil, her own breath caught in the back of her throat. All apprehension towards the stallion who ran the small town went out the window which coincidentally had a peeping titanic eye on the other side. Her hooves rebelled against her mind's command and stayed rooted where they were, but her terror remained striking every nerve she tried to will with lightning of utter dread. Paralyzed where fate left the mare, the eye blinked with a subtle squelch that could be heard past the glass panels.

The icy cobalt tissue moved in such a way that gave the feel of layered tendrils over one another upon a deep chasm of unending, encircling the slit which contracted and expanded with more movement. An intelligence behind the jerking and searching meant it was looking upon her as she did it, she was not dreaming in the slightest. She sat helpless as the great orb pulled away, blocking all sunlight still as it rose to reveal a nauseating color of ivy green scaly skin. Somehow High Stakes could even hear the void that the horrible form had left fill with air by a rush of wind, desert dust sucked upwards and peppered the window.

With lungs burning for the need of a gulp of vital oxygen the innocent pony had been given reprieve after such a painful gratuitous moment. Yet that was all she was given before the wood planked wall that stood between the nightmare and her erupted inwards with a deafening sound. A large muscular appendage of a cephalopod shattered the lone barrier into splinters, ruining the quiet air with devastation and whining beams which took on additional pressure. Glass fragments sprinkled the large office with their tingling chatter, paintings all around lost their supports and collapsed onto the hardwood floor with the rest of the detritus. The smell of dry wood permeated the atmosphere as it mingled with the scent of decaying fish and oddly enough a touch of ozone as acrid as it already was. A few pieces of timber had traveled with the bank teller and piled onto her, effectively pinning the lithe body into place to the right of Mayor Prospect.

"What in Tarnation!!" he coughed, his eyes stung from fragments that blinded him.

The unlucky stallion never had the chance to see again nor say another word, as once the pillar thick fleshy limb disappeared with a flicker of light in its absence. Did another more insidious thing blindingly fast replace it as something tore down from above with devastating effect. If any hearing remained it was obliterated then just as the second floor and ceiling fell down. The humble mayor disappeared in the wreckage as a cloudy plum and fragments filled the ruined room ever further, wood continued to bend and break under further stress from the damage done.

"... mmm... may...yor... ppprrroosss..." High Stakes mumbled as her whole world dizzily spun around.

An unholy gurgling roar rumbled every lose particle and whatever was not nailed down within a two hundred foot radius.. For all that she barely felt, she could just see the entryway she came in by being assaulted from the other side as a few planks had kept it barred in their death fall. Her ears were deaf and her mind dumb, but she could swear she heard the sound of instruments playing in the distance as tears tried to clear her sight of grim. Even as it felt hard to breath with a spear pointing towards her diaphragm each time she inhaled, there was an odd sound of violins and cellos whose bows played them with utmost expertise. A soft music carried through the mare's damaged hearing and into her head where each note soon bounced around, the tormented reality she endured only worsened from there.

Soon the door swung wide open and nearly blew off its hinges, a figure moved in and began swinging away with something square and flat. High did not have the facilities to take in much more visual data aside from the swaying ground and the feel of gravity pulling her tightly in place. Blurry wormy things had tried to creep over her face when the faint shape of somepony batted them off her, a struggle ensued for what felt like hours as another set of hooves stomped in front of her. Nearly finding her snout smashed accidentally, the percussions of the other seemed to just pierce the loud cacophony tainting her every thought. Then something bit down onto the collar of her uniform and dragged her through the door frame from where all had begun, Stakes soon looked to the wall were a wriggling spiked appendage speared the office wall. Her stinging eyes prevented much else from being noticed as she brought the wrists of her forelegs to her face. All she could see past them were hooves trudging and slipping as they pulled her helpless self into the lobby.

"Mmmaaaayyy...ooorrrrr..." High Stakes murmured again feeling the act of breathing no longer suffering from the ailments earlier.

Still the two things that persisted were vertigo and the classical music, how she begged for it to stop. She cared little if the right side of her barrel began to hurt from the grazing roughness of the wood floor and soon the hard dirt road outside. Suffering remained with her like a tender family member as the purity of Celestia's sun shone into her pupils.

Everywhere around the bank teller ponies of Appleloosa were in full fright as the behemoth carved its way through Town Hall. It easily vanquished the simple structure as its muscular body that matched the height of its roof, essentially having powered through thick support beams and rafters as though they were dry clay. The muck colored abomination swung its long squirming serpent appendage attached to a bulbous meaty torso, supported by thick trunk like legs as those of a fat dragon claws and all. Dense rocky slabs of armor protected its abdomen and shoulders, striated and cracked from age and battle. Though what drove everypony else mad with fear centered around its globular head. A thing of grotesque amalgamation of a hagfish from the deep seas to make up the mandibles, fins that wriggled along the edge of its spade shaped head, writhing feelers surrounding the deathly maw grasping at the air desperately, and nine blue eyes that glowed with an ethereal energy if one looked too long into them.

High Stakes heard the music grow louder in her skull, forcing her to ball into herself even though she had been dropped by her once sudden savior. Her forelegs went straight to the sides of the head as she hazily tried to stop the obnoxious sound, the instruments were no longer playing a cord nor an orchestrated sheet. She whipped her head in every which way as bows screamed pitches too high to tolerate, strings were plucked with abandon, cellos screeched painfully under the onslaught of craziness beyond the mare's comprehension. What made things worse were a pattern of drum beats whose thuds rose from nothingness to assail her, every two seconds three slaps to the taunt screens carried on until they were so loud that even the psychotic strings were overwhelmed.

As the little mare lay vulnerable to anything of malice and ill intent, things from the monstrous creature crawled towards her like hunting centipedes. Countless legs sprouted forth from the sides of the ropy tissue that felt the dirty earth with taps every other moment over old hoof prints of the maddened masses. Only once they sensed the tail and back legs of High Stakes did they seem to really come alive as fire ants after finding the culprit who disturbed the colony. Even as they poked and prodded the fur of her legs the sensation never made it to the mare's attention, still she fought off the cacophony that consumed only her being.

She screamed to the top of her lungs until her vocal cords were raw from a shriek to hoarseness, "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Just when the wiry extensions of muscle and bumpy skin were nearing her barrel to entwine around as pythons subduing prey, the dark entity gave pause. It had been looking around the little town and the surrounding barren desert, the rocky hills and their treasures within. Those big piercing azure oculars seemed trained on the heavens to the west. It disregarded the easy pickings before it as ponies still ran a muck unsure if they should head for the hills or bunker in one of the buildings. A silent observance which at first seemed as if it were perhaps communicating with something or for most of the towns ponies who hoped it might have found a new place to grace with its unmatched terribleness that only Celestia could deliver them from.

The sheriff of the town with his gray beard and weathered features watched the monster for a brief ten seconds while he tried to get some kind of order into place, failing to do so spectacularly.

"The tartarus is it looking at?!" he gawked cursing the lack of a deputy unicorn to have some kind of magical power over it, thankful he could remain sane after staving off an encroachment of Dust Demons during the first year of the town's existence.

Before he could give a single further word of it, something bright surged into its cuttlefish cranium in a mere blink of an eye, a bolt of hot light like an arrow from Elysium eternal. What followed it came the crack of thunder and a two second undulation of its fleshy head as if an internal force sought to break out. So quickly had it happened that the explosion occurred on what the officer guessed was the exit point, turquoise glowing blue innards spewed outwards from the point of entry of what he hoped was one of the Princesses doing. Effectively painting the bank and the destroyed Town Hall with gore that splashed gelatinous chunks heavy enough to break through the structures material. Stomach churning sounds filled the air with powerful effect that sweetened the saliva in ones mouth. The sheriff gaped in awe as the threat lost all life, the ravaged conglomeration of its face lolled like a loose wheel on a broken axle. With no whimper nor roar of pain, the giant eventually fell back into the government building like a toppling cyclopean pillar giving way to unrelenting weather.

"For the love of Celestia!!" he shouted as its hefty corpse sent a tremor powerful enough to collapse a few of the neighboring houses and send every pony to the soil.

A loud hum zipped overhead in succession with the death of the spontaneous foe, a large black hawk judging by its size swooped low just barely grazing the nearest wind vane that squeaked as it twirled off its base. The wings ever long and drawn back, its body too dark that light couldn't reveal its details, yet no beak to see, and only a reflective eye in the dead center of its head. It left the area as quickly as it came heading off towards Canterlot if the sheriff knew his internal compass like the back of his hoof.

Quiet finally blanketed Appleloosa if for but a spell as everypony watched the object disappear into the clear blue sky. Only once it was far enough to no longer identify did the folks resume their scared state of minds, and that was what woke the officer back to his post.

"Ba... ba... baaaa... back to your homes!! Everypony back to your homes!! The beast is dead!!!" he valiantly cried out attempting to harness as many of the deranged ponies as he could, he knew it would be a heck of a long day before it was all over.

Ch. 9 Unstoppable Force

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Southern East Portion of the Everfree Forest

Ponies knew of the wicked forest through the scary and ominous looking vegetation as well as the dangerous creatures which could do any manner of things to a stray wanderer, turned to stone or made into a meal. Few ever tried to navigate its depths, for the vine covered conifers and raking birch trees were enough to instill fear in all but the most strong willed. The legendary flora and diverse animals was its own territory to never colonize, as even unicorns knew a strange magic existed within its boundaries that only grew in power the closer to the heart one drew. The weather pegasi could not control the rampant weather patterns which could turn a sunny day into a fierce thunderstorm for days, at best manage to beat back the disturbances after a rigorous bucking. Being as vicious as a hungry manticore or cause widespread damage as a roaming Ursa Major, no pony could ever mess with the forest or at least that was the legend.

No pony could lay a hoof on the formidable woodlands, yet the two other worldly entities that had come through tears in reality had grievously as their powers were unfathomable. When the magical incident which ripped the air with many sores of lavender light, a large chunk of the Everfree was soon laid to waste as it smoldered beneath two godly forces. Even from afar where the tops of the forest's indomitable foliage obscured much of the scene as it unfolded, the clouds of dust and smoke were enough to speak volumes.

Guards posted at the Crystal Castle of Friendship and even from Canterlot Castle could view the devastation for what it truly had become. Years of training, fighting rouge beasts, and reacting to one and only invasion that befell the capitol couldn't prepare them for Tirek's theft of magic nor the awesome struggle with the Princess of Friendship herself. Where they sought the future of Equestria, the newest battle zone was a conundrum to officers and soldiers alike as to why war continued. A war which was quickly proving to be one that might even ravage the lands of their home without so much as a declaration or reason for the mauling.

The quarantined zone itself was a mind boggling space of madness through a universal sense of the word, even Discord himself spared a little piece of his twisted form to watch from the top of the castle's spear-like spires. Prime ticket seats to the most interesting moments in his life he could only akin to the era of his rule over ponies.

For him and so many others the spectacle was almost apocalyptic, hundreds of acres of once prime and untamable Everfree were easily mowed down from lashes of brilliant blue light and crackling black lightning. Shattered trunks and uprooted cores of even the most resilient elder trees were but sticks and kindling to the demigods as they went for each others necks. Giant boulder sized chunks of earth were ripped from the ground and used as projectiles, further crushing and smashing anything caught in their unforgiving path. Rough trenches had been dug out and burned by the entity of fiery anger in an attempt to catch the dark one with lances of scorching heat. Even some places where the land had been mulched from horrific means, five acre sized slabs of the forest were lifted and slammed in such force that minor earthquakes rattled all within five miles.

The Crystal Castle itself groaned as the shock waves passed, though its solid crystalline build would not break from such weak vibrations. It was enough to alert those inside its halls that things were far from over, from earth pony to unicorn and then the princesses they were all on their hooves. For them it was a matter of not if but when the dueling forces either grew tired of one another or one came out victorious.

A giant plume of rolling dirt and haze floated lazily like fat clouds from the mutilated crater of the Everfree, as if a volcano had erupted in Pomphay. A tower of sandy beige rose upwards to collect in the upper atmosphere from whence they were carried off by the winds, making the sleeping dragon who nearly smoked out Ponyville to be a goddess sent reprieve. To the ponies of the little village it was the end times as they knew it, none had ever seen such a column rolling bulbs tumultuously churning like a canvas sack filled with parasprites.

They could never have figured out that the origin to the mountain of choking ash and detrius hovered near the edges of the burning forest. Two tigers starred each other down showing little to no fatigue nor magical exhaustion, from all they had done to eliminate the other they barely broke a sweat. The demoness and the witch were barely dirtied by the battle, instead they shone with a small glow of their powers which continued to remain highly charged. Though only Discord was privy to who they were, so many ponies and sensitive creatures knew they were dangerous as if they exuded a toxic aura.

Minutes seemed to go by without so much of a twitch, but the battle had gone from impulsive random attacks to more calculated strikes when they proved to be of the same level of might. Where one tried to force the other into the mud and clippings, the other either teleported or returned the blow in kind to nullify it. The dog fight in the air soon rolled into a lobbing of earth, and attempts to leave met with scorched ruts of the timberland like a fire serpent had slithered through.

The demoness herself twisted and cracked the joints in her hands, flexing the digits to soften them from the pressure forces they utilized prior. Her scowl could scare the soul from anyone who saw it, the utter unadulterated rage seething in the flesh held in check out of the need to win. She had underestimated the tact of her would be hunter, but that was a one time mistake she wouldn't let happen again.

"Perhaps you're smart enough to understand this..." she began with a confident tone, "We've come to a stalemate as much as I hate to admit."

Midnight returned with a crooked grin and tilted her head as a giggle came upon her, "Really? I hadn't noticed!" she said as the enchanted land began to turn into fireflies of embers that danced in the tidal breeze.

Vegetation directly below the raven winged possessed had begun to wilt and brown as if the very moisture were sucked from them. What animals that hadn't fled the shocking fight had darted from the dying trees and rotting earth in their panicked calls, the beady eyes begged for amnesty and salvation from the alien sense of primordial fear. Sunset hadn't let the detail go unnoticed, she could sense the flow of magic wafting from the dead and dying woodland as it appeared to fuel her adversary as it even crept under her and to the untouched portions of the wilderness. She could only figure it to be a passive Leech spell common for dark magicians, even someone of her caliber was susceptible to such vile magicks if she wasn't careful enough to avoid its miasma.

Sensing that not even a battle of attrition would win against their resolute stamina she felt her blood boil, "Cut the horse manure! I know what you're doing and you know how I'm able to keep you at bay! So why continue?! Are you that demented that you can't see how much of a waste of time fighting me is!?!" Sunset demanded as her hair blazed like the forest fires below.

Midnight hissed with pleasure that tingled every nerve in her body, "Demented would imply that I am incapable of comprehending new knowledge and utilizing it to its full potential! I'm merely driven... driven to know all that is magic and you... you have so much of it!"

"Uggggghh!! I'd rather be fighting Princess Know It All and those kanker sores..." Sunset groaned irritably as a claw ran down her face, pulling the skin slightly.

Irritation sank into her like a tick embedding itself for a long blood feast, she had begun to see red halfway into the ordeal and it only grew darker. Somehow she had been whisked away from the human world and thrown back home, all to eager to begin her new reign as Equestria's Empress. With the witch as the perfect test she had every avenue of magic to explore as if she were facing the Princess herself, the crown was her game changer. Yet the delay only stalled her future accomplishments she'd always been destined for, and in the not to far recesses of her mind very evil ideas were spawning from fertile hateful soil.

Beyond brute force, some methods of freeing herself of the little gnat had journeyed into gruesome territory even too much for her liking. What permitted more of the gratuitious solutions had become from the desperation that Sunset embraced, there was no way she could maintain the fight for much longer. No unicorn let alone an alicorn could endure such high magical output without burning out, that lesson she remembered well during her studies long ago. While she set limitations to even simply wrapping her hands around the crazy girl's neck there was nothing short of a complex multi spell deception strike that would earn her victory. Grunting at the possibility of even accepting crippling the sorceress, something shimmered out of the corner of her eyes and she capitulated herself to the moment as it unfolded. A train wreck in the very making and no possible way of saving herself trapped in the car on the rails.

Invisible serpents whose only sign of existence was the warped air from bending light seemed to encompass her with their numbers, as if she were inside a metal whisk. She could feel them intertwine behind her from the magic they exuded, so simpler feeling than hot light bulbs beaming all around her and upon the vibrant red wings. In as short of a time as it took to take a breath she was trapped by an orb of nothingness, one which attempted to pin her into a fetal position which she valiantly kept at bay. Jerking her deep blue rings in the sea of jet black at the likely caster, Midnight seemed to be as happy as a foal during Hearth's Warming Eve to her latest attempt at ensnaring her.

"You're messing with a future Princess you will never beat!" the demoness roared as every limb and wing pushed back against the ceaseless weight put upon her, even with magic the strain had begun to hurt almost seconds after the new fight started.

Midnight could only ecstatically quiver, "Oh I don't care who or what you are, I'll find that out when I dissect your magical pathways and absorb your magic! Then I'll classify you... as the first major stepping stone to my future accomplishments. Don't worry 'Princess', I will endeavor to sing praises of you for all that you displayed for my measurements and first hand experience!!"

A horrid cackle raked the air, the taunting laughter followed quickly by a mere hand extension of the dark being. Sunset narrowed her sight upon the hand who from its finger tips shot forth arrow tips of bright blue light, the sudden flash was all she ever witnessed before going blind in pain. A torturous shot into her very brain with the strength worse than the freeze she received when trying a frozen malt shake after her first few offensives to secure Canterlot High's social ladder. Leaving only suffering and fluctuating colors of the color wheel where her nemesis hovered before the towers of wild fires. The after image paused like a movie on demand fading away as the overstimulated nerve attempted to recover. Even without vision, Shimmer refused to give in and only doubled her own efforts to earn more room within the trap trying to close in, her heart forcing adrenaline throughout every vessel in her body. A fire raged within her burning hotter as her soul offered every ounce of resentment and a denied right towards Celestia, a new sun had begun to form from all the vexation.

"Ahh... you know as they say?! For the pursuit of knowledge, there's never a wrong answer!!" the words echoed as the laughter earlier.

Sunset's magic bolstered by soul magic she gave into and tapped had gained her another half a foot and more ever slowly. She knew it would be a matter of minutes before all ability to perform magic would be reduced to ashes and burnt mana lines. It was now or never for her, even with the forbidden magic that drained ones soul she had to contend with the tireless witch who showed no signs of letting up.

Sweat had already beaded all over her, the coolness of the air from their altitude no better as ice tossed into a boiling pit of magma. She steamed from the mana compression occurring within, it was her last ace in the hole that would break her out. Nothing would be left to waste, nothing given to mistake, no error would become of what she willing gave from herself. A rouge thought passed like a feather drifting in the wind, wondering what Celestia would be doing while she was alone risking so much for the good of the kingdom. Was she watching her suffer in some hope of a lesson to be learned? Was she sleeping the day away like the derelict goddess she was, or perhaps eating so much cake she had grown fat over her time in exile? A pony only worth her weight because she could move the sun and moon?

"This will not hold me!!" the demoness spat, the kaleidoscope of colors and black finally breaking away.

"Hold you? Far from what I'm trying to do here..."

The ruined Everfree Forest below had taken up the first images Sunset took in, somehow at some point she ended up putting enough force in her appendages to let her head go slack. The flaming hair burning around the crown intensified as it took on an ethereal transformation, unlike the alabaster alicorn's mane and tail Shimmer's seemed to burn outright with a fathomed fire. Hearing Midnight reveal her real intention was the hair trigger for the ball of mana that took shape, fearing the worst she dipped into the concentrated reservoir to prepare her breakout escape.

Her new strategy in the making came to an abrupt halt as a bullet train of agony erupted within her very skull. Forcing the magic to stop feeding into her muscles she planned to send a counter spell body wide to shatter the hold on her, the sensation of cold nails slowly descending past the bone of the cranium seized even the powerful possessed girl.

Shimmer gagged while giving some ground back to the force holding her still, spittle seemed to drip from her lips as they were stretched in a grimacing fashion. After nearly extending her arms, legs, and wings just enough to not be at a bend they had lost the progress, though she was too distracted at what was going on to give into what indignation should have been felt. Midnight caught onto the faltering strength and snickered as a bully to their prey.

"I see you felt that one? Do you like it? It's a combination of ancient electroshock therapy to disperse whatever you were trying to do!" the witch grinned, "I can feel how successful that was."

With the cat out of the bag with its head poking out the plan had only been halfway anticipated, as frustrating as it was the witch's ingenuity was all the more disturbing.

"You used a Dodecahedronicus?! Mind Spike!" she yelled through clenched teeth, each point of stimulation counted and visualized into the shape it had taken. An old Equestrian spell often used for locating illnesses in the brain tissue, and somehow it was stumbled upon by the enemy who weaponized it. She recalled that specific medicinal magic by sheer coincidence, as human history books offered her quite a dark insight to their earlier beginnings.

Twilight seemed almost gleeful to gain such a reaction, "Ah ah ahhhhhhahhhh?! You really think I'd reveal my methods before I publish them in the Global Scientific Journal? For shame... now that I've got you controlled, allow me to do what I must and learn from your existence. Then this... this new world will be next!!" a purple fist clenched the air before Midnight.

She drifted to close the distance between them with black wings splayed out, the long magical horn jutting from the forehead glowed hot as forged iron from the pressure spell holding the demon. Flickering flames spun free from the ethereal eye frames, her myriad of purple and violet colored dress played in the air like giant leaves of tropical plants. For all Sunset tried to discern there was nothing but madness that she could read of the interloper, a madness beyond her drive for rule over Equestria. The kind not to tip a hat too, but the variation which was boundless in its options to attain what was desired. A sickness akin to what happened to greedy ponies who tried to take a dragon's horde, and she already pocketed some of the coins and gems to jump start the infection.

It was a slight brief exposure to their proximity that something became apparent to Shimmer, even in her condition she could feel the mana winds as faint as they were. Even more so their current which differed as the flow focused towards the witch herself, not a single wide light tickle as mages often described the feeling. The words came to mind faster than an arrow as the raven winged monster's power source had made all to much sense. Such a discovery brought some relief to her even amidst it all, so she decided to go with the obvious tide and see where it would take her.

"I already know... you're draining the magic from this world in order to function nearly on par with me. So... you haven't even been using your own magic then? You're only doing me a favor!" Sunset roared defiantly, "You're only preparing me as a warm up for when I take down Celestia, and then my rule over my kingdom will be undeniable!!"

Flowing in a long skirt of violet reds and plum purples wearing magically generated glass shoes, the enthralled girl came to a halt mere feet away tapping at her chin smirking all the while, "Ha! Like a lab animal who thinks they can escape its cage. I really admire your resilience, even if we don't know each others names. But this Celestia sounds just as deliciously interesting to study as you are, so I'll tell you what? I'll reduce her to memory... numbers... and books about her being and magical prowess just for you?! How does that sound?"

Daring to let her fury get the best of her a stab of her blue irises honed onto her capture with grievously saturated abhorrence, 'She's seriously a foal with magic!! Only I can beat the Princess! She's mine and mine alone!!'

"Tut tut? You're still fighting what is inevitable between you and I. I guess I'll just have to speed things al... what?" Midnight gawked from the red glow flowing off her prize like a light bulb that had been switched on.

Immediately she reactivated the demoralizing shock spell to ward off the magical spike, but in her rush to do so she errored in the casting. The magic was weak and the specifics of the spell sputtered out from the mismatched runes needed to enact it, coupled with a power surge from the barely contained the Dodecahedronicus dissipated into bluish dust-like vapor off her raging fiery scalp.

Midnight's magical senses detected the fluctuations that prodded and fractured what kept the cage in place like an iron ball under a hydrolic press, "... can't BE!!"

Sunset managed to finally unfurl herself wings and all with the destruction of the spell, arcs of lightning skirted along her body from the counter spell she utilized to dismantle the trap. Upon the flaming entity's visage bore the most furious scorn Midnight could recall from her life at Crystal Prep, she winced in what felt like fear her old friend greeting her spirits once again. After evading boulders, jabbing pines, searing beams of pressure and heat, with all other sorts of mental wonders of fantasy finally the insatiable Midnight Sparkle stopped in her machinations and research ventures.

"NO!? NO!!!" the witch decried trying to ready a new encasement before they once again entered a stalemate of contest.

The demoness flexed her body in one stretch before relaxing herself, but not her stare which hadn't lost its ire, "I've strove to become the rightful ruler of Equestria since I was granted status as Celestia's pupil! I pushed myself to learn from all my mistakes, spent sleepless nights studying every ounce of history, every stupid law, and learned all the types of magic that existed so that I... I!" she thrust a thumb towards her chest, "Could take Celestia's place when the day finally came! To be the better Princess than she EVER was to me!!"

Midnight slowly moved away from the pressing threat, dumbstruck in what to do from the mana that outright poured like a flowing river off her catch. The magical horn lit and powered down numerous times like a dying light in a lonely hallway. It was as if she stood before Principle Cinch who had her recommendation to Everton between both hands and threatened to shred it into pieces unless she kept up her invaluable efforts at creation, no one there to help her not even Dean Cadence nor her brother. The creep of helplessness was a bitter mistress as it muddled her abilities, there was nothing left but spontaneity and that had already proved to be no match at apprehending the enraged being.

"Wha... what are you doing!?! What..." Sparkle stuttered as something about the perfect specimen had changed, the glowing aura gave birth to a whole new phenomenon which sent her on alert till she felt she was on the tips of her toes.

Contrasting the bright blue sky of Sunset's side of the world, an inferno encircled the red winged female until it spanned outwards from its center three feet in radius. The attitude and behavior were also altered, so much so that the way in which the following words were spoken it was as if Midnight were either not there or envisioned as someone else. The losing psyche even jarred her to an extent that a portion of the once human girl beneath the magic coward by the righteousness in each vocalization.

"All I wanted to know was about that cursed mirror!! Day after day she denied me any reason behind not knowing anything about it! That I wasn't ready... that I couldn't study it yet... for no real fear other than her COMMAND!!" she shouted with such force that a sound blast had forced the raven wings to come to the defense of the witch.

'I can't... every scenario fails!' with hands joining the feeble defense, 'The variable is to unstable! Got to move!'

Midnight began to strafe to the left trying to gain some peace of mind in that moving as she was likely being targeted might save her from a direct hit. The brisk force of which she sped into whipped away at her face and skin, but she couldn't even bother with the discomfort as the fire ring started to spin of its own accord opposite of her direction.

Sunset followed the amateur sorceress with her eyes while turning slowly in the others direction, those livid ice blue eyes whose conviction were an attack all their own. Demoralizing in their gaze they could nearly melt glass with the vexing standing alone, but it wasn't Midnight that summoned the hatred within. Red had come back to her like a tinted sheet, and who there standing like a glorified sundial was the alicorn herself.

"I crossed that mirror when I couldn't take it anymore! I exiled myself because Celestia said I wasn't fit to become a princess! I was the most educated, I was the most capable... I HAD the qualifications!!" her hair seemed to erupt in even more fiery anguish, "Given the magic of an alicorn I could have given her a run for her bits! But nooo!! And I come to find out where the mirror went to... some place of no strategic value to Equestria, no dire threat to ponykind, and certainly not a place to condemn denial of knowledge of!" with the rising volume the circle around her tripled its flow till a bright hot yellow light was all anyone could see with the naked eye, "Tartarus... I even mastered their young and manipulated them into a controlled social heiarchy that even the Principles couldn't touch! Ha! How pitiful!!"

In moments the ring contracted into a thin stream as bright as the sun, the very air around it warping and undulating like water. Midnight could sense the compression, magic of great quantities had been forced into a state that made it both controllable yet volatile. A single misstep in containment would detonate and release the magic with a dangerous area of affect that would put the all in harms way for the next five miles. There was not a doubt in her mind that she might not survive the blast, she still had little knowledge of spells beyond the immediacy of crafting on the go. The snippets she gained from stealing the magic from Canterlot High somehow harbored a few sequences of runes she implemented with quick study. Most of which were experimented on during their first engagement of battle, none of it would help her in the face of such instability.

The worry on her face had been detected and ready like an open book, "You even remind me of a certain pony princess... the one who took my spot and received the ascended position I so RIGHTFULLY deserve!" she forced a fist forward and clenched it so hard the hand trembled along with her deep seeded anger, the ring condensed one last time into a thin line no wider than string or fishing line.

"Impossible!!" Midnight shockingly replied as her eyes contracted in dread, even as her speed picked up she wouldn't escape the woods.

Shimmer pointed a finger at the witch from that fitful hand like a jabbing knife, "Tell me your name?!"

Unsure of where else to go or do in her situation she answered cautious of an immediate attack following, "My name?" her wings fanned out wide and ceased her flight trajectory.

"Midnight... Sparkle, I use to be Twilight Sparkle of..."

Those ice blue eyes of a cold heart widened, the fire that had become of the edges of the demonic girl's hair simmered away and shrank in overall size. When the only part of the ever dangerous entity which moved was her venomous yellow and black striped skirt, it was the precipice of danger that only a dead person would realize before it all happened. The magic in the air already saturated and burning at the same time with the scent of ozone from their destructive meeting, had grown still as any wind gentle or gusty froze. The foreshadowing as clear as day had told Midnight that her answer was both good and bad, but a worse fate awaited her within minutes of her admittance.

What might as well felt as if she had the water bucket of ice water prank played upon her after entering the next class for the day, a realization kicked in for the witch as well. The demoness before her had grown a hearty chuckle from a minute giggle, evolving into a full belly laugh as her hair seemed to lose its hellish life and take up some semblance of a familiar style. Those wavy locks and curly ends of near reddish orange and deep yellow, they gained the appearance of none other than that one Canterlot High student who had tried to stop her.

"Sunset Shimmer!!"

Before finding herself in a magical land ripe for her research she had just about readied a concussive blast to drive off the white robed demigod. Yet how she had gone through such changes into the thing before her was all lost to any train of thought, nothing made sense in what she had been saying all the while either.

"Ya?" the being of malice incarnate said with a warning as a rattlesnake would shake its tail, "Princess Twilight SPARKLE!!"

The final stick that broke the Ursa Major's back finally snapped and up rose the monstrous creature who could tear a city to rubble and smoke. A twitch of the finger was all that it took for Tartarus to break loose. The mention of her name suddenly threw her off balance with a chance at finishing the job that stood between her and Celestia, before her imminent reign over Equestria. The opportunity to show how better she was at everything than the usurper who rose in her spot had overwhelmed what grasp she had over the charged mega blast she had been amassing.

Triggered before she felt the power spike at the tip of the finger she so bitterly jabbed blow out and release. A fine beam of light speared with a loud ear scratching hiss through the distance between the two demigods in a fraction of a second, missing Midnight by inches as the edges of the stream burned her right wing which had been too close. The feathered appendage disintegrated where closest to the light and visibly it pained the owner who dropped away to escape.

Behind Shimmer the ring seemed to vaporize like the end of a fuse string to a blasting device, eating itself until it would eventually reach the end which sat atop of the newly inflamed hair. The demoness paid no further heed as with the magic attack so had her deep seeded hatred go with it, part of her soul siphoned off to give the spell power.

Aghast at her folly, Sunset witnessed the comet of destructive energies head straight for a castle of sorts she hadn't yet noticed until then. Striking it with such force that an existing shield around it that had been invisible exploded outwards from the might that impacted it, silvery fish seemed to fearfully swim away in the sun's light. There were countless glints of glitter of the structure itself that poured from the wound she inflicted upon the crystalline building. Yet there was not a moment to spare to a thought, as miles behind the fortification and village under it's shadow came a torrent of violent malice in the form of an explosion. The attack had finally met the ground before a row of rounded mountains in a bright blossom of annihilation followed by a rising mushroom cloud of dust and dirt. The ground shook from the raw power wrought onto the earth, a visible line surged from point zero as it washed past the two girls who gave the scene their full attention if only stunned by the magnitude alone.

The entire sky became as yellow as Sunset's dress, the flash at first too bright to behold without going blind. Though it only lasted half a minute before orange became everything, the land and air a tangerine while the darkest parts were of the growing column of cloud rising high a dark dirty brown. The mountain range dwarfed utterly but the titanic size of the dispelling energy, it was little short than a small nuclear detonation to Midnight who knew of such weaponry from the Great War years before her birth. The history books could only prepare her for so much when the real thing was in itself a whole other experience, and for that sliver of time she had forgotten about Sunset as a threat at all.

Sunset herself did not dread what she did, she felt proud at the forces she had at her beck and call. Fearing nothing at all as she swelled with self idolization, what she had just done to several hundred acres of land proved to her how so much more powerful she was compared to Celestia. The things she learned in the human world and about their conflicts of yor served only to put pony problems into their proper place, as hoof slaps at best. What made humanity peaceful and complacent she would use to root herself in the throne for time immortal, ponies were in deep need of improvement and they in need of the right alicorn for the job to see them through it. She could see herself then and there as the god she was meant to be, how life engineered her and gifted her all the chances to do so. The mirth born in an insane expression that made her high on life, it was a crowning moment for her for all of Equestria to forever see if the crater she made was a testament.

"Ha... hahaha... hahaha... ah ahahahAHAHAHA!!"

The light that had blotted out the sky by her power only then just began to dwindle. Not even the white orb up above could make much of a dent through the orange and rich earth tones until the star of Tartarus burned through every ounce of mana. The caster herself stood with her god finger still pointing at the hell spawned chaos continued to gaffawed at her jaw dropping capability, she could make a whole new sun by the looks of it.

Midnight herself vanished to parts unknown as her form phased out in a blind attempt at teleportation, though it was by a single act of wanting to escape that lead to it. High above the charred portion of the Everfree whose own fires made a snoring dragon ever more pleasant only added to the ash choked sky quickly growing darker from the other dramatic release that tore the land a new wound. In between the towers of smog and ruin stood the Crystal Castle of Friendship and Ponyville left mostly untouched, but the ponies there were left with the aftermath that could not be stopped. Fathoming a return to peace seemed far from their minds as the battling demigods were soon begone.

Black Hawk Over Equestrian Skies

by TheronSniper

Ch. 1 The Rift

Ch. 2 Double, Double Toil and Trouble

Ch. 3 Are You Mental?

Ch. 4 The Mediator part 1

Ch. 5 The Mediator part 2

Ch. 6 The Mediator part 3

Ch. 7 Precautions

Ch. 8 Dire Caution

Ch. 9 Unstoppable Force