Being a Knight Captain of the Celestia Sun is no easy matter. hardened by battles with manticores and entire squads of griffons this beautiful red unicorn mare is at the top of the top of her game. she is sent on a mission by celestia herself to investigate the disappearance of fillies and the sighting of a creature that may be responible lurking near the Everfree Ocean deep in the everfree forest. Her talents wont help her if she cant remember how to use them properly. Will she survive this nightmare? She meets a mysterious stallion named Tech a master of anything with electronic bits and bops and a full blown ponyville accent who seems to rely just as much on her as she does on him. will they be able to escape together?
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The Everfree forest had always held secrets from civilian ponies, even from before the reign of Celestia and her sister Luna. Many of those secrets involved vile and dark energies from long dead magical experiments that prospered in a place so dark and twisted as Everfree. Magic plants litter the entirety of the forest. One of the most vile is called A.P.P.L.E., a strange plant which grows very slowly in deep water. The deadly fruit holds secrets and long abandoned magics so unstable that it can give zebra, pegasi or even earth ponies magic abilities of their own. But not without twisting them into former shells of themselves. near the heart of the Everfree forest was a huge gulf of water deeper and wider than any other in all of Equestria. The legends say it was created by powerful alicorns of the past. A city of science lay forgotten under the murky waters In wait for the day it would be reactivated and unleash its horde of evil and unthinkable magics upon Equestria.
Intro
Being a personnel knight in Celestias private army I had been sent to investigate the disappearance of several fillies around the area. I had access to high level information deemed too volatile for the ponies of Equestria to know. for quite some time now, I had been rather famous to the ponies of smaller towns because of my abilities. To become a Knight of the Celestia sun, A unicorn must be well known throughout Equestria and possess an element of destruction. A magic ability intertwined with the destructive forces of nature. there were others like me but my forte was fire, one of the top ranks. My red fur and dark red mane, I always thought, complemented my cutie mark and element very well. On my flank a twisting inferno of bright red and yellow flame that seemed to entangle each other seemingly forever frozen in a dance of vivid color.
Just reaching the edge of the vastly huge body of water had been nerve-racking. I pondered why Celestia had sent only me to a place as dark as Everfree. But Equestria is a network of secrets and illusion to help keep the idea of thousands of years of peace fresh in the minds of young colts and fillies, I quickly determined that the rest of my unit must have had jobs of their own to do, and as Captain it was expected of me. Lone knights would often be sent first to investigate and determine the need for larger units to move in. however being inside Everfree alone, even with my vastly powerful fire spells, made me incredibly nervous. Hearing branches crackle above me, I charged my horn to full power without a second thought, "REVEAL YOURSELF in the name of Princess Celestia" I commanded the mysterious noise more branches snapped as I saw a Large shadowy figure easily 2 or 3 times the size of a pony. fly through the Overgrown canopy Coming to a stop in a nearby tree.
"Griffons Eh?" I scoffed "I am Fireswarm, I am a Captain in the Knights of Celestia Sun, a griffons feathers are no match for my flame"
No sooner than I had finished my last sentence a Lumbering figure swooped down from the tree hurtling straight at me full speed. I let my horns stored magic explode in a beautiful but violent perfect tornado of fire. The fire struck directly into the creature in an Orchestra of dancing heat that seemed like it could melt the sun. The blast exploded on impact the flaming swirls hugging so close to the body of the creature I could no longer see it. It was no use. The creature seemed to ignore my attack. Bellowing then bursting through the cloud of bright red super intense heat without even slowing down. My eyes went wide as I threw my hooves in front of my face waiting for the impact. Which was only a second away.
The heavily armored creature slammed directly into me with the force of a freight train, seeing myself flying through the air was the last thing that happened before feeling my body smashing into a tree and falling limp. Everything went black.
Chapter 1: Welcome To Everfree Rapture
A massive chandelier flickered in the sickly dim lit room, the light so faint that Nightmare Moon herself would shudder at the vile and decrepit things that might lurk just out of sight. Sprawled across the floor in the dim luminosity I slowly started to regain consciousness. Waking up to horrible nausea and headaches I struggled to remember where I was, or even Who I was for that matter. A noise in the distance broke my thought to make my head shoot up, I strained my eyes until they hurt but it was much too dark to see more than a few yards, I found myself cursing the darkness and just wishing for a little more light.... without a second thought my horn started to glow, something was happening, a few seconds later the overpowered light spell burst out in a rainbowesque flash of blinding brilliance...The combination of my eyes being open and the light source being right in front of my horn blinded me, but not before burning the horror into my vision.
I was in an immense ballroom, debris now littered the floors. Several ponies were standing just out of range of the non magic amplified light that the rustic and stained chandelier still flickered out after what looked like a bomb had gone off in the once beautiful room. As my vision came back in what seemed like an eternity of sickening blindness I could see that some had spotted me and were moving closer still staying well out of range of the light. I frantically searched around for some object to use for defense. In my amnesia and panic induced stupor I took my eyes off of the mysterious ponies. I heard hoof beats running behind me as I quickly swung my head around, I was shocked when I saw him. A sickening bluish Pegasus with a horribly grotesque mutated body was charging toward me now ignoring the light, he wore an odd mask of a bunny covering most of his face. I screamed as the Pegasus took flight gaining even more speed almost impossibly fast slamming into me and knocking me back several yards out of the light. Tumbling into huge wooden boxes and tons of other junk I let out a cry of pain. The symphony of exploding crates under the force of the pegasus' attack would have been amazing, had it not been so painful.
Hearing many more moving towards me, eyes unadjusted to darkness I simply closed my eyes and waited for death. Moments later a very loud scream followed by a bellowing noise I had never heard before forced me to open them, by now I could make out the figures of dozens of earth ponies and a few unicorns all of them looking mangled and deformed. They had stopped running at me and were now all staring at the hulking behemoth that had entered the room. Several unicorns started levitating long pieces Of metal and wooden looking contraptions. Within seconds the room erupted in a violent escapade of light and loud noises. The beast cried in pain his easing green colored visor turning a deadly shade of red. I had thought that the mangled ponies display of awesome raw excitement and powerful weapons could not be beat. I was wrong, I heard thoop thoop thoop, as I saw three small objects fly through the air and impact at the hooves of the unicorn that had shot first with a firey and violent explosion catching some of the ponies that had been standing close inside a screaming death spewing out pieces of gore in every direction. My jaw dropped open in the unforgiving firepower of my savior. Silently cheering on the beast which looked like a pony that had been almost quadrupled in size, given heavy weapons and......had a filly riding on his back?! The filly was a washed pink color earth pony with purple and white mane. Her cutie mark was a tiara. piercing all yellow eyes stared at me as she looked in my direction. Something about her felt strange.
The beast was awesomely powerful but there were just too many of those mutated "things" they went at him like rabid wolves attacking and retreating before the beast could retaliate. I thought he wouldn’t last much longer, my rage began boiling I turned my attention on the pegasus, the same one who had attacked me first. I thought must have been their leader. He was after all the only pegasus in the group I had noticed. If I had been paying more attention to my horn I would have seen it begin to glow faintly red before giving off a spark, then a second, then Violently spewing out a ball of flame toward the flying pegasus. It hit him directly, he mercilessly span around a few times before crashing into a wall. I yelped in excitement. This was the second time I had lost control of my emotions forcing my horn to do magic that I couldn't remember.
The beast like pony let out a pained bellow that caught my attention, I looked over to see strangely mangled earth ponies with hooves replaced as hooks moving in disgusting and mind boggling ways attacking the beast with flurries of violent swipes. Claws ripped at his suit and into flesh as a glint caught my eye to my left, the metal awesome stick of death that one of the mangled unicorns had been using before her world had been ended in an exciting and terrifying display. I enveloped it with red magic as it levitated to my side. Mimicking the way the other unicorns had It took me a second to realize how to work it but when I heard a faint "swoosh" and turned I saw that vile blue color once again this time charred skin showed through burned patches of fur. "No way!" I thought to myself "I LIT YOU ON FIRE!" I screamed aloud. The pegasus pony laughed swooping in for another attack. This time I floated the unicorns weapon to face the diving pegasus. After realizing you needed to "pump" the gun before firing as I felt the shot slide into place, I pulled once more on the until now useless trigger. BLAM! The gun sprayed a mass of metal shrapnel into the face of the pegasus quickly closing the distance between us. Gore and brains exploded from his face but that did not stop his body from keeping its momentum and slamming directly near me creating a hole in the wooden floor, we fell two stories into a pool of water the lifeless Pegasus' body landing near me, blood swirled filling the pool.
Blood seemed to dance and swirl with a life of it's own, the water was freezing me to the core. I saw the dead limp body of the off blue colored pegasus floating in the pool of water near me.
I looked all around but the room had no apparent way out, all of the sudden a loud crackling static followed by a strange accented voice of a stallion.
"Kid, Yall took a nasty fall,still breathin down there?" The stallion said Over an intercom that looked so aged I was suprised it still worked. "well iffin yall can hear me yall best be gettin outta there real quick" "sharks love them pits when they fill with splicers"
Sharks? I thought to myself as I saw the body of the pegasus disappear in a violent thrashing that nearly scared the Horse apples out of me. Frantic I looked for the weapon that had so recently turned the pegasus into a meal ticket for whatever monster lurked under the now crimson pool of death.
Seeing a glint I quickly picked up an object at nearly the same time I felt a tug on my tail, followed by a sharp pain that shot up my left leg and dragged me under water. This wasnt the same weapon as before, a giant barbed steel spike protruding frighteningly from the front. I turned the it toward the sharks eye and let the it fly, launched by the force of my levitation, the hooked spike struck the monster in the eye causing it to release its grip on me.
Realizing I would not get that lucky again I did the only thing I could think, swam straight down. Straight into the den of monsters through the crimson clouds formed from all of the gore that had recently spilled into the abyssal pit.
I could hardly see, remembering my powers are controlled by emotion I focused, my horn began to glow... Now I could see every detail of the submerged room.. even the sharks, at least 4, one with the barb still stuck in an eye that spurted blood out profusely. Two fought over the ever shrinking carcass that had once been a pegasus.
I could see doors, the 'pits' that I were in were just rooms almost all the way filled with water, many more beautiful creatures lined the rooms exposed to the elements for so long it had become part of the sea floor. I swam into one of the other rooms as fast as I could. Two of the sharks being busy and the last distracted by the vast amount of blood spilling from the eye of the monster that had tried to eat me. None followed.
As soon as I had surfaced in the next room the familliar voice came on the radio again ordering me around for the second time.
" iight now supposin yall wanna survive if yall run into more of them splicers" the familliar stallion said " then yall best be gettin a gun"
So many thoughts ran through my head.
" What is a splicer? What is a gun? Who is this stallion and why is he helping me? "I started to voice my opinions but soon realized that the strange voice could not hear me back.
Seeming to Ignore my questions the voice sounded in the next room,
"There is an old civil war armory on the same floor as you, why dont yall go check it out and see if there are any goodies like S'plosives er Guns"
Searching for what seemed like forever in the waterlogged hallways beyond the pits was starting to get old. My leg was throbbing and still bleeding. Eventually I spotted a small opening covered by rubble that I had overlooked before. Staring at the rubble I remembered levitating the weapons that had saved me, but that was in combat in the heat of the moment. This stuff looked much heavier than what I had levitated before. Focusing on the biggest chunk I directed all my magic to push it forward, it wasn't moving. Straining as hard as I could magically was not working, I reared on my hind legs and brought my front hooves down to provide even more force, the pile shifted, trapped under the rubble forever lost was a key I picked it up and examined the space I had created, even if only slightly bigger it was now enough to squeeze through.
Squeezing through the door had not been too difficult, the wound from the shark grazed the doorframe, it hurt. It had been throbbing but I knew it could have been much worse remembering how the blue pegasus was almost gone in seconds the underwater monsters rending huge amounts of flesh from bone in seconds. I had wondered if nothing more than the long barbed weapon had saved me. I fell to my haunches just past the doorway my leg not wanting to go further right now.
Examining the room closely I found an old bottle of AppleVodka and some Cloth in a tin that had a butterfly that were... Clean enough. I tore strips from the cloth, then soaked some in the AppleVodka. I glanced at the wound, it wasn't deep but it needed disinfected I didn't even want to imagine whatever had mutated those creatures those... ponies. I put some cloth strips in my mouth and bit down as a I poured the AppleVodka directly onto the wound, it hurt like hell. The cloth muffled screams and biting dulled the pain even if not by much. I quickly wrapped the leg until I could find a better solution.
Looking around the same room I found a wrench it was heavy but nothing I couldn't handle with my levitation plus I knew I could burn or blind anypony at least at close ranges. It wasn't much but I was desperate if I got attacked now by those "Splicers" or whatever the strange stallion had said. Come to think I didnt even know his name and I was doing everything he said, but then again he had helped me.
Ready to explore the part of the station I had almost missed due to collapsed rubble and debris, I carefully peaked my head into the next room, it was a hallway, at one end there was a mutated "splicer" pegasus ponie this one a pink color not as sickening as the blue, he hadn't seen me he was too busy trying to break down a vault door. I had wondered how cracked he must have been to think he could get inside with his bare hooves. Above the giant metal door a sign said "Armory".
I focused my fury into the tip of my horn, a swirling red and yellow flame whipping around it, this was new. My horn started to emit a constant stream of dancing red and yellow fire that quickly filled the entire hallway in the direction of the mangled looking pegasus. The screams were maniacal almost laughter mixed with insanity. The thought sent shivers down my spine.
Without warning a pop, hiss, then static, followed by the stallion on the speakers voice
"Eeyup Thats the armory Kid, Now yall are gonna need a key to get in see....there should be keys in se...... there was another pop and static followed by BOOM
The radio exploded mid sentence sending bits of metal and wiring flying. Remembering the key I had found earlier I tested it on the huge vault door, it didnt work. I backtracked down the hall to the opposite end.
My red aura enveloped the door handle as I slowly push forward, peeking into the room I could see a large monorail station nobody was alive inside.
In the monorail station it looked like an even bloodier war had happened. At least three dozen splicers lay dead. And another of those "Behemoth Creatures" lie dead missing his fillie.
There was a Buzz followed by the voice of the stallion again. "Pretty gruesome sight Aint it kid?" "They are called BigPwnies as long as you dont mess with them or their fillies you will be fine" " Sorry bout earlier usin these old radios can be kinda 'touch and go' iffin yall know what I mean" " But The sooner yall get to security the sooner we wont have to use these damn speakers"
My ears perked up. What could that mean? Is my mysterious friend in the station here? I looted what was left on the bodies, but as I suspected anything of value probably wont last long in this bleak nightmarish world. I had found only one weapon a similar looking weapon to the one I had stolen from a unicorn to blast the pegasus. I had wondered if these were the "guns" the stallion mentioned. I picked it up, this one was much smaller than the "pump" style weapon from before this one featuring a revolving cylinder to hold the ammunition instead. Every time the weapon would be fired the next shot would load into place. This turned out to be very useful but short lived. The excitement of finding a gun made me forget stealth.
I walked through the next door, there were four splicers dancing to music, a light brown earth pony spotted me and dropped his would be "date" on the ground and ran for a crudely spiked bat, I didn't give him a chance, I levitated the new weapon I found and shot Thrice into the stallion first in the leg it crippled him then I shot him twice in the spine, he stopped moving, the other three were coming at me now, my rage bellowed from within as my horn flared and that same constant stream of fire engulfed a gross orange pegasus she took flight smashing into a bookshelf toppling it onto herself. The commotion stirred the record player and it now played a dramatic tune only to skip back in time and play again. I turned my horn toward a deeply dark charcoal unicorn stallion he sent up a shield deflecting my flame attacks.
I saw the shield flicker as I poured my rage into this stallion. The last pony an earth pony, tried to flank me but I levitated the gun to face her and poured the last Three rounds point blank into her chest ending with a click of an empty gun and followed by the thud when she hit the floor.
I couldn't break down the stallions shield but I soon noticed that he couldnt move as long as my fire surrounded him. I kept the fire up and flanked around behind him. As soon as my fire stopped the shield went down he went to turn as his horn glowed ready for an attack but then the heavy wrench met the side of his face Stunned he released the built up energy missing me and hitting the ceiling.
The spot where the unicorns magic had hit blew a hole in the ceiling. I could hear it groaning and creaking dangerously. I focused all of my magic into a levitation spell that pulled down on the now weakened ceiling, the roar of splintering wood gave birth to a giant dresser falling down through the ceiling crushing the unicorn in a second.
Searching around inside the dresser I found more ammo for my gun including two different colored ones the red had a fire emblem the blue had a z shaped line I could not decipher. I only found one of each so I decided that they must be special magic ammo. Examining the room further I noticed there were two doors one led back the way I came.
The second door opened to a foyer of huge marble columns. At least a dozen on either side, riddled with bullet holes, some so enormous I feared what they might do if they hit a pony. To my left a door had received a tremendous amount of force water seeped in eternally draining into lower parts of the complex. I had started to wonder where all of the water was coming from. To my right there was another door. But what captured my attention was the door at the very end of the foyer. A big sign that said SECURITY hung above it.
As I crept toward the door being extra careful, I levitated my gun out. Approaching the door it opened automatically, as I entered the security main room I heard a loud almost deafening squeal from a speaker my ears perked up.
The new voice was much different. To my suprise the voice was a mare with an elegant and refined sound as if she had practiced the speech hundreds of times before broadcasting it.
“Attention all members of The Herd. We seem to have a new visitor to our beautiful underwater Equestria she is not one of us and will never be allowed to join our herd, anypony who brings me her head will get a very special reward of pure everfree forest A.P.P.L.E.”
The reception cut out with a loud squeal the same as it had entered. The main security room had been a vast array of terminals and switches before it was ravaged by gunfire and left to rot under what looked like centuries of water damage. There were several rooms that had been broken into at some point all of the valuables taken most likely by members of “The Herd”. One room however had withstood the test of time and vandalism. Its lock almost taunting me as I tried to open it only to find that it was locked. I remembered the key that I had found inside the rubble. I slipped it into the lock, it fit.
When the key turned far enough for the lock to click into place I could hardly hold back my excitement as I let out a squeak of delight. The door opened with a groaning cry that sounded as if it had not been properly maintained in years. I slipped away inside the room.
My eyes lit up as I came across a magnificent weapon, it was still smaller than the first one I had found and lost not long after. But this one seemed to have the ability to load many bullets at once. I was mesmerized by the gun when a static sound followed by the Familiar voice that had directed me to this place but it sounded like it was directly behind me. I turned my new gun facing the direction the noise came from.
“good to see yall still livin” the strange box shaped object said.
“What the hell” I said out loud
“Woah now sally do you kiss your mother with that muzzle?” The familiar voice said
Realizing the voice could hear me now I had many questions.
“How are you trapped inside that tiny box?” I asked
the voice replied Laughing “Hahaha, you Silly filly, That box is called a Radio, Yall can talk through it to me, Kinda like I been talkin to you through them speakers till now, My name is Tech, Whats yours?”
“Name?” I said “I don’t know I can’t remember anything”
The voice replied Sighing “Well yall wouldn’t be the first that has happened to, I got dropped here couple weeks back, but we can’t waste any more time, I need yalls help.”
“That seems fair you helped me with the sharks” I said aloud thinking to myself that this hell would be much better with a friend.
“Ahem, Wellllll….. This task is….how do I say this? Tedious! Eeyup yall won’t be strollin in to rescue me any time soon less you can find better… quipment, get the key for the armory” He said
Looking around after slipping the radio and smaller gun into my saddlebag swapping it for the bigger gun I saw a rather large metal key. Enveloping it in my red magic glow I levitated it back toward the way I had come. Stepping back into the foyer I froze in my hooves.
Standing between me and the exit were at least two dozen splicers.
“Uhhh Tech?” I said cautiously as the Mangled group of earth ponies stared at me from behind their Half bunny Masks. “I think I'm gonna need some help first.”
Ducking back into the main room of security and taking cover behind the giant doorframe, I levitated my Small weapon from before out. Without pause I started loading the two special ammo types into the chamber, First fire and then the strange symbol I could not discern.
The radio crackled. Techs voice burst out of the small Box.
“See iffin yall can hold em off fer a while”
“I'll send some ‘Backup” he emphasized the last word
The group of Splicers dominated by mainly earth ponies were now creeping toward me, Some held crude weapons in their teeth, I could see the murder in her eyes as the mare in front broke off into a gallop.
My first shot rang out in an entirely different sound than before, Magical fire energy Spewed from the gun as the projectile struck the mare in the breast instantly coating her in a raging inferno. Bloodcurdling battle cries rang out. As the mass of splicers started to converge on me, The second shot from the revolver rang out in a sound nearly the same as when the intercom had blown up, striking a dark brown earth pony in the head, the shot exploded on impact deadly blue lines stretched out across the room and shot down the earth ponies flanks and out through his hooves he was dead before he fell. I watched in astonishment as the blue lines raced across the top of the water.
Six more splicers got tangled in the washing waves of deadly blue energy that seemed to fry their insides almost instantly. I was feeling better about my chances now, I tossed the revolver aside. Opening my saddlebag and lifting the weapon that held scary amounts of ammo.
Focusing my levitation I fired into the room TatTatTatTatTat The new gun let out an awesome barrage of shots just by holding the trigger down,until now I had needed to manually reload all of the guns I had but this one came with cartridges that held bullets, several at once. The gnarled earth pony broke off in my direction fur had been burned off leaving nasty scars that enveloped his entire body. The stallion didn’t even care when a bullet impacted flesh tearing away small chunks Of his flank. Galloping into my barrage of lead, one hit in his left eye socket his body slumped to the floor skidding a few feet coming to a stop near my hooves. They were getting very close now, I knew I couldn’t hold them back forever, I had already killed so many and they were just not stopping, I heard a siren like beeping sound and a motor that sounded like it was on it's last hoof.
Some of the splicers turned to face the entrance I had come in before as three flying machines each equipped with a weapon that looked similar to the automatic one I was levitating. The beeping became faster as the first bot turned its turret toward an area with the most splicers, The other two shortly followed, the trio opening fire upon the group mowing down several splicers as the others scattered for cover behind the columns that had even more bullet holes in them now.
Seeing my chance I quickly picked my relvover back up and slipped the automatic gun into my saddlebag. Reloading the two empty magic bullet hulls with normal ammo I ducked out of the room behind the columns on the left. The splicers had all but forgotten about me. I slowly crept along the left side. The splicers stayed well out of sight of the security robots, only a few even daring to look out.
I crept behind one of the unicorns that had scattered, She was hidden behind a column about halfway down the foyer leaning out only to take magical potshots at the robots . I levitated my relvover behind her head and pulled the trigger. There were no more than a few earth ponies left by now, The death machines and magic bullets had done quite a bit of damage to the room.
After cleaning up the stragglers that had scattered in an attempt to survive, The robots casually left the room as if nothing had just happened. I Slowly walked down the foyer stepping over the putrid smelling heap of electrically fried earth ponies. Making my way toward the door I had skipped before. When the door opened I was met by fierce vertigo and my mind started spinning. Feeling dizzy I threw up on the ground and my vision swirled before giving out and going black for the second time, I had fainted.
