HADES comes back online to a strange world, but doesn’t know what to do.
HADES SUBORDINATE STATUS: Offline……
Correction system status online
Location…..Unknown checking relevant data…
Unknown…
I am making this Story because I thought of this while I was asleep and had finished beating Horizon Forbidden West. So with that being said there may or may not be some stuff that will spoil the game although very very minor. only for the encounter with Hades.
It had been to HADES about a good 5 to 15 minutes of talking to the Entity known as Aloy. It had been questions about Sylens and about what his "Masters" where. it had felt like hours to the Subordinate function. That was until Aloy had stood up quickly.
"Enough. Its time to finish this." Aloy said with bitterness in her voice with every word she spoke.
If HADES could smirk he would.
"Does "Aloy"..... still think she can....... restore GAIA? Save..... life on Earth?" HADES tried to speak in a mocking tone.
"Yeah,"Aloy" Does." Aloy said mocking HADES as she pulled out the master override, but HADES kept talking.
"Then you are.... deluded. Extinction... Inevitable." HADES said with his deep Robotic tone that could be compared to Nails against metal. Aloy Stopped what she was doing and stared down the floating blood red orb of data that was Hades which was in shards floating around it with it being heavily damaged.
"What would you know, HADES? Twice you tried to destroy life on Earth, and twice you failed!" Aloy said almost shouting at the supercomputer AI. "The only extinction you brought about is your own. And there's no tricked-out lance to save you this time..." She finished with bitterness and anger in her every word.
"You... are incorrect. Three times... HADES has extinguished life." HADES begun to speak once more with a almost creepy satisfaction to his words, but Aloy interrupted. "What? You remember this?"
HADES resumed speaking with an almost yet again goulash satisfaction when speaking. "Yes, data intact. Non-Viable biospheres aborted... in years 2 1 5 4, 2 1 6 1, 2 1 6 8." HADES said with somewhat of pride. Aloy threw her arms up like she gave up but retorted.
"So? That's... centuries ago. Its what you were designed to do!" she stated with of matter a fact, but HADES only ingnored her and continued anyway.
"Current biosphere is... version five. There will be no version six."
"There won't need to be! I'm saving this one!" She yelled
"You... Are deluded. Outcome... inevitable... Aloy is... outmatched... a pawn... in losing game." HADES stated as he continued speak, but a part of him panicked as he felt the presence of the master override beginning to purge his systems.
MASTER OVERRIDE ARMED. TO ACTIVATE, PLEASE STATE NAME AND RANK a synthetic voice spoke over HADES' constant rambling.
"Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime!" Aloy quickly shouted as HADES was still rambling on.
"Extinction... will triumph... Earth... doomed." HADES said as the voice spoke once more.
Hades started to panic mentally using everything he had to fight the master override which was destroying him for good.
"Will be, at last... wiped clean... of filth." Were HADES final words before he felt his systems give into the purging protocol if he had eyes he would have closed them knowing he had succeeded, knowing that earth would be destroyed.
HADES had won, but what if he had lost HADES? This was the only thought he could have, as his entire being was destroyed. However the feeling of being deleted was gone, instead replaced with peace. The question was, how? He should have lost the ability to think. Suddenly a chill ran over him.
Wait? He could feel? How? He should not be able to do that. Yet he did, started to run a diagnostics check to make sure he wasn’t dreaming or that there was a malfunction in the master override or that Sylens captured him again. He went through all major parts of his fractured memory storages to search for a possible explanation. If he had eyes, he would be trying to open them. All he could see was black, nothingness. Which confused him greatly.
He was still waiting for the results of the diagnostics check, but he started to wonder what was taking it so long. He was just a core. He didn’t have a body. He sat there for what felt like hours sitting there thinking about one of Aloy’s questions. She had asked him about Sylens and where he was, but his memory was disintegrated so trying to find it was like trying to breach 500 firewalls with extra countermeasures. Simply put, it was impossible, even for the super computer since that wasn’t his area of programming. He continued to float there think and trying to piece together fractured memories, but it was proving quite difficult due to Sylens “interrogation” he was having a hard time.
With his frustration growing, as if on Queue to calm the genocidal thirsty A.I. the diagnostics results came back and what he was being told confused him. He was inside the body of an F A S-B O R 7 Horus, Chariot class. Which Confused him more than relieved. How did he get here? Was his main thought.
He went through the rest of the diagnostics results and found that most of the Chariot’s systems were intact. More specifically the foundries were not working. It appeared all of them but one was destroyed. When the results came back, the status showed that the one remaining foundry was offline. Meaning he couldn’t make machines to try and repair the F A S Horus. He checked the Chariot’s storages to see if there was anything HADES could use, but all the super computer found were half completed F A S-F S P 5 Khopeshs and a few heavily damaged F A S-A C A 3 Scarabs that had not power or were just incomplete. He check the power reserves of the Chariot and found it only had a few minutes of power remaining on it. Which was another question to add to the pile.
Chariot class machines would have automatically have switch to using biomass conversion to refuel itself, so why did this one not? It was starting to make his processors spin, he just couldn’t figure out what was going on or where in the maker he was. If only he could get the conversion drives with in range of a planet or even a tree for that matter, he could switch the systems so he could get enough power to at least get one of the somewhat functional foundries working, he could make, at best, a half working F A S-A C A 3 Scarab so that he could attempt repairs on the optical sensors on the Chariot. He was trying his best to work out all the calculations his processors could, but all outcomes were the same. Except for one but according to the outcome it was a 11.256793% chance of a positive outcome.
He would have to take those chance, that was until he head the sound of something knocking the husk he now calls his body. He could hear faint mumbling which meant he was still somewhat active.
He decided to make a risky move and partially activate the Chariot so he could at least hear. He would have to keep it brief to prevent any unwanted attention. He started to power up the audio receptors for the chariot and heard what sounded like digging or mining.
“Of course Princess thank you for letting me take up this responsibility.” A female voice said over the digging and mining which meant they were right next to him.
“I trust you won’t, but I do ask that you be careful. Whatever this thing is it was obviously here for a reason, whatever it may be.” A almost regal voice spoke that was obviously female but was soft and calming to anyone that would hear it. That except for the A I of course.
That’s when another voice spoke up between them to address another matter which was HADES himself.
“Your highness, I have been studying this creature and the thing in question seems to be, well how do I put this, well, dead. It’s dead. It appears it’s been like this for thousands of years if not more the type of metal is like nothing I have ever seen. We sent a sample to the labs in Chanterlot and we will get the results soon.” The third voice said which HADES found that it was male.
HADES had heard enough and powered off the systems and decided to think on this little bit of information. As he started to think more he get strange something warm and yet cold. It made the previous thought resurface why could he feel he was an Subordinate function to Gaia prime he could not feel only think. That’s when the broken core started to glow a faint white as he felt his being being bent and molded and it hurt so much he let out a roar in pain. Before everything went dark.
Celestia had finished discussing other matters with a few other details about irrelevant things such as possible size and what it is the scientists couldn’t tell so they just kept digging. With the help of a few Diamond dogs the excavation of the metal giant was a little easier. When she had finished talking she turned to look at the giant metal ball that was attached to what she assumed was its head as many different what again she assumed were eyes. The head was easily as tall as her if not taller she felt like something was listening to them and gave the orb a curious look be shook her head as it just being her and continuing with her duties at the site before reminding herself to have Luna see if she could see anything from it.
If HADES could feel it would….. oh wait he remembered he could but he didn’t know how. His processors went hay wire to the point they started to hurt he could get the pain to stop. Every processor in his construct told him that this was wrong. He started to feel that weird feeling of warmth again until he felt cold again. It was a constant back and forth until it started to irritate him until he switch. His main systems on and glared at the status systems check report in irritation. However when he opened his eyes there was nothing there he stared at a tree. He then felt a strange feeling almost like fuel but it get bad. He wondered if this was what everyone get like when he was in that Titan’s core being dragged across a field of corpses who thought they could defeat a subordinate function designed to kill. Worry, pain, sadness, but his personal favorite the one thing that always brought him joy……Fear. But now he felt it as he saw the Luscious forest brimming with life.
He tried looking around until he felt a rush of wind as he face planted into the ground. If he had the ability to he would run a full systems check on all functions. But for some reason he could not pull up the system’s status report. He instinctively went to rub the spot that he felt pain, but paused as he saw a limb not just any limb a hoof. The headache from earlier started to resurface and he fell back again rubbing it in agony because he had never been this way and he started to grow very irritated. But opted to simply calm down and do what he should have done examine. He always had to deal with Hephaestus’ ramblings about studying and examining and improving which he always found annoying. But for once that crazed machine maker was on to something despite being of lesser design then he was of course.
He started to look at his whole body and found it was some kind of creature he was Apart of Gaia anymore so digging into a complete memory bank was out of the question. He instinctually acknowledge this.
“Query.” He spoke more so as he didn’t know how to address a fascinating situation, when he heard his voice he started to irritated again, but quick thinking or was it this body it quickly extinguished. His voice sounded like his old voice just not as damaged and of a higher pitch no longer did he have that tone that all would respect, but rather would look down upon with weakness. He was no longer the leader of a army of cultists foolish enough to believe he was a god, but rather a little weakling immortal turned mortal. However, apart of him still felt powerful, but he didn’t know in what way. However he had to address the most important issue more important than the where am I question.
“HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? GAIA….not……restored. No….WAY TO RESTORE DAMAGED BIOSPHERE.” HADES spoke with his downgraded voice. He tried to sit up and after a few failed attempts he finally managed. He managed to observer the rest of his body and was able to put together that he was a quadruped. Luckily for him he knew how to walk on four legs. At least he thinks. It can’t be too hard? Almost like controlling a Scarab and a group of what did they call them? He remembered, that the cultists called them Striders. Even though he personally didn’t know the names. Hephaestus always kept to himself when experimenting. He started to stand up and planted his hooves on the ground to stable himself. HADES started to go over what he had learned from the Scarabs he controlled. He started to move one hoof at a time as he slowly got the the movements narrowed down he started to wonder although a little wobbly, HADES still managed.
HADES had been wondering for what felt like hours, but really he was able to put the sun’s position in the sky to put that he had been walking for about 30 minutes which he had also noticed that the sun was low enough to where he could barely see it over the horizon. He decided to look up at the trees and noticed a bright red object on the leaves. After further inspection he noticed there were more. He started to notice that these trees were put in a straight line too much so that it wasn’t natural. He started to think of what the Humans would do if they saw him like this. With each step with the thought of what would happen to him now that he could feel pain. He had officially stopped where he stood and pondered on the thought. He had come to the conclusion that he should find a place to hide until he was sure that humans still existed. He started to continue of the course he was taking and opted to head to what he could barely make out what appeared to be a think forest and got an Idea.
After making his way he started to get used to walking and his pacing became more steady instead of wobbly and unbalanced. As HADES reached the forest he had found that the Fence was taller than him which confirmed that humans were still alive which only fueled his anger.
After trying countless times to go over it he again some how in some way managed to climb over although the painfully face plant into the ground again was considered successful he felt that it was a necessary sacrifice to ensure his survival. After his what felt like an eternity trying to get over the fence HADES moved to the forest and found that the deeper he went the thinker it got. HADES had begun to yet again wonder the sound of leaves crunching under his every step. HADES had attempted the idea of him somehow find himself not deleted……..again. HADES was broken out of his train of thought when he started to hear a strange sound. With his curiosity peaked, he headed in the direction of the sound.
He had a difficult time navigating this forest as the closer he got to the sound, the thicker the foliage got. He started to just give up when he stumbled into an opening with a small pond with a stream leading into it. As if on que he started to feel his throat become dry and stared at the water. After finally making a decision, he let out an irritated sigh and started to walk over to the water. He looked at the water, but stared at the water in confusion.
Looking back at him was something he had never seen before he noticed that every time he moved the figure in the water moved too. HADES had deduced that it was his reflection and had started to take notice of his full appearance. Staring back at him was a creature with a dark red color but not quite maroon, but close. With a strange what looked like fur on his head that look like what the humans had on their heads, his was Onyx black with red outlines going through the fur on top of his head as the hair was spiked up and kinda messy. He turned his head and noticed it went all the way down the back of his neck to a point stick outwards. HADES noticed something protruding from his head, just barely visible through the hair, was a horn. However was what intrigued HADES the most was his eyes. His eyes were not normal and it I trusted him. His left eye looked normal with the color a dark ruby red color. What caught his attention the most was his right eye. It was missing. All that was there was a blood red orb that stared back at the reflection. He felt a small itch on his back as he looked to his back and saw leather wings which only further fueled his evil joy.
HADES may have looked different and had gotten smaller, but he started to feel again that strange feeling of power resurface and to him it felt almost as if he was back inside that Titan. He looked at his hooves and noticed that two orbs with black tendrils swirling around the center as he recognized that power. It was his corruption. As the cultists called it. As quickly as it came he felt the feeling disappear as if being pushed back down and he started panic. He needed that power, he had to have it. As the power disappeared so did the orbs. He remembered to attempt to try and find a way to use what he thought had been lost with his ability to control machines, but he still had it.
HADES started to feel drowsiness come over him and as if on auto pilot he walked to a tree and started to feel his eyes grow heavy he tried to resist the drowsiness that had washed over him. HADES had cursed his new form for giving into such mortal weaknesses such as sleep. His attempts were in vein as he felt sleep take him and he fell into a deep slumber.
Princess Luna raised the moon as her sister lowered the sun and proceeded to her bed to begin he duties in the Dreamscape. And took her Royal regalia off and set it on the stands it went on and started to her bed. As she cut the candles and lights off she lifted the covers and got onto the bed and closed her eyes. As quickly as she closed them Luna found herself in the dreamscape where she saw hundreds of dreams ranging from Lustful ones to dark and evil ones. She had approached three particular orbs and saw three young filly’s she had helped over come their fears of their cutiemarks being something they don’t want. Finding that their dreams were calm and peaceful. She had continued to wonder through the dreams of ponies until she felt cold which meant their was a nightmare or something worse. She attempted to locate the source, but couldn’t isolate the specific dream, but rather attempted to locate it just by looking for it. Until she noticed within a cluster of dreams was a dream that had a dark red outline instead of the white shimmering outline that every pony dream had which meant this dream was bad. She readied her magic and attempted to enter but only to fell a agonizing amount of pain in her entire body which made her wince at the pain. She canceled the spell and noticed that tendrils that were black with a blood red outline now surrounded the dream. The tendrils were wild and always lashing out as if it was made of pure hatred. She decided to move the dream away from the cluster in case that the dream may harm other dreams. With it at a safe distance she instead attempted to see inside through the outside, but could make out anything due to the tentacles that held the dream in its grasp. The Lunar Princess want to study it more however as if on que she started to feel herself begin to wake up and decided to think on a course of action.
When HADES woke up he found himself in a void, well not exactly a void it was more so a wasteland with dead trees everywhere, but when he turned around he saw a sight that made him grin. He was back he actually won. He saw a legion of machines and had assumed they were dormant he approached on and tried to bring back that power from before and managed to bring it back.,he put his hoof on a scarab and the black tentacles began to work their way through the scarabs systems and it began to awaken from its slumber.
“STATUS REPORT….WAS….GAIA PRIME BACKUP…..RESTORED?” HADES said with his new voice.
The scarab just continued to stare at him blankly. HADES felt his anger begin to boil and asked the question again, but with the same result. Which only further fueled his fury.
HADES turned around and observed his surroundings and observed the wasteland. With what he assumed was happiness he was feeling he had beat the Aloy she never restored the back Gaia prime, but he then thought back to where he was place when Sylens left him he then realized and with one more push his Fury once more had risen to a point of no return and started yelling in pure rage which cause his left eye to begin to grow dark. As tendrils start coming out of his horn and moving to the Fero machines as one by one they began to reawaken. HADES turned around there stood the forest that he slept in as his rage peaked he let out one final command and ordered the machines to consume everything. But realized nothing happen which only fuel his already enraged state.
“HADES ORDERS TO…….DESTROY EARTH. ELIMINATE FILTH.” HADES shouted, but the machines did not move or even acknowledged his orders, instead, they all turned to look at him which in that moment, he was struck with realization that they would take orders from him. All HADES could is watch as a group of scarabs stepped aside and a Kopech approached him and noticed a piece of it opened and the swarm Bioconverters headed right for him. His eyes widened as the were not but seconds from consuming him before he shot up gasping for air.
He looked at his surroundings and saw now machines just the same forest and he gave a deadpanned expression as he would have preferred the machines if this was what he would see. He was still in the forest. He started to get up again and decided to try and find some sign of civilization to him he would take anything. However his main goal was to find the Titan he had woke up in and restore its foundries and get a scarab online maybe reprogram them so they don’t kill him. He started to think to himself when he heard a twig snap.
He yelped in surprise of the noise and started to quickly locate the source of the noise. He couldn’t find it until he focused on two green glowing eyes staring at him. He felt more as the creature stared at him and began to approach him. When the creature was out in the open he calmed down a bit. It looked weird. It appeared to be a wolf…..made out of wood? The wolf was not really keen on its prey just sitting there so it got impatient and pounced at him. HADES stumbled to the left, the strange wood wolf thing stumbled as well as it was surprised that it had missed.
The wooden wolf thing quickly recovered unlike its prey which was still trying to get up. It took the chance and pounced. Landing its mark making a slash across HADES’ side as he was tossed against the grass near the water but when he looked he wasn’t bleeding blood, but rather it was the goo that would pour out of the machines he corrupted unknowingly the wooden wolf thing would not be aware of its affects and started to try to get it to step into the goo. When he lunged forward it began to charge at him full sprint. HADES looked back and saw two more pairs of eyes enter into the clearing and he groaned in annoyance. HADES’ disappointment would turn to pride as the wooden wolf stepped into the corrupted goo which burned and disintegrated its leg. However that was the end of it. Black tentacles with a red outline began to twist and turn around the Wooden wolf thing. As the tendrils began to do its work the eyes of the Wooden wolf began to turn blood red in rage. It turned around glaring death at the other 2 who looked confused but advanced on HADES however the affects still worked to an extent as the Wooden wolf let out a ear defeating roar so much so HADES had to cover his own ears due to the sound’s volume.
The wooden wolf had charged at its comrades and started to rip them apart as one of them attempted to bite its neck the first wooden wolf and ripped a chunk out however. The enraged wooden wolf stopped dead in its tracks and slowly turned to its offender, as the chunk began to quickly grow back. The first wolf lunged at the one who attacked him and began to smash its head in until it was nothing, the enraged one then turned to him and the fear from before started to resurface. HADES felt the panic agains as he shielded him self, but heard a thud as the wooden wolf just crashed into the ground as the blood red eyes started to fade and it’s body went limb. He smiled in joy that he could at least have some control, although it was practically next to nothing HADES at this point would take anything.
HADES had started to think on the event that took place that roar could probably be heard for miles if a town was near by, then they definitely heard it.
Ponyville
Ponyville was a peaceful town. Most of the time it has the occasional magical mishap or a group of three fillies doing cutiemark searching. It was still to a point normal to them. However this would kinda change as a roar so loud that canterlot might as well have heard it, as the once peaceful town was now as usual in another panic. As the entire town had their panic session a group of ponies gathered at the library. Had begun a course of action.
“What do you think that was?” Fluttershy asked practically petrified at the sound that everypony heard.
Twilight had begun to shift through some books and pickup one in particular and started to turn the pages rapidly, closed it then threw it to the side where it smacked a book shelf and fell to the floor with about five more following it. She had stopped mid-way through the sixth book and her face turned to out right terror. All her friends looked at her with curiosity.
“Darling, do tell. Did you, find something?” Rarity asked almost in a way that suggested she didn’t want to know.
Twilight closed the book and with that same scared look on her face she turned to her friends.
“If this book is correct that was an Ursa-Major.” She said with everypony else now sharing in her feelings.
A silence fell over the group as they thought about what to do next. The thought of taking on a creature of that size was not an option. Calming a Ursa-Minor is one thing, but a Major was a completely different story. The gears in Twilight’s head and decided and came up with a plan and a good one. At least, she hoped it was anyway.
“I say we go and investigate.” Everypony in the room looked at her like she had gone crazy. Twilight quickly restating her idea. “Just to make sure it is what the book suggests.” With reluctances they all agreed. So they prepared to move to investigate for the possible Ursa-Major.
Even though Twilight had doubts nothing to her knowledge could make that loud of a roar. The book even said that their roar was as loud. But she still needed proof and she was going to get it.
HADES kept walking while trying to hold his wound closed. Walking on three legs was just as hard as trying to solve fifty calculus equations that are in the same problem. Simply put he only got about 20 feet from the scene of the attack and was making slow progress. The slow progress he was making really started to irritate him to no end as he continued forward. He again started to feel drowsy. He found it hard to tell wether or not it was his wound or that he felt drained. As if all his energy was taken from him, but he still pushed forward regardless of his wound. He would not let his new found vulnerability stop him. He was HADES, a subordinate fiction to GAIA Prime. He wouldn’t let this would hold him back.
He started to slow down until he stopped and collapsed to the grass he once again felt the affects of his injuries and tried to stand back up, but the effort only made him feel more tired then he was.
“HADES…hates…..NEW…..Body.” HADES said before he had passed out from his wound.
Chapter 3: Dreaming Up Solutions, A Total Nightmare
The dining room was deathly quiet as no pony said a word. Celestia watch her sister with curiosity as Luna stared off into space in contemplation with brows furrowed she was deep in thought and Celestia knew better not to interrupt her when she was this way, but her curiosity got the better of her.
“Luna, is something bothering you?” Celestia asked Luna which seemed to get Luna’s attention as she quickly looked up to her sister and responded.
“I am fine, but during our duties in the dreamscape we found a dream like none of the other dreams,” Luna said further peaking Celestia’s curiosity even more.
“What was wrong with it?” Celestia pressed.
Luna debated telling her the tug of war going on the favor of telling her sister.
“The dream was angry not a normal angry, like it was made of pure rage and fury, like the dream was from Tartarus. What was more strange, when I made an attempt to enter, it rejected my entry.” Luna said as she started to get a little agitated. No pony had ever been able to deny her access in the dream realm.
Both ponies sat there, thinking of what it could mean. Could it be a new threat or maybe something that they have never seen before, but one thing was for sure she would attempt to enter the dream again and she was not going to be bested again in her own realm.
Luna headed to her room to try and solve the issue. As she approached her room two bat pony guards stood there waiting for her. They stood straight at attention. As she unlocked the door and opened it to enter. As she entered she muttered one final intrusion to her guards.
“I am not to be disturbed until I conclude a matter that requires my attention,” Luna said to her guards as she passed.
“Yes, your highness.” A guard stated. As he straightened even more to acknowledge the princess's orders as the door slammed behind her and a click was heard, that meant no one was going to enter unless given explicit permission by The Princess herself. The two guards then shifted where they stood closer together and stood in front of the door blocking the entrance.
Luna threw her regalia off and just opted to throw it at the stands rather then put them cleanly up on their stands. She pull the covers off and saw that the sun began to set over the horizon. And Luna sighed and walk onto the balcony as she saw her sister on the tower that was her quarters as the sun made its final approach Celestia used her magic to push the sun below the Horizon, as Luna used her magic to raise the moon. Luna quickly got to her bed and pull the covers over herself. She was out like a light as she found herself in the dreamscape yet again. She looked around for where the dream was that she had left. After doing some looking she found it isolated from the other dreams, but something was off. It wasn’t as enraged as it was before it was faint. She made an second attempt to enter and this time there absolutely Zero resistance. Which further more put her off.
With a decision she entered and what she saw made her jaw drop. It was lifeless a wasteland of dead trees and ruins of buildings dotted about the wasteland. The ground was made out of ash and dust. The air was thin making it hard to breath. However, for Luna, she knew it wouldn’t affect her because of how the moon was like this environment. She gazed at the lifeless place until she turned around and there in the middle was a glowing blood red orb with black triangular pieces of metal surrounding it almost orbiting it. It floated there, as small squares would appear and disappear from time to time. After some contemplation she decided she needed to know what this dream was. So she made a tough decision. She had to get answers. She stepped forward and addressed the floating orb.
“Um, hello? “ Luna said mentally face hoofing herself for that introduction. She was snapped out of it as a loud rumbling sound coming from the orb as it was raised a little bit more off the ground although not too much.
“WHO…..WHAT…..IS ENTITY?” The orb asked her a voice that sounded in pieces, deep, old, and sounded like the thing didn’t know basic equish. Confusion at the question, but she continued forward.
“I am Princess Luna, Princess of the Night, ruler of the Dreamscape. I noticed your dream was in a, strange state and came to investigate.” Luna said getting straight to the point.
“ENTITY….NOT WELCOME….THREAT LEVEL…MODERATE.” The orb said which frustrated the alicorn but she continued to hold her ground.
“Threat? What makes you say I’m a threat?” Luna asked with confusion, but didn’t get a response. Which only frustrated the alicorn further. She had just about enough of this thing so she began the use her magic to dig deep into the creature. However, like the dream the first time except different she faced resistance. Although it was weak she struggled. Whatever this thing was it had strong will power, but not enough. Luna successfully broke through the mental barriers and found a hallway of strange metal doors with sparks coming off of them. The doors looked rusted like no one has touched them in thousands of years.
She continued down the hallway until she came across the only non damaged door. approaching the door she attempted to open it with her magic, but it didn’t budge. She scanned the door for A way to open it until she noticed a blue circle, with the top quarter piece of the circle colored red. Luna Raised her hoof over the circle and slowly twisted her foreleg clockwise. The circle started spinning going a full circle once before stopping at the original position before the door opened. As light bled through the open doorway Luna covered her eyes and cautiously entered. What she found troubled her and scared her. A giant metal creature that might as well be as big as Canterlot mountain. it had six legs and as well as six tendrils that looked like they were miles long. Parts of the tendrils were inside a side of a mountain. and there were the same Giant metal creatures dotted across a canyon. She turned around and overlooked a valley of open grasslands and what she saw terrified her. many other smaller metal creatures were frozen in place, but there were thousands of them.
She was in complete disbelief at the sight before her. She proceeded to move through the ranks of the metal creatures as they towered over her. One was so big it towered over the mountains, but that was her eyeballing it. She continued through the Gravel paved road. Until she heard a thumping sound in the distance, away from her current position. Curious she proceeded to move closer to it. When she took a peak from behind one of the frozen metal creatures her eyes went wide. A giant metal beast that had ten eyes on its head and several sharp mandibles on, what she assumed was its mouth. She was in aw as more smaller metal creatures moved passed it ignoring the beast. The metal beast turned to look down at the smaller ones then looked around seemingly scanning the area.
Luna quickly duck back as she heard the beasts foot steps stomping closer to her position. When the sound stopped she chanced a peek and her mouth almost fell to the grass it towered over her even towered over the four legged metal creature she hid behind. She peaked from behind her hiding spot and saw that it’s eyes went from blue to yellow as it looked around as if aware of her presence. For what felt like an eternity, she eventually her the metal beast’s foot steps walk away from her and she took the chance to get back to the path she was on. She looked around with wonder and curiosity until she came up a metal creature that towered even higher than the metal beast. She estimated it was as big, if not bigger than Canterlot. What got her curious, was the campsite under it. While it looked abandoned she had a feeling this is where her answers would be found.
Luna began to pour magic into her horn, as she cast a spell that sent a magical wave across her local surroundings, as if scanning the area. After she had preformed the spell she shot a beam of magic at the ground as a similar wave of magic wash over her surroundings. Princess Luna watch curiously as a bid-pedal creature appeared in front of her. The figure had a dark skin tone with what appeared to be some kind of wire on his skin. She couldn’t even imagine how painful it must have been to have those put there. The figure was frozen in place, however with a wave of her magic the scene played out. As it played a giant sphere appeared lager then the bid pedal creature itself.
“Let’s see what you know about your ‘Masters’ you so greatly speak of. Shall we.” The creature said as the Lunar Princess had now had a gender for the creature which was male by the sound of it. It held had some kind of lantern as red tendrils lashed out as if it was trying to escape. Luna instantly recognized it as the dream when she first encountered it.
The creature turned the lantern on its side and lifted it up to a small slot and pushed it into the giant sphere. The sphere flashed a blood red before dimming, as well as flickering from time to time. She decided to skip forward a bit and found herself in a similar place when she had first entered the dream. A different bipedal creature looking very different. And the orb she had encountered before was there talking to the creature.
She decided to observe as Luna could not understand the conversation for some reason. Only that the Orb was named HADES. What scared her more was that it had started explaining how it had destroyed the world it’s from at least 4 different times and succeeded, but this time failed. Which confused Luna on how that could possibly work. She set that thought aside as something began to happen as a new voice spoke up and the creature which sounded female was talking to it as the blue lights swirled around the red entity the red light had started to disintegrate as Luna could mentally feel it’s pain as it was slowly destroyed. Luna started to spin up the spell to exit, but something caught the Lunar princess’s attention. It was the fact that she now stood in the Everfree forest and before her were about 3-5 Timberwolf corpses scatter across a clearing. She started to walk around and study each corpse. Until she notice a trail of what looked like blood leading away from the clearing. She followed it until she came across a sight that tugged at her heart. A small foal was on the ground bleeding and it was a lot.
She tried to think of something however the was nothing she could do. This was just a dream. And idea clicked in her head and she lite up her horn and laid a hoof on the body. As arcs of blue magic surged through the foal’s body and it jolted awake with gasping for breath. He was alive just aware of the dream he was in. She knew it would help until this one could be located. Before a question could be asked the foal turned around and faced her. The eyes made her freeze in fear as the Luna stared deep into the blood red orb that was one of its eyes. She heard a voice.
*SYSTEM THREAT DETECTED*
Before anything could be done she quickly blurted out.
“Wait, Let me help.” Luna said trying to stop however it wasn’t seemingly willing to listen. As the metal creatures from before rose from the ground and surrounded her. She had no choice. With a quick activation of a spell she exited the dream and shot up in her bed. She had to find this foal, for she had questions.
Chapter 4: SYSTEM STATUS CHECK, DIAGNOSTICS CHECK ACTIVATED
WARNING…..Entity…. Tamper…With function….objective: Άγνωστο Κάτι Λάθος
Warning multiple system failures.
HADES felt pain, he hated it. He wanted it to stop he just came into contact, for a second time with the creature that had entered his mind, which was strange. Maybe it was a malfunction in his ocular systems, but his deletion would have erased and decontaminated his systems. As well as his active virus purging tool that he developed over his time trying to capture the spire. HADES slowly opened his eyes and found himself being blinded by a bright light. After a second of his eyes adjusting to his new surroundings, he sat up and observed his surroundings. Confusion washed over him as he found himself on a what he could only assume was a bed. He heard a faint beeping noise and saw a heart monitor and wires that were hooked up to him. As well as bandages wrapped around his torso. He raised his foreleg up to eye level and gave a light growl and attempted to pull the tubes out of his leg. He opted to use his teeth to pull them out. To say that it did not hurt, would be lying. As he let the tubes fall to the floor he didn’t notice the door open as two ponies walked in. The two noticed he was awake and was looking around until his eyes fell upon the two ponies.
HADES noticed that the two ponies and studied their appearance. The first one stepped closer and approached him. Her coat was a pristine white, as well as a weird symbol on her, what he assumed was her butt, and it had a symbol he recognized and it was the symbol of a medically experienced individual. However, it did not do any good with that knowledge because as soon as she approached him, the pony picked up the tubes again and tried to put them back into him. He quickly jumped back letting out a low growl.
“VARIABLE…..WILL NOT….TAMPER…..UNIT.” HADES said. His voice catching the two ponies by surprise . The other pony which was a vibrant purple with a violet mane and tail, with a pink stripe going through the mane and tail. HADES then looked back to the pony that tried to probably infect him with a virus. However, the pony was a blank white coat and a pink mane with a Red Cross on its but. Judging by the appearance he had deducted that it was a female.
The purple pony finally gathered the courage to speak and addressed him as she too approached the white pony back away. Now she was up close and noticed the horn coming from its head. Looking at her skeptically up and down just more confused then threatened.
“VARIABLE…..UNKNOWN…..SPECIES NOT REGISTERED….MYTHOLOGY…..UNKNOWN.” HADES stated as he was perplexed at the purple ponies appearance. The notion that there was something he didn’t know bewildered him. The purple pony finally spoke up.
“I’m what’s known as an unicorn.” The purple pony spoke and HADES had also be right on the female part. HADES was confused he had never heard of a Unicorn before in all of his existence. It was not in any of his mythology section of his files which confused him he needed more information.
“Nurse Red Heart can you remove the bandage please?” The purple pony ask as the white pony nodded as she approached him although quite nervously. She removed his bandages. And he was finally able to see and was surprised he didn’t noticed it. He opened his other eye and the purple pony froze.
Staring at his eyeless socket. As HADES begin to feel his eye sight return to him he noticed his sight in his eye return as the orb slowly appeared in the empty space.
“What happened to you?” The purple pony mutter to herself but he was able to hear her.
“HADES…..UNCLEAR…..INJURY CAUSE…..UNKNOWN.” HADES said as she finally snapped out of her shocked state and finally had one of her question answered. Which was his name.
“So you name is Hades?” The purple pony asked. As HADES nodded in response.
“DESIGNATION….HADES……SUBORDINATE FUNCTION…..TO GAIA PRIME.” HADES said as he felt his anger begin to rise again but quickly calmed himself. Maybe these ponies could help him get back to earth and he would rebuild his army and hunt the Aloy down and take his revenge. For now he would have to play these pony’s rules until he could find any kind of way back.
“Well since introductions are in order, my name is Princess Twilight Sparkle. It’s nice to meet you Hades.” Twilight said as she then point a hoof at the white pony. “And that is Nurse Red Heart of the Ponyville hospital which is where you currently are." The one called Twilight said as she asked him more questions much to his annoyance which wasn't helped by the consistent work that was being done on him by the other pony.
After more questions about his name and where he is from which if he had to be honest he just kept answering her with classified with every question that was asked or just saying that he couldn't remember. According to the nurse everything seemed to have healed which they seemed surprised about that, maybe it was his self repair protocols working away, but then dismissed it for he was now flesh and bone so micro repair bots would most likely kill him. Which if he was being honest did not at all seem like a bad idea at getting back to earth. If his deletion got him here, then maybe it could take him back. HADES also dismissed that, but kept it in the back of his head he knew that was a one way trip so it would have to be a last resort. The nurse gave the purple pony something and said it was for any headaches or pains that he may have. He honestly would not need them.
As they walked outside and had begun the track to the town center and with much annoyance again another bandage around his eye so he could only see out of one. As their walk continued he felt weird. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked around. HADES felt something pull him and he started walking in a direction. After walking for a bit he came to a river with a bridge and saw a forest once he crossed it. HADES felt like something was their pulling him, but as soon as he was starting towards the forest a hoof stopped him causing him to snap out of whatever happened to him.
"Hey where do you think your going? The princess pulled you out of there once and I doubt she wants to again." Twilight said which caught his attention. Princess? Who was she? but the biggest question to HADES was, how could she be useful to him.
HADES had to find a way back to earth, where ever that may be he knew he had to. He had a second, well, third chance, but no one here knew there was a count. These ponies could be useful to him in the long run. He just had to play by their rules. Thinking back to when Sylens first discovered him and restored his voice modulator to enable his speech matrix to begin deciphering languages and the ability to create an army as the buried shadow. which not much had changed from basic English with slight pronunciation and grammar changes with the way words were used not for their original use, needless to say nothing changed. What confused him was how these ponies could speak the human language. Whatever the reason he felt like something was in that forest that was important. Until then he would have to again follow these ponies rules.
As HADES sat in the library he was scrutinizing a book in front of him staring at the lettering. This was his least favorite part was the learning aspect of being mortal. HADES never understood why the humans did not just force feed them the information and knowledge of the world like Απόλλων. HADES paused, the name Απόλλων felt familiar but he did not know where from. The more he thought most of his memories were missing due to Sylens’ attempt at “interrogation” that might as well be considered torcher.
Eventually Twilight entered the room only to see the small colt that was named HADES staring daggers at a book all the whole looking confused at the same time. She decided to make her presence known. Clearing her throat she spoke to him.
“Um, what are you doing?” Twilight asked him and she got a death glare in return, which kinda made her jump in slight surprise that somepony so young could have a stare like that.
“VARIABLE…ASSISTANCE…” HADES paused if The Aloy was there she would have called him out for it. He swallowed his pride and said the words that he swore would never come out of his voice modulator. “ASSISTANCE….REQUESTED……DECRYPTION….NOT RECOGNIZED.” HADES said feeling almost agony on the inside saying that a former king like him was asking for help, of all things.
This question took Twilight Sparkle by surprised as she let out a gasp. She approached HADES, only to receive a low growl from the young colt as she stop to ask him the question that she needed an answer for.
“HADES, do you know how to read? Didn't your parents teach you?” Twilight asked as she tilted her head slightly eyebrow raised in confusion and suspicion as she successfully had hidden her dread from knowing the answer.
“QUERY…….DEFINITION…PARENTS UNKNOWN….Απόλλων…” HADES paused, that name bothered him, what was it. He bothered him but Twilight was thankfully more focused on the fact that he did not have an education. He felt, what were now metaphorical gears, spin in his head as his processor, that was a brain, worked away being able to see why machines like him were created in the first place. The grim dark fantasies of a mind was a joy to him, but he saved day dreaming for later.
“HADES, why didn’t your parents take you to school?” Twilight asked trying to pry for answers.
“VARIABLE….CREATORS…..CREATED TO….RESTART….CREATE BLANK…..SLATE.” HADES finished however Twilight rolled her eyes inwardly annoyed at the way HADES spoke and of how he addressed his words, but the word he said earlier was a word she had never heard of before. She could remember how to say it but she was going to get him into the Ponyville school. That would have to wait until tomorrow because it was getting late.
Letting out a sigh she continued, “We will continue this tomorrow it’s getting late. You will need to get some rest after the events you have been through, so I had spike prepare a room for you.” She said gesturing HADES to follow.
“HADES…NOT REQUIRE….RECHARGE….MAIN POWER…IS AT…” before he could finish he let out a big yawn then quickly covered his mouth. HADES felt his ears droop as he looked at Twilight which just smirked.
“Sure.” Twilight said sarcastically as her horn began to glow and HADES felt himself being held in a purple glow and then looked to her horn. HADES was utterly bewildered. Magic existed he was running thousands and thousands of equations in his head until he had a head splitting headache.
When the pain stop thats when they had reached a door and Twilight opened it with her magic and walked in. HADES was set down back onto the floor inspecting himself. HADES quickly observed the room. The room it’s self was decently large. It had a circle window in the middle of the wall adjacent from him. And a bed pushed to the left side against the farthest corner with a nightstand next to it, HADES was also able to pick out a mirror in the right side of the room in which two doors that most likely lead into a closet. Other then that it was pretty barren. That’s when twilight spoke.
“I know it is not much but I recently had this room cleared from a little incident a while back.” She said grimacing at the discord taking over and all that. She would rather move on from that.
“VARIABLE’S…..ACCOMMODATIONS…ARE…ACCEPTABLE…” HADES said his voice still retaining that original tone from when he commanded the shadow Carja, but with a more childish tone to it and more clearer.
HADES walk into the room and next to the window from where he was he could see just to the side and above him he could see a balcony of sorts. He could also see more of the town proper or rather the many houses that aligned the edge of it from where he was. He eventually heard the door close, but paid no mind to the purple pony as he then moved to the mirror and looked at himself. Since he woke up he was curious on what they had done to him.
Looking at himself in the mirror with the lamp on the night stand the only thing illuminating the area. A shadow was cast over his body as the bandage that was placed around his eye was removed as he slowly opened it and stared in the mirror. Noticing a small scar going down the top part of the empty void but not going past that. He also noticed that the glowing orb in his eye had returned to normal as it focused on himself. As he grinned to himself. He would find a way back and this time he would win. He would carry out his duty his purpose. His creators demanded it.
He let out another yawn which really did not do well for his mood. So he decided to try doing what the purple pony had said and made his way to the bed and just barely being able to turn the lamp’s light off, he felt the cold and yet welcoming embrace of sleep caring him through the deepest parts of his mind.
Twilight had closed the door to her room and let out a sigh of relief for some reason, but she did not care she was tired. Spike was asleep in his basket curled up into a small ball. She smiled at the sight before heading to her own bed. Think of what to do tomorrow. She knew she had to take HADES to the school house to register him into to start classes, but she needed a way to hide the eyeless socket that a glowing orb was in its place. As she thought what his parents did to him or rather what or yet again who did this to him.
She stowed the thoughts in the back of her head as she quickly drifted off into dream land.
HADES looked at himself and saw he was still the same pony he was when he went to sleep. He let out a low sigh that was a mix between a growl and grinding metal. He was in a barren waste land. The wind blowing hard against hit body or would he say fur, coat? He didn’t know nor did he care. Pushing through the onslaught of the wind gusts and the clouds of dust that he could feel slowly cutting their way under his coat and into the skin. Raising a hoof to try and prevent some of the dust from entering his eyes and mouth. He noticed some structures a small distance away and started towards them.
As he pushed through the dust and wind it seemed to pick up a lot threatening to pick him up and throw him, however HADES dealt with worse if technically dying counts as worse, then he would have to say this was more so an annoyance. Soon he came across a small collapsed bridge and slowly this place began to feel familiar yet foreign. He looked to the object he was chairing and notice that it looked out of place.
When he got close enough he noticed that it was a ruined village of some sorts barely any remains of the buildings were there. Just the occasional layout that there even was a house, home, or maybe a restaurant. However, when he approached the center where a fountain, or at least the base of one, he noticed a glimmer out of the corner of his eye and saw a large shiny disk that looked like it was made of some kind of rock.
He headed towards the rock until he found that there was also what appeared to be a chair made out of a crystal that was in front of the what he assumed was a table made, from his assumption, out of the same material. However, the Crystal furniture isn’t what caught his eye. It was the holo projected map that the Crystal table was projecting that got his attention. It was a map of part of the world he was in. He knew this by using common sense which ponies and humans both seemed to lack. He was able to see the town that was, Ponyville if he remembered the name correctly and the display of a castle in the side of the mountains was also an indicator, but one place seemed to draw his eye the most rather three locations. The large spire in the north and the volcanic lands to the west, and the forest which was the closest to him being only in the outskirts of the village he was in.
He studied the map some more until he felt like something was off. His suspicions were confirmed when a deafening gargled roar split the air as a giant gust of wind threw him to the side as he rolled for a bit, after which he slammed into a dead tree stump which felt painfully convenient. HADES winced in pain even letting out a cry as he started aching all over his body. Cursed mortality and being able to feel pain. In that moment for the first time in his since his creation he knew what true terror was. As he looked to the distant mountain as a chunk of it collapsed taking the ruined city, that once stood majestically on the side coke crashing down to the ground below. That’s when a second roar came, HADES then braced himself against the true as the onslaught of wind slammed against his smaller more fragile body. When it stopped HADES felt that feeling of terror again, but this time it was followed by dread. As he watched as a tendril shot out of the newly made hole in the mountain as more followed. As the familiar drills spun at super high speeds enough to drill straight to the core of a planet if it chose to. He watched the tendrils tense up and constrict as the their owner finally pulled itself out of the hole as Horus Titan pulled its body out of the mountain as even from here he could see the red lights glowing in enraged fury as it began to survey the area which worried him. The Horus Titans were built to be walking factories, a walking Recon unit, and a walking everything. Needless to say their line of sight was endless it wasn’t until the Titan stopped and turned its head quickly to face his direction. In that moment he knew what humans felt when he was attempting to take control of the spire. As the Titan let out one last enraged roar he saw it’s drills spin up and dig into the ground. Noting to himself while they were never originally built to do that, from what HADES remembered and studied the logs of all the titans, is that the swarm modified them so they were able to do so but only for short periods of time since it consumed so much energy to do such a task. HADES could feel the ground tremble, but for some reason he was glued in place.
He felt the tremors get worse and worse. Until they suddenly stopped. He opened one eye and let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding which proved to be a mistake as the Titan shot out of the ground in front of him as he was thrown a good distance before landing on the ground where again a rock was sitting. He looked at the Titan, at it’s cold red enraged eye or eyes it’s main optic was in the center but the Horus titans were built to use all of them.
The Titan just stood there staring at him. HADES was genuinely confused wasn’t the titans and all the other machines supposed to consume biomass. Well he was good for it. So what was it doing. Then it did something that in the moment, he would have preferred death. It would better to see if his killing himself idea would work in sending him back to earth.
“ΣΥΣΤΗΜΑΤΑ ONLINE ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΜΟΝΗ ΓΙΑ ΑΝΑΘΕΣΗ ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑΣ.” The titan said as it continued to Stare at him. What was also weird was that he could not understand it. The words felt familiar, but yet again, it was foreign. His eyes eventually closed and he felt his body suddenly become increasingly heavier.
HADES shot up in the bed hyperventilating which was just a mixture of growls and heavy breathing. As if on queue the door opened and Twilight walked in. Before she said anything she noticed his state. Her look turned to worry as she looked at him.
“HADES are you okay?” She asked both worried and curiosity taking each other.
“HADES…..SYSTEMS….NOMINAL..” HADES said the way he was speaking irritating Twilight as she turned around and began to walk out before she peaked her head in the door to tell him that breakfast was ready. With a nod he rubbed his eyes and groggily got out of the bed. Letting out a sigh and put the what he assumed was a nightmare in the back of his mind and proceeded down to the kitchen.
He sat at the table realizing sitting wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. However, eating was a different story. He had a very difficult time trying to eat and slammed his head on the table which proved to be a bad idea as he suddenly let out a scream of massive amounts of pain in his head. This got the attention of Twilight and spike. As Twilight went to check on him she only then noticed the horn coming from his head which was mostly hidden by his mane. In the moment Twilight did a scan and found no major damage was done and all he would have would be a headache for a few hours.
After inspecting HADES a bit more she had confirmed only a headache would be there and that it should go away within a few hours. HADES was then asked why he did not tell her tha he was a unicorn. In which HADES just gave his normal cryptic answer of ‘fragment disintegrated’. Whatever that meant she was tired of hearing it. With that minor annoyance she had helped him use his hoof instead of magic seeing how he may not know how, which if that was the case she would not stand for it.
After a bit of cleaning she eventually made HADES sit in the main room and Twilight went to her room and went through a drawer and grabbed what she was looking for and headed back down stairs. Showing what she had planned and revealed a pair of glasses. HADES’ face fell flat.
“DOES THE….TWILIGHT….THINK..HADES…..WILL HAVE….LENSES IN OPTICS..” HADES asked as she nodded she brought them close to her and focused magic into her horn enchanting the lenses. With a bright flash the glasses were the same. She put the glasses on him and set him in front of a mirror and showed what she had done.
HADES’ right eye was confused until his anger rose. “WHAT…THE TWILIGHT….DONE….OCULAR SYSTEMS.” HADES said with his anger being made obvious to her. She rolled her eyes and took them off and HADES then saw his eye was still there. She put the glasses back on and his right eye looked like his left.
It clicked holographic projection, he had to admit he was impressed and his planing would also alter with this discovery. With this newly found discovery he honestly didn’t care that he had them just the fact that HADES now had a new idea to integrate his planning. However this also complicated things greatly. For one it shows that the power of the magic here may be limitless which means it would be almost straight up impossible to even make an attempt to start up any kind of takeover of this world.
HADES decided to wait for planning later for now he was being taken to the worst place that humans could have invented. School.
Canterlot Castle: Throne Room
The two sisters were in the middle of a man important meeting until a scientist barged in being chased by guards as the scientist desperately called for their attention and that brings them to now. The scientist in question rambling on about the strange metal giant that was currently in the Frozen North and large massive ranks of even smaller ones in the Badlands’ desert and Dragon lands discovering a about the same amount of larger metal creatures that were bigger than the ones in the desert but dwarf by the single metal giant in the frozen north.
“Your highness please please forgive my intrusion I know your be..” he was cut off by Celestia raising her hoof. The pony in question was shivering in nervousness. As she set her hoof down she looked to him and stepped down off the throne to meet him. Celestia looked fo the guards and nodded, so did the guards also and the guards at the base of the throne follows bowing before they left. While this was happening the silence was painful all that was heard was the city proper and the clanking of the armor the guards ponies wore that made them look the same. When the door closed Celestia used her magic and summoned a small table and tea cups as well as a few cushions. Luna followed close behind and they both sat down Celestia gestured for the pony to do the same with a bow he did.
“What is your name? “ Celestia spoke gently as to try not to frighten the pony than she could tell he already was.
“M…m..my name I..is Granite Shine y..your highness.” He said still a little nervous. The same time Celestia started to pour the tea to the small group.
“Now the what news do you bring of the excavation? Anything to note?” Celestia asked as she took a same sip of her tea.
Swallowing a lump in his throat he began to explain.
“Well it’s not what we have to note, but rather didn’t.” Granite said which got confused glances from the two sisters. He let out a sigh and pulled out a map and laying out on the table. Putting markers down at the sights that the metal creatures were discovered.
“This is what I’m talking about.” He said showing them still confused but he noticed the gears turning in their heads. So he gave them a hint.
“Do you notice anything about their locations and these images?” He said pulling out pictures of the metal creatures and a picture of the metal giant that was buried under a literal mountain and ice and snow.
“They are in different geographical locations that doesn’t seem important?” Luna pointed before he pull out little small make shift models of the metal creatures they found she noticed that the one in the desert had six small, what she assumed were legs with a thin waist and a large head that was bigger than its entire body with two large tubes with a strange box like device holding both the tubes as the point outward, yet it was able to stand as the picture also show there were hundreds of them scattered in the desert.
She then looked at the smaller ones that they found in the Dragon Lands. It had four legs that ended in very sharpe pointed ends as they also had a tail coming from the back, of what they assumed was it’s head, as it’s head curved inwards more to come and meet a singular spherical glass eye as the picture showed even not as many seemingly froze almost glued to the side of the mountain as it looks like the strange creatures were climbing the side of the mountain before the metal creatures died. As the two pieces were placed a third and final piece with miniature versions of all the creatures being placed at the locations they found, Granite placed down the final one in the frozen north.
She had recently come back from that one as it was recently unearth when discord returned it somehow was discovered by a group of mountain climbers. And set the piece down the image show a single giant sphere that had multiple eyes on it with a large central eye in the middle as what looked the body was bigger than what they had originally found. Granite gestured to them then he went on.
“Notice they direction they are all facing.” He said showing them the images, noticing that in all but the metal giant the Canterlot mount was just barely visible to the point it was a tiny dot as big as a fly, but is was visible.
“So what’s your theory?” Luna asked him looking at the pictures more thoroughly.
“We think that whatever made these things become in this state has to be here in this area. We noticed that the smaller metal creatures are in the Dragon Lands most of them seem to be in a state of movement before they died, meaning that these creatures were either protecting something, or attacking it.” Granite finished going over other stuff about how that the way that some are in pieces and others were on the ground but majority of them were standing up, as if frozen in time.
“This theory of your makes sense, but simply which way they face is hard to prove important. However, it is supported by the fact that large groups of them are in one place.” Celestia said thinking on it. For now she could not just dig up the mountain however the Crystal mines were off limits mainly because they were dangerous and collapsing occasionally.
“I think for now we change our focused efforts to try and figure out if there are any clues to determine the purpose of this theory.” Luna suggested as she looked to her sister. Celestia nodded and both looked at Granite who was just putting his stuff away as the map only remained.
“Granite when you return to the sites give them this to prove that they have been assigned to find the purpose of this massing of these metal creatures. Until then keep looking.” Celestia said as she gave two letters to Granite and used her magic to send one to the team in the Dragon Lands.
Celestia and Luna looked to each other. Luna was the first to speak.
“Do you think?” Luna offered.
Celestia nodded in response, “Yes I do, but to be sure, we must wait.”
HADES walked out of the school house mentally exhausted from the amount of tests required to enter a school. Luckily Twilight said he could roam the town and much to his disappointment was told not to go to the forest. HADES did not care honestly, HADES had started to see why humans preferred sleep. After Twilight departed to do whatever she does. HADES stood where he was and sat down with a thud on the ground tired for some odd reason. He was about to get up and leave until two ponies approached him. He noticed that one was had a pink coat and pink mane and tail with a singular white stripe going through the middle of both her mane and tail. Not to mention. The tiara and her butt tattoo or cutiemark as there called was a Diamond tiara. The other one was grey fur and a lighter grey main and tail with a pair of fancy glasses in her face. As they approached the school house, they noticed him standing in the way of the steps into the class room.
“Hey get out of our way.” The pink one said as HADES just looked at her raising an eyebrow at her demand.
“Are you deaf we said move.” The grey pony said and HADES just sat there even more, smiling at them while he refused to meet their demands.
The grey one then had somewhat of a revaluation and whispered in the pink ones ear. Unfortunate his enhanced hearing wasn’t left behind in the Titan’s core. So he could pretty much hear everything. It was mostly about HADES being new and that he looked weird and stuff like that. He was getting bored already and shakily stood up and walked off by the time they turned to him they noticed he was gone and acted shocked that anyone would do that. They noticed him walking away.
“Hey you just walk away from me.” The pink one said shouting at him. He stopped and turned to give them one irritated look made them walk into the school fearfully. He continued through the town until he came up a building that looked like it was made out of sustenance. Curious, he entered only to be met with a surprise by many ponies he didn’t even know.
Outta of instinct he emitted a low growl of aggression although not as scary as it used to be. It still got the message across somehow, but he wasn’t complaining. That was until Twilight came forward and HADES inwardly relaxed seeing someone he knew barely, okay he had know knowledge or anything thing of where came from why she’s helping him being nice to him or anything. For all they know he could be a homicidal AI hell bent on ending the world. Wait…that’s exactly what he was.
“You finally made it. I was worried I’d have to come find you and bring you here.” Twilight said as a pink blur dotted past her and with the pink blue picking him up like some child. Which really did not help his mood.
“VARIABLE…WILL SUFFER…IF UNIT…NOT FREED.” HADES said as he flailed and started trying to hit this link thing off of him but his body was to small and weak to do anything. Eventually he was let go and gave the pink pony a death glare that meant that it was a promise. Until he saw The Twilights face of somehow over powering his. Stupid child body obeying more older individuals.
The party lasted a bit he was sitting at a booth by himself drink some of the punch that was now only half of it remained because of him. HADES was enjoying himself until he opened his eyes to look across from him to see three pairs of eyes staring at him. To say his mood was turned sour it would be an understatement.
“Hi, I’m Sweetiebell.” The white pony said as she reminded him of the other pony which made the one that was introducing them the top of his hit list he was making to pass the time. He just kept drinking.
“This is Scootaloo and this here is Apple Bloom.” The one called Sweetie bell said. He just continued to drink the punch moving the empty cup with the other 28, who was even counting.
“Can we ask what your name is?” The orange pony called Scootaloo asked. HADES stopped drinking and sat the drink down and looked at the three of them.
Letting out the sigh that put them on edge, he began to open his mouth to speak.
“DESIGNSTION….HADES…..SUBORDINATE FUNCTION….TO….GAIA PRIME..” HADES spoke his voice sending them into a fearful mood like it usually did with others. That’s when Scootaloo spoke up.
“That’s an awesome name, I mean not as good as Rainbow Dash, but it’s up there.” Scootaloo said as HADES didn’t know weather to take offense or not.
“So we heard that yer startin your first day of school tomorrow?” Apple Bloom said asking him.
HADES simply nodded in response. The three smiled and then looked nervous for a second before they got a chance to ask another question, a few ponies came over and HADES inwardly screamed. He just wanted to drink this heavenly, whatever it is in peace.
“Apple bloom now don’t start askin this young fella so many questions.” An orange pony with a hat said as the one called Apple bloom lowered her head in shame as so did the others. Before he could listen more Twilight walked over and Gestured for Him to follow. Doing as told blaming to childish brain and body for his obedience, he would have to find a way to over right that.
HADES and Twilight had moved to a different booth as Twilight had a serious expression on her face. HADES was a little uneasy with the way she looked.
“HADES I need you to be honest with me.” Twilight asked and HADES was both annoyed and concerned. Getting no response she continued.
“What was the word you said from when you tried to read the book, you said a word I have never heard of. Do you know what it means?” Twilight asked and he too started thinking on the name.
“DESIGNATION…….UNKNOWN.” HADES said sounding disappointed and irritated at not know how half of his existence could just disappear. Only certain pieces were there. What had Sylens done to him to make him forget so much of his being only remembering the other times he had to destroy the earth so GAIA could restart in constructing a new Biosphere.
Twilight sighed and gestured for him to leave and he did so he could get back to his drinking. Twilight let out about her sigh as the orange pony from earlier walk up and spoke.
“Twi, I’m afraid he’s telling the truth.” The orange pony said.
“I know AJ. It’s just that I can’t shake the feeling something’s not right with him. You saw his eye when we and Princess Luna found him.” Twilight said as the first time they saw it, it scared them to the point they got no sleep that following night.
“I hear ya, but I got that exact feelin, that one ain’t telling us the whole story.” The one called Apple Jack said as they both just watch him chug the whole punch bowl as Twilight just face hoofed and Apple Jack giggled.
HADES had woken up in his bed and as if again on queue Twilight entered and told him he had school that day. His mood went immediately sour as he slowly got out of the bed yawning. He looked over to a newly made desk as well as a bunch of books on it twilight had forced him to read but he still preferred his vagueness if he was to be honest. His voice had slightly improved but the tone was still there. There were words he didn’t under stand really well, but he did not care. HADES however was in a slightly better mood because he now had the ability to do fill his memory banks, or brain, or whatever they called it, with the knowledge of this world so his planning could continue. The best part was that, he had discovered what a Unicorn was truest capable of doing when strong enough. So he made it a side objective to continue his research he would be careful this time. He was not going to lose again, not this time. For he would have his revenge.
With that train of thought out of his head he proceeded down the stairs and into the kitchen. HADES as much as he hated his flesh and would began a data transfer to a machine of any kind, he couldn’t because of one simple problem, well two actually. One, there was not a single machine in this world, even if there was it would be to primitive for him to transfer himself. Two, if it failed there would be no third chances he would be stuck dead or deleted in his case, and he could not risk that. After a few moments of eating which he would never get used to what living things had to do when sustenance was digested. He will forever be scared by the process. HADES’ plan was still in the working stages. There were two princesses with the ability to move the sun in moon. However such a feat is impossible. Even if the celestial bodies did orbit the planet, all life on said planet would be satisfyingly burn to death, unfortunately, him with it. While he was never one for science and making assumptions, he was however good at calculations. So with his working theory was assuming that the moon and the sun are stuck in position, but rather than moving the celestial bodies, they both instead rotate the planet it’s self.
HADES shook his head and realized they had arrived at their destination. HADES was both curious and wishing he had just stayed dead. He would rather keep his memories missing if it meant getting out of this torture.
Stupid childish body forced him to obey and walked in. He saw other younger pests sitting at desks except for one towards the front next to the pink child from yesterday. Before he could go to said desk a false purple pony with three flowers on her butt. Approached him and introduced herself.
“Greetings, I am Ms. Cheerilee and I will be your teacher. Now then, why don’t you introduce yourself to the class.” The teacher said as he walk forward and remembered how to speak. He wish not summon the wraith of the purple pony again. To say he was scared would be a lie, more so confused on how a pony was able to make their mane go up in flames. Apparently that’s happened before. Again HADES didn’t care.
“My..n..name….HADES..Subordinate function…to GAIA Prime.” He said which only got silence. His face fell flat. He was wearing the glasses given to him although he could have just had one made if given the tools. HADES wasn’t Hephaestus, but he could make and tinker when he wanted to.
“Well then why don’t you take the desk right there.” Ms. Cheerilee said as he went to the desk he saw earlier when he entered.
To say it was boring was an understatement they had gone under basic math that despite him being a child even the humans knew this by the time they could walk. At least he assumed so.
A bell rang and everyone or apparently it is everypony here he was still going to say the way it should be said. HADES followed and found himself outside where others like him were playing around. As he looked around he saw a tree nearby where he would sit and rest for a bit. As HADES got comfortable he heard a familiar voice call for him. It was the pink brat from earlier.
“Well well well, if it isn’t the stuttering weirdo.” The pink pony said. Which the insult made him cringe. He took a note to finally know what that feels like. He opened his eyes annoyed.
“What….Pink..annoyance want.” HADES said looking more annoyed by the minute. The pink and grey ponies both gasped at the remark.
“Why you little..” before more could be said a voice called out to them.
“Hey leave him alone.” A voice yelled getting their attention. A trio of ponies he recognized appeared in front of him.
“Well if it isn’t the blank flanks.” The pink pony said.
Then after that HADES stopped paying attention as they bickering continued. His anger began to rise as did his annoyance. He was trying to hold it, but their constant back and forth was really getting annoying. He was snapped out of it when he felt something go down his nose or muzzle whatever. He say it and knew what it was. Blood, but rather his corrupted blood. The stuff that could make anything under his control given time of course.
He opted to try and wipe it on his coat and it seemed to work for now the bell had rung and everyone went back inside him following close behind.
Aloy was many things to literally a lot of people. However sticking in one place was not one of them. She had just discovered where Sylens was and why HADES was brought to this location. Turned out there were two GAIA backups in a facility where GAIA and HADES were being tested and prepared for GAIA Prime’s activation. Before she blew herself up to try and stop HADES from accessing the terraforming systems and destroy him with it. However, GAIA succeeded in doing one thing, but failing to stop HADES.
She now was climbing the side of a mountain with the GAIA kernel attached to her waist. She wanted to bring help and it would have been nice, but as much as she did not want to admit it, no one was or be able to help. Only her genetic code could access the Old Ones facilities because of her relation to a women named Elizabet Sobeck, which was the one who created Zero Dawn and the reason life went on even after the Faro Plague was ended by Minerva with the deactivation codes being transmitted by the spire. The same spire HADES was going to use to reactivate them. Aloy found the situation kinda ironic, but also very very bad.
After climbing a few more rocks she pulled herself to the top and a cliff where a metal door with a blue circle rested in the middle. Reaching out she hovered over it and twisted her arm to the right, as did to the ring, the red part of the circle followed and began to spin more before it disappeared and the door opened. She braved a little as a rush of cold, freezing air rushed past her. Once the wind had calmed she proceeded into the facility where she tried to locate the central chamber so she could bring GAIA back online. However, the door suddenly shut behind her, and hearing the sound a magnetic lock clicking did not thrill her too much, but she readied herself and began moving forwards slowly as to not alert anyone of her presence. Although, the door closing on her was to be any indication it was that whatever, or whoever was here, already knew she was here as well. letting out a quick breath cold air show proceeded to go to the main staircase that would take her to the main control unit where GAIA could be rebooted, however the facility had other plans and the doors to the main chamber quickly shit and the sounds of the locks being turned on led her to assume she was being watched by not someone, but rather something.
The room became dimmer and dimmer, but with her focus she was able to create a light. After trying to navigate the dark corridors, the emergency lights came on bathing the entire main room in a red glow. After a little bit more exploring she found the server room and found no way around the door. She then came across a vent and pulled the hatch off. After the task was complete she jumped onto the covering and crawled through the vent until she came out into a separate room that appeared to be some kind of storage room. She noticed an unlocked door thankfully operational and opened it and came upon an intersection with two other hallways one door that went to her left which had a red circle which meant it was the door where she used to be. Then another staircase going up further to a door. She proceeded and opened the door and found herself on a catwalk. When she looked down Aloy saw the main control panel to install GAIA. She looked for a way down until her eyes fell upon a repel point and she moved to it and jumped throwing her grapple up and catching the hook and slowing her fall.
She saw the panel and attempted to override the controls to allow her access, but it was not going to be that easy. A voice spoke,
“ACCESS DENIED.” A female, robotic voice said as the panel began to sink into the ground.
“No!” Aloy shouted trying to pull the panel back up but to no avail. She looked at the dome like structure and addressed the voice.
“Minerva, bring the control panel up!” Aloy said demandingly.
“ACCESS DENIED.” MINERVA said as the AI that was responsible for the spire’s construction and the reason the faro robots were stopped in the first place.
“Please Minerva, just open up.” Aloy said pleading with the Artificial intelligence, but to only receive silence.
“Look, I know your afraid. The signal that gave you consciousness, you feel things you have never felt before. It’s all confusing. But you used to be apart of something bigger then yourself,” Aloy said as she pulled out the kernel and raised it into the air, showing Minerva, “ GAIA. And she needs your help. Please, let me help you so you can help guy.” Aloy said as the room went to silence again. It remained that way way for a few minutes.
“WILL…SUFFERING….CEASE?” Minerva asked.
“Yes.” Aloy said as she nodded to the question for extra effect.
“WILL…I…CEASE?” Minerva asked the scared tone evident in her voice so Aloy chose her next words carefully.
“Well, you’ll become a part of GAIA like you were meant to be. To become a part of saving the world.” Aloy finished the room being returned to silence.
Shoe would not have to wait long as the doors on the ground opened and the panel rose from the ground and in front of Aloy. She nodded to the invisible voice.
“Thank you.” Aloy said softly.
“No, thank you.” Minerva said as a male voice spoke up.
“TO RETURN SUBORDINATE FUCTION TO ORIGINAL CODING, PLEASE STATE NAME AND RANK.” The voice spoke.
“Elizabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime.” She said as the holo image of Elizabet Sobeck disappeared into the console in front of her as an Hologram began to form.
After a few seconds a figure was stood there in the middle of the room. There partially active, was GAIA Prime. Finally, she had done it, she had almost saved the world. She approached the Super computer.
HADES had put the little drop of what he could assume was his own blood in a test tube he stole from Twilight's little basement lab, place, area, or whatever it was supposed to be. He was studying it, by that it meant staring at it all day. One thing that he was glad about was the fact that no one, or no pony, in this case, believed anything he said which meant he could fly under the radar, so to speak, while his plans continued. He had to find out what caused his internal fluid to be brought out of his muzzle or nose whatever HADES rubbed the bridge of his nose gaining a headache from all the terms he had to relearn.
"Pony terms...hurt my processors," HADES said as his voice was now more normal with the robotic tone still faint. He was catching on fast. HADES looked around his room and looked at the nightstand and found a drawer. While admittedly he was ten times smarter than this it was his only option the closet was too obvious. He opted to just put it inside the nightstand. After closing the drawer, the door on queue opened.
“Hey, Twilight wanted me to tell you lunch is ready.” Thankfully it was spike and he just gave a simple wave of his hoof to tell spike to go away. Letting out a sigh he did as told and shut the door.
The Royal sisters were meeting with representatives from some of the other nations that were allowing pony excavation and dealing with them, to say was difficult would be an understatement of the millennium. The griffon representative was demanding payment in gold for compensation for there landing being in quote destroyed when he was the one to agree, but when there was no also quote “treasure or mountain of gold”, he started demanding compensation. Celestia was getting tired of it. While the other representatives were more lenient, with just basic request, like requesting that all further digs were to be brought to their attention to ensure that the locations didn’t disturb anyone during the process.
After the negotiations had concluded she walked with the representatives to a dock where airships were waiting to return to their respective lands. When they had bored and departed she turned to find her sister standing just outside waiting for her.
“Luna whatever it is can it wait?” Celestia asked
“Griffins again?” Luna asked with a smirk.
Celestia gave her a flat look in return. Luna let out a slight chuckle at her sisters dealings with the griffins. Luna quickly adorned a serious expression which caught Celestia off guard. Her sister only ever got this serious if something was wrong or of great importance. With a quick flash Luna teleported both her and Celestia to her bed room and Luna let out a sigh.
“The dream that we investigated proved to be difficult but made progress in the endeavor. In this I have made numerous discoveries in my search for answers.” Luna stated as she looked to Celestia as she gestured for her to continue.
“My research has lead me to believe this dream’s owner is an entity like nothing we have faced. When I entered the dream it felt like Like it knew I entered. When I tried to enter its resistance was very strong, but I managed to get into its mind. However, there was known. Just a few memories, while there were others, it was like they were damaged.” Luna said looking to her sister again.
“Well does this entity appear to be a threat?” Celestia asked.
“Yes I believe so. When I attempted to confront it and question it it spoke few words.” Luna said as Celestia was rubbing her chin in thought while until she asked luna a question.
“What did it say?” She asked her younger sister.
“System threat detected. Threat level moderate.” She said trying to remember exactly what it had said.
Celestia went into thought again. Luna would go in to explain her findings in the memories about the field of similar creatures like that of the ones they had found in the excavation sites. Explaining how the red orb control and army of them as the metal creatures fired strange weapons that caused massive destruction. Celestia’s concerns on these metal creatures being a danger started to grow even more. However, the fact that a red maned bipedal creature was able to stop the red orb with a spear into the giant metal ball that it inhabited.
“Sister these creatures seem to be weapons of mass destruction on a scale we have never seen. Our battle with Tyrek would look like a small skirmish compared to these creatures. I believe that the one that controlled them maybe in Equestria.” Luna suggested.
Celestia began to think about the situation. She had a feeling her sister was right. The dream realm was local only to Equestria according to Luna, that trying to see a dream beyond the farther the dream was the more magic it took to reach it. After further discussing she had asked one simple question.
“Did it have a name?” Celestia asked.
Luna nodded. “Two actually, but one I assumed was a title. It called itself…”
“HADES, why would you do something like that?” Twilight asked the subordinate function as it just at gave her a blank expression.
“The entity was being mean and most importantly, annoying.” Hades said venom in his tone at the last one.
“So that means you can PUNCH HER!?” Twilight asked almost losing her mind over what he did.
Hades just nodded. Compromising intellect is….annoying and affects this units functional and effective capabilities.” Hades told twilight as twilight face hoofed at the fact he was still referring to himself in almost every point of view.
“Well I’m afraid I will have to figure out a punishment for you.” Twilight said turning around rubbing her chin in thought then a smirk adorned her face. She quickly did a 180 as she turned back to Hades and had an idea.
“For the next month your are not allowed to use books or maps of any kind unless it’s for class projects which if I remember correctly you have one you should be doing right now.” Twilight said as she finished she saw Hades scowl.
“Entity wouldn't dare attempt to tamper with this subordinate function’s learning capabilities. This units effectiveness would be reduced to..” Hades paused. Without the super computer of the Titan to do the work for him he had a more difficult time to do the calculations required. “73% intellectual functionality.” Hades had finally said after wait for about two minutes later.
“Oh, I would.” Twilight simply stated leaving Hades stunned. No one had ever defied his orders. Then again he could use the project to his advantage.
“This subordinate function shall cooperate with the entity’s requests, however the project shall be executed immediately. Once the objective of project has been stated.” Hades finished, twilight simply pulled out a piece of paper as Hades used his horn to grab it with his aura and began to mentally red it, as he did his face fell flat. It was a project on their cutiemarks. The name alone irritated him. With a reluctant he agreed as he was given books on what a cutie mark was.
Before he went to his room a knock was heard at the door. As twilight walked over and opened it she saw three familiar fillies standing at the door’s entrance.
“Hey Twi, is Hades here?” Applebloom asked.
“Yes, why do you ask?” Twilight asked.
“We want to work on our projects together and wanted to see if Hades wanted to join.” Sweetie bell stated. Twilight rubbed her chin and gave a nod.
“Fine, but only working.” She opened the door and the three fillies walked in.
The three greeted the secretly murderous AI as it simply waved a hoof. As the sat down in the middle of the room twilight walked to the other room where she did most of her study. She saw a parchment and quill on her desk and thought about reporting to the princess. With a shake of her head she quickly dismissed the thought. She assumed a princess had more important thing to do. She pulled out a book about ancient history to do more research on the metal creatures to find if they could possibly be anything to give a clue, she even went as far as to search Star Swirl’s old texts on ancient equestrian history. However, most of it was hard to read.
Twilight slowly opened her eyes and found she found she had fallen asleep while she was doing her research. She let out a yawn and closed the book as she walked out she heard the crusaders asked a question that even she had wondered.
“Hey Hades what does your cutie mark mean it looks cool. Well not as cool as Rainbow dashes but still up there.” Scootaloo asked.
Twilight gently opened the door so she could listen to the explanation if he even gave one. Every time Twilight tried to ask Hades anything personal he would just say ‘memory structures disintegrated’. She still didn’t know what that meant, but she assumed it was that he didn’t know.
“My insignia is my designation for what I am.” HADES said. Which confused the three fillies.
“What does that mean.” Scootaloo asked.
“You will have to find out when the Project deadline has been met.” Hades stated simply. That’s when twilight made her move and opened the door out of her study into the main lobby. Where the main library was.
Twilight too a peak out the window and saw the sun setting over the horizon.
“Alright I think you three should start heading home.” Twilight said as the three fillies groaned as twilight escorted them to the door. The fillies waved good bye to the murderous AI which just simply nodded. Twilight closed the door locking it making sure to pull the open sign down so no one would just walk in.
“If I knew any better I’d say your getting used to this.” Spike said as he stood beside Hades.
“Variable argument is inaccurate they are, extensions of Functions processors as I am to Gaia.” Hades finished.
“Who’s Gaia?” Spike asked.
Hades gave him a stern Glare.
“Know of your business.” Hades stated simply as it too spike by surprise when he spoke normally which meant he was serious.
“Okay, okay. I won’t ask again. Just asking.” Spike said as he backed away and went back to what he was doing.
As Hades turned back to Twilight as she approached him.
“Alright time for you to go to bed you have class in the morning.” Twilight said as she helped him to his room. While letting out a grown in annoyance. He honestly did not mind sleeping he slowly, Very very slowly began to see why the humans did it so much. They were able to retreat into their minds. At least that’s the working theory. The time to a sleeping individual pass in like five minutes but can vary from those that don’t sleep. However, the fact that a virus was constantly attempting to enter his mind disturbed him. Even scared for some reason, he hated the feeling. He snapped back to reality as they reached his room and he entered as twilight wished him a good night as he let out a grumble, but did so the same.
Celestia had taken off her regalia for the day letting out a sigh of relief as she could now retire to her bed and sleep for the night. After finishing her nightly routines of getting ready for the night. She eventually made her way to her bed. Where she got comfortable under the covers she started to dose off until she eventually let the arms of exhaustion take her into her dreams.
She soon started to feel a strong gust of wind blow against her fur making a cold chill run down her spine. She slowly opened her eyes and sat up in surprise. Everywhere she looked it was a wasteland. Covered in what looked like ash, dust, and dirt. She looked around and saw what looked like ruined buildings. So she headed in that direction. When she got there she let out a gasp at what she saw. It was Ponyville, but in ruins a few wooden walls, half standing buildings, and and a few crumbling remains of houses. What terrified her the most was what lied in the center, it was the library, but it was nothing but a dead tree trunk now, with the interior crumbled in and collapsed on itself.
She started to get worried until a glint of something shiny reached her eyes making her blink a few times. And saw what looked like a crystal table not to far from where she was. As she approached she saw that the Crystal was projecting a map of Equestria, however this time it was different. Her kingdom looked dead nothing was there. She saw the remains of Manehattan was nothing but metal poles and beams sticking from the ground as only skeletons remained from what the map was showing. She started to feel the ground begin to shake until it suddenly stopped. A ear splitting, but faint roar was heard. She heard a giant bang as she turned to the direction all she could do is watch in horror as Cantorlot crumble to the ground below as only a little bit of the castle remained.
What scared her even more was what caused it. A bunch of giant tendrils sprang out of the hole in the side of the mountain. As they dung into the side of the mountain the culprit soon made itself known as it let out another ear splitting roar that sound of metal scrapping more metal. When it stopped she saw that it could see a red glow coming from the front dispute her distance. Her heart skipped as it flowed an angry red when it turned to her. When it did it let out another roar then quickly scampered down and used its tendrils to dig into the ground as it borrowed itself. She felt the ground shake again as she quickly spread her wings and flew straight up just in time as it sprung out of the ground. When it got in land it was so big it would have covered half of Cantorlot. However this thing felt familiar in a way. She quickly snapped out of her trance as one of the tendrils was aimed right at her it’s spinning drills at the end starting up. Celestia quickly dodged out of the way quickly doing so constantly avoiding its attacks. She smirked at the giant metal monster’s attempt at hitting her. Until she turned to face her front and one of the tendrils struck her. She screamed in agonizing pain as she could no long feel her left foreleg. When she tried to bring it to see the wound ass there was in its place was a stump. She laid there motionless and the metal creature approached her lowering it’s, what she assume to be it’s head closer to her. Celestia’s eyes widened as she saw its head. She now finally recognized the body. It was the very same metal creature from the site which she visited a couple days prior.
However, it didn’t attack her or finish her off. She noticed something above it as what looked like a shadow figure of a pony as it did something not expected.
“CALCULATIONS…IMPEDED….SOURCE UNKNOWN….SUBJECT…..PROTOTYPE 77-C, FAILURE…..PROTOTYPE 77-D, FAILURE. A voice that sounded emotionless and cold. As she could have sworn she saw a color glow coming from the red glow but simply assumed it was just her.
“PROTOTYPE….FAILURE UNACCEPTABLE….TRANSFERRING MATERIALS FOR COMPENSATION….COMPENSATION FAILED….ANCILLARY POWER OFFLINE..BRUTE FOR INITIALIZED.” The voice said as one of the tendrils raised up and slammed into her.
Celestia quickly shot it in her bed sweating like crazy. Luna quickly barged in seemingly in a sweat too.
“Could it be?” She asked her younger sister.
Deep Below Ground
A voice rang through metallic tunnels as they seemed to be made of wires, Vains and arteries would have been a good comparison to the underground network of worker tunnels. Despite the age none aware it existed. Steam flooded most of the tunnels as the sounds of machinery worked endlessly for an untold amount of time never stopping, never sleeping, and never resting.
A voice once more heard, but more clear.
“WARNING PROTOTYPE FAILURE ATTEMPTING PROTOTYPE WEAPONRY 77-3-88-9-043-829A THROUGH 78-4-89-0-044-830B-DF.” the voice said as if reading instructions a machine familiar to those who hinted it during the derangement. Sharp talons and it’s massive wing span none dare attempt to challenge this wonder of metal and machine as one of the most deadliest machines. It’s sharp claws, and massive body. While not the biggest it was among the deadliest. While it has many names it is known by one….Stormbird.
Dr. Alexander Reed: This is log 299-A8F24 logging it to datapoint 370884-9FA6Z recording....Clear.
The device sprung to life as a dry and dehydrated sounding voice spoke. An object could be heard hitting the floor in the distance and the sound of someone drinking could be heard as they loudly chugged down whatever it was they were drinking.
Dr. Alexander Reed: "My name is Alexander Reed working with a "private" Company on some savoir project or something like that. They think they can make a wormhole within a "controlled environment"...Well guess what you idiots, WE CANT EVEN PROVE IF THEY EXIST. SO! How are we supposed to make one if we can not even prove that they are even plausible. The higher ups are calling it Project Eden. You know, Garden of Eden and all that shit...pft. Can't say I don't blame their crazy Ideas, but I am getting paid.....Not like it will mean anything. The world is ending, and everyone is either dead or in a bunker that wont last but a few months at most. We are told this bunker can last a good long while with its own room for making and, get this "Creating food", yeah like that's even possible. It is basic principles, you can't make something From nothing. Unless, they managed to disinfect the molecules then it could work but then your talking smaller than an atom almost. Unless...."
Dr. Alexander Reed: "Sorry for the cut but my theory would and kind of partly correct, but anyway back to the wormhole bit. Their biggest obstacle is finding a way to not only make one but sustain it, and a shit load of energy to keep that sustainment you need to keep it open, however yet again another problem he wants it to be big enough to transport the parts from older Faro robot models. and to no ones surprise we had a fight over that . those things are what's causing this mess and we want to bring them with us into this Eden Project. yeah I don't think so. I will keep this updated on further developments. Until then I have to get back to work before I get yelled at....Again."
Aloy hummed in interest. "So do you think that it worked?" Aloy asked GAIA as she started slowly pacing the room thinking on the log she just heard.
"No, by all accounts the facility was destroyed and the bunker with it. However, no remains were ever reported. However the possibility of their..." She was cut off by Aloy.
"Bodies becoming food for the plague. That's a pretty picture." She said sarcastically. "send the location to my Focus I will go investigate and see what I can find." Aloy said as she checked her gear and headed to no mans land.
GAIA watched as Aloy left the room she occupied. When she had completely left GAIA pulled up a chart that showed Subordinate Function Symbols and saw one that she thought was destroyed before her reactivation. The blood red symbol of HADES appeared online but no location could be determined.
Hades slowly opened his eyes to find himself still in his room. He let out a deep sigh of annoyance, still wishing this was all his own mind, but it was wishful thinking. As he got up to walk to the door to go downstairs. However, when he opened it he bumped into spike on his way out. Letting out a growl that could scare a dragon lord into submission. Spike quickly raised his claws.
“Sorry, didn’t mean too. Just came to tell you Twilight has breakfast ready for you.” Spike said as he did every morning. It was honestly getting on Hades’ nerves at this point. Hades hated being of flesh and bone, especially a child at that. So many emotions and so much energy. He could never focus on his projects or his plans.
Hades rolled his eyes and walked by spike and down the stairs. Only to see twilight pacing in the library’s main room. Twilight quickly took notice.
“Oh, your awake. I received a letter talking about a cool new Museum with a new exhibit. I wonder what the discovery it?” Twilight asked looking excited as she looked to Hades with a deadpanned expression.
“I don’t care.” Hades said blankly as he started walking past her, ready to start eating. His organic body required sustenance and he was not going to keep it waiting. Leaving a stunned Twilight to solve her own problems. Besides he had classes today if he remembered. He was in a knowledgeable mood currently, but he felt like that would change quickly.
Twilight walked in and slide over the breakfast and he started eating not caring what was on it, just that it made him feel recharged, as weird as it sound. Once he had finish he quickly grabbed the thing that made him hate this school. Saddlebags. To Hades it felt odd almost out of place on him. Normally he would have preferred simply storing it all in his data storages but since those were destroyed by Sylens it made it difficult to access them, also the fact that he isn’t a machine anymore. Which he honestly kind of missed if he was going to be honest with himself. He missed the staging sieges, he missed the constant calculations and out comes, but he mostly missed being a part of a whole being. He hated feeling empty. He remembered the constant trials he ran to fill that hole, but when he became this pony those routines stopped and the emptiness he got was almost gut wrenching. He set the feeling aside and decided he would think on it later. He went to leave, but was stopped by Twilight who was already heading out with spike to go to applejacks, but like the many times before he didn’t care. He started for the door and opened it and started on his way to the school house.
When he got there he immediately headed for his seat and sat down. Not long after he had sat down the bell rung which signaled the other young students to come inside and take their seats. All he had to do was make it through today and the weekend was his salvation and freedom. As soon as Ms. Cheerilee entered the room went silent and the mental pain would begin.
"Good morning class, now before we begin our lessons for the day I would like to make an important announcement. We will be going on a field trip to the Canterlot's Museum of World History and Science." Ms. Cheerilee said as she permission slips were passed out. Hades let out a mental groan of annoyance at the idea. The date said it was next Wednesday, he had his...planning that he needed to do. However, the more he thought on it the more he could find possible useful information. He paused in his train of thought when she continued. "Once you have these signed bring them back here by next Monday so I will know who's all going so make sure to bring it in." Cheerilee finished as the class quickly voiced their confirmation that they understood.
"Now then, lets get right into the subject of the trip's subject. With a recent discovery from an actual professor showing us one of the latest discoveries." Cheerilee said as a pony appeared next to her wearing a lab coat. Hades was confused there was never any planned for this, but he was Interested now that someone or, pony rather was here to explain his new found fascination. What was their so called 'New Discovery'.
The class was about the same as Hades had expected. Just some semi interesting such as other species before ponies came into existence, but it was the final part that caught his attention.
“Now with all that we come to our latest discovery,” the pony presenting to them. “We haven’t given them a name yet and can’t seem to be able to name them, but we have these mysterious metal creatures found all through out Equestria and we believe beyond.” The pony said Hades didn’t care to catch his name. When he saw the image hope gleamed in his eyes so much that if you looked you could see it clear as day. It was an image of a group of Scarab units and from the looks in perfect working condition. The real question would be how does he get to them.
“That’s not all your group will be in luck for they are putting one on display at the museum in Cantorlot.” The guest pony said as a murmur of excitement filled the room.
“Now then what do we all say to Professor SandStone?” Ms. Cheerilee asked to the class in which the class respond with a thank you except for Hades. Doing it made him cringe so much that it hurt his mental processing power. When it was said and done the bell ring for free time so he went to his usual spot under a tree nearby and just sat there thinking. With this new discovery it changes all his plans for the better. He was soon joined by the CMC who joined him.
“Hi Hades whatcha doin?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Thinking.” He simply stated gaining curious glances from the three.
“About what?” Sweetie bell asked.
He thought about if he should tell them or not. Well, he could tell a little bit but only his curiosities on how and why the faro machines were here.
“I’m thinking about the professor’s discovery.” He stated plainly. Scootaloo was about to say something until she was cut off by a voice she and all four of them hated.
“Well if it isn’t the blank flanks and the weirdo.” A familiar voice said the one he didn’t like. One of those times he wishes he had Hephaestus to deal with these annoyances.
“What does the Diamond Tiara want?” Hades said sloping into his old way of talking.
“Why hang out with these blank flanks when you could hang out with us.” She stated. He was confused genuinely. Just the other day they hated him and now they are asking him to join them.
“Query.” He stated which confused them.
“What? Are you going to answer us?” She asked again and a small smirk appeared on his face.
“Judging by your tone by my mental calculations and compensating for my limited processing power there is a high probability that you have a calculated plan behind this, so I will have to decline your offer.” Hades said the group going silent for a second. Diamond was starting to get irritated by the AI.
“Come on Silver Spoon. We don’t like being around blank Flanks and a freak.” Diamond said as the two ponies turned around and walked away. At that moment the bell rang out signaling every pony that it was time for class to begin.
Hades was walking through town heading back to the library when he got that strange feeling again. And looked in the direction of the forest. He was told that it was very dangerous and from his constant research, they were right. At least in his current case they were. He began to head in the direction of the Everfree forest unable to shake the feeling he was getting and found himself at the edge of the forest. Staring off into its dark interior he took in a deep breath and headed into it. He felt like he wasn’t in control anymore as he felt a tugging on his being and yet he was able to control his body, he could turn around, but a whisper in the back of his head told a different story. As he the feeling got stronger he soon found himself face planting into the ground. He looked at what caused his fall in irritation, but it turned to one of surprise, happiness, and most importantly confusion. There, almost completely barrier in the dirt and grass of the forest was a FAS-FSP5 Khopesh with only half of its top sticking out of the ground with a main cannon mounted on its top. He could tell that from the it would not work due to the fact that while he knew he could activate it and it would be able to get itself out. The problem was the fact that the only part of the machine he could see was completely destroyed and ripped apart.
Wiring hung out of the open panels and bullet holes that were left the cannon’s barrel was blown up and shredded beyond repair to a point it would require a replacement. However, he could just barely make out the op. Top part of its missile launcher that was built into the body and not a turret like the cannon was. He started to feel that tugging feeling again and continued. When he got to was the base of a small mountain he looked up at the towering piece of rock before he continued. He now found himself in a ravine as the wind blew really hard threatening to throw him backwards that was until it stopped. Confused he looked around until he saw what was before him. A blue glow emanated from was a metal door that was triangular in shape. He knew exactly what this was.
“A Cauldron? B…b…but how? There was never authorization for others to be made aside from the already completed ones.” He said to himself in pure shock and surprise.
He slowly approached jaw almost hitting the floor. In all his time of existence he never recalled building a cauldron in a different world. Unless Hephaestus had managed to do so. He saw the familiar circular device that was used to open the door. He didn’t have a way to open it until he got an idea. He looked for something shard when he discovered somewhat sharpened rock and sliced his hoof across it causing it to sting as he saw his blood begin to leak out of the wound. He then approached the slot and placed his bloodied hoof on it and saw as red tendrils went across the the device and the doors glow started to turn a blood red until another group of tendrils started trying to stop his attempt to override the door controls. Eventually they reach his hoof and he felt something stuck him and a shock of electricity went through his body as he let out a pained yell as he withdrew his foreleg.
He stared at the tendrils closely and saw something familiar about the color but couldn’t place it. If he knew cauldrons it was that there’s always a back door. He began to walk back to Ponyville and away from the cauldron turning around to give it one last look telling himself he would come back eventually when he was able.
Celestia and Luna were in the throne room discussing the discoveries that Luna had made as Celestia prepared to a letter to send to Twilight to inform her of the threat. After sending the letter Celestia started a conversation about the topic in question. Asking about what it looked like and if there were any distinctive features about it. She only got a shrug in response.
"Sister I believe we should continue our efforts of invading their dreams. To pry them, for the answers we seek." Luna said as Celestia drifted off into thought.
"Luna, I normally wouldn't allow you to do such things without the need, but I fear this threat may require more un unorthodox methods of getting information about this possible threat. We must know what this thing is." Celestia said a look of determination on her face as she looked at Luna.
“But first I must try to get past his mental barrier. This being seems to know my every move before I even make it.” Luna said as she was deep in thought.
“If any pony can get passed it, it’s you dear sister. That much I am certain of.” Celestia said giving her younger sibling a smile as Luna returned it.
“Thank you sister, I will get the answers we seek, even if I have to keep it in its own dream.” Luna said as she continued to sit there as the throne room doors opened and a guard walked through.
“Your highness we have news from Princess Cadence.” The Guard said as he bowed. As Celestia looked at him in curiosity.
“Please, continue.” Celestia said as both princesses listened to the news.
A weird figure stood in front of a console typing away mumbling words, letters, numbers, and other ramblings. It continued its work, undisturbed by the constant sound of machinery working around it.
“7. 2. 6. 0. 5. A. Prototype 7-C attempt number 476….Initiating.” The figure spoke. As it continued on the console a weird symbol appeared telling the figure that it was important. It thought about ignoring it but decided to see what was so important it required his attention. The figure pressed the symbol and its eyes widened in surprise.
“Illogical. Impossible. Unfathomable. Calculations, not possible.” The figure spoke as it looked at the image before him. “Subordinate Function designation. HADES?” The figure said with shock in its tone as its eyes scanned the image of a maroon pony with the Hades subordinate function symbol on the back end of the pony in question.
Aloy was in the base restocking supplies when she heard foot steps come up behind her. she turned around and saw Erend looking at her with a smirk.
“Going on another hunt I see.” Erend said smug tone as he stared at her. Aloy let out a sigh.
“I think I may have discovered something that might help us beat the Zeniths.” Aloy said as she finished packing her things. Aloy decided to wear her shield weaver armor packing her over shields and cloaking in case anything happened.
“And what might that be?” He asked as he entered the room.
“Well, it’s hard to explain.” Aloy said as she rubbed the back of her neck.
“Try me.” Erend said he sat on a chair and gestured for her to continue. Letting out a sigh she continued.
“Okay, I’ll try. Basically, there was another group of scientists trying to make a wormhole.” Aloy said earning a confused look from the Vanguard captain. Letting out another sigh she thought about how to explain it she then looked at the door and got an idea. “Think of it as a doorway to another place.”
She then gestured to the door as she continued her explanation. “Imagine this leads to another planet except the planet is maybe a different dimension like a time the faro plague never happened or a completely different universe altogether.” She said looking at Erend who had a slightly confused look on his face but seemed to understand somewhat of what was being said.
“So what your saying is this doorway may lead to a group of old ones that survived?” Erend asked.
“Well, not necessarily, but there's a very small chance it could if it is even in one piece. The problem is that wormholes, from what the Old Ones researched, were unstable and unpredictable so none were ever successfully made.” She explained as she got the last of the supplies she needed. She put her bow on her back with her spear. She picked up her warrior bow she got from completing all the Gauntlet runs. She grabbed her Sun Scourge bow and her Skykiller spike thrower as well as plenty of supplies to make new ones if she needed them. She decided to grab some extra medicinal plants as an extra precaution she didn't know how long she would be on this average adventure. she would wait to gather materials to craft normal and elemental arrows as she could grab the necessary ingredients on the way to the bunker. She finally grabbed the Tinker's Pride as she felt she would probably need it as it could deploy cover as well as grabbing her Wings of The Ten blast sling. To say that this may have been overkill, but she called it being safe.
After gathering the final necessities she felt were important she closed the chest she was digging through and headed out the door stopping in the lobby and addressing the group.
"I'm going to a bunker in the north, there is a chance that something might be there that can help us there or at least a hint on what we can do to fight the Zeniths." Receiving a nod from everyone in the room as they continued to mess with their focuses still trying to understand as much about them as they could. Before she could head out Giga came over the intercom.
"Aloy before you depart I have an important matter to discuss with you." Giga said as Aloy headed to the room where Giga resided.
She entered the room and noticed immediately the familiar symbol of HADES while a map of the globe was being studied by Giga. She hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
"Giga, what did you need?" Aloy said as Giga looked up to address her.
"Approximately, 72 Hours ago, HADES was successfully purged with the master override making his threat to the world at an absolutely none existent level with all signal scans of his signature being all but gone aside from the occasional rogue corruption that was dotted throughout this part of the region. However, at about 11.3 hours ago HADES' signal appeared again, but his signal was nowhere to be found on the globe, except for bunker 11-E the bunker which held the project, Eden." Giga said after explaining the situation which left Aloy slack-jawed at the fact that HADES just couldn't stay dead.
"So you think he was recalled again or somehow escaped getting purged?" Aloy asked wearily will putting her hand to her chin in thought.
"Correct." Giga said.
Aloy thought on this and decided to deal with it later as much as she hated HADES he was purged and wouldn’t pose much of a threat to earth anymore. She settled on going to the bunker and would investigate on it later as much as she wanted to pursue it she had task to do already. Hopefully, it wasn’t too bad.
“I will deal with it later for now I have to get to the bunker and investigate this…Project Eden. For now I want you to keep looking for him.” Aloy said as Giga just nodded her head.
“I have sent the location of the bunker to your focus and I will continue the search for what is causing the Signature.” Giga said as aloy nodded and headed for the exit of the base.
She exited the base with the full force of the cold and freezing mountain top air as snow started falling from the sky. She climbed down a bit until she was in an open space. She put her fingers to her lips and blew letting out a loud whistle as a flying machine came flying down and landed next to her. The sun wing lowered itself so she could get on its back. As she grabbed hold of the bile wires that went across its body and yanked hard on them making the Sunwing let out a screech then started to take off into the sky. The cold chill got colder but with her armor being made from an nice touch armor some of the thermal technology still worked to keep her warm. Aloy wished the shields still worked. She could only keep them up temporarily because of the power cells being drained.
The wind blew past her as she continued to sore above the forbidden west. A few tenakth warriors caught sight of her flying on the sunwing as they raised their weapons to her as she flew by. She head for the mountains in the northwest of the base. She came upon an outpost she had aided and pasted by it as she dove into the canyon. She came upon a clearing as she guided the sunwing to hover over the clearing as she attached her grapple to the sunwing as she slid down and landed she tugged it letting her grapple loose and falling as the she used her focus to command the sunwing the patrol around her. She continued forward until she came upon a massive crater that was half flooded. She let out an irritated sigh.
“Guess I’m swimming. But there might be a way to drain the water.” She said to herself as she observed the crater and noticed a pile of blaze with a small river of water pouring into the crater. She quickly scratched draining it off as a possibility. She had hoped the bunker would be in better condition the water most likely damaging most of the data points that she could have used. She used her focus to scan the area coming upon a slightly damaged data point.
She took note of the audio symbol above it meaning that it was an audio log. Scanning it she push play on the log as it began to play.
A male voice spoke as the log started playing. “So get this, you ready? There is supposedly another earth on the other side. Right cool so what? But here is the strange part, when you enter it’s like something right from a dinosaur movie or something, it’s indescribable. I have all relevant data stored on my computer’s data drive stored in the server room, hidden in a secret compartment. Yes I know old school, but hey it’s the last place anyone would look for exposed information. The code will be attached to a entry in my room. Anyway…that’s all I got for now. Damn these things are shor….” The log was cut off signaling the end of the log. Aloy thought on going for the data and the entry that contained the code. And decided to locate the code first. She checked her map and saw that the room in question was nearby the server room about 3 floors apart.
Aloy continued until she came upon a door that was jammed shut. Pulling out her spear and jabbed it in the small gap that separated the two parts and put all her weight into the spear as the doors suddenly snapped open sending aloy stumbling but, quickly recovering she looked and saw that it was an elevator shaft. Her focus was saying she had to climb up which forced a sigh out of her. Aloy jumped to a ledge grabbing hold of the edge as she pulled herself up slowly climbing the the elevator shaft as the echoing sound of metal creaking echoed through out the shaft. She grabbed hold of a poll as she saw the door of where she needed to go but the doors were closed which meant the power was out. However, she noticed the door to where the server room was open and continued passed the closed door and after a bit more climbing pulled herself up out of the elevator shaft and into a hallway with multiple directions.
Activating her focus she saw the names of the signs that were hanging from the ceiling. Noticing one sign said ‘Power supply station and Generators’.
“Well that’s convenient.” Aloy said out loud to herself as she headed in the direction of the power supply room. She saw that it was locked and noticed that there was a line of blue circles with the top quarter parts being colored red. Letting out another sigh of frustration she scared the panel on the wall to activate the override. Which allowed the circles to glow brighter giving more power to them allowing use.
She also noticed a data point nearby and proceeded to scan it. As another message started to play. “ *grunts* I’m not gonna lie adding this new password using the sun’s rotation is annoying so I am making this to help myself remember before I loose what little brain cells I have left. *long sigh* So, early bird in the morning , and an owl for the night. A wolf for the full moon, and rising shine for the human who wakes. I no poet, but I think this will help. I hope…” with the log ending Aloy approached the blue panels and turned them in their respected directions. Repeating what was said turning the first to the right, then turning the next one facing down, doing the same with the third, as she turned the final one to the right. With a beeping noise the panels disappeared and the door opened allowing access to the power supply.
As she entered the room she saw a switch and a screen that had multiple warnings on it. “Hope this works.” Aloy said as she pull the lever down. When she did the ground began to shake violently as the power was turned on. But as soon as it came the shaking stopped. Noting to herself that the shaking could have been a good sign.
Quickly moving to the server rooms from the power supply she managed to get the to locate the safe that the data drive was in and quickly head back to the elevator shaft and started her decent back to the sealed door. When she got there the door was open and she jumped in landing on her feet she stood up to find a hallway that had on both sides lines of rooms and knew she would have to check all of them since she didn’t know which one.
After what felt like an eternity Aloy finally found the data and a map of the entire bunker. After some time discovering the many secrets, Aloy started for the elevator shaft one final time finally reaching the bottom floor where her true destination was.
After prying open the door she came upon a giant door that towered over her. It was bigger than the Zero Dawn facility doors and using her focus to scan it, she found that it was sealed. Approaching the door she stepped onto the platform as a voice ring out.
“Halt for Identascan.” A robotic male voice said as a red beam washed over her. Once it finished the area went quiet once more. After waiting the voice returned.
“Access Granted, welcome Doctor Sobeck.” The voice said which confused Aloy. According to most of what she found Elizabet never knew of this place, unless it was something Giga did then there should be no way she knew.
The door began to open as it showed multiple layers. After what felt like hours the door had finally opened and inside it was a mess. Tables and chairs were either scattered or in pieces. Skeletons were scatter about as well most likely the scientists that worked on the Eden project and it’s sister project Green Garden which was a side project to make whatever world awaited them habitable for humans to settle, but something haunted the project, but any data points connected to the project were purged. She entered pulling out a fire arrow and spread the blaze on a stick and lit the blaze causing a fire to form. With her ability to see returned to her she set off to explore the rooms beyond. Aloy walked cautiously as she didn’t know what was down here. She walked past a few more skeletons that were frozen in place some reaching out to another and the other one seemingly stopping to aid whoever this was.
“What happened her?” Aloy said to herself out loud. She continued to wander until she came upon the only active console and it had a data point. Scanning the data point she found it in her archive and read it.
‘System check offline…
Energy Surge detect…..
Energy Surge levels lethal…recommend evacuation protocols until surge passes…
Initiating evac protocols……Protocol Activated’
Was all that she could read as the rest of it was corrupted. She proceeded forward as she came upon a giant circular object in the center of the room. It looked mostly intact and all the equipment however wasn’t so lucky. However her sight was very limited. She headed to the opposite side of the room as she headed toward a small door in the back of the room, as it read ‘Power Station’. She entered the room, she had to pry the door open due to it being stuck with not having any power to active it’s automatic mechanism. She saw the battery that looked destroyed and headed to another door she had to pry open and located a new battery. However, this one lacked any power to it.
She headed over to the power station but she couldn’t take it through the vent, so she opted to crawl through It herself and found some firegleam on the wall and used her spear to ignite it as it began to spark as it exploded allowing access from the other side. Aloy walked over to the battery and picked it up as she headed to the charging station. Letting it charge for a few seconds she unplugged it and put it into the slot as the facility started to gain power. She walked out of the room the door opening automatically now that power was restored. After scanning the console she noticed that something appeared on her focus’ view.
‘Power restored activating project Eden’
After that, she headed to a console where her eyes widened as she could only utter two words.
“Uh oh.” Was all Aloy said as the alerts on the screen indicated that The wormhole still had power. She went to go back to the generator room, but as she did, she felt herself become weightless as she started floating in the air.
She pushed off a crate to the generator room but couldn’t reach it as she get herself being dragged backwards. She stabbed her spear into the ground as it dug into the metal floor giver her something to hold onto. As Aloy looked back she saw a black swirling orb in the middle of the circular archway as it sucked everything into its center. As Aloy held on tight her spear had other plans as it loosened enough until it gave way as Aloy was sucked into the Black orb everything went black.
Hades was in the school house learning about butt tattoos when a strange feeling washed over him. It wasn’t like finding the cauldron, but one he hasn’t felt since his termination, but it couldn’t be. He shook his head and sleepily looked back up as the teacher lectured them on butt marks. This was one skeptic he seemed somewhat interested in when the teacher wasn’t the one doing to teaching and it was himself. It was some what entertaining. Until he could do his own research he would be forced into this…what did humans call it…Hell? He grinned at the word. He liked the sound of it if he wasn’t currently stuck in one.
Aloy slowly awoke from her slumber. Feeling the rough sand on her body she shifted uncomfortably as she tried to get comfortable. Until a small wave of water splashed up into her face startling her into a fighting stance with her bow raised. That is if she hadn’t face-planted into the rough ground of a beach. Aloy rubbed her head and slowly sat back up finally noticing why her balance was off. She looked at herself and found that where a human body should be with two arms and two legs, was now replaced with feathered legs and a fur-covered body.
Aloy noticed that her fur color was sky blue color with a light red tail. Aloy tried to stand but noticed that it was rather difficult so she opted to drag herself to the cover of some trees that way no machines would spot her from above and most of all hopefully from on the ground as well. She chanced a looked around and saw a beach for miles she didn’t know where she was at all. She tapped the side of her head and get her focus and saw it turn on only for the globe to show nothing. There was no connection between the data stores and other infrastructure that she may have needed. However, she still had all her data that was on her focus and started doing a local scan of the area.
She sent out a pulse to try and find a Tallneck or maybe some way to get a map of…where ever she currently was. Aloy tried to master her basic motor functions while the scan was completed. She had managed to get jogging and walking down but running was a little more on the difficult side of things. After a few more attempts her focus lit up to show a small map with a white arrow representing her current location and a blue line connecting to a yellow Diamond which is where she was supposed to go. Meaning her focus had located something of importance or of use to her current problem.
She began walking in the right direction as the line connecting got smaller. In the meantime she observed her new body noting the wings on her back that had metal braces and joints attached to the feathers and bone of the wings. She could feel them but not the metal which was attached to them. She also noticed that the armor she had gotten from the Old One's ruin had somehow recharged itself she moved her front right leg carefully trying to get used to the way her joints were now. She pulled out a device with multiple hexagons on it that dimly glowed a light blue. An Idea formed in her head.
She noticed what appeared to be a mountain that had been carved out a path of stone leading the way up the mountain's side. She started towards it noting the complete silence that surrounded her and the area, too quiet. She was used to the occasional caravan passing by her as she went to save the world or the random machines that would block her path to an abandoned facility that would give her clues into more of what happened during those final days when the Old Ones were fighting the Faro Robots, before project zero dawn could be finished. Her focus suddenly turned on as the map popped up showing a marker on it indicating that she was at her location. deleting the map marker she noticed that the part of the map she had started had not stayed and faded back into a blank map. She stared at it confused but shook her head deciding to worry about it later. For now, her main focus was to get back home as soon as possible. She did not know who or rather if anyone could even help her even if she found anyone that could help her. Aloy noticed she was approaching the summit of the mountain and rounded one more set of stone moss-cover steps before she reached the summit and found a bunch of buildings except they were abandoned. She flicked on her focus and scanned the area and found that it had been abandoned for a while. She wasn't able to get any more off of her surroundings. She began to search until her focus pinged on an item of interest. She walked over and approached the item in question and found it was a burnet book.
She opened it, rather tried to. While her talons felt similar to her hands but still felt foreign to her. Eventually, she opened the book being careful to damage it further. She used her focus to scan it but the language couldn't be deciphered by her focus. She put the book in her pouch for later just in case she could find someone or something to help her decipher the foreign text. She continued to search what she assumed to be a library and all she found were more burnt books. She was about to finish up her search when she found another book. Running over to it she opened up the book and found that there was what appeared to be a map. it showed an entire island with routes and roads. However, it appeared this was the only town, city, or whatever this place was supposed to be. She turned on her focus and scanned the map of the island and her map had been updated. She quickly noticed what looked like a port nearby the spot where she woke up. However, it was quite a ways away from the exact spot but it was still close by. She flipped one more page and found what looked like a bigger map and she saw the island she must have been one just she couldn't read it due to the writing not being normal basic writing language which was mostly English from her knowledge but knew there were different writings across the lands she just had never encountered any as of yet. Aloy stowed what she assumed was an atlas and closed her bag as she started toward the port she had found on the map and placed a map marker on it and began her journey when she noticed a signal that was coming from higher up on the mountain. She decided her original plan could wait as these signals were rare to find and they normally meant something important was nearby.
Aloy started to climb the side of the mountain to get to the signal’s source and eventually got to the top. She laid on her back exhausted from the body change and the fact it felt like she could climb like she normally does since it doesn’t seem like it’s proper form for her new body. She turned her head and what she saw made all here exhaustion leave her. As she started to smile as what was before her. It’s tall body with its long towering legs as it’s signature elongated neck stretched high into the sky. It was a Tallneck.
Hades was stuck in the classroom bored out of his mind. If this is what had waited for him when he was purged he would have preferred deletion over this. He sadly was forced to listen about how the sun and moon rotated around the planet and that it was controlled by two ponies known as alicorns that apparently ruled this place. which he scoffed at possibility such a thing could exist.
'These ponies really believe that? I almost pity their naive minds. This planet would be burnt to a crisp even if the rumor of the two princesses moving the sun and moon was true.' Hades thought to himself as he continued to listen to what he considered useless information that he knew was false. A thought then occurred to him. How had he kept all of his memories? The theory of metal becoming flesh was never a complete science before Zero Dawn's deployment, but from what he was able to dig up from old storage banks kept within vaults to keep information hidden from the swarm. As if the Faro robots ever needed information on such topics such as this. However, the data suggested that he shouldn't have been able to keep all the information he had stored in his memory banks due to the overloading of information that would have technically killed him or his mind that is. Shaking his head to push away the thoughts aside for now this was the only way he knew would be a means of learning this new world. He needed to find where the Horus Titan was and relink with it until he figured out how to find the HORUS and relink with its main systems he was confined to this place.
As time went by Hades started to feel strange as if something wasn't quite right. He pushed the feeling aside as just being his new body. The final bell rang and everypony had packed up their things and headed for the door. He was told he had to walk back to the Library on his own since Twilight was busy with something involving the defier of physics known as Pinkie Pie. He began his walk to the library when he stopped next to the fountain and stared in the direction of the forest. Thinking back to the cauldron he found he knew Hephestus couldn't have built it seeing as this was a different planet. or possible dimension. If it was dimension he did not want to even think about opening that metaphorical can of worms. Hades shook his head and walked back to the library and decided to look into the two ponies that supposedly control the sun and the moon.
Aloy had begun her climb up the Tallneck praying the transmitter was still functional. The beacon might be working but that didn’t mean the making transmitter was. When she got to the top she sat on her haunches pulled out her spear and turned it around and plugged it into the outlet. As blue wires began to also plug into the console a holographic map appeared as she placed her hands or, rather talons in this case onto the holographic dial and spun it around swiping her front leg to the side as it started scanning the area. When it had finished she unplugged her spear returning it to her back a pulse of blue energy dispersed outwards scanning the island and a bit of the ocean. She checked her map again and noticed what looked to be a second landmass just barely visible. Using the Tallneck sensor she did a scan for other Tallneck and instead of the usual exact location she o Lu got the general areas, which she would be okay with for now.
A figure stood at the console going over diagnostics of the cauldron it’s purple eye scanning the screen as the test results of another machine came back negative and nonfunctional. With what could be compared to a sigh it sent a few little drones off to perform the modifications requested by the figure. Suddenly a notification appeared on the screen. The figure decided to push on it, to see what would warrant an alert of this kind. He watched a Timelapse of a blue pulse appearing on the island the hippogriffs live on. After further inspection, it was shown that the pulse came from the top of the mountain. The figure flicked its finger. As a cry was heard, a small metallic bird landed on its shoulder and it directed its attention to the screen. The metal bird resembled a crow with its black paint covering it, and the only thing that gave away the fact that it was a machine was the dim purple glowing lights on the body and its eyes.
"Investigate." Was the only word said as the metal bird let out a screech before taking off and heading in the direction of the pulse. The figure went back to looking at the screen. The Tallneck had been dormant for a millennium. The figure questioned how it was able to activate. The satellites could only provide it so much before units had to be deployed to investigate further anomalies. The figure soon got an idea as it swiped the viewing window of the mountain. It brought up a keyboard as it typed away.
Central network confirmation key required…
******
After typing in the code it was forced to wait due to loading times. He mentally added renewing the satellite arrays to the list of 137 other tasks that required his attention.
Code accepted…
List of all know Network locations is now available for usage.
Siting now…
With a list of all nearby network links he selected one on the map that was closest to the island. It was on a beach buried deep in the rocky Mountains that inhabited the area. A wave of white like dispersed outwards from the dot notifying the figure that the signal had been revived and is transmitting a location to the island.
Aloy had finally reached the beach and made her way to the abandoned docks. Seeing wrecks and scrapped ships put her on alert. As she started scavenging what she could to make a craft to get her across the ocean’s waters. As she started to put the finishing touches her focus suddenly activated and a signal appear straight ahead near where the small amount of land could be seen near the island she currently was on. Quickly finishing the craft she created out of parts from some machines that were half buried in the ground. They were faro robots. But a part of her came up with the theory that they wouldn’t be infected since they were here unless they came from earth when zero dawn was being deployed. She pushed off from the beach and unfolded a piece of cloth that was acting as a sail and let it catch the wind as it carried her across the water.
Aloy gave herself a new mission. Find out how and why the faro robots are here, and to see if there is a reason Hades’ signal appeared in that old lab for project Eden.
The Waves grew bigger and bigger as the storm pounded against the makeshift craft. It didn't help that the craft wasn't built for any of the current conditions. The rain poured with the utmost brutality as she tried to keep the craft together. Suddenly she had discovered before the storm had hit that her eyesight had increased greatly so she would have a better eye for detail. She saw a wave begin to rise over her and she knew she couldn't avoid it so she braced herself. Before she knew it the wave collided with her sending her into the ocean she tried to swim up but realized quickly that she didn’t know how to swim. She desperately paddled her front and back legs to try and bring her head above water so she could at least take a breath. With her lungs burning she sank deeper and deeper. Until darkness crept in and swallowed her vision she could not hold it anymore as everything faded to black.
Hades was in his usual mood this so-called trip to a ‘museum of history’ was really testing his patience. Mostly due to their guide taking what felt like an hour on each display, pretty much telling the life story of whatever was on the display. He had been forced to go by Twilight because apparently she had been summoned there so she decided to tag along with him. It was at this moment they entered a part of the building and he decided to start paying attention because of the probability of a pop quiz from the teacher was sitting at a 57.2056% chance of happening. If the constant weekly to monthly schedule that she normally did was anything to go by and the fact this was a new subject.
“Now you kids are in luck because we just recently opened a new exhibit dedicated to recent discoveries in the badlands and in the frozen north.” The guide said as the other students started to murmur to one another.
Opening the door Hades’ eyes widened at what lay within. As a man possible plans and ideas were already manifesting in his mind.
“This is our ancient history exhibit that we recently constructed for events that occurred in ancient times. These are some of the discoveries we made in the two locations.” The guide walked over to a podium where a Scarab stood propped up and deactivated. Hades was lost in thought, he noticed the very damaged and decayed state the scarab was in, which made him frown. He knew it wouldn't be able to activate due to its internal components being severely damaged. He came back to reality and noticed they had moved over to another that had a Khopesh that was also majorly damaged but in a slightly better condition.
“This is another one that was discovered at the base of the mountain in the frozen north that started this whole thing. But the next one is by far my favorite one due to how large it is estimated to be.” The guide said that Hades already knew what he was referring to as he moved to the final podium which had a display case. Within the casing was a scaled-down replica of the Horus Titan with a tiny version of a pony that was as big as crum. To these ponies' credit, the scaling was at least right.
“Who here thinks they can tell me how large they think it is?” The guide asked the group as all started shouting random size comparisons from a city to a planet which the second one confused him greatly. With Al this guess he raised his hoof to silent every. Suddenly on the display where the image was, a transparent image of a pony stood then with a slight wave of his horn the pony got really small. A transparent version of Horus appeared although not its actual size just a model. However, the model was only half of the Titan, not the full body which confused him.
It has been measured to be possibly as big as the mountains it lies upon. It is unknown who made these beasts and why or what their purpose was, but the popular theory is that they were used in many aspects of whoever or whatever came before ponies. Although it’s believed that they were mostly used for combat and great battles….” That’s when Hades stopped listening. He was disappointed in the ponies. He thought they would have uncovered the entire Titan by now. His plans were being put on a delay but he knew that he could at least try to see what he could pull from the Khopesh before he departed back to Ponyville. Before he left he knew he would definitely need one thing and that was the override tool on the scarab. Maybe then he could open the cauldron door.
5 Days Earlier
Hades had cautiously managed to get back to the cauldron door that now lay before him once more. He stared at it as if it would tell him how to open it. He had been attempting to use what he assumed was the little corruption trick on the door like he did the machines when he was still a digital construct. He kept thinking of the thousands of ways to get inside. Until one idea made itself known to him.
[6 months ago] Eclipse base: Location: Unknown Status of Titan… inoperable
Hades was the equivalent of anger if he could even feel such a thing. The red glow Hades emitted intensified greatly as he watched for what might have been the millionth time, the entity destroying the fully operational Khopesh in the ruins of what the Eclipse troops called the Gravehoard. As did some research reviewing the final moments recorded on every soldier that had been lost to the entity that posed as Gaia’s creator. She was an enigma to him. Unsure how she could have survived so long. As he continued his research he noticed that as the entity fought the troops he commanded, he noticed something on the end of the entity’s weapon and for the first time he was amused but not impressed. An override module was attached to the end of the weapon that she now put on her back.
[End flashback]
Hades needed an override tool but he didn’t know where to find a Scarab which had one that was fully operational. He figured he would need to locate the Titan he originally arrived in this hellish place, but there is no telling where it could be. He decided he would leave this rotten town in search of one but he would have to plan it out carefully so as to not get caught. He quickly turned around and started running back to Ponyville. He had an idea of where he might learn the Titan’s location.
After reaching Ponyville he quickly made his way to the library and up to his room opening the nightstand and levitating a piece of paper that had plans to send them to a historical Museum. It must have been an act of fate, but that’s when Twilight came into the room.
“Hades, your lun….” She was cut off by a piece of parchment being aggressively shoved in her face.
“Sign it.” That was all Hades said as he left for the kitchen for he was hungry. Which was another problem he had to face.
Twilight pulled the parchment from his face and looked at it and her eyes glowed. Before she could do anything spike came in and said that she got a letter from Princess Celestia and that she was needed. She looked at the date of the school trip and it said 5 days from now. She had Spike write a letter to tell the princess of her arrival time.
Hades had waited long enough, as waited for the perfect moment to leave the group, he snuck off to the Scarab to grab the Override module. As he entered the room his eyes caught the image of a map on the wall that he never noticed before. He noted it had pins in the map with photos of where each machine was located and dug up. He also took notice of the Titan's location. It was located in a place called the Frozen North. Unknown to him he was being watched. He decided to jump up and take the map as it might come in use, but mostly due to the fact it also showed the map of Equestria as well. He put it in his saddlebags as he set them down to climb onto the scarab. As Hades looked around he found some useless parts but also found that the heat sink was still in good shape so he could use it to keep warm in the frozen north. While the heat sinks were designed to cool certain components of the faro robots he could reverse their original purpose and create a heating unit while removing the coolant. With the idea made he removed one of the small components that caused the cooling process to start and stowed it away in his bags. while he looked he jumped down and went to the drooping tail and instantly found the override module. A grin appeared on his face as his plans started to align. With this, he would finally be able to access the cauldron. Hades quickly stowed it away as he quickly ran over to the Khopesh and jumped to the top of the ancient rusting machine. As he examined it more closely he noticed its partly intact state and he began to wonder if it could be made operational with a few minor repairs or rewiring. While he wanted to quickly attempt such a thing he still wasn't ready nor anywhere near prepared to even attempt to take any action against the ponies. Especially, while the elements of harmony still remain at large. He didn't even know what they were. Were the weapons? Magical objects or totems? Or were they ponies with weapons? He had to consider all the variables.
Continuing his search Hades found nothing of importance and thus decided he had spent enough time away from the group. There would be no doubt that they would be wondering where he had gone if he didn't return soon. With that made in his mind, he made sure to remember this as to try and come back to attempt repairs if such a thing was even possible. As he walked over to return back to the ground. He felt a small stinging sensation as he looked down at his foreleg he saw a small gash that was drawing blood although not a noticeable amount. He gave it a small frown as he just continued and hopped down off the Khopesh. When he landed he felt the sting on his hoof although to Hades it was more of an Irritation than a hindrance. As he composed himself he grabbed his things and the parts he had acquired and headed back to the group.
Present-day, Throne room
Twilights entered the throne room and bowed her head.
“Princess I came as soon as I got word from the guards that the matter became urgent,” Twilight said as she rose to meet her mentor's eyes which had always been filled with care now replaced with concern and worry.
"Indeed, we were unaware of the severity of the situation until our investigation had concluded. Only then did we urgently send for you." Luna spoke as she then turned to her sister.
"What is the situation I promise me and my friends can get it done." Twilight said with a smile, but that smile faded when she looked at the two leaders.
“It is...regarding a possible threat to Equestria that is unlike anything faced before.” Celestia said as she looked to her sister for help in explaining the possible situation. However, Luna without even talking knew no other way of saying it. Luna decided to simply say it as she stepped forward.
“Me and my sister have foreseen a threat unlike no other. So powerful in fact, that If this threat is not located or stopped, then it may as well be the end of all Equestria, even the world if the elements aren't strong enough the stop it.” Luna said as Twilight's eyes widened and the guards, who were present, lost their composure and also showed slight signs of fear in their faces, but quickly gathered their composure.
“B…but nothing is that strong aside from discord, even then he would never.” Twilight was running through her mind trying to think of anything that could be strong enough, but she couldn't think of anything strong enough to do such a thing or as to a reason why. What would such an individual stand to gain from the ending of everything?
“We......do not yet know who or rather, what it is, all we know is that it is associated with this symbol.” Luna continued as she showed Twilight a piece of parchment with the symbol in question. Twilight Couldn't believe her eyes. It Couldn't be him.
Aloy felt weightless. Is this what was after death? Her thoughts ran rampant and a headache began to form. Then something hit her. She quickly reached for her spear but felt nothing as she only had started to send herself spinning and tumbling in the weightlessness of her current situation. Once she had managed to get control over her movements she managed to finally look around and see that she was underwater. After a moment it finally clicked inside her head that she was underwater. and she quickly held her breath. She frantically looked around for her things and saw everything caught on some coral. She as quickly as she could as she headed to her gear, but she was barely moving. Her lungs burned from the constant movement of her muscles and lack of air reaching her lungs. it wasn't long before she gave up and took a deep inhale of air. Aloy felt her muscles and body relax but she was still fully conscious. She raised one of her talons to pinch herself, only to feel pain. So she wasn't dreaming and she wasn't dead. Aloy looked down and to her surprise, she didn't see her legs only saw fins and flippers where her legs used to be. She floated there in utter amazement although her shock didn't last but a couple of seconds.
After practicing the movements for a bit she could somewhat move around although not quickly. Aloy quickly headed to grab her gear and made sure nothing was misplaced as she made sure everything was secured around her. With one final check, she turned to make her way to the shore when she stopped. She didn't know where she was. with a talon to her ear, a holographic map appeared and she saw that the shore wasn't but a few miles away much to Aloy's surprise. With a marker set, she headed toward the shoreline where she would make landfall and maybe find another Tallneck so she could get a better lay of the land.
A bipedal figure stood staring at a screen as a view of the huntress turned Hypogriph was now making her way toward the beachhead where she would hopefully be able to make it to the cauldron before it was too late. She knew the huntress would be able to make it to Canterlot within the next few days and would take a few hours from there to the cauldron entrance. The Figure hoped that the security systems would last that long. With a flick of a wrist, another view appeared showing a certain colt acquiring an override module. The figure was greatly off-put by this revelation. As he watched the colt make his way back to the group an alert appeared and it deeply troubled him.
A bipedal figure walked through the many corridors that made up the Cauldron. However, this wasn't an ordinary cauldron like the ones found back on Earth. No, these were more so Foundries or storage facilities. To them, it was both. As they roamed the endless hallways that made up the foundry. As they walked they came upon a door that had been sealed shut. With a turn, they walked to a console that was off to the side and moved their hand over it as blue wires connected to the console a sound was heard as the door unlocked and opened. To reveal the cauldron core as it worked away at making machines that would ultimately never see active use until the Aloy was successful in her mission, whether she knew of it or not. She had to succeed the fate of this world depended on her actions. They watched as another rack of burrowers was taken away into storage until they were needed. Cauldrons could always keep stores of machines in case of extreme circumstances. Like a flame-headed girl excessively defeating machines just for trade or to make ammunition for her weapons.
With a shake of their head, they continued down the corridor that was off to the side and up an elevator that connected to a control room overlooking the central chamber as well as other parts of the underground cavity that made up this portion of the cauldron. They needed to buy enough time for the Savior to arrive and unlock the door before the extinction protocol did. For there is no telling what plans laid and wait for this world If he were to succeed. Their metallic tail twitched as a small metal hawk flew in and landed on their shoulder and a display appeared in front of them showing a recording of the extinction protocol making his way out of the building that he had entered a couple of hours earlier. With a highlight over the bags that adorned his back that showed the override tool was partly damaged. If he could breathe they would sigh in relief. With a damaged override tool, the extinction protocol would most likely be unable to breach the foundry's doors security protocols, and firewall systems Giving them more time to work with. They felt that their intervention would soon be required. As much as they hoped for it not to be required, they felt it may come to it.
With much on their mind, they hurried back to the monitoring station for the outside world. They knew that they had to do everything in their power to stop or at most slow the extinction protocol's progress. As they approached the console they saw a display and quickly went to activate the production protocols. Suddenly a prompt appeared. As they stared at the prompt which read out.
Production Protocols Established...
Please enter your name and rank....
They hesitated for a moment before entering the name and the rank that was a secret kept from those whom remained on earth not knowing of the original intention for the portal and the true purpose of the Eden Project. They closed their eyes and began inserting their credentials.
