Celestial knew from the reports, the horror her ponies witnessed. She also created a theory to answer the earth quakes. " Luna, I know the connection to what these ponies saw and the tremors. Just listen to me." Celestia said to her sister. Luna, how ever, didn't want to hear it. " celestia. Thou are too stressed by these icidents. We think it may be afflicting thou's mind." Luna replied, turning her back on her sister. " there is a lava flow under the mountain, it's been weakening the structure of it so much that a large amount of force can shake it hard enough to have those tremors. And ..." She was interrupted by Luna. " thou needs to end this now! Twilight shall be here soon to investigate the tunnels. Thou shouldn't be so stressed." Her sister said to her. " I guess your right Luna, I am too stressed over this. Twilight can stop any rouge lava flow in the tubes if she has to." Celestia surrendered. " it will be all right." Luna said before heading toward her sisters balcony. " I hope your right Luna," celestia muttered as she watched Luna take flight. " I really hope your right."

The six mares leaped off the train and into the busy streets of caunterlot. Usually it was full of cheerful ponies and beautiful scenery. However, today caunterlot was in ruin, the streets filled with family members crying over their dead. Every where the mares looked, the disaster soon followed. All of them were speechless as they headed toward the castle. Upon reaching the doors, they were escorted by the royal guards to the princess, nothing out of place. " the princess must be so delighted to see us." Rarity said, breaking the silence. Spike stared back up at her. " isn't a bad thing when you 6 are summoned by a princess. " rarity shook her head. " we'll this quest seems a bit mild compared to the other things we've been called upon to complete." Rarity said. But as soon as they entered the throne room and looked upon the princess, rarity was soon eating her words. The princess looked , at the same time, stern and worried. Twilight immediately knew this was no small task. " princess." The 6 ponies said in unison. " yes, as you know I have requested you to find a way to end these tremors we've been having. It has killed many and mortally upset others. It would be pleasant to find their source and end them. " celestia spoke grimly. " we will do our best, princess." Twilight said. " there are a few complications with this quest." The princess said before pulling out a rack of hasmat suits. " the tunnels are contaminated with lethal amounts of radiation. You will need these to explore them." She finished as the former bearers of harmony stared speechless at the hasmat suits. Each one of them realizing the immense danger they would be in the presence of. Rarity found the courage to speak up. " and why would the tunnels be radioactive?" She said, more out of worry than curiosity. Celestia's face darkened as it filled with an even grimmer expression. " guards." She said firmly. As soon as they were recognized, they straightened up and stood still, waiting for their next order. " you may leave now, please." They took no spare time to quickly leave. " rarity and the rest of you, I have purposely neglected to inform you one last thing. " she walked over to a old , dust coated stained glass window, very similar to the others in the room. But this one was very, very different. Instead of pictures of heroes and heroines, villains and monsters, there was a sphere floating in a black void dotted with white spots, decorated like some one had painted them by pouring white paint through a strainer. The picture was odd. The spheres coloring and detail showed the left side as a blood red and dark orange covered landscape, sprinkled with odd looking towers. The towers were a pole with a umbrella like protrusion at the top. Fire could be seen on the edges of the sphere. Sky scrapers in ruins amongst blackened piles of rubble. While the right side was an exact opposite. Leafy green trees and grass were shown, with cheerful ponies playing under a light blue sky. Flowers littered the ground, and mountains could be seen In the distance. " this is how we came to be. Much like the story you all probably grew up with. The one that says we were the creation of intelligence, a god. And that the world we know was forged out of a thousand fires that were soon put out so grass could grow and the sky could turn blue. It is all based on truth. We were created by intelligence. But not a god. They are called humans. Bipedal creatures much like large hairless apes. They created us with an advanced magic that was more powerful then anything we have today. Unfortunately, they blew themselves up with extremely powerful weapons. Weapons that destroyed cities in less than five minutes. It also created radiation. Even though the planet is now perfect again for life, large deposits of radioactive waste left over from old human cities, still exist underground. I fear that new lava flow has created tunnels that lead directly to a deposit. That is why the lava tube is radioactive." Celestia lectured. Twilight in turn, said. " why would finding a deposit be such a bad thing? " celedtia sighed and lowered her head. She turned to face the stained glass window. " I fear the weapon the humans have will be reinvented here." Celestia stated quickly. Her tone of voice alone was enough to send images of a city disappearing In a flash of light and heat. They soon lifted their minds from thought and spoke. " I agree to go." Apple jack said. " so will I. " fluttershy agreed softly. " count me in!" Rainbow said excitedly, hiding her cowardly fears. Soon all the ponies agreed to task ahead. " I wish you best of luck." The princess said before watching the 6 ponies and the radiation suits teleport out of the room. Celestia had never felt so queasy before.

Soon after arriving at the tunnels, the mane six quickly put on the anti radiation suits. Twilight discovered, to her delight, that the suit had a Geiger counter. As soon as it was activated the machine started clicking slow and steady. Twilight smiled at having this one useful device.

The six ponies walked around the cliff they were below, looking for any tunnels as which to explore. Very quickly they discovered a huge entrance to a lava tube. The size of the opening could easily dwarf a hydra by yards. " this it?" Said applejack through the suit. Twilight shrugged as she lead them all in to the tunnel. But this was no ordinary lava tube. One side was a wall, carved from countless gallons of lava flowing through it every second, millions of years ago. However, on the opposite side was a obviously man made structure. It was rectangular and white ( although the white was almost all covered in strange burns marks that scorched the concrete wall black. " oh, is this one those structures from the human things celestia talked about?" The crazed pinkie pie asked. " I think it is." Fluttershy whispered. But her whisper was more of a shout in the silence. As the group approached the building, they noticed large areas on the wall that looked as though something had pulled part of the wall out. There were also huge scratch marks scoring the building. The most terrifying sign, however, were the piles of bones littering the tunnel floor. Every two feet the mares would only step into another pile. Twilight, out of curiosity, walked up to one of the piles, before her Geiger counter suddenly went off with a series of fast clicks. Twilights eyes opened wide before settling back into thought. " the bones are more irradiated than the tunnel." She said, her voice muffled by the suit. " that means that the have been here after the lava tube was created. What ever killed them was a more focused radiation." She finished. The other mares stayed in silence, only looking back at the building and then to twilight. Each one realized something. " that means the structure was built into the lava tube. " fluttershy stated, breaking the silence. The 6 mares then decided to approach the building once more. Upon finding a door, they entered. The first thing they noticed was the paper covering the dark room. As the mares came in farther, they looked at the papers realizing that they were magazines and newspapers as well as official looking documents. Rarity picked up what looked like a newspaper, only to drop it upon seeing the termites running across it. Twilight picked up the fallen news and tried her best to decipher the heading. all she could make out were a few words. " can you all please collect the papers please. I would like to study these when we have time. " she said. As they collected more papers, rainbow happened to unearth a control console Beneath a stack of newspapers. Out of curiosity she hit one of the buttons on it. To her surprise, a loud grinding sound shook the room in response. Twilight and rarity ran out side in time to hear a unearthly sound. The sound of a hawks screeching was heard throughout the tunnels although it was too loud for it to be a regular hawk. Rarity and twilight had to cover their ears to avoid getting their ear drums blown out. The rest of the mane 6 galloped out of the structure in time to see a distant orange glow in the dark tunnel. The glow got brighter and brighter as it got closer. The ponies stared in fright at what they must've thought was a rolling sea of molten rock, flowing straight for them. They decided to make a run for it. But as they got to the entrance, a huge shape flew over their heads, while emitting a fiery orange glow that heated the air around it. It flew out of the tunnel only allowing the frightened ponies to see two purple bird legs the size of the caunterlot castle. They knew this wasn't lava.

They grabbed their stuff and ran out.

It was a calm, cloudy night in caunterlot. Every pony was set to go to bed. Princess Luna had finished raising the moon, and was going to bed. As she started closing her eyes, the ground shook violently for a second before stoping. It was soon followed by a loud boom. Luna sat up in bed, looking around for the source. After a few seconds, a second quake and boom went off. Luna climbed out of her bed and walked over to her nearby window and looked out. She was frightened to see a titanic shape in the distance, that was quickly approaching the city. She ran full gallop to her sisters room to warn of the danger. Meanwhile, frightened citizens looked out their windows to see gigantic bird feet, smash down upon the street. Some ponies saw or felt a huge red and orange wing rub a few bricks loose off of buildings. The creature was so large most of it was hidden above the clouds, the only thing indicating its existance was an orange, red glow in the clouds, with two bright yellow ovals at the top. Twilight and her friends teleported on the top of the castle, just in time to see the monster stomp through caunterlot. They also saw the lines of military, which included tanks, helicopter gunships, chariot bombers and artillery, form in an arc in front of the castle. As the huge creature got within range, all hell broke loose. Machine guns fired from helicopters while the line of 50 tanks kept up a constant wall of lead. And the artillery fired bullets like there was no tomorrow. A squadron of chariot bombers flew over head, releasing their payload, creating a huge inferno around the front of the creature. Finally the commanders ordered to crease fire. As the smoke cleared, all silence was broken as a deafining hawks screech came out of the place the creature stood. The darkness lit up with a bright yellow glow, before an arc of fire shot out of the clouds with tremendous force, hitting the tanks and a few unfortunate helicopters, flinging the red hot vehicles backwards. . Slowly the clouds began to disperse revealing the monster. Twilight was shocked by its form. ' it's a Phoenix?' She thought surprised by the the size of the bird. It was red with an orange chest. It's primary feathers were sharp and an intermixing of red and orange. It's eyes were bight yellow ovals that were completely absent of pupils and iris's. the creature gave out a screech before walking forward. The angry monster started crashing through the military, swatting its wings, taking helicopters down, a lot at a time. The chariot bombers flew over head again, ready to drop a final payload. But the creature released another blast of fire on the bombers, catching them on fire, leading them to crash into the ground. One flew right at the castle missing the mane 6 by a few feet, before hitting the tower below them, the payload exploded, shaking the building. A brave helicopter flew up to the monsters head and released a volley of lead upon the creature. But the bullets just bounced of the creatures feathers. The annoyed bird pulled his head back before slamming the helicopter with the side of its beak. The helicopter went spinning out of control off the Side of the mountain. The pilot and gunner jumped out in time and landed safely on the ground, before running away. The monster then started making its way through the debris towards the castle. The frightened ponies looked up at the monster who dwarfed the castle. As it got closer the ponies could see the creatures shadow wash over them, draping the castle in darkness. Meanwhile, the princess made no haste of the escape from the castle. They dodged running ponies, and ran up stair cases and down stair cases. They were running down a corridor when a giant foot crashed into the middle of the hall. The princesses stopped just in Time to avoid being crushed. They stared in shock at the creature as it walked through the castle and behind it. They watched as the gigantic bird lifted its wings before taking flight to the sky's. the orange, red creature disapeared into the night, leaving behind a half destroyed city in its wake.