“Beneath a faltered sky; cross loamless plains, and watered blight. Ah! Where gone those days, once Glory shone so bright?”

“Ugh, my head.” Gauge groaned as she pulled herself from the mechanical boar. “Did we win?”

“She’s still alive!” Shadow cried out as he pulled another beam from the pile. It was unfortunately the only good news we had at the moment, but I’d be damned if I’d have ignored it. Anything to get my mind off of having just killed another friend.

“Gauge, we need to take tempest offline.” I called out to her.

“Wha?” She stumbled as she walked a few steps. She shook her mane, and I could see a line of blood running down the side of her head. “Yeah, okay.” She looked up at me with unfocused eyes and gave a small nod. “We have to get to her core.”

Predious, like always, was a step ahead. He was already over at the computer spire, typing on the terminal and staring down the very unhappy looking reproduction of the goddess of the moon. Gauge stumbled her way over to me, and I positioned myself between her and the pile that Tasteless was under. If she didn’t make it, I didn’t want Gauge to be distracted. Not until Tempest was done.

In a move that truly surprised me, she didn’t even glance at the pile of steel beams as we trotted past it. She had her eyes locked on Tempest, and even before we got close, her horn glowed as she drew her precious rocket launcher out. Unless she was going to beat Tempest to death with it, it was a pretty useless thing to carry around with her.

“You have no idea the events that you have set in motion, do you?” Tempest still had the illusion of arrogance as she sat imprisoned in her gilded tower. She looked directly at me from her large monitor and smiled. “You may have overridden my ability to keep the internal lockdown, but while you were busy with killing more ponies, I’ve activated the external lockdown.”

“So what?” Gauge snapped at her. “What’s one more door to melt through after I’m done taking you apart piece by piece?”

“Oh, I’m afraid that you’ll be quite dead by the time that you even got through half of that door.” She laughed heartily. “Command Emergency, celestial tier breach detected.” With every word, that pit I had in my stomach got wider and wider. “Initiating Orchard area denial protocol.” The lighting in the whole room dimmed and shifted to a crimson color. From down the halls of the rest of the facility, I could hear alarm bells start to ring.

“Shit, what the fuck is she doing?” Predious grunted as he hit keys rapidly with his horn. Lines of code ran across the terminal screen in front of him, but I knew it wasn’t displaying anything good.

I lifted my pipbuck up and hoped that Pai was listening. “What the hell is she talking about?” Nothing came through while Tempest sat there giggling like a filly. “Pai, fucking answer me!”

“Storm?” Ficha’s voice came over the intercom system. “I think now would be a good time to get to that vault and get whatever it is that you came here for.” Through the intercom, I thought I could make out Cottage cursing under his breath between the rapid toggling of switches. “There’s a timer here counting down, and it doesn’t have long on it.”

My vision shifted to pink as Pai’s voice came through, “Sorry, I had to dig into the files to find out what she’s even talking about.” Even Pai sounded panicked, which was definitely not fucking good. “The generators in this place were supposed to have been worked into the failsafe system in this place.”

“We already delt with that.” Gauge growled. Tempest’s face shattered with the rest of the screen, silencing her for what I hoped was forever. “Those reactors were vented.”

“Wrong,” Pai replied quickly. “The resort above may have run on those, but this place is powered by a pair of geothermal generators sitting a thousand feet below you. The resort wasn’t built on an island, it was built on top of a dormant volcano.” Yup, fuck my life. “There didn’t need to be anything more than shutting off the coolant to force the generators to overload.”

“She’s forcing an eruption?” I asked her as Predious continued to loudly hammer at the keys with his magic.

“O-one moment,” Predious stammered before hitting the return key. “There!” The terminal screen flickered and shifted to a running countdown clock. The number displayed was not encouraging.

Gauge however, forcefully shoved him with her cyberhoof. “Out of the way.” She stepped up to the terminal and worked over the keys with her magic. “Your typing form is amateurish, and your code exploitation is spotty at best.” She sneered as the screen returned to scrolling code. Far be it for me to understand how she could read what came up as fast as it scrolled, but I was glad she was here now. “Okay, if Cottage is anywhere half as competent a coder as he is a ranger, we should be able to lift the external lockdown in time.”

Pushing myself to move, I gave Pred a pat on the side and trotted toward the door that lead deeper into the facility. “Okay, if we’ve got a time limit, so does Filius.” The flutter of wings got my attention, and I turned around to find both Shadow and Tasteless hovering towards me in each others hooves. However, Tasteless flew at an odd angle. Jutting out, it was a hell of a sight to see her wing was broken and twisted into a near ninety degree angle.

That however, hadn’t been her only injury. Her foreleg was split where her bone had broken through, and she had a gash across her chest big enough that I could see multiple ribs. Not a single one of her cybernetic parts was left unmangled or sheared open. Still, Tasteless soldiered on, even if she looked like she was about ready to keel over.

“Let’s go kill that bastard already.” She wheezed with a glare that could cut through the hardest steel.

I needed all the help I could get, but she was more of a danger to herself in this condition.

“No,” I sighed and looked up to Shadow. “Get her back to the control room.” I held my hoof up to her as she started to object. “I can’t babysit you when you’re this injured, so you’re going back.” I gave her my own glare. While she didn’t look pleased, she at least turned around.

“Be careful.” Shadow offered as he turned with her.

“We will be.” I said softly. There wasn’t any safe way that we could proceed. It was a race to the finish, and we had to go. As I turned back toward the door, the Major trotted up alongside of Pred and I.

“Promise me this,” He smiled as we started down the long hall. “If I don’t make it, make sure to get the other lads upstairs back home.” As he turned his gaze to me, he looked sad. “They deserve to go back home after all they’ve given here.” He glanced back down the hallway again and sighed. “Besides. With our curious affliction, maybe one of their families made it through to now.”

“What about you?” Predious asked. “You put the emphasis on them going home. Do you not feel you deserve to?”

“I lost my wife the moment my little filly came into the world.” He had a thousand yard stare as we walked, laughing sadly as he spoke in hushed tones. “And in turn, I lost her in the attack on littlehorn.” With a sniffle, he shook free of his memories and smiled to me. “It’s why I joined the army. I haven’t been home for a long time, and the thought of going back…” He drifted off as we reached the end of the hall.

“I… I understand.” Predious nodded and gave the Major a pat on the back as we entered the next section of the orchard. “Believe me, I understand.”

To be honest, I don’t know what I thought the rest of the trot to the artifact would be like. I’d really hoped that it’d have been a walk in the park, but of course, it wasn’t. Just opening the door to the next section we’d found the reason why we hadn’t found any of the staff. Should have guessed that Filius had them.

I fired a shot at the horde of ponies as they streamed into the warehouse. The dried corpse of a mare screamed as half of it’s head blasted off with a puff of dust. Predious worked his minigun in small bursts, cutting lines of the bastards down as they came after us. This warehouse hadn’t even been used for anything it seemed, and that was a damn shame, because I could have used some Celestia damned superweapons right about now!

“We should fall back!” The Major shouted between shots from his pistol.

“Negative!” I snapped back at him. With a flick, I pulled up SATS and cued up three more headshots. The assisted targeting program gave a ninety five percent chance for each shot, but that didn’t surprise me. The spell resolved, and in a blink of an eye, three zomponies were no longer a problem.

The corpses hadn’t even attempted to dodge our fire, and just fell without a fight. The problem is even so, this was a battle of attrition, and one we were losing. They were still pouring into the room, and I knew we couldn’t sustain this kind of fire much longer.

“Reloading!” Predious shouted as he streamed out another lengthy belt from his pack. “Last belt!” The ammo counter in my vision read that I only had two more shots left, and reloading right now wasn’t going to be an option. “I hope you have a plan!”

“Shut the door we came in from!” I shouted. “I have an idea!” It wasn’t much of a plan, but I could cut their numbers in half if this worked. Well, so long as there weren’t too many more of these things waiting to get in.

The major nodded and fired off a few more shots as he stepped back toward the door. I brought up my lever action and fired twice. The two closest zomponies went down hard and skidded across the floor towards us. They hadn’t even slowed to a stop before Pred’s gun opened up again.

“Hold up, coming through!” Shadow’s voice shouted as he shot past us the air like a missile. His energy rifle whined as it fired a burst of bolts down into the crowd. A few of them melted to dust, but the heat from the bolts of energy caught the surrounding ponies on fire.

I don’t know why, but they screamed and dropped to the floor, desperately trying to put themselves out. They didn’t care about being shot, but fire seemed to be painful to them. It didn’t make sense, but fuck, it was an advantage we could exploit. The metal blast door slammed shut behind us with a resounding thud. I quickly slung my rifle around my neck and pointed to the other door.

“Pred, carve us a path to that exit! Once we’re through, we’ll shut the door and keep the bulk of them contained.” I screamed out as I charged at one of the zomponies that worked it’s way around Pred’s fire. “Shadow,” Mid shout, I planted my forehooves down and spun myself, kicking with a hard buck that connected to something that snapped. “Keep shooting them! Light them up!”

I was about to turn around when it felt like somepony stabbed me in the flank. With a scream, I bucked hard again and caved in the chest of a stallion. With predious now cutting a path through the middle, the zomponies had changed tactics. They split off into two streams, leaving an open path for us. In doing so, pred couldn’t put them all down anymore, and they’d really started to surround us.

I turned and gave another charging mare a solid uppercut, but that left me exposed from the side. One of them swung back, catching me across my jacket with their dried forehoof. It sheared through the leather and grazed my side. With another buck, I snapped their neck into a ninety degree angle and put them on the floor.

The stabbing sensation was back with a vengeance as one of them pounced on my side. They bit down on the back of my neck, and I flailed as I whined. Their painful bite only released when the last round in the Major’s gun tore through their head and dropped them down. There were too many to deal with inside now, and we had to move.

We joined up with Pred when he’d had moved up almost to the door. The stream bent around us in a comical fashion. The minigun’s barrels glowed from overuse as they spun, and Pred’s horn sparked as he twisted and fired again and again. Whining zots from Shadow’s rifles came at regular intervals, striking the groups that swarmed around our flanks.

“Alright, get ready to run!” I shouted just as we reached the door. In a small mercy, the streams on zomponies had slowed to a trickle. Shadow darted past us and through the doorway, slamming into the bright hallway with a crunch and a whine. “Now!”

Pred and I both dove through the doorway while the Major curled around the corner and slammed the emergency release. The horrendous shrieks and growls of the zomponies on our heels were ended with a satisfying crunch as the thick door slammed them to dust. Still, there were others in here to deal with.

Scrambling to get back to my hooves, I looked up and watched as one of the former staff slammed into the major and brought him to the floor. With a quick twitch and hearty snap, the Major spun the pony’s head right around and pushed it off himself.

Once I was up, I glanced at the marker for the direction of the artifact is. Funny enough, it traced a line straight down this hallway. As I looked along it, down past the zomponies galloping at us, a dark figure moved into the center of the hall. I grew cold at the sight. As it turned to me, even from this far, I could see his piercing green eyes.

It was him.

“Filius!” I screamed at him. Without a thought, I burst straight into a gallop. He simply smiled and turned down the hallway away from me. He was so close, I couldn’t let him get there first! As I galloped, for some reason, the zomponies ignored me. My friends behind me screamed something out, but Filius’s voice rang through my mind louder.

“You could feel it’s pain, could you not?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I growled and charged headlong towards the bright room. “Get out of my head.”

“Do not lie to me, child!” He snapped in my mind. “You have been kissed by a wendigo. It is the final curse of a dying god.”

“Those things aren’t gods!” I shouted back, trying to ignore him. In the heart of the glowing room, I could make out a pedestal with something on it. It was a red glow surrounded by a blue light, and I knew that had to be it. “They’re monsters, just like you.”

“Some called Discord that.” His laugh resonated in my mind. “Ponies give many cruel names to that which they do not understand.” He stepped back into the doorway of the bright room as I approached. It was when his magic picked me right off my hooves that I found that charging him had been a bad call. “Who knows? Some may learn to call you that, in time.”

I shreaked as his magic pulled me towards him faster. I flailed my hooves, trying to get myself to slow, but it was to no avail. I let out a scream as he stepped out of the way. With a thick snap, I hurdled right through the pedestal that held up whatever object that Filius desired. I smashed against the back wall, shattering the glass mirror surface of it. Pain coursed through every part of me, and a familiar heavy slam of a closing blast door made the room go momentarily dark. A single light above where the pedestal once sat flickered on, bouncing it’s beams all around the mirrored chamber. On the other side of it, sat Filius.

“Somehow, you have seen what drove me to the truth of ponykind, and how those around me drove me to give myself to those so called 'monsters' so that I could save this world from it's annihilation.” He used his physical voice to speak in a hoarse, raspy tone. “Let me show you the most important moment of that long ago time.” His horn flashed and hit me with a beam of soft light.

My pain started to drain away, and I felt tired. My vision faltered, and my eyes grew weary. The last thing I could make out before the darkness took me, was the silver amulet of one of the goddesses. It’s bright red, centerset gem held a warm glow that helped usher me off into the land of times long past...

I stood in the middle of my dark mind again, but no pillars of light were to be found. As the elements had once done, a sphere formed before me. Slowly, it resolved into an odd scene. It was a dark room, lit by hundreds of candles, and many tabards with ancient symbols on them. The whole layout was much as it had the first time I’d seen Filius’s past, but this time, there was a mare tied and gagged in the center of it all, and a robed figure standing over her with a knife.

“In binding this soul,” Filius spoke in the exact same tone as he had then, but this time didn’t hesitate. In one fluid motion, he plunged the knife into her chest. With a muffled scream and a struggle that slowly stopped, she died there on the floor. “I pledge myself to the whims of the stars.”

A near blinding white light swirled out of the mare’s chest and into the air. The tabards on the walls fluttered in the arcane breeze, and the light coiled itself into a ball. With the speed of a bullet, it shot straight at Filius. The light arced around him, turning a brilliant red before curling around and pouring into a silver object on his chest. As the light bled off, the silver object glowed softly.

The door to the chamber burst off its hinges. Filius raised a hoof and a bubble deflected the high speed door off to the side. With an angry grunt, Gallant burst in clad in full armor. He skid to a stop in horror as he observed the corpse of the mare on the floor. Behind him, other robed ponies came in and pulled back their hoods in shock.

“No… Merry.” His sad words were punctuated with the tensing of his muscles and the drawing of his sword. “Filius, what have you done?”

“What I should have long ago.” Filius pulled back his cowl, revealing the same amulet around his neck that was in the chamber I was now asleep in. “The princess is weak after sending her sister away, and she is no longer fit to protect the ponies of this country.” He smiled and put a hoof on his chest. “I will bring balance to this world!”

“And for that you murdered Merry?” Gallant, growled out in fear as he took a heavy step forward. “For that, you murdered my wife?” He swung his sword at Filius, but the magical shield just simply shrugged it off.

“Fool!” Filius snapped. In an instant, the shield morphed and wrapped itself around Gallant, lifting him into the air. “Her death was a necessary sacrifice to ending all conflict in equestria forever!” He swung his horn around, flinging Gallant over and across the room. In a brilliant recreation of what I’d done, he slammed against the wall with a crunch and crumpled onto the floor.

“You’ve gone mad.” Gallant whined with a gurgling gasp. Slowly, he pulled himself back up to his hooves. “Necromancy has poisoned your soul.” He coughed, spitting blood onto his armor. Filius’s magic wrapped around him again and lifted him up. “I told you, lich magic was too dangerous. You’ve…”

“Don’t tell me your lies!” Filius threw him again, this time against the wall by where he’d come in. The other robed ponies there scrambled to get out of the way. “As for the rest of you heathens, the gods above command the end to all conflict, and they have told me that ponykind is the source! You shall join me to help reach this goal, or die.” He smiled and held his hooves out to other robed unicorns. “Join me, and I…”

“Don’t listen…” Gallant coughed and slowly crawled back onto his hooves. His armor was badly warped, his horn was visibly cracked, and he bled heavily from one side of his head. For a unicorn, he sure could take a beating. “You can’t do this, Filius. It’s not the way…”

“I thought you were stronger than this, Gallant? You should at least make me work for my victory a bit more.” Filius sighed and wrapped his friend in his magic again. “I guess, why try when you have no hope in stopping me from my destiny?”

Bloody and beaten, Gallant still managed to smile. It was something that dropped Filius’s muzzle to a grimace.

“You think I’m fighting you?” Gallant gave a wheezing laugh, wincing as the magic around him constricted. “The princess has taught me many things. One is that true strength doesn't lie in oneself.” He glanced at the other ponies in robes around him. “It lies in those around you!” With that, the other unicorns pointed their horns at him. Each one fired a beam of black and green, concentrating on Filius.

“What?” Filius shouted as he tried to protect himself. Before he could raise his shield, he let out an agonizing scream. Once his bubble was around him, the force holding Gallant released. The inside of Filius’s bubble smoked from the blasts on him, but he still stood there. “You may have bested me with that little trick, but the amulet is now more powerful than you could even imagine. Your simple ‘harm’ spells won’t kill me any longer.”

“Mine wasn’t a harm spell, master Filius.” One of the necromancer’s stepped forward. A young looking mare with a blue coat and a white and purple striped mane. “It was a petrification spell.” She smirked smugly. “In a few moment’s, it should take effect.”

“What insolence is this!” Filius tugged against his own hooves as if they were glued to the floor. Slowly, his body started to change to white. “Manteía, my apprentice,” His tone shifted as suddenly as the favor had in this fight. “Why have you betrayed me when you alone were my brightest disciple?”

“Because I too have heard what the gods have said.” She snarled and stepped up to him. “They speak in rhymes and riddles. In cryptic phrases that lead to nowhere.” As the white rose up to Filius’s shoulders, she shook her head at him, standing right outside the magical sphere. “They are tricksters who make you believe in lies. What they have promised you is a fate worse than death, and I will not let you force any more innocents to suffer your own pain.”

“One day, I’ll be strong enough to return.” Filius laughed. “You will all have wasted away to time, but I will carry on my work!” The white rose up around his head, slowly freezing him in the pose of laughter. With the petrification complete, his magic died, and the amulet dropped to the floor with a clunk.

“It will not hold him forever.” Gallant gasped as he slowly hobbled his way forward. “I shall have him moved to tartarus immediately.”

“No, not back to Tartarus.” Manteia sighed. “He would only find a way to escape.”

“Then what alternative do you offer?” Gallant groaned and held a hoof to his bleeding head.

“Seal him away in a tomb that can never again be opened. Leave him to rot for the eternity he has cursed himself with.” She stared at the amulet on the floor with a frown and floated it up to her. “Leave the amulet to me. I will seek to hide it as far from here as I can. If he should ever be reunited with it…” She glanced at him. “Celestia herself couldn’t save us.”

“Oh goddesses,” I groaned. “My fucking head.”

“That, my dear,” Filius chimed in with a soft note to his voice. “Is the least of your worries now that I have my alicorn amulet once more.” His magic wrapped around me like it had with Gallant. I screamed at the pain and wrenched at his hold. From all around me, blue fire burst out and shattered his magic, dropping me to the floor again. Like Gallant, I pulled myself to my hooves.

My little fire trick was strong enough to beat his magic, which meant I was strong enough to beat him.

In the reflection of the mirrored chamber, I could see myself. Bruised, cut, and bloody, I looked like hell. That was fine, because hell was what I was about to bring against him.

"Never again will you hurt anypony!" I felt the flames inside roar to life as I spun and bucked hard into his side. He screamed as the blue flames seared his hide. "Never again will you terrorize the wastelands!" I charged at him as he picked himself up, throwing myself into him. The blue flames flowed over him from me. He slid to the floor, smoking and locked in a gasp of pain. It was his turn to slam into one of the mirrored walls and shatter it.

"W-what are you?" He groaned from the floor. "How are you even possible!"

A flickering in the mirrors caught my eyes. The blue flames that flowed from me had taken shape. A set of ethereal flame wings flared from where a pegasus's wings would have. Joining them, was a long ethereal horn that jut from the center of my forehead. I looked just like the goddesses, and I knew that while they weren't functional, they were there for a reason. I'd been made for this purpose. A century and a half late, I'd finally embodied the element I was born to protect.

"I am hope incarnate, and I'll..." I'd begun to say before a searing pain slammed against my side. I screamed out as I felt my mind reel more than my body. Everything in my head jumbled up as I slid across the floor. My limbs locked up as I felt like a million jolts of lightning worked through them.

"Typical," Filius laughed. "Standing there and monologuing, just like the fools of old." As my vision focused again, I could see a bright red light shimmering on his chest. The alicorn amulet glowed brilliantly as he wrapped his magic around himself. "You all think that you are so righteous, so infallible, that you forget that you are just ponies." A twisted smile spread his muzzle as he started to laugh. Slowly, he levitated himself into the air. "Powerful magic or no, you are still only a pitiful earth pony."

With every ounce I could pour into it, I worked myself back onto my hooves. Slowly but surely, I got up. The flames of hope roared to life again, flaring out from my hooves as I pushed myself back up. I could do this, I had to!

A head on attack from me was stupid. I’d played right into his hooves and he simply rolled himself and countered with his own beam. It burned less than the previous attack, but it shot me back against another glass wall.

"I on the other hoof, am so much more than you could ever comprehend." He lowered his horn and pointed it at me. "And now that I have been reunited with my masterpiece, I need only one more thing to rid this wretched land of all life.” He paused and smiled a deranged grin, his eyes glowing even brighter as he looked right at me.

“However, you will be correct in one regard, Miss Storm." He loosed another beam at me. I tried to dodge it, but he simply corrected his aim. As nimble of a fighter as I am, I can't move faster than magic. I screamed as my mind jumbled again, and I dropped to the floor with a thump. My vision returned quickly again, giving me time to see him as a magic bubble formed around him.

"After I'm finished, never again will I hurt anypony." His horn and eyes glowed even brighter than the amulet did. "After my ritual, there will be nopony left alive to hurt." With an arcane snap, he disappeared in a flash.

He was gone. I'd failed.

A banging on the steel blast door startled me.

“Storm?” Shadow’s voice came through muffled, but strong. “All the ponies out here just collapsed. Please tell me you aren’t dead in there.” I didn’t know what to tell him. How could I say anything? I had the perfect chance to end this once and for all, and what did I do? I fucked it up. “Storm?” His voice waivered a little bit.

Still, sitting in this place until it explodes isn’t going to help anypony.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” I shouted, wincing as my body reminded me that I’d just been Filius’s ragdoll for the last however many minutes. In the mirror, the flames around me had gone, and only the scar’s that I’d have would be left to remind me of my failure. “Can you open the door?”

“Uhh,” He didn’t sound too happy, “I really had thought the controls would be on your side.”

I looked over to the door and did my best to pull myself up to my hooves. My rear right leg gave out under me, and I could feel the break in the bone tear at my leg. Doing my best to ignore the pain, I looked all over the walls, but besides the broken mirrors, this whole room was smooth walls.

“There’s nothing in here to open it with.” That would definitely put a damper on the whole ‘not dying’ thing. “Can you get Pred? Maybe he can open it.”

“Once the ponies stopped attacking, he left to escort the Major back. The both of them were pretty torn up after the fight.” He tapped on the door lightly. “Cottage and Gauge managed a work around to the lockdown. They got one exit open, and they’re getting everypony out. I just need to get you back to the control room.” There was a heavy thump followed by a muffled gasp. “I have an idea!” An idea was something at the very least. “Is there anything you can hide behind in there?”

“No, but I’ll get as far from the door as I can.” Ideas that required cover weren’t ones I much cared for, but I didn’t have a choice. Backing up against the broken shards of mirror, it was a mistake to look down at my pipbuck.

“Okay, once my rifle overloads, you’ll need to jump through the door before it melts!” Wait, what? “Make sure to watch for melted slag drops when you do! Don’t let them touch your skin.” Oh, this wasn’t going to be fun.

“Fire in the hole!” Shadow’s muffled voice came through, preempting a high tone whine that reminded me of pallet’s machine. A thick snap that cracked through the air wasn’t really the blast I was expecting, but the bright blue light forced me to shield my vision.

Blinking the blue light out of my vision, a glowing two pony wide hold was left where most of the blast door once sat. The smell of ozone was overwhelming, and the hissing drops of molten steel that dripped from the hole made me cringe. On the other side of the death door, sat a nervous looking Shadow.

A beep on my pipbuck made me look at it again.

“I’m not going to die here.” I muttered to myself more as a prayer than anything.

On three legs, hope and a prayer would have to do as I pushed myself off. A thick stream of molten slag dropped off the melting steel and splashed onto the bottom of the door. I couldn’t think of that! With my odd gait, I focused on Shadow. I needed to get to him. I wanted to get to him! At the last second, I screamed and closed my eyes, throwing myself through the opening.

Pain burst all across my body, and I screamed out. I didn’t know if I’d been drenched by the whole door, or just a drop, but I didn’t care. Opening my eyes, I squirmed to try to find the burn, but I found none. It had only been the rest of my injuries that flared from smacking into the floor. A prick in my neck caused the pain to ebb away. Shadow spat out a vial of Med x and closed a small flap on his armor.

“You’re out, you’re safe.” Shadow, rushed over to me and wrapped his hooves around me. “Now let’s go.” He pulled me up only my hooves, and immediately I screamed as my rear hoof let out another painful crack.

“My leg, it’s broken.” I whined through my gnashing teeth. If I couldn’t run…

“Hang on, I got you.” With more speed than I’d anticipated, he grabbed his hooves around my chest and flapped hard. His power armored flight was much stronger than any pegasus I’d ever encountered in the wastes. In seconds, we were darting through the warehouse and down through the open blast door of the other side.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I was both panicking and laughing. Every beat of his wings filled me with both fear and excitement. Every second was an eternity that moved far too fast. “You said the others were already getting out?”

“That was more than five minutes ago.” Shadow grunted as he curved us out of the other warehouse and down the hallway to the command center. “You were in that room for a long time, Storm.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” I sighed.

Before I could say anything else, he swung us into the command room. Everyone else was gone, but the Major was standing at the switchboard, his hooves outstretched to each side firmly pressing a pair of buttons.

“Come on, let’s go.” Shadow ordered with an authority that probably came from life in the military. “We’re evacing, now!”

“Sorry, but if I don’t hold these buttons, the override resumes.” The major whined as his hooves shook. “I can’t leave. There’s nothing in Equestria left for me.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “This place has been my home for over a century, and I would like to end my service here.”

I didn’t want to agree. I wanted to get out of here without losing anymore ponies. Even if I’d wanted to argue, we didn’t have time. Pred’s earlier words about leadership came to mind, and I knew what I had to say. “Equestria thanks you for your service, major.” I held a forehoof to my head in a salute that brought a smirk to his face. “You are relieved.”

“Very relieved.” He smiled and pointed to the door. “Best get going. Less than a minute now.” As Shadow took off again, the major yelled out to us through the halls. “Good luck, and godspeed!”

The air was getting hotter than any fire I’d been in as we twisted down the next hallway. With a sharp turn, Shadow steered us into one of the ruined labs we’d passed on the way down here. At the back, sat a very large elevator shaft. He flapped hard as he pulled up.

My brain did as many flops as my stomach did as it tried to reorient to upward flight. A muffled explosion came from below that started a rumble that grew with each passing second. A small square that streamed daylight sat ahead, and it looked like one of the main elevator shafts to the hotel joined up with this one. With a quick twist, Shadow pulled us over and into it. Just as he started to slow us to get through the door to the lobby, another explosion forced a blast of air up from below. It caught his wings and sent us spiraling upwards even higher.

“Shit! Thermals!” He snapped and pushed us up higher. “The air below us is pushing us up, I can’t get us back to the lobby.” Well, that was shit news. “We’re going all the way up, hold on!”

“Do I have a choice?” I screamed as we resumed our torpedo like climb through the tube. The rumbling was near deafening now, and the whole building vibrated heavily. Another light streamed through the shaft up ahead, and Shadow started to slow us much sooner than before. As we reached it, he maneuvered us through the heavily rusted door frame and into the hall of one of the resort floors.

The hallway ended in an open air balcony that Shadow pushed us toward, soaring past all the rotted furniture and two hundred year old room service carts that lay rusting in the hallway. Now panting heavily, he pushed us even faster, speeding us out into the open air with incredible speed.

Looking at my pipbuck one last time, confirmed the worst.

As the timer hit zero, the hotel building gave off a crunching like gravel, and a resounding explosion sounded from far below. Shockwaves radiated out from the island through the water, racing off towards the still dispersing stormclouds on the horizon. With a tortured groan, the heavily melted storm generator tiled and sheared from the building, tumbling down the other side from us. With a resounding slam, it, the windego, and Fruit’s body were left in a crumpled heap of steel.

Soaring through the air was less amazing than I'd imagined it would be, more so with the cringe inducing cracks coming from the old pre-war concrete. Looking down, not even the subpen was immune from the massive vibrations that each tremor shot across the island.

Part of the roofing had collapsed inward, and through the smallish hole in the middle of its twisted rebar edges, I could barely make out the nose of the submarine as it hastily retreated. With all the shaking, there was no way I’d trust that stupid walkway inside. Shadow would have to fly us around.

Then, without warning, we pitched sharply down directly towards the hole.

"No, no, no!" I screamed out. "There's no way we'll fit!"

"Oh, We'll fit!" Shadow laughed as we plummeted out of the sky like a missile.

I screamed and pulled my limbs in tight, wondering if in the next few moments I'd have escaped the hell below the resort just to become a grey and red smear only feet away from escape. At the last second, Shadow pulled me close, wrapping his armored wings around us. We shot through the jagged gap like a bullet out of a gun. As soon as we'd cleared it, Shadow flared his wings and pulled up.

We sailed through the air, my hooves dangling only inches above the water. The monolith of the Sub's conning tower grew close, and as we approached, Shadow pitches us up and carefully slowed us to a stop. As soon as he lowered me enough, I wriggled from his hooves and fell onto the hard metal with a painful, but relieved sigh.

"Told you we'd fit." He landed next to me with a smile.

"Bet you say that to all the mares." I grumbled as he twisted the hatch open. Though I’d failed to stop Filius like I should have, we still had a shot. Filius needed to get his ritual set up, and I would be willing to bet that it’s going to take time. For now, we go rest up, regroup, and figure out where he’s likely to set his ritual up. With any luck, and if I could figure out how to control this blue flame shit, we’d have a decisive advantage in the fight.

As I watched the resort burn in the flames of volcanic destruction, I thought back to the fact that a ritual was something Gallant had tried to save Filius from both times. Whispering under my breath, I prayed that we could finally do what Gallant couldn’t and stop him once and for all.