Revitheon.

Denethios.

Dathes.

Herathor.

Adventios.

The squad of marines had faced much, one could say, and they had most certainly faced worse than what they stood in the middle of at this current time. But so isolated, so absolutely cut off from reinforcements, resupply or evacuation? Herathor had already chewed through a single ammo box for his heavy bolter, and just over half of his current magazine was spent already, and was continuing to be spent more generously than Adventios would have liked. Revitheon was wounded, though not particularly badly, but the joints in his armour had collectively allowed over half a dozen magna rounds to pierce through. Though to the common eye he shrugged these wounds off without a second thought Adventios could see he was steadily beginning to slow. Herathor remained unharmed, but his entire right pauldron had been blasted off by some form of grenade launcher. Dathes and Denethios both were largely unharmed say for a few scrapes and scratches, and Adventios was much the same besides a magna round that had punched into his side that was still gnawing at him with a stinging pain.

Shade snatcher kicked in his hands in rattling bursts, another federation soldier bursting apart in a spray of gore and broken bones. Herathor's heavy bolter barked again and again, sending ruined chunks of corpses flying away a dozen feet from a wide crimson smear. The other three paced their fire as best they could, but everyone had cooked through at least half their ammunition supplies, and the ranks of white armoured aliens was failing to slacken. Another burning alien projectile snapped off of the contoured surface of the sergeants' left pauldron, biting yet another small fragment of armour away. His bolter swung about and up, bringing the dual barrels to bear straight at the soldier firing at him from a second floor window in a nearby, half-ruined building. A thunderous response from his weapon caused his assailant to die in a puff of red mist that squirted out the window frame, and with the prominent threat dealt with his attention focused once again on the seemingly ever-replenishing firing line that formed in the road ahead of the squad.

A federation benefactors' head snapped back, a fountain of blood spurting from a neat hole in the side of his skull as an equestrian royal guard located somewhere out of sight, most likely hold up in a building around the corner besides the feds, put a low caliber round right through the aliens' brain. Another round flecked off of another nearby benefactors' angular shoulder mounted battle armour, and another a few second later tore the throat out from an alien that turned to fire at the guard. Another three, then four benefactors all turned and started hammering fire into whatever had fired on them, leaving Adventios to hope the guard had done the smart thing and swiftly relocated after that last kill. However not two seconds after the aliens had turned, a trio of winged natives, all in beaten and worn golden armour, swooped down from behind the firing line, their handheld sub-machine guns rattling as they made their dive. One alien was almost torn in two at the waist by the flurry of fire, another next to it having the incoming bullets patter against its' frontal chest plate as it turned, a lucky shot spinning him around on the spot as it clipped its' shoulder.

The aliens' returned fire, a pair with their own stocky automatic weapons peppering fire into the oncoming aggressors. Crimson round lanced through the sky like an angry tornado, the natives swerving and pulling up to avoid being caught in the hailstorm. One of the three wasn't fast enough however, his entire left side being ripped apart, his left wing being blasted to scattered feathers and mangled tissue. The dying pony entered a tumbling dive, hurtling towards a point near to the space marine squad. His body hit the ground with a loud thump and a sickening crack, his spine shattered in at least a dozen places upon impact.

Her spine, even.

Adventios couldn't help but stare on for only a couple seconds, soaking in the image that dug a deep pit of pity into his gut. Her features must have once been fair, her face full and neatly rounded. Her red mane of hair must have once been full and , presumably, well styled considering the hints of artificial product that still lay within it. Her fur was a sun-kissed orange, her eyes and brilliant and bright turquoise, her limbs graceful and slight. Her body must have once been a collection of comforting qualities, and now was dead. Ruined. Shattered. Half pulped and bloodied, her jaw loose and agape, her one good eye half-rolled into the back of her head, deep purple blood spattered and smeared over almost every inch of her. Her split stomach had leaked some of her innards while her limbs now twisted in unnatural, gruesome ways. Adventios felt a need to walk over. Her knew he couldn't save her. He knew he couldn't do anything he could be sure would mean anything to anyone. He would have just liked to tidy her up after a battle well fought. Closed her eye, rolled her body over, straightened her limbs out, perhaps even find her undoubtedly mangled firearm and lay it atop her. She deserved nothing less.

She deserved to be alive.

Hatred swelled in his heart, his face a scorn behind his mask as he turned again to march forward, storm bolter rattling with fire.

"We break their line! Herathor, destroy the supports next to them!" The sergeant ordered.

Herathor swerved his fire about, his bolts hammering into support pillars at the base of an overwatch tower located next to the firing line. A risky strategy, each pillar was as thin as half a man and no easy target whilst under fire, but Herathor had struck done far more difficult targets before, he couldn't afford to lapse in his skill now. True to his hopes one of the pillar blasted away, another soon followed and with a tortured groan the tower twisted and toppled. The aliens beneath were crushed in an instant, those not outright pulverized screamed and yelped pathetically as limbs were trapped and squashed.

"More targets closing from the north-north-east!" Revitheon grunted as he consulted his auspex scanner.

"Move, down the street! Close formation!" Adventios barked as the five of them took off.

"Wait...I'm getting sporadi-" Revitheon was about to finish before something collided into him from above, Adventios and the others looking up just in time to see two other large figures descend atop of them.

"Into the buildings!" The sergeant called out as he made a sharp dive to the side, barrelling through the front of what was once a shop of some kind, coming to a kneel and bringing up his weapon to scan for targets.

The rest of the squad followed his example, but the walls between the shops and homes they all dove into separated his brothers from the sergeants' line of sight, leaving him with only their identification runes to track their location on his HUD. The diamond-shaped icons bobbed and wavered as his brother dodged and ducked from enemy fire that reigned from above and in front. Three of their assailants stood before them, two that Adventios could see, one charging right towards him, gun ablaze. They were the augmented soldiers of the Federation, like those he had encountered upon first meeting the aliens in the underground catacombs. His storm bolter raged with fire, but only a handful of the rounds that he fired hit home, the aliens' reflexes being far faster than the average soldier, enough to dance through many of the rounds fired at him. Those that struck were rendered inaffective, a crimson energy shield detonating the rounds before they ever reached their target, the single round that breached the shield blasting away a fist-sized segment of the aliens' powered armour, but failing to stop or slow him.

With a grunt the fed drew a short combat blade from a hidden compartment within his armours' chest segment, swinging wide to strike as Adventios' midsection. The sergeant backed away, smashing through a desk with his mighty legs as he drew his chainsword from the back of his waist, engine roaring, teeth spinning. He made a wide slashing motion to assure some distance between him and his foe, the attack working as he'd hoped and seeing the nimble soldier backflip away from the swing. Adventios took the opening dashing straight forward, sword arm oustretched as he went for a strike against the aliens' stomach. The blow was batted aside, the soldier slamming into the side of the sword with his gauntlet, rushing forth himself to stab downwards towards the marines' neck. Adventios brought up his shoulder, his pauldron whining as it raised to intercept the blow. The aliens' swing was strong, strong enough to bite into the pauldron ceramite plate and send a jolt through the sergeants' shoulder.

He knew he needed distance as his ally once again, he couldn't afford to delay any longer.

Bringing his sword arm in, Adventios struck out into the aliens' helmeted face, knocking him up and over, sending him falling back into the far wall of the shops' interior. The soldiers' facial visor had been half shattered by the blow, leaving a single, pale eye staring at the space marine with cold hatred.

"When I'm done killing you nice and slow I'm gonna use your dumb little helmet as a trophy to pick up girls with." The alien soldier growled, finishing with a cocksure chuckle.

"For now, I'll be happy just to watch you die."

The alien looked as if he'd slackened to make a reply, only to stiffen too late as over a ton and a half of space marine ploughed into him. Adventios delivered a blow, then another and another, again and again. The aliens' recharging energy shield were once again sucked dry of their protective ability as each blow hit like a meteorite strike. The alien flung up its' hands to protect its face, Adventios responding with a hooked punch to the hip, the blow making something snap and the alien gag in pain. With both hands braced against his blade, the sergeant threw forwards his chainsword, the length of the cutting edge levelled with the aliens' throat. The soldier caught the blade in his grip, all his strength pushing against Adventios to keep the teeth away from his throat by but a couple inches. Little too late did he realise his mistake as he gasped less than a second before the chainswords' engine roared with mechanical fury. The razor sharp adamantium teeth spun far too fast for the mortal eye to see clearly, the sudden surge of quickening shredding the alien's finger clean off his hands. The alien had no time to scream before the blade pushed forwards, past his bloody, fingerless stumps and into the alien's unarmoured throat, chewing away rubber joint, gelatin layers, flesh and muscle in a single violent spray. Adventios backed away, his victim choking on the waterfall of blood that washed down his front as he swayed upright before the marine snatched him by the armoured collar, bending him over backwards across his knee. Adventios brought his sword arm up, and like a hammer of the gods brought the pommel of his blade down onto the helmet of his adversary, caving in his visor and the face beyond, snapping his head down to come dangling from his shoulders by a bundle of tendons no wider than half a hand.

Adventios raised himself up, tossing the body unceremoniously away from him before darting out the front of the store. the first sight her saw was another dead federation super soldier, the corpse almost cut in half at the waist by bolter fire. Next another tumbled out the front of a nearby building, decimating a brick wall on the way through from which Dathes strode, his bolter raised to hammer a trio of rounds into the face of the recuperating alien, its' head blasting apart to ruin. The sergeants' head snapped across the street to another sight, this time to Revitheon, who was in worse shape than before. One of the rounds from the super soldiers augmented firearms had struck Revitheon in the gut, the wound bubbling with blood that failed to clot due to the size of the wound. Herathor was at his side, keeping the aliens' that remained upon the rooftops pinned with his support weapon.

He was down to his final ammo box.

"We have to move, now!" Denethios called from behind the sergeant, running from the building he had found cover in and towards his brother.

Adventios could see what had Denethios so high strung on his HUDs' short range auspex, a blur of signals closing in down the road they now traveled and closing on them at a steady pace.

"Fall back! To rally point Delta!" Adventios called as he took to a sprint ahead of his brother, the rest of his squad doing the same ahead as best they could.

Revitheon had slowed to a limping jog, the sergeant could hear him wheezing in exhaustion.

The thunder of power armoured boots rang through the street, the marines gaining distance ahead of the oncoming assault. Adventios spotted another sight as he ran, one he'd hoped not to see. The guard from earlier, some of their bodies hung limp from the windows they'd been shot through, others had fallen clean through, their limp bodies crumpling onto the stone street below and some most assuredly still lay within the building they'd holed up in to fire upon the aliens the marines had fought against earlier. Thought of honouring the valiant dead burned through Adventios' mind as he ran, knowing nothing could be done, no matter how much it should have been.

Perhaps they were part of a larger squadron He thought, Perhaps-

A thunderclap from behind drew the sergeants' attention immediately, bringing him to a hault and spinning him around to see his brother behind him. Denethios' armour was shattered, cracked in half a dozen places, some segments having been blasted off entirely from behind to reveal the dark metal of the power armours' inner workings. His power pack was most notably ruined, sparking and sputtering blue flames and sparks atop him as he lay face down upon the street. Adventios started for a sprint to retrieve his brother, finding a moments' hope as he saw Denethios stir, his arms grasping forward to try and pull him down the street. Adventios' jaw clenched and his brow tensed as what looked like a parade of federation military was marching down the road towards his downed brother, those at the front already having their rifles drawn to take aim at the injured marine. Adventios quickened his pace a moment then coming to a skidding halt as a tall figure fell from the roof just across from Denethios' form and strode over to him. The alien super soldier pushed Denethios over onto his back with a boot from its' armoured foot, bringing its' heavy assault rifle up to take aim at the wounded marines' head.

Adventios couldn't just leave him there, he couldn't just watch on and do nothing as his beloved brother, who he had bled with in over a dozen campaigns over forty years, was executed like an aged mule. The sergeant went to take off into a sprint again, only to stop once more as the bloodied, burned hand of his brother raised up. Something was in Denethios' hand, something fist sized and made of dark steel, and Adventios could only watch as his brothers shakey, rasping voice come over the squad's vox channel.

"No...f-fear..."

The alien had turned in the split second it had realised what was happening, but not taken a single stride away before the krak grenade detonated. The explosive device made a violent, bone-shaking snap as it blew. Denethios was destroyed in an instant, most of him vaporized in a flash of light, leaving what remained as shards of scattered, twisted ruin. The alien was blasted into the nearby face of a house, being effectively liquidated within its' armour only to be splattered over the scorched stonework.

War was no time for grief. No time for regret or the pains of the soul.

Adventios looked on for but a heartbeat, then turned and took off to keep up with what was left of his squad.

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"The factors are understood, Lord of Mars. However I once again reiterate my request for-" Unycrios begun, full well knowing what the twenty seventh response would be.

"Negative, aspired techmarine. You have your priorities, we have ours. And thanks to your most gracious banquet of data, we have determined our undertaking is priority code Zeta-Omicron, tier five." Lord Tech Priest Ritivek droned, his final words having a microscopic inflection of stimulus.

Unycrios would of sighed in exasperation had it not been a pointless response, instead he simply leaned forwards, adjusting his weight as he braced into the control console in front of him as he spoke to the static-laden hologram of the machine-man he conversed with.

"Very well. You final consensus?" The marine spoke in flawless binary.

"You know our destination already. Considering your recent surface activity, I would have thought it was obvious." The tech priest buzzed and clicked in his digital tongue.

"For the record. I require hard-copy categoricals of all imperial intents, no matter the party involved."

The tech priest froze a while, staring straight into Unycrios' eye lenses as though he were actually in the room with him, assessing his very being for signs of a hidden motive or twisted truth. After a few seconds the cyborg leaned forwards himself, slowly, like some ancient creature rising from the depths after being encrusted in coral for an eon.

"The alien artifact remains unattended within the planets' surface. It is mechanicus standard procedure to secure this most compelling find. My excavation and sanctification cohorts are gathered and time is a luxury is such circumstances."

"How long until you become available for future summons?" Unycrios replied not a millisecond after Ritivek had finished.

"You can expect my forces to be otherwise occupied for at least the next forty eight hours, twenty two minutes and four seconds; allowing for one point six second deviances...of course." Ritivek replied with an amused cough.

"And you summarise that leaving fellow imperial forces to a battle-" The techmarine started.

"With less than thirty percent likelihood of survival to go unanswered by segmentum command? By your parent chapter? Of course we can expect...friction, should your brethren fail in their task. Yet, I suspect this friction will be swiftly alleviated once the treasures of what lie beneath are appropriately seized and secured. Doesn't this entire situation sound familiar to you? The Countermeasure of Tellevor Nine? The Hell-Door Insurgency? Do not try to sell the notion that space marines are above being expended for a far greater gain, most aspired techmarine."

Unycrios felt what he had buried for so long, buried within the depths of the oldest part of his mind, risen like some reanimated corpse to shuffle hideously back into memory.

Anger.

"Your decision is comprehended. You will be contacted after your operations are further concluded."

Unycrios half-punched the rune switch to terminate the transmission between the two of them, the fraction of the second before the hologram died he could make out the tech priests' eyes twitch slightly, a purposeful giveaway that he was pleased he could be rid of the pestering that came from the astarte and go back to his business. Unycrios hung his head over the console, reciting the rites of logic as he slowed his own heart after a few seconds. One of the Remergences' bridge displays revealed the mechanicus vessel that had aided the astarte frigate as it was hounded by alien vessels, obliterating almost a third of their total number and leaving them to retreat to the farthest side of the planet they all orbited. The martian starship descended down to the planet below with an undoubted sense of purpose, speeding with absolute efficiency towards the province the natives had called the Crystal Empire.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

North of Ponyville, the town hospital in sight, hundreds had gathered, shakily waiting outside a large set of thick, mechanical doors made from alien metal. Most present held no weapons, many were a part of a family that had collected amongst the crowd. Children coughed and cried softly in their parents arms, who in turn had their heads on a swivel, eyes darting around in anticipation for an unseen danger to suddenly present itself. Beyond the crowd spanned a long, large makeshift barricade crafted from all manner of items and obstacles, bicycles, carts, doors were all welded and nailed together to better protect the citizens of this war-torn town. Royal guard stood around the barricades' perimeter, rifles raised in hand to scan the ruins that surrounded their location.

"C'mon Star Chaser, what's taking so long?" Rainbow Dash said, turning her head back to the young, purple mare who was tinkering with the exposed circuitry of the buildings' identification console.

"I'm gettin' there! Just a few...more..."

"Movement! Ov-Over here!" A royal guard stallion called out in panic as he braced his shoulder into his rifle, readying himself to fire.

"Hol' up everypony! It's the space marines." Applejack replied from further down the barricade, imperial shotgun still in hand.

A chorus of loud, thunderous footfalls could be heard jogging closer to the barricade before four massive figures leaped clear over it, coming to a steady, yet booming landing behind the ramshackle defenses. Many of the ponies amongst the crowd gasped and cried out in shock and surprise, the creatures they lay eyes upon unlike any they had seen even considering their recent alien occupation. Children pointed and let their mouths hang wide as adults shuffled away warily of the armoured giants that now strode closer to them.

"What's the situation?" The leader Rainbow had come to know as Adventios asked in his bassy voice.

"We have way too many ponies here to hang out in the open for much longer. But we found this old transit tunnel that leads all the way to Canterlot underground. Squids built it to travel faster between towns and cities while they figured out how to adjust their aircraft to our air, or something." Rainbow replied, checking her looted alien carbine over once again.

"Should have the doors open any minute now, and once we're through I can cross-wire the terminal to lock up after we're through." Star Chaser said, her face still buried within the consoles access port.

"And just in case." Applejack added as she jogged over, throwing a rucksack to the ground filled with rectangular alien devices.

A main, blocky body, a priming mechanism, digital display, Rainbow trusted even a pony with socks for brains could figure this one out. And she bet the marines had a little more than socks knocking around inside their oddly fleshy heads.

"We collapse the tunnel." Adventios finished, looking down at the dozen or so explosive charges.

"Right, but we need-...Say, weren't there five of you before?" Applejack started, only to slowly and awkwardly add her inquiry.

The space marine did not answer right away, and Rainbow would never be sure if he would have ever have answered the orange and blonde farm pony as gunfire could be heard that was close enough to worry about. The sergeant turned to Rainbow Dash, his glowing, purple eye lenses burning into her.

"We need these doors open, now." Adventios replied with a growl before moving to the barricade, signalling his squad to spread out across the perimeter.

Rainbow looked up at her friend with a worried look, Applejack looking back at her as she sold the news to herself with a pained look pasted across her features.

Mortal after all Rainbow Dash thought to herself as she took off to join the other defenders at the barricade.

It was hard for her to truly accept. She was sad somepony who she'd fought alongside, who'd protected her had died, but she wasn't denying such a tragedy because of sentiment, it was just the math of the whole idea. She'd seen these warriors from space take enough fire to turn a manticore to ribbons and return enough to take down entire squads of feds in seconds. The idea of one of these post-mortal demi-gods being slain like a common battlefield casualty was just laughable, and killed by these usurper squid-heads? Rainbow's teeth gritted, the still-healing scars on her arm and face stinging as she scowled.
She had beef.
Beef she was gonna eat.
And then probably sick up, since she was really, definitely a herbivore.

Pony ears twitched and swiveled as the growling, throbbing sound of a federation vehicles gravity field could be heard getting closer through the fog-choked streets. Hands tense and flexed around weapons, eyes darted left and right, knees trembled and breathes stuttered. The space marines, however, were like statues. Utterly still besides a slow, steady sweeping motion they each made with their boxy firearms. Rainbow had always had a tough time giving credit to ponies she hadn't gotten to know a little first, she didn't like to sow herself into anyones' pocket too early and believed in having to prove yourself to gain praise. She'd known these alien for less than three days and already she was confident in calling them absolute hardcore super soldiers.

The dumb grin that had grown across Rainbows' face as she peered at the marines was quickly replaced by that stupid look you have just before you're about to get hit by traffic as a crimson magna round blasted into the barricade not two feet away from her. She and several others flinched awkwardly before recomposing themselves and firing into the ruins ahead, some blindly so. The marines had begun firing not a second after the round had struck, weapons letting out thunderous, roaring blasts as opposed to the ponies coughing snaps from their own weapons. Rainbow primed the alien carbine in her hands and let loose a volley ahead of her, scarlet bolts snapping through the air and chipping away at the brick and wood that was piled ahead.

The scream of a dying alien was heard, shortly followed by another and another as rounds hit home. A royal guard with dark grey fur and blue hair took a burning alien round to the stomach through a hole in the defenses, the stallion letting out a choking sound as his body fell backwards limply. Rainbow caught the briefest glimpse of motion near a darkened window to her right. Bringing her weapon about, her carbine rattled a burst of rounds into the opening, a wet, snapping sound resounding from within just before what sounded like a gasp from something dying. Rainbow expected to feel something good, like some sense of right, a feeling that something askew in the universe had been corrected, happiness in having destroyed something she knew was evil. But there was nothing, her mind went strangely quiet as the information of what had just happened resounded in her brain like a train horn.

Is this what it was like for the feds when they killed something, was it hard for them to kill ponies? Did they feel just as empty, just as confused as Rainbow did now?

Uhnbur Dur

Is this how they'd all become so twisted and numb to the misery they caused? What did killing mean to them anymore? And what about the space marines, they had all obviously seen battle dozens, maybe hundreds of times before, just exactly how many living, breathing things had they destroyed?

Rehnbur Dersh

What was all this killing doing to them inside? Did it make them feel anything anymore, after so long? Just what exactly was the difference between these two aliens that had come to her once beautiful and peaceful planet?

"Rainbow Dash! Come on little missy, now's not the tahm tah git all dreamy on me!"

Applejacks' powerful hand had already grabbed Rainbow by the shoulder of her shirt to yank her backwards violently. Dash snapped out of her shock to look about in confusion, seeing that most of everypony that had been around and behind her had started falling back. She turned quickly to see the tunnel doors had been unlocked, the opening mechanism apparently failing and seeing one of the space marine stood prying the two massive metal doors apart, his large armoured frame wedged between them to allow ponies to pass through between his legs and to either side of his waist. Dash snapped around again, tapped AJ on the shoulder to signal she was alright, going on to raise her weapon to rattle fire into incoming federation soldiers. They were just outside the barricade now, their white, blue and yellow forms shuffling and jogging about beyond the makeshift walls, barely visible. Alien projectiles whizzed and hissed through the air, snapping at dirt and clanging against metal constructs behind the blue pegasus. Some round hissed passed her far to close to comfort, and curiously didn't make a sound after passing by. Dash continued to shuffle back, the cries and screams of desperate ponies growing closer, louder, but thankfully less numerous doubtlessly thanks to the passage of escape being granted to them.

And to one other factor Dash discovered as she stumbled over something that lay behind her.

The mare was older than Dash, perhaps even as old as her own mother. She had a dark, grey-blue coat and a sky blue mane and tail that was kept neat and shoulder length. She wore a large overall coat that hid most of her body, making her look dreamily comfortable as she appeared to be sleeping. But the pool of dark purple blood beneath her crawled ever outwards in protest of such a notion being even remotely true. Rainbow looked on at the pony in front of her, her eyes running with rivulets as her emotions hung limply in her own mind, not wanting to feel what she knew she had to. Once more, a strong hand grabbed her from behind and dragged her frozen body across the ground towards the entrance of the alien tunnel. Dash lazily peered upwards to see even the marines had fallen back from the combat ahead, the only to remain being the one still prying the door open behind her, and the one ahead.

She could have sworn he'd been called something, she could have sworn she could remember his name. It was something like 'Hektor', or maybe 'Hothror', but Dash had simply remembered him as the guy with the huge gun. His bulky firearm swept left to right, pinpoint bursts of large caliber fire raking through the ranks of aliens that now lept and barged through the barricade ahead, their comparatively frail bodies bursting apart in great geysers of viscera as the rounds struck home. His helmet lay in front of him in the wet dirt, its lower right half ruined by enemy fire, the electronics within the high-tech piece of armour exposed and sparking. The marine's blonde hair was matted and messy with quickly coagulating blood that trickled from a wound on the side of his skull, and when he turned enough for Dash to see his face it too was covered in dark gore, as well as an expression of utter hatred of all the alien warrior looked upon. Rainbow heard a noise behind her, someone calling out, but she didn't have the capacity to understand what was being said, or even want to know for that matter. All she could tell was that it caught the marine's attention, turning his head around and back a moment before her swiveled to one side and took off at a jog, quickly covering the distance between himself and the tunnel entrance.

He was about halfway to the doors when a deafening, whining thunderclap shook the air, making even Dash flinch. Dash closed her eyes a second in response to the terrible cacophony, opening them once again to see the marine she had seen not a sec before stumbling forwards, his expression a mix of shock and his mind trying to process what must have been a death-inducing amount of pain. His right leg was ruined at the hip, the limb attached by a few centimeter wide strands of sinew and flesh, the armour around in obliterated. The marine took a step and fell like an old oak, the ruined limb falling away under him, the few remaining attachments shorn away by even the simplest motion. With a dull thud the alien fell forward onto his chest, his head falling limply forward for but a moment before rising again. He looked tired, drained of life and the fire of battle that had burned bright within him but a moment ago. He turned over, throwing his weight over to roll onto his backpack which was being riddled with dozens of alien bullets that chewed at it like a pack of piranhas. With one last bought of strength, one last testament of defiance and rage the space marine drew a bulky sidearm from his belt, swinging it up to blast a shot into the neck of an attacking fed. Snapping his aim across he took another one in the gut, the shot detonating within the alien to fling his upper half into a front-flip over his collapsing lower half. Round after round barked from his pistol as he roared what was left in his chest, roaring as the aliens he deemed worthy to die by his will did so,roaring as his lifeblood poured from his leg wound like a waterfall, roaring as one of the aliens blasted a wound into the side of his neck, and still as another caught him several times in the stomach. His eyes closed in agony, his pistol firing erratically, almost panicked as more and more round tore him apart, his roar slowly and steadily turned into a cry of despair as crimson bolts of fire tore into his shoulders, face and even his open wound. His cry drew out long and loud before ending abruptly, a second deafening blast turning his entire torso into ruin, shattered armour and great throws of gore showering around the battleground like a hellish rainstorm.

Dash slowly swept her eyes across to see the angular, shallow hull of a federation hover tank turning into the barricade, its' gravity cushion the vehicle hovered on crushing the household instruments and furniture to splinters as it barged through ponderously. It's wide, flat turret swerved around from it's previous, now deceased target to raise up and take aim at the Rainbow Dash as she was pulled through the giant blast doors. She was through in an instant as Applejack half-threw her inside, diving in after her. The marine holding the door slipped inside, letting the doors whine closed behind them, What little light from outside there was grew dimmer.

Dash looked out once more and saw her, amongst others she had failed to notice beyond the carnage of death. She new some of them, those that lay looking as though asleep, those who's faces she could still recognise. Others she could not recognize, no one would be able to ever identify such ruined, mangled remains. The doors left but a single sliver of the outside left to see now, and Dash wished they'd been closed a lifetime ago as she once again stared at the dead mare she had seen earlier, only now she saw something buried under her, the mare must have been holding something before her body fell atop of it after being struck down. A tiny pair of cyan, equine ears and a dinky, spiraling horn poked out from under the mass of her large coat. The doors rang with the snapping of gunfire bouncing off from it before a single, dull boom saw the doors closed and all went dark and silent.

Dash lay there for what felt like a thousand years.

Laying helpless in nothing.

Nothing.

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Gonna getcha! Goooonna getcha!

Run! Run! Run away!

We see you~...Tasssssste yooooou~...

Nightmare's eyes darted left and right, up and down, her head snapped back and forth as she ran alongside her sister. The voices, so many voices, their scratching, rasping tones snapping and hissing at her as she ran tired, drowned in dim, crimson light.

Close our eyes! Please Nightmare, please close our eyes! Luna cried out from within Nightmare's mind.

Nightmare wanted to shut away what she was seeing, she wanted it to all just disappear as inexplicably as it had appeared in the first place. Heck, she wanted to disappear, so long as the parade of horror stopped, so long as everything that was all around her just stopped.

She half-gagged once again as she stumbled passed a federation security guard who was on his knees, his visage twisted beyond hope or reason. His face was a rictus grin, his face messily missing his pale lips, while his eyes had somehow been inflated with what looked like a wretch-inducing, puss-like fluid that swam with sickening brown strands mixed within. He was covered in thick layers of gore, and seemed to have draped a series of long, ropy lengths of flesh and innards over his shoulders making him appear like some macabre parody of a priest wearing a sanctified scarf. He clutched in his gaunt hands a viscera-wrapped bone that looked like it had come from the arm of the corpse he knelt over. He was gnawing into it with cracked and broken teeth before he saw Nightmare, when he violently crunched his treat in half, spitting fragments of bone and chunks of flesh from his ruined mouth as he peered up at the alicorn as she ran by.

"Come, see with me!" He said, his words a rasping gurgle more than actual speech.

"Sister!" Celestias' voice came from in front of Nightmare, turning her attention back again.

"Th-This is crazy! This isn't happening!" Nightmare said to herself, eyes wild with panic.

"Hurry, Nightmare!" Celestia half-screamed as she stood within the opening of another doorway.

Nightmare was horror-stricken, in severe shock and her breathing was ragged and stuttering, but she was an alicorn. The most powerful alicorn. Her massive, powerful legs ran her forward like a freight train, blasting her forwards past another dozen of the things the alien's she'd once fought had been made into, their grinning, chattering faces leering at her as she passed them in a heartbeat. She made it to the doorway, sliding inside before turning to look back through the dark, metal corridor, the terrifying, zombie-like faces of the post-aliens turning slowly in unison to stare at the two alicorns. Then, in unison, they spoke.

"We can see."

The mechanical doors hissed closed, Celestia using her own considerable strength to smash in the control pad to operate the door they'd entered. The two took a moment, leaning against whatever wall was behind them as they too shaky, panicked breaths.

"Te...Teleport!" Nightmare huffed, staring at the ground.

"I can't! Nothing's changed from earlier." Celestia replied, her eyes screwed up in despair, looking as if she desperately wanted to start crying but knew she couldn't afford to.

"We've got to...We've got to find a way out of here!" Nightmare said, moving over to her sister, straightening her up by the shoulders with a shake.

"I thought I did! I thought I knew the way they brought us in, but...b-but this is...I don't understand! It's like we've been running in circles for hours!" Celestia cried out, punching her fist into a nearby wall, crushing the metal surface inwards.

The low ringing of the strike thrummed through the air a while. Nightmare's spine went ice cold as she realized the sound of tortured metal somehow, beyond all reason was twisted with eerie fluidity into a low, rasping chuckle. The two sisters looked around as they backed into one another, moving away from the walls as they sung with bassy laughter. A long, cringing, creaking sound came from ahead of them, down the long, dark corridor they'd just stumbled into. The pair turned slowly to look into the abyssal darkness ahead, Nightmare swearing the pathway ahead was twisting, slowly and ever so subtle corkscrewing around to make her perspective go dizzy with confusion.

Celestia stepped out in front of Nightmare like a big sister standing up for their sibling in a playground, her horn glowing to cast some form of illumination spell. But her spell sputtered and sparked at her horn before failing utterly, her face creasing with pain as something denied her what she'd had at her fingertips her entire long life.

"I...I can't even..." Celestia said, her breath taken from her as she stumbled back into Nightmare who straightened her up once again.

"Okay...Okay we've just got to keep moving. If we keep moving we're bound to find a way out somewhere. Or at least somewhere with some weapons we could use." Nightmare said, recomposing herself to at least a recognizable degree as she marched forwards into her domain, the darkness.

"I don't know if I can-" Celestia began.

"Then leave all the heavy lifting to me. Nothing more than I expected if I'm being completely honest." Nightmare interrupted with a venomous tone, Celestia lowering her head and going silent in response as her hands fidgeted by her lap.

The darkness seemed to swallow the two of them, and consumed everything they'd once known, even the sense of being. Nightmare likened it to the feeling of being trapped within Luna's psyche, floating in nothingness with only your most intimate sense of being intact. She could feel her hooves hitting the floor beneath her, but it was as if she'd been dossed up of intense pain medication, leaving the feeling numb. She just about felt the delicate hand of Celestia grab hold of one of her large shoulders, her frightened grasp shaking with fear. Nightmare had excellent night vision, she could see a throne room's worth of space without even a sliver of starlight. But this, whatever this was robbed her of even that, along with inducing migraines while casting ruined spells this haunted place was taking away more and more things that made Nightmare strong.

Celestia screamed behind her like she had done as a filly, her hands clutching into Nightmare's massive arms. Her shivering was frantic and was even starting to make Nightmare nervous again.

"What?! What is it?!"

"Something...S-Something touched me! Something just t-touched me!" Celestia replied in a tone that Nightmare had never heard before, one that began to chill her to the core.

"Where?! Where from?!" She asked as she turned about, desperately trying to spy out something, anything.

Where is it?

The voice came as though hissed from a hot, lipless mouth not two inches from Nightmare's own ear, and with it came something that made Nightmare want to die there and then. The smallest, subtlest of scratches, like a ragged fingernail being dragged across the flesh beneath her fur with a slight pressure. This would be terrifying on it's own had the scratch not come from the inside of Nightmare's thigh, the touch sliding upwards towards an area Nightmare's mind wouldn't let her think about.

Nightmare screamed.

Luna screamed.

Celestia screamed.

It laughed.

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The two sister fell from the shadows screaming, like children waking up from a nightmare. They fell to the floor, Celestia atop of Nightmare, the two of them quickly gathering themselves, pulling away flowing locks of magical hair to look up before them as they panted heavily.

A door.

Another alien door sat before them both, the alicorns scrambling to their feet, Celestia kneeling by the control pad, tapping and swiping at it with shaking fingers. Nightmare turned, peering into the darkness they'd just fallen from, the one that felt like a whole day had been used up just to travel through. Stared into it, wide chest heaving with heavy, panicked breaths as an ocean of nothingness stared back at her.

"Celestia, we need to hurry." Nightmare said in a low, frightened tone.

"There's something wrong, it won't let me-" Celestia replied through gritted teeth.

"Celestia...I think something's-" Nightmare said, turning her head away from the shadows to look over at Celestia before a slow, wet, rasping breathing sound came from where she had just been looking.

Five eyes. Five eyes like burning coals stared at her. Each one was fixed on Nightmare like a predator sizing up it's prey, but each eye twitched and rolled independently and erratically. Nightmares' confusion slid into heart-shaking terror as she could see something in the shadows, what little blood-red lighting there was catching the slick surface of something kneeling ahead of her in the middle of the corridor. In the middle of the shadows.

It was large, at least nine feet tall had it not been squatting down and hunched over, but it's build was very skinny, malnourished even, being little more than crooked bone and dried out sinew. Its arms were long and skeletal, its thin hands bearing long fingers tipped with a crooked claw. Its' rib cage looked like it'd been run over by an automobile, its' shape bending in and out at wrong angles, some bones piercing through its leathery flesh altogether like long, curved teeth. Its' spine was most certainly crooked, bent and twisted in several locations, the skeletal backbone spearing long, thick quills through the creatures' back, flesh torn around the protrusions, some lengths of skin still clinging to the spiny growths. A bony tail slivered on the ground, smearing dark gore into the metal beneath it, either side were feet much like those of a goat, except instead of hooves it hand hand-like claws gripping into the floor. It's head was a mane of twisting horns that swept up and back, some tangling painfully with others, some broken and gnarled. It's face made the eyes burn, skeletal, grinning with rows of needle-like teeth, gore running from noseless nostrils and lidless eye sockets.

A creaking, groaning sound came from the thing ahead of Nightmare, like old wood being bent and twisted. Nightmare could hear Luna screaming something in her own head, but couldn't make out what was being said, her mind a haze of fear and dread of something that seemed so beyond her, beyond her tiny, pitiful existence. It was like the thing had been sat there her whole life, watching and waiting, weighing up ever mistake, every poor decision and every wrong done. It was like each misstep Nightmare had made had flayed at the thing, and in blissful agony it had sat silent and still. And now, after millennia of pain, of hurt, hatred and general indecency, now it was ready to visit her. It would peel at her, scratch into her bones while she lived. It would force eyeless, tongueless stallions to be upon her, to put children inside her for it to feed on once newborn for all eternity. It would run its' toothed, serpentine tongue all around each eyeball as she wept, slurping up even tear as a fine delicacy. Nightmare felt her future as this things' plaything loom over her, choking her, rendering her entire life a pointless expenditure of meaningless tirades.

She was a cattle in a slaughterhouse.

A light came from behind her, fluttering and shifting as something moved from behind. She considered it might have been Celestia, her radiant, beautiful glow glaring out as she made a single and ultimately final effort to protect her sister. Nightmare felt a pit of sorrow for her, felt like perhaps things could have been different in a another life. Perhaps she could have somehow opened up Celestias' eyes to her existence sooner, shown her something real about herself while they were still children. Maybe the three of them could have actually grown up together, built actual memories together, happy ones that would help her sleep sound at night instead of the blistering resentment that had gnawed at her for so long. She felt sorry, sorry to Celestia for letting her anger cause so much fear of her for so long, sorry to Luna for violating who she was and how ponies saw her. She was sorry to herself for even becoming such a spiteful, useless thug of an alicorn.

A powerful, armoured hand shoved Nightmare to one side like she was no more than a nuisance, the large alicorn stumbling to one side to hit the wall next to her. The creature ahead of her leapt forwards first seemingly at her, then passed her as she fell away towards something behind her. The thing let out a scream that scratched at her very bones, a sound like a screaming child mixed with an old iron gate opening, its' long, grasping talons outstretched to rend at whatever it spied as prey. In a sudden, violent, deep explosion the creature was thrown backwards, a blast coming from besides Nightmare tossing it back.

The space marines' boltgun sounded out once again, and again, each round sending chunks of the gangly monster blasting away, but to seemingly little effect. The thing was tossed back, not a heartbeat passing before it was scrambling and leaping forwards again, trying desperately to scratch and claw at its attacker like a starving man reaching for fresh food. The bolter chattered and roared, more bolts blasting away at the thing that garbled and hacked as it was torn apart, a thin arm being blasted off before both its' legs were destroyed from beneath it. Even with just one arm in raked its' way forward, twisted teeth chattering and snapping as it closed in before another flurry of rounds saw it toss and flail before growing still. its' remains lay their a few seconds before its flesh began to slough away, bubbling and sliding to the floor followed with what muscles and innards it had. Soon a collection of dark bones lay cracked and smoldering in a puddle of bubbling ectoplasm that started melting into the metal floor beneath like a ferocious acid. Nightmare was snapped out of her transfixed staring as the armoured glove from earlier grabbed at the collar of her battle robe and hefted her upright, a pair of glowing purple eyes staring into her own.

"Move!"