The sight of the helmet shook me out of my fugue.

Without my conscious control, my blue hooves reached up and picked the charred hunk of metal out from the tendril of shadow.

There could be no mistaking it. It was too large for a Human head. The nose guard was too broad and bent upward. The two ear holes in the back were too glaring for anything of Human make.

It was the same item I recognized in the bottom of the crater... Just before the hospital where I first laid eyes on who would become my mother... Except now, I got a clearer look at it. It had been cleaned, but was irreversibly charred along one side, which I imagined was the side that was facing downward when I entered the atmosphere.

But how did it get here?

I suppose someone had been watching the sky, the night that I fell, and noticed I had made landfall. From there, it wasn't a stretch to think the feds, or maybe even a random farmer found the crater and scavenged what they could. Maybe the hypothetical farmer sold it on Ebay, or turned it over to the feds...

... Was the barding and hoof covers here too?

I glanced around.

The room I had found myself in was painted in the same dull grey paint my cell had been. But this room was dominated by various machines and paper filled desks with computer monitors on top. Surprisingly, most of the machines were server racks, while the machine I had found the helmet inside only took up a fourth of the room.

I tried to ignore the slumped body wearing a lab coat.

There was one container that obviously didn't hold reams of printer paper. It was a suitcase that seemed to be made of thick black metal. Something about it screamed "I'm carrying something radioactive".

My hoofsteps echoed off the eerily silent walls as I approached. The noise made me aware of the fact that my ears had been buzzing with tinnitus. Which had been drowning out the sounds of a distant alarm.

But otherwise everything was silent. Even the air vents seemed subdued, as if they didn't dare disturb the atmosphere of a recent tragedy.

The black case was rested on one of the desks. I tried to lift the lid open, but only ended up lifting the whole case slightly. The words "Item #271" was stenciled on the side in white paint. The lock appeared to be built into the case under the handle, with the only visible portion being a single keyhole.

Amateurs.

A tendril of shadow stabbed itself into the keyhole.

I raked the shadow over the pins, trying to feel around the keyhole as if it were an incredibly thin finger, occasionally trying to turn the mechanism. It took me a few times, but eventually the lock turned smoothly and clicked open.

The inside of the case was clean. Custom shaped foam inserts held five similarly blue objects, however there was a large oddly shaped hole on the far left side. I lifted the helmet to compare it to the hole.

It would've fit perfectly.

... I could not allow these people to keep these.

And if I was going to take them, it would've been silly to carry them around.

I took the helmet back out and placed it on the desk. With reverent hooves, I took out the barding. The plating was scratched, pockmarked, and also burnt on one side. The same side that the helmet was burnt on if it were being worn by a pony. Surprisingly, the intricate mechanisms that allowed the metal plating to flex against each other was intact.

The barding slipped over my head easily and settled well on my shoulders.

The hoof covers were in a similar state, scratched and burnt on one side. It took a few moments, but soon my hoofsteps were the clank of metal on concrete instead of the natural 'clop'.

Finally, I picked up the helmet again.

I stared into eye openings, a feeling I couldn't quite name welling in my chest.

This thing was Luna's. Even if I didn't believe that I was a "reincarnation" of Luna, this thing was a symbol of Luna at the height of her power. A symbol of Luna at war. Ponies who had been killed by her hoof would see this helmet as one of the last things they saw.

It didn't matter how it had gotten here.

It didn't matter how I felt about "being" Luna.

Luna had cared about her people.

Luna had been a champion for good to the best of her ability. Right until the very end.

Leaving behind any pieces in the set of armor would've been a blemish on her name.

I bumped my forehead against the helmet's. Trying to connect with the original Luna.

It didn't matter if I was Lucas playing at being Luna. Or if I was indeed a Luna who had fallen so far below what she deserved.

I was a trash heap of a person stepping into the shoes of someone who had been truly great.

But no matter how unworthy I was... These pigs deserved her legacy even less.

I turned the helmet around, and slid my stolen horn through the matching hole in the helmet.

I couldn't help but think of the scene in Star Wars when Darth Vader first was entombed inside his iconic helmet.

Somehow... I had to succeed where the original Luna had failed.

And I had a sinking feeling that Luna's fight with her sister had not been the failure.

I could not stay here. I didn't exactly remember everything I had done in the past hour, but the still warm body in the room told me I wouldn't be having the benefit of doubt if I was captured again.

I stood in front of the only door, knowing I would not like what I found on the other side. But I needed to leave before they found me.

I pushed my reservations down, braced myself, and pushed the door open.

The hallway outside was a graveyard.

The bodies of human soldiers in varying uniforms, and degrees of undress littered the floor. Wounds from wide slices were extremely common, often cutting off whole limbs or splattering blood all over the walls. A few bodies had been burned through, with large holes with burnt edges boring clean through. Lines of burnt paint could be seen at the far ends of the hallways.

There were so many bodies, that several places on the floor had been flooded with inches of blood.

I forced myself to look into the faces of the dead, all while doing my best to not puke.

There was a man, younger than Lucas had been. Did he have a girlfriend who would never see him again? There was a gnarled veteran who was old enough to have been in Desert Storm. Did he have a wife? Kids? How about this middle aged man? Who loved him? And this one? And this one? How about that one? This one? How about him?

Who would never again hear the voices of their loved ones because of me?

This body of a SWAT officer had had his throat messily destroyed.

The taste of blood on my teeth reminded me how he died.

And suddenly I found myself out of things in my stomach to vomit up, a puddle of filth below on the floor told me what happened to the contents of my stomach.

I spat, a desperate attempt to clean my mouth without something like bleach on hand to help.

These people were awful, but they hadn't deserved what I did to them.

I needed out.

I needed to find my way out before I did this again.

But with no knowledge of how to find the exit, I wandered.

After all, this wasn't a civilian building, with fire exits clearly marked for safety. This was a military base. A military base that likely had top secret information that a few powerful people didn't want to fall into the wrong hands. And of course you wouldn't advertise a convenient exit for any potential spy would you?

I got the impression that the base was built underground. With no windows, no exits, and an endless sprawl of hallways and rooms, it would've been a weird design choice if the base had been built above ground.

My only solace was that I started to hear signs of life, although they were hard to hear over the blaring alarms. I had not exterminated all the soldiers in the base after all. But that was a cold comfort since at any moment a soldier could round the corner and I might have to add another body to the hallways.

A particularly loud bout of shouting broke me out of my fugue.

At first I was confused. No one was in the hallway with me. So who was shouting? And why?

But then a faint murmur danced over my ears. It's familiar cadence and tone stirred subconscious memories that I hadn't fully realized yet.

A chill ran down my spine.

I couldn't even understand what was being said, it was like hearing only the faintest suggestion of your favorite childhood nursery rhyme. A mere whisper on the wind, yet you know the words by heart despite not even remembering it had even existed for decades.

"-lease listen to me..."

"Not one step closer!"

No...

I darted forward, all thoughts of trying to stay hidden gone. The voices were close, and I had to know.

"I'm looking for my sister!"

"Shut up and stay back!"

No no no! Not her!

I rounded a corner, there was the body of a single soldier off to the side. But the voices were getting louder.

"Please help me!"

"Stay quiet you freak of nature!"

Not her! Anything but her!

It did not take me long to dash through the hall. But I stopped as I turned again at a 'T' intersection.

A soldier in black armor had his back to me, with his weapon up. But the object of his attention was what also caught and held my attention.

A figure in resplendent golden armor stood in front of the soldier fearlessly. The helmet was tucked underneath a wing as white and as bright as freshly fallen snow. A familiar double headed golden spear was held away nonthreateningly. A gloriously long white horn rose from a mane that swayed in an nonexistant breeze, colored like the rainbow of the sky during the extremely early dawn.

Princess Regent Celestia, Sol Invicta, the Unbroken Sun of Equestria had come to Earth.

Bet none of you saw that coming.