When Celestia began to wake up, the first thing she realized was that, whenever she was, it reeked of something nasty, a smell she thought she could recognize .

The alicorn princess groaned as she tried to get up from the soft, wet ground she had been lying on. For some reason her magic didn't work, forcing her to use her arms to try and get up, failing two times until succeeding at the third. She opened her eyes, but wherever she was was so dark she couldn't see anything, and no matter how much he tried, her horn couldn't even give a spark of light, eventually giving up on the ordeal.

'What happened?' The alicorn asked herself as she looked around the cave, basement or whatever place she was in, and walked carefully as to not fall again. It was still dark, damp and smelly, and one wrong step and she'd be back on that ground, but at least she was able to walk.

“Where am I?” Celestia asked herself again, this time out loud, as she wandered through the 'cave', trying to ignore the wet sounds she made as she stepped and the fact that, given that she didn't feel her horseshoes, her hooves touched something that was probably disgusting.

Eventually she reached what seemed to be a wall. Celestia didn't know why, but a little voice in her mind told her to stay away from it, yet something else compelled her to come closer and touch it. Ignoring her instincts, she did so. She grimaced when she touched something squishy and dripping in liquid.

She screamed when she looked closely and found out what she touched. Or more accurately, who.

It was a blue furred, red earth pony mare with a rose as Cutie Marks, her body hung on the wall and her entrails. Her eyesockets were empty, both her eyes gouged out out and her tonge ripped out by something a long time ago given the dried blood on her face.

Despite that, the frozen expression of terror on her face made clear to her that the mare died in agony.

And when Celestia backpedaled from the strung corpse and fell to the ground, she discovered to her horror that the unfortunate mare was just one of many, many ponies in that cave. Dead ponies that's it.

'THIS IS NOT A CAVE, IT'S A LARDER!' Thought Celestia with utter terror when her eyes, finally adapted to the dark, watched the practically uncountable corpses of ponies littering the cave she was in and the state they were in: disemboweled, flayed, ripped apart, decapitated, gnawed on, crushed to a literal pulp... It didn't really made a difference, they all were dead, their blood covering the floor of the cavern Celestia was on... and now, after several seconds of struggling to get up from the fore, Celestia herself.

It was as if the worst depictions of Tartarus had come to life to haunt her.

'No' Celestia thought, remembering one of Praeratus many complains about the prison in which many of Equestria's villains had ended; mainly, that ponies sweared by it and used it as an adjective it being, in his personal opinion, a prison from which anyone strong enough to break the bars of the cages and take out Cerberus without a drop of magic in them can get out.

'Tartarus is just a fancy, boring prison from which anyone can get out. This is something much worse. This is Hell.' Celestia thought after what seemed to be for her an eternity of screaming and squirming in the bloody remains of her subjects, smearing their blood on her body. Eventually, however, she managed to calm down, at least enough to stop screaming and stand up again. She wast still both scared and terrified, but it was better than just screaming.

The princess of the Sun didn't know how did she get there, where she was, why was she in a cave, who or what brought her there, but she did know she had to get the heck out of there, and quick, before whatever did this came back, because without her magic she was useless. After that, and only after that, would she ponder about the many questions she had.

Walking back to the wall, Celestia touched it and walked along it, careful to not touch either the remains of ponies or their blood. If she was in a cave, there had to be an opening or entrance she entered from. There had to be, else she'd be dead by the combination of the rotten stench and the lack of oxygen.

Her efforts were rewarded when she fell (again) through an arc of carved stone connected to another, much cleaner (but still reeking of death) cave devoid of dead ponies, which in turn gave way to what seeemed to be a cave system. It also had a small subterranean river to boot!

Despite her situation and the carnage behind her, Celestia gave a little smile of success. She could get out, and also wash away the blood covering her body.

However, as she cleaned the blood off her body in the cold yet clean stream, the questions she asked herself before returned to her mind.

Who, or what, kidnapped, then dropped her on a cave full of dead ponies, and if they were the same creature, why did they do that? Why did they kill those poor ponies, what did they...

The alabaster alicorn's hear skipped a beat when she remembered the immediate moments before waking up: her talking, then hugging Praeratus alongside Spike and Cyranus, demons emerging from below the stage... The last thing she rememberd was the fist of a demon flying towards her head.

Suddenly it all made sense: the bioweapons had kidnapped her, using the play and Praeratus inner turmoil as a distraction to get close to the theater without being detected by the xeno-hunter. But it didn't explain why she was alive instead of headless, since the 'talking' demon made clear they wanted her dead to deprive Equus from the Sun, and Luna and Twilight to make sure it stayed that way.

She would have pondered further when she heard a scream coming from the other caverns.

She could recognized that scream anywhere, having raised its owner for nearly all his short life.

It was Spike's.

Celestia practically jumped out of the river and flied, not caring that the undeground was so cramped her wings rubbed against the stone.

Somewhere in those caverns was the closest thing she had to a son, alone in the dark and surrounded by demonic creatures from space that could manhandle her like a doll, take possession of other living creatures and worse, and she'd never forgive herself if something happened to the dragon child.

“SPIKE!” She screamed, the Royal Canterlot Voice making the stone around her rumble. “SPIKE, WHERE ARE YOU!?”

“Celestia!” She heard him scream, and this time she heard it coming from another cave entrance, one that was clearly artificial.

Not thinking of what the existance of that kind of structure in such a place could convey, Celestia flew directly to it, entering yet another cave similar to the one she woke up in, except without (obvious) butchered ponies or blood everywhere, and actually lit with glowing mushrooms.

And right in the middle of the cavern stood Spike, looking fearfully around him and trying to be as small as possible.

“SPIKE!” Celestia screamed, speeding towards the dragon child with her legs, no longer flying, and grabbed then hugged him with all her strength when she got close enough. The dragon, who wasn't looking in her direction when she said that, tried frantically to pry her arms off him.

“Let go of me, please!” The little dragon said between tears. With his eyes closed because of the fear he didn't see who was hugging him and the fur on Celestia's arms. “I don't want to die like them!”

Watching Spike beg for his life broke Celestia's heart but also made part of her want to burn inside out whoever made him cry with sunfire. Months ago she would have been horrified for thinking that, but at that moment she didn't care.

The alicorn used her magic to restrain Spike, who despite being unable to move a single muscle still tried to free himself, now screaming incoherently.

“Spike, look at me, please!” She said to the struggling dragon. “It's me, Celestia!”

Spike, hearing Celestia's voice, finally stopped crying and slowly opened his eyes. Seeing that it was Celestia, he could only stare in something akin to both relief and hope.

“Celestia?” He asked, not even bothering to use her title, scared and tired as he was.

Celestia nodded, and seeing that Spiked had finally calmed down (at least for the moment; either that or the fatigue had finally got to him) and was in desperate need of comfort, set him free on the ground. Spike promptly jumped to her and buried his head on the crook of her neck, huggin her with all his remaining strength. Celestia did the same, bringing him up from the cold stone floor of the cave.

“I saw them.” Spike finally said after a few moments of silence. He didn't move from his position, but it was clear he was crying. He then pointed to an specific point in the cave, one not illuminated by the light of the mushrooms, occupied by a large mound composed of many mass forms stacked one upon the other “. They're there.”

Even at that distance, and with the lack of light, it was clear that 'They' were more dead ponies.

No, not just ponies: upon a closer look she discovered that there were a few griffons, changelings, diamond dogs and even a minotaur in the pile of bodies. That said, there was something strange with these bodies: even with the darkness covering them it was obvious that none of them had the kind of wounds or mutilations the ones in the first cave had. In fact, it would have seemed as if they were just asleep if it weren't for the open eyes of those whose heads she could see and their expressions of fear. There was no sign of blood either.

Just how did the bioweapons kill these poor devils? Via starvation? Asphyxiation? Something much, much worse than either possibility.

Scenes of the demons actually ripping the souls of the creatures and feeding on them began to enter Celestia's mind. Praeratus told her explicitaly that, unlike magic, there was nothing supernatural about psionics, but given the feats psionics could do and he told her about, like moving around mile-long ships like toy boats, creating undead armies, open portals to other dimensions and outright possession...

Celestia forced herself to look away from the pile and think of other things: none of that mattered to the princess of the Sun that moment, only that they had to get out of there. The closest creature she had to a child-her son, already had mental trauma, but that kind of pain could be healed. Death couldn't, and if they stayed there any longer they would end up, she was sure of that, if not for the demons, then for starving or just hopelessness. And that not having in account her friends, subjects and all of Equestria's reaction if they died: the country would fall into anarchy despite the other princesses, Twilight and her friends would be left devastated (especially Twilight, who was practically Spike's big sister), Luna even more so since she was her sister, Discord would be broken since she was the one who gave him a chance to redeem himself...

And Praeratus would possibly commit suicide, either by directly killing himself or taking the fight to the demons for a suicidal, last battle. Either possibility was equally terrifying and tearjerking, given what he told her earlier about his previous loved one.

She wouldn't allow that, not if she could help it.

“Celestia, I'm scared.” Whispered the dragon.

“Me too Spike, me too.” Celestia admitted, trying to both cheer him up and take his attention away from the bodies.

“Can't you teleport us back?”

Celestia perked at that. How could she be so forgetful?

'Because you're surrounded by something you've always wanted to stay away forever.' Said a voice in her head. Celestia, startled by the voice, looked around the cave until she found two blue glowing eyes glaring at her. The voice alone was all she needed to know who, and what, was speaking to her. 'Death'

Celestia looked in horror as dozens of bioweapons appeared literally from out of the shadows of the cave. Adult bioweapons.

The monsters stepped forward in a slow manner, as if they-no, wanting to prolong their fear of an impeding death, growling softly and drooling like the monsters they were.

All except one, who rather than walking on all fours stood up like a pony.

The blue psionic.

I'm going to take a short break of writing here for a month; need to write more of my novel and tend to my Spacebattles account, and there's the Coronavirus worry, which is even worse here in Spain. Yes, I know, that's a lot of time since this chapter is pretty short, but dont' worry, the next will be at least 5000 words long. As always comment, like and fave.