It was one of the frackers for which he came to the planet to kill.

One of the bioweapons, maybe an scout, was literally right behind the natives, who hadn't noticed neither it nor the dead pony it had on its mouth standing over because they were looking at Praeratus, freaked out by his sudden paralysis and not understanding what was wrong with the warrior from another world. That was until the creature behind them made its move.

It could have done many things: possess one of them to mess with the locals, mind rape all of them, kidnap one of them and leave before they realized someone was missing...

Maybe it knew something about her, maybe it simply attacked the largest target (aside from the weirdo), or maybe it remembered the demise of one of its siblings years ago, but the creature chose Celestia as its prey for the moment, and made itself known by tearing the alicorn's casted wings off so fast that she didn't register the pain until after a few seconds.

Her scream of agony startled the others, after which they attacked the bioweapon with any mean they had: magic, punches, kicks, throwing stuff... Didn't do a thing. The creature then shoved them all away with its psionics, grabbed Celestia with its tail and began mauling her. For the avarage person of the Milky Way it would have been horrible, but for these aliens it was like a living nightmare, watching their leader/friend/sister being mauled to death by a huge monster straight from hell.

Unfortunately for it, it's staunch dedication in killing her would be its undoing, because Praeratus, stupor changed to anger at seeing one of the few ponies that thad been civil to him being mauled to death, attacked the monster by pushing it off Celestia with the remaining psionic energy he had and tackling into it with a scream of anger.

Both combatants rolled on the ground, with Praeratus punching the creature's head with all his might yet being unable to cave its skull in while the monster, in turn, attacked his armor with vigour; unlike many other beasts that tried to do so in the past, the thing actually managed to rip parts of it and even make him bleed thanks to a combination of strength, claws sharp enough to cut into ship hulls, and intelligence to seek for weak spots, and that was not counting its regenerative capacity. To makes things worse, Praeratus hadn't activated his wristblade, which would have facilitated the fight a lot, before attacking, and now he was too busy fighting the thing in hand to hand to activate it.

Meanwhile, the natives where doing nothing to help him, not even distract it with their magic or by throwing stones, with some of them trying to save Celestia and most of them watching the fight from a close distance even though they knew what would happen to them if the alien warrior lost to the alien monster.

“I'm going to tear your damn head off and crap down your neck!”

The thing growled while trying to rip his face off, but then it stopped attacking and started looking at him intensely. The therawyrm would have used this moment to snap its neck, but before he could, a voice spoke on his mind.

'YOU CENTURION' The monstruous tone (sounding like a demonically vocoded voice filtered through a turbine), the faint psionic signal he felt and the simple fact that it simply could not speak naturally with those jaws made clear that the one talking to him was the creature. Then there was the fact that it (and by extension its brethren) knew he was a (former) Centurion. Granted, there was the possibility that it simply knew because they had the info (the monsters had been created by the ones who made and trained him after all), but still.

And the thing was, if not sapient, sentient to a higher degree that other animals. What differentiated one from the other was that a sentient being had rudimentary self awareness and basic emotions, but little else, whereas a sapient had both the a capability to plan ahead instead of centering on the 'now' and a higher capacity for complex thinking. Like mind-raping a small army of animals to use as both a distraction and a way to weaken your prey.

This revelation had changed the mission for the worse: not only he'll had to fight against ten monsters that matched him physically, he'll had to fight ten monsters that were nearly sapient beings!

Praeratus, too shocked by this and the fact it knew about him, let the monster stand up.

'HELP US KILL XENOS' Said the creature.

“What?” Said Praeratus, too shocked to say reply with a coherent response (or attack again for that matter). He already knew they would be smart, intelligent even. But to be sapient to a degree... Either it and the others had acquired intelligence through all those years of frozen containment, or already were sentient even before being cryogenized and launched to the planet . Both possibilities were equally terrifying in prospect.

'HELP KILL XENOS!' Repeated the creature in a more urgent tone. 'THEY DANGER TO CONFEDRATION!' It was clear that it saw the locals as a threat; which was to be expected, as it was supposed to think like that. Praeratus, already knowing that it would not 'abandon its duty', had only one thing to say.

“Tell me where are the others.” Ordered Praeratus. If this thing was that both sentient and zealously loyal to the Confederation, then surely it would obey a direct order from a (former) officer.

'NO, HELP KILL XENOS!'

Apparently it was not that loyal, or maybe it was simply its instinct of self-preservation, but it was clear that simply ordering it to obey him was out of the question (back to the original plan of killing them all then). As for him helping them in their hardwired objective...

“Read my lips chainsaw with brain: NO.”

“No?” Praeratus turned to see the ponies. It was the Pink Pony, who was still crouching next to the mangled but still living Celestia. “What are you talking about? Are you guys speaking telepathically to each other?” She said in an awed tone. At another time he would have scolded the damn idiot for not realizing the danger she was in, but right now he didn't want to take his attention from the thing.

“This thing wants me me to help it and its brethren in killing everyting on this planet.” At this nearly all of the natives tensed up, either ready to bolt or to attack. Ungrateful idiots. “You can't be stupid enough to think I'm going to do it!”

'THEY XENOS!' Continued the bioweapon while snarling at the locals, this time expanding its telepathy so that they could hear. 'THEY MONSTERS!'

“We're not monsters, you are!” Screamed Rainbow Dash, probably expecting it to retort in someway. Well, technically it DID retort. By roaring and lunging at her at lightning speed. If not for Praeratus putting himself between the two, she would have died.

That didnt' mean the 3 inch fangs piercing his suit and sinking into his flesh didn't hurt, and in truth they hurt a lot (enough to make him scream in pain), but at least Rarity was safe, and Praeratus was already accustomed to pain. Besides, he repaid the bite by punching one of the monster's eyes off its eyesocket and stomping the left arm to a pulp. And yet, despite the serious injures he gave to it and the fact that it was still biting his arm, the creature hadn't changed it original targed (at first it looked like it was Rainbow Dash until a claw that nearly took Luna's head off made it clear that the pegasus was simply the closest), and right now, Praeratus was starting to actually struggle to keep the bioweapon away from the terrified locals, who were still doing nothing to get away (except those futilely tending to Celestia, who simply couldn't move at all), neither trying to help nor running away. Apparently their 'fight-or-flight' response was stuck in a third option, 'freeze up'.

Granted, most of them were (even though they had weirdly coloured fur and manes, giant eyes and, well, everything else aside from their basic shape) basically equines (or partly equines in the case of the hippogriffs), equines like horses weren't exactly the bravest of animals, and he had seen that same response before (although in individuals, not entire species), but the ones who weren't equine at all still did nothing but look at the fight in front of them with an expression of fear. And that was not taking in account the fact that mere minutes before scores of ponies had indeed run away.

Worst of all, for the first time in his career as xeno-hunter, Praeratus was getting tired from the prolongued fight; he simply had never fought a creature so vicious with only his bare hands (and his normal suit instead of the Centurion armor) instead of shooting at it or using psionic attacks, much less one that could heal from its wounds even during a fight.And yet it simply wanted to get him out of its path to kill the 'xenos'. Sooner or later, or he the thing would eventually decide to kill him. If either of those outcomes happened...

Fortunately for the tired xeno-hunter, the cavalry arrived to his rescue. Or more accurately, K-9.

Cyranus, after killing the last animals hiding in the buildings, came back to where his friend was, not expecting to see the powerful therawyrm struggling against one of the things that had entered his brain hours earlier, with the fight going so bad that the thing had even managed to rip parts of Praeratus hunting armor. The gorgonops was not stupid however, he knew that attacking it outright would end with him as its dinner or with it controlling his mind.

Rather, he crept on the ground and around the two combatants, taking advantage of the fact that the creature was distracted and that the locals, who at another time could have screamed at the sight of 1600 pounds gorgonops with blood on its muzzle, were either watching the brawling aliens or tending to a half death white horse woman (maybe Praeratous could allow him to eat her corpse later? She didn't look like she could survive being ripped apart).

Because of that, rather than seeing a roaring gorgonops charging, and too busy trying to pry the the former Centurion off of it to be aware of its surroundings, the bioweapon was completely surprised by seven hundred kilograms that jumped on its back to bite the tape of its neck. The attack was futile because of the weapon's armored hide and regenerative power, but it wasn't supposed to die of it: it was supposed to be a distraction. A distraction that the relieved Praeratus didn't waste time to take advantage of.

“RAAAGH!”

Screaming with rage, Praeratus activated his wrist blade and cut the monster's arms off, with the legs following suit; by using an energy blade instead of a metallic one, he made sure that its arms couldn't grow back at all. This may hadn't worked with a lesser weapon, but his had been designed and built by the best weaponsmiths of the Confederation, ensuring that not wound would spell blood... or close again.

But why did the xeno-hunter cripple the thing instead of killing it outright when it completely at his mercy?

Simple, he needed to know where were the others hiding, and his psionic reserves had recovered during the fight, enough for a forceful mind probe.

Praeratus glared at the creature with a look that would have stopped its heart cold if it had regained its eyes fully.

“You should have told me the location of your friends.” Growled Praeratus. Deactivating his energy blade, the xeno-hunter reached down and grabbed the monster's head by the cheeks. The creature's eyes widened; it knew what was about to happen.

'STOP!' Screamed the creature futilely before it roared in agony as Praeratus' mental prowess punched through its mental defenses.

There was a good reason for the ban on any mind probing more complex than simple 'looks'. The mind of the probed could be irreparably broken, even by accident. And sometimes, the pain that this caused to the individual was much, much worse than simply being perforated by lasers or ripped apart by hypersonic bullets, because there were no 'real' wounds.

But Praeratus didn't care about what he did to the monster. He only cared about where its brothers were hiding.

On its mind, he found out what they did after they escaped from Canterlot. The creatures reached a large forest in the middle of the country, used their psionics to drive the local predators insane to use them as a distraction for their real plan: allow one of their numbers to kill Celestia with impunity. They figured out that since she controlled the sun, then her death would stop it from orbiting the planet, burning the half facing it while freezing the other. Even if that didn't work (since Celestia had a sister that apparently moved the moon; Praeratus didn't know about Twilight and her magic abilities), the death of the 'queen' would send the ponies to a panic that would naturally expand to the rest of the world, easeing up their extermination.

They didn't count on Praeratus and Cyranus though. Hell, apparently they counted on the xeno-hunter joining them on their mission because he was a therawyrm and, therefore, a member of the Confederation. The fact that they could outright smell the scent of war he had on him didn't help.

'HELP... HELP... HELP' Said the still somewhat sane creature while looking at him with what could have been a pleading look.

Praeratus had only one thing to say.

“NO.” He growled before crushing the thing's head like a rotten nalem. No way in hell he would help these things, much less after having killed native sapients.

Praeratus pushed the corpse off of him and stood up, . Now he had the location of the remaining monsters, and since he didn't feel a psychich message then they may not now what happened to their brother, or that their hunter knew where they were hiding at.

And then he remembered the mauled alicorn.

Turning around and approaching Celestia, the therawyrm saw a sad bud realistic aftermath of what happens when someone from was basically a fairy tale is pounced on by a living weapon that can reliably destroy small ships... individually.

Aside from tearing her wings off, the damn monster had neatly ripped part of her belly, partly exposing her (fortunately not cut) guts to the world for everyone to see. The left arm and part of the right leg had been ripped off too, the other leg had been crushed to a fine, white/red paste (although her right arm was relatively unscathed, at least at first sight) and her right breast had been ripped. The only other part of her body left somewhat unscathed was her head, and even it had a nasty gnash on her left cheek.

Worst of all, however, was the fact that despite her mauling she was still alive, although it was only a matter of time. Praeratus watched her look at him with pleading eyes, but there was nothing he could do except grant her a quick death to spare her from her suffering, but he doubted the ponies would even let him.

Overall, a sad image, but one not unknown to Praeratus. He had seen worse. He had suffered worse. But these aliens, accustomed to 'villains' that at the most turned them to stone, simply seen something like this until today.

“I'm sorry girl.”

“It's your fault.” Spoke a voice behind Praeratus in a venomous tone.

With a speed literally not from that world, the -now growling- therawyrm turned and glared at the small crowd behind him, scaring them all.

Praeratus could have demanded to know who said that, but he had regained enough psionic energy to probe all of their minds at the same time. Adding the fact that, as noted before, the animal life of the planet didn't have genuine defenses against psionic powers related to the mind, none of them realized that he wasn't glaring at them with murderous intentions , he was inspecting their thought (and this time he was aware they were there).

It was the blue alicorn, Luna. Who was also Celestia's sister and the co-monarch of the country.

Praeratus grabbed the glaring alicorn telekinetically and pulled her towards him, after which he grabbed her physically by the throat. The others gasped and screamed, and some levies charged at him alongside the orange pony (Rainbow Dash would have done so too, but, well...), but Praeratus pushed all of them down with enough force to bend their armor in the case of the levies, and a leg in the case of one unlucky levy that was too close. Except one of the levies. Cyranus got to one the poor devil first and bit his torso, not enough to pierce his skin but still enough to scare the alien shitless (and break a couple of ribs at least) before shaking him around and throwing him away.

“For your own sake, do not ever come at me like that again.” Growled the therawyrm to the pained men and woman before releasing them and turning back to Luna, who was struggling like a maniac to set herself free. Her fury evaporated when the xeno-hunter grabbed her by the throat. Apparently she had never been held by the throat by someone who not only completely outmatched her physically, but also rendered her magic useless. She was probably accustomed to order everyone he didn't consider a friend around and feel untouchable just becuase she had wings and a horn, the bitch. That would change, either at that same moment or in the future.

“Now, you will give me a good reason of why this is my fault, if you don't want me to throw you to the cold void of space. And trust me, there are things out there, things that would enjoy a random blueberry coming towards them at relativistic speeds. And that's in the best case.” Even though he refused to hurt civilians, he wasn't some saintly idiot who did nothing when provoked or attacked, and his patience had its limits.

“W-what's the worst case?” Asked the Twilight in an anxious tone. Praeratus merely glanced at her before looking back at Luna. They didn't need to know about that their world was situated in a galaxy full of... things.

“Well? Why is this my fault, uh? What's your response!? Tell me! TELL ME DAMN IT!” He roared on her face before huffing with rage. “I'm done with you.”

He then tightened his grip on Luna's throat, having finally decided that she had to go. The other locals tried to save her from his murderous rage, but Praeratus unleashed a wave of pure fear that stopped them cold.

Praeratus would had crushed Luna's neck if not for the alicorn's next response.

“It's... because of your failure... as warrior... that my sister is... about to pass away...”

Praeratus' rage turned into rea, and he released Luna to turn to Celestia. Seeing the alabaster pony barely breath, Praeratus closed his eyes and sighed in shame. He was a former Centurion, a purple psionic that could detect the brain waves of anything that was in close visual range (and by extension have a kill radius of over a mile even if he were naked), and yet couldn't detect a single freak of nature. And because of that mistake the native woman who respected him the most would die after minutes of agony.

Celestia, on death's throes but still conscious, looked at the devastated xeno-hunter and smiled at him (even though that revealed that not even her mouth was unhurt, with several of her teeth fractured at the root). The only thing he could think of at the moment to help was grab her remaining hand and hold onto it. It wouldn't really do anything, but he wanted to offer his support. He had done similar before and during the Hegemony War, but

“Your sister's right. I should had foresaw this. If I had realized this was a trap you wouldn't be... well, this” He said while looking down at her. The alicorn, though clearly in pain, smiled up at him.

“It's okay Praeratus. At least you saved... my... little ponies.” She said with a labored breath before coughing up a glob of blood. She had mere minutes before dying. The worst thing was that, even though she was smiling, her watery eyes were saying something else. He knew that look, it was the look of someone terribly afraid of dying and wanting help. The fact that she didn't really want to go and yet managed to keep her composture about dying despite being a civilian was heartwrenching.

And her death would be his fault, if not entirely, at least partly, both by not seeing the monster behind them and by being utterly unable to heal any damage psionically. Accelerating the healing proccess would have worked in another occasion, but her wounds were simply too much for him to handle with his still low psionic reserves, and that was without counting the fact he didn't have at hand the proteins needed to help the healing. He never bothered to heal himself like that.

“C-can't you do something for her?” Said a small voice below him. It was Spike, who was crying alongside Twilight. The latter, although still pretty sad, wasn't exactly hearwrenching, as much as he disliked to admit it. Probably because she was an adult; seeing men and women crying was simply common to him.

A crying child, on the other hand, was another thing altogether, having seen quite a lot of kids crying through his eight hundred years service. The fact that unlike the ponies Spike resembled a therawyrm made it even worse.

“Please?” Continued Spike before openly crying. Twilight was saying something too, but he didn't pay attention to her.“You have to have something to help her! Do something please! You can't let her die after having saved her twice before!”

'What I'm supposed to tell him, that I can't help her at all?, thought Praeratus sadly as he watched Celestia trying to comfort the young dragon. “I'm sorry Spike, but I can't do anything. She'd be already gone before I gain enough psionic energy to do something. It's out of my hands.”

“But you're an alien with rayguns and magic! You must have something that can save her!”

“Spike, please... let.... Praeratus... be.” Whispered Celestia. She was getting worse and worse by the moment.

“No.” Said Praeratus while standing up, his sadness turned into determination. “He's right. I must have something. And I just realized that sometimes, I'm an idiot.”

“Why... is... that?” Asked Celestia.

“Because I have the mean to save you.”

With that, Praeratus grabbed the nearly dead alicorn with care, assembled her severed body parts on a psionic field, crouched low and activated his shoulder thrusters, jumping exactly like he did before and landing on Celestia's balcony. However, unlike before, he kept jumped again and landed on the mountain, using a combination of speed, psionic charges and thrusters to climb up in a frenetic pace. Praeratus had remembered that he owned the only thing that could save someone as mutilated as Celestia.

The medical pod, or Med-Pod as some called it.

A simple looking device (in fact, their first design came a modified cryopod; the only new addition was a separate console) that could heal any injury, no matter how grievous it was. It was also quite expensive and heavily restricted (only the military, hospitals the wealthy and lucky individuals like Praeratus could own one, and even then the wealthy needed quite a lot of moolah and a permit to use them). What would have needed weeks, even months to recover naturally, it healed in mere minutes at most; even the clinically dead could be brought back as long as the brain of the user/patient was intact (or even with just the 'old brain', the parts that were needed to think, breathe...) and the body hadn't been dead for more than five minutes, although it did had some drawbacks (the reconstruction process was so painful that special anesthetics/unconsciousness were outright mandatory, it couldn't cure illnesses already in the user, the user could lose of their memories if their brain was damaged, and repeated use could result in addiction).

The history and the origin of the devices in general, on the other hand, was rather uninteresting: before the Hegemony War, the Confederation's high brass wanted a way to reliable heal special troops (like psionic soldiers, Gene Warriors and Centurions) without having to wait for them to heal for a lengthy period of time. At first it wasn't simply profitable (either the soldiers returned from their missions not injured enough to require its use, or they, more accurately their bodies didn't return at all), but during and after the Hegemony War, it became a godsend.

Unfortunately, after the war, someone managed to steal one of the pods and reverse engineer it, and because the things were simply too useful to officially ban, the Senate simply added a shut-down mode, made the ones in public exaggerately expensive, and forced those who wanted one to possess an official permit to own and use one so that it design wouldn't fall in other empire's hands. Praeratus, as a former Centurion, didn't need the permit to use his. In fact, he hadn't even bought it: it was a 'trophy' he got from one the few missions which involved actual bounty hunting instead of xeno-hunting. The mission (rescuing a wealthy aimtroog from a notorious privateer gang) went smoothly at first, but then it turned out it was a trap: the aimtroog who he was supposed to rescue was actually part of the gang, which apparently had a bone to pick with Praeratus and thought they could take him.

Needless to say, they were wrong: their fight against Praeratus went to hell quite quickly despite their preparations (over a hundred battle-hardened men and women, a blue psionic, heavy weapons and armor and even a stolen gunship), and twenty minutes later they were all dead. When the xeno-hunter explored their hide out to seek out survivors, he found that the gang had medical pod hidden well inside their lair. Seeing that the bounty didn't say anything about recovering a lost or stolen Med-Pod, he figured he could take the pod for himself, if not to use it, at least to have it as a form of trophy.

While alternately climbing, jumping or charging up the mountainside, Praeratus looked down to see how was Celestia doing.

She had stopped breathing, her open eyes were blank, and her mane had stopped waving. She was clinically dead, and by the looks of it, she died just after he left the city.

'Damn it, have to hurry!' Thought Praeratus hurrying up his mad dash towards his now visible ship. He didn't know how long had she been dead, but he hoped not long enough for the Med-Pod to not bring back. Even though he had never used this one in particular to its full capacity to heal his body (if he had, he wouldn't have remained one-eyed, and most of the times he had used it were for Cyranus, not him), he knew what it could do.

Running towards the ship, Praeratus pressed the button on his wrist that opened the door manually and entered it. He rushed throughout his home until reaching the room that howed the Med-Pod, putting the recently defunct pony in the pod with care.

'This has to work. This MUST work!' I'm going going to let it happen again! Thought Praeratus while playing with the terminal that controled the Med-Pod, closing the machine and begining the process of healing.

“WHERE THE BUCK IS MY SISTER, BEAST!?” Praeratus turned to the direction of the scream to see Luna and the natives that could fly (Twilight, Fluttershy, the weirdo, the hippogriffs and some levies) entering the room he was in.

“Yeah, where's Celestia!”

'Ah, right, I forgot. Half of them have wings.' Thought Praeratus morosely before turning back to the console. 'I'm getting sloppy, letting the door open and... Wait a fracking minute.' They had come inside his ship, his home, and had started shouting demands.

If there was something that Praeratus hated aside from the Hegemony, giant monsters and assholes in general, was people either entering his ship without his explicit permission or outright trespassers; it wasn't a place to rest between jobs, it was the only place he could be himself aside from a battlefield, and a gift from the Senate after his many tribulations when he was a Centurion. His ship shared Cyranus' place as both his most valuable possession and best friend (the latter in the metaphorical sense that's it).

'Who the frack do these aliens think they are!? This is my house, and they already know my name for frack's sake! And what if they see IT?'

'Not time for that Praty! Stay focused or Celestia stays dead! Besides, the thing is well hidden, remember?' Thought Praeratus while forcing himself to stay focused.

Without even turning to face the trespassers, Praeratus said in a level tone: “Your sister is inside this pod; she died in the way to here, and this is the only thing that can bring her back to life. And Luna...”

“IT'S PRINCESS TO YOU, DRAGON! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH BRINGI-” Screamed Luna before being interrupted by a psionic field grabbing her whole body and slamming her against the wall.

Praeratus, so pissed that he had a purple psionic aura emanating from him, stomped towards the struggling alicorn and grabbing her head with enough restrain to make clear he was pissed.

“SHUT THE FRACK UP BITCH! I DON'T GIVE A DAMN IF YOU'RE THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATION! THIS IS MY HOME, AND YOU CAN'T JUST DEMAND AND ORDER ME AROUND IN MY HOME! AND YOU KNOW THAT MY NAME IS PRAERATUS, NOT DRAGON, HORSE!” He said while bashing her head agains her wall. The other natives were too scared of his outburst to help the princess.

He wanted to kill her very badly, but he didn't want to make himself look a monster to the locals after saving them, Celestia would not forgive him for basically murdering her sister in hot-blood, and frankly, part of this was his fault to a point: he had rushed with Celestia without telling them what was his plan.

Growling, Praeratus let the half-conscious Luna fall to the ground and turned back to the terminal. Seeing that the process was ending, he turned to the spooked weirdo, whose name was Discord.

“You. How long since I left with Celestia.” It wasn't a question, it was an order.

“Hey, I have a name you-”

“How. Long.” Repeated Praeratus, making his eyes glow to make clear he was serious.

Inmediatly, Discord made a chronometer watch appear out of thin air and looked at the time “A bit over four minutes, give or take five seconds. Why do you need to know?”

Praeratus exhaled in relief. One minute more and Celestia would have stayed a corpse. Seeing that the reconstruction was ending, the therawyrm walked to Luna and offered his hand to help her up. The shaken alicorn, not in a position to refuse (or insult), grabbed it and stood up.

“Your sister, LUNA, died on the way to here” This earned him a gasp of horror from the natives. He kept talking. “, but this thing can revive the recently deceased as long as they haven't been dead for more than five minutes.” A loud 'PING!' from the pod indicated that what he just said happened. “In fact, the process of resurrection has just ended.”

“Are you sure that Princess Celestia will be alive and well?” Asked the older hippogriff, Novo.

“Her head was okay, and I got here in time, so it should be fine.” Said Praeratus while approaching the terminal to open the Med-Pod. “And besides, this is not my first time using a Med-Pod like this.” That one was a lie, he had never actually revived someone else himself, but they didn't have to know.

Praeratus pressed the button that opened the pod. The device's hatch opened, showing a now-fully healed Celestia, her; the Med-Pod couldn't repair anything other than flesh (or plant matter), and therefore the alicorn's dress kept its torn state, leaving among other things her breasts naked for the onlookers to see, but otherwise she looked perfectly fine, without scars blamishing her fur and her ethereal mane waving again.

“Wow.”

“She's... she's okay.” Whispered Twilight in an awed tone.

“You raised her back from the dead...” Said one of the levies.

Only Discord realized that something was wrong.

“Erm, Praeratus was it?” Said the ferret-like being with a nervous voice.

“Yeah?”

“She's not breathing.” Pointed Discord. He was right, Celestia's chest wasn't moving.

“WHAT!?” Exclaimed the former Centurion before a robotic voice came from the terminal.

“Warning: procedure interrupted! Blood flooding patient's lungs. Death inminent unless blood drained from lungs.” The way it said that was... not exactly intelligent, but Praeratus was too busy raging at the moment to care.

“Damn it!” Why the hell where her lungs still flooded!? With blood flooding her lungs, her respiratory system was completely blocked and thus she would die again even with her heart pumping blood through her circulatory system, and unless the blood got out she would stay like dead (or at least he thought so; he had never heard of people being brought back by a medical pod more than once).

“What's happening! Why isn't she breathing!” Exclaimed Luna while shaking her sister vigorously. Praeratus walked towards the pod and gently removed Luna's hands from Celestia, and then lifted her away psionically.

“The machine just said it woman!” Responded the xeno-hunter while putting his head on the alabaster's alicorn chest to confirm her condition. You can never be sure afte all. “Her heart is working again, but her longs still have blood inside of them and if I don't get it out, she'll drown, and I doubt that the Med-Pod can resurrect the same person twice.”

“Then do something please!” Pleaded Luna. Yes, pleading instead of screaming or ordering. She had no more pride left, not after being grabbed by the neck and then slammed to a wall.

He didn't care. Instead of replying, Praeratus carefully opened Celestia's mouth and, to the bewilderment of the aliens, connected his rough lips with hers.

“What are you doing to the Princess, beast!?” Screamed one of the levies while unseathing his sword. Praeratus moved from Celestia's side to the levy's, uppercutted him so hard that his jaw broke and his hit the ship's ceiling, and returned to Celestia. All of that in three seconds.

Praeratus, although clearly miffed, kept blowing air to Celestia's lungs as if nothing had happened, after which he pressed her chest delicately to push the blood from her lungs and out of the mouth, and repeated the process until Celestia finally reacted. By coughing up the remaining blood on his face.

Praeratus grunted in disgust; this wasn't the first time someone spitted blood on his face, but it was still disgusting (and the first time it came from someone he hadn't injured previously). But hey, at least Celestia had started breathing again, so it wasn't all that bad.

And then he was suddenly bear hugged by both Luna and Twilight (or at least they thought they were bear hugging), crying and blubbering.

“Y-you saved my sister yet again!”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Praeratus almost felt bad for what he was going to say next. ALMOST being the keyword.

“On the one hand, you're welcome; it was the least I could do.” He said while hugging them back... for two seconds, before stepping back from the girls. “But on the other... Sorry, but I have to ask you to leave my ship. Without Celestia.”

The alicorns stopped crying and looked up at him, dumbstruck by his petition, alongside the others.

“W-what?”

“First, you guys just barged into my ship, MY HOME, whitout even bothering to ask me for permission to enter. I do not take kindly to that, and if it weren't for the fact that you're important people to Celestia I would had done... nasty things to you.” He didn't say WHAT he could have done to them had they been other people, but their frightened expressions made clear they got the meaning.

“And second, just because Celestia just came back from the dead doesn't mean she can movie, or should for that matter. She's still pretty weak due to the procedure and we should let her rest.”

The alicorns and the other locals were torn. Sure, Praeratus had done nothing but help them even though he also... did nasty things (like breaking Rainbow Dash and killing those storm guards), and he was on their world to take out the demons that nearly killed the Princess of the Day two hundred years ago. And he was actually asking them to leave his ship in a polite manner.

However, they didn't know anything at all about him, and the fact that he possessed dangerous weapons, powerful magic and a device that could resurrect the dead didn't help matters.

And then there was the fact that he nearly killed Princesses Twilight and Luna.

“You only saved our princess to eat her or do something worse!” Exclaimed one of the levies while brandishing his spear.

Praeratus growled. He had enough with them!

Praeratus grabbed them all with telekinesis, walked to the door of the ship (even with half of the captives hitting the metal walls of the ships), and threw them out, where they landed next to a waiting Cyranus. Others might have been surprised by the speed with which the gorgonops had arrived, but Praeratus was already accustomed to it. In fact, he had been half expecting his friend to scare the locals when they were inside.

“Cyranus, come here boy!” The gorgonops obeyed and ran inside. Praeratus then glared at the group below him. “And if you want to come back, you better not bring your clone troopers!” Roared the xeno-hunter before punching the button and closing the door. “Fracking aliens. Did they really come just to insult me in my face?”

Walking back to the Med-Pod room, Praeratus saw that Celestia, despite the conmotion, was still asleep. He didn't want her to sleep in a cold machine, but he didn't want to make her sleep on a couch with a gorgonops as company either.

And there was only one bed in his ship.

Sighing outloud, Praeratus picked up the sleeping woman and carried her bridal style to his bedroom. As he neared the room, the still asleep Celestia shifted on his arms and tucked her head on the crook of his neck. Praeratus stopped cold.

He had never felt the head of someone next to his since...

Praeratus shook his head and continued his walk to his room. It would be better to simply forget.

Finally arriving at the door of the bedroom, Praeratus opened it with psionically, entered, and turned on the light to see.

It was a rather spartan bedroom, with a bed large enough for two people as big as Praeratus to fit in, a tandem wall stand next to the door that held a ballistic rifle (just in case, one couldn't never be sure), a simple metallic table and chair, and a walk-in closet.

The therawyrm held Celestia in one arm carefully and opened the bed with the other, after which he laid her on the bed and covered her with the sheets.

“Sleep well Celestia.” He said in her ear before turning off the light and closing the door slowly to not wake her up.

He didn't see Celestia moving in her sleep.

If you're thinking that the Med-Pod is an Asspull, it's not. The characters can only die once (well not really, but given they end up mad they might as well be), so if they die after being revived once, they'll stay dead (insane). Also, Praeratus might seem a bit 'angry', but his name is partly based on the Latin word that means 'anger'.

Also, changed his rage at the group entering his ship from a cultural thing to a personal thing. I'm going to make him like Mal Reynolds too, although one that fought for the lawful side that technically won.