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{Palace District--Time Unknown}

I had been walking through the streets and alleys of Canterlot for what felt like hours. Ever since I reached the Palace District, I had been all turned around. The place was filled with this fog in the middle of day. It couldn’t let you see beyond a few meters at best and it was eerily quiet--not a blow of the wind, not a chirping of a bird, and to make it worse, no pony in sight. The whole place felt like no soul belonged there; like no soul was ever there. Pure death: that is what it felt like.

My fob hadn’t stopped spinning since I got into the fog. I felt the presence of a single soul, but it felt like it was all over the city. No matter where I looked, I could feel the presence of something inequine: something that hungered; something that was baring its fangs and drooling in anticipation of the arrival of their prey.

It could have been Thugee mercenaries, it could have been a fairy, it could have been that the local weather team was paid to increase the fog and the ponies living here simply vacated the premises. Or it could have been something beyond my personal comprehension. I asked myself if I was even alive. Was I in a dream, and I was simply sleeping in some alley, robbed of everything that was on me?

To me, what was transpiring back then barely felt real. And I have seen the impossible before, though this was closer to a sick joke by some malignantly sadistic lower god than a dream. Not that I personally knew any malignantly sadistic lower gods at the time.

But I kept going forward until I officially saw it--Philharmonic Hall. The Neo-Equestrian Classical building looked almost eerie with the thick daylight fog around it. A stone corpse, placed in my path as an omen of ill fortune. But that didn’t deter me.

I charged my horn, once again activating my ‘Trinket’ as a precaution. If that was real, then whatever was in there was ready.

Maybe the bastards had finally decided to get smart and brought a few of their magicians for my head. I will admit that after having me trot in circles for so long, I was itching for good brawl; a little stress relief was exactly what I needed.

As a result I said in frustration, “Time to face the music.”

I opened the suspiciously unlocked double doors and saw a single unicorn stallion standing in the middle of the lobby right under the glass and gold chandelier.

He was wearing a white suit with a black tie, his coat was ash grey and his mane a light blond, short and combed to the right--the kind of look you would expect of a theater doorpony.

Then he gave me a smile wider than I have ever seen in my life, and at that moment I saw his teeth.

A large row of sharp pointy teeth, not unlike those found in the deep sea anglerfish; the carnivorous needlelike daggers combined their shape with the apparent functionality of piranhas and the solidity of steel. His eyes green, producing a blackened hue; possessed of feline-like properties that gave an indication of magic not meant for this earth…

“Oh, crap!” I yelled with full knowledge of the kind of madness that I had just stumbled into.

The ‘thing’ lunged at me with an unholy speed, emitting a shriek worthy of the deepest fiery pits of Sheol. I rolled to the side and quickly stood up while unsheathing the Kurdish dagger I keep hidden in my coat. I charged magic to it while the ‘thing’ did much the same to the fog outside, instantaneously covering the room in a thick blanket of the substance, seemingly destroying the advantage of visibility. Luckily, I don’t need my eyes to see…

It lunged at me again with what felt like blades unnaturally protruding from ‘its’ hooves slashing and striking wildly as I blocked and redirected its blows with my dagger, all while dodging blasts of magic from ‘its’ horn.

I parried ‘its’ left blade with my dagger and subsequently rolled to my left, shooting a magic concussion blast, sending ‘it’ flying a few feet, but ‘it’ quickly used its blades to anchor itself to the marble floor of the lobby, using the momentum to lunge itself at twice the speed, impaling both of my sleeves in place, barely missing my forehooves while ‘its’ eldritch maw was about to rip a massive chunk of my throat.

Though I managed to stop ‘it’ by using my telekinesis to quickly stab the upper jaw, with ‘its’ vile black blood splattering on my chest and neck. This caused ‘it’ to break ‘its’ concentration, subsequently freeing my sleeves from the dissolving dark scythe-like blades.

I used my lower hooves to buck ‘it’ back, while I charged my horn once more and I used it to summon my less than agreeable familiar. He manifested himself by using the surrounding fog to form an enormous king cobra-like body.

He lunged at the unholy doorpony from the pits beyond Sheol, constricting ‘it’ by coiling around its body. I heard the sound of breaking bones emanating from ‘it’ as I noticed that the room was now clear of fog, my familiar having used it all to manifest itself on the physical plane not a moment ago.

“Aren’t ye a pretty one?”

‘It’ raised an eyebrow at that, probably wondering something along the lines of ‘Who does this bastard think he is?’

“My friend coiling around your gracious host right now is feeling rather puckish, and he adores the taste of unicorn. So do me a favor and leave the body of Mister Happy Little Racial Purist Number Three-Hundred-and-Forty and let’s be civilized about this.”

‘It’ then proceeded to somehow take a bite out of my familiar. Let me rephrase that. It bit a fucking chunk of ectoplasm out of a damned specter! Nothing does that! Nothing that I had seen had ever done that before! That was a complete shaking hoof to the laws of etheral-nature as we knew them back then!

I heard my familiar’s wails of agony as he uncoiled himself away from the abomination that I have been calling ‘thing’ or 'it’ for the last ten paragraphs. The damned 'thing' then nudged ‘itself’ free.

And then ‘it’ proceeded to kneel and start projectile vomiting a foul-smelling black bile that expanded, instantly protruding a three-fingered thin, amorphous claw from its side while it coalesced into a blob of some kind. It then used that claw to quickly drag itself in my direction.

I responded by pulling out my snubbed .44, blasting away at the top link of the chain holding the chandelier. The chandelier then submitted to gravity and fell on my current predicament, but not before that predicament swatted me and sent me flying to the reception desk behind me.

As I moaned in pain among the splinters of the Philharmonic Hall’s reception desk, I still managed to hear the fall of several hundred imperial pounds of gold plated iron, glass and etherlectrical wiring on top of the new source of my nightmares. The sound of my success gave me the biggest grin on my face as I noticed a half empty bottle of whiskey to my right.

I telekinetically took it with gusto as I noticed that the chandelier was enough to pin the ‘thing’ to the marble floor. I took the opportunity to quickly bite of the cork off the whiskey bottle, took a swift swig from it, and then spat the contents on my current foe, sparking it as it hit the chandelier.

The fire brought naught but pain for it. Its unearthly howls of agony were something that are as haunting as they are satisfying to my ears. To that I said the following: “That iron on top of ya must be a real pain. Isn’t it? Tough!”

Got to love raw iron; its properties against dark magic make things so much easier for me.

Then I lit my horn, heating the iron and gold to melting point. The sounds of sparks and crackling glass reverberated across the lobby as it once more screamed in pain.

I then poured the whiskey on the floor, using my magic to have it form a circle around me. I sparked it, setting it aflame while pointing the now empty bottle at my defeated foe. The bottle sucked in the blob, seemingly turning said blob to gas; the flames around me came next. I recorked the bottle with the same cork I had bit off earlier. I then burned a rune to the bottle’s side, causing said bottle to shake.

I wasn’t going to deal with a problematic prisoner, so I shook the bottle in response.

I then felt the air became stale once more. And then I looked to the left hallway. I had to go in that direction. I wasn’t going to run from this.

“I should have brought the double-barrel.”

________________________________________

I heard a slight groan; I looked to my right and saw the doorpony try to get up. In response, I telekinetically lifted a piece of the shattered front desk and threw it at his face. There was a slight crunch at impact, but the fact that I could hear slight breathing afterwards meant that he was still alive.

I trotted towards him and noticed the patch of his own blood at the side of his head, then I telekinetically grabbed him by his smoking jacket, dragging him along while moving towards the stuffy, stale-aired left corridor.

I started hearing whispering voices, voices that could not be formed by equine throats, voices speaking in tongues that I couldn’t recognize. So numerous were the sources that it felt as if they weren’t coming from any direction in particular.

I decided that it was best if I moved along. I needed to find a safe place to stash the freak that I was currently dragging; he could wake up at any moment and I had rather not have come to a position where lethal force was necessary. He might have had information I needed, so it was in my best interest to keep him alive until I had the opportunity of properly questioning him.

The corridor for the moment was well lit and I could see the continuous row of similar-looking oak doors. I continued pressing forward until I noticed one in my peripheral vision that had a plaque that read ‘Janitor's Closet’.

I then proceeded to open said door and then threw the doorpony--that had brought me so much pain since I got into the building--into the janitor’s closet in a manner similar to how one throws a pony-sized bag of potatoes into a cart.

Rather unceremoniously, if I do say so myself.

I then slammed the door shut and I pyrokinetically melted the brass knob. I felt that wasn’t enough, so I began carving a seal rune to the door with one of my throwing knives. No, not my Kurdish dagger, my throwing knives. Daggers are for close quarters combat; throwing knives are for use during an ambush, and even then they are meant for circumstantial use.

Anyway, I then continued on, and there I started feeling it. The fatigue. Sure, I already had jagged breath from my fight earlier, but I then started to feel heavier and heavier. My body started shaking, and began entering a cold sweat. After ten steps, I couldn’t continue. Then the light bulbs in the surrounding lamps started to blow off, one by one until the corridor was in pitch blackness. I could still see--I had trained to see in these conditions--but then my vision started to cloud, and my skull felt like it was contracting around my brain…

The pain was horrible. I gritted my teeth in order to not scream out in agony. Alas, in the end, the pain was too much and as a result, I collapsed on the floor.

I was running out of options, and there were words for this sort of predicament. Old words. Lemurian to be precise. I couldn’t bring myself to use them at the time. There was no guarantee that what was controlling the environment around me ever understood the first tongue, or that it would recognize its authority. Opening my mouth to speak could have rendered my lungs and stomach vulnerable for attack. And considering the nature of my current adversary, I would rather have left no openings…

It was the sound and feeling of the snapping of three of the ribs in my right ribcage that made me stop questioning whether it was a good idea. “GHAAAAAAAGH!!!”

I then opened my eyes and yelled in a firm tone, “Orgu-Emur-Jargo-Ma-Undo-Na!!”

My vision stopped blurring and gravity gained a new sense of mercy, because I was actually feeling lighter then when I first entered.

I got up and then stumbled a bit, having to use the wall to my right as a crutch. I decided to trot a bit more, and then I stopped and sat on the left wall.

My breathing was heavy; practically every part of my body screaming and cursing at me like it was Parliament during a tax reform.

I then took out from my left coat pocket a small pharmaceutical glass bottle of opiates.

I took out four and popped them into my mouth; then I took out a my leather bound hip flask out of my other left coat pocket, unscrewed the cap, and washed down the pills with cheap blended whiskey. I must have easily drank four ounces out of the eight ounce container.

The pain may have started to dull, but my right rib cage was going to be a problem. I probably had internal bleeding. I couldn’t do much about the internal bleeding, but I could have my ribs back in place, even if they wouldn’t exactly be fixed. You see, I had a couple of Rapid Skeletal Regen injections. But this was, by all standards, a temporary solution.

I would have to go to a hospital for my ribs to be properly fixed.

In spite of that, however, I decided to take one out and jam it into my right rib cage, inject the juice right in and let it do its magic. The problem?

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! SON OF A BITCH!!!!! CELESTIA GETTING SODOMISED BY A MINOTAUR!!!! GHAAAAAAA!!!!!”

The process hurt like finding Prince Blueblood going to town on what was going to be your date that evening over the kitchen table. And that is with the opiates! Not to mention the booze.

After what must have been a few minutes of me cursing every form of life on the planet and uttering blasphemies against deities both living and dead, the pain began to dull, and I was ready to get back up.

I cracked my neck, got up, and started to move forward once more. I had work to do, and I didn’t feel like dying at the time, so sitting there just to wait for my doom was out of the question. I was in less pain, but as you can guess, my remarkable senses were a bit dulled at that moment by the remarkable cocktail of medication I just put myself through.

I soldiered on, and I started to notice something: I wasn’t surrounded by oak doors, beautifully styled emerald green wallpaper, or brass electric lamps. I was now in what must have been a late pre-Celestia stone corridor.

“Oh, crap.”