The Storm

The Storm

Original Poster: Great Commander Alex Vaughn

The Storm

Great Commander Alex Vaughn



An Introduction
Note: The following story has deep roots with the fanfiction series: The Terminators: Army of Legend .

In the words of a noble soldier, "Innocence is Life's greatest illusion."

Things that may seem innocent doesn't necessarily mean that they are...as I'm now more than aware. You see, I had a dream once. A very...strange dream, very demented, and in it, I saw the army of OBSIDIAN Black...the good guys, the ones that had sided with Terrias and Alex.

The situation here...it was very much different. In the construction of the ultimate army, I saw another member's journey into membership, as she witnessed the death of her world and everything she had ever loved.

In the words of a former Maxia commander, "Everything you see, everything you touch, taste, hear, and smell, it spawns from a different universe. You see, every world, real or imagined, is like a pearl on a necklace, all positioned tautly around the physical embodiement of Time and Space, what Stephen King has foreseen as the Dark Tower. So-called 'real' worlds, or naturally born worlds from the Big Bang, or God, or whomever you believe, are much stronger than the imagined universes. Over time, the necklace breaks down, it becomes frayed, and the tautness begins to loosen. Soon, the pearls begin to touch, and the touching universes begin to combine and absorb. When the necklace breaks, the pearls scatter and fall to the floor...the base world...the very world we live on right now. This is the world upon which the Dark Tower sits, this is the world where all things finally end up."

I didn't realize how true he was until I saw it for myself one horrific evening after a collision with a deer at 50 MPH sent me into the hospital...where the doctors said I flatlined once for seven minutes and miraculously survived. It was during these numb seven minutes that I saw the truth revealed to me.

The Story
Distant thunder rumbles on and on, awakening her from her sleep. She is confused, irritated even, the forecast mentioned that there wouldn't even be rain for another three days, and when she was important to provide the appropriate forecast, she didn't want the world to lose faith and trust in her. She stood up, stretching, admiring her awe-inspiring coolness as she posed before the mirror. "Hi there," she said to her reflection, "You're lookin' mighty cool today."

She chuckled to herself as she walked out through the large, elaborate, double doors and onto her balcony. She groaned, sure enough, thick black thunderheads were rolling in, taunting her, trying to change the forecast that she had already released. "Oh hell naw!" she exclaimed, roaring in fury as she immediately rushed down to the soft green earth beneath her, landing with style, much to the admiration of the citizens who roamed the park. However, their worried glances kept switching between the confident girl and the fast-approaching thunder heads, as if questioning her judgment and honesty.

"I thought you said that there weren't supposed to be any storms today?" one of her friends said, walking up to her.

"I did, but that doesn't mean shit when the weather doesn't want to listen."

"What are you going to do?"

"Try to avoid suspicion."

"You do realize that people are gonna realize that something is off about your 'perfect prediction' when big fat rain drops start falling down on their heads."

"Hmph," and the girl's violet eyes flashed with arrogance and outrage, "Not my problem."

"No, it is your problem," and her friend's taunting glare offended her as the girl took a menacing step towards the friend. There was a brilliant flash of light as a deep purple glow emitted from her and the girl lost full control of her body.

"Hey! What gives?" and she struggled, but the invisible force held her steadfast.

"You need to calm down."

"I'll calm down as soon as this storm flies passed!"

"Y'know..." and the glow weaked, as did the force, as the girl's friend looked up towards the rolling clouds, another look of worry on her face, "I sense something about these clouds...they aren't natural."

"No shit, Sherlock," the girl replied with an irritated puff, her hot breath sending her wildly colored hair into the air before it settled once more.

"No...I sense a kind of...magical...presence to them, and it isn't the good kind of magic either."

The girl laughed and replied, "You mean, there is a such thing as good magic? I thought you were some kind of evil witch."

The friend gave the girl a look that said that she was not amused, "I'm being serious...whatever this storm is...it is dangerous. We should seek shelter...you especially. If we can make it across town and to the library, the entire community can stay in there for the duration of the storm."

"Nah! Storm, schmorm! There ain't nothin' in the world that I can't handle. Besides! There is no way in hell you are gonna get me to stay in a library! There's nothing there but books, books, and more books! I want action! I want passion! I want to face whatever magical creeps this storm spawns and pop them right in the balls!"

"I don't think you are looking at the full potential of danger this storm poses...there is something..."

Suddenly, she grew silent, frantically looking around, beginning to breathe heavily.

The girl, confused, queried, "What? What's going on?"

"Quiet!"

"What?"

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Just listen!" and the friend smacked the head of the girl with her fingerless hand, effectively pushing her head to the side. Far off, very quietly, the girl could suddenly hear what sounded like...squirming? Her shining eyes widened, her mouth twisted in disgust, and she felt the appendages on her back stiffen with anxiety. Something was coming...and whatever it was...it wasn't pleasant.

There was a loud explosion that sounded nearby, and screams of horror and terror. "What the hell is going on?" the girl asked, but when she turned to face her friend, the friend was already dashing off towards the center of town. All around her, she watched as meteors, flaming meteors, crashed down to the almost prissy flower arrangements, immediately setting them...and the town...alight. Quickly, the girl rotated on her four feet, speeding off so fast that she caught air time. She slid to a stop, multi-colored hair flapping down in her face as she abruptly blew it away, staring, wide-eyed, as a large, swirling, black mass, with a red core, rotated in the skies above. Shadowy tentacles seemed to sprout from the inhuman mass, stabbing down striking the ground with a sound almost like that of a lightning strike. Citizens turned tail in terror, speeding off, dropping whatever they were holding, forgetting whatever they were doing, as they raced off, attempting to reach safety. The girl watched as the mass struck them down in mid-dash, impaling their flailing flanks on its solid shadow tentacles before throwing them around, their corpses dislodging as the bodies went flying through the roofs of nearby buildings.

A pink-haired girl hopped over to her, normally easy-going personality now overshadowed with fear and anxiety, "Wh...wh...what is going on?" she asked, panicking. All down her body, her muscles twitched spastically, as if her body could not make up on whether to stay or flee. "Go!" the weathergirl hissed, "Now! Get out of here! Find T..." and one of the tentacles stabbed between them, sending both of them flying backwards.

"Where are you?" the pink-haired maiden cried out, "Where are you D..." before her sentence turned into a loud, pained scream. The weathergirl looked up in horror as she watched her friend, now impaled by the tentacular mass in the sky, get slammed through the roof of a nearby hut. This sent the girl over the edge, and she turned tail and ran, leaping into the sky, as if she was trying to fly.

As she raced through an eerily empty part of town, she stopped to take a break, gasping heavily, about to collapse. Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation on her tattooed rear, and she looked behind her, looking to see if she was on fire...

As she turned back, a terrible pain, as if she was being ripped in half, tore through her mind and body. A demonic chant assaulted her mind as the telepathic, tentacular mass raped her memories and mind. Horrific images of war and violence surged through her brain, flashing gruesome, grisly images with crystal clarity across her eyes. The ground beneath her rumbled unsteadily, and she abruptly turned around to see what was going on...but instead of seeing ahead of her, all she saw were these horrific images being impressed upon her by the World Eater rotating above. LOOK AND BEHOLD! it's impossibly deep voice boomed, echoing within the inner walls of her private mind. THE WORLD AS YOU KNOW IT SHALL END!

Who are you? the girl thought back, not expecting a reply.

Instead, the deep, penetrating voice of the entity replied, forcing her to cringe in fear and pain, I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL OF YOUR SINS, A PILLAR REPRESENTING ALL OF THE EVILS AND INNOCENCE THAT THE MULTIVERSE KNOWS.

''Multiverse? ''she thought back. Wh...what do you mean by that?

THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE!

After this final comment, the girl felt a high pitched ring fillie her ears, and she placed the hard masses of her hands to her protruding ears, attempting to protect her senstive hearing from the ring. It grew louder and louder, and she screamed in pain, feeling something pop in her head as silence enveloped her and she felt liquid warmth flood down her colorful hair. Alarmed that she couldn't hear, she broke out into a mad dash, speeding as far away from the village as she could. Years of races, of practicing and easily conquering her friends in schoolyard races, had left her extremely fit, despite her apparent laziness, and now, even her strength was pressed to the max.

A sensation overtook her, and she felt as if she was flying. Ahead of her, she could see the edge of the village, marked by a looming mountainside, fast approaching, and within seconds, she paused on the incline of the road heading up the peak, connecting this little mountainside village with another, larger, capital city built along the top of the stone-gray mountain. The skies were a deep, bloody red, and the sun, now sinking to the west, was a massive yellow dome across the western horizon. As she collapsed onto her stomach on the road, catching her breath, she looked up, watching, feeling helpless, as the smoke from the burning town below rose into the bloody skies, tapering off until it was swirling with the hurricane-like presence of the spirit of destruction.

There were several flashes of light, and she felt the powerful wind pick up as a massive tear opened in the sky, appearing like a portal to space. The sky shattered like glass, being sucked into the portal, and soon, the vaccuum of the immense puncture was sucking in the town and landscape as well. The portal in the sky flickered once, and she watched as an image of a burning, walled city shimmered into view, as if she was scrying through a looking glass. Beyond the city, she could see a towering wall of fire, rising several miles into the air, that seemed to encircle the entire landscape and was about five or six miles out from the walls of the city in the sky. In an instant, the rest of the sky seemed to be sucked into the vortex, leaving in its wake a bright white nothingness. There was another flash of light, and the girl cried out as she realized that she was no longer in the world she belonged in.

Instead, she was in a ruined city, a post-apocalyptic sight indeed. Towering skyscrapers were rotting away in eerie silence, ivy and vines wormed down the faces of the towers, and grass, saplings, and small bushes poked through the cracked and crater-laden streets beneath her four feet. The wind blew through her furry body, and she was filled with a sudden sense of loneliness and terror. This isn't right... she said, Where in the hell am I?

There was no answer...the only thing before her was the empty city. She heard muffled cries, as if hearing the ghosts of a million horsemen charging into war. NightMarish screams added to the hellish screams and roars of "''URA". ''The world flickered again, and she saw herself surrounded by strange, two-legged creatures...humans. They charged into battle, firing magical weapons at each other, weapons that were handheld, and shot small round cylinders instead of arrows. Each time those mystical weapons fired, flashes of light would appear at the ends of the barrels, and all around her, these people were falling to the ground in sprays of blood and gore. To her immediate left, a man, the lower half of his body blown off, crawled across the asphalt street, leaving a smear of deep, liquid red before he finally collapsed to the ground and stilled.

Although she could not hear them, she could tell that the wounded were crying, pleading for mercy, but the other army...the ones who waved the flag with the tribal-looking bird, spared none of them. Those of the black-suited soldiers that survived the onslaught were dragged away and executed with a shot to the head. One man, flanked to either side with a squad of seven men, shoved his way past her, the brief contact caused both him to pause in his tracks. Even though she was invisible to everyone around her, the battle-scarred man turned around, seeming to look right at her. His badly burned face twisting into confusion, he shrugged it off, baring his teeth as he turned around, howling in fury, and charged forward.

She felt inclined to follow him, and she did, and as they charged together, the man stil unaware of his unseen follower, she looked around in horror as he, armed with two swords, mercilessly butchered the men who moved to engage him. Finally, they arrived at a burned out building, and he kicked open the door, swords switched out with one of those mysterious weapons. He fired into the room, a hundred flashes of light emerging from the end of the tube he held as his arms twitched with the recoil of his AK47. She followed him inside as he shot and slaughtered his way through the building, finally emerging on the rooftop. A man, dressed in a tuxedo, was standing beside an idling helicopter, surrounded by four black-suited soldiers. As soon as the burned and battle-scarred man she was following stepped onto the rooftop, the soldiers fired upon him. The man survived, killing his assailants, and an explosion sent all of her companion's squad to the ground. The well-dressed man then quickly turned around, racing off towards the helicopter.

"YOU BASTARD!" her companion roared, and he prepared his weapon to fire. The tuxedoed man then turned again a revolver in his hand, and fired a single shot. Her companion doubled over as blood shot out from his stomach, and he collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily, a pool of red liquid quickly gathering around him. His face was speckled with blood, and he, appearing as if he was very tired and about to fall asleep, looked at her with a sad smile.

"NO!" she yelled, and her hearing instantly snapped back into place as she charged towards the suited man. He fired three shots in her direction, one grazing each of her shoulders before the third round tore through her azure flank and she went down. Pain surged through her body, it hurt to breathe...it hurt to move...and she was about to stand before that fiery heat tore through her again, and she collapsed. She watched, helplessly, as the tuxedoed man walked towards her companion, executing each individual member of his squad, saving her companion for last. Suddenly, the man weakly reached at his waist, revealing a small Desert Eagle pistol as he took aim at the man's head and let loose a single bullet. The tuxedoed man's head shot back in slow motion, in a cloud of maroon, and he fell backwards, hitting the ground. Once the tuxedoed man was down, her companion turned to face her, and he smiled, "We did it..." he said, before his head hit the ground.

"''Alex!" ''she roared, alarmed that she knew his name now. As soon as she uttered his name, a flood of memories involving him flashed through her mind, as if floodgates containing them had just been breached. Not only did she apparently know this man...but he was her...he was her mate!?

Within moments, there was a flash of light, and a powerful, hot, wind tore through her body, threatening to blow her backwards with its powerful gust. She stood unsteadily, watching as the city was now entirely in flames. The fires burned quickly, hungrily, feeding off of the corpses which quickly blackened beneath the heat of the fires. The entire world was glowing red hot. Far off to the north, in the distance, her jaw dropped as her dark pink eyes widened and she saw a towering mushroom cloud rise into the air. Within moments, black snow began to rain down from the skies, even though the temperature was at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

She watched then, feeling sad for some reason, as her companion lay, on his stomach, on the ground. She was alarmed to find herself about to cry, but as the tears came, they immediately evaporated from a combination of intense heat and nuclear wind. Just then, the man, entirely in flames, stood up, some color returned to the blackened waste of his body before quickly returning to the shriveled skeletal flesh. He was attempting to...to heal? he stumbled towards her, eyes black and wide, blackened flesh shriveled and pulling back to reveal black teeth, and he limped towards her, like a zombie, before collapsing to the ground and holding her.

What he said next haunted the cyan mare as she awoke from this odd dream, back in her own bed, with no sign of anything occurring, only now she had a television in her room, and it was broadcasting information on a three year, ongoing war between the President of the United States, based in Washington DC, and Great Commander Alex Vaughn, based in New Alexandria, Montana, the capital of the Terminator Militia.

What Alex said to the pegasus was...

"Dash! You're gonna be okay...Rainbow Dash...you're gonna be okay..."