Note: Greetings everyone! I am glad to bring you this chapter right after Christmas. I hope Santa Claus (who is real, do not let your cynical peers and elders tell you otherwise) brought you everything you wanted. Anyway, I want to apologize for not updating for such along time. Fortunately, I have a bunch of excuses I can spew into the air. First: there is school. Second: there is more school. Third: I have had so... many... ideas. I mean, truly, I have never felt so inspired in my life. Thus, I have spent almost all my free time writing up outlines and creating sample chapters for a myriad of new stories. If you are interested in all the things I have been working so tirelessly on, I suggest you check out my profile. I updated it and placed a whole bunch of detailed synopses of the many stories into it. I would be really interested (and grateful) for any feedback that you could give me about my new ideas! Now, I would usually spend the next couple hundred words on answering reviews... but it seems everyone is on the same page! So, instead, I will say thank you to all of you out there! I really appreciate your reviews and the support you have been giving me. I must say that all of your support has truly inspired me to keep going and to create more. Now enjoy my latest chapter! And to all those who are fans of August and his team, do not worry. I will have them incorporated back into the cycle without a hitch. Now enjoy!

Dimension: My Little Pony

Planet: Equestria Earth

Specific Location: The Stallion Empire

Time: Over a week after Lyric found Summer.

"So," said Summer in a chipper and cheerful matter-of-fact tone of voice, "Let me get this straight: We walk out onto the field, turn right, and then head into another forest… And there is nothing that is going to try to kill us, or capture us and end up raping me?"

Lyric pulled a face as she stated that last part. "We have had it rough, now that you put it that way… But, surprisingly, no."

Summer's face brightened like the brilliant sun breaking through heavy and dark thunderclouds. "Wonderful! I can actually breathe again!"

Despite the fact that the beautiful face the blind filly had just made had sent a vitalizing jolt of happiness through his body, Lyric could not help but dwell on apprehension. He bit his bottom lip as he said, "Yeah… It does seem a little too good to be true. But that field is so open, anything from any of the tree-lines or the sky can spot us and murder us easily."

Summer sat down next to Lyric and threw a hoof about his shoulder. She nuzzled his cheek in a jocund-ish kind of way as she said, "Listen to you, you big worrywart! Here we are, two foals in the prime of their lives, escaping dangers at every turn and dodging death every hoofstep… and then there is you, complaining that a snowy field is too big! Live a little and take a leap."

The colt smiled a little, absent-mindedly. Lyric's mind was still clouded in worries. "I don't know. I think your heart is so big that it is living life more than enough for the two of us."

Summer gently licked Lyric's frost-covered cheek. "You know what I mean."

Lyric rolled his eyes. "Okay. You win. I mean, we are going to die one day anyway, might as well go ahead and commit suicide while we are at it."

Summer shoved him lightly. "That's the spirit! You only live once, right?"

Lyric nodded a little more energetically. "You're right! Hey… I like that phrase. 'You Only Live Once.' It sounds awesome."

It was Summer's turn to now pull a face. "Mayhap. But I think it is best we don't overuse it. It could just end up being a 'Carpe Diem' for idiots."

Lyric waved a hoof about airily. "Whatever you say. Now let's get this over with, or I might end up changing my mind and end up hiding in this forest for another fortnight."

Summer groped about quickly and then seized Lyric hand. "Then let's do this and cross before it is too late! There could be patrols moving even as we speak!"

Lyric nodded (even though Summer could not see it) and began to lead the blind filly across the field carefully.

Every now and then, as the two took short breaks from dragging their bodies through the snow, Lyric would meticulously scour the sky for any signs of hostile aircraft. So far, there was none. But that could change in an instant.

The sun slowly passed its apex as the two foals moved across the field. As they toiled through the ice and snow, the two foals began to talk of their future.

"What do you think this valley of peace we are travelling to will be like?" asked Summer as they trotted and stumbled.

"I don't know, I would really prefer to leave it to blank imagination until I actually lay eyes on it," replied Lyric.

"I cannot wait to hear and smell it!" said Summer, "I bet it will be as silent as a secluded forest at the break of dawn, just before the birds sing… and I bet it will smell of freshly fallen leaves, with petrichor lingering in the air."

Lyric could not help but smile, almost dreamily. "That sounds amazing. Hey… tell you what… I will describe what I see, but only if you describe what you smell and hear. My weak senses cannot pick up nearly as much as yours can."

Summer nodded her head. "I would love to! It would make me feel more part of the team."

"What do you mean by 'part of the team'?" laughed Lyric, "You were the whole team! I just tagged along!"

"Don't you mean vice versa?" snorted Summer, "Last time I checked, I was stuck in a glowing ball of pure energy before you saved me!"

"Granted it was a very lethargic team before I joined," countered Lyric without missing a beat, "But still…"

"Fine, fine, have it your way, Mister Insistent," said Summer, rolling her blank eyes, "Anyway, back to the subject we were SUPPOSED to be discussing… What do you think of this fabled valley we are going to? What do you think the ponies will be like?"

Lyric shrugged his shoulder slightly as he continued to trot. "I don't know. I think they would be kind, I guess. They live in a valley that is protected from both the despotic Stallion Empire military, and the sadistic Trixie's Hoof terrorists. It is a quiet place, and therefore there must be quiet denizens."

Summer nodded. "I agree. I also think they will be accepting. They must be getting ponies in need from all over, seeking refuge from the chaos around them."

Though Lyric had initially stated that he would not try to determine what destination lay ahead of him, he could not help himself now. "Gold-wrought buildings, stretching into the sky. Towering spires, lined with crystals, reflecting the ever-present sun in cascading beams of brilliance…"

"The air will smell of flowers and freshly fallen rain," sighed Summer, picking up Lyric's narration, "There will be golden silence, scattered only by sweet birdcall."

Summer suddenly stopped, and her bright joyful face went dead-straight. In an instant all playfulness drained out of the air. Another vicissitude.

"What is it?" asked Lyric hoarsely, readying himself for yet another horror.

"A vehicle… coming this way," said Summer. Then her voice rose into a wail. "And we're stuck in the middle of this stupid field! Why?!"

"The snow is just not deep enough to hide us either," groaned Lyric, feeling as if he might vomit, "We're trapped."

Quickly he pulled Summer to the ground in the hopes that the light reflecting harshly off the snow would hide them somehow.

In a minute a large armored vehicle rattled out of the tree-line that they had just exited and began to plow its way through the snow towards the Pillar of God. That brought them close enough to the current position of the beleaguered duo that they assuredly would be spotted.

"Can you hear anything?" asked Lyric in hushed tones.

"No," mumbled Summer, her face pressed close to the snow, "The rumbling engine is drowning out their rough voices."

Lyric slowly popped his head above the snow he was desperately trying to hide under to catch a glimpse of the insignia that should be plastered on the side of the armored vehicle. It was a vivid azure hoofprint. Trixie's Hoof terrorists.

"It's… It's the terrorists," sighed Lyric, almost in resignation. They were unarmed, alone, and trapped. There was nothing they could do.

"How do they keep finding us?" choked Summer, on the verge of sobbing.

Then a gunshot went off. Then another, and then another. Lyric had thrown himself upon Summer, covering her sensitive ears and protecting her body with his own. However, he felt no shockwave of missed shells, or the sound of bullets striking snow and earth nearby. He opened and eye and was surprised to see the vehicle was shooting rapidly into the trees behind it. In a moment he could see why: another armored vehicle exploded from the tree-line hot on the tail of the first. The two were exchanging fire in a heated manner, and bullets were exploding and ricocheting heavily off of the two vehicles' armors. Shells filled the air, bouncing off armor or slamming straight into it, burrowing itself in ear-shattering explosions and sickening crunches. Fire spouted into the air, and smoke poured into the sky, to accompany the sounds of war that already filled it to the brim.

After a bit of squinting, Lyric could pick out the insignia that resided upon the second vehicle. It was the Black Star. The Stallion Empire.

"Summer," he breathed, "I don't think they are after us… It looks like the two vehicles are fighting each other! One is the terrorist's, and the other is the Stallion Empire military's!"

"Then… Then we are not in danger?" asked Summer tearfully and hopefully. She looked as if she was about to perk up, but her ears flattened as a particularly loud explosion tore through the air.

Lyric also winced as the military missed a shot in a spectacular fashion, causing the shell to explode into the ground a score of meters away. "Well… I wouldn't say that."

Lyric then blanched and quickly pulled Summer to earth. The terrorist vehicle suddenly swerved in their direction, attempting to strafe its enemy to death. Lyric then pulled Summer up and shoved her forward roughly and then dove after her. The oncoming armored truck exploded into flames and plowed through the area they had just been lying in. The terrorist vehicle, with smoke and sparked swathing it like a mantle, skidded to a stop in a pile of rapidly-melting snow. The back doors were then flung open, and Trixie's Hoof terrorists rushed out with guns akin to AK-47s to fire upon the military truck. The truck's windshield shattered, and it too came to a grinding halt, its mounted turret firing off shells all the way. Several military ponies hopped out, armed with weaponry akin to AN-94s.

Then, with Lyric and Summer cowering on the ground between the two hostile groups, they all began to open fire on each other. Though the firefight was heated and open, it seemed like an eternity before the bullets stopped flying and the last bloodied body hit the ground. As the last gunshot melted into the air the victor stood (astonishingly) clear: the military.

Lyric let out an almost-audible sigh of relief. Though the military was sadistic, cynical, and rough, they generally left civilians alone. The terrorists would just kill them all for fun after the firefight ended. This was a stroke of luck in a way.

"Is it… is it over?" whimpered Summer, rubbing her sore ears.

"Yeah," breathed Lyric, "It is finally over."

Hoping the military ponies would consider the two foals of too little consequence to even pay them heed, Lyric helped Summer into a sitting position. He gently rubbed her shoulders as she continued to massage her ears.

However, contrary to Lyric's hope, the moment Lyric and Summer came into view, the two surviving military ponies noticed the foals poking their heads out of the snow. One of the military ponies scoffed at the sight, and called his companion over (from where he was shamelessly desecrating and defiling the bodies of the dead terrorists) to stare at the two foals. Then after conversing quietly and harshly for a moment, the two strolled over to where the foals sat, causing Lyric's heart to begin racing in fear and apprehension.

"Hey, you two!" exclaimed one of the military ponies, a dark red pony with a yellow mane with a holster slung about his middle, "What are you two doing out here?"

"We're just wanderers," said Lyric, calling upon his thieving charismatic charm, "We're not worth your while, kind sirs."

"He called us 'kind,'" snorted the other pony, a green and blue pony with his AN-94 hanging around a shoulder, "Hilarious."

"Well, you are kind, correct?" continued Lyric, trying to sound calm and cool, "We will continue on our way, we don't mean any trouble."

The two ponies laughed sadistically. "Give us one reason we should let you on our way," snorted the red pony.

"Because you two idiots are not dumb enough to try and mess with us," snapped Summer, who was realizing the two military ponies were anything but kind, "We seriously mean you no harm, so leave us the heck alone."

The two military ponies began to laugh even more. Lyric blanched and flattened his ears against his skull. He did not like their tones anymore.

"This female is tough," snorted the green pony, "I like tough. It makes the sex more flavorful. Should we keep these two?"

"W-w-what?" spluttered Lyric, whose heart had now turned to solid ice, "P-please, don't…"

The red pony pulled his pistol out of his holster and pointed it at Lyric's face. "Shut the hell up. The grownups are talking."

He then turned to look at his compatriot. "Are you sure? Remember what our C.O. said after raping that one mare to death a couple weeks ago. No more. If the Master Sargent sees us…"

"Are you that dull?" interjected the blue pony sharply, "For one: the Master Sargent is right there, and from the size of the hole in his face I think it is safe to say he won't be figuratively spilling his guts to our C.O. any time soon. And second: who said we needed to finish her at camp? We have a now surprisingly vacant armored vehicle to have the fun in!"

Lyric was trembling. He glanced at Summer. Her eyes with wide with horror, her cheeks were flushed red, and her back legs were slightly bent together. He opened his mouth to protest feebly, but the red military pony simply shoved the barrel of his pistol down his throat, causing him to choke violently.

"What do we do with this colt?" continued the blue pony, ignoring Lyric and Summer's terrified demeanors, "From the way he was liberally running his grubby little hooves over the filly's back I think it is clear that he thinks he is her protector or something stupid."

"Oh, let's just kill him and grab the filly. I think she is blind, and that makes this a whole lot more fun," said the red military pony. He then cocked the pistol.

"Oh Mattimeo," whimpered Summer, "Lyric and I need you… Where are you?"

"Yeah, that is a good idea in a nutshell," said the blue military pony airily, "Shoot him."

Then Lyric acted. He lunged forward and seized the base of the pistol. Roughly he tore it from his enemy's grasp and turned it on the two military ponies. A volley of gunshots went off, filling the air with the sound of pure death.

"Lyric?!" screamed Summer at the top of her lungs, he ears rendered momentarily useless by the gunshots.

She screamed again as two hooves landed on her shoulder.

"Summer! Summer! Calm down! It's… it's me…"

Summer sobbed and buried her face in the coat of the pony holding her. She inhaled. The scent. It was Lyric's.

"W-w-what happened?" mumbled Summer.

Lyric's body began to shudder as he began to cry too. "I… I… I… I killed them."

Dimension: Rerenhaw

Planet: Rerenhaw

Specific Location: The Council Room

Time: Over a week after Lyric found Summer

Doxia and Mattimeo stood side-by-side, watching the events surrounding Lyric and Summer unfold.

"I should have been there for them," said Mattimeo. His voice was as emotionless as a lake in a forest during the middle of the summer, but Doxia felt the fury bubbling beneath the veil.

"You should have been," muttered Doxia, "You had planned it… Where was the Phantom? It was supposed to be there…"

Mattimeo nodded his head slowly. Though he was still sounding calm, pure reality was beginning to distort around Mattimeo's palms, denoting the fact that Mattimeo was madder than he had been in eons untold. "I agree. But it was not. Something destroyed it."

Doxia quickly brought up several holographic projections and ran diagnostics telepathically. He glanced at Mattimeo. "The imagination signature is there. That means it supposedly is there. But…"

Mattimeo glanced at Doxia. "But what?"

Doxia shrugged. "This H.D. guy. Uhhh… Harold. He managed to hoodwink me by creating a false imagination energy signature, as I said before. Is it possible that he destroyed the Phantom and replaced its original imagination energy signature with an identical, yet fake, one?"

Mattimeo slowly nodded his head again. "That must be the case. Either way, we must accelerate our plans to protect Summer, and then remove her powers."

Doxia glanced at Mattimeo. "Good idea. What do you have in mind? Remember, we must ensure that no one, including our Equestrian friends, know of the security measures we are setting up."

"Yes. I am planning to send in more Phantoms, but this time I will have them manned. Regular communications will be set up between this squadron and the A.E.S. Immaculate. That way if Harold strikes again and destroys them, we will know immediately."

"Awesome," said Doxia, still looking at Mattimeo carefully, "Oh… and I have decided not to tell Flaming Star and Twilight about Summer… YET."

"A wise choice," said Mattimeo.

"I am 100% unsure of that," said Doxia, a little sharply, "But it matters not at this time. We must ensure Summer's safety. That comes first. Mattimeo, will you convey our decision to take back Sunflower's powers to Summer?"

"I will," said Mattimeo, "But until then, I shall be at Amethyst Prime."

"I'm against all of this, you know," Doxia suddenly said, loudly.

Mattimeo paused and glanced at Doxia, prompting him to continue.

"No matter how you put it, we are truly pulling out the stops to band together the three greatest murders Amethyst has ever dared to called 'heroes,'" Doxia continued, "I mean, we have corrupted one innocent, and put another in danger. And what for? To call together the John 3 Inquisitors. These men are killers. They have murdered civilians... families... women... children. And we are doing this all because we cannot fight a single mysterious force. Granted, this force has control over powers we have not seen in countless eons, but why does that change anything? We are Dimensional Lords, we are true heroes, good guys. Since when are we unable to combat these threats ourselves?"

Mattimeo stared at Doxia for a long time. Finally, he said, "Since the end of the Maelstrom War and the start of the Romans Initiative... when the term 'heroes' became archaic and meaningless... and Dimensional Lords became naught but a legend."

"No," said Doxia, his voice now full of conviction, "The term 'hero' is not gone. Wherever there is evil, there will be good eventually to counteract the shadow with light. You just wait. When times are at the darkest, the true power of good will rise, and even the long-forgotten Dimensional Lords, the original heroes of the tri-multiverse, will rise again. Good shall ascend."

There was a long pause that stretched on for eternity as Doxia and Mattimeo stared at each other evenly.

Finally, Mattimeo nodded slightly to Doxia and then waved a hand through the air. A volatile portal of light and power popped into existence, briding space and time between Rerenhaw and Amethyst Prime. Mattimeo strolled briskly through, the portal closing behind him with a small "pop."

Doxia sighed loud and long, turning his gaze back to the nearest holographic monitor. Slowly he conjured a mass of sparkling, shimmering multi-colored energy in a balled fist as he looked upon the weeping Summer.

"And now these are the darkest times," muttered Doxia, "There is no grandness, and there is no large scale. It is simply the delving into the remnant shadows… and finding there are hearts of darkness filling the bodies of the innocent. Eons ago, when blatant war was upon us, we tore open the bodies of our enemies and found they bled shadow, but those who truly posed the threat… they bled crimson. Summer, do you truly bleed red? Who are you? Do I still bleed? And if not… then who am I?"

Note: Ever since I asked you all about your personal definitions of the term "hero," I have had the ideas of it all lying heavily on my mind. You will continue to see my interest in and struggle with these terms reside inside my writing as time goes on. Anyway, I encourage you all to take a moment to look at my profile and the story synopses that lie within. I want to make sure that several others confirm the mettle of my new ideas. And now... please review! If you review, I will make sure that you all receive a magical candy cane that can turn people into peppermints. It is the weapon of ultimate destruction, so I suggest you take up my offer. You don't want someone else to get it before you, or the hope for mutually assured destruction will be gone.