CLAWs of Equestria

7

If it was not for her friends that so easily calmed the hyper and panicked unicorn then she would have looked like a mess for when Princess Cadence was to arrive. Twilight Sparkle dashed through her list that contained all the activities that she, her friends and Cadence would be doing for the day, and another list was constantly being checked off for the different things that they would need in order for the day to be perfect. Within the list, a picnic basket, picnic cloth and picnic food were established ticked off with a large red tick, and the picnic itself was neatly arranged in one corner of the library to avoid any unwelcoming accidents. Next on her list was the timing arrangements made for the spa, for it was Rarity's idea that the spa would be a relaxing and referential way for the princess to relax and enjoy herself in Ponyville, and the marshmallow fashion pony had known best since she was most probably the best paying customer who paid regular visits to her two favourite spa ponies, Aloe and Lotus. Also on Twilight's list, agreements with the Mayor of Ponyville allowed for there to be a party for Princess Cadence’s arrival into Ponyville, and decorations, bright and marvellous, were hung all around the town, balloons placed on the roofs of every Ponyville home, one giant table filled with delicious treats to water the mouths of ponies and wild inhabitants alike: one pink frosted chocolate cake, multiple drinks of lemonade, sweets wrapped in colour coded patterns to show their colour, and finally music entertainment had been organised and set up personally by DJ Pon-3, or Vinyl Scratch as other pony folk detailed her as, which would be played throughout the entire party. Despite this being labelled 'day one' on Twilight's list, she wanted Cadence’s first day within Ponyville to be the best day she ever had since her wedding day. Princess Cadence would be staying for the entire weekend, and despite Twilight's home not being the best for suited royalty, and knowing that Cadence wouldn't mind entirely, Twilight still forcedly barked at Spike to clean every inch of the library and tree house, and her room, since Twilight would be giving Princess Cadence her room for the week. She didn't mind sleeping downstairs with Spike.

"Twilight, Sugarcube," Applejack said sympathetically to the edgy unicorn while she continued to move certain things that she believed that Cadence might consider a nuisance," Y'all might want to calm your cattle. You'll hurt yourself worrying too much."

"How can I calm down, Applejack? Princess Cadence will be here soon, and it will be her first time here in Ponyville! I want her to feel happy, comfortable and welcome here in Ponyville. After all, this isn't Canterlot or the Crystal Empire after all." Twilight refused to even spare a second of a glance at her friends as she continued to move things about until she believed that it would suite Cadence’s preferable comfort, and then move it again as her mind was rattled and puzzled with worry and fear of Cadence’s reaction and battling against her reason of believing that everything was fine just the way that it was. However, the touch a gentle hoof on Twilight's shoulder halted her actions and caused her face to meet the innocent and timid face of Fluttershy.

“Um, Twilight, I'm sure Cadence will love everything that you're doing for her," the timid Fluttershy stated with a gentle voice and smile. Twilight, after hearing her friend's words, inhaled deeply and slowly breathed out as if she were breathing out all the stress that had been built up throughout her body.

"Yeah, c'mon Twilight, since when has Cadence ever been upset with…anything that you've done? She was your foal-sitter after all, so what's there to worry about?" Rainbow Dash, enthusiastic and loud, flew into Twilight's face and wrapped her left forearm around Twilight's neck and squeezed a little too tight for comfort. She released Twilight after a few seconds of her suffocation and apologised after realising her actions.

"Perhaps you're right…maybe I am worrying too much," Twilight said aloud.

"Um, hello, this is Princess Cadence we're talking about! She's fun, funny, happy, smiley, free, kind, care-free, pretty…" Pinkie Pie with ebullience stated while staring at Twilight with a smile stretched ear to ear and still describing Cadence a little too much.

"Um, Pinkie, that's enough," Twilight nervously laughed as she feared the inevitability of Pinkie Pie charging off on one of her rambles.

"…amazing, positive, relaxed, enthusiastic, smart, bright, clever, slightly too loveable but still loveable, cool-"

"Pinkie Pie!" The other five elements roared at the top of their lungs in order to halt her word spree. The unnaturally talented Pinkie Pie stopped and stared at her friends. With the talkative Pinkie Pie silenced for the split second, Rarity stole the opportunity to heed some words of her own to Twilight.

"Twilight, dear, I'm sure Cadence is going to be thrilled in just being here to see you. Surly, Princess Cadence would care more on having a good time with you rather than how good her surroundings are, wouldn't you say? There is nothing that can possibly go wrong today. Today is just too perfect for anything bad to happen, so why don't you go and get ready yourself, hmm? I'm sure you would want to look your absolute best for Cadence’s arrival." Rarity's words were wise and pleasant for Twilight to listen to as she faced her friends. In descending order, Pinkie Pie, hopping up and down on the spot, was smiling with glee and her eyes were shut as if she was trapped inside her own imagination and thinking of new wacky things that she could express to all the pony folk around her. Rarity stood preciously and elegantly next to Pinkie Pie, and her mane shined happily with her smile upon Twilight noticing that she had used a different conditioner in her mane. Applejack, standing with a smile, stood with Rainbow Dash hovering slightly over her and both had reassuring smiles which put any leftover nervousness at ease. Twilight smiled.

"You're right, Rarity, today is going to be perfect. I'm sure Princess Cadence will love everything that every pony has done for her arrival." Twilight's smile and own words changed her mood into a more excited one as she now couldn't wait for the arrival of her former foal-sitter. "There is absolutely no way that anything bad can happen-"Twilight's words were silenced, hushed and destroyed by the sound of screams and cries that rattled through the atmosphere and delivered a series of nerve rattling chills down their spines. Being the Elements of Harmony, their immediate reactions was to storm outside and confront whatever was causing a disturbance to the inhabitants of Ponyville; it did not matter if the emergencies throughout Ponyville were serious or not, for it just mattered to the Elements of Harmony that they take every single one seriously.

The streets of Ponyville were flooded with fleeing ponies as an avalanche of desperate and panicked screams invaded and plagued the positive atmosphere in Ponyville and crushed the happiness in the six ponies. Ponies barged into a couple of the six as they had tried to calm them down and gain some sort of explanation for what had disrupted the peaceful flow in Ponyville. Following through the petrified screams were the sounds of doors and windows being closed and doors being slammed and locked purposely loud which was usually the routine that the Ponyville folks repeated whenever there was danger lurking throughout their timid little town. Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Spike, who had shortly followed the others after hearing the cries, all looked around try and locate the main source that caused so much disturbance to their town, and their answer was met by a strange foreign, and mechanical, sound that thumped against the very soil and rocked the dirt up and down, and gradually grew louder and louder and louder as they stood terrified. The smashing of the ground appeared to be louder from behind the seven, and they turned around slowly after they saw two shadows mount over them and heard that the thumping had halted. From there, they gasped in utter fright and were frozen on the spot as they stared at the foreign CLAW machines, Maximus and Brutus!

"Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia and element of magic, Applejack, worker of Apple acres and element of honesty, Pinkamena Diane Pie, common baker at Sugarcube corner and element of laughter, Rainbow Dash, efficient performer of the sonic rain boom and element of loyalty, Fluttershy, talker to the animals and element of kindness, and Rarity, local fashion designer and element of generosity, we have strict orders to capture you alive! Failure to comply and surrender will result in deadly consequences! Do you comply?" Maximus's robotic voice stung the very ears of the seven as they stared on in a mixture of horror and surprise.

"Unidentified species located next to the element of magic. Scanning…scanning…target identified as 'Spike' and threat detection is minor." Brutus's voice was just as horrifying as Maximus's voice. Their mini-guns violently started to spin which startled the seven even further. They stood, like statues, and waited for a response from anyone of the Elements of Harmony.

"Capture us? Who do you have orders from that wants to capture us?" Twilight Sparkle tried asking, but her answer was met by, firstly, a deadly split second of Maximus's machine gun bullets attacking the ground and secondly a repeated response. The eruption of the mini-gun was so purely nerve racking that if forced Fluttershy and Spike to collapse in fright. The bullet flash of Maximus's mini-gun was not what it had been originally when it showed a mixture of yellow, orange and white, for King Sombra's magic had completely changed its colour so that it was a mysterious purple colour. The bullets themselves also projected a purple essence around them, but it lost its weird colour as soon as it touched the ground, but the noise made when fired was almost alien like and high-tech.

"Failure to comply will result in deadly consequences! Do you comply?" Maximus repeated his last line again at the seven. What differed was the enraged Applejack and Rainbow Dash who stared with new foundations hatred towards the invaders. They didn't understand how they thought they could have the right to march into Ponyville, disrupt the perfect day and threaten them if they did not come with them.

"Hey, who do you think you are? Coming in here, threatening us and trying to capture us like were your prisoners! I ought to teach you some manners!" Applejack roared. She had been the first to respond back harshly towards the two enslaved robots, and she had tried to advance a hoof forwards in order to display her courage against Maximus and Brutus and show that she wasn't going submit to their demands so easily. However, her action of taking a hoof forward immediately forced Brutus to spray a quick flame at Applejack with his flamethrower. The flames just missed her by a few inches, but the harsh heat that projected from the flames attached itself to Applejack's face which showed her how hot the flames were. Her immediate reaction was to fall onto her back into her original place as she stared up in horror. Her friends looked on with disgust and were sparked with rage at the atrocity they had just committed.

"Oh that's it, you've made me mad!" Rainbow Dash hissed as she took flight in attempt to flank the machines and attack them from behind. Twilight had tried to warn Rainbow Dash that they had no idea how the strange creatures worked and that immediately attacking them without the slightest of clue of how they battle and whether or not they needed the Elements of Harmony in order to help them was a foolish idea, but her lips were too slow as she couldn't even utter a word to the apoplectic Pegasus before she had already launched herself into the sky. However, Rainbow Dash's actions resulted in deadly consequences!

"Failure to comply with demands, use of force authorised," Maximus's mini-gun started to spin once more and was pointing straight at the six on the ground. Brutus's mini-gun had spun around and looked up to try and find the colourful mare. However, he was struggling with the Rainbow trail that was left behind whenever she dashed, so she was harder to spot for Brutus. In result, he automatically started firing blindly in the air in attempts to hit Rainbow Dash.

Twilight, quick on her hooves after acknowledging what the mini-guns are capable off, made a force field around the six of them in the blink of an eye. Maximus's mini-gun violently began to unleash a sea of deadly bullets at the force-field. Twilight's shield was successful in blocking the bullets, but it would not last very long, for Maximus's bullets were covered in King Sombra's magic which slowly broke the magical field that protected Twilight and the gang.

"Spike, quickly, take a letter while you can!" Spike wasted no time in rushing back towards the tree house and grabbing a letter whilst Twilight held of Maximus. Fortunately, thanks to Twilight's panicking while they were cleaning up for Cadence, Spike was able to find a feather and quill quickly and rush outside in order to listen to what Twilight wanted him to note down. All she told the young dragon was to write one simple word, and that word was 'help'! Spike quickly jotted down the single word and held it up to breath his magical fire onto the letter. The sound of shattering suddenly echoed through the atmosphere for all to hear and right before the letter was sent to Princess Celestia, a small trail of blood slowly cried down the sheet…