The Valhalla Cascade: The Arrival

I

With a cascade of light and a twinkly sound the Mane 6, Derpy, Doctor, Dogfish and Erwin materialised a few meters from Canterlot City’s main entrance. It had taken the Doctor an hour to hotwire the alien ship’s teleport system, an impressive feat since he’d been simultaneously directing the use of futuristic medical kit also present on the ship.

They were battered, bruised and missing equipment but back in fighting shape. Canterlot looked like it could use the reinforcements; plumes of black smoke were rising through the air all across the city.

Just inside the City entrance a squad of Royal Guards had been hedged in by a pack of Diamond Dogs. Ironhide, Claymore and another earth pony were standing in front of a trio of unicorns as a dozen armour clad Dogs snapped and lashed at them. The longer range of the ponies weapons keeping the claws and teeth at bay.   The three Unicorns present were standing statue still staring at a dog whose eyes were glowing red, also standing perfectly still, their minds locked in a telepathic “wizards” duel. A number of pegasi were flitting around above but could not get close enough to help. One of the Diamond Dog and been mutated so that its arms were now masses of barbed whiplash tentacles. Every time the pegasi tired to swoop in the spiked tendrils would lash out and drive them back. Its jaw, warped into a serrated beak, cackled as a tendril drew blood.

Suddenly Ironhide’s spear was snatched out of his hand by an enterprising Dog as Ironhide jabbed at the aggressors. With their opponents defence compromised the Pack leapt in to strike, but suddenly found that they were floating in mid air. There was a slight whimper of confusion as Twilight levitated them on-mass and with a flick of her head sent them rocketing upwards.  The anti-air Dog squawked in confusion and turned just in time to see a flash of teeth as Erwin swiftly beheaded it. Finally the Doctor walked up to the last Dog and placed both hooves on its back. A few seconds passed then the telepathic Dog abruptly lost control of its bowels and collapsed. The unicorns staggered as the psi-pressure dropped.

“Princess Twilight!” Claymore exclaimed, “Fraid’ you’re a bit late for the party. Who’s the ...err...big gorilla wolf motherfucker?”

“Apparently he’s called Erwin,” Twilight said, watching as Erwin clambered up the side of a building, “Kind of a long story. We need to get to the Castle. Jack is trying to reach his master. That’s what you’ve got locked up in the vaults.”

“Well we’re going to have to hoof it.” One of the Unicorns sighed, rubbing his head “Those telepathic Dog mutants are throwing out magical dampening fields, so teleports are impossible. Also means that one-shot disabling spells like Transfiguration aren’t available, I’m amazed that that Levitation spell just worked. I’m Corporal Rho by the way....err... Your Majesty.”

“We better get moving,” Ironhide interjected indicating the street, “These guys are tough buggers to kill.”

Rainbow Dash was looking straight up in the air, “Yeah, We should probably move now, those guys Twilight levitated are coming back.”

II

“Starstream there’s another Collectors coming. No pressure you but do you think you’ve got another one in you?” Commander Hurricane said using a wing to prop up the unicorn whilst hastily looking round the parapet.

“Gimme a second!” Starstream gasped; sweat pouring down his face, “Just yell when it gets close.”

Commander Hurricane jumped back up and grabbed his rapid fire dual-crossbow. A heat beam scorched the battlement as got back into position. Cool and calm he leapt up and put two successive steel bolts into the beam firing Dog. The bolts staggered the Dog but it got up again and, eyes dripping with liquid fire and blasted at him again. Hurricane ducked back giving the bow’s winch a solid snap back, pulling the two compound winch systems taunt again as new bolts locked in place from the mounted hoppers. There was a sudden detonation as the Scorpio adjacent to his position, a two-pony operated javelin turret, shot an explosive round into the Heat Beamer.

“I had that one!” Hurricane called across, instead dropping two less mutated Dogs whose cover had just been blown up.

“Sure you did sir!” The operator called back, “Is Starstream going to be able to stop that....what did that captured Diamond Dog called them?”

“A ‘Collector’ and I bloody hope he can.”

The on-going siege of Canterlot wasn’t going brilliantly for the Ponies. The Dogs had carefully staggered their attack waves so most of the Guard Divisions were split up throughout the city.

The Collector had made its way ponderously closer, the first wave of the gigantic monsters had been fairly easy to deal with, but these new ones had been mutated with near impenetrable armour and outfitted like siege engines. Hurricane swore as a flaming projectile fired from the beast swatted a Pegasus out the air like gnat. A rock clanged off his helmet and sent the world spinning.

Starstream leapt from cover and dived behind the Scorpio; nearby ponies wielding crossbows scrabbled over and took up position. The Collector was hit by a volley of ballista shots, but the heavy rocks clunked harmlessly away, so far only the Princesses had been able to crack the Collector’s armour plating singlehandedly, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once, so Starstream improvised method was the only thing keeping the east wall in one piece.

“You sure you can do this again?” the operator said, leaning down to mop some sweat from Starstream’s face.

“Unless the Princesses are nearby I don’t have a choice.” Starstream said, shutting his eyes and concentrating. The temperature around the formation of ponies started to climb as Starstream’s magic struggled to overcome the damping field.

“No wonder Luna likes him...” Hurricane thought absentmindedly taking aim, “That spell would be a bugger to pull off under normal circumstances.”

Then with a loud ‘pop’ and bubble of distortion came crackling out of Starstream’s horn and form a field in front of the assembled bowmen, who almost instantly unleashed a barrage of projectiles at the Collector.

The second the arrows hit the Warp Field it dropped their relative masses, accelerating them out of the field faster than the eye could see. A perfect warp field would have put their masses at zero whilst they were inside and following the laws of physics accelerated them to light speed; the only state a zero-mass object can exist in. While Starstream couldn’t quite push his magic anywhere near that far; the flurry of crossbow bolts and javelins left the warp field with considerably more kinetic energy than when they had entered. There was a deafening crack as the collector was folded in half by the impact.

“I hope someone somewhere has a good idea how to finish this soon.” Hurricane thought bleakly, “We can’t keep this up forever.”

III

Dogfish Rising hated to admit it but this was really a lot of fun.  She was clinging onto Rainbow Dash as the two dive-bombed a pack of Diamond Dogs that were lying in wait of unsuspecting ponies.

Rainbow Dash dropped Dogfish and barrelled into a particularly beefy looking Diamond Dog, smashing them both through a building window. Dogfish whirled her harpoon and swept the legs out of several Dogs. Before the startled Dogs had even hit the ground Dogfish had whirled round and jabbed the harpoon tip through the throat of the nearest Dog. Initial shock gone, the Dogs closed in surrounding Dogfish and prepared to tear her apart.

Dogfish grinned, “Oh come on boys, oldest trick in the book.”

To late one of the Dogs looked round in time to see the rest of Twilight forces hit them like a battering ram.  Like a mini tornado Dogfish danced through the mob of fighters. She loved the thrill of combat, each combatant’s body, friend or foe, like a cog in a great clockwork machine and one by one each part fell into its place. Griffons were natural predators, but even among their kind Dogfishes skill as a hunter was legendary.

She launched a harpoon head into a spiny Dog and yanked back, slamming both elbows into a different enemy. The spiny Dog staggered back, but did not fall. It howled maliciously and bore down on Dogfish but as Dogfish predicted it totally forgotten about Claymore, whom it had been fighting. The spiny dog barely made it seven steps before Claymore leapt up behind it and with a massive overhead swing cleaved it in two with his sword.

IV

Jack ran rapidly between buildings like a howling wind.  Around him the city was being torn apart as Dogs and Ponies clashed.

The Alicorns had met his expectation perfectly and were proving delightfully hard to out-manoeuvre. He had also been intrigued at the relentlessness that the Alicorn of Love and been perusing him, he must of really pissed her off! Most interestingly at their last skirmish “Mi Amore Cadenza” had started venting black and red vapour, Jack had no idea what this meant but was sure it was going to be a hell of a lot of fun to find out.