Interference Trilogy Book I: Derpy and the Assimadrons

Chapter 4; Confronting Vortexcia

20,000,000 years later, little had changed, and...

I'M JUST KIDDING!!! LOLOLOLOL!!!

The time gap is only about 2 days. The letter ended up being burned in a cake, Spike was Ascended, and so was everypony else in the town, and last, but not least, Xylo was staying at Derpy's house. In the guest room! He was staying in the guest room, obviously!

On that day, Xylo was showing Derpy how to master her PTB, (Personal Tractor Beam) when he suddenly went quiet, and stiffened, his back flat like a board.

"Xylo, are you alright?" Derpy asked, dropping a rock she had been practicing on. Xylo didn't reply, but he started to twitch. Now Derpy was really worried, but thankfully, Xylo jolted back into reality, groaning,

"Not Vortexcia!"

"Who?" Derpy asked.

"She's the last of her kind, she's been looking for a Sporeable planet, with help from us. But one day a long time ago she disappeared. Somehow ending up here."

"I'm still confused." Derpy said, scratching her chin. Xylo sighed,

"Let's go inside and I'll tell you all about it." Derpy nodded and followed him inside. Once inside, Derpy watched confused as Xylo checked every square inch of the ground floor.

"Why are you listening to the floor?" Derpy eventually asked him.

"Knowing that Vortexcia's been here for so long makes me feel less safe about the ground beneath my feet." When Xylo finally finished, it had been almost a full hour! Although Derpy didn't really notice, she had a great time watching Xylo... (Heh.)

"Now I feel safe." Xylo said, sitting across from Derpy on a stool.

"I believe I should start now. So way way back before your great-great-great-great-great Grandfather was even old enough to blink, we, the Assimadrons, had Ascended Steel Heart and the surrounding solar systems. Back then, Steel Heart didn't have the protective shell it has now, and still had oceans and forests and shorelines that could be seen from space, nowadays, you actually have to go down to the Biosphere Level to see them. As I was saying, one day, the three L.O.R.D.s were overseeing the construction of a Drone Storage Facility, kind of like a big house with multiple living quarters inside for Assimadron drones. But from out of the sky crashed a large ship, insect-like and very damaged, life support failing and basic systems barely operating. When they cut through the shell, they found an unconscious alien. The L.O.R.D.s quickly took it to a Revitalization Center and saved its life, when it regained consciousness, it went berserk, almost completely destroying the Center. They had to tranquilize it in order to stop it. When it woke up for a second time, it found itself in an Armored Observation Cube. It, or she, as we soon found out, turned out to be much less violent than we thought, and just frightened. After eating something, she asked to speak with our leaders. The alien is a quadrupedal insectoid, with fly-like wings, a dark blue exoskeleton, and glowing blue eyes, with the pupil only a thin slit. She has short and sharp fangs, a single horn, the top blasted off. When the L.O.R.D.s arrived, she said her name was Vortexcia, and that the last of her race were slaughtered by the Terror."

"What's the Terror? Derpy asked, head cocked to one side.

"The Terror," Xylo continued, stretching,

"is a massive robot mech who's only purpose is to destroy every living thing possible. Very, very, VERY bad. We tested your planet a few days back, and we can't find it, so you should be fine. So Vortexcia is the last surviver, and needs to rebirth her species. She was going to do this by injecting genetic material from a vial she picked up before escaping directly into her uterus, and therefore, repopulate her species; but in order to do this, a Sporeable planet was needed, one with a certain type of atmosphere, not oxygen, but gold."

"Gold!?" Derpy gasped, eyes wide.

"Yes, gold. It's a metal, and can be converted into gas. Just like any other element. But as you've probably guessed, these planets are very rare. Which doesn't make sense, why would she use this planet, it has an oxygen atmosphere... Wait, I got it! This planet's MOON is practically made out of gold, the sun light reflecting off it must boil some of it, and it would drop onto this planet. Granted, that seems far-fetched, but that's my theory. Not a very good one, but a food source, none the less. At least that explains why she sleeps all day."

"So you're saying Princess LUNA is an alien?" Derpy asked, part of her wishing that it was true.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." Xylo answered.

"Vortexcia was under going post traumatic stress, mainly because all of her race consisted of her sons."

"No daughters?" Derpy asked.

"Only when the queen is about to die." Xylo explained.

"One interesting fact about her race is that they can..." Derpy had a hunch what this was.

"Was it that they could take on the forms of others?" Derpy asked, almost 99% sure she was right.

"Eh, no. But you're close. They can bend light around them, rendering them invisible! That would be pretty useful, I must say. So the L.O.R.D.s agreed to help her as long as she was Ascended."

"But, didn't you say that being Ascended was a choice, not forced?" Derpy questioned, confused.

"Let me rephrase that. The condition was that, and I quote; 'We'll help you only if we get to Ascend your beautiful body.' Unquote." Derpy was speechless. Then she burst out laughing. Xylo didn't join in, because he couldn't tell what she was laughing at.

"What's so funny?"

"Did the L.O.R.D.s—actually say that?" Derpy said, gasping for breath, but still laughing. (Somehow...)

"Yes they did." Xylo replied, nodding. This only made Derpy laugh more, which ended up with her falling off her seat. Finally, after another minute or so, she calmed down and returned to her seat.

"You finished?" Xylo asked calmly.

"Yes." Derpy replied.

"Good, so yes, she did end up being Ascended, but it didn't seem to work properly, it rebuilt her entire bone structure, instead of adding gear, besides her horn's broken bit being replaced by a 3 pronged piece."

"I do have a question Xylo, if her species could only breath gold, how did she survive on your planet?" Derpy asked, leaning forward.

"Oh that's easy, we just filled the AOC with gold gas, and when she was Ascended, I guess that wasn't a problem anymore. So she took off, checking in every now and then to mark off planets. But one day, she found a wormhole, and according to the ship's black box, flew in, but it tore the ship apart, and she crashed into this planet most likely. Her ship is probably still here somewhere. So there you have it. That's Vortexcia."

"And why is this a bad thing?" Derpy asked.

"Because," Xylo said,

"Given all this time here, don't you think she would have recreated her race by now?"

...

Both Derpy and Xylo raced out of the house like bullets, only to smack into Twilight.

"Xylo, Derpy. I was just about to talk to you, I got this letter from Princess Celestia,"

"Who?" Xylo asked,

"Princess Celestia, she rules Equestria with her sister Luna."

"Alleged sister." Xylo corrected.

"What?" Twilight asked.

"Nothing, what does the letter say?" Twilight pulled it out from behind her. It read:

Twilight,

My last letter must not have gotten through to you. This is very important, you must send their leader and his accomplice to Canterlot immediately. My sister claims to have spoken with these beings before. I urge you to make as little contact with these creatures as possible.

Celestia

(THAT SEEMED WAAAAY TOO EASY!!!)

"Oops." Twilight squeaked fearfully.

"Yeah, and how did she know I had an accomplice? I mean, we're not accomplices, we're just friends. Right?" Xylo turned to Derpy, not too sure of himself. Derpy returned his gaze and replied, also not too sure,

"Yeah..." For a few seconds, they just gazed into one another's eyes.

"Ahem," Interrupted Twilight.

"Meeting with Princess. Remember?" Xylo broke away.

"Oh yeah. Canterlot is the castle hanging off the side of the mountain?" Xylo asked, pretty sure that it was.

"Yes it is. And now I need to find a way to explain this to the princess!" Twilight said, turning around.

"Explain what?" Xylo asked.

"This!" She exclaimed, pointing to the metal on the side of her face.

"Oh, yeah. That. Well you've got it easy, Derpy and I have to speak with Vortexcia!" Xylo said, slouching at the mere thought.

"First off, who's Vortexcia? And second, why is that a bad thing?" Twilight asked.

"For question 1, ehhh, look her up. And number 2, just, look it up." Twilight nodded slowly, processing the strange advice. Before she could say anything else on the matter, both Derpy and Xylo had rocketed towards Canterlot at maximum speed.

Right now, I'll bet you're wondering how the other cities are taking the news. The answer is that they haven't heard it yet. All they know is that the Portal appeared in the sky. However, Cloudsdale, being the closest to Ponyville, relatively, had some minor contact with the Assimadrons, but nothing serious. What was serious was a small-ish storm directly in Derpy's and Xylo's path. Did you know, that when a certain type of cloud begins to rain, airplanes actually have the option to go OVER them! This is because the type of cloud forms at a lower altitude than most, therefore, a plane can fly above it. Look it up online. They have soon sweet pictures! (Another fun fact is this: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."-Aristotle. So, in 2+2=4, 2+2 is the sum of its parts, and 4 is the whole, so therefore, 2+2=5. Problem, mathematicians? LOLOLOLOL!!!) Anyway, luckily for them, this storm could be avoided in the manner explained above, which they did.

"I never thought I would see a storm from above ever!" Derpy called to Xylo above the roaring of her jetpack.

"This is my first time too!" He called back, also peering down. That's right about when, with a loud, metallic "*CLANG!!!*", both Xylo and Derpy smashed head-first into the side of the Royal Palace, which, surprisingly, is a large building in Cantorlot, not Canterlot itself, which I always thought was the case. Turns out I was mistaken. Oh well. As I was saying, the damage done to the Palace was far greater than the damage done to Derpy and Xylo. A FAR greater difference. (Who says metal armor is outdated?) Both Derpy and Xylo hovered there, rubbing their heads after prying themselves off the wall.

"Where did the storm go?" Xylo asked no one in particular, spinning around only to be greeted with a blue sky.

"Celestia probably did something." Derpy replied spinning to face Xylo.

"Like what? Does she have a weather control system?" Xylo asked, yawning.

"No, she uses her magic!" Xylo jolted his head up to face her.

"Magic? Really?"

"Yes." Derpy said, flapping her arms to avoid flipping upside down.

"I have an idea, why don't we go inside." Xylo suggested, looking around for the front door.

"Good idea." Derpy said, following him. After a couple minutes, they found a large set of double doors, with guards flanking either side.

"Ah, yes!" Xylo exclaimed, landing gently in front of the doors, Derpy following him.

"Now which of you," Xylo asked, looking at each guard,

"will open the door for me? Because I'm terrible at opening doors." Just as he said these words, a yellow aura surrounded The doors as they slowing swung open. There was a long hallway, with another, much smaller door at the end.

"Or maybe your doors are automatic." He thought as he quickly made his way towards the door at the end of the hall, Derpy hot on his heels.

"You certainly love your glass." He observed, pausing to examine some of the stained glass windows.

"Yeh..." Derpy grunted dismissively. She was more interested in meeting this "Vortexcia." At long last, they reached the end of the hall, and Xylo walked right into the door. (...)

"Geez! Make up your mind!" He said angrily, rubbing the tip of his nose and backing up.

"Auto or manual?!" He knocked on the door in a certain way so that it sounded like the first 10 notes of Beethoven's 5th.

"A Xylo and Derpy here. I believe we have an appointment?" He called through the door, putting his visor and helmet up as he did so. Derpy followed suit, not sure why. A couple seconds later, the door opened, revealing the throne room. I won't describe it because if you don't know what it looks like, than you shouldn't be here. Just saying. Inside the room, besides, the stuff inside the room, was an out-of-place lamp sitting in a corner, and Celestia was sitting... Or whatever, on her throne, with a sleepy Luna, aka., Vortexcia, on hers beside it. As soon as Luna/Vortexcia saw Xylo, she immediately perked up.

"Greetings." Celestia said, in a rather cautious tone. Derpy bowed, while Xylo simply nodded.

"You said Vor...Princess Luna wanted a word with us?" Xylo asked, folding his arms.

"Yes I did, alone." She answered, shooting her sister a glance, but Vortexcia was too focused on the visitors to notice, never-the-less, Celestia left, whispering something in Luna's ear as she left. When she did, Luna jumped up, closed all the window that were close-able, than sat down in the middle of the floor. An intense blue glow seeped out through her nose, and with a bright flash, Luna was gone, and replaced by Vortexcia's true form,

"I've been ssaving up my energy for thiss." She said, clapping giddily. Derpy noticed that her voice was entirely different, it had a sort of snaky sound, and with the barest of bare hints of a lisp, making her forked tongue flick out with the pronunciation of s, q, x, v, and z.

"So this is where you ended up?" Xylo asked, lowering his visor and retracting his helmet.

"Yess it iss, and the Assssimadronss are here too. Perfect." She began to slowly circle them, because YOLO.

"So what is it you wanted to talk to us about?" Derpy asked, also lowing both helmet and visor.

"I did it." She squeaked happily, clasping her hands together.

"Did what?" Derpy asked.

"Rebuilt her species." Xylo whispered to her,

"Remember, I told you about the vial of DNA."

"Ssuper hearing, comess with the geness." Vortexcia said, pointing to ear-ish objects on the sides of her head.

"How long have you been here?" Derpy asked.

"About, ohh... I'm not ssure actually...."

"I'd guess around the ten thousands." Xylo said,

"When I got here, I was losst and dissoriented. I found a ssmall group of equine beingss, having very ssimilar featuress, I found that I could mimic their appearance using a small device I brought with me." Vortexcia turned to show them a small device in the shape of a semi-dodecahedron attached by a belt made from some kind of silvery metallic fabric.

"But I wass fairly certain that ssomething would go awry, sso, I found a couple giving birth, and thought, what better dissguise than as a baby? I jusst managed to ssqueeze ssmall enough to passss off ass a baby, which would be impossssible for me now, becausse way back then, I wass around your ssize. I ended up with the bizzzarre name Luna, meaning 'moon' but I guessss it fitss becausse your moon is essssentially made of gold. Celesstia, my adopted ssisster," Both Xylo and Derpy raised an eyebrow when she said this.

"was kind and benevolent, according to my adopted parentss. But, what they didn't know, iss that Celesstia has a ssevere casse of mavrossmetallophobia!"

"Of what?" Derpy asked.

"Mavrossmetallophobia! Fear of black metal."

"Which is why," Xylo deduced.

"she is reacting negatively towards us. I just thought she didn't like us."

"But why did you go to the moon for a while then if you really didn't become jealous?" Derpy asked.

"There are two ansswerss to that question. The first was that I wass currently pregnant with the firsst batch of eggss, the ssecond wass that I had carved out a massssive cavern for my ssonss to live in, and sshe almosst disscovered it when I wass ssuppossed to be at ssome meeting. I had to ssay I wass jealouss, and turn evil and all that, I couldn't rissk disscovery, not then. While I did my time on the moon, I hatched the first hundred of my ssonss, each one iss brave and sstrong and kind. When I ended up back here, much to my ssurprisse, truthfully, my ssonss followed me, invissible, back to Equesstron. Through sspace. I don't quite recall how they did that..."

"What about Nightmare Moon? That wasn't you?" Derpy asked.

"No, jusst a hologram. I teleported in when thosse 6 kidss blew it up ssomehow."

Xylo nodded and said,

"I see. So, can we see these sons of yours? These new Chainlings?" Derpy gaged,

"New what?" She asked, clearing her throat.

"Chainlingss. Not be confussed with thosse genetic rip-offss you call the Changelingss that are indigenous to thiss planet. I sswear, the universse ssometimess." Vortexcia clarified for Derpy.

"As to your quesstion Xylo, you've already met them, a few are here in thiss room now. I wass sso lonely after all thosse yearss, and thought ssome company would be nice." Derpy instantly shrank, eyes bouncing from shadow to shadow fearfully. And to make matters worse, the 15 Chainlings in the room all debended, (uncloaking, essentially, FYI.) which made poor Derpy faint, like a rock. You're probably saying that Derpy wouldn't really faint, I mean, come on, a ship fell out of the sky, but she didn't faint then! But look at the facts, she finds out that Luna is actually an alien that suspiciously resembled a Changeling, and was called a Chainling. A bunch just appear in random spots throughout a smallish room. Now who wouldn't faint? Besides, the spaceship crashed next to her, and she didn't notice the other Assimadrons ships until after she was Ascended. Xylo doesn't count because he knew Luna was Vortexcia in the first place. Xylo looked down at Derpy, sighed, and a syringe folded out of his hoof, loaded with a stimulant. Smelling salts are so cumbersome nowadays. Xylo carefully inserted the syringe into an exposed neck vein, and grave her a small doseage of the stimulant. Xylo only had time to pull his hoof away before Detpy jolted into a standing position, gasping.

"What, what do you put in that stuff?!" She exclaimed glancing at the still almost full syringe as it disappeared into Xylo's hoof.

"A chemical not native to this planet, Cardimethenbenyholl. (Made up wordz.) Sort of like a hard reset that takes place in the space of half a second."

"Cardimethenbenyholl? That's the sstuff you ussed on me way back when I tore down that hosspital. Ssorry about that." Xylo turned to her and asked,

"Why would you remember stuff like that?" Vortexcia just shrugged. Xylo turned back to Derpy and asked,

"Do you remember why you passed out?"

"Yeah," she answered, nodding at one Chainling sitting against the window nonchalantly, watching her inquisitively, head cocked to one side. When she did this, it made a feeble attempt at waving, and ruffled its insect wings, but that was it.

"Don't worry, Klikkir iss very friendly, and he doessn't bite" Vortexcia said, smiling at Klikkir, who returned it. Derpy glanced at Vortexcia confused, but quickly returned her attention to Klikker. Derpy slowly approached him, who cowered slightly, after all, this creature (Derpy) looked scary, all covered in the black metal, and tiny lights blinked and pulsed across the metal. Klikkir did look a lot like Vortexcia, but without the pupils, instead just a slightly darker tinted area. The horn was rather short in caparison to Vortexcia's. Also, he's about the same size as Derpy, minus an inch or two. He made a series of short clicks, followed by a deeper click, and a low hiss, like he was trying to speak. Derpy glanced at Xylo, not sure what to do.

"Ummm, hi." Derpy said, glancing from Xylo to Klikker and back again. Klikker tilted his head the other way and made another series of high pitched clicks, followed by another hiss, and click. Xylo frowned,

"Your Translator must not be working." Xylo said,

"One second, I'll fix it." Xylo walked up to Derpy and pressed a button on a small console on her back. As he was accessing the control subset, his eyes slowly drifted to Derpy's rump. When he noticed what he was doing, he quickly jerked his head away, and back to the console screen.

"I see the problem," Xylo said, blushing, and pressing a few more buttons.

"Derpy, put your visor up." Derpy obeyed, and much to her surprise, there were 2 lines of text in a green box labeled, "Translation." The first line read,

"Ummm, hi." Derpy could have face-palmed right there on the spot. The second line read,

"That's what I just said."

"I couldn't understand what you were saying, but now I can." Derpy said. A few more clicks, and you'll have to imagine what order the clicks are in because I'm not going to say it every time.

"Oh, ok. I see." Appeared in the Translation box.

"So, uh," Derpy began,

"What do you think of my planet?" She asked.

"Very, colorful." He replied. (In the Translation box. But I won't say it every time. It slows the story down.)

"Yeah, it is." Derpy replied, smiling a little bit.

"Question is, now what?" Xylo said, turning to Vortexcia.

"If you like the moon that much, we would happily terraform it for you." Vortexcia smiled and shook her head.

"Thankss for the offer, but I'll passss for now." Xylo nodded and said to Derpy,

"Derpy, I think we should go now, Celestia might get suspicious." Derpy nodded, and trotted towards the door, waving goodbye to Klikker, who waved feebly back, and then cloaked, alongside the other Chainlings in the room, except for Vortexcia, she used her Luna disguise. Celestia stood at the very end of the hallway, as well as some of those weird Pegasi who stood guard and never blinked. Well, at least we'd be in good hands if the Weeping Angels showed up. (ISN'T COPYRIGHT!!!) Both Derpy and Xylo bowed as they passed Celestia and left the building.

"First impressions?" Xylo asked as they rocketed back to Ponyville.

"She seems nice enough, an excellent mother."

"Yes, isn't she." Xylo twisted his head to look at Derpy, and smiled.

"She's even more beautiful when she's going Mach 1.3." Xylo thought to himself. Derpy smiled back, thinking pretty much the same thing. Meanwhile, Klikker watched them fly off, he didn't hear the door open, and he didn't notice that if light is bending around something, it makes the space behind it all distorted. He didn't know that Celestia had telescope like eyes, and he didn't know what it felt like to be paralyzed... Until now...