Giant Robots vs. Giant Ponies!
Alarms blazed as the Shatterdome prepared itself for the assault. Soldiers and engineers ran around the facility preparing the Jaegers for what could very well be the fight of their lives. This was, after all, something that has never happened before. A double event, and both Kaiju were making their way towards the city of Hong Kong much faster than anything they had seen before.
From within Mission Control, one could see everyone working together like a well oiled machine. A well oiled machine that was about to kick some kaiju butt. It was from here that Marshall Stacker Pentecost oversaw what was left of the Jaeger project.
“All neural handshakes at one hundred percent,” said one of the officers.
Cables were placed and secured around the three Jaegers. These were their last hope of saving humanity. Damned be that pathetic wall. It had already been proven to be utterly worthless in the face of the Kaiju, yet still they stick to it like a particularly troublesome wart.
None of that mattered now. All that mattered was that a city of ten million people was in the direct path of two of the biggest Category 4s they had ever seen. They watched as the helicopter teams airlifted Crimson Typhoon, Cherno Alpha, and Striker Eureka out of the base.
Applejack glared daggers at Rainbow Dash.
“Consarn it Dash! Twilight already said NOT TO TOUCH the circle. But ya just had to, didn’t cha?” shouted the angry farm pony.
“I said I was sorry, alright! I drifted the moment she started going on and on about the science of dimensional travel and my hoof slipped!” defended the sheepish weather pony.
Applejack released an aggravated sigh. She also bottled up the urge to buck her companion. There would be time for that later, for the moment they had to figure out where in Equestria they were. After a quick scan of the horizon, she spotted something beautiful. Land.
“Overthere!” she said, with more than a hint of relief in her voice.
“Alright!” her companion replied as she flew towards it with absolute speed. She would have succeeded had a rope not wrapped itself around her barrel. She looked to Applejack with bewilderment.
Through the rope in her mouth AJ said, “OH NOE CHOO DON’! Ifsh Ah gottsha walk tshrough all dish watsher, sho do choo.”
“What! AJ that’s completely-”
“Er, Ah ken walksh choo like Winona”
The pegasus gave her friend an angry look before releasing an aggravated sigh of her own. There was no arguing with the Stubbornest Mare in Ponyville when she got like this. She landed beside AJ as she undid the lasso. Where did she even keep that? Her hat?
With the two now standing beside each other, they started to wade towards land.
“What is with this place anyway? It looks like an ocean, but this is way too shallow to be anywhere offshore.”
“Cherno Alpha taking up position at the Miracle Line,” said the husky voice of Sasha.
The mighty Cherno Alpha stood there tall, proud, and ready to take on any Kaiju foolish enough to try. It was built with bulk and impenetrability in mind, and it looks like its designers succeeded. Made with absurdly thick alloys, it could take any kind of beating with ease. Piloted by Russians, Aleksis and Sasha Kaidanovsky, it was the last surviving Mark-1 Jaeger.
Not too far behind it, Crimson Typhoon was released from its transport. The red, three armed giant landed in the bay with a splash. It stood tall as it gleamed in the spotlights provided by the choppers that encircled them. From there, it walked into position, its robotic, cyclopian face providing an expressionless aura of readiness that mirrored that of its pilots, the Wei triplets.
Finally, much nearer the bay stood Striker Eureka. Many in the Pan Pacific Defence Corp would readily agree that this was the finest of the Jaegers ever designed. The first, and only, Mark-5 Jaeger. It had everything: speed, power, and armor. Up to this point, it had successfully battled off eleven of the damned beasts and it didn’t plan on stopping there. Piloted by father and son duo, Hercules and Chuck Hansen, truly, it represented the peak of the Jaeger program.
It did not take too long before they had a visual on their opponents.
“What the hell is that?” said Chuck, with more than a little disbelief.
Indeed, these were some of the strangest Kaiju they had ever seen. There were two of them that was for sure.They actually looked identical, excepting their colors of course. But that did not change the fact that they looked like deformed… pigs? dogs? horses? These Kaiju even seemed to have particularly large eyes, which seems like a weird choice for battle since it would make for a very easy target. Even their color schemes did not match any of the Kaiju they had previously encountered, as these ones were particularly garish, pastel, shades of blue and orange. The orange one even had what looked like a giant stetson.
Somehow, giving them the designations ‘Otachi’ and ‘Leatherback’ seemed wrong now. Perhaps ‘Cowboy’ and ‘Prism’ were more appropriate, they considered.
Irregardless. They were a threat and they needed to be dealt with. A lot was on the line here, and so they readied themselves for the attack.
“Typhoon and Cherno, you two are to engage them. Striker, stay back and protect the coast.” bellowed the commanding voice of Stacker Pentecost.
The Kaiju then faced each other and let out indiscernible roars. This was even more bewildering than their appearances as, for all intents and purposes, it looked like they were… communicating.
As they approached the coast, the pair found something interesting to say the least. It looked like a model city of some kind. But it definitely wasn’t a city any of them had seen before. It even had lights and everything. Whoever put this together clearly did so with a passion. More interestingly though was what was in the bay of the ‘city.’
There stood three bipedal toy robots similar to the ones foals played with, except that they weren’t pony shaped and that they were as tall as a full grown pony. One of them looked like it had a trashcan for a head, it also looked to be quite old. The other had a hilariously out of place third arm. Applejack briefly considered if this was one of those Chineighs bootleg toys. Further back was a particularly nice looking toy robot. It had shapely curves and looked to be well maintained.
All of a sudden, ‘Trashcan’ and ‘Bootleg’ moved. They looked like they were bracing for something.
This interested Dash. She looked to Applejack and said, “Cool! Remote controlled robots! I didn’t even know they made them that big.”
Applejack resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her friend’s priorities. “More importantly, that means somepony’s controllin’ ‘em. Which means we can finally find out jus’ where in Equestria we are.”
“Right, right,” Rainbow said absentmindedly. She was still busy admiring the details that went into the pony sized toy.
The pair started to wade their way towards the two lifesized figures. To their surprise, the figures began to run towards them as well.
“Hey, AJ, looks like we got ourselves a welcome wagon.”
As the two parties neared, Rainbow raised a hoof and said, “Hi-”
And promptly received a punch on the muzzle in return. Most ponies would recoil in shock when something like that happens to them, others react in anger. Rainbow belonged to the latter group.
She looked at what she assumed was the eye of Trashcan and shouted, “WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT?!”
Applejack, now alerted to the apparent violent nature of these toys, managed to dodge an attempt at an attack by Bootleg.
Cherno Alpha thundered through the water towards the blue Kaiju. When they had gotten close, the beast raised its foreleg to attack and released a short growl. A growl that was cut off as Cherno’s fist made contact with Prism’s face.
This seemed to be enough to daze Prism.
“Guess, they’re not as tough-” began Aleksis before being cut off by a menacing roar from Prism.
Had they not been inside the cockpit of the Jaeger, their ears would have surely burst from the volume of the beast’s menacing growls. If looks could kill, Cherno would have keeled over by the glare that was now apparent on Prism’s large eyes. It raised one of its massive blue arms and shoved Cherno backwards causing him to stagger and fall.
A strained, “Arrghh!!” came from Cherno’s frequency.
Crimson Typhoon wasn’t doing too brilliantly either. It had attempted to grapple Cowboy, but the kaiju proved to be much more agile than one would assume. So, using the momentum from the failed move, one of the hands formed a fist and managed to strike the orange kaiju on the chest.
Cowboy’s large eyes had also narrowed as it roared and bared its teeth. It ran towards Crimson, but rather than jump on them as they had expected it turned around with amazing speed and raised it’s rear legs. Like a bullet, they shot out and hit Crimson square on the chest. The Jaeger found itself airborne for a moment before landing in the water with a splash. It righted itself as Cowboy charged towards them once again. Time for the Wei triplet’s signature.
“Thundercloud Formation!”
The three fingers on the hands of the red Jaeger transformed themselves into buzzsaws. It brought those three arms in front of it as a challenge to Cowboy as they walked closer to the beast.
After Rainbow had managed to knock Trashcan down, the stubborn toy still got back up. She was no longer impressed by these things, rather, she was just angry that this thing hit her. Right on the muzzle, too.
It once again charged towards her once again and tried to punch her. She dodged and bought a hoof to hold the irritating appendage. This was, however, exactly that Trashcan wanted as it performed a very interesting grapple move that managed to get Rainbow locked into what could only be described as a bear hug.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Applejack charging towards Bootleg. Bootleg, though, did something neither mare saw coming. Its hands seemed to transform into small buzzsaws. What kind toys are these things? the two ponies thought.
Applejack, being a resourceful pony, pulled out her lasso from wherever she kept it and twirled it briefly in the air. She let it soar and catch Bootleg. She pulled on it with her mouth and it managed to constrict the tough little toy. With another tug, she brought it flying forwards, into the water.
Try as she might, Rainbow’s limbs could not move at all. She heard a strange humming sound from the thing behind her. Her back was also starting to feel unusually warm. She unfurled her wings with as much power as she could. Trashcan’s grip loosened with surprise. This was enough leverage for her to use her limbs to break free of the hold she had been in.
“Cowboy has us trapped with some kind of fibrous tongue,” said one of the triplets.
One of the more maneuverable arms managed to get its saw onto the tongue and had begun to cut it. Unfortunately, Cowboy pulled on them causing them to tumble forward. The downward force, though, was enough to push the saw all the way through its tongue, freeing the Jaeger. It stood once again to face the beast.
As the cycloptic head emerged from the waves, however, it was met by an orange foot heading straight for it. Cowboy had found Typhoon’s weakness.
The beast had easily pierced the armor of the cockpit. The last thing heard from Typhoon was a pained cry of agony as the triplets were crushed between the raging kaiju’s foot and the structure of their own Jaeger.
“Typhoon is gone,” said Aleksis, the rage in his voice tranquil yet fiery.
As they watched their comrade fall, Prism had extended a pair feathered appendages from its back. On closer inspection, they looked to be wings. Their moment of surprise was enough for Prism to wrestle herself free. As they lost their grip on the kaiju, they decided to get one more punch as it broke off. The punch landed right below the monster’s tail, and it seemed to be a weak spot, as it reacted with both shock and anger.
Rainbow finally managed to get out of the hold. But as she did, Trashcan touched her somewhere. That somewhere was a somewhere where she did not like to be touched. Not without consent that is. That made her very angry.
As she landed back in the water, she faced the offending toy. She stretched her wings and propelled herself forward. As she made impact, it actually looked like Trashcan could hold her. A moment later though, she managed to get the dumb toy underwater. She looked at it with another murderous glare and began to pound on it with her forehooves.
“This is Cherno Alpha! We need back up! It’s beginning to pierce the hull!” cried the pilots of the submerged Jaeger.
“Hold on, Cherno! We’re comin’!” Chuck reassured.
Striker Eureka began to make its way to the carnage.
“NOPONY TOUCHES ME THERE!”
Rainbow was in a bit of a frenzy. She brought her hooves to bear onto the hard casing of the rude little toy.
“GOT IT, BUB?!”
She wasn’t just punching it anymore, she was outright jumping on it. Finally after a quick boom from the toy’s chest, she satisfied herself that it wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. She then realized that she just broke somepony’s toy.
She gulped, “Uh, AJ, I think I broke it.”
She looked to her friend and saw that she was currently washing off a few stray pieces of metal that had gotten tangled up in her coat.
“Yeah, Ah reckon I broke this un too.” She gestured to the, now immobile, Bootleg. She turned her head to face her prismatic companion and saw the other one, she decided to call it ‘Fancy’ due to its impressive build, approaching. “Rainbow! Behind you!”
“Take this you bastard!”
Striker Eureka landed an impressive blow as Prism’s head whipped around to face it. Without letting go of the momentum their first hit allowed them, they pummeled Prism. Left. Right. Left Right. Right. Right.
They grabbed one of the feathery wings and used it to whip Prism around before letting it fly back further into the ocean. From, the side they noticed a scowling Cowboy approach them. They braced themselves and took on the assault from the Kaiju.
They held each other at bay for a moment before Striker brought its leg up to hit the beast. The move was a success and Cowboy was sent staggering back before righting itself.
Rainbow shook her head the moment she got up from the water.
“Oh, no you didn’t,” she said, mostly to herself. She targeted the annoying little robot and sped towards it. It had been been in a deadlock with Applejack before bringing up its leg and delivering a kick to the orange mare.
“That’s it you jerk! Nopony kicks AJ’s butt but me!” with her speed, she blindsided Fancy. The two of them were entangled as they were propelled a bit further by strength of Rainbow’s hit.
“Dammit! We’re going down. Brace yourself.” barked Herc Hansen.
Striker and Prism went down with a splash. When both had righted themselves, they noticed Cowboy approaching them with speed. Time to bring out the big guns.
“Sting Blades!” the pilots shouted.
Two immense dagger-like objects deployed themselves from within Striker’s arms. It would be easier if they managed to take at least one down, so using their speed they brought down one of their blades to finish Prism off.
Prism was fast, though. Much faster than they anticipated. It had easily dodged their slashes, From afar, it looked like they were dancing. Cowboy was getting too close for comfort, so they needed to do something, and quick.
As luck would have it, they had managed to stab the rear-end of Prism. Now, the only problem was that the blade did not pierce the kaiju’s skin. Did they improve the kaiju’s armor?
As they considered the possibilities, they noted that all throughout their fight, it seemed as if these monsters operated under an entirely different set of physics.
Something just poked Rainbow in her haunches. It didn’t enrage her like Trashcan. Instead, it just hurt. Alot.
She wasn’t angry or surprised really, she just knew that something really sharp poked her. So, in response she did the most logical thing to do at a time like this: She took to the air and climbed straight up. As a matter of fact she flew so fast that a white cone began to form around her, and before you knew it, boom.
Sonic Rainboom.
The cockpit of the Striker Eureka sparked with electricity as its systems began crashing through it. The two pilots were also affected by this shock and could only shout in pain as it went on.
They were not the only ones affected as the Shatterdome itself went dark.
“What the hell was that?!” shouted Marshall Stacker Pentecost.
Tendo, the main officer in charge of Mission Control, had been furiously trying to get thigns to work again. “Everything’s gone of line sir!”
Dr. Gottlieb looked to the Marshall, “That was a an EMP. It was a weapon, not a defence mechanism.”
Marshall Stacker Pentecost cursed at the situation. “How long until we get things back online?”
“It’ll take around two hours to shift to auxiliary power, sir.”
“Have we nothing left?”
“None, sir. Everything’s digital!”
“Not everything, Marshall,” said a voice from behind the group.
When Rainbow had allowed herself to relax, she landed next to Applejack, who was currently observing the immobile robot.
“Well Dash, looks like your Rainboom shorted out the poor li’l guy.”
“Little? Ha! That thing poked me on the rump!” said Rainbow, incredulously.
“Anyway, I doubt he’ll be movin’ anytime soon.” She looked to the tiny skyline. “Let’s go see if we can find the little trickster that’s been makin’ attack us.”
Rainbow was still glaring at the inactive Fancy. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up. I wanna make sure this little pest doesn’t follow us or anything.”
“Fine,” the farmpony rolled her eyes, “I’ll see what’s past the city.”
As Applejack entered the tiny town, she tried to use one of the coastal buildings as support for climbing out the water. The building though was, obviously, not designed to take on the weight of a giant pony and was promptly crushed under her hoof.
Applejack at least had the courtesy to looked ashamed at what she did. “Oops.”
As it went, she tried to gingerly step through the model city. This proved to be more difficult that it seemed as whoever built it thought that, perhaps filling it with model vehicles was a good idea. Because of this she ended up tripping on even more buildings and generally making a big mess of things.
Back at the bay, Rainbow had been circling Fancy like a shark. Waiting patiently for the robot to make a move. After a while something seemed to stir on Fancy’s shoulder. It was small, and looked a lot like a mini-Fancy. It also shot a tiny light right into her eye.
Actually, scratch that. It didn’t look like a mini-Fancy. It WAS a mini-Fancy. She raised her hooves to squish the defiant little thing when a light suddenly shone behind her. As she turned her head to look she saw another robot being brought in by little airships.
She grunted and charged towards it.
The glory of Gipsy Danger floated above the Hong Kong bay as they approached Prism and Striker. She was now the last of the nuclear powered Jaegers. Though she was old, she still look good. Especially with the reinforcements made to her since she’d last seen service. The titanium alloy armor had been reinforced, weapons systems improved, and overall received major upgrades. Her core reactor whirred with life from within her chest. The chinooks released the holds and she fell into the bay. Ready to avenge her fallen comrades.
Prism made its way to Gipsy, snarling and raging as it tackled the Jaeger. Its method of fighting however was no match for the skill displayed by Gipsy’s pilots, Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori.
Dodge, parry, counter, strike. The exchange went on for several moments, with Prism taking the worse end of the beating. Rather than show signs of physical damage, however, Prism just seemed to get black lines or scribbles on the places they managed to hit. Was this some strange effect of the Kaiju’s hide?
Nonetheless, they still seemed to be damaging it as it started to show signs of weariness.
Rainbow was not enjoying this. Try as she might, she couldn’t get a hit on this new robot. If anything, this robot seemed to know martial arts. And it was good too.
After more than a few frustrating failures at hitting it she decided to just buck it. She was still fast enough to this as the robot clearly did not see it coming.
Gipsy flew threw the air after Prism had given her a good solid kick. She had landed in a shipping yard. It took a moment, but she was able to right herself. As she stood up she saw Prism, wings spread, gliding straight towards them.
It turned its body and slammed its rear legs onto Gipsy’s chest. She had anticipated this and caught dug her legs into the ground, allowing her to catch the Kaiju. Using the Kaiju’s momentum, she slammed it onto the ground.
As it tried to get up, Gipsy grabbed several shipping containers and used them as makeshift knuckles and hit Prism right on the jaw.
That hurt. Seriously, who designs toys this VIOLENT?! Worse yet, she was having her butt handed to her by a foal’s plaything. That would be embarrassing if it ever got out. So Rainbow resolved to herself that she would destroy this little crud.
After getting hit with the weird rectangular boxes, Crud got more of them and smacked Rainbow’s head in between them. As her head bounced around in a daze, it made a slight accordion-like sound. She shook it off and growled at the robot.
Using her forehooves, she flung several more of the little blocks at it. It was having a hard time deflecting all of them, and eventually one of them managed to hit its leg and make it lose its balance. Rainbow tooks this as a chance and flew towards it with hooves up. She slammed but it didn’t give. So she just pushed on.
They were still locked as they moved towards the ocean and stopped literally at the edge. One of Crud’s hands transformed and started to glow. It then shot little bolts of energy. Similar to kind that Twilight shot out from her horn.
As the bolts made impact with her skin, it felt warm. Not dreadfully painful, not by any stretch. But it was warm. Also it tickled, so very much. It shot more and more and she got closer to really losing it.
“EMPTY THE CLIP! EMPTY THE CLIP!”
After a few more shots, she couldn’t take it anymore. She let go of Crud and just started laughing. Since she was distracted, she did not see Crud bring a fist to her face.
The plasma cannon’s attack worked as the Kaiju now bellowed several roars that seemed particularly pained and out of breath. With the monster now significantly weakened, Gipsy brought her full weight onto one solid punch that hit the thing right on its crown.
It went down with a thud. Taking advantage of its head being in the ground, Gipsy slammed her fists onto the Kaiju’s brain. After more than a few punches she stopped. The Kaiju was no longer moving. It even had several bumps on its head now.
With one of them finally taken care of, she turned her sights to the rest of Hong Kong. Cowboy was still rampaging there, somewhere.
A few moments after Crud left, Rainbow slightly opened her eyes. Her head was throbbing with confusion at what just happened.
As she watched Crud pick up a really long boat, she let out a silently slurred, “Choo windh dish round bub…”
Gipsy Danger approached Hong Kong, weapon in hand. From the harbor, she followed the path of destruction Cowboy had left in its wake. That son-of-a-bitch was going to pay for this.
Applejack was reasonably sure she was lost now. Still, the craftponyship in these buildings was stunning to say the least. But honestly, how could somepony possibly find the time to build something like this. She turned a corner when she heard footsteps behind her.
She turned and saw another of those violent toys approaching her. She also noticed that it was dragging a really long boat with it. She wondered just what it was it was going to do with it.
Her question was immediately answered as the toy lifted up the model boat and smashed it on her face. Well, she knew what to call this thing. Broke.
Broke brought the boat around to smack her once again.
“Oh no ya don’t ya li’l varmint!” she shouted just before catching the boat in her teeth. Since Broke was still holding on to it, she took advantage of this and spun her body as she pulled on the boat. Broke ended up being pulled forward by its weapon and came crashing face-to-face with Bucky McGillicutty and Kicks McGee.
Gipsy Danger found herself flying through the air again, right before crashing into the glass facade of a fancy looking hotel.
Cowboy really was much tougher than they had expected. But she had a job to do and she was gonna get it done. Standing from the rubble, she braced herself as Cowboy charged towards her.
They tackled each other and crushed several buildings in the process. As they rolled around, each fighter tried to get a hit on the other, but in all the chaos, they were more often than not hitting air, or the ground.
They came to a stop beside a particularly large skyscraper. The two untangled themselves and stood to face each other. Each had a look of death in their eyes.
Applejack had to admit it to herself, this little guy could fight. She stared down the… visor? of the varmint. For a long while, neither made a move.
The impasse lasted far longer than Applejack enjoyed, and so she decided to make the first move. Feigning a lunge to the right, she curled up and rolled over ending up with her hind legs directly below Broke’s chest. She kicked upwards and sent it staggering backwards. She righted herself and took advantage of her opponent’s momentary imbalance.
Several of her hooves started kicking some of the model cars onto Broke’s face. After several cars made impact, it decided to take cover on one of the side streets. Applejack was not about to let this pest get away. She charged in into the street only to find it empty. The building’s here were taller than her which forced her to take things slow. No telling what direction it could come from.
As she turned another corner, she felt bits of rubble fall on her rump. She immediately looked up and spotted the tricky little thing falling straight towards her. She made to jump out, but it was too late. The robot managed to pin her legs to the ground. It flipped itself around and wrapped its legs around her neck. She started feeling rather uncomfortable about this whole thing.
Using her tail, she picked up a particularly sharp piece of metal and jammed it onto Broke’s chest. It looked like it went through a joint as it seemed to slide easily inside. The jolt loosened its grip long enough that Applejack was able to use the muscles she had toned from years of working on a farm to curl up and release herself from Broke’s hold. With her legs free, she threw off the offender and got back up.
Gipsy Danger was released from the hold and was thrown about a block away from Cowboy. Exactly as planned.
At that very moment, timed explosives that were placed on the skyscrapers that flanked Cowboy went off. Several metric tonnes of concrete and steel steadily piled themselves on top of the Kaiju.
A brief moment of silence as the pilots held their breath. Nothing. No more movement from the rubble. It was finally over.
The double event was handled. But at what cost?
Two of the last Jaegers were lost. The breach was still open, and more Kaiju were expected to come through.
No. There would be time for grieving later. For the moment, they still had a mission to complete. It was time for them to strike back, to seal the breach once and for all.
They were going to cancel the apocalypse.
Applejack snorted as she found herself in such a fine situation. Here she was, buried under model rubble, all because of her friends inattentiveness. She wouldn’t hold it against her of course. She could understand why Dash got bored with one of Twilight’s more monotonous lectures. Still, she resolved she would never again attend another of Twilight’s spell showcases if it involved teleportation, travel, or trips.
This was not something she wanted to repeat.
Author's Note
I watched Pacific Rim for the first time on DVD a few days ago. It was AWESOME!
If Ponies in the Heat was me playing with innuendo, this story is me playing with dissonance.
Anyone up for writing some hot Pony on Jaeger action?
Can you just imagine it? Rather than saying 'GOJIRA!" they're saying 'APPURUJACKU!"
