Chapters Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
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Twilight sighed in relaxation as the Ponyville Fair decorations were taken down around her. The event had started just before noon, and stretched well into the evening, and even though she was a princess now, she was completely beat. Not that she didn't have fun, of course. She only had a few days off from her princess-ly duties in Canterlot, so she planned to spend the most of it catching up and spending time with her friends. Though, at this rate, she'd spend all day tomorrow sleeping in.
After helping to put the last of the decorations away, she wiped some of the sweat off her forehead with a hoof and began looking for Spike. She found him already asleep next to an empty bag of sweets. Chuckling, she lifted him onto her back with her magic and began walking back towards their former tree home, which was now mostly just a library, with how often they were in Canterlot.
As she was thinking over this, she failed to notice a new addition to her home. Namely, the large metal door replacing the average wooden door's place.
The alicorn didn't notice this until she walked straight into said metal door. The impact knocked her out of her thinking, and also woke up Spike.
"Huh- what- where-" He yawned. "Oh, hey, Twilight. What's going on?"
Twilight tapped the metal door with a hoof, receiving a clang in return. "I don't know, Spike, this door wasn't here this morning..."
Now mostly awake, Spike finally noticed the object of her concern. "Oh. No, it wasn't."
Firing up her horn, Twilight tried to teleport inside the library directly, but for some reason, it just wouldn't work. "This is odd..."
"TWILIGHT!"
The pony in question nearly jumped out of her skin as Pinkie seemingly popped out of nowhere, as she usually does.
"You'll never guess what happened!" the pink pony continued, a look of distress on her face. "I was going back to Sugarcube corner, because after all that fun at the fair I just wanted to sleep to be refreshed for tomorrow, but there was this big metal door at the front, and me and the Cakes couldn't get in! So I decided to come to you, because since you're a princess now you can probably help with these things and-" While looking around nervously, Pinkie spotted the same door she was describing at the front of the library. Her pupils dilated slightly. "Oh no! It happened to you too!"
With that, the mare screamed a vocalization of her despair into the heavens, making Twilight and Spike both flinch from the volume.
"It's not just you two," a new voice added, which certainly belonged to the blue, rainbow-maned pegasus hovering next to them. "There are a couple other doors like those in other parts of town."
Twilight's brain was on overdrive. Apparently there were four doors like this throughout the town, and it was safe to assume that none of them could be manipulated by magic for some unknown reason, which meant that whatever this was, it could be serious.
However, she couldn't send a letter to the other princesses about this, as her parchments and other letter writing tools were still in the library, and even the windows seemed to be inaccessible.
"Where are the others?" the princess asked Rainbow, a plan of action already forming in her head.
"Uh, I think Rarity and Applejack are at Rarity's place, because that was one of the other places with a door. I don't know where Fluttershy is, but it shouldn't be too hard to find her."
"Alright, good. Get the three of them here, and tell everypony else to stay calm. Surely, whatever this is, it won't be serious."
Rainbow gave a short salute before flying off to fulfill her given tasks.
Spike turned to Twilight. "So, what's going on?"
"I don't know, Spike. But hopefully we'll find out."
After a couple minutes, the other four Elements arrived in front of the library. Twilight explained the situation to them, and they set about thinking up a plan of action.
"Ah say we just break our way in. These doors can't be that tough, right?"
"I don't know, they seem pretty solid..."
"Whatever it is, this better be resolved soon. I would like to sleep in my own bed tonight, please."
"I-I just hope that-"
Fluttershy's quiet statement was cut off by her less quiet squeak of distress. When the others questioned why she made that noise, she just pointed away from the library. Following her point, they saw six... things standing in a loose formation some distance away. Most of them seemed to be wearing armor of some kind, as well as some sort of mask. Among them, two were notable in the fact that not only were they wearing what looked like somewhat torn suits with a gas mask, but they also were wearing roughly the same outfit, although one of the two seemed a bit... "curvier", for lack of a better term. Of the other four, two were wearing some sort of plain blue outfit, while the others were wearing green. All of them held small black objects in their front appendages. They were pointed straight forward, but didn't look to be aimed at anything in particular.
The six ponies stared in shocked silence at the six creatures, and neither party moved for a good five seconds. Then the creatures started walking around, startling the ponies into taking a few steps back. The creatures looked around them, then one of them looked right at the ponies. Its face was obscured by a gas mask, but they could still clearly hear a voice come from the figure:
"Can anyone lend me a tenner?"
Author's Note
Yep
Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
The ponies backed up in fear when the thing spoke, and Twilight couldn't help but notice that it was with a noticeable Trottingham accent.
Behind the creature that spoke, the others started moving in various directions, though still remaining in a group. Notably, two of them looked to have swapped out their black objects for medium-sized knives. Soon, they reached the group of ponies, and, defying all logic and reason, passed right through them. Several dumbfounded looks later, Applejack was the first to say something.
"...What the hay just happened?"
"It seems that they aren't physical beings... or something..." Twilight tried to come up with a reason for what just happened, but was drawing a blank. Nothing she had encountered before came close to the confusion this situation brought, and she had seen firsthoof what Discord could do!
It was then that something else was noticed by the ponies. "Do you hear that?" Rainbow asked, looking for the source of the noise.
The noise in question was a sort of growling, mixed with the occasional sound of rasping. The ponies searched for where it was coming from, and found it not too far from where the six things had gone. Coming down the road towards them was a group of even stranger things. These creatures lacked any clothing, from the look of it, and their claws and mouths were covered in dried blood. Amidst the dozen or so of those gray things, were slightly larger, blood red ones. The red ones had a blade seemingly stuck straight into the stump of an arm, and their lower jaws looked to be missing.
Once the six not-horrifying things caught sight of the horrifying ones, one of them tossed a small rock-sized object into the middle of the group. After a couple of seconds, an explosion erupted from it, sending the monstrosities and their limbs flying. Immediately, the others started using their devices at the stragglers, causing much smaller explosions that caused the creatures heads to literally pop.
The ponies were nauseated by the scene of bloody carnage, to varying degrees. Unsurprisingly, Fluttershy fainted.
"Just what in the world is going on?!" Rarity shouted over the gunshots.
"I don't know!" Twilight had to think fast. Thankfully, for whatever reason, most of the exploded monster things (which could probably be referred to as zombies, she realized) had disappeared when they weren't looking, and all that was left was blood stains and a scorch mark on the ground.
More of the "zombies" appeared out of seemingly nowhere and started advancing towards the six creatures, who were successfully staying alive amidst the onslaught. The two with knives were cleanly decapitating the smaller zeds with a single swing, though one of them was doing so at a much faster rate.
One from the middle of the group spoke again. "You're all fur coat, no knickers, bitches!" While the ponies, Rarity particularly, gawked at the foul language, the thing threw another small device.
Twilight ignored it in favor of getting things done. "Rainbow Dash, I need you to-"
Suddenly, as another explosion was set off, time began to slow down significantly, throwing Twilight off her words. After a couple of "seconds", time returned to normal with an audible "fast forward" noise being heard out of nowhere. The six fighting creatures seemed completely unaffected by it.
"Time manipulation, too?!" Twilight shouted, exasperated. "Quick, Rainbow, before anything else crazy happens, get everypony in town assembled in front of town hall!"
"On it!" The pegasus flew off, leaving the other four (plus an unconscious Fluttershy) to begin walking to the center of town. They nervously passed a few of the zeds on their way, but the monstrosities didn't seem to notice them, and like the six things that were slowly tracing the ponies' path, they even passed right through them.
After fighting to keep their stomachs down after getting a rather close look at how the red ones had the blade not on a stump of an arm, but spliced straight into an arm, splitting it in half, they arrived at the center of town. Rainbow had worked quickly, as almost everypony in town was there. Twilight noticed that there was one of the metal doors on the town hall, as well.
Making their way to the front of the crowd, Twilight placed a voice amplification spell on herself, and began speaking to silence the murmuring crowd. "Everypony, settle down. For reasons I have yet to know, it seems that many different strange creatures are appearing throughout the town. Six of them look to be warriors of some kind, while the rest seem to be, for lack of a better description, monsters." This got the crowd talking again, which was silenced by a raised purple hoof. "While the proceeding fight has been.... grotesque, it seems that none of the creatures will harm us, and I believe they actually can't, for unknown reasons. Despite this, the six I mentioned before seem to be able to see us, though I don't believe they have any significant feelings towards us, hostile or otherwise."
The crowd began talking amongst itself, and soon a single stallion near the back shouted, "Well what should we do?"
"That is an excellent question. I feel that, for the time being, seeing as how they can't harm us, we simply wait it out. We've been through tougher things, after all."
Once her speech was finished, Twilight walked over to her waiting friends, who had impressed looks on their faces. "I didn't know you could give speeches like that, egghead," Rainbow commented.
Twilight blushed. "Well, I just tried to channel Celestia, is all."
At this point, the six creatures had all but arrived in the town square, the monsters following them. The flow looked to be slowing down, though a couple of the six received wounds from the red zeds. Despite this, they simply kept fighting, and soon a single creature remained.
The whole time, the crowd was predictably panicking, but after Twilight urged them to calm down, and they saw for themselves that they couldn't be hurt by either party, they settled down a bit, though the panic was quickly giving way to nausea and disgust.
One of the creatures fired a single shot, popping the monster's head like a grape. But contrary to common sense, it kept walking forward a bit more, albeit not in anything resembling a straight line, and soon it bled out and fell. All at once, the six creatures all pulled out knives and started running through the crowd. Several screams ring out, but slowly die down as they pass right through them, not dissimilar to ghosts. Turning, they saw that not only was the metal door on the town hall now open, the six were entering the building in what looked like a hurry. Once inside, they simply stopped moving and stood in place.
Curiosity and confusion overtaking her, Twilight followed the things inside, finding the town hall in the same shape as it had always been, save for a single new addition. A wall near the back had been covered in a counter with a fence on top, and behind it stood another thing like the six, though this one had its face uncovered, and looked to be feminine as a result.
Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight noticed that the creatures now were holding all manner of unknown devices (save for one, who was holding a fire axe), nearly all of which were different shapes and sizes. One of the creatures, the "curvy" one, began looking around.
"I need dosh. Anyone?"
Like the other voices she heard from them, this one had a Trottingham accent, though unlike the others, this one sounded female. The other five began moving about, and two of them faced the one who asked for "dosh". Out of nowhere, bright green blocks of... something began flying out of them, and was seemingly "absorbed" by the beggar.
"Money, money money!"
"Dosh! Grab it while it's hot!"
Twilight had no idea what any of the phrases meant, but judging by the money comment, this was their currency. A zipping sound could be heard from the female one, though her appearance didn't change.
"Cheers." The six of them then began walking back outside while injecting themselves or each other with some sort of small red device. Outside, almost everypony else had seen what happened. As they left, Twilight was about to look at the seventh creature some more, but suddenly she found that she was back outside, inspecting a wall. She jumped back and let out a small yelp, and looked around to see the other ponies looking at her worriedly, and the door to the town hall now closed.
Twilight let out a groan and hit her head on the wall. "WHY DOES NOTHING MAKE SENSE IN THIS TOWN?! "
In the distance, one of the creatures remarked, "Wayne Rooney's smarter than you!"
Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
Once Twilight had stopped hitting her head on the wall, she decided to go ahead and observe the six things (which one of the ponies in the crowd called humans, which is probably better than just calling them things all the time) with the rest of the Elements, in case they were needed.
It wasn't hard to find the humans, as they could just follow the sound of the gunshots. Once again, the six were grouped together, fighting off the monsters in quite a bloody way. However, alongside the gray and red things, there were now a few other creatures attacking them; small black things that crawled on all fours and had all kinds of useless limbs protruding from its back, large, slow, fat ones that tried to vomit what looked like acid on them, only to blow up in said acid, and things that looked horribly burnt and launched fireballs from a device on its arm at the humans.
As the ponies watched, they could hear something speaking close to them.
"Come on, give us a kiss... "
Twilight whirled around, looking for the source of the voice, and just barely saw the outline of something approaching the humans. The one holding the now-bloody axe walked forward and swung at seemingly nothing, resulting in the sudden appearance of another kind of creature, its head falling a bit farther away. Time slowed down again, yet the human kept swinging, each time connecting with an invisible monster, and each time the slow motion "reset". After four of the things fell, time finally returned to normal.
"I've never kissed a dead tart," the human quipped, now focusing on whatever was closest to him.
Meanwhile, a fireball landed in the middle of the group, setting all of them on fire. They split, and started leading the monsters in four different directions. Only two of the humans were on their own, the others sticking with one other. Of the two loners, one of them, the suit-wearing masculine one, looked to have more creatures focused on him than the others. He fired off what looked like red, miniature fireballs at them from a pair of handheld devices, but soon he seemed to run out of shots. He kept getting hit trying to back up, and soon the ponies could see that he was limping slightly.
"Do something, or I'm ground bread!" he shouted at his teammates, who were off fighting by themselves. Alas, something was not done, and one last fireball was enough to make him keel over, dead. The swarming monstrosities began feeding on his body, though this was quickly stopped by one of the others lobbing an explosive in the middle of them. The ponies were expecting the late savior to show some remorse for their fallen comrade, but instead...
"Need to borrow my specs, mate?"
The would-be hero just walked on, not caring of his fellow warrior's death. The ponies were aghast at this, Twilight in particular.
From another direction, one of the other humans said, "Time to stock up lads."
Soon, the remaining five were back together again. One of them was limping, and in response another jammed the red device from earlier into them.
"Stand still, do I look like I'm nicking stuff?" Soon, they started to move as one in a new direction, towards...
Twilight gasped. "They're going to the library!"
"Why would they do that?" Pinkie asked.
"I don't know, but-" The realization hit her like a brick. "The door!"
She began running to the library, her friends shrugging and following her.
At the tree in question, they found the five humans finishing off the last few creatures. The metal door opened, and they poured inside. The ponies followed, and Twilight immediately started to get her letter writing supplies. Once she found a quill, a parchment, and wrote out a quick letter to Celestia, she remembered a vital part of this process.
"Where's Spike?" she asked, completely forgetting about the young dragon amidst the chaos.
"I think he's back with the rest of the ponies," Rainbow said.
"Alright, now before we leave-" Twilight noticed too late that the humans were walking back outside, and found herself instantly out there, as well, alongside her friends. She let out a groan of frustration. "Not again!"
The others were incredibly disoriented. "Wha- But- Just what in the hay is going on?!" Applejack shouted, kicking the tree in anger and exasperation.
Twilight noticed she still had the letter with her. "Nevermind that! Let's just get this letter sent to the Princess!" She ran off, once again leaving her friends to catch up.
Back in the center of town, Spike was easily found. The situation was briefly explained to him, and the letter was sent.
Twilight let out a sigh of relief. Now they just had to wait.
And since they had to wait, Twilight decided to just watch the humans some more, to make sure nothing bad happened. Amazingly, the one that died earlier was back, and was fighting as if he was never hurt at all. The same kinds of creatures kept attacking them, so they performed the same plan, though this time they didn't split up. Occasionally, slow motion would kick in after one of them killed one of the monsters, but the ponies had more or less learned to ignore that by now.
Soon, once again, the creatures were all killed, and the humans started heading to another metal door, this time at Sugarcube Corner. Twilight took this chance to try and communicate with the humans when they weren't in the middle of fighting.
Walking up to one of the blue ones, she positioned herself in front of them and cleared her throat. "Uh, hello?"
The human just stood there, staring blankly into nothing. The knife in his hand was replaced by a large, partially wooden device, which he seemed to inspect for a second. "Boomstick time!"
Twilight tried again. "Hello?"
This time, she got a response in the form of the human looking at her, which was somewhat unnerving as he also pointed the thing at her. Then, a single glowing brick flew from him.
"It's raining money!"
Twilight flinched when it flew at her, then passed right through her. She looked at the thing, and saw that it was a glowing bunch of paper with some numbers and a picture of another human on it. Her study was interrupted by the same human then walking though her and over the money, making it vanish. He then went outside, where another two humans were swinging their knives at each other. Strangely, though they both had blood on the blades upon making contact, neither of them looked to be sustaining any injuries.
For the third time, Twilight was booted out of the building, and she sighed. This would be a long night.
Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
Princess Celestia was a busy mare. Thankfully, her day was just about over, and she'd be able to turn over duties to her sister for the night. Meanwhile, she'd be in bed, getting some well deserved rest.
This was not to be, however, as a familiar green wisp of smoke flew into the window, and materialized into a scroll. Sighing, Celestia unrolled the parchment and read through it. However, instead of her student-turned-fellow-princess's usual writing, this was much more rushed and brief.
Princess Celestia,
Perplexed, Celestia fetched her personal telescope and looked at the town not too far from Canterlot. There, she saw six unidentifiable blobs who seemed to be fighting off a large number of other unidentified blobs.
Celestia shook her head. Nothing could ever be normal, could it?
"Hold on a tic, I'm reloading!"
"I've seen scarier five-year-olds!"
"I'm hit! Bloody well do something!"
"You muppet!"
The ponies watched as the humans fought off yet another onslaught of those monster things. Alongside all the other things that were attacking them, now there were relatively small, shriveled ones bound in straightjackets, who attacked by screaming very loudly. They were really the only ones who could hurt the ponies, though only due to sheer volume. They were taken out fairly quickly, anyway.
Other members of the six humans died in battle, and again they'd just be good as new once the "wave" was over and they all ran to one of the metal doors. While Twilight and her friends were watching them cautiously, they had lost a lot of interest in the proceedings. Fluttershy woke back up during one of the breaks, and after the situation was explained to her, she decided simply to hole up in her house for the duration of whatever this was.
While Twilight was watching the humans once again run out of her library, Spike came running. This shook her out of her mild boredom. "Spike? What's wrong?"
Spike wheezed. "The princess... Sent back a... letter..." He held up a scroll, which Twilight quickly seized in her magic. Opening it, she read the reply.
Princess Twilight,
As she rolled the letter back up, Twilight turned just in time to see one of the humans decapitating a red creature with his sword, resulting in the slow motion that was almost routine, now.
The human moved on, killing any creature in its path while, she assumed, making his way back to the others.
Next to her, Rainbow yawned. "Not that something like this is boring, but... it's getting kinda boring, Twilight."
"I know, Dash, but I don't know what these creatures are doing here, or if they're any danger to ponies in any way. It's my duty as a princess to find out these things, after all."
"Well, while I cannot condone such barbaric activities," Rarity said, "but perhaps those 'humans' are... protecting us, somehow?"
"Now that's just silly," Applejack replied. "If none of 'em can touch us, why would they need to protect us?"
"I don't know, girls," Twilight admitted. "The longer this goes on, the more I question just what is happening."
Once again, the humans ran by, asking for money, if Twilight was right in her assumptions. If her guessing was correct, this was the fifth "wave" that had passed. She didn't know if there was an end to this, or if it just went on until the six humans all died... Er, all died at once.
Soon, however, Twilight noticed something in the sky approaching Ponyville. For a second, she thought it was yet another creature bent on mindlessly shuffling towards the six humans, but instead, she saw the unmistakeable flowing mane.
Twilight almost bowed when Celestia landed, before realizing she didn't really have to anymore. Her friends, who were nearly asleep, didn't, either. "Princess Celestia! I'm so glad you could make it."
"As am I, Twilight." Celestia looked around, looking suspiciously at a nearby bloodstain on the ground. "So, what exactly is going on?"
"I'm not entirely sure, Princess." Twilight pointed further into town. "About twenty minutes ago, metal doors were found on seemingly random buildings throughout town, including my library, and then right after that, six things that are apparently called humans showed up, but then they were attacked by a whole bunch of other weird and rather horrifying things, and-" Twilight halted her explanation. "Look, here they come now!"
Sure enough, the six humans were returning from wherever they were. They took out the devices they usually took out after breaks in the fighting, and one of them even brought out a sword. Taking the initiative, Celestia walked forward towards them. "Hello, may I ask who you are and what you're doing here?"
The six humans all looked at each other, before one of them, wearing a suit and gas mask, walked forward. "Smeghead."
"...oh." The human then walked forward, passing right through Celestia. "Oh..."
"That's another thing," Twilight continued, "they just pass right through ponies, them and the things attacking them, as well."
"Well..." Celestia paused. "I can't say I have any clue about what is going on." Suddenly, several creatures could be heard moaning and groaning nearby. "What was that?"
"The creatures I mentioned," Twilight said, plainly. "They're scary, but they also can't touch ponies, and don't even seem to notice us."
While scanning the oncoming horde, which was already being dispatched by the humans, making Celestia flinch at the blood and flying limbs, Twilight noticed another new creature advancing. This one wore what looked like basic medical scrubs, but one arm was replaced by a revving machine with a blade of some sort.
"Please tell me that's not a chainsaw he's carrying," one of the humans commented. Notably, unlike all the other monstrosities, the humans didn't immediately attack the new one. Instead, once all the nearby ones were dead, the sword-wielding human ran forward and began chopping at the "doctor" creature, causing it to continuously flinch until eventually its head was lopped off.
"They seem to attack in waves," Twilight went on with her explanation, "and between these waves one of the metal doors opens and the six of them head inside, where they just stand there and throw money at each other sometimes. There's also a seventh human inside, no matter where it is, but she never moves or leaves the building."
Celestia was too puzzled to comment or question anything. Instead, she watched as the humans kept fighting, one of them throwing a device at their feet. However, instead of the explosion Twilight was fearing, a green cloud appeared just above the ground, which seemed to hurt the creatures while somehow healing the human.
Once all of the monsters were dead, the humans once again walked off, Celestia and Twilight in tow, leaving a sleepy Applejack to drag her already-sleeping friends to somewhere that isn't the middle of the street.
At the town hall, where the town's ponies had set up a picnic of sorts while waiting, Celestia and Twilight followed the humans through the metal door. The ponies bowed upon realizing Celestia was there, but she ignored it.
Celestia watched as the humans engaged in whatever they did to get new devices out of thin air. "So, Twilight, what do you think? Is there a threat to ponies, here?"
Twilight hesitated. "I... I don't know. I mean, they can't touch or interact with us in any way, although the humans at least seem able to see us, but..."
Celestia nodded at her fellow princess's unspoken worry. "We will continue watching them, just to be sure."
Suddenly, both her and Twilight found themselves outside of the town hall, the metal door closing in front of them. Confused Celestia looked around.
Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Oh yeah, I should've mentioned that..."
Elsewhere in the town, one of the humans remarked, "You couldn't scare my mum!"
Author's Note
Hillbilly Horror is now going on again. So go do that. Again.
Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
"Bloody hell, what's he got on his arms?"
Twilight and Celestia found the humans just as the next wave began. Just as notable was the large creature that had a yellow glowing... thing in its chest, and a set of painful-looking devices on its hands. Like the "doctor" monster before, the humans didn't shoot at it immediately, and in fact started running away from it, easily outpacing its lumbering steps.
"So, what does that one do?" Celestia asked.
"I'm not sure, I think that's a new one..."
Suddenly, the creature stopped in place and started roaring and waving its arms around, the yellow thing turning blood red. The monster suddenly ran forward at a formidable speed, quickly catching up with the humans who were now firing at it as much as they could. The creature just shrugged the damage off, however, and started pounding on the nearest human. More punishment was dealt out to the creature, and eventually it fell. The attacked human immediately injected himself with the red thing he had, and went on his way killing more monsters.
"Well that certainly was... something," Celestia commented.
"Honestly, princess, I think I'm getting to the point where I just want to let whatever's happening, happen," Twilight said, exasperated. "I mean, it's not like there's anything we could really do."
Celestia thought on this, as she watched one of the humans tear through a line of creatures with a sword, each decapitation resulting in slow motion. "Do you think that you should try the Elements?" she finally tried.
"I doubt that would do much, and I don't think there's even a reason to, really." Twilight sat down with a sigh. "Is it always like this, being a princess?"
Celestia chuckled. "Well, it's usually not this weird, I admit. But, if you feel that no action can, or should, be taken, then there is little we can do but watch."
By now, the wave was finished, and the humans all ran by, eager to re-arm for the next one.
"Although the townsponies seem to be taking it rather well," Celestia added.
"When you've been living in Ponyville this long, weird things become part of the norm," Twilight joked. The two shared a laugh at this, and the humans returned again. Both of them noted that by now, their weapons were rather large in size, most likely to compensate for how the creatures they were fighting were also getting larger.
"I think this is... the eighth wave?" Twilight said, trying to remember.
"Do you think it will end at some point?" Celestia asked.
"I don't know... it seems that each wave has more creatures than the last, and bigger monsters seem to appear every so often, so who knows?"
Another large glowing monster lumbered into view, following behind a chainsaw one. As before, the yellow one turned red, and started barreling forward, tearing apart any other creature unlucky enough to be in its way. The chainsaw one, however, was simply knocked aside, something that made it run forward about as quickly as the raging beast. It caught up, and the two began fighting each other. The humans also noticed this, and simply watched while taking out any other monsters that reared their ugly heads. Soon, the glowing creature won, and a jet of flame launched from one of the human's devices, finishing it off.
"Do you think someone is controlling them?" Celestia asked, once the humans were again out of battle.
"What? The humans?"
"Well, them too, but I was talking about the... other things. They just walk forward and attack, hardly the actions that free thinking creatures would perform."
"...I haven't thought about that, honestly." Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. "But then why are they all intangible? Is this like some kind of ghost of the past, or something?"
"I do not think so, but with how much we know about it, anything is possible."
Another wave attacked, and Celestia watched as a few of the humans ended up dying in battle. The others, rather than pay any respects or even ignoring it, decided to insult their fallen comrades while running from the horde. In fact, now that she thought about it, these six acted more like people who didn't really like each other, despite working together. Sure, they healed each other and kept the creatures off of the others, but they didn't hesitate to run when they spotted a losing battle, leaving their fellow fighters to their death.
Of course, all of this was cheapened a bit when the wave ended, and those that died just popped back into existence, the only acknowledgement of their death being them returning to where their corpse was to pick up whatever weapon they dropped.
"This will be the tenth wave, correct?" Celestia asked. Twilight nodded in answer. "Do you think something will happen, now?"
"Only one way to find out..."
The humans returned once more, and one of them dropped a rectangular object on the ground. Shortly after, it began beeping, which soon got on the ponies' nerves.
"Bloody hell, you stink !" one of the humans taunted, lopping off head after head, only stopping to inject himself every once in a while. Another lumbering creature walked into view, heading straight for the beeping thing. The moment it stepped on it, it made a couple of faster beeping sounds, and then blew up, reducing the creature to a pair of covered arms and a cloud of blood. The moment was topped off with a bit of slow motion.
"There certainly is a lot of fire and explosions, aren't there?" Celestia commented.
"Don't remind me, I think I might be losing some of my hearing," Twilight said, half-joking.
The humans continued their battle, only two of them dying this time. That two quickly became four, however, and when the last two split up, one of the small, gray creatures grabbed one of them, allowing a raging pounding creature to maul him to death.
"Who do you think you are, bleeding Action Man?" the last human standing said, reloading one of his weapons while running away.
"Oh dear," Celestia said. "You said there were six humans?"
"Yes, but they've never all died at once, before..."
The lone human didn't stop fighting, though, and soon had cleared a large number of the creatures. He'd run and create a trail of creatures, before mowing them down in just a few shots. It was actually somewhat impressive.
Soon, all that remained was a single small, black creature. Instead of killing it, however, the human ran away, likely to whichever metal door would open next. He quickly put ground between him and the crawling creature, which, oddly enough, eventually just died from seemingly nothing at all. The five fallen humans appeared yet again, and they made their way to the library, where the one was waiting.
This time, Celestia and Twilight followed, seeing that the humans were now wielding the largest weapons yet, some of them nearly as big as themselves.
"Now this , is a big, sodding gun!" one of them said, holding a large green tube over his shoulder. They soon filed out, and placed not one, but about ten total of the beeping bombs they used before. The noise wasn't deafening, but it sure was annoying.
"They seem to be preparing for something... But what?"
"I don't know," Twilight said, "but whatever it is, it must be big..."
FINAL WAVE INBOUND
Pony Floor, or "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dosh"
Before either princess could wonder about what was potentially coming any longer, they suddenly found that, somehow, their view was changed to one that made it look like they were flying a bit off the ground, in the other end of town. From the ground, a large creature began standing up. From here, they could see that one of its arms was replaced by some kind of large device, it wore glasses (which one eye had seemingly grown through), and had a tentacle or something coming out of its chest.
"What have you done to my children?
Suddenly, the ponies both found that their view had been returned to their eyes, and found out that they were facing away from each other due to the confusion.
"Just- What was that?!" Twilight asked.
"The creature, or the thing with our vision?"
"Yes!"
Nearby, one of the humans commented, "Oooh, that's just nasty !"
While Twilight was nearly hyperventilating, Celestia watched carefully as the large creature they saw wandered into view from behind a building. The humans saw it, too, and began to open fire.
Unfazed, the creature began doing something to the device replacing its arm. "One in the pipe! " it announced, before a rocket flew from it and barely missed the humans, hitting a house behind them instead. Strangely, the building was unharmed.
The beast was now sprinting and almost completely invisible, but thanks to one of the humans spraying it with fire, it was still easy to find. Soon, the creature fell to its knees, but quickly got back up and ran off.
"Help me, my children! " Celestia heard it say as it ran past, followed by the sounds of several of the gray creatures in the area. They were easily dispatched by the humans, and a pair of them started running after where the monster ran.
Leaving Twilight to her panic attack, Celestia took flight and spotted the creature just as it stabbed something into its chest, roaring. Now invisible again, he began running back, just as the two humans rounded the corner. They opened fire, but the creature kept running, only slowing down to punch one of them, sending them flying back. The beast then stood in place as something on his device began spinning.
"Stay there, I'll make this quick! " he said, before firing at the humans. One of them was killed, while the other managed to get behind cover. The creature stopped shooting, and ran forward while invisible again. This time, he got fairly close to the humans before they noticed him, but the beeping bombs went off before he could do any damage. Despite this, one of the humans was reduced to a set of severed limbs from the explosion, even though the others seemed just fine.
Once more, the monster ran off, several lesser monsters appearing to "protect" him. Like before, they were quickly taken out, and all four of the remaining humans began following the monster.
Back on the ground, Celestia walked up to her former student, who had managed to get herself under control. "Feel better?"
"Yeah, I forgot how completely illogical everything else was tonight." Twilight sighed. "What is it about Ponyville that attracts so many weird things?"
Celestia smirked. "We may never know. For now, let's see how this all turns out."
The purple princess agreed, and they took flight just in time to see a rocket take out one more human, and severely injure the others. They seemed to quickly be brought to peak health, though, and they kept shooting at the oncoming monster. Once more it was brought to its knees by their firepower, and they didn't stop. One of them, who had dropped everything to pick up his fallen comrade's large green tube, aimed it and fired his own rocket, hitting the beast in the back and triggering one more occurrence of slow motion as its body flew about five feet, landing in a splash of blood.
Strangely, all the other creatures just stood still now, and the humans started jumping in place. Then, out of nowhere, they froze in place, some of them still in mid-air.
That doesn't mean they were inactive, though.
"Money money money!"
"Dosh! Grab it while you can, lads!"
"It's raining money!"
"Cha-ching! Money-money-money!"
All of the humans began launching that bright green money at wherever they were facing, with it either landing on the ground or in another human, where it was similarly launched from them. On the ground, after a few seconds, the money began spinning in place, shrinking to nothing.
Soon, the cash flow stopped, but the humans remained frozen in place.
Twilight's eye twitched. "...What the buck is going on!?"
After a few more seconds filled with Twilight's ranting, one of the humans remarked, "Knob off, you toss pot!"
And then, just as suddenly as they arrived, they were gone.
Twilight was broken out of her anger as she looked around in confusion. All of the creatures were gone, all the blood was gone, even the metal doors were gone. Sensing that it was all over now, the towns ponies began to head home to enjoy a good night's rest.
As Twilight looked around frantically, looking for some kind of evidence that what just happened had, indeed, happened, she suddenly looked straight up into the sky and let out a huge yell of frustration. Then, a small river of blood flowing from her nose, she collapsed.
Celestia, who couldn't help but watch silently in amusement, finally let out a laugh. "Oh, Twilight, you haven't changed at all..."
From the center of town, Spike came walking. When he spotted Twilight on the ground, a nosebleed evident on her face, he groaned. "Another aneurism?"
"It seems that way, Spike. She hasn't changed much, has she?"
"Nope." Waving goodbye/goodnight to the princess, Spike began dragging the unconscious Twilight to the library, while Celestia began flying back to Canterlot.
As she was leaving, a single line of small text could just barely be seen out of the corner of her eye...
ā™ˇFlippy: This map sucks
Author's Note
That's it
