Equestrian Odyssey: Rise of the Sleepers

Jack awoke with a start. He was in a lush, green field full of trees, a view much nicer than what he had expected from a crash site. He remembered the explosion at the wormhole and waking up to falling, finding that the compartmentalization of the Iteron had saved him and his gear, along with his drop pod. He also remembered abandoning ship in that same drop pod when he noticed the obvious crash course his piece of the wreckage was on. He stood up and stepped out of his pod, turning around to examine the wreckage that now surrounded the pod, which had not gone far from the Iteron. He checked the damaged pod and, seeing that most everything had worked properly in deployment. He grabbed his gear from the pod, a small rations pack with water and nutrition substances to last a week, his Gallente assault rifle, and a pistol which he loaded and put in its holster, preferring to hold the rifle. A portion of his armor had been damaged in the landing, but the repair modules in his suit had already begun repairing it. "I might as well check for some more supplies," he said to himself, "Now that i think about it, i could be here a while, especially if Flint and I are the only ones here," he continued, pondering his predicament, unaware that Drake and Cinder had fallen into the rift behind him. The only thing appearing intact that landed with his part of the Iteron was a small container, about big enough to hold four people, that his HUD marked as, 'HOBGOBLIN II's' upon attempting to open it he heard the voice of Aura,

"You do not have the required permissions to open that," the metallic voice said. As jack assessed the situation, not having a way to open the container he decided that he would have to come back to it later, if Flint said it had anything useful in it. He marked the container on his suits topographical map that would be generated as he walked and began to walk away when he heard a loud THUMP and turned around, the container had fallen over and there was a small hole where it had been sitting. He brought his gun to his shoulder as his suit switched to combat mode, displays of ammo, shields and armor appearing, along with the constant message that all of the clone vats were out of range. As he walked forward towards the hole he heard a small grunt and a voice,

"This is not town!" the high pitched voice echoed out of the hole.

"Not me fault! Scrabs lead the digging!" another voice responded. "What we hit anyway?" at that a small head poked out of the hole, it looked like a dog, not the angular wolf faces of some of the guard hounds on the stations, but a brown rounded grubby one. The "dog" as Jack saw it looked at him with yellow eyes as his some what more yellow-tinted compatriot poked his head out of the hole looking the other way.

"Why is this garbage!" The yellowish one, Scrabs Jack assumed, looking around, not seeing Jack.

"Me don't know, but what is that!" the other one replied in his shrill voice, pointing at Jack. Scrabs turned around and saw him,

"Us make it dig!" He said, jumping out of the hole. At this Jack snapped out of his surprise at seeing talking dogs.

"I doubt you'll get anywhere with that idea," He said, noting from how they talked that they probably weren't that bright.

"Ha!" the brown one said "You have no claws! We will take you and make you dig!"

"I doubt you could do shit if you wanted to," jack said, pointing the gun at the brown one.

"Me done talking! You will work, and we will get gems!" Scrabs shouted, advancing towards him as his companion followed, spreading out to Jacks left side.

"Never much cared for diplomacy either," Jack said to himself. Scrabs leaped at him and Jack's combat reflexes kicked in as he brought the stock of the assault rifle down on Scrabs head with a loud crack and enough force to send the diamond dog in the opposite direction and knock him out. Jack turned to face the brown one who had obvious fear on his face as he began talking,

"Me sorry! Me not want to make dig! I only follow Scrabs order!" The diamond dog was scrambling backwards away from jack at this point.

"I couldn't care less," Jack said. As he said that he took the last step to close the distance between them and slammed his armored boot into the diamond dogs face with a sickening *crunch* there was no doubt that the diamond dog was dead. Jack wiped his armored boot on the grass to get the blood off and turned to the still unconscious Scrabs who was bleeding and still missing a few teeth, whether they were missing from the hit or from the dogs diet was up for debate. As Jack looked at the dog there was a small blip and his HUD showed a waypoint to what it had identified as the nearest survivor from the Iteron. Jack slid his rifle to its place on his back and pulled out his sidearm, not even glancing towards Scrabs as he shot him in the head. "All hostiles eliminated," he reported with cold finality to his armor, and holstered his sidearm. "Change the route to stay near the forest, i don't want to wast any more ammo on these vermin," he said, and began the long sprint towards the next part of the wreckage.

The six elements of harmony sat alone in sugarcube corner, most of the other ponies were questioning the Mayor, and many waited for the small group of royal guards that were supposedly on their way. Luna had insisted that the girls stay in Ponyville, and she and her two shadowbolts had taken off after the strange green object. The fact that she had to stay behind bothered Rainbow Dash as she sat there with her five friends in silence. Suddenly it all made sense, at least, to Rainbow Dash it did.

"It was the changelings!" She suddenly shouted, slamming her hoof down on the small table she and her friends sat at.

"Rainbow Dash that's ridiculous," Twilight said, "Changelings dont have any special powers over meteors, and even if they did i doubt they would try and hit Ponyville with them, they would go for some place like Canterlot or Las Pegasus,"

"Ah agree with Twilight," Applejack said, "We beat them varmints back to wherever it is they came from, an i don't think they'd be willing to come back so soon after we beat em',"

"But the whole thing was was colored like changeling stuff!" Rainbow dash shouted, "And the thing that shot off glowed green, just like Chrysalis' crazy changeling magic!"

"Rainbow darling, magic simply cannot be used from that far away. The changelings would have had to have been close enough to it for us to see them. You cannot simply accuse changelings because something is green," Rarity said.

"Then what is it!" Rainbow Dash asked, still raising her voice in frustration at the whole situation.

"I don't know," Twilight said, "But Celestia should be here soon, hopefully she'll be able to tell us what that thing was, or how every astronomer in Equestria failed to see asteroids that big until last night.

Chrysalis overlooked the once great Changeling Empire from one of the many citadels that jutted out of the ground, all were in a state of disrepair, and very few had changelings living in them. In past times the city would have glowed a vibrant blue-green hue and thrummed with life of the current queens subjects, but Chrysalis had only ever heard stories of the city like that from when her mother was little and Changelings were a powerful and respected race. The empires borders had since then been pushed back, and with no Changelings to spare on building new cities the buildings had begun to fall apart, some had been patched and re-patched with a honeycomb pattern created by Changeling magic in a vain attempt to save some of the buildings, it was never supposed to last long, but it was all that held the old city together. After the siege of Canterlot had failed spirits had been low, and a few Changelings were beginning to question their queen. With no strong army to to take love any more, and no place in her Empire hospitable enough for large amounts of food to be hunted her Empire was doomed. As Chrysalis struggled for a solution to save her people a low roar suddenly reached her ears. Looking up she saw asteroids, much like the ones that had been seen falling over equestria only an hour ago, she was told that they were all falling towards the inner badlands and that only one would land in the city. The only problem being that the changelings could not find the actual size of the asteroids. Because of this it had been decided that all of the Changelings would take shelter in a cavern below Chrysalis' Citadel. A few moments later the city visibly, and audibly, sprung to life. The buzzing of hundreds of pairs of wings could be heard and felt in the air as black shapes zipped about, one landing next to Chrysalis.

"My Queen!" The Changeling captain announced, bowing, "My men have began moving the others into the cavern below this tower for safety,"

"I have my own defenses, there is no need to fetch me to sit in a hole below my city" Chrysalis said, "I will stay here and keep the tower stable, you are dismissed Captain," As soon as she had said this the obedient Changeling buzzed off, and continued helping his men in getting the other Changelings to safety. Chrysalis looked back up at the sky, noticing the oddly colored trail the closest object left, it did not match any falling object she had seen before, and her enhanced Changeling vision noticed that the object was much to smooth for a rock.

"How interesting..." she said to herself as she began the spell to hold the tower together, only seconds left before the speeding object slammed into the ancient city...

Aura unit 253-0023A 'woke up' as generators came online. But something was wrong, where the AI usually detected a pilot or dock she felt nothing, beyond this iteron compartment there was nothing. Puzzled, the AI looked inwards to the contents of the compartment. Most of the items stored there were trashed but a few had survived, most notable to the AI was a strange Sleeper relic transmitting all sorts of data. Curious, the AI tapped into the object and found several advanced neural networks, much beyond that of a human, but not all that far ahead of a capsuleer. This was not what shocked Aura though, what shocked it was what the networks were translating to.
The being floated in an empty nothingness, unaware of the
nothingness around it, its brain and implanted circuitry still
trying to reconnect to their respective "components" and each
other. Suddenly the being remembered. Remembered War and
Peace, Light and Dark, Friend and Enemy, and the fact that it
should not be surrounded by the dark. Then, suddenly, their was
light, he began to hear again as the implants in itshead and the
chemicals in its stasis pod began to revive it. It suddenly
remembered personal memory, and endless war, an undying
enemy, a life dedicated to violence, and a fight to extinction. All
these memories were suddenly given back to their owner, along
with vague memories of home, a hope for family, as these thoughts
set in more were forced upon him of a life of service, terrifying
machinations, and of an undying loyalty to its people, all thoughts
of a past home or old friends were gone as the Sleepers' implants
and armor came online and it remembered, remembered its name
I AM LEGION, I AM UNDYING, I AM FOREVER.

Suddenly what remained of the Aura unit began to feel what her databanks could only compare to choking, a feeling reserved for living organisms, but a feeling that it was experiencing none the less, but it didn't matter, In a matter of seconds it was gone, the lights in the compartment went out, and all that was heard was the constant hissing and mechanical whirring of the machine in the middle of the room. Outside voices could be heard, and if the new resident could hear them, he didn't seem to care. Nothing would stand in his way, his people would be restored, and his enemies would know the true meaning of fear.

The Sleepers have risen.