Cyber Shatter
By Chaoswisp1000
'5 months and she is almost ready for deployment' the mare thought as she strode down the hallway towards the assembly chamber. The task had been long and hard, but she had seen it through, and now the ponies of Equestria had a chance to fight against the overlord of Equestria: Metal Dash.
"Your highness, she is complete" one of the workers stated proudly. He ushered the mare over to the work bench, a re-purposed examination table, to allow her to see.
'Beautiful,' She thought. The "she" on the workbench resembled a pony, but instead of soft fur and warm organic tissue this one had hard, cold lightweight metal for a coat. Instead of feathered wings with nerves and bone inside this being had flexible alloy wings with sensors implanted in them. Instead of a skeleton of bones, the mare had a titanium-reinforced support system. Instead of eyes she had photoreceptors with a protective dura-glass cover that would resist impacts of 500Mph or more.
Currently several other ponies of varying race were checking monitors and disconnecting unnecessary electrical wires from the torso of the creation. Once everything was complete, the workers deactivated the computers and backed away from the metal pony.
"When will she awake?" The mare asked. Tucking away her excitement in the back of her mind.
"She should be functioning any moment now," the stallion answered, "but to be fully honest your highness, I'm quite nervous"
"There's no shame in that my friend," The mare replied soothingly, "All the staff that I've talked to on this day are feeling the same way, and I am too"
Any further conversation was interrupted by a soft moan coming from the workbench.
"Ughh, my head, what happened last night?" The metal pony stretched out on the work bench as she powered up.
"Oh boy," the mare thought, "This will take some explaining"
***
The first thing Rainbow Dash felt was her massive headache. It felt like she had drunk a whole ocean's worth of cider, minus the good feeling of joy that accompanied over-consumption of the beverage.
"Ughh, my head, what happened last night?" She asked herself.
The next thing she noticed was when she opened her eyes and looked into the painfully bright light that was pointed directly at her face. She squinted, and tried to cover her eyes with a hoof.
"Where am -- AH!" Rainbow's question quickly became a yelp of surprise when she noticed her hoof was completely encased in metal. She quickly tried to remove the incredibly light armor with her other hoof, only to find that it was also encased in the same metallic material, and that she couldn't remove the armor.
"What's happened to me!?" She cried out in dismay.
"I can answer that question, element of loyalty," A voice purred, "What's happened is very simple; you've been "dead" for about 6 months. And have been re-constructed, so to speak, as a means to destroy Metal Dash."
Rainbow instantly knew the speaker was to her right, how she knew that she couldn't quite figure out. She rolled off of the table and onto the floor turning to face the speaker.
"I don't know who you guys think you are, but I'm warning y--"
The element of loyalty was cut off by the pony who now laid a hoof on her shoulder.
"Rainbow Dash, thank goodness you can stand!" The pony said, in a very familiar voice.
"T-t-tw-Twilight!?" Dash stammered in shock, "b-but you're--"
"Do you recall how Metal Dash killed me?" The lavender alicorn asked rhetorically.
Dash placed an alloy hoof on her chin, trying to remember. It took a few moments but eventually she said: "Yeah you were blasted by it's energy beam-thingy".
"When metal dash fired that energy beam at me I teleported using the last of my reserves, but it was too much for me. I was in a coma for a entire week, but when i awoke Equestria was devastated."
"I tried to stop it Twilight, but I failed, not just you, but all of Equestria" The cyborg said sadly.
Twilight looked into the glowing red irises of the cyborg, and smiled.
"Thats why we gave you this armor, these weapons, and a new life," The princess answered, "We've been planning a rebellion, but every time we execute our plans, we are stopped by Metal Dash's troops. By reverse engineering one of these troops, we were able to create a new mechanical armor to give us a fighting chance," Twilight stopped to take a breath, and then continued, "Since you were able to keep up with Metal Dash we figured you would be the one to fight it again."
Dash was astonished, all of this work, and planning. All of the risks the workers, and Twilight, had to take. Just so she could try and defeat the fully mechanized overlord.
'No, not try, i will succeed' Dash decided. She turned to Twilight and the other ponies present.
"Twilight, I wont let you down. I will stop Metal Dash" Dash said. Her short claim instantly brought forth a large cheer from the all the ponies present. Dash beamed as the ponies cheered and stomped their hooves at her bold statement, but in truth she was still slightly terrified that she would be facing off with that cold hearted monster again.
***
Dash flew towards the Everfree Forest at record speed, thanks to the new jets fitted onto her by the engineers at the base.
Twilight had filled her in on what had been happening, and where her foe was.
"Metal Dash had her fortress built in the Everfree Forest to show just how much power she had beyond just defeating alicorns, she showed just how easily she could tame the entire forest and all in it by destroying all of it"
The thought made Dash's blood boil, not only did this thing take out the most powerful beings in the land, it found it necessary to destroy an entire habitat for creatures that wouldn't even scratch it paint off.
"You'll be up against more than just Metal Dash, she's built less complicated copies of herself, androids if you will. They oversee the destruction and torment of all of Equestria's citizens, they also serve as her personal guard and personal assassins. They have never failed to hunt down and destroy a target, from what we've heard at least"
Dash had inquired as to why a being so powerful would need guards to defend her, and she hadn't liked the answer.
"We really don't know there have been countless attempts to destroy her, ponies started finding ways to reverse engineer androids that they had disabled. They made weapons out of old systems and salvaged armor from the bodies, but it wasn't enough and all attempts failed before they even got halfway to the fortress"
Now dash felt like she had 2 duties: destroy metal dash and bring harmony back to Equestria, and avenge those who had stood up to their mechanical tyrant.
'I wont fail them"
***
Soon dash could see the fortress and the army of androids rushing to stop her from reaching her target. The similarity between her and them was astounding, but that didn't stop her from unleashing a barrage of plasma bolts from her small, but powerful wing mounted cannons. Thanks to a incredibly fast and accurate tracking system all her shots found their target, with destructive results, and her foes tumbled to the ground like flies.
Her cannons started to overheat from her near constant use of them, she took a risk and flew straight through the swarm of androids towards the fortress. The swarm wasted no time and instantly gave chase.
Dash flew around the tall spires and huge towers of the fort and then dove towards the ground, her android selves following with a slight delay in reaction time. Dash smiled at this but focused on how close the ground was.
'5...'
100 feet
'4...'
75 feet
'3...'
50 feet
'2...'
25 feet
'1...'
Dash changed direction so quickly she almost made herself dizzy as she leveled out at the last second, and the swarm of androids smashed into the ground.
She paused to inspect her work and then scanned her surroundings. Her eyes fell not upon the tallest tower, but the most impressive looking to be sure. It was a large sphere with a full view of what used to be the Everfree surrounded by a moat full of some viscous fluid. It also had a rather odd arrangement of spires on the top of it that gave it a sinister look, but dash ignored the structures exterior, she knew that what was inside of this structure was what was important.
"Metal Dash you'd better be ready to be dismantled, because I'm not stopping until you're gone!" Dash said to no one in particular, before she took off towards the sphere.
***
Rainbow Dash flew through the window at speeds that would've killed a normal pony upon impact. Glass shards flew into the room and some impaled themselves in the androids that stood between dash and her target.
"I'm here to take you apart Metal, and you wont beat me this time!" Dash declared to the room and the pony in the center of it.
Her opponent just turned and stared at her, her gaze was as cold as the void of space. And Dash's hatred burned brighter than the shining sun.
Rainbow Dash made the first move, activating her cannons and taking aim. Her opponent didn't move, but watched as dash realized that her cannons were empty. Dash just growled and shot forward, Metal Dash charged right back at her. The two collided with each other, Metal Dash's momentum carried her and Rainbow Dash to the hard floor.
Rainbow didn't allow her adversary another moment to strike, as she lashed out with her right hoof and smashed Metal across her armored face, which made the tyrant back off. She followed up with a buck to the abdomen which sent the mechanized overlord flying towards a wall. Dash followed up by charging at her opponent, but she ended up being stopped by Metal Dash who struck her with a powerful punch at the base of the neck.
Dash managed to get up, the armor absorbing the brunt of the blow, and strike back hard with one of her hoof mounted blades, slicing away part of Metal Dash's leg. The loss of one of it's legs meant that Metal Dash was off balance, Rainbow Dash seized the opportunity and went for one of the wings.
Then Metal Dash was suddenly blocking Rainbow's attack with her own hoof-blade, the act surprised Rainbow and let Metal Dash deliver a strong buck to the cybernetic pony's body, sending Rainbow precariously close to the shattered window and the drop that led to the moat.
Rainbow Dash guessed that she really didn't want to find out what that liquid would do to her. She started to get back but Metal Dash was on her in a second. Metal started to smash Rainbow with her hoof, bashing away at the protective plating threatening to destroy Rainbow's internal systems.
"I cant fail not now!" Rainbow cried out, as she powered her jets on.
The thrust from the jets flipped the positions of the fighters, and Rainbow wasn't about to let it flip again.
The Rainbow activated her hoof blade again and slashed across the joint that connected the wing to the body, severing it completely. She then quickly followed up by slashing off half of the other wing in a unclean cut. She sliced off the forelegs of the robotic tyrant, her blades cutting through metal, circuits, and servos. She then retracted one blade and raised the other preparing to strike. Placing a hoof on on Metal Dash's Chest to pin her down she said:
"Die you abomination!"
Rainbow Dash thrust the blade into Metal Dash's head and sliced upwards. The metal tyrant had been terminated, Dash had done it she had won.
Dash looked down at her armor and started to wipe off the...
"w-what?!"
Dash's eyes would've widened if the mechanized body allowed it, for the substance on her armor, wasn't black oil, but sticky crimson blood. Dash looked to the corpse in front of her, carefully she took off the armored.
Inside there was a mass of circuits and wiring, but that only took up half of the helmet. The other half was a head, an actual pony's head, with bloody sky blue fur with a bloody rainbow mane attached to it, all sliced neatly in half.
Rainbow started to back away from the body, to be more accurate her current body.
Suddenly there was a loud clang, as a large sheet of reinforced plating took the place of the shattered window. lights turned on to illuminate the room revealing that Rainbow had stepped onto a circular platform of some sort. With a hiss four spires rose up around her, each stood about 5 feet tall and each had holes in the sides facing the cyber pegasus.
Rainbow tried to flee but the spires activated before she could get away, her body was held in place by a powerful magnetic force, which pinned her forelegs to her sides and pinned her hind legs together.
Two mechanical arms rose up out of sealed compartments in the floor, in one's pincer was a little device, about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide. Rainbow suddenly felt the free arm open a panel in the back of her neck, and watched as the other one started to insert the device into a port that Twilight had said was used for inputting data while they had been testing the mechanical augmentations and weaponry.
She tried to escape, but the magnetic field didn't allow her to, and its unseen grip wasn't about to yield. She couldn't do anything about her situation as her systems were shut down.
***
It awoke, its metallic body gleaming in the light of the sun. It got up and looked itself over and tried to remember what happened prior to this moment. All it could gather was that it had been in some kind of conflict, with a being much like itself.
It scanned, it's red eyes looking over its surroundings and spotted a village a few miles away. It knew what lived there was no threat, and that they were pathetic compared to itself.
It had one purpose: to conquer them all, the pathetic things. Beings of flesh and blood, ruled by a leader of flesh and blood it was sickening. They needed a ruler that would truly last forever, one that would not allow imperfection to run rampant through its kingdom.
It remembered. It remembered it had been sent back from its own time, to this point in time where it could conquer without the weapons and technology of its time period to stop it.
It didn't know who it was.
If it did it would find out that it had in fact been Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria, augmented by Twilight Sparkle with armor, and weapons.
All It did know was that it was now: Metal Dash.
Author's Note
And so the sequel is released, have to admit it was hard to think up how the whole thing would play out, with dash getting improvements, and the whole cycle.
But i hope you enjoyed it and the previous story!