The Sword of the Reaper, Armor of a Cyborg

Day 2:

Status: Require energy, recommend finding suitable energy to assimilate

Dycerton continued through the forest as fast as his damaged body could carry him. He was low on energy and Spyglass believes he can use the energy from the anomaly.

"If we come into contact with this source we could run off of it for years without needing to recharge." Spyglass stated.

"We need to get there first." Dyce replied.

"You are correct....WARNING possible hostiles detected 40m ahead."

"What kind of hostiles?"

"Unknown, recommend observing, this could be used to finish or training."

"Good idea."

He carefully sneaked up behind a large rock and looked into a clearing. "What the...... Spyglass, are my sensors malfunctioning somehow?"

"Negative, visual systems operational and in peak condition. Should I prepare for stealth or full on combat?"

"Lets make this fun, shall we. Begin with stealth so we can observe. Then when we have enough intel, we will engage."

"Confirmed."

As Spyglass began explaining and preparing system for a full combat test, something caught Dyce's eyes. 6 colorful quadrupeds walking right into the clearing. Seemingly oblivious to what was about to happen.

The 6 elements met near Fluttershy's cottage, near an entrance to the forest. "Okay, we all heard the noise and now we are all going to find what made it. Now this could be nothing, but I have sent a letter to the princesses, and they want us to be careful. It seems that this hasn't happened before in known history. So we are going to stick together and always watch for anything out of the ordinary, got it?" Twilight said to the rest of her friends.

"Yea," they all replied.

"Fluttershy do you have anything to say? You seem to be happy to do this?" Twilight was right, Fluttershy seemed ecstatic about this.

"Oh, just think twilight we might discover a new creature, and we can be friends and I can bring it back here and we can have fun. Oh and you could record everything, what it eats, when it sleeps, what it looks like." Fluttershy replied with an odd amount of confidence.

"Alrighty then, what we wait'n  for? Lets go!" Applejack said.

So the began their trek through the forest. rarely running into anything. They started out with confidence, which then faltered as they heard howls in the distance, with growls and roars that they could recognize from that far away. The howls belonged to  timber wolves and the roar was from a manticore. Fluttershy nearly collapsed when they got close enough to see. In a clearing, four timber wolves were circling a slightly wounded manticore, trying to conceal the gash on its forearm. Of course they only noticed them when they all had walked out of the bushes and were in the clearing, when two of the timber wolves noticing them. They began to prepare when they all turned to find one timber wolf on the ground, legs gone and a long blade through its wooden skull, and on top of the once timber wolf, a metal monster stood, ripping the sword from the corpse it turned to the rest of the beasts in the clearing then them. The main six were terrified of this new creature stunned at how none of them noticed it until it had killed the timber wolf. It turns its metal covered head towards them and raised its blade to its abdomen. Their fears only grew at watching what seemed to be red lightning flowing through the blade and charged.

Spyglass had analyzed the creatures and found that they had traces of the same energy as the anomalies, and suggested finding a way to consume it. After the first kill his visor told him that his energy levels were restored enough to increase his damage with electricity running through the blade, it seemed to add a scare factor to it judging by the reactions of the rest of the animals in the clearing. Three wooden wolves and an odd hybrid that would need further study, and six animals that seemed to resemble equines. Each of these six had a different color and different marks on their hind legs.

"Dycerton, I suggest attacking the canine creature first, the proceeding to the hybrid. I will find weak-points for it, and the best way to obtain it's energy." Spyglass said.

"Sure, when you have found out what you can about the hybrid....thing, identify  those equines, they don't seem hostile, but I want an advantage over them should the time come when I need one."

"Confirmed."

And so it began. Dyce started by dashing up to the closest wolf, and before it could react to the sudden burst of speed, cut it's head off. The base of the head and the now empty neck glowed red from the heat in the blade. He quickly threw himself at the wolf behind it and blocked a fast but clumsy strike from the beast, removing the lower half of the appendage, side stepping he drove the blade into  it's chest and it dropped. The final canine saw it's brothers being annihilated and slowly backed away, hoping to get out of the large clearing before the new threat could reach him. This was in vain, Dyce was far faster with his implants then these wolves seemed to be. Charging he met the large wolf face to face. It was about up to his chest, taller than the equines since they only reached his waist at best, the wolf's ears were back and it seemed to lower itself to the ground, a sign of fear. Dyce was confused by this reaction from a wolf, they tend to either run, or fight to then death, this one was submitting itself to whatever may come. He felt compassionate for the thing.

"Spyglass?"

"Yes?"

"Would it be possible to convert this wolf into a cybernetic version?"

"In theory, yes."

"Well then, up for having a pet?"

"It could be useful."

"Then it's settled. Shall we test it's intelligence?"

"It would be wise."

Dyce walked a few steps away and whistled. The canine seemed confused, it perked its head up to the metal thing and obliged to the command to follow. Dyce was happy to see the wolf comply. He turned and began circling the last creature in the clearing that posed a threat, Spyglass spoke up.

"I have identified this creature as a manticore, body of a lion tail of a snake and wings of bat. It comes from old mythology. It's body contains enough energy to sprint to the forest anomaly. The best way to do this would be getting the heart."

The girls watched in awe as the metal biped showed feats of speed and strength that surprised Rainbow Dash, then convincing a timber wolf to follow him and then circling the injured manticore that seemed just as terrified as the girls were. Slowly, the circle began to close on the beast, the pet on one side the master on the other. They heard the metal thing make noises that seemed like it's version of talking. But then they heard something that scared them all even more, it laughed. It was a distorted laugh but they could all recognize it as a laugh. It had a tone to it that none of them could recall, monotone and deep, like it wasn't coming from a being at all. And finally Fluttershy passed out, they were all too scared to help her up.

Dyce started by chuckling, then moved on to a mechanical laughter. His armor began to glow a faint red with his sword. He glanced over to see that the equines were still there but one was out cold. He decided to finish it before the rest joined in. He jump towards the hybrid, slicing the beast in half and ripping the heart from it's rib-cage. He glanced back after hearing a balloon pop sound and two thuds, the pink one's hair was straight and the white and cyan one had passed out, joining the yellow one. Looking back at the best it was in two halves and spilling a lot of blood. Dyce looked back at the horses and raised the hand that had the creature's heart in it, they looked confused (the conscious ones anyways), in an instant he crushed the heart, spilling blood allover him.Thud, thud, thud the last three equines dropped like stones at what they just saw.

"They seem a bit new to violence." Dyce said chuckling.

"Affirmative. Energy level rising we should proceed through the forest."

"Agreed."