Chapters
Somewhere in Nevada<
A drab gray building sat in the middle of a drab gray field, in contrast to the deep red sky. At the door of the building stood two guards, one idly smoking a cigarette with his AK leaning against the wall next to him. The other was reading a back issue of a newspaper the building had, though the incomprehensible language made it useless. The smoker thought he saw a flash of light in the distance and reached for his rifle.
Bang! A bullet ripped right through the middle of his crossed face. His buddy barely had two seconds before he too joined his friend in death.
On a nearby hill were two figures, similar in build to the now dead guards but dressed differently. The one lying down, dressed in a black trench coat with a visor and headset, peered through the scope of the PSG-1 at the building and gave a thumbs up to his partner, who was dressed in shorts, a bandana, glasses, and oddly enough a mouth. The latter nodded, took out a mirror, and sent a coded message down to the building. When he was done he picked up his binoculars and watched the side of the building.
A third figure, dressed almost entirely in black to cover his incredibly scarred body, peeked around a corner and quickly made his way to the door. He had just gotten there when a guard opened the door and was quickly taken out with a quick snap to the neck. With that done he took out a silenced USP, checked through the door, and entered.
'Go get 'em Hank,' thought Sanford. He tapped Deimos on his shoulder and they went about searching the windows for grunts to pick off.
Inside the building, Hank was doing his best to quietly kill as many guards as he could. Two shots downed two guards. He took the knife from one of them and plunged it right into the heart of a grunt that had walked through a door.
Which, of course, led into a room with at least a dozen 1337 agents, all of whom drew their weapons and charged at Hank. He didn’t waste any time as he skillfully took down the ones with guns first and tore apart any agents foolish enough to get within melee range. More 1337 entered from the adjoining rooms and were quickly gunned down, one of them being lucky enough to land a punch on Hank before getting a bullet in the head for his trouble.
Hank’s pistol clicked empty, so he discarded it and picked up an axe from a 1337 and entered a stairwell with two more 1337 agents, who were quickly dispatched with a thrown knife and an axe to the face. The farthest one had a shotgun which Hank grabbed along the way to the next room. The guards in this room were waiting for him and immediately opened fire when the door opened. The one closest to the window was taken down by a shot from outside, which startled the rest enough for Hank to kill the rest of them. Hank dropped the empty shotgun and walked into the hallway, picking up a MP5 along the way.
There was still plenty of work to do.
Another shot and another dead grunt. They had surprisingly deployed snipers to the roof, not that it helped at all. Sanford pointed out another sniper which Deimos quickly shot down. Deimos’ communicator started beeping so Sanford grabbed it to check the message.
>The Improbability Drive located inside the target building has been activated.
>Try to cut the power to the Drive before it fully activates.
Sanford showed Deimos the message and, after exchanging a couple nods, Deimos shot one last guard before dropping the rifle, getting up, and following Sanford down the hill.
Hank was finishing cleanup in the room he was in. With the last 1337 dead Hank checked how much ammo he had left in the MP5, amounting to three bullets. He collected a Glock 17 from a dead agent and entered the next room. The lone ATP agent inside reached for a rifle and was cut down by Hank. He discarded the submachine gun and walked over to the console the agent was working on and checked what was on the screen.
Improbability Drive: activated
Coordinates set to Eq1248U32
Percentage complete: 70%
There was still time left, so Hank took out some C4, started to set the timer, and was about to stick it on the console when the screen went black. Hank stared at the screen and a pair of red eyes opened on it and stared angrily at him and some text appeared along the bottom.
‘Hello Hank, nice to see that you took the bait.’ A small screen filled with static popped up in the corner and the eyes looked down at it. ‘Oh, what’s this?’ The screen cleared up to show security camera footage. It started simply, a couple of 1337 agents just milling around, until a door opened and Sanford and Deimos walked in. Sanford threw his hook into the first agent while Deimos used a silenced pistol to kill the rest in the room. Sanford motioned to an off screen door and they walked off screen.
‘Well, nice to know they’re here too. Now to get rid of you for a while.’ The eyes disappeared from the screen and were replaced by text.
Percentage complete: 100%
teleporting to coordinates.
‘Uh oh.’
Sanford and Deimos stopped at the door and positioned themselves on either side of it. Through a series of hand motions they agreed on a plan. Sanford took out his hook and waited for Deimos to open the door. When it opened Sanford tossed the hook inside and snagged the top of a grunt’s head and yanked him back. The first guard to approach the door got a hook to the face for his trouble.
Deimos provided covering fire as Sanford advanced into the room using the guard’s body as cover. He felt bullets impact against the body and took out a couple of guards with his revolver. Deimos killed the farthest 1337 as Sanford tossed his cover at the last one which distracted him long enough to kill him with his hook. Deimos moved to cover the door as Sanford wiped the blood off his hook on one of the bodies before putting it away and walking over to the power generator.
Before he could do anything though, Deimos’ communicator rang out. Deimos checked and walked over to Sanford to show him what it said. Hint: it wasn’t anything good. Sanford and Deimos exchanged worried looks as the generator sparked to life. They started to back away from it when a loud bang sounded throughout the building and they were blinded by a white light.
There was a knock on the door, so Twilight walked over and opened it to reveal her friends.
“Hi girls, are you all ready?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah, we’re just waiting for you,” Rainbow Dash said as she hovered lazily over the group.
“Heh heh, sorry. I was just getting everything ready for tonight.” On cue, Spike walked over to them carrying a picnic basket. “Are we ready Spike?”
“Yep, everything’s set,” Spike answered. Twilight knelt down to let Spike climb on her back and the group trotted away from the library to the outskirts of Ponyville.
“This is going to be great!” Pinkie exclaimed as she bounced along.
“I agree, it’s not every day that a meteor shower gets arranged,” Twilight said, “The last one was really good, so I wonder what this one will be like.”
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” Applejack said. The group of friend engaged in various small talk (Pinkie being incredibly adamant in steering it toward sweets of some kind) until they reached the hill they would watch the shower from. Spike hopped off of Twilight’s back and they set a blanket down as well as the food on top of it.
“So, when is this supposed to start?” Rainbow asked as she settled onto the blanket and picked up one of the treats.
“In a couple of minutes Rainbow, just be patient,” Twilight answered. Rainbow shrugged and took a bite of her treat as the conversation continued until Pinkie started bouncing and pointed up at the sky.
“Look, it’s starting!” she exclaimed. The group looked up as the first of the meteors zoomed across the sky, followed by another, and then two more. Soon the whole sky was filled with shining trails which, combined with the stars, created a sight to behold. Fluttershy managed to look away long enough to see that she and her friends were the only ones on the hill.
‘That’s odd,’ she thought and looked back up at the shower. Fluttershy noticed something…odd about one of the lights. “Um girls… do you see that one that’s going in a different direction?”
“Yes, I just now noticed that,” Rarity said and looked over to Twilight who looked back.
“I don’t know, but I have to admit I’m kind of excited. Who knows what it is? I wish I brought my telescope.”
“Oh, maybe it’s an alien spaceship!” Pinkie said.
“Ya gotta stop hanging with Lyra,” Applejack said, “Yer way too impressionable.”
“Is it me or is it getting closer?” Spike asked.
“I think it is,” Rainbow said. The group watched the incoming object and prepared to run in case it got too close.
Hank shook his head a little and tried to stand up, but the building shook and launched him into a wall. When he actually stood up he realized the building was turned on its side so he was standing on the wall next to the door he came in.
‘That’s it? Weak,’ Hank thought and walked to the door, which opened so a 1337 agent could climb in. Hank punched the agent a couple and kicked him back down the corridor. He looked down and saw the agent crash through a window, which was replaced by a metal shutter. Hank jumped down the corridor and carefully looked out the window expecting to see the regular grey of Nevada.
Instead he saw that the building was burning through the atmosphere of a bright green and blue planet. He backed away from the window as a door opened on the ceiling and a grunt fell through. The poor fool thought he could take Hank and got strangled for the effort. Hank dropped the guard and looked outside the window again and found the ground was much closer than before. Fascinatingly enough, Hank could make out what appeared to be trees and lakes on the surface.
Hank looked at the dead grunt and then back to the window as an idea formed in his head. He didn’t know what would happen if he stayed inside, die most likely, but if did what he was thinking it could end in one of three ways. Either he would: miraculously survive the fall, die but get revived again, or die for good. Except for the second option, there was no way this could end badly.
With his mind set, Hank picked up the dead grunt’s body and jumped out the window with the grunt in front of him. The glass crashed around him and Hank held onto the grunt as hard as he could as he watched the building fly away. He looked at the ground and tried to steer toward a lake.
He was coming up short.
“That’s a building!” Twilight yelled as the object got into view. The building was a very drab gray as it burned on reentry. It roared at least a thousand or so feet above the group as it flew past them.
“Hey what’s that?” Rainbow asked and pointed at the building. It was hard to tell, but it looked like something was falling out of it. “I think it’s moving.”
“Somepony’s fallen out of that! Rainbow!”
“I’m on it!” Rainbow took off and accelerated toward the falling figure, unfortunately blowing right past it. Rainbow cursed and turned around for a second pass.
Something really fast and really blue flew right past Hank.
‘What was that?! A SAM?’ Hank looked back at the ground and winced at the sight of the fast approaching ground. He hit the ground grunt first and slid about twenty feet before getting thrown off. He guarded his head as he hit the ground once, twice, and then hit water.
He was disoriented from the impact and water started to fill his lungs. He followed the bubbles up and broke the surface just as his vision was starting to black out. Hank coughed a little and swam to the nearest shore, which thankfully wasn’t that far. Once he crawled on shore he coughed out the water and started to black out. Before he did a voice filled his head and he saw a bit of blue.
“Are you ok?”
Sanford stirred to consciousness and rubbed his head. He looked around and saw Deimos lying still on the ground, so he stood up and walked over to Deimos and shook him. Deimos quickly stood up and looked around ready for a fight, only to relax when one wasn’t found. Sanford made some motions, questioning what happened, so Deimos pulled out his communicator to see if there were any messages. As luck would have it, there was.
>The Drive has been activated!
>From what we can tell it’s teleporting you to an unknown location. We don’t know what’s going to be there.
>New primary objectives: regroup with Hank, ascertain the Drive’s link to what happened and destroy it if necessary.
>Further orders will be given when contact is reestablished.
Sanford and Deimos nodded in agreement and Deimos put the communicator away. Sanford motioned up to the power generator which was now near the floor due to the angle the building was at. After all, if there’s no power they can’t activate the Drive if it’s off.
Deimos walked over to the generator and planted a C4 charge on it and set the timer to two minutes. Sanford meanwhile walked to the door and opened it to find a 1337 agent outside. He was quickly disarmed of his Desert Eagle and gunned down. Deimos joined Sanford and they both left the room.
The next room was pretty devoid of life so Deimos took the time to search a couple of lockers managing to find a 1911 pistol and an MP7 submachine gun. Sanford opened the next door and found it was the stairway they had come down from guarded by about five 1337 agents and three ATP agents, who all charged upon seeing him. The charge behind them blew up, which had the side effect of shutting off most of the lights.
Good thing too, things were starting to get boring.
“Do you think it’s alright?”
“I don’t know, it took quite a beating on the way down and almost drowned from what Rainbow said.”
“Oh dear, I hope it’s going to be ok.”
"I just don’t understand how something could wear such horrid clothing. All black clothing is so five years ago.”
Hank stirred a little from the voices filling his head and soon enough he was brought back into the living world.
“Hey, he’s waking up!” This voice seemed younger than the others. Hank slowly opened his eyes and found some kind of reptile staring down at him. He instantly became fully awake and reacted quickly in grabbing said reptile before rolling off the bed and drawing his Glock. He was expecting grunts or 1337 to surround him.
He did not expect horses.
“Spike!”
Talking horses at that.
‘How are they…? Oh whatever, this is hardly the strangest thing to happen to me.’ Hank backed away slowly from the horses, noting they were all different colors and apparently species, as the reptile struggled in his arms. The white one with purple hair took a step forward and looked angrily at him.
“You listen here, if you do anything to hurt little Spikey Wikey, I’ll tear you apart.” She had a feminine voice and motioned for her to back off as he started to think.
“Rarity, calm down!” the purple one who was the first to speak shouted at the white one and looked at Hank with worry in her eyes.
‘They’re not immediately hostile, which is a good start, and I’m fairly certain the A.A.H.W doesn’t hire talking horses. Or maybe they do now, I wouldn’t put it past them to try anything.’
“Listen, we’re trying to help you,” The purple mare started, “So please let Spike go. He’s just a baby.” Hank looked down at ‘Spike’ and saw the reptile look up at him with green eyes. The orange horse with a cowboy hat and the blue one looked ready to pounce on him.
‘Let’s… see how this plays out,’ Hank thought and skillfully twirled the handgun so he grabbed the barrel and switched it to his other hand. He pointed at Spike, made a walking motion with his hand, pointed at the horses, and then a writing motion before pointing to himself.
“You’ll… let him go if we give you something to write with?” the purple one asked. Hank nodded and switched the handgun back to his other hand and waited for their response. They whispered to each other for a moment before looking back at Hank. “Let him go first, and then we’ll give you something.”
‘Of course they’d say that. Still I don’t plan on hurting a kid, and I can probably take them anyway.’ Hank quickly spun Spike around, grabbed the back of his neck, and set him on the ground where he quickly ran behind the purple horse.
“Are you ok Spike?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Spike answered and rubbed his throat a little, “the guy has quite a grip though.” The assembled looked at Hank who was still cautiously pointing his handgun at them.
“I’ll get a quill and parchment for you. Just… be calm ok?” Hank nodded and the purple mare walked away keeping an eye on Hank. He was about to relax a little when the Pink one appeared in front of him, somehow.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, Ponyville’s premier party pony. What’s your name?”
‘I have a bad feeling about this one,’ Hank thought as this ‘Pinkie’ smiled at him.
“Can’t talk huh? Or maybe you just don’t want to talk. I don’t really get why not though, talking is fun, especially with friends. Do you have any friends?”
‘THE NOOBS! I can’t believe I forgot about them!’
“What does this thing do?” Pinkie asked and poked the handgun, having somehow teleported to Hank’s side. He reacted as well as he could have, which was to toss Pinkie back to the group and was only slightly surprised that she stayed stock still in the air and landed on her hooves. “That was fun.”
“Ok, I have some parchment and a quill,” Twilight said as she reentered the room levitating said items over to Hank. He took the quill, dipped it into an inkwell that was provided, and wrote down on the parchment. He flipped the parchment around and showed it to them.
Are you A.A.H.W?
“A.A.H.W?” the purple one said and looked at her friends who shook their heads before looking back at Hank. “Is that some kind of group?”
Hank nodded his head and pointed at the group.
“Maybe they’re a bunch of professional house warmers!” Pinkie said and held a hoof to her chin, “Strange though, I’ve never heard of them before.”
“Yeah, if they are based in Equestria I’ve never heard of them.” Twilight said and they looked at Hank who visibly relaxed and lowered his weapon. He turned the parchment around and wrote something down before turning it back.
Names?
“Oh! We haven’t introduced ourselves yet have we? Well, my name is Twilight Sparkle,” the purple one said motioning to herself and pointed to each of her friends. “That’s Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.” Each of them gave a short hello of various enthusiasm, with Rainbow Dash and Applejack still watching him carefully.
“So what’s your name?” Pinkie asked with a wide smile. Hank wrote on the parchment again.
Hank.
“That’s… kind of a plain name,” Rainbow said.
“I think it’s nice, Mr. Hank,” Fluttershy said quietly. Hank put the handgun away, fairly certain that no conflict would arise anytime soon.
“So, do you like parties?” Pinkie asked as she teleported behind Hank.
‘I really have a bad feeling about this one.’
Back in the A.A.H.W base, a couple of 1337 agents were trying to straighten up the building. Literally. This mostly entailed trying to get to the Improbability Drive by standing on top of one another’s shoulders. The one on top managed to reach the drive and punched in a command into the Drive.
In another room below that one, a few grunts and 1337 were cleaning up when Sanford dropped from a door on top of one of them. The nearest grunt took a hook to the face and Deimos poked out of the door and shot the remaining enemies. With the room cleared Deimos prepared to drop down just as the building righted itself which caused him to fall flat on his back. He quickly stood up and checked the door behind him while Sanford gave him an annoyed look. When Deimos rejoined Sanford at the next door, they agreed that Deimos should go in first.
The next room had a mingling of 1337 and ATP agents, so Deimos fired the last three rounds in his handgun, two hitting an ATP and the last one killing a 1337. The remaining agents opened fire at the door as Deimos dropped the handgun and took out the MP7. They waited until the firing stopped before they entered the room. Deimos focused on the left side of the room, killing an ATP agent and dodging a 1337 shot before killing him, while Sanford took the right and plunged his hook into a 1337’s head and flipped over him and tossed the body at an ATP agent who was taken down a moment later by a tossed hook.
Once the room was clear Deimos gave Sanford a thumbs up and walked to the next door, picking up a Beretta 92 along the way. Sanford picked up an Uzi and walked through the door with Deimos. The hallway was surprisingly empty so Sanford and Deimos to take a short break. Deimos looked out of one of the windows and stopped dead in his tracks. He shook Sanford a little and pointed out of the window.
‘What?’ was Sanford’s first thought at seeing the outside. Everything outside was filled with vibrant greens and blues which stood in stark contrast to the gray building. Sanford and Deimos exchanged looks just as the door opened to reveal a group of 1337 agents who were quickly gunned down. Sanford shook his head and walked through the open door. They can figure this out once they’re out of the base.
They entered the next room which turned out to be an office overlooking a truck garage with some grunts loading some trucks. Sanford motioned to one of the trucks and Deimos nodded and got into position near a window. Sanford went to another window and looked out to find a 1337 with a rifle, so he took out his hook and slowly opened the window. He nodded at Deimos who nodded back, so Sanford proceeded to hook the agent and dragged him up. At the same time Deimos opened fire at the agents downstairs which was soon joined by Sanford’s rifle fire.
When all visible agents were dead Deimos moved away from the window and down the stairs while Sanford covered him. As it turned out there was only one grunt left behind one of the trucks who came at Deimos wielding a knife and was quickly gunned down. Deimos tossed the empty gun and after a quick check made an ‘all clear’ motion up to Sanford and got into one of the trucks. Sanford walked by and got the garage door open and got into the passenger’s seat before Deimos started the truck and punched it.
Several 1337 agents gathered in front of the truck to stop it, but you can guess how that ended and soon the duo were home free and driving into the most colorful place either of them had seen.
Twilight and her friends had gathered in front of Hank in what had described as an explanation for what he was doing. This, as it turned out, amounted to a bunch of crude drawings of various things, such as him fighting a monster clown, zombies, and several numbers of the same man.
“So, you’re saying that you came from a place called ‘Nevada’ where you fought against this A.A.H.W… over a pie?” Twilight asked.
“And then you died,” Rarity said and Hank nodded.
“After that, you fought against a sheriff and a clown, where you died two more times,” Rainbow Dash said.
“How many times have ya died in the past?” Applejack asked to which Hank just shrugged, “That’s… not a good thing to forget.”
“In all honesty, I’m a little worried about this ‘Improbability Drive’. What exactly does that do?” Twilight asked. Hank drew a simple banana and then an arrow pointing to a box marked ‘I.D.’ and then an arrow pointing to a question mark.
“It… turns bananas into text?” Fluttershy asked.
“I think it means it can do almost anything,” Pinkie said.
“A device that can bend reality to its will? That’s… not good.” Twilight said.
“What do you mean?” Spike asked.
“Well, what other reality bender do we know about?” Twilight waited until the others realized what she meant. “Exactly, if this thing can do what Hank claims it can, then it would be more than enough to set Discord free again.”
“Oh nelly,” Applejack whispered. Hank tilted his head a little in confusion.
“Oh well, a while ago a being called Discord got freed and caused a whole lot of trouble. He apparently got out due to a small bit of chaos near his statue, so if this Drive does what you say it does…” Twilight didn’t need to finish that sentence as Hank nodded and drew a couple of heads, one with a bandana and the other with a hat and wrote Noobs? above them.
“Are those your friends?” Pinkie asked and Hank replied with a shrug.
“You were the only one we found, so if they came with you they might be with that building.” Twilight said.
“It fell to the Southeast, from what I could tell,” Rainbow said and started hovering. “I can take you there if you want.”
Hank thought deeply for a few seconds and shook his head. Sanford and Deimos were a pretty good team and could probably take care of themselves. No… something wasn’t right here.
No sooner had he thought that than a slab of concrete with a door blasted through the library wall startling all assembled. The door opened and three 1337 agents, armed with a knife, nightstick, and sword respectively walked through and charged at Hank. The knife agent stabbed at Hank, who dodged it and punched him out followed by disarming the nightstick agent and beat him and the sword agent down. Hank picked up the sword and walked through the door, which closed behind him.
The girls plus dragon just stared at the door for a few seconds before Rainbow Dash broke the silence.
“What was THAT?!”
Recommended music choice: Nuclear Mutation by Cheshyre
“This just doesn’t make sense,” Twilight said as she looked up at the gray slab sticking out of her library’s wall. From where she was standing, it looked like the slab was a few feet wide. But…
“I’m telling you, there’s a whole building in this thing!” Rainbow called down from the window, “As for what’s in the building… you don’t want to know.”
“This just doesn’t make sense. How can there be anything in that little block? How could-“
“Uh, Sugarcube, we just met someone with floating hands, dressed in black, who told us about a thinga ma jig that can change reality, and didn’t even bat an eye at three guys bursting through the wall to attack him. Ah’m fairly certain ‘sense’ isn’t going to apply here,” Applejack said.
“I agree with Applejack, we may have to look at this from a different angle,” Rarity commented.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I wonder how Hank’s friends are doing.”
Meanwhile in another part of Equestria, Sanford and Deimos were driving along completely and utterly lost. They were just coming out of a heated argument when they came across what seemed like a wooden caravan. Deimos parked the truck next to it and honked the horn. They were ready for almost anything.
“Who DARES disturb The Great and Powerful Trixie’s beauty sleep?!” A light blue pony yelled as she walked out. The three of them stared at each other for a moment in shock. “What in the name of Equestria are you?” Deimos looked at Sanford and, after a couple of exchanged gestures, Deimos grabbed the map and got out of the truck. Deimos noticed that the pony was a unicorn and was dressed in a purple cape. He showed Trixie the gray map and pointed at a part of the map.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie knows nothing of this…” Trixie squinted at the map to read it, “…Nevada. Although Trixie is sure that she would not want to do a show there.”
Deimos sagged a little and gestured to a name on the map.
“Is that supposed to be asking me where a town is?” Trixie asked and Deimos nodded. “Well, Trixie knows for a fact that the nearest town is Ponyville. It’s in that direction.” Trixie gestured in a direction and Deimos nodded and gave a casual salute to Trixie. “Well it’s nice to know somebody appreciates my help. Now be gone, Trixie must prepare for her next show!” Deimos shrugged and got into the truck, started it up, and drove away.
Sanford gestured back at Trixie in a silent question of ‘Was that seriously a talking horse?’ to which Deimos answered with a shrug, lit a cigarette, and focused on the path ahead.
“What strange creatures,” Trixie said to herself. She really should have been more surprised, but there’s only so much you can question before you just give up. She walked to her caravan’s door and it slid into the ceiling instead of opening normally. Instead of her caravan, the door’s opened into a gray hallway with similar creatures to what she had just talked with, only they were wearing suits and red sunglasses.
“What?” Trixie asked herself. The creatures made some gestures and charged at her. “Uh oh.”
When Hank entered the A.A.H.W’s base, it pretty much went how it always went with 1337 charging at him and getting horribly slaughtered. The first two got their heads sliced in half and a nightstick through their face respectively. Hank left the nightstick behind and proceeded through the rest of the 1337 who lasted about as well as was expected.
Hank drew his handgun and threw the sword into the last 1337 before walking into the next room. The closest 1337 had his back turned to the door, so Hank took him as a shield and managed to gun down the first two 1337 he saw. This caught the attention of the other 1337, who of course opened fire and killed their buddy. Hank killed another one, leaving three in the room. Two shots downed one of them and a third killed the second. The last one, armed with a micro Uzi, ran out of ammo because he was an idiot and Hank retaliated by tossing dead 1337 he was using at him and finishing him off with a shot to the head.
The door to Hank’s left opened and an ATP agent walked out with an M4. Hank grabbed the barrel of the rifle, pulled the agent closer, and shot him twice before entering the room the agent came from. He killed a couple more 1337 in the next room, emptying the handgun in the process and dropping it. Hank waited at the next door and waited for the door to open and rifle butted the ATP that walked through. Hank then swiftly killed the three 1337 and ATP agent in the next room. There weren’t any other doors in the room so Hank closed the door behind him and picked up a USP from a 1337.
Hank walked over to the ATP agent’s body and found he had been working on a computer, more specifically he was in a chat session. Hank wiped the ATP’s yellow blood off the monitor to read what was written.
ATP132: Everything is going almost as well as expected. The only real problem is that the Improbability Drive isn’t working at full power.
BIGBADAUD999: What do you mean it’s not at full power?
ATP132: The generator powering the drive was destroyed. We have enough power to it to get around, replenish weapons and troops, but anything more than that is too much for it.
BIGBADAUD999: When can you have it back up to full power? I need to be there.
ATP132: Estimates show that-
ATP132: Wait, I hear gunshots.
ATP132: I think that oojjll;
BIGBADAUD999: What does that mean?
BIGBADAUD999: *Sigh* Hank’s there, isn’t he?
BIGBADAUD999: Well then, I guess I’ll let him out.
‘Well, that can’t be good,’ Hank thought and started searching the computer. The first thing he found was a map with an arrow pointing to a mountain. Underneath it was a caption saying ‘Possible Improbability source located in city.’ Hank was about to search for more but was interrupted by a loud banging sound behind him. He whirled around and leveled the M4 with…
‘Oh crap.’
The group had moved on to trying to remove the slab from Twilight’s library with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy pulling on it from outside and Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie pushing from the inside. Needless to say, they weren’t getting anywhere.
“Well Spike, any ideas?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe this has to do with that ‘Improbability Drive’ thing Hank was talking about,” Spike answered.
“Well, it certainly was improbable. I hope nothing else happens.” Twilight watched her pegasus friends struggle for a minute longer before she sighed and called up to them, “alright stop girls, this isn’t working.” Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were more than happy to stop, throwing the ropes off of them and landing.
“I don’t get how that stupid thing is still there, it isn’t even attached to anything,” Rainbow Dash said and gestured to the slab.
“Um, Improbability Drive, remember?” Spike said.
“Spike, we are not going to use that as an excuse for everything weird that happens,” Twilight reprimanded as Applejack walked out. Applejack was about to say something when Lyra and Bon-Bon ran by screaming about monsters and ‘how everypony should panic’. “Oh, what now?!” Twilight yelled and ran in the direction Lyra and Bon-Bon ran, followed shortly by Fluttershy and Applejack.
“Stay here Spike!” Rainbow said and flew after her friends.
“…WHY DO I HAVE TO STAY BEHIND?!” Spike yelled after them.
---one minute earlier---
Lyra and Bon-Bon were having a nice lunch outside one of their favorite restaurants and chatting lively. Eventually Lyra started staring at her hooves and Bon-Bon sighed in exasperation.
“This again Lyra?” she asked.
“I’m just curious is all!” Lyra answered and wiggled her hooves at Bon-Bon, “I just want to know how humans could have done all those neat things with hands.”
“Lyra, I’ve told you already, humans are just myths. And even if they did exist I doubt that they would come to Ponyville.”
Just after that, the door behind Bon-Bon crashed open and a black clad figure landed hard against the ground. The strange thing flipped onto its feet and aimed some kind of object at the door. It happened to look over at Lyra and Bon-Bon with goggled eyes. Bon-Bon stared in shock at the thing while Lyra stared at its hands.
“A human! See Bon, I told you they were real!” Lyra yelled. Just then a massive bang shocked the pair off their chairs and the dirt near the human burst open.
“What was that?!” Bon-Bon yelled and heard a ‘chick-chick’ sound and some kind of large cannon came out of the door and fired at the human, although it dodged the shot. The cannon retracted, followed by another ‘chick-chick’. Afterwards the wall shattered as some giant monstrosity in a suit and mask burst through.
“MONSTER!” Lyra yelled.
“EVERYPONY PANIC!” Bon-Bon followed and the pair ran away as fast as they could.
Hank, for his part, was glad the pair ran away. Less chance of unnecessary casualties that way. Hank dove behind the table the pair were at just as the MAG agent fired it’s shotgun at him. Hank blind fired the M4 at the MAG agent until the clip ran out. He dropped the rifle and pulled out the USP and waited until the MAG fired again before leaping from cover and fired at the agent.
Hank knew how dangerous MAGs were and the only reason he had survived those fights were because of heavy firepower and being able to use their size against them. No such luck here, so Hank fired into the MAG’s mask until it pinned him against the wall and leveled the shotgun to his head and even then he didn’t stop firing until the gun clicked empty.
The MAG was about to fire as something tore against its body and it dropped Hank. It looked at its attacker to find a blue pegasus flying nearby with blood on one side of its body.
“Ew ew eeeew, this is disgusting!” she cried and tried to shake the blood off. The MAG fired widely at the pegasus which startled her into several aerial maneuvers. The MAG loaded a new shell just as a rope wrapped around the barrel and the whole gun was enveloped in a purple aura and it was almost pulled from it's grip.
“Hang on tight to that rope Applejack!” The MAG turned to see an orange pony gripping a rope in its mouth and purple one with a glowing horn. It grabbed the rope and effortlessly swung Applejack into the air and slammed her against Twilight.
“Um, excuse me,” a soft voice said and the MAG looked to see a yellow pegasus flying next to it. “Could you stop trying to hurt my friends?” she asked. The MAG stared at her for a moment before lifting a hand and flicking her into a window. Hank had taken the time it was distracted to try and climb up it, but was quickly knocked to the ground. The MAG fired at Hank, who had managed to dodge the shot by rolling.
“Oh no, what are we going to do Applejack?” Twilight asked.
“Get a move on everypony, those ambrosia aren’t gonna pick themselves,” Applejack replied dizzily.
The MAG pressed the shotgun against Hank’s head and loaded a shell. It was about to pull the trigger just as a horn sounded through the air. It looked to see a truck barreling towards it. The MAG managed to fire once at the truck before it slammed into its torso and drove it back into the building. Blood dripped onto the ground and the truck cab as Hank, Applejack, and Twilight stood up, the latter two retching in disgust. Rainbow Dash landed next to her friends and Fluttershy poked her head out the window before immediately pulling it back inside.
“What the hay is that thing?” Twilight asked. The door on their side clicked open and Sanford fell out, Deimos doing the same on Hank’s side. Deimos stood up, rubbed his head, and lit a cigarette as he inspected the dead MAG agent. Sanford rounded the truck and gave Deimos a slap on the head.
“I take it these are your friends Hank?” Rainbow asked as she tried to wipe the blood from her body. Hank nodded and made a couple of gestures to Sanford and Deimos. Deimos nodded and pulled out his communicator to show Hank the message while Sanford got into the truck to retrieve their weapons. Hank handed the communicator back to Deimos and rubbed his chin in thought.
“So, who’s going to clean up this mess?” Applejack asked and motioned at the MAG. Hank and Deimos shrugged, never having thought about it. Applejack looked at them angrily, but before she could say something Spike ran toward them screaming.
“Twilight! Geddje… radidy…!”
“Spike, take a deep breath and tell us calmly what happened,” Twilight said reassuringly. Sanford rejoined the group and stared curiously at the dragon. Spike took a deep breath.
“Rarity… Pinkie Pie… taken… suits!” Spike got out and collapsed in a breathless heap on the ground. Hank, Sanford, and Deimos shared a look and Sanford checked the magazine in his rifle.
“Those suit guys took Rarity and Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow yelled.
“Oh no,” Applejack added. Just then, a gray door shot from the ground, opened up, and a flashbang was tossed out. Sanford and Hank were the only ones quick enough to avoid getting blinded when the grenade went off. Some ATP and OBSV agents ran out and Sanford managed to kill a few of them before the rifle clicked empty, Hank killing an OBSV bare handed. Unfortunately two ATP agents grabbed Rainbow Dash and dragged her into the slab.
“Girls help!” Rainbow called as the door closed and the slab shot back into the ground, the hole closing up behind it.
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight yelled and tried digging at where the hole was, her ears still ringing and her vision spotted. Fluttershy, having heard the commotion outside, flew out of the window and grabbed Twilight.
“Twilight, calm down!” Fluttershy said forcefully, just shy short of shouting.
“But they took Rainbow, Rarity and Pinkie! We have to save them!” Twilight shouted with tears in her eyes.
“And we will Sugarcube,” Applejack said and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, “but to do that, ya need to calm down!”
Deimos rubbed the stars from his eyes and he, Sanford, and Hank shared a look. Things just got a lot more complicated.
Trixie woke from unconsciousness and coughed a little. The cough turned into a wheeze as she looked around the dark room.
Where was she?
And why was it so hard to breathe?
“Oh no, oh no what are we going to do?”
Twilight was still in the middle of calming down from all the excitement. Applejack and Fluttershy were lending a hoof in
comfort while Hank, Sanford, and Deimos planned their next move.
“Maybe we should go back to the library,” Spike suggested and pointed a claw at the dead MAG agent, “you know, get away from that thing.”
“Ah have to agree with Spike,” Applejack said, “It’s kinda hard ta think with that thing starin’ me down.” Twilight took a couple more breaths and nodded.
“Yes, you’re right,” she said and stood up, “Let’s go.” Before they could, somepony cleared their throat behind them. Twilight turned to find Mayor Mare looking rather displeased.
“And where are you going leaving that lying there?” she asked pointing at the MAG agent.
“Oh, u-um…” Fluttershy started but trailed off.
“You are not going anywhere until you clean that up. I don’t want anypony, especially foals, to see that.” The three mares and Spike looked back at Hank, Sanford, and Deimos who shrugged.
“But how in tarnation are we supposed ta move that? It must weigh a ton!” Applejack exclaimed.
“Well you have to figure something out. I won’t allow that to stay there.” As soon as Mayor Mare said that a few bolts of white lightning shot down from the sky, struck the MAG agent, and caused it to disappear. Everyone assembled stared at now unoccupied space in surprise until Mayor Mare cleared her throat again.
“Well, you still have to clean up the… liquid and get rid of that beast,” she said and pointed at the truck. Twilight sighed as Deimos walked up with a mop, which she took telekinetically.
“Alright, let’s do this quickly. Spike, can you go get things set up?”
“Sure thing Twilight,” Spike said with a salute before running to the library. As he ran he thought to himself, ‘I hope Rarity is alright.’
“You call this a living space? This is simply dreadful!” Rarity yelled as she looked horrified at the cell walls. The two 1337 stationed to guard her were already at their wits end. “I mean, everything is so gray! Don’t you know that more relaxing colors are in this season? A few walls of purple or blue would be much better than this.”
One of the 1337 leaned his FAL against the wall to rub his forehead.
“And what is going on with your attire? Plain black suits with red sunglasses? Those clash so horribly! I don’t know who designed your suits, but I’ll tell you need to fire them right away!”
1337 could take a lot of things, but someone insulting their glasses was not one of them. So the 1337 took out a notepad and pencil, wrote something down, and tossed the piece of paper into the cell.
“Quit your whining?” Rarity read out loud, “I’ll have you know that I am complaining. You want to hear whining?” the 1337 agent who didn’t write the note seemed to glare at the other one.
It took a while, but they had finally finished cleaning up the mess in front of the café, though Fluttershy had opted out of cleaning and went to help Spike at the library. Now the ponies were leading Hank, Sanford, and Deimos (the latter two driving the truck) back to the library.
“Ok, careful guys,” Twilight said nervously as Deimos backed the truck up to the library. The nervousness proved to be for naught as Deimos was a decent enough driver and didn’t crash into the tree. Twilight led Hank and Deimos inside, though Applejack stopped Sanford.
“Ya might want ta clean that up,” Applejack said pointing at the blood soaked truck. Sanford gave her an annoyed look in return. “Ah don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but if any foals see that they’ll be scarred fer life. There’s a hose there, clean it up.” The two got into a minor staring contest for almost half a minute until Sanford shrugged and walked over to the hose, picked it up, and dragged it to the truck.
“We have to make a plan!” Twilight yelled and galloped around the library levitating books and papers around wildly, “How are we going to find them? There has to be some way to find them!”
“Um Twilight, maybe you should… calm down a little?” Fluttershy said and looked to Hank and Deimos, who nodded in agreement.
“How can I calm down at a time like this?” Twilight yelled and grabbed Fluttershy’s shoulders, “You saw that monster! If that thing is normal for them, who knows what they have planned for Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie!” She started shaking Fluttershy as her panic became more evident, “They could turn them into mecha ponies bent on wiping all life off of Equestria!”
‘She can’t be serious,’ Hank thought, ‘I mean the A.A.H.W can be dangerous in large numbers, but out of their almost endless numbers only two of them have ever managed to kill me. The same two I might add. I’m sure we’ll be fine.’ Hank motioned to the stairs and walked up them with Deimos.
“Really, thanks fer cleanin’ that up,” Applejack said to Sanford as he came inside, still kind of annoyed. “Ah’d offer ya some food but… what do you eat?” Sanford shrugged and followed Hank and Deimos.
“Twilight, I’m with Fluttershy on this,” Spike said and tried to pull Twilight off of Fluttershy, “Freaking out is not helping out!”
“But…”
“Twilight,” Applejack said and put a hoof on her friends shoulder, “We’re as worried as you are, but freaking out like this isn’t going to help them. We hafta calm down to be of any use, ok?” Twilight stared at Applejack and took a deep breath.
“Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just really worried about them.” Fluttershy, Applejack and Spike nodded and gave her a comforting hug. A couple of claps sounded from the top of the stairs and the group looked up at Hank who pointed back into the room with a thumb before walking back.
“I wonder what he wants?” Spike asked and started for the stairs, the three ponies following after him. When they entered Twilight’s room, they found that in the few seconds they were there Hank Sanford and Deimos had turned it into some kind of war room. The white board was there with a list of A.A.H.W agents and a small map of Equestria with various marks on it, as well as crude drawings of their missing friends, and a large table was placed in the center of the room.
“How did you get all this together?” Twilight asked. Deimos held up a receipt which Twilight took with her magic. “All items bought from Things ‘n Stuff, a member of Trololol industries, a subsidiary of Krinkels Inc.” Twilight read and gave the receipt back, “Well ok, I guess we should start planning for-“
One of the walls was blown open over Twilight’s bed startling most everyone in the room. The door embedded in a gray slab opened and a 1337 agent looked outside. The agent nodded and motioned to someone behind him.
“Unhand me you filthy creatures!” a feminine voice called from the door and Rarity was thrown out of the door onto Twilight’s bed. The 1337 made a gesture across his throat and stepped back from the door, which closed and the gray slab flew away from the hole. “Well that was rude.”
“CAN’T THEY USE A DOOR LIKE NORMAL PONIES?!” Twilight yelled pointing at the hole in the wall. Rarity rolled off the bed and started adjusting her mane while Sanford crossed her image off of the white board.
“Well, now we only have to worry about Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.” Applejack said and looked at Twilight, “So, what was yer plan?”
“Oh right,” Twilight said and cleared her throat, “I guess we should start by having Rarity tell us what happened.”
Her breathing was still ragged, the room was still dark, and Trixie still didn’t know where she was. Suddenly some flood lights burst to life blinding her. At the top of her vision scrolled some strange symbols which soon changed to her own language.
Test subject PA- 2351, nice to see you are awake. Before we begin testing we will run calibrations on your suit. Please standby.
‘Suit? What are they talking-?’ Trixie thought just as a surge of electricity passed through her. She tried to scream, but could only gasp and breathe deeply as a surge of fresh air shot into her lungs. She continued breathing deeply as text continued to crawl along the top of her vision.
Life support systems: stable.
Strength enhancing systems: stable.
Standby for sight calibration.
Machinery started grinding and Trixie’s vision slipped downward. Once it stopped Trixie realized that she was strapped to some kind of table and was staring at a window. Several of the strange creatures she saw earlier were watching her behind the windows and some were wandering around.
What caught Trixie’s eye was her reflection.
She was wearing some kind of gray armor, which fit around her form tightly. It seemed much more advanced than any Equestrian armor she had ever seen, but also… unpolished. They could have at least painted it a more appealing color. At least they had made room for her horn.
Sight calibrations beginning, please look at the red light.
Just as that came up in her vision, a red light lit up above the window. A little dot appeared in the center of Trixie’s vision and she moved her head so it was at the center of the light and it turned green. A light appeared below the window and she looked at that one too.
Vertical calibrations complete. Look around the room to complete calibrations.
Trixie did as told and felt her annoyance and anger growing.
‘Do these fools know who I am? I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, not some simple foal they can order around! I’ll make them pay for this indignity once I get out.’
Calibrations complete. You will be free to move around in ten seconds.
‘Yes, this could be my chance to escape! For now I have to be calm.’ Once ten seconds had passed the restraints holding her released and she fell unceremoniously to the floor. Trixie expected the armor to be clunky and unwieldy but was pleasantly surprised that she could move like she was wearing nothing. She walked around a little testing how it works, but really she was glad she could breathe again.
There are some problems with a back leg motor. Stop moving while a technician enters to fix it.
Trixie stopped as a grey creature, very much different from the ones in suits and masks, entered the room and approached her. It moved behind her and started doing something to the suit.
‘Did it just touch my flank?!’ Trixie thought feeling something on her coat, ‘Oh he’s going to get it.’ After a minute the creature finished with whatever it was doing.
Please test the back right leg motor.
Trixie did so by kicking at the creatures head, going right through its head. She tried to shake the body off, but once it became apparent it wouldn’t come off she used her magic to get it off. She looked at the body and then the window and smiled underneath the helmet.
Wait, what is it-?
Trixie whipped the body back and threw it at the window, breaking it and killing one of the suited creature behind it.
The test subject has gone rampant! Send in the kill team!
‘They do realize I can see that right?’ Trixie thought as a door opened and two suits and a mask charged her. The first suit threw a punch at her, which only bounced off the suit. A small bead of sweat dropped down its face as Trixie put a boot through it. A quick upward motion tore the head from the body and Trixie tossed it at the other suit which embedded into its chest. The mask decided it would be best if it ran, which it would have if Trixie didn’t stab her horn through its eye sockets. Trixie pushed the body off her horn and was glad she couldn’t feel the blood.
‘Well, that was nice of them to open the door for me,’ Trixie thought and walked through the door.
“Now that I think of it, has Princess Celestia been informed of this?” Spike asked. The assembled looked at him and Twilight groaned and facehoofed.
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that before?” she said. Hank made a questioning gesture at Twilight. “You see, Princess Celestia is our ruler and protector. If something bad is happening, she or her sister Princess Luna are usually the ones to go to. Spike, take a letter!”
“On it,” Spike said and ran out of the room.
“So Sanford, about these three fellers here,” Applejack said pointing to a row of heads, one wearing a mask with pointy hair, one with a beard and mangy hair, and one pitch black, “Are they any dangerous?” Sanford picked up a marker and started writing down some things. First he wrote what seemed to be statuses for them, K.I.A with a large question mark, M.I.A, and Active respectively, and three lines connected too ‘Very Dangerous.’
“So…that a yes?” Applejack asked with mild sarcasm. Sanford gave her an annoyed look and continued writing as Spike came back with a piece of parchment and a quill.
“Ok, I’m ready to write when you are,” he said.
“Ok,” Twilight said and cleared her throat, “Dear Princess Celestia.” While Twilight narrated the letter, Rarity had finished recounting her tale to Deimos.
“So did you get all that dear?” Rarity asked. Deimos finished writing on the notepad he had and showed Rarity what he wrote, which was a rather unflattering doodle of Rarity in a diaper crying next to a pile of 1337 agents with one of them holding a gun to his head. “WHY I NEVER!” Rarity yelled snatching the drawing and tearing it to pieces, “Just because a couple of them couldn’t stand being near me doesn’t mean you have to make fun of me for it! I guess you don’t want to hear about what I saw on my way out then.” Deimos immediately got ready to write again and looked at Rarity. “That’s better.”
“Wow, ah don’t like the sound of this ‘Arbiter’ character, especially if he’s as ruthless as ya say,” Applejack said adjusting her hat. Sanford just shrugged and continued writing descriptions on the white board.
“…And that’s the situation Princess. I look forward to hearing your response. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said finishing the letter. “Did you get all that Spike?”
“And… done!” Spike reread the letter before rolling it up, walking to one of the holes in the wall, and breathing some fire onto it. Hank watched the green smoke fly away for a second before turning back to the table in front of him.
“So, how are we doing on this um… Mr. Hank?” Fluttershy asked. The weapons Sanford and Deimos had, the former’s usual hook and Ruger along with a half full Uzi and the latter’s full Beretta, lay in front of them. This was honestly more than Hank had expected, since he’s caused plenty of damage with less, so he nodded his answer at Fluttershy. He reached for the Uzi to check it just as Spike cringed a little and burped out some green smoke which formed into a scroll.
“That didn’t take long,” Twilight said picking up the scroll with her magic. She opened it and read it, her eyes widening in surprise.
“What does it say dear?” Rarity asked. Twilight lay the letter on the table so everyone could see what it said.
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I’m coming to Ponyville. We should talk about this in person.
Sincerely, Princess Celestia.
An ATP agent overlooked the carnage of the most recent rampage. At least 50 dead from the Clown alone, 80 when you take the escaped equine into account. Honestly, compared to the death count from Sanford, Deimos, or, Arbiter forbid, Hank, this was nothing.
The agent walked through the cafeteria as a few groups of grunts piled the dead into piles, as was the case for most of the hallways and rooms he walked through. The fact that they had actually developed several clean up strategies depending on the number of casualties struck the agent as a little odd, but he didn’t let it get to him. Eventually he made it back to the room he was in when the most recent rampage started, sat at the table with the computer he had been using and started typing again.
ATP145: Sorry about that, we just had another rampage.
BIGBADAUD999: *sigh* who was it this time?”
ATP145: The equine we were testing the power armor on as well as… the Clown…
BIGBADAUD999: …
ATP145: …
BIGBADAUD999: The Clown is loose?
ATP145: …yes.
BIGBADAUD999: *sigh* Put an APB out on the Clown. As for the equine, don’t worry about it. We have bigger things that need to be done.
ATP145: The Improbability source? We’ve already sent a team to retrieve it and we should have word on it within an hour or so.
BIGBADAUD999: Any sighting of the Savior?
ATP145: Not yet
BIGBADAUD999: Good, let’s keep it that way. Let me know when you have the source.
*BIGBADAUD999 has logged out*
The agent closed out the chat and started working. He kept a window open with a view of a mountain with a castle open.
“Is she going to be ok?”
“Oh, I hope we can fix whatever they did to her.”
“Do not worry, this suit she has on is just that, a suit.”
“So… we can take it off?”
“If we knew how to yes, but I don’t want to want to fiddle with it in case it hurts her.”
Trixie let out a soft groan and stirred.
“Hey, ah think she’s wakin’ up!” a voice shouted. Trixie opened her eyes and saw an orange pony in a cowpony hat standing over her. She would have said something, but at this point she just wanted to go to sleep. The orange pony wouldn’t let her though and shook her rather roughly. “Hey now, don’t go falling asleep again!”
“Leave me alone!” Trixie yelled and knocked the hoof away, “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through today?”
“Well, it’s nice to know she is awake.” Trixie turned to the new voice and was stunned by the sight of a brilliant white coat and multicolored hair drifting in invisible wind.
“P-Princess Celestia?!” Trixie shouted and fumbled off the bed into a clumsy bow, “I didn’t expect to see you here!”
“Please, don’t worry about it. Would you be kind enough to tell me your name?” Trixie stood up before answering.
“It’s… Trixie Lulamoon, your highness. I am very sorry you have to see me like this.”
“How did you end up like that?” Trixie turned to Twilight Sparkle and caught sight of three creatures behind her, one of whom she recognized.
“It’s quite a story Sparkle. Why are they here if I may ask?” Twilight looked at Hank, Sanford, and Deimos, who seemed busy discussing something.
“They’re helping us,” Twilight said, “since they have the most experience when it comes to this kind of thing.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened to you?” Celestia asked, “At the moment, you have the best knowledge as to what this ‘A.A.H.W’ is doing.” At this point everyone turned their attention to Trixie, who gave an exhausted sigh and sat at the table.
“If I remember correctly, it started only a few hours ago.”
The Canterlot hedge maze is one of the most visited areas of Canterlot castle, aside from the throne room. At the moment though, there were no ponies wandering the maze or taking in the sight of the statues. Right now there was only a contingent of royal guards patrolling the maze, a large portion centered on a statue of a draconequus in pain. The two guards watching it at the moment were approached by the captain of the guard.
“Anything to report?” he asked the two guards.
“No sir, it’s been pretty quiet,” the pegasus guard said, “What are we supposed to be looking for sir?”
“It’s just a precaution. Apparently a lot has been happening and Princess Celestia doesn’t want any leniency in security. Maintain vigilance and you’ll be relieved in a few minutes.” The guards saluted and resumed their stance. Shining Armor felt a hint of pride for the soldiers as he continued his patrol.
Shining Armor let his thoughts drift as he moved through the hedge maze. While Princess Celestia always had some guards posted around Discord for security reasons, there was never this many. Despite what he said to the guards, Shining Armor felt like something was going to happen. He heard the sound of wings flapping above him and looked up at one of Luna’s night guard, who landed in front of Shining Armor before speaking up.
“Anything to report Captain?” he asked.
“No, it’s been quiet,” Shining answered, “and I don’t like it. Something’s going to happen soon.”
“That’s a good attitude to have, and I agree with you. Keep an eye open.” The night guard stretched his bat wings in preparation to take off when a beam of light shot from the center of the hedge maze. “Trouble?”
“Yes, we were only told to use that spell in case something happened. Can you see where it’s coming from?” The night guard flew up and scanned the hedges for a moment.
“Discord’s statue. It’s happening.”
“You keep to the skies while I go on the ground.” The night guard nodded and flew up higher while Shining Armor ran back through the maze. It hasn’t even been a minute since he had left, so what could have happened? Corner after corner passed him by until he finally reached the area around the statue, only to find what could best be described as a standoff.
Shining Armor had only barely made it out of the corner when a bang rang out and a chunk of the hedge next to him blew apart. The attacker was a gray creature in a black suit and sunglasses holding a long object toward him with about half a dozen similar creatures behind him. There were also two fully gray ones pulling on Discord’s statue with ropes.
“Careful sir, those weapons they have are dangerous,” one of the pegasus guards said and motioned to a downed guard with a bleeding leg behind the creatures.
‘So are these the enemy we were warned about?’ Shining thought slowly moving to his guards while keeping an eye on the enemies. “What exactly happened?”
“I was going about my patrol and when I was passing the statue that gray slab shot out of the ground and those things came out,” one of the guards said motioning to the slab with a door in it next to the statue, “the corporal got shot when that happened and the rest of us backed off. I think he’s still alive though.”
“Is this as close as you can go?”
“Yeah, we get any closer they open fire. What should we do?”
“Let’s not push them,” Shining said to the guard before turning to the creatures, “listen, I want to let you know that you’re not going to leave with that. If you give up you might get out of this alive.”
The creature responded with a ‘yak yak yak’ gesture with its hand.
“Fine, be that way.” Shining Armor glanced up at the night guard and made a couple gestures with a hoof that would only look like he was scraping the ground to the untrained eye. The night guard nodded and started flying in small circles. Shining Armor returned his attention to the creatures who had made some progress with the statue.
‘I hope this works.’
“I exited from the windmill in town, though when I opened the door to check it was just a windmill,” Trixie said finishing her story. Everyone had listened intently while Sanford, who’s name Trixie had learned while telling the story, took notes.
“This is troubling news,” Celestia said and closed her eyes in thought, “I’m incredibly concerned about this clown you encountered.”
“Do you know anything about this Hank?” Twilight asked. Hank answered by writing quickly on a piece of paper and handing it over to Twilight. “The Clown’s bad news,” she read aloud.
“That’s an understatement,” Trixie said and plonked her armored head on the table, “that thing tore apart almost a dozen of those suited guys like they were nothing. I’m fairly certain it dented this armor too.”
“This situation just gets worse the more I learn,” Celestia said and stood up, “If only we had some way to predict where they would be.”
“Trixie, I know this is off topic, but while you were escaping did you happen to see our friends?” Twilight asked leaning across the table.
“If they were ponies then no,” Trixie answered, “the only things I saw were those suited things and the clown.”
“Oh, I guess we can’t do this the easy way then. What are we going to do?” Hank stood up and rubbed his chin before waving Deimos over to detail a thought he just had.
“So, what exactly is going on here? Why did those things kidnap me and your friends?” Trixie asked.
“It’s complicated and involves transdimensional travel and chaos based technology,” Twilight explained and waved a hoof in the air, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around-“
“THAT’S IT! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” Rarity suddenly yelled standing up and pointing to Trixie, “I’ve had far too much gray for one lifetime! We simply must do something about that dreadful thing.” With that she tossed her mane dramatically and trotted down the stairs with everyone staring at her.
“Is that one always like that?” Trixie asked Applejack.
“Eeyup,” was her answer. Deimos took this moment to walk up to Trixie with his PDA in hand and quickly connected to Trixie’s suit.
“And what do you think you’re doing to- whoa whoa WHOA!” Trixie yelled and nearly fell out of her chair.
“What’s happening?” Spike asked now interested in what was going on.
“There are a bunch of numbers going by. Um, 3.14 something something, 1 1 2 3 5 8, and something that looks like coordinates to something.”
“Coordinates?” Twilight asked, “but how do you-?”
“I’m a traveling mare Sparkle, I know how to read maps.”
“THERE YOU ARE!” Rarity yelled having triumphantly returned with a sheet of purple fabric and a can of paint floating next to her. She advanced on Trixie with a twitchy look and said, “Now let’s fix you up!”
“No, get away from me! Trixie does not need prettying up!” Deimos managed to disconnect his PDA just as Rarity leapt on Trixie, a flurry of paint and fabric encasing the two ponies.
“Ah’m… going to get some food. Anybody want anything?” Applejack asked slowly walking to the door.
“No thanks,” Twilight answered.
“We’re good,” Rarity said.
“HELP ME!” was Trixie’s reply.
“An apple fritter, if you’ll please,” Celestia said.
“Coming right up! Ah’ll only be a few minutes.” Applejack left the room just as Spike cringed and burped up some green smoke which formed into a scroll.
“Who’s this from?” Twilight asked picking up the scroll in her magic. Celestia only took one look at the dark seal with a moon image to know who it was from.
“It’s from Luna. I wonder what happened?” Celestia nodded to Twilight, who opened the scroll and set it on the table for everyone to read.
“Will this work Captain?” a guard next to Shining Armor asked.
“Just be ready,” Shining said and glanced up at the empty skies. In front of him the creatures finally succeeded in dislodging Discord’s statue, only for one of the gray ones to end up under it with his eagle talons through its head. The suited ones facepalmed at that and one by one started to drag the statue into the door, a red smear following the statue.
‘Dang it, where is that stupid night guard?!’ Shining thought as Discord’s statue was halfway through the door. The masked creature that was watching Shining Armor and the other guards backed up a step before finding itself a head shorter thanks to a quick purple flash, the night guard landing a few feet away with a blood stained blade attached to his gauntlet to show for it. The other creatures were startled by this sudden event, which gave Shining Armor his chance.
“Now!” he yelled and charged to the door, the night guard above him and the other guards at his side. By the time they had gotten to the creatures they had overcome their surprise and attempted to fight back.
The gray one landed a weak punch on the night guard only to get his head bisected as a result. The rest of them fared no better, with every blow ending either with breaking their fragile bodies or still providing enough trauma for them to die later. During the chaos Shining Armor saw Discord’s statue fully enter the door.
“Keep that door from shutting!” he yelled. One of the unicorn guards obliged by removing his helmet and jammed it into the shutting door; hopefully the enchanted metal will hold. The last creature was slain by the night guard, who returned the blade into the gauntlet after making sure the battle was over.
Some of Shining Armor’s guards started tending to any wounded as he walked to the night guard and said, “took your time, didn’t you?”
“I’m not a brute who bludgeons my way through problems. I waited for the right time to strike and took it,” The night guard said before sighing, “Though I admit I wished it came sooner.”
“We can’t let them get away with Discord,” Shining Armor said and, after looking around, picked up one of the creature’s weapons, “I’m going after him.”
“Don’t be a fool! We need to inform the princess’ about this!”
“No, we don’t.” Shining Armor and the night guard turned to a new night guard with an eye patch as he landed next to them, “There’s been a change of plans.”
“What do you mean?”
“Captain, go after Discord. These passageways are chaos based, but if there’s an entrance then there’s an exit. Try to reclaim the statue, and if that fails return to Equestria proper. Depending on where you come out, it would help greatly with mapping out this chaos form’s brand of logic, so to speak.”
“Ok, I’ll let you know where I come out,” Shining Armor said just as he accidentally discharged the rifle into a nearby hedge. “…Well, guess that answers how this works.” Shining Armor then turned toward the gray door, forced it open with his magic, and walked through it. As the door shut behind him, the night guards turned to each other.
“Did the Mistress plan on this?” The non eye patch guard asked.
“It was one of many she made,” the other guard said. “For now, we keep looking for those bases and wait for more instructions.”
“Alright.” The first night guard took flight and briefly looked at the other one and asked, “Your eye still hasn’t healed?”
“…The mistress is very good at origami.”
I opened my eyes for what seemed like the fifth time in an hour. Stone gray floor beneath my hooves, my forelegs chained above my head, it seems my captors are learning. Of course, they would have to after I had killed five of them with no difficulty.
One of the guards outside my cell poked its glasses clad head to look at me before pulling back. That’s fine by me, I can wait.
There’s always an opening.
Another boring day , or so it would seem for one 1337 agent. Sure a bunch of his colleagues came through dragging a statue of some monster by a few minutes ago with some poor sap underneath its hand, but the blood trail had been cleaned up and now it was just him and another 1337. He made a gesture asking if he could light a cigarette and the other guard shrugged apathetically. He pulled out a pack and casually stuck one in his… mouth area and pulled out a lighter.
Before he could light it the door they were guarding opened and he was caught in a blue field before being hurled at his fellow 1337, snapping his neck instantly. His friend lived long enough to see Shining Armor walk in and end his life with automatic fire. Though Shining Armor, not used to the recoil, lost control and unloaded the rest of the clip into the wall above the dead soldiers. When the rifle clicked empty, Shining Armor inspected it for a moment before sighing and dropping it on the bodies.
“That won’t do. The things are good in a pinch, but are way too unwieldy. I wish I had brought a sword or something.” Right on cue, a door to Shining Armor’s right opened and a grunt walked in casually sipping a soda. However, once he saw Shining Armor, he dropped the can in surprise and drew his sword for a blind charge. Shining Armor smoothly ducked under the swing and landed a quick punch to the grunt’s head, which caused it to drop the sword. Shining picked up the sword and cut the grunts head in half diagonally and poked the body over, blood splatter painting the gray ground.
“Ugh, these things are fragile. Once this is over I’m going to have to take a lot of vacation time.” Shining Armor wiped the sword clean on the dead grunt and inspected the black carbon blade. Once he was sure that it was in good condition he sheathed it on his back and walked slowly to the door the grunt came out of.
‘I hope this is where Discord was taken,’ Shining thought just as the door opened. He peeked through it to find some kind of recreation room with a couple of grunts and 1337, the former enthralled by some kind of glowing box and the latter seemingly engaging in water cooler talk. There was also a janitor mopping up a trail of blood which led to a door. The 1337 were closer so Shining Armor made them his first targets. He drew the sword, counted to three, and charged into the room.
The first slice was aimed for the ‘neck’ of a 1337, who was effortlessly decapitated. His two friends didn’t fare much better with the second taking a vertical slice to the head and the third taking one to its chest. The half dozen grunts, seeing the unicorn in the room, spread out and grabbed whatever they could: bottles, knives, and one got a folding chair before advancing on Shining Armor.
The first one to reach him swung a bottle at him, missed, and got a sword through the head for the trouble. Shining Armor grabbed the bottle magically and threw it at another grunt where it impaled its cross shaped face. He withdrew the sword and threw it at a grunt with a knife. The last three braced themselves for an attack, but Shining Armor took care of them by levitating all of them and hurling them at the back wall. The janitor, who had backed up into a corner and put his hands up, got showered by the resulting blood splatter.
Once Shining Armor was sure there were no more hostiles he walked over and pulled his sword from a grunt before walking over to the janitor and thrusting it an inch from his face.
“Was that trail made by a giant statue being dragged?” he asked. The janitor nodded as much as he could and pointed at the door. “Thank you, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call anymore of your friends.” Shining Armor pulled the sword away and walked to the door. It opened automatically and Shining Armor peeked through it before rushing in with sword held high. Death screams sounded as the door shut behind him.
The janitor put his hands down and looked around the bloody room. He sighed, walked over to his mop, and picked it up to clean up, again.
‘Just once, I wish I had a peaceful day.’
“And voila! Say goodbye to that horrid armor and say hello to your new fabulous outfit! What do you think?” Rarity asked levitating a full length mirror over to Trixie. Trixie was loathe to see what the crazy fashionista has done to her, although once she saw it she half changed her mind.
The gray of the armor had been painted over with a blue matching her coat color. Rarity also painted Trixie’s cutie mark on the flank of the armor as well as adding several purple shawls from the top of her head down along her neck and back. Trixie did admit to herself that it was a significant improvement, but she was still stuck in it.
“Trixie… appreciates what you did,” Trixie started slowly and circled around to see the other side, “although she still wishes she could get out of this.”
“Well, maybe there are built in instructions?” Twilight offered, “although I’m still curious about those coordinates you found.”
“Oh, those. Well, Trixie could point it out on a map if you could provide one for her.”
“But how do you know that those coordinates go with Equestrian maps? It could go for something else entirely!”
“Have you seen me in the past fifteen minutes Sparkle?” Trixie said gesturing an armored hoof over herself. After a few seconds of staring Twilight got what Trixie was saying and sighed defeatedly.
“Fine, let me get an atlas.” Celestia managed a good natured laugh as Twilight walked out of the room.
“Now if only I could do something with you three,” Rarity commented toward Hank, Sanford, and Deimos. The three all gave varying looks of disapproval toward the unicorn.
Shining Armor left behind another battered, blood soaked room to enter another empty, gray room. Thankfully there were no grunts or 1337 in the room, so Shining Armor was free to relieve his rapidly growing frustration on a nearby, hapless table.
“Where am I?!” he shouted as he bashed the table into pieces, “I’ve been wandering for fifteen minutes, going through room after room and dozens of those things that just rush to their deaths. In the name of Faust, how can a race of beings be so suicidal stupid ?!” Once the table had met its grisly end Shining Armor fell on his haunches and rubbed his face. “I just wish there was some kind of sign as to where to go.”
Right on cue, a grunt walked out of a nearby door to hang a sign next to it, completely ignoring Shining Armor in the process. Once it had completed its task it walked back into the room it came from. Shining Armor, curious about the sign, got up and walked over to it.
“’Generator room’? Works for me,” he said and drew his sword. The door opened to show a moderately sized generator room with the grunt from before, a 1337, and an ATP agent inside. The grunt was carrying another sign which it immediately attempted to use as a weapon. It served little protection since Shining Armor cut it in half along the torso. The 1337 and ATP noticed the unicorn and immediately drew weapons.
Shining Armor managed to put up a shield just as the 1337 opened fire. The ATP agent managed to duck out of the way as bullets ricocheted off of the shield and killed the 1337. It fell to the ground with five holes in its head and the ATP agent stood up and turned to Shining Armor just in time to catch a sword through the visor. It grasped at the handle briefly before falling forward dead.
Shining Armor took a moment to catch his breath before retrieving the sword from the ATP agent and wiping the red and yellow blood on the 1337. He then looked at the generator and paced in front of it saying, “Is this the generator? It doesn’t seem that different from a magical generator back in Canterlot.” He thought for a moment and picked up the ATP’s TMP with his magic.
“Generators usually power important things, so if I destroy this it will disrupt this operation. If I cause enough damage, I might be able to find Discord’s statue. And then I can get out of here, relax a little, and stop talking to myself!” Shining Armor unloaded the submachine gun into anything that seemed important while yelling “I’m not crazy!” and was soon rewarded by the main lights going off to be replaced by red emergency lights. Shining Armor took a few deep breaths and dropped the empty gun.
“Well, that was a good stress relief. I better get back to searching.”
I just about fell asleep again when the lights went out and dim red filled the room outside my cell. ‘Now’s my chance!’ I thought and started pulling against my restraints. I could hear the bolts groan slightly, so I put my back hooves on the wall behind me and pulled even harder. Only one of my guards noticed what I was doing and when he tried to inform the other one the chains finally gave way. In a split second I tossed them forward and saw them wrap around their necks just as I crashed to the ground.
I didn’t waste any time in pulling them back. They clutched at their throats as they were pulled back into the bars until their heads finally popped right off, bright crimson spraying across the walls, floors, and bars. With my captors dead I walked to the cell doors and grabbed the keys off one of them and I unlocked the cell doors and the restraints around my hooves.
I wasn’t a big fan of chains; I’m more of a knife mare. Luckily one of the guards had one, so I took it and made my way to the door. I’ll see them all burn in Tartarus for what they did to me. Luckily, I found that I can get a good start when I walked to the door and found a room full of sunglasses. They seemed to flinch back as I smile widely.
Another door, another empty room. Shining Armor had long past the anger threshold and was just annoyed now. Discord’s statue was probably long gone now, which left only getting back to Canterlot as his only objective. He chose the door on the right side of the room and walked toward it.
He didn’t expect for the door to crash open thanks to a 1337’s battered corpse. Shining Armor blinked away the surprise and peered through the door to find an absolutely bloodied room. Several 1337 and ATP agents were eviscerated and cut apart, although whoever did it seemed to have vanished in the few seconds it took for Shining Armor to get to the door.
“What happened here?” Shining Armor asked out loud and slowly walked into the room. He heard a slight crack and dove ahead just in time to hear metal scrape against the back of his armor. He rolled on the ground twice and rose up drawing his sword to face his attacker. He froze once he saw a pink coat and mane and a familiar balloon cutie mark.
“Pinkie Pie?” he asked. The mare turned to him with a knife in her mouth and glared at him with such hate filled eyes he was certain he had been mistaken about who she was. She definitely wasn’t the same cheery party mare he had met at his wedding, the once poofy mane and tail now lying flat and darkened with her coat. The two ponies stared at each other for a moment until Pinkie sprang sideways and tossed the knife at Shining Armor.
Shining Armor barely managed to get a shield up to deflect the knife but unfortunately wasn’t paying attention to Pinkie, who had used the distraction to tackle Shining Armor. She knocked the sword away and gave him a good kick to his right temple. His vision filled with stars which he shook away in time to see Pinkie sit on his chest and hold a knife to his throat. She hardly seemed winded despite the struggle.
“You don’t look like one of them,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice and tapped Shining Armor’s chest plate with her free hoof, “and you’re in royal guard armor too. Who are you exactly?”
“I’m Captain Shining Armor of the Royal Guard.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Twilight Sparkle’s brother? You helped plan my wedding, how could you not remember me?”
“I’m not privy to Pinkie’s private life. She did tell me a cupcake recipe and you yelling at your Twilight. By the way, I ought to slit your throat right now for that.”
“What?! I was under a mind control spell at the time!”
“No excuses! Everypony is so keen on using that excuse for you when it’s clear you’re just a terrible pony.”
“Listen Pinkie, I-“ Shining Armor yelped as Pinkie angrily stabbed the floor next to his head.
“DON’T BUCKING CALL ME THAT! In case you’re completely blind, I’m not the happy go lucky party mare who’s keen on making friends with everypony, so if you ever try to be friendly again…”
“Alright, I’m sorry! What do I call you then?”
“Pinkamena. My name is Pinkamena. Now why are you here?”
“I’m looking for the statue of Discord. These things took it from the gardens and I’m trying to find it.”
“Sorry, but I’m sure you’re hunk of rock is long gone. So if you’ll kindly get out so I can get back to the slaughter I’d very much appreciate it.” Shining Armor replied by grabbing Pinkamena’s hooves magically and tossing her off him.
“Sorry, but until I find that statue I’m not going anywhere,” he said picking up his sword. Suddenly a wall blasted out next to him and he and Pinkamena turned to the hole to see a peculiar sign sticking out of the hole. A green hand grabbed the sign post and pulled out a red headed, masked figure.
OH HELLO, AM I INTERUPTING SOMETHING?
“What the hay is that thing?” Pinkamena asked more annoyed than anything.
“What kind of horrible voice is that?!” Shining Armor yelled looking around the room. When he looked back at the clown it had rapidly closed the distance to him and knocked the sword out of his hoof. It then swung the sign to hit him on his side, which sent him into Pinkamena and then the both of them into another door. The two ponies scrambled to their hooves and Shining Armor felt where the sign hit.
“That thing dented my armor! What the hay is that thing?”
“It’s mine. Looks like it’s time for you to go,” Pinkamena said.
“What, did you not hear what I said earlier?”
“I don’t care, we all have jobs to do Shining Armor.” Pinkamena then shoved Shining Armor toward a nearby cupboard and opened it. “Go find Twilight Sparkle and tell her to send help soon. Because honestly, I’m still liable to kill you if you stay with me.” Pinkamena shoved Shining into the cupboard and said, “Don’t take too long,” before shutting it on him and plunging him into darkness.
“Hey! Open this door!” Shining Armor yelled and kicked at the door, “I’m not going to leave you Pinkamena. Open this door!”
“I’m sorry Princess, but I’m not sure if we have any tea you would like.”
“It’s not trouble at all Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said following Twilight into her kitchen, “I’m sure whatever you have will be splendid.”
“Um, thank you Princess. Just give me a second to…” Twilight looked around the kitchen for a moment before she turned back to the doorway and yelled “Spike!”
“Yeah?” Spike yelled back.
“Where’s the tea?”
“Top cupboard furthest from the door.”
“Thank you!” Twilight walked over to the cupboard and opened it, but instead of tea a familiar unicorn fell out of the cupboard. He groaned lightly in pain while Twilight and Celestia stared at him. “Shining Armor? What are you doing in my cupboard?”
“Huh, what?” Shining Armor said and woozily got up. “Where did the clown go?”
“Clown? Wait a minute…” Shining Armor regained control of himself and looked around his new surroundings before settling on Twilight.
“Twilight? What are you doing here?”
“Um… I live here. You’re at my library in Ponyville.”
“Ponyville?! How did I get here, I was in Canterlot not that long ago!”
“Captain,” Celestia spoke up which caused Shining Armor to hurriedly bow, “did you happen to pass through a gray building on your way from Canterlot?”
“Well, yes your majesty.”
“Oh, well that explains that,” Twilight commented.
“Huh?”
“Go upstairs Shining Armor. I’ll make us some tea and then I’ll come up and explain everything. Oh, and try not to attack our guests upstairs.”
“Guests?”
For chapters like this, when it links to a song and later links to another one, you're supposed to stop the first one and play the second one. Just thought I'd get that out of the way.
“Thank you for your time, Princess Celestia. This means so much to us,” the earth pony said and bowed again. Princess Celestia nodded lightly at the earth pony and bid him to rise.
“It’s no trouble at all, I love hearing from my little ponies. I’ll send you a letter with my decision in a few days, if that would be alright,” Celestia said.
“Oh, of course your highness, it will be no problem at all. I won’t take up any more of your time.” The earth pony bowed one more time before he backed out of the throne room. Once the door closed Celestia looked at one of the guards at the side of her throne.
“Are there any more appointments today lieutenant?” Celestia asked. The guard levitated a scroll up to his eye level.
“Let’s see, there is a council member from Fillydelphia with an appeal for a construction project,” the guard said. He looked like he wanted to say more, but the throne room doors flew open to reveal a dark blue alicorn.
“SISTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER! We have a matter of the utmost importance to discuss with you!” she yelled at an incredible volume. Normally anypony exposed to the Royal Canterlot Voice would be deafened for a good while, but Celestia and the guards were used to it.
“What is it Luna?” Celestia asked as Luna approached.
“Please tell me you have noticed the sporadic bursts of chaos too. We are getting worried.” Celestia’s soft smile dropped and she closed her eyes.
“So it wasn’t just my imagination then. What is your opinion on what it is?” Celestia asked and waved the guards out of the room.
“Discord?”
“No, it’s not him. This chaos feels more… manufactured? It’s hard to describe.” Just then, a familiar wisp of green smoke drifted in front of Celestia and formed into a scroll. Celestia grabbed the scroll in her magic before it hit the ground and smiled as she unrolled it, “Ah, it looks like Twilight has sent a letter. I wonder what she’s learned?”
“Tia, there is something much more important than a friendship lesson right now!” Luna said. Any further objections from Luna stopped once Celestia’s smile dropped into a frown, her eyes growing harder the more she read.
“So I see,” Celestia murmured to herself. She read it some more before she rolled it up and handed it to Luna. “I think that this explains those chaos bursts,” she said and produced a scroll and quill of her own. Luna had made it halfway through the letter by the time Celestia had sent off her letter and stood up.
“This does explain a lot, but what are these creatures Twilight speaks of?” Luna asked.
“I intend to see for myself. This is a very serious situation me may have found ourselves in: a hostile enemy in our borders that can move freely, seemingly advanced weapons and monstrosities, chaos based transportation, and they’ve already kidnapped several ponies. I need to see what we’re up against, so while I’m doing that I want you to put the guard on secondary alert. And get Shining Armor’s division to patrol the hedge maze, I don’t want Discord out of anypony’s sight.”
“I understand Tia. Anything else?”
“If it’s at all possible, can you see if your night guard can track down one of those bases? Anything at all could help.”
“Consider it done.” Celestia smiled and nuzzled her younger sister.
“Thank you Luna. I’m going to Ponyville if you need to reach me.”
“Of course, I’ll let you know when something important comes along.” With one last nuzzle Celestia walked past Luna and out of the throne room. The regular escort of guards followed Celestia outside of the castle and to the chariots.
The whole time Celestia was lost in thought.
Somewhere in Equestria
A grunt was standing in front of a door idly smoking a cigarette and watching a nearby poker game. He started to take a drag from the cigarette just as the door opened behind him and Trixie wrapped her forehooves around his head and snapped his neck cleanly.
“That’s your neck,” she whispered and enveloped the body in magic and tossed it at the poker table. One of the grunts was unlucky enough to get his face pelted with poker chip shrapnel while the remaining three took one look at Trixie’s lightly blood stained power armor and immediately charged at her. Trixie caught the first one’s hand and pulled him to the ground where she stomped on his head before punching a hole through the second’s chest with her horn. The third one wisely decided that it would be better to go to a nearby locker and get a PPK. The grunt only managed to fire one round, which rebounded harmlessly off of Trixie’s armor, before the mare punched a boot through his head.
“What is wrong with these creatures? They mindlessly rush to their deaths when they could just run away,” Trixie commented. The pistol caught her eye and she picked it up with her magic and turned it over, inspecting everything she could. Her visor started pointing out bits of the weapon before implementing a counter in the corner of her vision as well as a cursor. Trixie moved the gun experimentally, the cursor moving across the visor to match her movements. Before she could mull over this some more, the door in front of her opened and another grunt stopped at the sight of the mare. Shocked by the new intruder, Trixie reflexively moved the cursor over the grunt’s head and pulled the trigger, a bullet implanting itself right in the center of its cross shaped face. Trixie stared at the gun and noted that the counter went down by one.
“Ugh, Trixie is going to need a lot of therapy after this,” she said before moving through the open door, only to dive right back in at the sound of machine gun and shotgun fire. Not wanting to take any chances, Trixie hid most of her body behind a wall and peeked just enough of her head out to see her attackers: two grunts with FAMAS’s and a 1337 with a shotgun were revealed. The first two went down with little difficulty, although the 1337 had to take two shots due to the first one only skimming his side. The door Trixie came through earlier opened and startled her into killing a 1337 with her last two rounds. With the counter at zero and the pistol’s slide back, Trixie pulled the trigger a couple of times and dropped it when nothing happened.
‘So the counter is how many times I can use that before it’s useless. Good to know,’ she thought and moved into the next room. She picked up the two rifles and stashed the one with the most ammo on her back before picking up the shotgun. Trixie had two choices of doors and, not seeing one that said ‘exit’, she decided to go down the one that said ‘storage’.
Trixie entered some kind of large warehouse with several large crates on shelves at either side of her. Somewhere ahead she heard some clanging, so Trixie proceeded as quietly as her armor would allow until she saw the source of the noise. Three grunts were moving some kind of large metal container with several red and yellow markings on it, while being directed by a 1337. Trixie didn’t wait for them to find her and, after a slight delay in figuring out how the shotgun worked, killed the 1337 and waited for the grunts to charge once she realized it was more of a close range weapon.
With the shotgun counter reading 1, Trixie approached the container and read some of the labels, which were mostly along the lines of ‘warning’ and ‘keep away’. One in particular read, ‘If you value your lives, then don’t open this thing for Arbiter’s sake!’
‘Well, when they put it like that, it makes me want to open it. It’ll hurt these freaks at the very least,’ Trixie thought putting the shotgun on her back. She pushed the container onto its side, crushing the 1337 in the process, and the top of the container opened. Trixie got her shotgun ready for whatever was in it. She poked her head near the opening just as a sickly green hand lunged out and dragged a body out.
Trixie could see the skin of its head was also the same shade of green, although by far the most drawing aspect of the thing was its masked face, gnarled teeth and red flesh showing though several holes. It had red hair along the side of its head which stopped abruptly at a point where it looked like the top of its head was cut off. It crawled along the ground toward Trixie, who kept her shotgun trained on it. Her visor sprung to life and started to analyze the thing.
Subject: Clown
Physical status: heavily injured
Improbability level: 61%
Warning: subject is extremely dangerous, terminate on sight!
Just as Trixie finished reading the clown jumped to its feet with impossible speed and started shaking violently and pointed at Trixie.
‘That’s not good!’ Trixie thought and fired at the clown, which effortlessly jumped above the blast and grabbed the shotgun. It was torn easily from Trixie’s magic grip and jabbed into her face, which dazed her enough for the clown to bring it down on her head before hitting her along her body. The force of the final blow knocked Trixie through at least three walls and into a couple 1337 agents which finally stopped her. She looked through the holes and saw the clown was busily slaughtering a group of unlucky grunts and 1337.
“Not good not good NOT GOOD!” Trixie shouted and hurriedly got to her hooves and ran through the first door she could. She drew the rifle on her back and started mowing down anything that got in her way as she madly dashed through room after room, picking up new weapons as they ran out of ammo. She eventually made it to some kind of cafeteria with at least a dozen 1337 waiting for lunch and they all looked ready to charge at Trixie. Trixie noticed she had picked up a couple of sub-machine guns and was about to open fire just as a sign violently jutted out of the center of the room, followed by the clown. It looked around the room and some text flew wildly across Trixie’s visor, followed by more orderly and panicked text.
OHAI GUYS!
The Clown is loose! Repeat, The Clown is loose! Forget about the escaping equine, neutralize the Clown now!
Despite Trixie not hearing any announcement saying such, all of the agents in the room focused on the clown and charged at it. As the clown effortlessly beat all who approached to death with the sign, Trixie finally decided to open fire at the group, managing to kill most of the remaining agents and maybe grazed the clown. Both guns clicked empty and the clown charged at Trixie, jamming the sign underneath her and tossing her behind it through the door at the other end of the cafeteria.
By sheer luck, Trixie crushed an ATP agent with a grenade launcher, which Trixie immediately took in her hooves and fired at the door behind her. She didn’t hit the clown, but she did manage to collapse the ceiling in front of the door, which would hopefully slow the clown down a little. She dropped the empty launcher and rushed to the next door, but instead of gray hallways it opened outward into a bright and colorful town.
Not questioning this logic, as the sound of banging shook behind her, Trixie rushed through the door and shut the door behind her and braced herself against it.
Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. Trixie dared to open the door and found that inside was simply the inner workings of a windmill. Trixie let out a sigh of relief and closed the door, glad to be away from the insanity and the clown. She just then noticed the small gathering of ponies near her. One of them, a purpleish earth pony with three smiling flowers for a cutie mark, seemed to be the less hesitant at the sight of the blood stained Trixie and slowly approached her.
“Do you need help? You look really bad,” she said and lightly gestured at Trixie.
“W-where am I?” Trixie asked, suddenly feeling short of breath as the adrenalin wore off.
“Well, you’re in Ponyville miss,” the mare said. Trixie’s eyes widened and her thoughts started racing. “What happened to you?”
“Never mind that, does Twilight Sparkle still live here?”
“Twilight? Yes, she still lives in the library, but why-?”
“Where is it?!”
“I-it’s the biggest tree in the center of town. Why are you-?”
Trixie didn’t wait to answer and quickly galloped away from the crowd. It had been a while since Trixie had been in town, but she did remember Twilight’s penchant for helpfulness.
If anypony could help her out of this mess, it was most likely Twilight.
The chariot Celestia was riding in landed softly near Twilight’s library, drawing the usual surprised looks from ponies not expecting a visit from the princess. Celestia stepped out of the chariot and started toward the door of the library.
“Stay here and keep an eye out, and inform me of anything odd,” Celestia said to her two escort guards, who nodded and unhitched themselves from the chariot and walked alongside Celestia as she walked to the door and knocked three times. Ten seconds later the door was enveloped in a purple aura and opened to reveal Twilight Sparkle.
“Princess Celestia! You got here really fast,” Twilight said.
“Indeed Twilight Sparkle, this seemed very important. May I come in?”
“O-of course!” Twilight backed away from the door to let her teacher inside and shut the door once she was, “Everypony else is upstairs, as well as those three I told you about.”
“Really? Well let’s not keep them waiting.” Celestia and Twilight started toward the stairs and made it halfway up when some kind of commotion started outside.
“What are you doing here?” A female voice nearly shouted outside.
“What in the name of Equestria are you?” Celestia heard one of the guards say.
“I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, and I demand you let me see Twilight Sparkle!”
“Trixie?” Twilight said and started trotting to the door.
“We can’t let you do that because Princess Celestia is inside.”
“I don’t care if Faust herself is in there, I’m going in!” Trixie yelled and rammed into the door, nearly breaking it off its hinges. Twilight skidded to a stop as the armored mare, covered in drying red and yellow blood, tripped and skidded to a stop. Trixie carefully looked up at Twilight and reached a hoof out to her. “Get me out of this thing,” she managed to say before slipping into unconsciousness.
“Oh no, they are making mecha ponies! Poor Trixie,” Twilight said and lowered down to the mare’s visor level. Hank showed up at the top of the stairs and ran down to investigate the power armored mare. The two guards readied themselves to pounce on Hank should he make any bad moves toward Celestia. “What are we going to do Princess?” Twilight asked and looked up to Celestia, who looked back at Twilight, and then Hank, then Trixie, and finally back at the guards.
“You two resume your positions and stay vigilant,” Celestia said to the guards, who gave answered ‘Yes, your highness,’ in unison. With that done, Celestia looked at Twilight and asked, “Is your bed upstairs?”
“Yes it is. I’ll go put Trixie up there for now,” Twilight said and carefully enveloped Trixie in magic. “Is she going to be ok?”
“We will have to see, Twilight.” Her student took it for what it’s worth and started moving Trixie upstairs, followed by Hank and Celestia.
‘This situation is getting more complicated by the minute,’ Celestia thought to herself.
