Chapters Chapter 1
The Eve of the War
Ever since life first started, mankind has always asked one question whenever they have looked to the stars…'are we alone?' Indeed from the Earth year of 1898, mankind had always seen Mars as the best choice for finding life elsewhere in the Solar System. Of course now we know that Mars doesn't have life, though there are signs that life may of existed on the Red Planet many years ago. So what happened to life on Mars? Few scientists may have ideas what might have happened, though the truth of what happened is so strange that it would better if it were done in a fanfiction…hang on a minute…
In the Earth year of 1898, Mars' food and water supplies were getting smaller as time goes on. The temperature also was decreasing annually as was the population. The citizens of a now United Kingdom of Mars were getting desperate for survival. Something had to be done to save them all.
Stamping it's way across the Martian desert; a fifty foot tripod (this type be the taxi machines of Mars) was heading its way towards the capital city of Mars on route for an important talk with the Martian king. On board this machine were two of the King's best spies, Abaztard and Torno. That's right, that's their names right there. No human on Earth could get away with names such as these innuendo type names, but this is Mars of course so who gives a shit about that?
Now what are Martians anyway? Well, they are huge rounded ten footed bulked, brown leather like creatures with many tentacles on the bottom, a grey bird like beak that can flex to suit a rarity of expressions and two large black eyes the size of a adult human's head. Hold on where were we again? Oh yeah, the spies.
Abaztard and Torno were, as mentioned above, the King's two best spies. However since the king had taken all of Mars for himself, the spies had fallen out of use, though for the first time in ages the King had at long last had a task for them.
"What could the king want with us?" Asked Torno to the unofficial leader of the duo.
"How the hell should I know?" Abaztard snapped at him, he wasn't happy that he had been called away to see the king after he was about to enjoy to himself reading his X-rated magazines of slutty Elf girls from the moon of Titan. As his name might have suggested, he was a bastard.
Torno sighed in his seat as he started to look out of the window seeing the city gates getting closer and closer. Torno had always been the unlucky one of the two, being always bossed around the Abaztard and having his eyebrows sown together to help the king make out which one was which. He had also been unlucky with love…well, with a name like his that could've meant 'Porno'; don't expect him to have a quick one night stand with any Martian girl.
"Alright you two!" Came the voice of the driver, "We'll be there in about 5 minutes, I'd get yourself ready if I were you, the king ain't renowned for patience."
The duo groaned at the thought of the king. Yes they were loyal to him and all, it was just that he had the temper tantrums of a five-year-old kid, still could be worse somehow.
Once the machine had entered the city, it went straight onwards to the place. As the ruler of the planet, the King had gone to town with making it the most amazing looking place in the galaxy. The castle had countless turrets and a huge three miles long front porch way to the castle, it would hellish to walk it so all Martians chose to travel by machines to get there. Approaching the front gates, a huge statue of the king holding his staff was there in a rather cliché but nevertheless powerful pose. Finally the huge gates, big enough to let the machine to walk through, opened up as the two spies got off their chairs and headed straight to the doorway.
The giant machine finally stopped near a walkway that could join on to machines allow for Martians to come on and off. After being cooked up in that craft, the two spies were more than happy to get out and get this meeting with the king done and dusted. As the duo shuffled their way (Martians don't walk like humans, but shuffle along) down the walk way to the briefing room, they couldn't help feel a bit nervous to see him after all this time, not to mention that they had idea what they were getting themselves in for. Finally, after getting lost in the endless rows of corridors in embarrassment, they finally found the briefing room, which they stopped briefly to look at each other.
"Ready?" Abaztard asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Torno replied meekly. Finally the opened the doors to a darkened room with the many figures in the room. At the far end of the long table, a larger Martian with a cape and crown was waiting for them. King Abanazer of Mars (which his name sounds like 'a banana', and yes, get ready for a long running joke in this story.)
"Where have you been!" The King roared angrily at his spies.
The two spies bowed quickly, shaken at their Lord's anger. "Please, it was those darn roadwork's just ten miles from the city that kept us back," Abaztard explained quickly, too scared to face the King in the eyes.
Abanazer rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh those workers," He said to himself, "I don't care if they go on strike for a pay cut, should be killed the lot of them."
Some of the generals in the room looked to each other worriedly at the King's plans for the workers. "My lord," a general near him asked, "Do you think—"
"ARE YOU JUDGING MY CONFIDENCE?" He roared at the general, which he and many others jumped back in fright, thankfully none of them shit themselves a few ton of bricks.
A long silence followed. The general looked too scared to reply to the tyrant leader, which the King put on a smug smile at his control of the situation. He turned to look at his two spies. "Please, have a seat and we'll begin," He said calmly now.
Without any more to say, Abaztard and Torno sat on the two empty seats near them. Once they were seated, the King cleared his throat and started up a green hologram of the inner planets of the solar system. "Now then, good day my comrades. As you know, the situation on Mars is getting worse and worse, and if we don't act now, I fear we may now see us all dead within a few years from now."
All the other Martians there murmured in agreement to the King. "But my dear friends, I'm please to announce that I, personally if I may add, have thought about a new way to save the population. Alas, it will be sad to do so for us…we are leaving Mars and shall take over Earth, our young sunward neighbor."
At once all the spies and many generals spoke loudly to each other at the thought of an invasion of Earth. "Silence!" The king snapped which all Martians went silent immediately. "Earth, as some of you know, is full of life and supplies are nearly endless. The environment and warmer temperature will seem uncomfortable at first, but not deadly. However, there is always a catch with any good plan, and this one has it's own."
He paused as the hologram chart closed in on both Mars and Earth. "The problem is of course the humans, they have developed in such a short space of time great intelligence becoming the dominant creature on the planet, yet their society is structured around conquest and conflict, a rapid offensive on Earth to wipe them out should prevent any other major enemy on that planet. Then the hologram machine switch off and the lights in the room came back to life.
The Martians sitting around the table talked loud once again to each other about the idea, but then the positives became replace by the cons of the idea of a quick invasion of Earth. Then a general banged his thick tentacle on the table for attention, which all turned eyes to him.
"The idea is a risky one but one that must be done to save the population," he spoke out to the King. "Though you must know that the orbital patterns of the two worlds are far out of reach at this time, we won't be able to get the army ready for battle, and by the time the orbits are in line, what might have happened to the Martian race then?"
His words met with a roar of approval for all those around the table, all except for the king of course. This time, he banged his golden staff on the table for attention. "I'm glad you asked that question. The good news is that we won't need a space flight to get to Earth.
Silence now fell around the table, all-looking to one another. "The good news is…" Abanazer continued. "A small group of my scientists have devolved a revolutionary new way to cross space in a matter of minutes."
"What'd you saying, sir?" Asked Torno. Just as he said that, another hologram image came up of what seemed to be a portal of some sort.
"I'm saying that these geniuses might have saved the Martian race. A giant portal that will send our pods on the way to Earth so quickly that the humans will be caught completely of guard allowing for a quick elimination of humans!"
Cheers followed suit of this new idea for travel, all but one Martian near the two spies. "Just a minute!" He stood up causing the celebrations to stop. "How'd we know this…this…thing will really work? Have you even consider the con—"
"Are trying to say my plan is stupid?" The King yelled at the troop.
"Well if it's about the King then he ain't far away," Abaztard muttered to himself jokingly.
Before the Martian could say anything else, he lowered his head in shame and sat back on his chair, it was almost illegal to speak out against the King, such was the prick of a king that he was.
"Very good," Abanazer said rubbing his two 'hand' like tentacles together for thinking how genesis his plan was. He then turned to look at his two spies. "Abaztard and Torno."
"Sir!" The two of them said at the same time by standing up and saluting.
"For your task in this invasion," Abanazer began, "You shall head down, with a ground of fellow troops, in the first pod to Earth where you shall make clear a landing site for the others to follow behind and to study upon human activity. Got that?"
"Yes sir!" The two replied again, and where just about to sit down when the King suddenly spoke again.
"BUT!" He snapped again, "If you fail for any reason at all…I shall have you two killed and have your body parts sent into the vacuum of space…Remember that!"
"Sir yes, sir!" They said again saluting and sitting down again.
XXX
In the weeks that followed, many trials were staged for each Martian in their part of the invasion was carried out. The Martians had not seen a major conflict in over five thousand years, but modifications to their current technologies took place, the main one being the re-design of the three legged giant fighting machine that would used majorly for the invasion. The machine itself stood proudly at nearly one hundred feet, covered in metallic silver type amour, claw like feet to help with difficult ground underfoot, huge green like eyes that would help for the Martian pilots as night vision. But the main tool of this monster of a machine was a heat ray on the front that would fire a long line of fire at enemies.
Another machine was a smaller six-legged machine that was more of a ground hugging design. Like the fighting machine, it was made from the same mold with it having similar features such as the green eyes and silver skin. The only differences this time was it being six-legged of course and having claws to pick up humans and finally a giant basket like hole on top where the humans would be placed inside. The Martians then would study them upon to see what uses humans could be used for, such as slaves. This machine was known as the handling machine.
Finally the first of the launches was ready. Unlike being fired upwards to the heavens, the pods could be fired vertically to the portal on a rolling piece of track. The idea would be that once they went through the portal, they would then end up just above the Earth's atmosphere, from here they would begin their descent through the atmosphere. After the pod would land on the surface, the backend of the pod would unscrew slowly, this allowing for the planet's oxygen to enter the craft safely. While this would be going on, the Martians onboard would start assembling the Fighting machines that were stored in the hold for the trip.
Afterwards, they would begin their mission of taking control of Earth and wiping out the humans. Of course this is just words, fuck knows if half of this would even work!
Finally the big day came, and the two spies would meet up with their fellow comrades for the trip. The thing is that they hadn't even met the unlucky few that would be joining them. Still, this is the King's own idea so no point asking questions there about it.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Torno said to Abaztard as they made their way down the corridor to the Giant craft that would take them to Earth.
"You think?" Abaztard replied raising an eyebrow, "It's Mr. Banana's idea for this sort of thing to take place."
"Not talking about that," Torno corrected, "I'm talking about the bunch going with us to Earth, what'd they gonna be like?"
Abaztard sighed as they entered the elevator to take them to the top of the craft where they would enter. "Don't know, Torno…My guess is that the King wanted the worse bunch of Martians thrown in with us so they could get killed first."
"What about us?"
"Just keep it calm."
They finally reached the top of the craft, where they could see their comrades for the first time. Just as Abaztard thought, they were the bunch that should be killed off first. The motley group of Martians stared at the two Martians spies.
"Hey up," said a tall thin one, "Aren't you those spies?"
"Who'd you think we were, Abanazer's little bitches," Abaztard asked.
"I would have thought myself!" Joked a Martian with red raw eyes, like he had had a terrible night.
The Martians had a chuckle to themselves, before a voice on a PA speaker spoke up.
"Would you please make your way to your craft, the trip will start in ten minutes."
The Martians then climbed down the hatch, not knowing what they were getting themselves into. Unknown to them and the other Martians that would follow suit, they would end up in a most unusual if not crazy journey through that portal…No we ain't talking about that bloody game!
Chapter 2
Skyfall
The group of Martians climbed their way down the hatch to get into their seats. About twenty Martians, including the two spies, were to travel through the portal first, all of which had their own unique, if not stupid, personalities. The first one was the captain of the team named Wacko. He was more bulky than the rest and had himself a captain's hat to show that he was in charge, like anyone would care though. Another was the red-eyed Martian named Banjee. The reason for his red eyes was due to the fact that he had been smoking red weed on a daily basis.
Now taking drugs back on Earth is all a bit taboo, but this is Mars and they can do whatever the hell they want. Due to this he was always quite high and normally would utter things that no other Martian could understand, how he even got lumbered up to go to Earth as one of the first is a mystery in itself, unless it was to get rid of him. Another one of the pack was a tall thin Martian named Ajax (pronounced as Aye-Jask). Of all the Martians on this trip, he was the most violent and unsurprisingly was piloting one of the fighting machines. Due to his own personality, all Martians hated him, and when the unfortunate few who were going with him…well, they weren't happy to say the least.
Another Martian, who was a far contrast to Ajax, was the raspy sounding Handling Pilot leader named Skippy. Skippy was a bit shyer than most Martians and never fancied being leader and would always follow on, his reaction when he found out he was to be the leader of a squad nearly caused him to have a heart attack. There was also Denzil, another strange character to the team. This Martian could be easily identified for her long droopy eyes and him being on the Martian version of a cell phone to some female Martian he was trying to get a date from. Finally from the main circle of Martians, there was Tonker. Tonker would be the pilot for the trip down the Earth's surface, though he was not without his own strange look. His beak was longer than most Martian's beak and he hated it as he was laughed at. But hey, it's his own fault that he was born with such a long beak.
There are the other lot going on the trip with them, thankfully for them they are little importance to the story. As they seated themselves in there respected chairs (which for some reason they had their names on their chairs marked out) they began talking to each other of what might happen when they went through that portal. Some thought that they would end up over Earth, but land in the sea, but most thought that they'd be killed one way or another. As the door hatch shut tight and a dull green light illuminated the interior of the ship, an uneasy silence followed as they all looked to each other wondering what was to happen now. Suddenly in the center of the room of the seating area was a hologram image of the king himself. The Martian platoon sat up straight.
"Well dear comrades," The King began, "You are leading the charge which will be one of the greatest Martian attacks in living memory."
The motley group all put on looks of proud smugness. "Now I want this to be a quick operation to eradicate all signs of human activity on Earth, once you've captured major territory, the other pods will follow suit."
The image of the king suddenly went from a relaxed calmness to an evil smirk. "But! If you should fail for anything…I will have all your body parts thrown into the vacuum of space."
A suddenly chill fell over them. "Before I go, all I can say is…good luck." And with that the image of the king vanished and more silence followed. Suddenly the giant craft began to move forward. Now, there was no turning back.
"Hey guys," Banjee said suddenly breaking the silence. "Wanna have a lucky smoke before we go?" He pulled out from a bag pack he had on which he brought out a lot of red weed. His comrades all gasped at what they saw.
"How'd you get them through customs?" Abaztard asked in amazement.
"I have a way," Banjee winked. "So does anyone?"
Without a moment to spare, they all agreed, after all, if they were to die in the mission they might of well had a shot at the stuff. "But you'll have to be quick though," Denzil said as he looked out of the small porthole seeing that the craft was nearing the outside of the large hanger.
Thankfully with Banjee having a ton of experience with smoking the stuff, he managed to produce a cigar with crumbled red weed in it. He lit with a lighter that he had with him in the bag as well. Soon every Martian there, including Tonker the pilot, was having a smoke of the stuff to try and calm their nerves, and boy did they look more than calm from the strong stuff!
Their eyes had shrunk slightly from the stuff and they couldn't help but giggle like idiots. So much so that they hadn't noticed that they were now outside the base on the final straight to the portal, though they did feel the slight jolt of the catapult being attached to the rolling chassis of the ship.
"What was that?" Said a now drugged Ajax, though immediately shrugged it off trying to enjoy his little trip.
Torno seem to somehow get over his drugged experience and suddenly notice what was going on around him. "Guys! Wake up! The thing's about to go!" He bit his tongue in how bad it was an idea to take that red weed before take off.
Soon enough a whirring sound could be heard from the outside and the craft began to rattle. "Snap the fuck outta it!" Torno cried again looking towards Tonker who now was hunched over the controls thanks to a certain red weed.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" The spy repeatedly said as he unfasten his safety belts and headed quickly over to the co-pilot seat. On the subject of a spare seat for a co-pilot, it hadn't dawn to any of the Martians why that seat wasn't taken, unless it was a backup in case of dodgy moments such as this.
However, it was more than a great sigh of relive that with Torno being a spy for the King meant that he had a fair bit of experience of working with various crafts, and this spaceship was one of them.
"Twenty seconds to launch," Came a voice over the speaker system.
As Torno settled himself down in the chair, he looked out in front of him at the window like panels showing him the long track leading towards the now activated portal. He to admire of how far Martian technology had come at this point. A beautifully sleek oval like look to it, all glittering silver like all over Martian metal and a greenish glow from the middle, almost breathing it looked like this portal was alive. If this portal could work, the whole galaxy could be under Martian control within a few years. Right now that was just a pipe dream, right now Torno now had the unexpected task of guiding the ship through that portal to Earth.
"Ten seconds till launch," Came that voice again.
Torno's heart began racing at this point, it was all down to him, failure, and his own parts would be ejected into space.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
The craft began rolling forward very fast with so much g-force that Torno was pushed back into his chair and that he couldn't move any of his body parts. Closer and closer the portal got that everything began to glow a blinding flash of white light that Torno could only shut his eyes from the intense glare. The noise was also deafening that the poor spy could only grinned his teeth in pain from it.
Suddenly everything went silent, the g-force stopped and everything went dark. Torno opened his large black eyes, which only widened at what he saw before him. There through the front windows, was a Blue planet below him, with what seemed to be the wheeled chassis that would've been part of firing the craft forward flying further on from the craft. Zero-G started to take effect as Torno felt himself floating up from his chair, only halted by his safety belts. However, a huge grin could be seen on his beak.
They had done it. They had made it to Earth.
"Guys!" Torno said looking over to his crewmates, "We did it! We did—guys?"
All of them were looking upwards with those stupid grins, still under the effects of the red weed.
"Oh to hell with it," Torno sighed as he began firing the retro rockets to begin the atmospheric re-entry. "Here goes nothing." One thing that Torno did remember during his training of working these sorts of crafts was that when going through the fiery decent was that the ship could land anywhere, including the ocean. But as there are no oceans of Mars, the designers had rather foolishly not designed the ship to the buoyant, so the ship would sink faster than a ton of rocks.
Still, you never got the chance to head to another planet everyday so it wasn't much as a bother to Martians as one might think.
From some of the porthole windows, Torno could see a light orange glow appear on the bottom part of the windows. The ship began to shake more and more as they went further through the planet's upper atmosphere.
The spy Martian, in all of his years of putting his life on the line for the king, couldn't help but feel in the smallest of senses feel rather fearful as the orange glow began to take over all spaces on all the windows. Just before the flames engulfed the windows, Torno could just see that they were heading towards the evening side of the planet. No doubt the thought of landing in the night would help them be more secretive, however no one really knew if that would be the case.
For the next ten minutes, the ship held itself together as Torno kept a close eye on the height meter. By this point the craft had reached sixty thousand feet, the point of firing the craft down to slow down from being a ball of fire.
He felt himself being flung forward as the retro rockets fired, still, they were slowing down and that was at least something. Thankfully now the intense orange glow had gone and now Torno could see in front of him. They had now gone into a thick layer of clouds, though it was hard to say which layer of clouds this was. Torno could only hope that they would land soon.
Finally, the craft broke through the cloud deck, with a sonic boom following suit, much to Torno's horror.
"Oh fuck," He hissed. He could only assure that any plans for them landing secretly on Earth had gone amiss. Looking further on through the window, he could just make out a small town quite far from him to his right sitting in a green and pleasant landscape, a far cry to the rocky red hills of Mars. This town looked to be about ten miles away from where the ship was going to land, however he couldn't tell exactly how far he was going to be, the main thing was now to hope they didn't die on impact.
Quickly tightening the belts on his seat, Torno braced himself for impact into a forest like area nearby.
That was the last thing before Torno was knocked out from the impact that happened. From looking at it from an audience's point of view, it would seem that the mission had been a success to land on Earth. Little did these Martians would know that this would be nothing like they would expect…
The Cylinder
Chapter 3
The Cylinder
The sonic boom that night woke everypony up in nearby Ponyville. Anyone from a distance from the town could easily of heard a chorus of Groans from being woken up so late. And it was fairly easy to say that none of the ponies were quite happy of being broken out of their little dreams.
"It's two o'clock in the morning!"
"We're all trying to sleep here!"
"Wait 'till I get my hooves on the pony responsible!"
Meanwhile away from Ponyville, nearby the Everfree forest at Fluttershy's home, the Elements of Harmony groaned of being awaking by the loud sound. The six of them (including Spike) had all been staying over for the night, and one furious looking Applejack had an idea of who might've been responsible.
"What is she playin' at?" She growled through her teeth as she stomped over to Rainbow Dash's bed in semi-darkness. Much to her surprise, the cyan Pegasus was enjoying her golden slumbers. That couldn't be right. So she gave Dash a hard shake to wake her up.
"W-what?" She stuttered as Applejack woke her up. She looked up at the Orange earth pony who's eyes were narrowed at looking at her. "What'd you want AJ?" She asked crossly as she sat up in bed crossing her arms.
Applejack stared crossly at her. "Will stop performin' Sonic Rainbooms at this time? Why would you wanna wake up all of Ponyville?"
Rainbow Dash blinked dumbfounded at what her friend was trying to say. "What you talking about? I was fast asleep dreaming of joining the Wonder—"
She was cut short when a large explosion followed from what seem like a few miles away, rocked the house for a moment and knocking everything about. Applejack and Rainbow Dash remained silent looking around wondering just what had happened.
"…Ok, I can assure you that wasn't me!" Rainbow Dash concluded quickly, looking a bit shocked herself.
Just then Twilight entered the room with a lit candle that was being levitated by her magic. "Is every pony alright?" She asked with dark rings just below her eyes.
"I was alright 'till she woke me up!" Rainbow Dash pointed at Applejack.
Applejack though rolled her eyes at Dash before looking over at Twilight. "How's the rest doin'?"
"Fluttershy's gone outside to check on her animals," Twilight informed. "By Celestia I've never seen her go fast before for anything."
Dash and AJ stared at each other at the thought of Fluttershy being a blur of yellow and pink...so not like the timid Pegasus to do that.
Just then Pinkie Pie, Rarity and a very sleepy looking Spike entered the room, half tired and half confused at what had occurred. "What fool in the right mind does these things at this time?" Rarity asked them angrily, who had been enjoying a wonderful sleep herself.
"I don't know you guys," Pinkie piped in whilst yawning, "But my Pinkie sense was kinda going off just before that boom sound, and again before that explosion."
They all looked at the pink Earth pony.
"Anything else that might happen?" Spike asked, thinking another strange thing might happen.
Pinkie remained silent for a moment waiting for something to happen. But nothing happened "Nope, nothing here. Looks like it's stopped."
They then all chatted among each other at wondering what might have happened, little did any of them knew was that what had really gone on would be out of their minds.
Finally, Fluttershy joined them as they were carrying on their conversations. "Sorry about that," She said in her shy voice. "They were all so scared at what happened just now."
Then an idea suddenly came into Rainbow Dash's head. "Hey Fluttershy, did you see anything…well, anything strange out there?"
"Not really," the yellow Pegasus replied shaking her head," Though I thought I saw a greenish line of smoke in the sky, with a hissing noise as it fell from the sky."
Silence fell upon the group after what Fluttershy said. It seemed to last for a while until Twilight broke the silence. "…Green...what?" She said, almost too confused at what had been said.
Then before Fluttershy had the chance to say anything, the rest charged past Fluttershy towards the front door to see what was going on. As they charged outside (with Fluttershy taking up the rear) they craned their heads up towards to sky trying to see the green light. Much to their amazement, there it was.
They could only gasp or rub their eyes at the sight. From what seem like to be coming far into the sky that went down behind them towards what seem like the Everfree forest, a long almost perfect line of bright misty green light.
"Is…is that some new firework?" Pinkie asked, still staring in amazement at the sight.
"It can't be," Twilight said looking back towards where the line ended at the forest. "Not even Luna would pull a trick like that."
No pony knew what to do exactly. They couldn't exactly wait until morning as by then all of the residents of Ponyville would turn up and see for themselves what had happened. Yet there was still that fear factor for either of them to check it out, especially as it was near the Everfree forest, a place that you and I will know that nopony would like to go in, unless you had a death wish.
"Well?" Yawned Spike. "What'd we do then?"
"One of us must go and see what it is and report back," Rarity answered moving a bit of her mane out of her eyes.
Suddenly Applejack piped in. "That's it! I'd say send Dash over and see for herself what's goin' on as she maybe was the one who woke us up."
"Hey!" Rainbow Dash snapped. "How can you be so sure you can point the hoof on me?"
Quickly the others had to pull the two ponies back incase it was going to break into an big argument or a fight.
"Alright you two!" Twilight shouted at them to get their attention, which they stopped as they turned to look at her. "Because you two are the more…let's say, less tired of us, I'd say the two of you go and see what's happened."
The others agreed without battering an eyelash, leaving Rainbow Dash and AJ starring at their friends and then looking back at each other in annoyance of either of them getting each other into this situation.
"Why me?" Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she cast a glare over at Applejack.
XXX
Thankfully for them, The green line (now starting to break and fade away) led towards the outskirts of the forest, not in to the forest, so they could easily breath a sigh of relive not having to go in there. Nevertheless there still was an uneasy atmosphere towards each other. They never spoke once to each other for the last ten minutes as they headed closer to the location.
As Rainbow Dash was flying overhead just above AJ, she could see further on, and with that said, she saw where the green light ended. She stopped and hovered in amazement.
"Celestia above," Rainbow Dash gasped as her eyes widened.
"You see it? What is it?" Applejack asked looking up at her.
Without another word, Rainbow Dash quickly sped off to the sight, with Applejack racing closely behind. They stopped when they finally reached the edge of what seem to be a large crater nearby the forest with small fires nearby, helping illuminate the sight before them. Though it wasn't the size of the crater that made their jaws drop.
Looking up, a large silver like cylinder (being larger than a house to AJ and RD's point of view) with a round cone on the end, stretched up from the bottom of the deep hole in the ground.
"W-what is…that?" Applejack stuttered and rubbed her eyes to make sure what she was seeing was true. It was unlike anything she had seen in Equestria in her life.
"It's…I don't know..." Rainbow Dash replied, frozen still at the sight before her, all her fearlessness seemed to have vanished from her at this point.
Suddenly they both jumped back in fright as it started hissing green smoke from a small gap below the cone part of the cylinder. With that happening, the cone began to slowly rotate and unscrew itself. Then Rainbow Dash thought she could hear sounds from the inside.
"There's somepony inside there!" She cried and rushed in to assist. But before Applejack could say anything to stop the cyan Pegasus from getting closer, the intense heat of the giant object stopped her going further before she could burn herself on the hot metal.
"C'mon, Dash!" Cried Applejack. "We gotta get back to the others quick!"
With one final look at the cylinder, the blue Pegasus followed her friend behind. She felt pretty bad of not helping whoever was inside. Though she, many others and you and I my dear reader, would soon find out what was inside this strange object…
Brief Encounter
Chapter 4
Brief Encounter
The long sound of silence was all that could be heard inside of the pod as all the Martians were either knocked out or still under the effects of Banjee's strong red weed. After his quick actions for piloting the ship and landing it on the planet in one piece after Tonker went under the effects of red weed, there was no doubt that Torno, the spy Martian, should deserve a medal for his actions, though King Abanazer being such the prick he is wouldn't even think about that ever.
Right now getting a medal was the least of their concerns, the force of the impact had been much stronger than expected, mainly as Mars' gravity had been much weaker than on Earth, but of course little do they know that they are not on Earth.
From the pilot controls, Torno was slowly and surely starting waking up from being knocked out, however, it was only thanks to a voice waking them up that became more and more clearer. He didn't know who it was, but it did seem familiar.
"Do you read, over?" Came the voice again.
Torno groaned as rubbed his head and half opened his black eyes. First thing he could see was that the front window was all covered in Mud and dirt, the first sign to show that they had landed. He cocked an eye over at the year chart showing that it was the 24th August 1898, the date when they left Mars. The clock showed that it was two in the morning Earth time.
"DO YOU READ?" Boomed the voice again, making Torno jump in fright.
Looking over to his left, there on a small green hologram was the King himself looking cross at him for some reason.
"S-Sir!" Torno stuttered saluting Abanazer.
"At last, someone responds!" replied Abanazer seeming to breath a sigh of ease. "I've been trying to contact you for the last five minutes, what's been going on?"
The spy bit his bottom beak trying to think of something. He couldn't say that the whole crew had been drugged and narrowly causing the mission to be an almighty fuck up. "My lord," he began. "We have landed successfully on Earth!'
The King rubbed his two tentacles with excitement. "Excellent! The portal worked wonders, now the others can follow closely behind." Then he noticed that the captain or any other Martian on board hadn't responded to him. "But wait, what are the others doing?"
A small shiver went up Torno's back. He quickly looked back seeing his comrades, though by a miracle, they all seem to be waking up slowly. "My lord," He began. "While the entry through the atmosphere went without any problems, but the force of the collision...with it having a stronger gravity than on Mars knocked us all out on impact."
The King sighed shaken his head in disappointment at the thought of it. "There's always a catch, isn't there?" He paused briefly before continuing. "Now then dear Torno, when Wacko wakes up, I want you to tell them that you'll need to take the surrounding area under Martian control so that all over Pods will follow behind…safely ."
Torno raised an eyebrow of how the King said 'safely' with some vile ring in it, like he was expecting them to die pretty soon. Then again, this whole thing did seem like a suicide mission. Nevertheless, he gave the Martian King a quick salute and a 'sir!'
The King put on a smug smirk. "Very good my spy. Remember, this whole invasion must be done ASAP." And with that, the hologram image vanished leaving the interior of the ship in semi-darkness.
"Oh, my head…" Came a voice from behind Torno. Turning round he could see that Wacko had awoken though was still rubbing his head. He then noticed at the others looking similar to what he was but Torno being the only one looking fine after the whole trip. "What happened?"
Torno rubbed his tentacles together. "Good news, sir. We've landed on Earth!"
Wacko's eyes widened in amazement then shook his large head showing a much-relived expression on his face. "Oh Torno, you magnificent bastard!" He then turned to look at his other teammates. "You hear that guys? We're here!"
The crew, still feeling a bit worse for wear, did some cheering and some applauded shaking one another's tentacles, like a human handshake in Martian terms. "Way to go for us!" Ajax piped in giving out tentacle pump, while in the process punching Banjee in the face by accident. Then again it was his fault that they nearly ruined the mission before take off so he did kind of deserved it.
"And one other thing," Torno added. "The King was just on there saying that we have to capture the surrounding area to allow the others to follow behind."
Wacko nodded, digesting the information. "Oh right then, "he said before turning to look at the other Martians. "Right team, we gotta get those Fighting machines assembled in a short time, Torno and Tonker will open the hatch door to allow the air to come in. Now let's get going! Go, go, go!"
Without anything to say, the Martians unfasten their safety belts and shuffled along, still feeling a bit groggy, to the cargo area where the parts for the machines were kept in. Tonker had now come out of his red weed hangover, but had just picked up the captian's message to let the air come in. Just then, Abaztard moved over to join his fellow spy at the controls. He placed a friendly tentacle around Torno's back.
"Well done, comrade," Abaztard congratulated. "Told you all those years of practice on trying different machines was worth it for this moment.
Torno nodded at his friend's words. "Yeah…" Just then, Tonker sitting nearby them interrupted the pair.
"Alright then," Tonker began, rubbing his eyes. "Let there be air…" And after clicking a few buttons, a click and a loud hissing followed indicating that the air was now coming through. All Martians in the craft had to stop and breath in this new other worldly atmosphere, and oh! The sweetness of this new cleaner air was a far contrast to the weak and dusty air of Mars.
Now it was maybe some wonder of why the lid of the craft won't just open up quick, the reason for this is that as it would slowly open, the air would come in quite slowly and would allow for the Martians to get use to, had it opened too quickly, the sudden change of oxygen would've caused them to die.
Once the lid was opening up, the three Martians headed over to help out their fellow Martians to help with the assembly process of the machines, the machines that would cause so many calamities to Equestria.
XXX
As Celestia raised the sun that morning just like any other day, something was different nearby Ponyville. It was something that Equestria had never seen anything like it. A giant silver like bullet was sitting in a crater on the outskirts of the Everfree forest. Not to mention that with it looking so otherworldly and shiny, it contrasted with everything in its surroundings.
Early on during the early hours of the morning when the cylinder like object crashed landed, Rainbow Dash and Applejack came to see what was going on. They had returned to their friends looking too shocked at what they had seen. It didn't really worry them at whatever it could be, but it had now only just sunk in to the two ponies at what it really was.
Something not of this world.
When they did return to the others, the two of them couldn't quite explain in words to them, other than it being a large crater in the ground, they both seemed unsure to tell what was in the great hole. So the two friends left Fluttershy's home to head back to their respectable homes to try and calm down and get back on their hooves. What made the others worried was to see Rainbow Dash seemly looking uncertain of what ever it must've been made the other ponies fearful. None of them wanted to go to the site and see whatever it was, it was still dark after all.
By the time daylight had come, the group of friends left to head back to their homes, none of them feeling brave enough to head over to the site. When Twilight headed back to her library (with Spike in tow) she couldn't help but find it strange that after that loud noise last night, everypony seemed to treat this day just like any other.
From the train station came the sound of various trains coming and going from Ponyville, young colts and fillies heading on their way to school and all other ponies doing their own jobs like they had done like always. Everything just seemed so safe and tranquil. That is when Twilight and Spike passed by some ponies having conversations with one another that were talking about the sonic boom last night that woke everypony up.
"Do you think we'll go to the site and see what it is?" Spike asked Twilight as they neared their home.
Twilight thought about it. True, there was part of her wanting to see what was there, yet the other was really not sure. "…We'll need to ask Celestia, she'll know what to do."
Spike nodded. Little did either of them know that they would find out sooner or later of what was going on.
XXX
By the time it had gotten to half past three in the afternoon, the day had been uneventful. Twilight had written a letter to Celestia about what had happened. It did seem somewhat strange that Twilight was not sending a friendship report to her. Still, this was something of an unusual event in Equestrian circles so she really couldn't say much about it.
Suddenly right out of the blue, the door slammed opened causing not only Twilight to snap out of her thoughts, but for Spike, who was on top of a ladder putting a book away, to fall off to hit the floor. "Ow! What gives?" He said rubbing his back.
Looking over to see who was at the door, Twilight and Spike saw that it was Rainbow Dash, panting heavily. "Guys, c'mon they're all on their way to the crater!"
Twilight walked up to the blue Pegasus rolling her eyes. "Look Dash, you should remember to kn—wait, what did you say?"
"Everypony in town is heading to the site!" Rainbow Dash replied moving her way out of the doorframe showing a large queue of earth and unicorn ponies moving steadily out of town with Pegasus ponies flying overhead.
Twilight and Spike look on stunned at what they were seeing, then looked at each other wondering at what they were seeing. "How'd this happen?" Spike asked Rainbow Dash.
The asked pony put on a sly grin. "Well, it seems a certain pony is putting on a welcoming party to these new ponies…" She said the word 'ponies' with some uncertainty, like she wasn't sure if it wasn't ponies they were going welcome.
Twilight though seemed more surprise than uncertain with the thought of their being a welcoming party. "So then, let me take a wild guess here, Pinkie invited nearly all of Ponyville to come?"
"Your right there," Rainbow Dash replied. "Though her own curiosity must've gotten the best of her to go there."
"Sounds like her alright," Spike chuckled before looking at Twilight. "So are we going then?"
The purple unicorn looked at the large crowd heading to the location. With this being said of the amount of ponies going, it seemed that it was safe for everypony to come. Then again Pinkie Pie would throw a party regardless whatever the circumstances.
With a smile and a small relaxed sigh, Twilight finally responded. "Alright then…off we go then!"
With smiles from Rainbow Dash and Spike, the two were about to leave when suddenly Twilight remembered something.
"Wait!" Twilight said, stopping Rainbow Dash and Spike leaving. She looked towards Rainbow Dash. "Dash…tell us, what was it last night that you and AJ saw that you couldn't speak about?"
Dash's face suddenly dropped. She knew she'd have to tell what was going on, though she was somewhat surprise that Pinkie hadn't come by to tell Twilight and Spike about this great party or even what was in that crater. She let shaky sigh before starting. "…Alright then. Well, remember last night when we saw that green light that seem to come from the sky?"
"Of course," Twilight replied, remembering that strange occurrence.
Dash looked away before continuing. "Well…nah, I can't say it…"
"C'mon!" Spike scoffed crossing his arms. "Just let it all out!"
Rainbow Dash looked back at the pair again, biting her bottom lip. "Well…me and Applejack saw this…big silver cylinder thing, the size of a house. When we were there, the top began unscrewing. Somepony or something's in there!"
A long silence followed as the others stared in amazement. This was nothing like anything they would've heard before. The only thing that was going through the Mare and Dragon's heads was the idea of what Dash had been saying to them. "A…a cylinder?" Spike said finally breaking the silence.
"Yeah, "Dash nodded. "Pretty crazy don't you think?"
The violet Unicorn then walked passed Rainbow Dash staring at the crowd of ponies still heading towards the location of the…cylinder thing that lay. "...Alright then you two," Twilight spoke. "Let's go." And with that, they headed off to see what all the fuss was about.
XXX
Despite there being a major crowd of ponies, the crowd moved along steadily and rather quickly, no doubt all wanting to see what was on the outskirts of the forest. Above them, the other Pegasus ponies, including Rainbow Dash, flew overhead while Twilight and Spike had to walk, not that they didn't mind however, they knew that despite all the waiting, whatever it was would be worth it.
As the large crowd of ponies moved away from Ponyville, Twilight and Spike noticed that the queue seemed to curve at bit more to the left behind a row of thick bushes, in indication of how close they were to the Everfree forest (why they are they, I really haven't a clue!) As each Pony rounded the corner, each one gasped staring at the sight. Finally Twilight and Spike went round the corner, they themselves gasping at what lay before them.
True to Rainbow Dash's words, there sitting in a large crater, was the giant silver cylinder with the top of it unscrewing slowly. Though that wasn't the only thing that caught their eye. All around the site, the place had been turned into a huge party with many activates on one side, food and drink on the other and a large banner in pink writing saying 'WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA!'
Of course, there were no prizes at guessing who had set this all up, and no prizes who seem to greet them out of nowhere.
"Hi!" Pinkie greeted happily as always popping out of nowhere it would seem, causing Twilight and Spike to jump back in surprise. "So glad you could make it! Can't wait to give them a great welcome!"
"Them?" Asked Twilight, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, them in that silvery…thing!" Pinkie replied looking back at the giant object.
Twilight shook her head. "Wait a minute, how do you know that there are ponies in there or even…anything else in there?"
Pinkie Pie paused, thinking about what Twilight said. "…Mmm, doesn't that seem like something that Horse G Wells wrote in a book once?" (You'll get it later…)
"Beside, I have a good feeling about this!" And she bounced off to the other end of the party before the two friends could work out what she'd just said.
Spike slid off Twilight's back, his eyes staring up and down at the cylinder. "I can never understand Pinkie at times," he muttered to Twilight before he himself walked over to the edge of the crater to have a closer look.
The Mare rolled her eyes to herself, but only briefly so she could look up again. Much like the others who were looking up the top of the cylinder, they remained hypnotized by the unscrewing. By this point however, the top looked quite loose and seemed on the verge of falling off. On the edge of the crater, a few young colts and fillies were happily dangling their hooves over the edge enjoying themselves, until their parents/older siblings told them to get back, and it was just as well they did.
Five minutes later, the lid finally fell off, hitting the bottom of the hole with a hollow clunk.
Everypony stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the top of the now lid-less cylinder with a few strands of warm mist coming out slowly from the top. A deadly silence followed, the only sound was, incredibly, coming from the inside of the cylinder.
"Here they come!" Pinkie Pie whispered to a nearby Mare excitedly, she could barely keep her excitement to herself.
Many ponies there all expected a Pony to emerge, maybe something slightly different about them, but not much.
From the top, a long thick brownish tentacle rose slowly from the top, it's skin being that of a rough texture. A few gasps emerge from not only the site of one tentacle, but also that of another that rose out, both grabbing the sides of the top. Three others did the same, grabbing the back.
Ponies looked back at one another wondering what they were seeing. Finally, slowly coming out, two large shiny black eyes appeared, as he went up further the thing, which we know as a Martian, more features emerge with it having a grey beak and what seemed like…shaving foam and a razor in one tentacle that came up. The Martian in question was Abaztard who had been having a shave.
Screams from many Ponies followed causing the poor Martian to fall backwards into the craft. "Oh fucking hell!" He cried as he crash landed on Banjee. All other Martians inside stared at what had happened.
"What's going on?" Asked Wacko as he looked up.
The spy Martian seemed to have had the fright of his life as he clutched his chest where his heart was, not even caring for Banjee stuck underneath.
"Hey! Get off!" Cried out Banjee, which thankfully Abaztard did after hearing him.
"What'd you see?" Asked the captain again.
Abaztard looked over to Wacko. "I've…just seen a field of…colors…!" He himself couldn't quite understand of what he had just witnessed.
"Let me see," Wacko said suddenly as he climbed up the side ladder to the top, Banjee and fellow spy Torno following behind.
"Hang on!" Abaztard cried out as he started following them too.
As the reached the top, both Martian and pony gasped at each other. Wacko scanned the crowd. Nothing but strange looking…ponies? He didn't do much history on the other animals on Earth, so this was all new to him.
"Why were they having a barbecue here?" Torno whispered as he saw the party decorations all out, of course if they could read the text on the banner (sadly they couldn't) it would make sense.
"Who would be stupid to have one on this damn location?" Abaztard scoffed.
From one side of the party, Rarity could be heard saying 'What ugly brutes!' repeatedly. The four Martians on top looked over at the white unicorn,
"Who you calling ugly?" Snapped Wacko.
This caused Rarity to faint and many ponies started screaming and ram for their lives away from the party, with Pegasus ponies flying far away as possible. Fortunately for Rarity when she fainted, Spike had been with her and caught her while in the process nearly getting crushed by her. Without any help, Spike had to drag the Mare away; he didn't want to look back at those…things. He didn't care if all this dragging would mess up her smooth fur-hide; the main thing was to get her to safety.
"Spike!" Shouted a familiar voice. Looking up, the voice belonged to Twilight, who was rushing over to help Spike out. "Let's get back to Ponyville!" And she levitated Rarity up with her magic. Soon enough, they were now running with the crowd away from the now abandon party.
By the time the Ponies had left, silence fell all over, as the Martians on top looked at each over. None of them could explain what had happened. It was only then when Torno finally broke the silence.
"Guys…I don't think we're on Earth."
Chapter 5
Trouble In The Ranks
For the rest of the day, the residents of Ponyville remained at their homes (apart from a few brave souls who had to leave at some points to go further afield from Ponyville), not one of them wanting to go back to the site and come face to face with these…creatures. Nopony had ever seen anything like them, even the bravest of ponies couldn't help themselves not wanting to head back there and face off the large brown monsters. Then again coming to think of it, meeting aliens from another world, anypony would be feeling the same.
Like all other ponies, Twilight and Spike had raced back to their home, bringing Rarity with them. Fortunately for them, during the mad dash, they had met up with Sweetie Belle and joined up with them to run over to Twilight's house to help out her older sister. Thankfully, a few hours had past and Rarity was now recovering though was understandably still shaken at her experience.
Twilight had gotten herself a message from Celestia saying that she had found the news of these strange new arrivals to Equestria 'rather disturbing', and had wrote in she was sending in a small platoon of troops over from Canterlot to deploy on the edge of the location where the Cylinder remained. That message had come in about two hours ago and there was Twilight looking out of the window waiting for the troops to come to town. In the back of her mind however, many ponies would've used the Wonderbolts to do this sort of thing (a certain Rainbow Dash would agree!), though she knew that whenever the Wonderbolts went to do these sort of things, the press was never far away and goodness knows how Celestia would react to find out something that had arrived that was not of the world.
Meanwhile downstairs, Twilight could see Sweetie Belle handing over a mug of hot coffee to Rarity, still looking a bit uncomfortable. Spike on the other hand couldn't help but rave about seeing those creatures, despite being quite shocked himself at first but had gotten over it more better than Rarity, though he was unintentionally not making things comfortable for the purple mane unicorn.
"…And did you see its face?" Spike continued. "Man, I've never seen anything look so ugly like that…!" He paused when he noticed the two sisters lowering their heads as he spoke.
"…Sorry," he apologized softy, gently taking Rarity's hoof in his claws and holding in tightly trying to make her comfortable. "I guess I was kinda getting ahead of myself there, besides, we won't have much to worry about them if you ask me."
"What'd you mean?" Sweetie Belle asked, craning her head up to look at the baby dragon.
He smiled lightly at both of them. "Well, did you see how sluggish they looked when they were climbing out of the top? They looked quite uncomfortable up there. And with that in mind if they decided to make invasion of Ponyville…hardly unlikely, those guards that Celestia sent here will stop 'em. And think about, you Rarity and the others are the elements of harmony and should stop them if things went out of hand."
Thankfully, this did bring a small smile on the two sister's faces. "I hope your right dear Spike," Rarity sighed softly.
Whilst near the top, Twilight looked down at the three friends. "I hope you are right there Spike," she thought to herself before looking out of the window herself. Waiting for the soldiers to turn up. The strange thing was that Twilight couldn't quite remember the last time Equestria's army was called into service, of course this was not a full operation, but it did make her think of what could happen.
XXX
By this point, the sun was now setting and Luna would soon arise the moon like she had done before and Twilight (and possibly the other ponies in town) wondered where the troops were. Not long ago, Rarity and Sweetie Belle had decided to head back to their home, finding it a bit intimidating of there being nopony around. Still, they made it back home without any problems, even though some ponies from their windows raised an eyebrow of the two being outside with what was going on.
An eerie silence followed after the sisters left the library, with Twilight getting bored from waiting and deciding to read a random book to take her mind of things. Spike on the other hand had gone to take over from Twilight to keep an eye out for things. Although he had said that everything would be alright earlier on, somewhere deep down inside of him, he really wasn't all that sure. Nopony was sure what these strange…what ever they were, were planning to do.
Spike was nearly falling asleep when suddenly he noticed something towards the edge of the window. As he looked, his eyes shot open. A mixed group of about thirty Unicorns, Earth Ponies and Pegasus stallions, dressed in dark grey armour and carrying a variety of weapons, came marching through the town, heading towards the crater site.
The guards had finally arrived.
The little dragon spun round looking downstairs while placing his hand near his mouth. "Hey Twi! The guards are here!"
From downstairs, a clatter of hooves and a strangled cry could be heard as Twilight ran upstairs towards the window where Spike was. As she looked, sure enough marching through Ponyville were the guards that Celestia promised. Even though she could breath a sign of ease that they were finally here, she did feel rather annoyed that they had taken their time to get here.
She also couldn't help but notice by looking through her window that from other windows in the other houses that from other ponies' expressions all looked the same of how Twilight was feeling.
"Look at all the weapons they've got!" Spike said in admiration, breaking Twilight's train of thought. "Geez, Celestia must really mean something if she's telling those guards to bring the whole kitchen sink with them."
"Indeed Spike," Twilight replied. "…Though, something doesn't feel quite right…"
However, Spike wasn't listening as he continued watching the troops march their way through the town, towards the location of the giant silver cylinder.
XXX
By this point in the day, night had fallen all over Equestria and nearly everypony in the land would be settling in for the night, save for the few Ponies doing night work, clubbing at night, guards and those certain aliens…
After finding themselves being greeted by a crowd of strange ponies and somehow chasing them away, the Martians could now bring out the fighting machines for the next stage in the operation. Though a few Martians in the group had started asking one another was they weren't really on Earth. None of them could quite remember if any of their studies of Earth would tell them they would come face-to-face with some colourful ponies with huge eyes and on top of all of that, talk!
The giant space craft had carried with it from Mars five fighting machines and five handling machines (two Martians per craft), along with the Martian flag that was now planted into the ground which Wacko did the honours of being the first Martian to step foot (or tentacle!) on this planet. The Martians had carried out a lot of work during the sort space of time there and by now had three of the fighting machines built and the other two having final adjustments done to them. The handling machines would do the other work later. Although the tripods could stand proudly at one hundred feet tall, their leg design had the clever function of lowering themselves down to just ten feet, mainly to help Martians board their machines and keep themselves hidden from view from a distance.
Inside the giant spacecraft at the pilot controls, Wacko was given out another report to the King for what was the next stage of the invasion…eradication.
"Very good, Captain," Abanazer congratulated him calmly on the hologram image. "You now are ahead of schedule and despite you being, well, a totally head-case, you have proved to me that you can work when needed."
Wacko growled to himself. "Thank you," he said with some cynicism to it. During the whole talk however, he hadn't mentioned the strange ponies the Martians had witnessed. Mainly as he had no idea how he was suppose to explain this to the King and how they were not on Earth by the looks of things.
The King rubbed his grey beak before carrying on the conversation. "I believe the fighting machines are ready?"
"Three of them are ready for battle and the other two are nearly done," Wacko answered.
"I want the process sped up!" Abanazer snapped suddenly. "The operation must be done quickly, the other craft will be landing somewhere nearby where you and your team are."
Wacko eye's widened at the unexpected news. "Now? Another craft already? But you're majesty, you won't be—"
"I don't want any 'buts'!" The bastard King interrupted the captain. "This has to be done NOW!"
Wacko grinned his teeth in anger of how their 'fair' king would treat his people; he so badly was now ready to explain to Abanazer about their recent discovery. It was now or never. "This planet is not Earth!" Wacko roared at the hologram image leaving the King to look at Wacko in shock, then his face turned to pure anger.
"How dare you!" Abanazer said in a hushed whisper. "You dare give your own king that attitude…if you do fail on your mission, which now I hope you do, I'll shall cut you into parts so small that not even those with the sharpest eye will be able to see your parts…NOW GET OUTTA MY SIGHT!"
The image of the king vanished quickly, just before Wacko roared in fury punching the pilot console with his 'hand' like tentacle. He did some heavy breathing trying to calm down, but it was not doing him any good as Abanazer's words played out in his head, only making him feel more furious at the King Martian for not listening. Though he did feel he did feel like he had to blame himself for not telling the King sooner, who knows how the conversation may have turned out.
Nothing but silence filled the ship as Wacko sank back on the pilot's chair before sighing sadly. He could only hope that the King's quick actions wouldn't lead them to disaster.
"…Fuck his," Wacko whispered to himself before rushing off to meet with the other Martians outside. He had an idea, one that he didn't mind getting himself into trouble from his superior officers. He had something in mind for the Spies…
XXX
Outside, the other two fighting machines were now ready for battle, though the large motley group of Martians could now only hang about waiting for the all go from the King, which was the main reason why Wacko came to talk with the king in the first place.
Nearby the foot of one of the fighting machines, Torno and Abaztard were chatting to each other about old times. Strangely, their spies' clothes considered nothing more than a black fedora hat and a black cape that covered the lower part of their body just below their beaks. Yes, their outfit design may have seemed to be laughably clichéd, but this is Martian culture and they don't know about it on Earth (!)
From the top of the craft, the captain climbed out of the top before banging his tentacles on the side trying to get everyone's attention. The others all stopped to look up at Wacko, all noting how pissed off he looked.
"Comrades," Wacko began as he jumped off the top and landed on the ground with the other Martians. "Some bad news in…"
His fellow Martians looked to one another in fear of what might be going on. "The bastard won't listen to us that we have landed on another planet, he wants our assault to begin in earnest."
Loud talking of worrying could be heard among the other Martians, how the King could do something like this on his own troops staggered them. "ORDER!" he shouted at his troops, which they all stopped quickly. "…And I'm sorry to bring the third and final bit of bad news…without any warning, they are sending the second craft to here very soon."
By now a roar of antagonism erupted from all the Martians around the site. All furious of how this could happen to them like that. However, Wacko raised a tentacle to silence them. "But don't panic, I do have a plan to prove to him that we are not on Earth." He looked over at the two spies, motioning them to come forward to him. "Come here, I need you for this."
"What'd you need us for?" Abaztard asked, suspicious at what the captain was planning.
'I've noticed on the scanner that there is a town nearby us," Wacko replied. "I need you two to go into town, study or take something…maybe one of those ponies, alright?"
The two spies looked at one another. "Without permission from the King?" Asked Torno.
"You'll get into shit for it!" Ajax called out nearby to Wacko. Soon others began saying similar things to him.
"I don't care!" Wacko snapped at his troops. "I won't let any of my platoon to die like that by the King's actions, even if it does risk me being in bother from the King…he can try all he likes on me. I'm not scared."
The platoon was silenced by their captain's actions. It seemed that after all that he would put them though, he did have a kind side after all.
"Ok you two," Wacko continued, looking at the spies. "Go into town, get something worth taking, and we'll rendezvous with you, got that?"
"Erm, yes…yes of course!" The two spies said saluting him, though with nervous expressions on their faces.
"Now go, go, go!" Wacko ordered, making the two spies shuffle off as fast as they could to the town. He looked back at the rest of the troops, all looking stunned at what Wacko was doing. "Right! Those working the fighting machines get in and let's get going!"
He didn't need to say anything else as those working the fighting machines scrambled into their machines one by one. The other Martians stood well clear from the giant machines and instead started to work on the handling machines.
Once the crews of the tripods were inside, Wacko began ordering again from his pilot seat. "Alright team…extend the legs!" Each of the pilots flicked a few switches, which a loud hissing sound could be heard. Then the main hulks of the machines started to rise up at a steady pace, the legs were now extending to reach their full height. Finally the rising stopped with a hollow click, indicating that they were ready.
From the outside, the five fighting machines were now standing with their green 'eye' like windows glowing green, meaning that they were now active.
Wacko gave his co-pilot (heat ray operator) a wink before continuing in his headset. "Good work team…alright boys, let's begin the eradication off…not Earth, but this world." He placed the gear stick forward, however suddenly, from the other tripods; they could only hear a scream from the captain through their headsets and a loud crashing sound that made their machines shake from the impact.
"The hell?" Banjee exclaimed looking at a monitor that helped him look down towards his left side, the other Martian pilots did he same looking at their sides. What they saw made them laugh hysterically.
Wacko had accidently driven his fighting machine backwards in the crater and now the giant titan of steel was lying on it's back. From the ground, the other Martians down there were rolling on the ground with laughter.
"It's not funny!" Wacko shouted with anger as he tried unsuccessfully to get his machine back on its feet.
But the author of this story kindly conveniently wrote him out of that situation, and he was back on his feet again!
"Alright," Wacko said again, looking flustered at his own embarrassment, still hearing laughter on his headset. "Invasion, take two!" And this time he gear into the right direction this time. The other fighting machines soon followed the main fighting machine as they began heading towards the town.
Unknown to them though, that their plans of a quick invasion would prove to be more harder than that first thought at first at the hands on these strange ponies...
Chapter 7
The Battle Of Ponyville
Not far from where Twilight, Spike and Storm Speed where, two certain Martian spies looked on from their hiding place in a cramped alleyway. Of course, if you have been reading the story correctly, no need to introduce them, but if you haven't, you're an idiot.
The two Martians spies eyeballed the two ponies and dragon heading across town. "Wait a minute…that one in the armour looks like one of those soldiers." Torno noted.
"One of them survived!" cried Abaztard stunned at the thought of it, before placing a tentacle around his beak from his sudden outburst that could've quite easily blown their cover. "Why is there always one little bastard that slips through the net?"
His co-spy looked more conceited, it was only just another cliché that would happen in these situations, still, they knew that the surviving troop would be killed sooner or later, though they didn't know that this one troop had sent a report that would play a part later in this chapter, though I'm not telling any spoilers here yet!
It was also at this time they noticed that the sky was now turning from orange to blue, their hopefully quick night time operation was now, well, to put it nicely…was fucked. Soon enough they half expected these ponies to pour onto the street to begin the day's events as whatever it was they'd do.
"C'mon Wacko," Torno said to himself though his teeth. "Get your ass here soon, we smell like shit in this alleyway."
"For one of the few times like this, I agree with you," Abaztard replied, also looking annoyed at this waiting game. Then he looked up and down both ways of the alleyway. "Hey Torno, remember if one pony on their own walks by this alleyway, gr—"
"Grab it," Torno finished. "How can I forget that we are trying to catch a darn pony that is so colourful that it would die on a colour plate of grey?"
The other spy could only crack a small smile on his beak, but he was still feeling uncomfortable. They then looked over to see the three individuals heading over to a nearby house, the one in armour knocking on the door.
"They're up to something," Abaztard noted feeling smug to himself, though it made Torno face-tentacle.
"No shit smarty ass," Torno replied sarcastically rolling his black eyes. However, as they weren't too far away, they were just able to hear the ponies (and dragon) have the following conversation. Opening the door, a maroon coloured female pony with blue eyes and a yellow and black streaked mane and tail, which were all messy, no doubt a sign that she had just gotten out of bed.
"Hello, what'd you want?" A very tired looking female pony asked, angry at being waken up and surprised to see not only a solider standing there, but also of Twilight and Spike flanking him. "Wait...you're one of the troops who came by last night, aren't you?"
Storm looked at her with a stoned face. "Miss, I advise that you and everypony in the town must leave now and get far away as possible." He glanced over at the location where the fighting had taken place. "I regret to say that the rest of my platoon was destroyed by those unknown creatures. They are already heading this way to Ponyville!"
The mare stared at the stallion blankly, then looked out of the doorframe to the direction of the location where the creatures remained since their arrival. Thoughts flooded her head of whatever they were up to.
"Please we've got to follow the soldier's orders," Twilight piped in stepping forward.
While this was going on, Abaztard and Torno cursed under the breath's that the news of how the information of the Martians presence was now starting to catch attention. They could have done the quick thing of running out there and killing the four individuals there and make sure that they wouldn't spread the information out even more. Though with their being many windows on the buildings, and the big chance that ponies from the buildings would be watching their movements, they knew that it would give away their position.
"Oh fuck the luck," Torno sighed angrily as he watched the conversation unfold. "Can we just have a break?"
Abaztard looked over at his fellow spy and glared at him. "Easy? When did you hear about this job supposed to be easy at all?"
Torno tried to say something back, but he received a slap around his head from Abaztard. What a bastard that Martian is, or has that already been said?
XXX
In short space of time Twilight, Spike and Storm had by now told almost a quarter of the town of the crisis that was literally on their door step. In the main centre of the town, nearly all of the residents had now appeared there. Some had were chatting among each other and asking what had been going on after all this time. One of the main things from all the ponies was that none had anything to bring like belongings or clothes, though this was due to the fact that everypony had been literally dragged out their homes before they had a chance to do anything else.
Somewhere in that large crowd, the six elements of harmony had met up with each other, much like they crowd, they had no idea what was going to happen.
"Ah knew somethin' like this would happen!" Applejack growled, who looked completely terrible from being pulled up from her golden slumbers.
Rarity felt almost ashamed to be out in public looking like this. Her once beautiful purple mane now was sticking out all over the place, another clear sign to show how early they had been dragged out of their beds. "Those wicked creatures…how dare they force me out in public with me looking like this!" Thankfully for her, nopony seemed to care about how she looked right now.
Poor old Fluttershy was feeling no better. With her living away from the town, Rainbow Dash had awoken her up and only briefly telling her the situation. What made her feel awful was that all her animals remained back at her home. Oh, the horrible thoughts of what might happen to them crossed her mind what seemed like a million times.
Meanwhile, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Spike and Pinkie Pie poked their heads over the sea of ponies looking out towards the hazy grey smoke that still came from the forest. Twilight had explained to the two of the giant fighting machines that Storm had mentioned who had caused the destruction yonder.
"Those big meanie pants doing stuff like that!" Pinkie exclaimed angry over the scarred destruction that had been done earlier that day.
"You think we can stop them, Twi?" Rainbow Dash asked the unicorn. "I mean, with us being the elements of harmony, do we have a chance at least holding them off?"
Twilight didn't say anything, only looking over to the cyan mare with a nervous look. Sure Nightmare Moon, Discord and the Changelings were one thing, but this new threat that seemed to be not of this world appeared to be a whole different kettle of fish for them.
"What worries me if Celestia doesn't know what to do against them, what happens then?" Spike asked who was sitting on Twilight's back looking out along with them.
"Well if I were Celestia, this'll be a great moment to use the Wonderbolts," Dash muttered to herself, turning round watching the podium where she could see the mayor talking to Storm about something. From what she could see, the conversation was quite a heated one with Storm looking quite flustered from telling the mayor the past events earlier in the day, though Dash and the others couldn't hear anything due to the loud chatting in the crowd.
From the roof of a nearby building, Abaztard and Torno watched the situation unfold. "How on Mars did the town come together so quickly?" Abaztard asked Torno, still eyeballing the site of a crowd of ponies.
"Plot convenience maybe?" Torno replied nervously, raising an eyebrow.
His fellow spy glared at him, shaking his head. "Just shut the fuck up would you please?"
Back on the ground, the conversation with the mayor and Storm had ended with the mayor saying something to the still worried looking solider before walking up to the podium. "May I have your attention please!" She called out into the podium's microphone to everypony in the centre of town, which they all stopped to look at her and listen to her.
"Thank you," She began before clearing her throat. "Greetings Mares and Gentlestallions of Ponyville, now as you are all aware, in the past few days, there has been a great deal of disturbance on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest."
She paused as she looked back at Storm. "And I do regret to say that…the 2nd division Ponyville platoon...was wiped out by unknown invaders." A few gasps could be heard, though from the roof of where the spies where, they were only enjoying the show before them.
"So what you scabby old bitch!" Cried out Abaztard jokily like a heckler, though Torno pulled him down quickly before anypony down below them would.
"The fuck you playing at?" Torno scolded him. "You could've gotten us into shit!" Almost suddenly, the two Martians started having a silent yet furious fight with their tentacles, couldn't really blame them really, they were about to crack anyway.
While the small brawl was taking place on the rooftop, the mayor was carrying on her speech to the crowd of ponies, all completely oblivious of the Martian's little…disagreement. "…However from these shocking events, we do have the great fortune of having a surviving troop from the battle before us…Private Storm Speed."
As she moved out of the way to let him stand at the podium, a surprising amount of boo's followed from some ponies in the crowd. Some even shouted abuse at him, though this was all over the fact of being wakened up early on a Sunday morning.
"Nutcase!"
"Why get us all up this early?"
"Better tell us what's going on!"
From their hiding spot, Torno and Abaztard continued to watch the events take place after finishing their fight, in which Abaztard won. "Isn't that funny?" Abaztard chuckled after rubbing the side of his face from the fight, "After what's happened, they hate him all over the fact he woke them up early!"
Torno just shook his head in disbelieve, still feeling a bit sore after the fight. "Not even if their lives are in danger from us? These ponies have spastic type thinking."
"Worse than humans if you ask me," Abaztard added. "Sooner we eradicate them all the better." He paused as he saw Storm clearing his throat before he was ready to say something. "…And please don't get me one as a pet, Torno" Abaztard said over to his fellow spy as he watched the display down bellow.
The solider looked around at the vast amount of ponies, some looking at him with annoyed faces. "…Uhm…I know this is kinda awkward having to drag each and one of you all out of bed for this—"
"What's going on!" Cried a mare from the front row, which escalated with others joining in.
"Mares and Gentlestallions please!" Storm ordered waving his fore hooves trying to calm down the situation. Thankfully the crowd went silent again. "Now out there I've lost many good fellow troops, I don't who's dead or has even survived, but I hereby call for everypony in town to leave Ponyville at once!"
At once the crowd argued at the solider, it was heard clearly that none of them wanted to leave town and some saying that the monsters looked to sluggish from what they saw from that first encounter, little did they know of what had been happening. "You've got to believe me now!" Storm shouted over the crowd of angry ponies.
However during all this, all had failed to notice the ground was shaking a times, almost like…giant hoofsteps. One by one, they all felt it and with it, the arguing died down. Now nopony knew what was happening, though the Martians spies knew perfectly well what was going on.
Storm step away from the podium and narrowed his eyes over at the horizon, which all ponies started to look in his direction.
"…No…"
A powerful beam of fiery orange suddenly fired its way in from the horizon, causing everypony to duck for cover as the beam struck a building, causing it to explode and catch fire. As Storm stood up from ducking, his eyes widened in horror of what he could just see from the thick smoke that was starting to appear. "LOOK!" He cried as he started running with a crowd of ponies. "THERE THEY ARE…WHAT'D I TELL YOU!"
"Where ya goin'?" Cried Applejack from the crowd to the now retreating solider.
Despite all the screaming, running and confusion, two voices could be heard celebrating...
"About fucking time too!"
In all the confusion, the elements of harmony hurriedly regrouped so they wouldn't get lost in the sea of panicking ponies "What the-?" Twilight gasped upon just barely seeing threw the thick smoke, with the small quakes getting more and more stronger.
"What in Celestia's name are THEY? " Rarity gawked.
The others could also just make out what Twilight and Rarity were seeing, all with eyes as wide as saucers and mouths hitting the ground. How where they suppose to describe what they were seeing? Four monstrous Tripods, all a hundred feet tall, went striding their way over some pine trees and crushing them. As the smoke cleared even more, they could see that the titans of steel had a rounded hulk at the top that connected with the three legs. What scared the ponies was what seemed like green bug like eyes on the hulk part, which almost seem to glow and make them look like living creatures.
As each leg rose up to take a step forward, the group of friends could also see that the feet had three toe like claws, almost like it was a dangerous animal itself. Each of the tripods carried a funnel on the hulk structure, one of them was steaming already and it became clear that this metal giant had been the one that fired that beam of fire.
A fifth machine appeared behind them, which the other tripods seemed to more out of the way to let this one in front for some reason. As the group of giants walked forward, Twilight and the gang should've made a run for their lives, but they couldn't help but remained glued to their spot, staring at these un-Equestrian type…things.
Then again, you can get very strange things in Equestria, so I really don't know why they should be like that, but the plot says so, so whooie-do.
When the that practical Tripod final walked out in front of the pack, it stamped it's back foot three times (creating a minor earthquake) and causing the other Tripods to stop. A long silence followed as all five machines stood motionless.
"There's never an easy moment when you really need the elements," Spike whispered to Twilight, who, like the others, could barely take their eyes of these strange metal monsters.
Just then, a loudspeaker type device emerged from the bottom of the tripod with the steaming funnel. "Erm…sorry 'bout that," said a rough voice from that Tripod. "My heat ray's faulty, that wasn't the main call of attack…sorry—"
"Tonker! Who said you were allowed to talk!" Boomed another voice from the leading Tripod, which the machine looked over at it's left to the Tripod that had talked. "I'm the captain, I'm suppose to be the one who tells them what!"
"Sorry, Wacko. Just had to say sorry for that mistake attack there, not my fault my heat ray's a bit shit," Boomed the other tripod looking over at its leader.
"What'd you mean you wanna say sorry to them?" 'Wacko' yelled back. "They're the fucking enemy num-nuts!" The leading Tripod paused to look at the town below.
"Now then…shit, forgot my ruddy speech for this part!" Wacko growled in annoyance.
The gang on the ground were beside themselves. Nopony knew if to feel scared by them, or to feel even amused at them. "Wacko? Tonker?" Rainbow Dash asked the group. "What kinda names are those?"
"I heard that, jackass!" Boomed Wacko's voice angrily, making the group have a fright of their lives. "And yes, we can hear every little thing from our sound tracking devices, so no need to shout." Now the gang felt like running for their lives, not that were scared for their life, but of a bright glow of white appearing in front of them, and it wasn't coming from the Tripods.
"What now?" Spike growled nervously, not wanting to look, fearing a heat ray was going to strike him and his friends down.
Even those in the metal titans didn't know what was happening. "Oh come on! It's been hell since we got here!" Wacko moaned angrily.
Finally the bright glow of white stopped and both sides looked on what had appeared before them. There before them was a certain ali—ok I'm too lazy to write details it's Celestia.
"Princess!" The girls and Spike bowed, but Celestia did not reply to them. Her icy gaze never leaving the Tripods.
"Who the hell are you?" Called out Wacko towards this strange character before him.
"…Invaders…" She said calmly but oozing with ice in her voice. "Leave this land now."
Wacko face-tentacle'd in his pilot's chair. "Listen lady, I, along with my troops, have a job to do here for the king of Mars, and this planet is become our new home for us Martians, which first we must eradicate you and your kind from the face of this planet Earth to become the dominant species."
"Equestria," Celestia corrected coolly.
"Whatever…" Wacko replied crossly.
The Princess walked forward about five hundreds yards forward, much to the amazement of Twilight and the gang, and even the Martians, though this was for thinking how stupid this tall pony was risking her life.
"Martians…" Celestia paused, trying to get over the word 'Martian' and what had been said from them. "Whatever your intentions are, this world will never be yours!" She continued to speak, but the Martians in the tripods weren't listening.
From switching from the loud speaker to radio the fellow tripods, Wacko had a plan to get on with the job. "C'mon guys, let's shut this bitch up…fire on my command on her." He winked over to his co-pilot and heat ray operator.
'Right away," Came the sound of Banjee's voice
"Gonna enjoy killing a royal," Ajax's voice followed, with some sniggering in it.
"Let's go and kill something!" Tonker yelled happily, making the other Martians cringed.
"Get on with it!" Denzil yelled crossly this time.
Wacko rubbed his tentacles together, a wicked grin appearing on his face. "Right, on my command, fire on the bitch."
Each heat ray operator all aimed at Celestia, which during all this, she was saying something to them, but they didn't care; they wanted her out of the way.
"Ok boys…" Wacko said as his aim was ready. "Aim…FIRE!"
At once, all five heat rays fired a powerful line of orange towards to alicorn. They all fired at her perfectly, right on target. For all the ponies watching the show, they could only watch in horror as the Princess was engulfed in a thick blanket of fire and grey smoke. Presumably destroying her in the process. Just as the ponies were about mourn over the death of their princess and the Martians were about to celebrate a job well done, both sides were in for a shock for what they saw next.
"Stupid bitch," Wacko smiled to himself. "That'll teach you to—The fuck!"
He (and possibly the other Martians) leaned forward to see what they were looking at was real. As the dust cleared, against all what had happened, was Celestia still standing in one piece, nothing different about her after that devastating attack, though a large black scorched mark surrounded her on the ground.
Both sides had to rub their eyes in disbelieve of how the hell Celestia survived, though their eyes all looked up at a giant sphere of fire above her head that seemed to be controlled by her magic. Her face now filled with total hatred towards the Martians, an expression that nopony would ever thought to see.
While the Ponies didn't know what it was, the Martians could only look on in horror as the realised of how that ball of fiery orange had been made.
"Look what she's done with our heat rays!" Cried a shocked Banjee.
"How the fuck's that possible?" Yelled Denzil. "You can't do that with weapons!"
Wacko was at a loss for words. On paper they should've sent her to oblivion, yet there she was. Now he had no idea what orders to give to his troops as now Celestia could do anything with that ball of fire. However for Tonker, he wanted to rush the operation and had an idea…
"Let me handle this!" He said on the radio to the other troops. But before the other Martians could say anything, Tonker had raised the right leg on his fighting machine and was leading it to crush Celestia with it.
Unfortunately for him, Celestia saw this.
Wacko's eyes widen as he saw the fire sphere glow ever brighter as the leg came down ever closer to Celestia. "Tonker! Don't!" But it was too late.
With the help of the sphere made of fire, Celestia fired a shot from it, right on target to hit Tonker's tripod. A massive explosion from that tripod caused the ground to violently shake as the hood of the fighting machine erupted into green and yellow explosions as the once proud machine of Martian metal became nothing more that various parts of metal as they went crashing all around the place.
Tonker, and his co-pilot, were incinerated from the explosion.
From Ponyville, the ponies couldn't help but cheer loudly and hug each other as only four giant fighting machines remained. And the Martians, a loud, brutal, thuggish race of creatures, had been reduced to a shocked silence.
In the midst of everypony celebrating, Torno and Abaztard were watching the battle take place from their rooftop. Nothing in their training ever told how to react if a strange pony destroyed a fighting machine, though the loss of Tonker did hit a note with them…
…Not really.
"Well…he was a jerk," Abaztard said to Torno, still watching the scene.
Torno looked over to his fellow spy. "Yeah, he never paid me back that bet he promised me a few months ago!" The Martian suddenly felt more angry than sad, all over that Tonker had died without giving him his bet…then again anyone would I guess, even if it was a hell of a lot of money, then again that is another story…
From the Tripods, Wacko just didn't know what to do. If he wasn't careful with his team, they all could be wiped out from a single pony…now how was he supposed to explain that to his king…oh wait, he would've been dead.
Suddenly, he could see a tripod on his left leaning forward slightly and charging up it's heat ray…Ajax's tripod! But it wasn't from Ajax that this was his idea to attack, but his co-pilot's. He'd been so shocked at Tonker's death that he wanted to avenge him…too bad that Tonker's death didn't give him that certain warning.
"Hold your fucking fire!" Yelled Wacko into his mouthpiece, his heart hammering in his body in fear for whatever might happen next.
Once again, Celestia noticed this and with quick thinking, fired another shot from her fireball at Ajax's tripod. Ajax could see the shot from the alicorn coming towards him, and in a desperate attempt to dodge the attack; he swung his Tripod round to get out of the way. But the heavy gravity on this world was far greater to that on Mars remember, and this proved to be a grave mistake.
As the fighting machine turned round towards it's right, the shot from Celestia struck the tripod on it's side and blasted it to kingdom come. The hood exploded again into a thousand pieces that went flying everywhere, some parts even hitting buildings in the town.
"Ajax!" Cried Torno running towards to edge of the rooftop as he could only watch helplessly as Ajax's fighting machine crashed down.
Wacko on the other hand (tentacle, hoof…whatever the hell it is!) couldn't take more of this. He only had one option, one that he knew that the king would be most pissed off at.
"Fall back! Retreat!" He cried out to the surviving tripods.
"S-sir?" Denzil asked in a panic tone. "We'd lose the battle then!"
"We already have lost it idiot, and four good Martians!" Wacko snapped.
Banjee seemed to get the idea quickly. He spun his Tripod round one hundred and eighty degrees and stomped back to base in his machine. The others followed suit, not wanted to look back. Abaztard and Torno had to rub their eyes to believe what they were seeing. A Martian would never retreat in battle, but this was almost like illegal in their culture.
"We gotta get back…Wacko's chickened out!" Torno cried as he started to climb down the building.
"Wait for me!" Abaztard replied as he followed the other spy. Actually, what have they done that is spy worthy towards this point reader? As they hit the ground, they went racing for their lives out of town and try and not get spotted from crazy alicorn we know as Celestia. For the sake of them being main characters of the story however, they escaped and were quickly hot on the tail of their fellow Martians.
In Ponyville, celebrations erupted from each pony. Strangers hugging each other and some even fainting that they had been saved. Like the rest, Twilight and the gang celebrated. "Get it up you, you bozos!" Rainbow Dash yelled at the retreating Martians, waving her hoof at them in a taunting manner.
"And don't come back!" Pinkie added loudly, who already was thinking of throwing a victory Party in Ponyville.
While this was going on, Twilight walked up to Celestia, who by now the ball of fire above her had dissipated, but still looking at the Martians in the distance. "Celestia," Twilight said in awe at what the Princess had done. "We're safe now—"
"It's not over, Twilight," Celestia interrupted coolly.
This startled Twilight, and the rest heard this too and stop celebrating. "What'd you mean not over?" Applejack asked with a slight tinge of worry in her voice.
The princess turned round to look at them. "This was only the start…I fear more destruction from these 'Martians' is to happen sooner or later."
The others gasped. "W-What should we do?" Asked a nervous Fluttershy (which she always is.)
Celestia paused to look at Ponyville before continuing. "We can't take a chance, they'll attack soon…we have to leave."
Just like what the solider, Storm Speed, said, they had to escape town.
It was all very true. Though the ponies had won this battle, the story is far from over, and more terribly cheesy written chapters to follow!
Chapter 8
Licking The Wounds
Following they're surprise defeat at Ponyville, the Martians had retreated back to the craft, much to the surprise of the Handling machine Martians who were expecting the Fighting machine Martians to have taken over the town. Also returning to camp, Abaztard and Torno had had a rather boring retreat back to camp, then again no enemy was looking at them but the three remaining Fighting machines.
With the death of Ajax and Tonker, this should've been a time for mourning, but the Martians instead were complaining how stupid the two (and their co-pilots) were for getting killed in the first place. In fact, there wasn't even the hint of sadness whenever they talked about them.
"What was that idiot thinking?" Abaztard complained to Skippy, the Handling Machine Captain, about Tonker. "Thinking he could destroy a Goddess like that?"
"Goddess?" Skippy gasped, his black eyes widening. "Oh hell, we can't kill a God, even if we are the most war bread race in the universe!"
A small crowd had joined them in the conversation and agreed with Skippy about the situation. "If the bitch is there, we have no chance then."
"Doesn't make sense though," Torno piped in. "We were told that there isn't any evidence of Gods and Goddesses out there, so how the hell is there one here?"
Abaztard just stared at his friend and shook his head.'Doesn't make any sense? He repeated. "What does make any sense? We're on a planet with talking ponies! Oh sure that's normal (!)"
Nearby, Banjee was smoking on a rolled up piece of red weed, trying to make sense of the whole thing. "I don't know about you guys…but I know one thing that is most likely to happen."
The other Martians looked over at the junkie Martian. "Like what?" Asked Torno.
Banjee had another quick smoke before continuing. "That King Abanazer is going to have Wacko's ass for the loss of the battle."
A murmur of agreement followed. Since getting back to HQ, Wacko had gone back inside the craft to tell the King of the current situation. Many Martians would die in fear to tell the King after the loss of a battle, but Wacko had balls made of steel and would do anything for his team, surely an inspiration for Martians everywhere, too bad Martians don't go looking for inspirations.
"It's his own fault that Wacko got us into this," said a hollow voice behind the Martians. Looking back, there was the second in command, Ucker (again, another strange Martian name.)
Ucker was a big beefy Martian but had a scrawny face like a rat. The King had personally ordered for him to be part of the first team to head to Earth…well, mix up with the Planets of course. Of all the Martians in this group that everyone else hated, he stood up the top by a clear mile. But the thing was, he had done fuck all anything that was second-in-command-related.
During when Wacko had led the first attack on Ponyville, Ucker had gone out barking orders to the handling machine Martians to get their work done quickly while he was lie back on top of the craft and try and catch some rays of sunshine. Secretly, all the Martians wished he'd gone out and lead the attack on Ponyville, only because they knew he would most likely be killed first.
Even Wacko hated the bastard with his life. Back on Mars the two had more than just countless arguments, and the less said about the whole situation between them then the better.
"And what the hell would you know about anything?" Abaztard snapped at Ucker, the other Martians backing him up on it.
Ucker just gave them a small smuggest grin. "As the captain, he should take the responsibilities of endangering his Fighting machine team."
"ENDANGERING!" Torno roared, "Four of us are fucking dead back there! And all you do is order the Handling machine team to do stuff!"
The other Martians roared with approval. But Ucker remained stoned face.
XXX
While this was going on, Wacko had been inside of the craft having a conversation with the King via hologram imaging. And since dropping the bombshell of the defeat, things…hadn't gone too well.
"WHAT'D YOU MEAN, DESTORYED?" Abanazer roared at Wacko, the hologram image flickering at his rage.
Wacko bit his green tongue trying to think how he was going to get out of this one. "I don't know how to explain it…she did by, well…magic."
"MAGIC?" Abanazer snapped, maybe the captain Martian flinch slightly. "How can a damn squad of Fighting Machines be stopped by a magical pony? That's the worse excuse I've ever heard!"
Wacko tried to say something, but for the King, it was the last straw. "Captain Wacko…" Abanazer said coldly, his eyes narrowing at him. "The fact that you have failed simply the second stage of the operation is completely disgraceful to Martian-kind."
The Captain didn't reply; he just kept looking into blank space as the King kept speaking. "Already five more crafts are on their way to this planet, and I bet that they'll be a hell of a lot better than your squad…and when I get here, I shall personally give out a severe punishment for you…"
And with that, the King's image flickered off, leaving an uncomfortable silence in the room. Though this was broken when Wacko smashed two of his tentacles against a wall. "The bastard!" He cried, grinding his teeth in rage. Now he really had to rally his comrades together despite what had happened.
And with a heavy sigh, he made his way out of the craft to meet with the rest.
As he climbed out, the other Martians all turned to look at him, half expecting him to be looking like hell after receiving harsh words from the king. But what surprised them the most was that despite him looking rather shell shocked, he also looked pretty angry at whatever had gone on.
"Wacko!" Cried out Abaztard as Wacko climbed down the makeshift stepladder to the ground. "You ok? What's happened?"
Other Martians began asking him the same thing, but Wacko didn't look at any of them and instead kept shuffling his way forward to a large rock nearby. He climbed up on top and scanned over at the Martians all around the site.
"Comrades!" Wacko called out at them, causing every Martian to be silent. "To start of with…yes, the King hates me." His fellow troops murmured at the thought of this. "But listen, I need us all here to get this show back on the road…gather round, we need to talk."
Though confused, they follow the captain's words nevertheless. Wacko motioned Ucker to come towards him by his side on top of the rock. As they all gathered round, they began talking loudly to each other surprisingly, mostly about how shit they were in that battle. Wacko just kept looking at his team, shaking his head in disapproval at them.
Just then, Denzil's Martian cell phone went off. As Denzil answered it, Wacko suddenly marched towards him and grabbed the phone from him answering it himself. "WILL YOU FUCK OFF?" He shouted and threw the phone at the craft with such force that it broke in two. Thanks to this, he now had everyone's attention and shuffled back to the rock again.
He settled himself down on top of the rock and began. "…Right then, that along with the bad stuff now out of the way let's try and focus on some of the positive stuff then shall we?" He looked down at rather dim-witted looking Martian near the front, which happen to be Wacko's co-pilot for the heat ray.
The Martian, named Bastardo, tried to think of something. "Umm…well on the positive side, that magic that Pony did was bloody brilliant."
Other Martians murmured in agreement, much to Wacko's shock.
"And I'll tell you one thing though," Ucker added. "If that pony can do anything to take any race on, I bet there's no justice…three cheers for the ponies! Hip-hip…"
"Hooray!" Cried the others.
"Hip-hip!"
"Hoora—"
"SHUT UP!" Wacko roared, his face now red with anger. "Why you cheering on the bloody ponies for? They're the enemy!"
"Alright keep your tentacles on sir," Said a Martians near the front.
"Keep my tentacles on?" Wacko asked in anger. "No wonder the king's calling me a twat. I've heard the wife has left me, All of Mars hates me, others are already landing without us doing are part in this, and all you lot can do is say 'three cheers for the ponies!' It's a miracle I have any tentacles left!"
"No need to take that attitude," Ucker replied calmly, smoking a Martian cigar.
Wacko turned to look at his second-in-command in anger. "I'm going out my mind here! And what do you do when we lose four brave Martians? Oh yeah, you sit there having a smoke not caring what's going on around us! I damn well hope no Martian here is taken advice from you!"
Ucker raised an eyebrow bemused. "If you have anything else to say, now's your chance to let it all out."
Wacko suddenly seemed very keen. "Okay then, well a matter fact I will say a few things 'cause see you, you're a small minded bigot who does fuck all!" By this point he was now standing over him, which now Ucker stood up too, matching his height.
"Anything else?" He asked, now growing more cross as the conversation.
"Yes I do in a matter of fact! You could've gone out there with a squad to help out collect our fallen comrades out there, but you don't bloody well care! You're an absolute waste of space!"
Now Ucker looked completely pissed off at Wacko's comments about him. "And any last things to say?"
"Well yes I do have one thing to say," Wacko replied, still full of complete anger. "Remember sometime ago back on Mars when you bought me a Scout machine that you got at a bargain price? Well with ten breakdowns in the last year, it's an absolute fuckin' disgrace!"
Ucker remained stoned face as a brief moment of silence followed. "…Alright then…"
Then all of a sudden, he punched Wacko in the face, causing him to fall off the rock and many Martians to gasp and head over to help their captain. Ucker however simply walked off back to the craft.
Later on, Ucker was sacked from his position as second-in-command, leaving Wacko with a co-captain, and a beak broken in two places. Things just couldn't get worse for them.
And If They Could See Us Now!
Chapter 9
And If They Could See Us Now!
Though the Martians were licking they're wounds over the outcome of the battle, if they could only know what was going over back at Ponyville, they'd be kicking themselves at missing this chance at a great opportunity to get back at them. That time in the late afternoon as the sky starting to turn red, it was chaos in the town. Not that the Martians or any other random enemy had arrived to take over the town, but it was a scene of ponies scrambling all over the place with boxes, carts and luggage bags all carrying their belongs and such. The thing was, as ordered by Princess Celestia herself…Ponyville was being evacuated.
Even after such an unexpected win defeating the Martians, nopony was taking a chance that they wouldn't come back. Never before in Ponyville's history that the whole town was ever in a major evacuation, Pegasus ponies, along with personal belongings that they could take with them, were flying away from Ponyville. Some Unicorns, along with their own belongings, simply teleported away from the town, anywhere that had no Martians nearby. Most hopefully Canterlot would be safe. The other unicorns and Earth ponies however had to take the train out of Ponyville.
Indeed when the next train arrived at the station, the engine crew and fellow passengers on the train were stunned to see the station crowded with ponies with suitcases and such (literally anything that wasn't pinned down.) They had heard of the strange goings on outside of Ponyville but none of them expected the whole situation to be like this. These huge crowds caused delays for the train for about fifteen minutes, and when the train finally got going again, with the train now at full capacity, many more ponies were still left on the platform and some had been separated from their families who had gotten on that train.
Absolute chaos it was. And in the middle of that large crowd, Applejack and the rest of her family waited with the rest for the next train to come. Looking to her right, she could see Pinkie Pie (with the Cakes family) telling little Pound and Pumpkin Cake the story of the Martians. Though by the look of fear in the twin toddler's eyes as she told them the story so far and the look of annoyance on the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Pinkie wasn't making things any better for them.
For Applejack, it didn't help to try and think to herself with all the loud noise going on around her. Despite the fact these invaders from another planet seemed threatening, there was something rather bumbling, cumbersome and dare she'd say...quite amusing about them. Sure they could quite easily wipe out ponykind and take over the world, but the fact that from the way they were speaking to each other rather bitterly and how Celestia managed to hold them off causing them to retreat did made them seem rather…idiotic.
"Do ya'll think they'll be back soon?" Came the sound of Applebloom's voice, breaking Applejack's train of thought (no pun there of them being at a station implied!)
Along with Applejack, the rest of her family was leaving Ponyville. To many, it would seem like a rare event to leave Sweet Apple Acres behind like to perhaps an unknown fate and with them having to sell the many apples they had to pay for their living. Thankfully though this time of the year was the time when very little business was needed, though doubts still lingered in their minds about what could happen.
The older cowpony looked down at her younger sister with an uncertain expression. "…Haven't a clue, ah'm most worried about more comin', ah don't think this is the end, the start more like."
Applejack felt bad as her younger sister's face fell. "Hope ah'm wrong though…Celestia might know what ta do…Ah hope…"
After about five minutes of standing bunched up with countless other ponies and the danger of being split up from her siblings and Granny Smith, a train's whistle could be heard in the distance.
And almost at once, everypony on that platform began to try and push forward in that crowd to get to the front to try and be the first to get on that train. Applejack cursed under her breath as somepony nearly knocked her to the ground. From the side she could hear a few grunts and shouting going on, and this wasn't for the rush for the train.
Looking to see what it was, Pinkie Pie was doing her trademark bounce over the sea of heads. Though she seemed excited that the train was coming, Applejack could see the other ponies were shouting out to her to get to the back of the queue.
Then again, it's nearly the end of the world and this is Pinkie Pie of course, who is going to listen to anyone during this period of darkness for Equestria?
While the big rush to find a place on a one way ticket out of Ponyville was going on (that's if they never going back…well, looks like it) that from hiding in a stupid large fake bush, that the two Martian spies watched the scene taking place. To them, it looked like the ponies were retreating and gave them a chance to come back from what had happened.
"Are you seeing this, Torno?" Asked a stunned Abaztard, looking through a pair of binoculars.
Torno tentacle-palmed. "You know I can't without the binoculars dumnass."
His fellow spy snorted at him, he never wanted to feel outclassed by Torno in any situation, big or small. "Fine…here." He gave him the binoculars as Torno began looking from a distance of what was going on in the town. For a few moments as Abaztard observed, Torno was silent as he kept on looking, then a small grin appeared on his beak as he put the binoculars down before turning to Abaztard.
"What'd ya think?" Abaztard remarked as he turned his gaze back to Ponyville.
"From defeat to…maybe, victory?" Torno replied with a tinge of optimism in his voice.
Abaztard thought for a moment scratching his dark beak. "…It's worth a darn good shot with all of these ponies leaving town like that. This could give us a golden opportunity, and can perhaps save Wacko before it's curtains for him." He shuddered at the thought at what the king could do with him (And seriously, any punishment worse than death is a trip to the Martian sexual torture department…)
The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before nodding with each other.
"C'mon," Abaztard motioning Torno to follow him. "I think the tables are about to turn for us now!"
Without the need of being asked twice, Torno quickly followed his fellow spy back to the camp. "And if they could see us now…!" Torno thought excitedly to himself.
XXX
Back at the camp, the gloomy atmosphere surrounded the camp. Those from the last battle were scattered around the camp keep their distance from each other thinking that they were to blame. Even those who had been working on the handling machines had stopped work and instead were drinking some of the alcoholic beverages that were on board the ship.
They knew they should've been going hammer and tongs on those handling machines, but it was really all just pointless really after that last battle, they might've just gone home…then again about Mars…yeah.
But if any Martian felt the most miserable, it was undoubtedly Wacko. His plans for a quick takeover were now all but in pieces. There he was slouched up beside the craft looking downwards, a truly depression sight if you were rooting for the Martians after all this time…as if!
Shuffling along to him, was a young Martian named Knock-Knock (who's real name is Knockemdown, but proved to be a bit of a tongue twister for Martians, so they gave him that nick-name.) The young Martian felt sorry for his captain after what he had been put through in the space of a few hours it seemed.
"Hey, sorry about all this" Knock-Knock piped up, trying to get Wacko's attention.
The Martian captain slowly drew his head up to look at the smaller Martian. "Nah, don't be sorry about this, you've nothing to blame yourself on."
"But we must've feel bad though," Knock-Knock interrupted. "There's always a way, sir…don't how or when, but it can…" He paused midsentence, staring at something in distance.
Wacko tilted his head to the side at why the smaller Martian had stopped. He then he turned round to see what had caught the smaller Martian's attention. Squinting his eyes to get a better look, he could see two dark figures running towards the camp.
His eyes suddenly shot open wide and jumped up from his spot running over to the center of the camp. "Quick! Some guys are heading this way!" he barked out around him. Without being asked twice, the other Martians quickly hid behind nearby rocks with the intention that they would ambush whoever was heading their way.
As the two figures got nearer, they were surprised to see it was none other than the two spies. It is rather funny to mention that no Martian sitting around the camp earlier noticed Abaztard and Torno sneaking out. One by one, the Martians emerged out of their hiding spaces with rather confused looks on all their faces, especially at why the two spies had excited looks on their faces.
"You two!" Wacko snapped angrily. "Where the hell you two been running off like that?"
"Only to bring the good news from the town!" Abaztard pouted proudly.
Other Martians looked at each other trying to make out what Abaztard was trying to say. "What good news?" Said a Martian on top of a Handling Machine. "We're fucked as it is!"
"Yeah, they're probably havin' a party or somethin'!" Added Knock-Knock angrily.
"All wrong though you are though!" Torno retorted quickly. "We saw from our own eyes that they are all retreating from the town by their transport, this is a damn good chance now to take the town!"
Silence fell all around the site, not even a pin drop could be heard. Then nearly every Martian's eyes fell upon Wacko, all expecting for him to come up with something. They could all see his back was turned away from them as he looked into blank space, deep in thought.
The atmosphere strangely turned to full of tension, like on some talent show when they vote of someone on TV…but that's nothing to do with the story. Then after about a minute of silence, Wacko turned to look at fellow comrades with a little grin on his beak.
"Guys…you all want to win?" He boomed to all around him, with hearty cheers following his words. "Want to give these ponies an ass kicking?" More cheering followed. "Then don't stand about then, this show is now back on the road!"
This time a thunderous chorus of cheering and whooping followed with some Martians hugging each other. Wacko then shuffled over to the spies, who in turned always felt a sense of hope and glory that seemed almost inedible. "It's time to take over this planet." Wacko said with a slight swagger in his voice.
Finally, some decent plot twist at last!
XXX
Back at the station in Ponyville, as soon as the train literally halted the scramble into the coaches was so crazy that it nearly caused them to fall of the track and on to their left side. Despite the uncomfortable situations that everypony in that train were in, thankfully the last of them, along with their luggage, were on board and ready to get out off here.
Applejack was budged up with Applebloom with Granny Smith sitting next to a Purple stallion sitting near the window, who was looking quite uptight and Granny Smith's random comments weren't making things trouble-free. The train's whistle could be heard and the train began to slowly move it's way out of the station, much to the relieve of the passengers on board who cheered happily to be getting away. Though their was a hint of sadness in the air, true, they were getting away from the invaders, but they were leaving their homes behind, not knowing what the Martian's were planning for them.
The train began to pick up speed as it began its journey to Canterlot. Then came a loud deep hooting sound that made everypony's blood turn to ice.
"UUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA!"
The chatter on the train was reduced to silence as though they had never heard of that sound before; they all had a good guess of where it was from.
The ground began shaking at times, like giant hoofsteps, and they all knew what that was!
"They're coming back!" Cried a Mare's voice from the back of the coach. They all looked towards the right windows and gasped in shock at what lay before them. In late afternoon with the sun nearly down over the horizon with the sky a glowing red, three giant black silhouettes tripods with their ghostly green bug-like eyes were heading into Ponyville. Then everypony's attention was rapidly drawn to what was following behind the tripods. They could all see five squat metallic spider-like machines that were more ground based, but still had those intimidated green eyes like the tripods. These machines had huge claws and one of the machines did a strange gesture with its claws.
Of course we know ponies don't have fingers and would not know what this gesture would mean, though those who knew who were there, would see that it was merely 'flipping the bird' at the train.
The tripod at the front, with Wacko and his co-pilot, swung his fighting machine around to aim at the train. The Martian captain could only put on a sinister grin and a chuckle. "See you in hell," he muttered coldly as he aimed his heat ray at the train.
Then his co-pilot pulled the trigger…
Nothing happened.
He tried again…
Nothing.
"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Wacko roared into the PA system that his voice could be heard all around. "Those fucking Europa made batteries for the heat ray are dead. Absolute shit they are!"
"Should we just go for the town instead?" Banjee's voice could be heard through Wacko's radio system.
Wacko sighed disappointedly. "Very well then, have some fun then."
And with that said, the other two fighting machines began to fire their heat rays at all the buildings, turning the town into a bowl of fire. From the handling machines, Abaztard and Torno watched the spectacle with a large bucket of Martian popcorn.
"Now isn't that an award winning destruction?" Abaztard said happily to Torno.
"Damn right it is!" Torno replied before eating some more popcorn. At last it seemed, the tables were finally turned in the Martian's favor. Torno swallowed his popcorn before looking at Abaztard. "All we need now is some fireworks and some hot chicks doing pole vaulting!"
"POLE DANCING!"
Chapter 10
Revoked
After what could be said to be some rather silly or bad starts to their mission, the Martians of this division finally had to ball rolling with the invasion. If Abanazer the Martian king could see how these Martian fighters were taking the mission on, he would probably would say that only an idiot couldn't tell these were the Martians from before…then again the king is an idiot so no surprise there then. Anyway with the story, last time we saw the Martians they were laying Ponyville to waste, and now…they were doing pretty much the same thing…yeah.
The once happy and peaceful setting of the town once called Ponyville was now a hellhole with the orange flames burning furiously in the black of the night. Martians viewing from the ground couldn't help but celebrate that they had destroyed something such as hugging each other, throwing their snakes and drinks into the air…much like how Scotland football (soccer to Americans) fans rejoice when they get a corner kick, showing how desperate they are to win something. Nevertheless after what these bastard creatures had been put through, you couldn't really blame them to be honest.
Meanwhile, the lucky pony survivors on that train were now hurtling their way to Canterlot, none of them couldn't even have the courage to look back at had been once their home, little did they know that things were about to get more awful for them, but let's not talk about spoilers now.
In his Fighting Machine, Wacko raised the back leg of his machine to stamp it down on to the ground three times to gain the attention of his fellow comrades. As he expected, he caught the attention of the others as they stopped what they were doing.
"Alright guys!" He called on them on the machine's PA system cheerfully. "I'm proud of you guys, now that we captured this strategic point, I can now state to the king that we are ready for the next stage of our operation!"
UUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
The two other tripods roared out in pride, an echo that could make any poor fellow deaf on their ears. "In the meantime, take a break then." Wacko expressed to them as he punched in a few buttons to try and contact the king. At last he was presenting some good news for once. After a considerable waiting time of a ringing call on his hologram screen (like the earth version of a Skype call).
"Ah work you useless—"
"What'd you want?!" Cried an angry Abanazer as his image appeared on the screen. Wacko's black eyes widened as his king's appearance. He could see in the background that the call was being answered from what seemed to be Abanazer's bedroom, but that wasn't what Wacko seemed shocked at. Across the king's face there seemed to be white stains, you'll get it later…
Wacko gulped apprehensively before carrying on the talk. "Erm, sorry to be talking to you at this time…but I have some good news for you!"
"Well it better be good!" Abanazer snorted putting on his 'pout' face. "I was having a foreplay session with the—"
"Please don't say it," Wacko interrupted waving a tentacle, looking quite uncomfortable at what had been going on prior to his call. "Anyway…the good news is that the ponies here are on the run and we've captured the town here and are ready for our next objective!"
The King remained quiet for a few seconds at what Wacko said to him. Then he raised a small smile on his beak. "Well, very good work captain," he congratulated Wacko calmly.
The Martian captain felt a huge relive being lifted of his back; clearly finishing this part that had haunted him and his troops for so long was like knocking a monkey of the bat.
"…Though now you have no more objectives in this operation now." The King added cruelly with a wicked grin that had replaced his smile.
At once Wacko's heart stopped and his blood ran cold as those words came out. "S-sir?" Wacko asked stuttering. "Wh-what you talking about?"
Abanazer rolled his eyes as the image of him flickered at bit (this is a long distance call remember…VERY long distance call.) "Oh, don't tell me you've forgotten now? "
"What? The failure before?" Wacko piped up, with the idea only starting to dawn on him now.
"Right on the money you are," Abanazer replied with a smirk. "Because of your incompetence earlier on in this week where you are, I grew tidy of this waiting for you and decided that the second squad landing where you are shall take your place and carry on leading the way on the invasion, and as we speak are on their way to their next objective."
The captain was shocked and speechless; he couldn't even utter out any words. And just when he was about to say something, the king cut him off again, this time, with the bombshell that sealed it for Wacko.
"Oh, and one other thing, with what's happened, your title of captain is now revoked, you are now longer of any use for me, good night where you are." And with that, the screen cut, only a millisecond before Wacko went berserk in his cockpit with him flaring his tentacles violently (while nearly harming his poor old co-pilot) and cursing such words that were of such profanity that even Gordon Ramsey would say that is too much swearing.
Unfortunately, the words from Wacko could be heard on his radio system as he had by accident bashed the 'on' button after flaring his tentacles like that. After about a minute of him making a display of himself, silence was the only thing to be heard and his co-pilot look scared beyond believe as he saw Wacko's face completely red with anger and tears in his eyes. Not to mention that in the other machines that the other Martians sat in stunned silence too at what had just happened.
After a period of silence, Wacko limped his tripod away from the fire of Ponyville towards a safe distance away. "Captain?" Asked Banjee worriedly on his radio, "Is something wrong?"
Wacko's fighting machine stopped and the legs lowered to ground level, to the other Martians, he was getting out. The two other Tripods did the same thing and the spectators of Martians ran over to see what was wrong with their captain…or former captain at this point, not that they knew.
As every Martian there got nearer to him, they were stunned to see him look so heart broken, his co-pilot looking rather much the same as he was the only one there who knew what had gone on.
"Captain?" Came the voice of Torno. "What's wrong?"
Wacko slowly turned to look at them with a heart broken expression written all over his face. "Sorry guys…you can't call me 'captain' anymore."
Everyone began chatting loudly among each other at what he meant. "Then…what? What happened?" Asked Abaztard nearby looking concerned.
Wacko drew in a shaky breath as everyone else went silent. "I've…I've had my title of captain stripped from me. Our duties have been passed on to the second group who landed here."
At once a roar of anger could be heard from his fellow comrades as to what happened to Wacko and why that had caused him to snap in this tripod. Many Martians could be heard saying things of how outraged they were.
"Disgraceful!"
"That bastard king!"
"Wacko's the best!
"I like cupcakes!" (Ok, I don't know who said that there…)
Torno shuffled on towards his former captain placing a tentacle around him. "Look, man. We're all on the same boat here…hell, I'd think I'd rather pack it my job for what he's done to you."
"And me," added Abaztard shuffling forward too. "No Martian should ever be left behind on any mission. We're going to catch up with the others and show what we're really made off!"
A large cheer was heard as they all supported their captain to the very end. Wacko now suddenly felt he could really do it and take over this planet himself. "Alright boys. The rest, get to the handling machines, we've got a long journey ahead of us to follow their trail!"
And with that, this band of now outcast Martians followed Wacko's orders. Though they didn't know where they were heading, they would be heading to Canterlot…the key to capturing Equestria.
What ever could go wrong…?
What The Hell Just Happened?
Chapter 11
What the hell just happened?
In the event of when a Martian captain's status is revoked, what were they suppose to do? That's right kids, get their revenge by carrying on their mission and kick the guy's ass that stripped him or her (Well, they are male like but have no gender you can say) of their title. In summery, Abanazer has another thing coming! A.K.A, have his ass handed to him, even though Martians don't have an ass but that's besides the point.
The now title stripped Wacko sat on top of a lowered fighting machine's body watching the last of the fires of the now deceased Ponyville fade away as the sun rose over the horizon (Celestia remember boys and girls!) Though they successfully reduced the town to a pile of rubble and ash, the motley group of Martians were still behind the rest of the other Martian groups that were landing across all over Equestria, all of which were heading to Canterlot to the attempt to capture the city and take over the known world there. How any of them were to find the capital city if none of them knew where to go you may ask. Simple, thanks to some lazy plot connivance; they simply followed signposts to the city.
…Yay…Really, it's such a no brainer when you think about it for a moment.
Despite heading the right way to the Equestrian capital city, Wacko's faulty Tripod broke down and the great parade of Martian machinery were all but grounded to a halt as several Martians attempted to fix the Fighting Machine back to working condition. With his Tripod out of action for the time being, Wacko sat there on top of the hood of the machine and wondered how his 'group' of Martians could join up with the rest at Canterlot without turning up last and being a laughing stock to their fellow rival platoons of Martians.
Behind him, the motley gang of Martians stood there all waiting to get going again. They all sat on top of the hoods like Wacko, some reading a Martian Newspaper, some taking a smoke of red weed to put their minds at rest (Banjee doing that certain role mostly!)
As the team of Martian workers continued to hammer away, trickles of green steam began rising out of the air ducts. Wacko's heart seem to stop upon seeing this
"What'd you do!?" Wacko cried as he scrambled over to look at from where the steam was rising.
A few worker Martians there looked up fearfully at Wacko (who looked pissed off as always) and gave him a few nervous looks. "Um…well, you see…" One worker tried to explain.
"It's overheated," Said another Martian bluntly, who didn't look so scared like the rest.
"Overheated!" cried out Tango (Wacko's co-pilot and a rather chubby looking Martian). "Then why don't you chuck a bucket of water over it?"
Wacko snarled angrily of how things were not getting easier for them. "We haven't got a bucket of water you daft shit head!"
"Look!" yelled out a voice from one of the Fighting Machines. All Martians turned to look where the voice was coming from. That voice came from Torno, sitting on top of one of the Handling Machines. They all noticed that he was pointing up into the air with his tentacle.
Looking up, they couldn't believe their eyes. Up in the sky, dressed in tight blue spandex, were fifteen Pegasus ponies, both male and female, heading towards the Martians. Though they didn't know who these strange ponies were, we the readers will know that they were none other than the Wonderbolts.
Well really, it's not a surprise as they are called on to protect Equestria…even if they are the worse for bottling it, such as when that Dragon attacked Ponyville…Still, nice for a cheap cameo for this story I suppose.
"What the hell they'd think they're playing at?" Asked Abaztard cocking an eyebrow, thinking that the Wonderbolts were about to pull of a Kamikaze dive on them.
Torno shook his head thinking of how stupid this seemed. "Don't ask me, but if I were you, I'd burn them all to hell."
Abaztard's face suddenly lit up. "Hang on, I've got an idea!" He used his tentacles to rise up on top of the hood (standing at a rather scary thirty feet tall) as he attempted to call over to Wacko from afar.
"Hoi!" He called out to Wacko, who for some reason managed to pick up what the spy was trying to say.
"Yeah, what?" The former captain replied looking down on them.
"If I were you, I'd shoot 'em to hell!" Abaztard replied, replaying his fellow spies' words in his head, much to the annoyance of Torno who felt quite cheated by that.
Wacko thought about it very quickly (a fraction of a second if you ask me) then he smiled. "Alright then."
"What's alright?" Said a nervous Tango who was keeping his gaze on the Wonderbolts getting ever so closer to Martians.
"Is the heat ray working?" Wacko asked with some hope in his voice.
"Huh? It's conked out like the rest, right?" Tango replied stupidly.
Wacko rolled his eyes. "No you Muppet! That was a working question for you! You do know that heat rays are not powered to the engine but have their own electric source that works separately."
His co-pilot eyeballed him and put on a rather strange poker face. "…Then why you asking me a question like—"
"Never mind! Just get outta the way!" And with that he pushed Tango out of the way (and nearly off the hood) and entered a small hatch into the cockpit.
Just as he expected, the heat ray weapon was still working humming quietly, and Wacko prepared to aim at the charging ponies. First he raised the Tripod of the ground to it's full size, with several voices from the working Martians asking one another to what was going on. Meanwhile in the cockpit, thanks to the automatic tracking system, Wacko was able to select all the Wonderbolts on target. A small smile crept onto Wacko's face as he kept an eye on the charge meter, waiting until it was at full power.
On the outside, Tango's voice could be heard. "Erm…they're getting—"
"Hang on!" Wacko called out as a beeping noise was heard, the sound that the heat ray was working. "Leave it to me!"
And with those words, he pulled on the trigger. A blind flash of orange filled the air as the heat ray fired. It fired with such a force that the tripod rocked back slightly (with several of the Martians working on his tripod to nearly fall off.) It was perhaps a good thing that Wacko had laid on the automatic firing system as the intense orange glow blinded him and everyone else around them.
The Wonderbolts barely had enough time to react to the heat ray, let alone get out of the way. A mad five seconds followed as the orange glow died down. When they could finally see what had happened, the Wonderbolts had become small pieces of ash that simply fell from the air.
"Good heavens…" gasped a shocked Tango as he joined Wacko in the cockpit, his gaze never leaving a where the Wonderbolts had been through the eye windows on the Fighting Machine.
"What'd you mean 'good heavens'?" asked Wacko as he looked over to Tango then back to the falling ash, making his eyes widen at how well that shot was. "…Good heavens."
And yes readers, the Wonderbolts had finally bottled it this time on a grand scale, one that they won't be forgetting in a hurry…wait…
Suddenly a roar like a truck's engine energizing could be heard in the Fighting Machine as various lights inside the cockpit flashed into life. Looking behind them, one of the worker Martians poked his head through the hole in the top. "Good news, sir. We're ready to go!"
"Well done comrade, let's get going!" Wacko replied happily as he placed the Fighting Machine into first gear. He was so fired up (no pun intended as always) that his machine was working again, that he had already forgotten about the worker Martians still on top of the hood.
As they moved off, the suddenly shake caused most of them to lose their balance (no health and safety here!) and fall off the top of the Fighting Machine screaming to their deaths. Rather cruelly, no other Martian had noticed this and carried on following Wacko on their journey to Canterlot.
When the poor Martians fellow to the ground, all that was left of them was a few puddles of green blood and guts scattered all around. It become more worse for the poor dead Martians that the giant claw like feet of the Machines crushed their bodies even more, some even became stuck to the soles of the feet as they went on.
No chance for an open state funeral for them it would be easy enough to say.
About five minutes after they went on they're way again, a few Martians in their cockpits squinted their eyes as they could just see in the far distance what seemed like faint towers.
All at once it seemed, Every Martian seem to know what was in the distance and in the moment, Wacko grabbed hold of his PA system and called over to the other Martians. "Guys, in front of you is that city. And if we can sack the city, that's where we can become heroes!"
His words were met with a few hearty cheers from the others. Though they might be cheering now and thinking of hope and glory, little do they know that they will be in for a little surprise when they get there…
…Such as in that moment with Wacko's Fighting Machine breaking down again…Oh those Europa made batteries…
Martian And Pony (Part 1)
Chapter 12
Martian And Pony (Part 1)
Last time we saw our Martian friends, Wacko's breakable Fighting Machine could only walk about for about a mile until it stopped. On one such moment with his Tripod, a large flock of Wonderbolts charged at the Martians in a last ditch attempt to stop them. If only they had read the script to this story and knew what Heat Rays could do, they were reduced to nothing but piles of ash that drifted gently down to the ground. Probably the worse Kamikaze attack in the history of anything.
Thankfully, Wacko's machine started working again and they were soon on their way to Canterlot…only for the tripod to pack in again. To say by this point that the former squad leader was pissed off at the highest was probably the biggest 'no shit' moment ever. Those Europa made batteries had been the bane of the Martian's lives and had been a terrible running joke throughout this story, however, instead of trying to bring the battery back to life, they instead replaced it with back up Titan batteries.
The Titan batteries were not meant for the machines and were only used to power other parts such as power for temporary bases and such. But as these Europa batteries were getting on the Martian's tits, they couldn't stand it much more. Unlike the Europa type, the Titan batteries worked like a dream and from then on, there were no further breakdowns for the Martians.
And so they followed the rail tracks that they presumed led to the city of Canterlot. Inside one of the Handling Machines, Torno and Abaztard were sitting towards the rear of the machine having a secret conversation with one another.
"I still feel pretty bad about him though," Torno said to his fellow spy (by the way have any of you noticed that they've hardly done any spy work in this story?) "I mean, he's been put through hell at this rate from the King and all."
Abaztard shook his head. "True, but if it weren't for all this crazy shit that's happened to us since we got here, It would've been all hunky-dory and the mission would've been much easier."
Torno grunted agreeing with him as he slowly looked over to the driver of the Machine following the other Martian Machines. All of a sudden, something dawned on him and looked back at Abaztard, who was heading over to the front to take a seat near the front.
"Wait a second…' Torno muttered.
"Huh? What's up now?" Replied the other Martian spy.
Torno opened his beak but then closed it and shook his large cranium head, as it was nothing. "Sorry, nothing at all."
Abaztard didn't buy the reaction. "Look man, no point lying, I can see something's up with you. Go on and spill it out."
Torno bit his bottom beak and sighed. Like himself, being a spy, Abaztard was great at acting all Hawkeye around reactions, then again this is a spy trick that Torno, being the slight dumbass as he is, had forgotten about.
"Fine alright," Torno growled slightly in defeat. "It's a bit crazy mind, don't think that…well…"
"Go on," Abaztard encouraged his friend.
Torno looked over towards the pilot area, then back towards his fellow spy. "Well…have you noticed that since we got here…we've had fuck all to do here? Surely the King would've given us something to do like investigating the surroundings and such."
Following the words that came out of Torno, silence filled the inside of that Handling Machine, the sound being that of the mechanical devices working flat out. Then after that short bout of silence, in which Abaztard thought over at what Torno's notion was about.
"…Now that you've mentioned it…" Abaztard muttered. "King Abanazer hasn't really given us anything to do, and the only thing that we did do was by Wacko himself. Was the king trying to…surely not, really?"
The other spy sighed as he turned round and started shuffling along (the heavy gravity of this planet really effecting them) towards the front. Was Abazaner's plan was to get the spies killed on this mission? He only hoped that he was only a brain fart moment he was having with that theory.
Suddenly, the machine started vibrating and became worse and worse by every second.
"The hell?" Came the voice of the Handling Machine pilot.
"What's happening?!" Cried out a voice on the radio from one of the Handling Machines.
Quickly, the two spies sprinted towards the front to take a look through the green bug-like eye windows. Through the window they could see that the other machines had stopped and that they were shaking too from the vibration from all around them.
An earthquake?
Suddenly, there was a loud sonic boom that echoed across the land, and looking up, there in the sky…was another Martian space craft roaring through the sky as it left a trail of fire and a greenish mist behind it. However the Abaztard and Torno, this wasn't just yet another Martian cylinder, this craft was much larger than the others that had already landed previously. They knew that this was a special type, and it could only mean one thing…
As the craft roared overhead and headed westwards towards a mountain range, the vibrations in the ground became less and less as the spaceship went further away from them. The Handling Machine pilot watched the Martian spaceship head towards the horizon and turned to face the two spies.
"Well, looks like more reinforcements are on the way," he informed them, but was surprised to see that Abaztard and Torno had their bottom beaks hanging down in shock. "Err, guys? What's the matter?"
"…That's not more reinforcements," Abaztard uttered in shock.
"He's here," Torno added, their eyes kept fixed on that craft. "…The king has landed."
XXX
While the Martians seem to be taking up this story, you'll be pleased to hear that we now head over back to our pony friends. By this point, it seemed that everpony from the south and west had all evacuated to Canterlot. By the way off topic here, but with Canterlot being built right in the centre of Equestria, with no disrespect here to it's creators, but it's surely a bad idea to be built there? After all, it is kind of is an easy target for enemies. Then again who cares? The Martians will prove this theory hopefully.
All around Canterlot, the evacuated ponies could at least at this point have a chance to calm down and have a chance to reunite with love ones that they would've been split in the retreat to Canterlot. Thankfully boys and girls, you'll be pleased to hear that, by the author being too lazy to write for this part, the Mane six and Spike had managed to reunited with each other.
Whoopee-fucking-do.
Another interesting point to note was that once again, the captain of the guard, Shining Armor, had placed up the large pink protective sphere just like during the Royal wedding. No doubt guessing that they were preparing to face of the Martians…but after seeing how weak it was during the Royal wedding, which we all know what happened then, one could probably be asking themselves how it'll work this time. Ah well, guess it does help keep the population of Canterlot calm from invading Martians from another planet.
"Everypony line up!" Cried out the voice of Shining Armor as he walked along one of the castle walls with a large number of royal guards all lining up on command and preparing to defend the city.
On a rather blundering note of Shining's part, he hadn't a clue of what his troops of swords and plate armor would be up against. They had heard rumours of giant tripod machines and strange brown creatures that were said to have the faces of an asshole. Nevertheless it was at least a good thing to try and make a stand to these invaders.
"Shining!" Yelled out a female voice from the ground. As the white unicorn looked down, there was his sister Twilight Sparkle and her friends, all of them looking worried.
Upon seeing them, he quickly rushed down the steps to join them. "Twily," Shining uttered tenderly as he embraced his sister into a tight hug. "After I heard about what happened to Ponyville—"
"Wait what?" Twilight interrupted as she pulled away giving her brother a confused expression, the others behind her giving similar looks. "What's happened?"
Shining Armor sighed sadly. "I'm sorry but…we got word here that Ponyville…was razed to the ground. Nothing remains...I'm sorry."
The Mane six and Spike gasped in horror. Fluttershy and Rarity burst into tears (which Spike, also being shocked and upset, held Rarity close to him), Rainbow Dash and Applejack freaked out and Pinkie Pie's puffy pink mane became deflated and she went into her sadder state. Twilight Sparkle could only remain speechless as her eyes went wide as dinner plates.
"Ponyville…gone?" She uttered in disbelieve, still coming to grips with the truth.
"I'm sorry," Shining replied sadly with a mournful look on his face. "What's more important thankfully is that you're here and safe."
The purple unicorn then looked up along the castle wall and gazed at the row of royal guard ponies waiting to fight.
She quickly turned her gaze down at her brother. "Are they all here for the-?"
"Yes," Shining corrected, he himself also turning round to admire the impressive array of troops.
The others all looked at each other in horror. "They can't be here for that!" Twilight gasped.
"What'd you mean?" Shining asked in a slight worrying manner.
"They have these giant three legged machines that can pick up ponies and bash them against trees!" Twilight informed.
"I've hearing a lot about those tripod things," Shining agreed in a slightly doubtful manner. "What are these…'Martians' like?" he said with an emphasis on the word 'Martians'.
"Ugly looking things!" Rainbow Dash said out loud.
"Huge!" Applejack added.
"Such ugly brutes!" Rarity said in her typical dramatic way by placing her forehoof on the side of her face.
"One was even having a shave!" Pinkie Pie called out looking scared. The others though all looked back at her and gave her perhaps the best 'wtf?' looks that you could ever hope to see. 'Huh? Didn't anypony noticed that back at—"
"Captain!" Yelled a male voice, interrupting Pinkie Pie's story. The voice belonged to a sergeant guard pony. He quickly rushed up to Shining Armor before taking a few gasps of air from his running. This stallion was a red stallion Earth pony along with a white mane and blue eyes…just saying that for those readers who like to know everything.
"What's the matter?" Shining Armor inquired.
"The Martians!" The sergeant cried. "Six thousand of their…tripod things…are coming this way!"
The captain of the guard remained calm despite what he heard, though he did have a burning question for the sergeant stallion. "Wait, what about the Wonderbolts we sent?"
"Missing," the red stallion uttered sadly and lowered his head.
Behind Shining Armor, the others could only listen in dismay at what they had heard, six thousand of these machines, all heading towards Canterlot? Only a handful of them simply wiped out Ponyville. They had either their hearts in their mouths or had their insides turned into ice. And for Rainbow Dash, the thought of the Wonderbolts, her great idols, all wiped out perhaps seemed almost unthinkable.
For the white unicorn there, he remained at ease and shook of any worries and doubts that he might've had. "Sergeant," He said coolly. "How long do you think they'll be here?"
The sergeant bit his bottom lip and looked up towards the large amount of troops standing alongside of the wall waiting for the invaders. "Not sure…they probably be here within the next fifteen minutes roughly speaking."
Shining nodded calmly, seriously though, how the hell can he be so calm with the planet on the verge of falling for the Martians? Maybe he's just trying to look cool in front of the ladies…even though he's a married stallion, but hey-ho.
"Well get up there and join the rest!" Shining ordered pointing up at the wall.
"Aye sir!" the sergeant said and quickly ran up the stairs to join his fellow troops.
Shining then turned round at the already revolted looking set of friends. "Now then, I want to get to the—"
"You idiot!" Twilight snapped and started shaking her older brother angrily. "You don't understand what you're up against!"
At once, Shining drew back from his sister with his facial expression being one of irritation. "Listen girls!" He ordered
"And guy," Spike added stingily.
"I want you to get a hold of the elements of harmony," Shining continued. "I'm not sure they'll be needed, but use them as our backup."
A sonic boom filled the air and everypony looked up towards the heavens to see another Martian cylinder racing towards the west, just about ten miles it seemed away from the city. Shining promptly looked back at the others. "Also, make sure Cadence, Celestia and Luna are safe."
Strangely to him, the seven friends looked at each other with great reluctance, all of them thinking that this battle for the city was already lost. "Do I make myself clear?!" He snapped, causing them to uttered several unwilling agreements and started running towards the castle part in the city.
With them now gone, Shining hurriedly rushed the stairs to join his fellow troops. "Alright stallions of Canterlot!" He called out. "Today is for us to fight like never before, no matter whoever they are, we'll show them what the might of Equestria can do!"
After his short rallying cry, every solider stallion remained silent as they waited for the Martians.
They waited…
…
…
And they waited…
…
…
…
They waited even more.
The tension was almost unbearable. Many of these stallions (or anyone else who lived in Canterlot) knew nothing about what these Martians were like. Through the protective shield they had protecting the city, nothing out there could be seen out there on the green fields that surrounded the city.
Had the Martians planned for a sneak attack?
Had the Martians gotten lost?
Had the Martians found some sexy looking alien girls and started having an almighty orgy with them?
…Ok probably the latter was unlikely, but you get the idea. Meanwhile up watching from the balcony, the three alicorn princesses all looked down below them.
"Do we have a chance?" Luna asked her older sister.
Celestia closed her eyes and sighed sadly. "...Impossible to say."
But there has to be a way!" Cadence replied with a tinge of hopefulness in her voice. "Equestria can't just fall to these creatures from…"
She stopped when she felt the ground vibrating slightly and the added sound of machines in the distance.
And no prizes to guess who it was.
Down below along the city walls, Shining armor drew up his stallions to be ready for the Martian's arrival. Then in the distance and walking closer to them slowly, there they could six thousand Fighting Machines and Handling Machines all lining up preparing to take the city by force.
Now Shining Armor felt within as he saw the monstrous machines standing side by side by each other. The troops began murmuring to each other, thinking that the sight of the giant machines made them want to retreat. "Hold your ground!" Shining ordered in an attempt to…well, hold ground their ground.
With the Martians now all lined up, the commanding Martian in his Fighting Machines gazed at the city and it's strange looking purple sphere. "How puny," The commanding Martian muttered to himself. Then he grabbed his radio microphone and prepared for the first battle.
He took one last look at the city before yelling into the radio set. "Alright boys, those in the front line, OPEN FIRE! "
And with that said, the tripods in the front row began firing their heat rays towards the purple shield to test to see how strong it really was. Much to their surprise on both sides, the heat ray attacks simply were absorbed into the shield like water.
For a minute, the Martians continually firing on all cylinders trying to break down the so call 'puny shield' that the commanding Martian had said not so long ago. They kept going, but many of them could see that this wasn't getting them anywhere.
"CEASE FIRE! " The commanding Martian barked out towards his fellow comrades. Almost immediately, they stopped and for the Ponies, it was nothing short of a rest bite for them. They could at least say that they had the upper hand during the first part of the battle.
The commanding Martian sat in his cockpit pondering what to try next. Then he had an idea. "Handling Machines!" He barked out through the radio microphone, this time to the Handling Machines pilots. "Head up that purple shield thing try and break it down up close!"
Just as he ordered, the Handling Machines started snaking their way through the tripods long legs and headed out towards the city. Now the ponies should've been bracing themselves for the smaller machines arrival, however their attention was caught by something that was happening towards their left.
There in the distance, was another squad of Martian machines heading to fall in with the rest of the lined up Martians. For the readers, our old hero Martians, Wacko's lot, had finally turned up, though they were about to turn the battle on it's head.
In his cockpit, Wacko could finally breath a sigh of relive that they had arrived. Just as he was preparing to line however, something went wrong with his Tripod.
It wouldn't stop!
The Titan batteries they had replaced for the power source for the machine had proved to be too powerful and now was on a collision course with the protective shield. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Wacko muttered in a panic as he tried every device in that cockpit to try and stop it…not even using the most obvious thing, the break, could help.
By now, the other Martians could see the runaway tripod, but assumed it was a rouge troop gone mad.
"I said Handling Machines you fucking nut case!" The commanding Martian yelled out.
But it was no use. The Handling Machines heading towards Canterlot could only look up and try and get out of the way as Wacko's tripod was aiming on a collision course. Seeing just the purple shield in front of him, Wacko shut his eyes and braced himself for impact.
Then with a glass shattering sound, the tripod crashed through the shield and crashed into the mountain face, covering the area in a cloud of dust. The shield now had been broken into thousands of glass like pieces that fell all around the ponies.
In the mind of everypony there, one thing was for certain; every one of them knew that they were…well…fucked.
Martian And Pony (Part 2)
Chapter 13
Martian And Pony (Part 2)
The Martians in their machines watched in admiration that the shield that at first seemed like it was going to be impossible to break, had been shattered into a thousand pieces by Wacko's tripod. Unfortunately for him with him crashing into the mountainside, his condition was unknown, but the Martians couldn't give a shit about him, they were all happy that they could carry on with the siege of Canterlot.
When the shattering pieces of glass was falling all around the guard ponies, Shining Armor and his troops looked over the battlements and could see the Martian army preparing to restart their advance towards the city.
UUUULLLLLLAAAAAAA!
The thunderous Martian war cry made even the bravest guard shiver, and they couldn't be in that state for long as before they knew it, the Martians machines began walking towards Canterlot, but the ponies weren't all that weak…
As he was on the top section of the city, Shining Armor looked down and began barking orders to the further lower sections down below. "Prepare the catapults!" He ordered loudly down below, which just as he ordered, various groups of guard ponies began loading the catapults with giant tar covered stone boulders, which were eventually lit on fire.
"Hold it…!" The white unicorn barked as he waited for his moment to strike as the Martian metal monsters lumbered along the Canterlot peninsula.
"Wait…!" Several of his troops on all levels were becoming more and more full of anxiety, as the Martians were getting closer. The Handling Machines were the first to make it at the wall of the city and due to their nimbly size and claw like feet that helped them climbed up almost anything, they started scaling the giant city wall like spiders, and with their mechanical tentacles started picking any guard pony they could catch and started chucking them onto a great metal basket on their backs.
"FIRE!" Shining Armor roared to the chorus of catapults firing their flaming fireballs towards the Martians. Quite amazingly, some of the fireballs actually managed to hit some of the tripods and even destroy some of them.
UUUULLLLLLAAAAAAA!
Upon seeing some of their comrades fall, the Martians fired their heat rays along to the city walls and rock face, to, unsurprisingly, major destruction and explosions that only Michael Bay would be envious off. Despite the heat rays destroying any form of defense the ponies had up, bless them for at least trying to hold up against them with them firing back catapult attacks until they were wiped out, practically on the lower parts of the city.
Shining Armor watched as his forces were being wiped out like a pack of flies as parts of the city on the rock face started to crumble around them. Nevertheless, the brave ponies carried on firing as much as they could with the catapults, but the Martians clearly had the upper hand (or hoof…tentacle…who gives a fuck really?) as their mighty heat rays rained down upon the city. During all this, Wacko's tripod was fully embedded it seemed into the rock face and with no chance of getting out, thankfully though, it had stopped to be on the positive side. Wacko's followers could only watch in fear as each moment went by, Wacko's Fighting Machine didn't move, they could only assume that he had been knocked unconscious in the collision or worse…he'd kicked the bucket and gone off to that great cheesy alien paradise in the sky…then for the rest of the Martians storming Canterlot, they all couldn't give a flying fuck.
"Someone get in there and fucking help him!" Torno's voice roared through the radio among his fellow group of Martian troops.
Sitting next to him, Abaztard rolled his eyes. "What the hell you on about? WE are the official spies for the Martian king, so WE have to go out there and get him out!"
Torno stared at his partner with a blank expression. "We…? We're fucking spies man, not the shitty rescue service!"
"We're gonna have to go out anyway to save him!" Abaztard snapped.
"Why so?" Torno asked curiously.
The other spy then pulled out from under his black spy cloak waved out a thick white booklet in front of Torno. "'Cause it says in the script for this story that we go out and rescue him!"
Torno put on a poker face that only you'd wish to have for an internet meme, completely oblivious even that they had broken the forth wall. "…Erm…fine." And with that, Abaztard (being the somewhat second in command) ordered them to follow the other Martians into the city, though instead of raiding, they were out to save Wacko.
It did seem rather strange though, here were the Martians on the verge of taking over the world, and all Abaztard and Torno wanted to do was help save a friend, still, it does so that SOME Martians do have a sensitive side.
Back with the ponies, the Martians had destroyed the first city wall, and now the population of Canterlot panicked and ran for their lives. Shining Armor yelled for any surviving troops to fall back to the second tier of the city and rally again to hold of the Martian swarm as best as they could.
Though you will probably guess already that it's all over for the ponies.
Leading the Martians into the city was the commanding Martian, who was already thinking of popping champagne bottles for such an easy victory, despite losing nearly a quarter of their forces trying to storm the city. It was quite an enjoyable feeling for him as he fired his heat ray on the Canterlot buildings and destroying, not to mention the sight of ponies fleeing away from them. Ah yes, it was good to be a Martian at this point.
"Alright guys, let's get to the second level and take the city!" The commander boomed proudly through his radio system to the others. Two other Fighting Machines flanked him as they carried on down the streets in their giant metal machines. All of a sudden from out of the smoke appeared seven individuals, six of which were ponies.
The three tripods stopped as they looked down at these individuals. These guys were in fact the bearers of harmony, bearing their necklaces and in Twlight's case his crown, ready to make a stand. From a distance, Shining Armor watched in shock that his sister and her friends just stood there in the face of overwhelming odds.
"This ends now Martians!" Twilight Sparkle shouted up towards the metal titans.
The Martians inside their hoods didn't know if to laugh or just to finish them off quickly and be done with it. "Move it you lot!" The commanding Martian boomed down at them through his speaker. "We are claiming this planet in the name of the Martian empire and or ourselves to have a better life here!"
The commander kept speaking like it was all coming out of his ass, but Twilight and the five others readied themselves as Spike watched on as he started writing out on a sheet of paper of the siege of Canterlot taking place.
Then, with the help of the magic from their elements, they began to glow with magic.
At once, the Martian commander stopped talking and along with the three other Martians in their Fighting Machines, they stared at the scene below them. Magic was nothing that any Martian knew about, so all they could do was marvel at what these ponies were doing, but you, the reader, and know that the Martians should've ran for their lives at this point.
Twilight's eyes (that were shut before) opened to show them glowing white, which the sight itself made the giant tripods to take a step back. Then before they knew it, a giant burst of magic energy rocketed upwards towards the unsuspecting Martians.
The Commander Martian suddenly knew what was going on and barely had time to turn around or even tell his troops to fall back, but all he could utter was a small "Oh fuck me—" before his and the other two Fighting Machines were hit by the force of large magic and slowly were turned to stone, before falling back and crashing with heavy force and smashing into thousands of pieces.
A few other Martians who had only just started flanking them could now only stop and watch in shock as these three ponies simply turned their commander and two other Martians to stone.
"Good job, sis," Shining Armor uttered to himself as he watched the scene from above. Nearby, the three princesses (or the three stooges if you ask the Martians) looked down on the ponies below looking relive, though this quickly faded when they soon at least a dozen and so Martians in either Fighting or Handling machines appearing all around the bearers of harmony, completely outnumbered.
Twilight and the others looked round as the giant silver titans seemed to circle them almost like a pack of vultures. Though they weren't giving in that easily.
"Come on, let's do it!" Twilight ordered as they were surrounded by the magic aura from before. At once, the other Martian machines prepared to fire their heat rays at the group, before suddenly they were stopped from a sudden blast of blue energy that nearly ripped through the hood of one of the Fighting Machines.
And it wasn't from the Mane six, le gasp.
Looking up, Celestia, Luna and Cadence looked down at the invaders with their horns glowing and their cold expressions that were certainly the stuff of nightmares.
"I'm not getting my ass kicked about by some magical ponies!" Roared one of the Martian pilots in one of the Handling Machines.
With no one to lead them due to their commander being…somewhat out of action…he aimed the tripod's heat ray towards the princesses and was preparing to finish them off. The three princesses could see what the rest of the Martians were preparing to do, all aiming at them, until they all heard a sound from a most unlikely source.
Both Martian and Pony all looked towards the ruined rock face, a groaning mechanical sound could be heard, there pulling itself away from the damaged rock face…was Wacko's tripod!
The front of the hood was badly damage and the heat ray had now become a bent rod that was leaking out hot steam. As it moved away from the cliff face and turned to look at the staring audience, Wacko's tripod turned to look up at the princesses.
Inside his tripod, Wacko was badly wounded, no shit, and all over his octopus body were littered with green blood marks. In the crash, his co-pilot had been killed on impact and Wacko had only survive by using him as a cushion to soften to the blow, but don't tell anyone, shh!
"…You won't believe what shit I've been through since I got on this damn planet!" Wacko scowled crossly through the loud speaker to his fellow comrades and the ponies watching.
Wacko then looked up and could see the princesses staring at his broken looking machine. "Hello toots," Wacko uttered coolly at them, before looking back at his fellow Martians, all of which were looking at him as if waiting for his orders…as they had no leader of course.
"Don't just stand there!" Wacko yelled through his loud speaker towards the Handling Machines below them. "Get up there and capture them!"
After a brief period of uncertainty about the idea, the spider like machines started climbing up the rock face to the princesses like…well…spiders.
The princesses could see what the Handling Machines were trying to achieve and immediately started to fire destructive magic bursts of energy at the scaling spider machines. Twilight and her friends saw this too and quickly began to make another attack on the Martians, as they were distracted from the Handling Machines scaling assault.
Just as they were being surrounded by the magic aura, Wacko saw what the ponies were planning and immediately started barking orders to the Martians in Fighting Machines. "Look out, behind you!"
Just as the other Fighting Machines were turning round to fire blindly, Wacko suddenly panicked when the magic started to get more powerful and feared that they would be killed from whatever magic it might've been. Without thinking, he barged his tripod forward and quickly fired at the ponies, but his heat ray was bent…
The heat ray suddenly erupted in a cloud of orange fire and sent the massive metal titan to be blasted backwards, only thankfully staying up thanks to an unfortunate tripod standing behind him and taking the brunt of the impact, seriously, this guy is fucking lucky. But that wasn't the end of it. The blast had also sent various debris of metal to flying all different directions, and some headed towards the Mane six. A large thirty-foot piece of the heat ray debris crashed down in front of them and the impact flung them back a few feet, knocking them out briefly.
Wacko's machine stumbled about for a bit like a giant drunken titan for a moment, then, the tripod fell forward, completely obliterated. Now there was no chance for the former Martian commander to have survived that misfire. During that moment when the tripod's heat ray had backed fired, it had caught the attention of the princesses who stopped to stare at the scene.
It proved to be a big mistake.
Without warning, a set of metal tentacles for the Handling Machines that were scaling the rock face, grabbed the princesses. They blindly fired powerful magic blasts from their horns in a last ditch attempt to fend of the invaders, despite all the magic they could pull off, it was no good as quickly they were chucked into the great metal baskets on the back of the machines and were sucked in with no chance of escape.
Against all the odds of anything and fanfiction terms, the Martians had captured Celestia, Luna and Cadence. From his vantage point, Shining Armor saw the shocking sight and barked out orders trying to use anything they could to fend of the Martians, alas, all proving useless. The Handling Machines quickly climbed up to where the Canterlot forces had been rallied too, and they were completely overwhelmed.
And in terms of fan service and any possibilities of a sequel, we draw a curtain over what might've happened.
Meanwhile, the holders of harmony were only coming around again thanks to Spike, who had jumped clear from the large metal piece that crashed down beside them. "Come on! We gotta get out off here!" Spike said to them as he tried waking them up. One by one, all six woke up, still groaning from earlier.
"What…where are the princesses?" Twilight questioned worriedly as she looked up to where the three alicorns where before.
Spike breathed heavily as he looked up to where Twilight was looking at, before looking back at the worried group. "The…The Martians got them…"
Gasps followed from the others. Fluttershy burst into tears, Rainbow Dash freaked out and the others just looked on speechless, none of them knowing what to do.
Only Spike seemed to the only one there that was aware of the Martians preparing to kill them. "I'm sorry…Canterlot's gone, we've gotta get out of Equestria with the others." He pointed over to mass of ponies, who would've saw the events from before, making a run out of the city.
Twilight felt her heart sink, they had defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changelings, saved the Crystal Empire…now they were defeated by none other than foul mouth, woman obsessed octopus like creatures known as Martians. How was this going to go down in history?
She looked back at both the Martians and her friends, still not getting anything for this. "…Let's go, NOW!"
Without even a moment's thought, they quickly turned round and joined the countless others, all running for their lives out of the city…and the attack Martians who were only now firing their heat rays again at buildings and turning them to rubble and fire.
Never before in the history of the world had a mass of ponies moved and suffered together, this wasn't a disciplined march; it was a stampede. Without order and without a goal, six million ponies all unarmed and untrained all driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, the massacre, of Ponykind. It was quite a strange sight though if a neutral was watching this battle, it seemed quite strange to be honest. One would first be looking at the Martians, half-mad with ecstasy. Then one would look to the Ponies, half-mad with terror.
Martian and Pony, two very different creatures, yet strangely, one and the same.
XXX
An hour later, Twilight and her friends had escaped with the countless others out of Canterlot carrying anything they had heading eastwards towards Filly Delphia. When the flag of Equestria was pulled down and the flag of Mars risen in it's place, nether any pony could bear looking back on the once great capital of Equestria.
The world was now heading towards Martian control, and as the many ponies walked sadly towards Filly Delphia and their only chance of surviving.
Chapter 14
Thunder Child
Much like some drunken sports fans that were celebrating like their team had won a major trophy, most of the Martians jumped out of their machines and started plundering the city. It must be pointed out that despite what many would think that this was like hooligan behavior, it was just who the Martians were…a war bred race. Despite all of them celebrating such as hanging from the tops of buildings waving the flag of Mars or some pulling down statues of the princesses and wrecking them, two Martians weren't all that happy with things.
The two Martians in question were in fact both Abaztard and Torno, which they both were worried about the condition of their former captain, Wacko. The two spies quickly raced over to the fallen metal giant that was Wacko's Fighting Machine. Oddly, it seemed that no other Martian even battered an eyelash to be concerned about Wacko's welfare, isn't there anything else that wouldn't make you hate them so much that you want to smash their faces open with a fucking sledgehammer? Ok, maybe just the author of their story of course.
Anyway, as said before, the two of them quickly raced over and climbed in through a large hole in the front that had been blown off due to Wacko's fucked up misfire. As they peered inside, they saw that Wacko's co-pilot had been flung to the back of the cockpit and was lying in a large puddle of his own green blood. But much to that corpse's dismay, it wasn't the main center of attention for our favorite Martian spies. Over to the other side of the cockpit, slumped over the controls, was Wacko's lifeless body, covered in cuts and bruises and bleeding out green blood.
Quickly they pulled up Wacko, his face looking like it had been slammed into a brick wall at a thousand miles per hour, in this case, his beak had been broken off.
"Wacko!" Torno cried as he tried shaking the lifeless Martian. "Are you alright?" Then he turned to look at Abaztard. "Is..?"
Abaztard just stared in total shock, not that Wacko seemed to be dead, but at Torno's stupid wording. He could only cringe and groan in embarrassment, he was only glad that there was nobody else looking at them.
"What is it?" Torno asked his fellow spy.
Abaztard looked like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown, until he breathed in and let out a long sigh to calm himself down before replying to Torno. "Yes, Torno dear friend…he has passed on. This person is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. He's a stiff, void of life, he rests in peace, and if he didn't shoot himself by mistake he'd be pushing up red weed! His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket! He shuffled off this mortal coil! Run off from this world and into the next to join the freakin' invisible choir! THIS...IS…AN EX-PERSON!"
He looked so dangerous with his teeth bearing and his eyes looking completely bloodshot more or less that Torno was silenced from the other spy's rant. "Oh…so you get it too? You now know that he's dead?"
And from that point onwards, all hell broke out in that broken Fighting Machine cockpit. Without even thinking about the dead, Abaztard lunged forward and started to beat up Torno to death. Tentacles were flaring like a shaking pair of dreadlocks at one another, all of this itself was causing the hood of the machine to shake from side to side.
Nearby on the ground, two Martians had just finished looting a nearby jewelry shop and seemed to be completely encrusted in the golden jewelry; one of them even had a gold tooth from their little endeavor. Like a bunch of rookie gangsters, they went along in a droopy manner, funnily enough, neither of them could speak gangster. As they went along the street, they could see the hood of Wacko's Fighting Machine shaking from side to side.
"Hey, look at that," said the Martian with the golden tooth, pointing over at the scene before them.
"They look pretty much getting it on don't you think, eh?" Added the other Martian.
The other Martian tilted his head to the side as he began to think about who it might be that was in there. "Say, any idea who it is in there?"
"Don't ask me," Chuckled the other. "If you ask me, I think it's those two spies getting it on."
"Huh? How'd you mean?" Asked the Martian with the golden tooth looking at him.
"Well remember that rumor back on Mars that the two of them always worked with each other?" Explained the other Martian. "Well some say that there was some sexual tension between them…and it looks like they are finally happy with each other."
He looked on with a goofy smile on his beak while the golden tooth Martian looked at him in disgust. "That is some of them most stupidest shit I've ever heard! Just because they work with each other after all this time doesn't mean that they're going to fuck in a destroyed Fighting Machine you know?"
The other Martian's eyes shifted awkwardly from side-to-side. "Well…it's just an idea what could be going on in there…"
The golden tooth Martian (that rolls of the tongue don't it?) thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Nah…probably some other gay poofs who are having a quick shag session, can't really blame them that we seemed to have done a successful invasion of this planet and that they want to let it all out after all the hard work."
And with a quick agreement with that Martian, the two looters headed off down the street to rob another shop nearby. For now, this is where we leave our two spies until next time…hopefully. By now, it seemed that every house and shop in Canterlot had been plundered and it was all chaos. Such was the chaos that it would make even Discord blush.
Then again now coming to think about it, where was the god of chaos in all of this…?
XXX
All the way from Canterlot and the surrounding locations, huge lines of ponies could be seen for as far as the eye could see, with many of them carrying any valuables with them. And of course within one of those lines, were the holders of harmony, or in this case, the defeated holders of harmony.
Never before had moral been this low for any pony, and to show how low things were, Twilight and her friends had chucked their element gear over into a field nearby along the route they were following along with the other ponies. That sight of the abandoned elements of harmony really said it all of how they were feeling. Oddly, nopony ever thought about snatching up those elements and keeping them for themselves. And if the internet exists out in Equestria (well you never know!) then they would certainly had made quite a fair profit for the seller…then again, that's only the author's thoughts.
And so the ponies rambled on to the east coast, with at times some of them taking a glance back to see if the Martians were following them, though if they could have eagle eyes they could've seen the Martians standing on the battlements taunting the retreating ponies the words of 'easy!' over and over again.
They seemed to lose time how long it was taking them to get to Filly Delphia, but by the time they could make out the tall buildings in the distance, it was getting near late afternoon, but without Celestia being able to bring the sun down due to her being…well…somewhat out of action, the day now seemed to get more fucked up by the second.
Riding on Twilight's back, Spike looked back towards the now fallen city of Canterlot, never in all his dreams did he think this shit would happen, then again as the old saying goes, shit does happen. He then looked to see Rarity, her face completely filled with grief, it seemed to dawn on him that she was worried about Sweetie Belle, they hadn't seen her since the Martians attacked Canterlot.
"Rarity…" he said gently to her. "Please, don't feel like that—"
"And why!?" Rarity snapped at the little dragon. "The princesses have been captured, Canterlot's fallen and…Sweetie Belle…" Her blue eyes went soft with hurt as she lowered her head, only confirming Spike's thoughts that she was anxious about her sister's whereabouts.
Spike sighed and leaned over and lifted up her head with his claws so that her eyes were level with his. "Listen, I know things have gone to the wall and that we're over the hill, but there is always hope…somehow." He muttered that last word under his breath.
The mare of his dreams remained silent as Spike pulled his claws away from her. All she could do was give a reluctant nod as they carried on walking. It was then she began to think about when the Martian's first landed on the outskirts of the Everfree Forrest that throughout this time, the little dragon had done his part to comfort her, and, it seemed early to think and right in the wrong place to even consider it, was when she started to have some feelings for the dragon. True Spike had confessed to her after his birthday rampage (you'll know what I'm on about) and that she was well aware about how he felt for her, but it seemed now that Spike had rubbed off on her after all this time he was with her. Before the shippers could squeal out in triumph, Rarity shook the thought out of her mind, just in case this story about Martians turned into a badly written love story…Seriously though, back with the story.
As they carried on, a sudden sonic boom was heard; another Martian craft was about to make a landing on Equestria. Strangely, not one pony there (apart from young foals looking up in fascination) even bothered to look up, they had all gotten used to the sight of Martian cylinders raining down from the sky, it was like they were willing to let the Martians take over the world.
Finally, Twilight and her friends arrived into the city of Filly Delphia. All around the bay, there were ships of all shapes and sizes filled to the brim with ponies, all getting any type of boat out of Equestria. As they approached closer to the bay, a vast crowd of ponies were swarming onto any boats they could get on with all of them paying for whatever the captain of any ship were wanting from them. Mind you, with an Alien invasion taking place and everpony doing all they can to escape, the crews of many ships were probably having a field day on this and making a profit.
Despite many of the boats filling up with much passengers as they could, the amount of boats in that bay became less and less, now there were only two, a large passenger steam ship and an ironclad war ship on the far side of the bay, oddly, nopony seemed to be heading for that one.
"This ain't pretty," Applejack commented quietly to herself as they could only watch helplessly as the giant passenger ship filled up with ponies.
"I don't want to be here…" Fluttershy added with worry in her tone. Even though they were getting close to the gangplank, the pony taking the fares beside looked up at how many were onboard. He shook his head and on his face, his expression read 'that's enough'.
A vast crowd tried pushing forward, but it was no good, the group of seven friends with the countless thousands looked up enviously at those already on board, but Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash then saw up on board with those lucky ones none other than Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. At once seeing them, the CMC rushed forward to the gangplank, but at that moment, it was raised and they caught a last glimpse of their despairing faces as the elements (of former how you look at it) of harmony were swept away.
Many Pegasus' in that crowd suddenly start flying up towards the ship, desperately trying to get on, only to be pushed back by some bastard members of that ship crew, telling them to 'fuck off' politely.
UUUUULLLLAAAAAAAAAAA!
When that thunderous cry was heard, anypony no matter what they were doing stopped dead. Looking ahead of them, the steamer was heading out of the bay and into open water, but coming out from behind a large cliff face, came the unmistakable shape of a Fighting Machine…walking through water. Another came and another came, the three striding over to the mouth of the bay and blocking the entrance of the packed ship. At once many on board started panicking and started jumping of the ship and swimming back to shore. In all the confusion, not one noticed the Ironclad ship nearby slowly moving away from its position.
"Look!" Cried Rainbow Dash pointing over to the war ship. Slowly, everpony looked over and saw the ship, on it's front bow, it's name was 'S.S Thunder Child'. Slowly it moved passed the passenger ship, then with a roar of it's engine coal fired engine, it went charging with full speed towards the unsuspecting Martians.
When they did see the Thunder Child, one of the Martians stepped forward and eyed at the odd looking machine. As there is no water on Mars, well there was but no more, ships were unlike anything the Martians had come across and could only look down at the ship like some strange animal.
Then at the front of the Thunder Child, a giant catapult holding a flaming boulder was fired at the tripod that had stepped forward. The boulder collided with the hood of that machine; the impact caused a massive explosion which sent the once great metal titan to come crashing down in the bay in pieces.
Suddenly, everypony watching the fight from either the shore or on the ship started cheering, as the other two Martian tripods started moving back further out into Open Ocean. The Thunder Child was given the passenger ship the time to escape.
"One's down!" Pinkie Pie cheered bouncing up and down gleefully.
Then as both the Martians and the Thunder Child were out of the bay, one of the tripods fired black smoke at the ship, sticking to the front like tar. But despite this, the ship sped on, this time, cutting down one of the tripod figures as it rammed into one of its legs. The Martian inside the hood of the machine hadn't known what hit him, literally!
The tripod crashed down into sea, causing a great splash, and more cheering from the crowd followed.
"Two!" Spike yelled out, by now, they seemed to think that finally goodwill was on their side. Alas, shit happens.
At last, the other Martian in the last standing Fighting Machine, who now wasn't stupid and seemed to understand what was going on, fired his heat ray at the Thunder Child on the front bow. Even though it was about to be destroyed, the crew of the Thunder Child bravely charged towards the last standing tripod to finish it off.
The cheering stopped and shocked looks on the faces of many ponies replaced the smiles from earlier. The Thunder Child managed to guide itself just under the tripod, then, a massive explosion from the ruptured engine of the Thunder Child followed with a blinding flash of white light, making all the ponies on the shore to shield their eyes.
The blinding glow of light seemed to last for about thirty seconds, but grew fainter slowly. One by one, they opened their eyes and look out to sea what had happened.
The tripod was no longer there, but the sinking wreck of the Thunder Child could be seen going under the waves. Many ponies lowered their heads in an act of respect for the brave crew. But then they could see just near the horizon, the passenger ship of countless ponies was safe. But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taken with it that tripod and Ponykind's last hope of victory. Later on that day, the sky was filled with green flashes of light; cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was able to fight it.
Against all the odds, Equestria belonged…to the Martians.
To Be Continued...Sometime
Author's Note
Oh Crap! An ending with the bad guy winning! Well not quite. Much like how H.G. Wells had War of the Worlds split into two books, I'll be doing the same with the Martians. Next time, we should see more stuff around the Martians and Ponies and not much action with the tripods and such. Right now though, I'm going to to take a break and work on Farachan. But if popular demand wants the sequel soon, I'll be happy to do so.
Anyway, I'm off to have a long nap. See you next time.
Chapter 6
Bad News
On the outskirts of Ponyville, two very strange looking figures sneaked their way across fields, heading towards the nearby town. Not surprisingly for those who have been reading correctly, these were Abaztard and Torno, the two Martian spies. With it being almost pitch black, they had a lack of vision in front of them, why they never thought about bring night-vision goggles of some sort to help them out is anyone's guess, but really, let's not get too deep into that.
As they edge ever closer to the just barely visible town up ahead, they only just noticed what seem like a crowd of ponies with lit lanterns heading towards them.
"Shit! They're on to us!" Abaztard hissed over to Torno as he dragged him over to hide in a nearby set of bushes. Exactly how two ten foot tall aliens in such a ridiculous fashion could hide in a typical way, then again that's not the point.
After somehow squeezing into the bushes, they could just see who the strange ponies were, thanks to the lanterns. They were dressed in dark armour, must've of been troops of some sort to them, carrying a collection of weapons and what seem like a catapult being dragged by those in the back. (Hang on, did I write a section of there being a catapult? Really, who cares…?)
It was the first time that the two Martians had a better view of these strange ponies. "Ok, I don't remember in my Earth studies of horses being able to do stuff like this!" Torno said over Abaztard.
"That's because we aren't on Earth," Abaztard corrected, still staring at the strange convey of ponies. "But if the year is 1898, how the hell did we end up on an alternative Earth?"
They continued watching them until the marching band of ponies were out of sight, only suddenly dawning on the two spies of where the troops were heading.
"They're heading to the crash site!" Torno said to his fellow spy in alarm.
Abaztard shook his head in disappointment, already their plans for a secret invasion was falling to pieces, not to mention they were on the wrong planet. "The word of something new gets around fast these days," he thought to himself.
"Alright, I'll give Wacko and his bunch a call," the leader spy replied as he brought out of his black cape a radio device to contact the others. He snorted in disgust when he looked at the battery level. "Those cheap bastards giving us those terrible Europa made batteries, they know they are shit, then why give us them?"
"Never mind that," Torno retorted, "get on with it, I think dawn is coming pretty soon."
And he was right. On the horizon, they could just make a tiny glow of orange appearing. Now they could begin to realise how long they were up from earlier in the day. After giving the radio a quick bash on a nearby tree trunk to bring it to life, Abaztard made the call to Wacko.
"Wacko, come in, it's us," Abaztard said into the radio piece.
A bit of static followed until the captain's familiar voice came through. "Hey up guys, what's the news?"
"Just a heads up," Abaztard instructed. "You won't believe what me and Torno just saw here…listen carefully to this…a bunch a stallions in armour with many weapons are marching their way to the craft."
A small amount of silence followed. "…Come again?" Wacko replied confused, sounding quite fuzzy on the radio device.
"I'm not shitting you, there are ponies here in armour; about thirty I think, with weapons heading to your location! Those sneaky four legged bastards." The spy repeated.
"Oh hell, already they're getting ready?" Wacko sighed irritated.
"Though it's not all bad news, captain." Torno piped in, grabbing the device. "Their weapons are just swords, axes and a giant catapult…shouldn't be a problem really."
Wacko could be heard breathing a sigh of ease on the radio. "Well, at least that is one consolation…but still, it ain't a good thing that these, ponies, know of our intentions already."
"It's never easy you have to admit after all these years," Abaztard added, taking back the radio device.
From what the two spies could hear was that Wacko was about to say something, though what happened next threw them off guard completely.
Two loud sonic booms could be heard, making the ground the shake. "What the hell now?" Torno growled angrily through his teeth looking around wondering where the sound came from.
"Did you guys hear that?" Wacko's voice coming through, sounding all the more shocked like the spies.
"No shit, Captain," Torno replied sarcastically.
"Look up!" Abaztard cried, pointing a tentacle to the sky. What they saw was two Martian spacecrafts, like their own one, hurtling through the sky with the front on fire from entering the atmosphere but with a long trail of green mist following in their wakes. They could only watch as the two crafts roared over the nearby town, heading far away towards the mountain area that seemed to be twenty miles away from were they spies where.
"Oh shit not now!" Wacko's voice cried, sounding all the more fuzzy. "King Abanazer has sent two ships here; we haven't even started yet on our part!"
Abaztard and Torno looked to each other, trying to make out why this was happening too soon. "He's really conked it this time," Abaztard sighed disappointingly, shaking his head. "He's going too fast with this invasion."
Just then Wacko's voice came again sounding quite fanatic. "Sorry guys gotta cut off now, we can see those guys now! We'll get in touch later, over and out!"
And with that, the radio went silent. The spies turned to look up at the two trails of green mists and then towards the town. Now both of the most trustee supporters of Abanazer were not so sure now.
"Ok then, let's get into the town." Abaztard reminding Torno as they sneaked their way into the strange looking town ahead.
XXX
About five minutes after the two sonic booms had scared the living daylights out of all the residents in Ponyville, everypony by now had woken up and could see bright flashes of orange and yellow coming from the crash site. Many ponies now feared that the worse could be happening to the troops that were making their way there. From looking up, Ponies could see that the cylinders had caused the sky to turn a neon shade of green, almost like summer lightning, though by now was starting to dissipate.
From their bedroom, Twilight and Spike stayed wide-awake. Both too scared to even glance outside their window. "…T-Twilight," Spike asked stuttering a bit.
"Yes Spike?" The unicorn asked, lying back on her bed looking up at the ceiling.
The little dragon remained quiet, just after another flash of orange entered the room, and he could even swore he heard faint screaming. "I did say that, well, those things wouldn't get this far…now I'm not too sure…"
"I don't know too," Twilight exhaled worriedly. Even after looking through all her books on creatures of the world, she couldn't find anything related to the large tentacle monsters in that cylinder, not to mention they could speak in their language, though with foul language, something almost alien to most ponies in Equstria, no obvious pun intended of course.
However, somewhere in the back of her mind, there had been one idea of what they could be, an idea that would no doubt be laughed into oblivion.
Aliens.
Of course, there was no chance in hell a pony would believe that, but her evidence to the non-believers lay there in that pit, or even in those other cylinders…
Little did the two knew that they would have a late night visitor...
XXX
On the edge of Ponyville, two very none-like ponies sat and watched the blaze that was coming from the forest. The only thing that was missing was a sofa and some snacks, of course they knew they couldn't stick around for long as they turned round and headed off into the town, they had a mission to do.
The sun was starting to creep up ever further over the horizon and Abaztard and Torno knew they had to keep out any prying eyes on them. Despite this, they couldn't help but look around at the buildings, thanks to the sun brighten up the surroundings.
"I know we're not on Earth, but there is something very similar here," Abaztard said to his fellow spy. "These buildings look like those out of 17th century human history don't you think?"
Torno nodded. "Yeah, but it can't be right, how could Ponies build, well, buildings? I thought it would've been a shit tip."
Abaztard was about to say something when suddenly an idea popped into his head. "Holy hell, I've just thought of something!"
Torno looked over at him. "Hmm?"
"You know those stupid B-movies back home which talk about other dimensions and shit?" Abaztard explained.
The other spy rubbed the back of his head in thought. "Erm, I guess, though I'll still never forgot that stupid one with the tentacle-held camera…"
Abaztard looked around again before continuing. "Well, call me an idiot, but I think we're on an alternative dimension of Earth when ponies are the dominant species on this planet!"
"What on Mars are you talking about?" Torno scoffed. Then he started thinking about it again. True, they had gone through a portal to get here, it was untested thanks to a certain king and there was nothing in any of their studies that said anything about bright colourful ponies that had strange pictures of things on their flanks, and on top of that…talk!
Torno rolled his eyes. He was about to say something else when their radio device sounded. Abaztard answered it quickly.
"What's the news?" Abaztard asked.
"We got 'em, all of them are fucked over," came Wacko's voice, speaking rather happily at their obvious win of the small battle before. "But how's it in the town?"
"There is something similar to it that reflects buildings on Earth," Abaztard explained.
"Really?" Came Wacko's voice again. "Like you mean ponies actually built them?"
Torno grabbed the device. "Well we can't see a human here, so I guess you're correct."
Wacko could be heard letting out a long sigh. "…Bloody hell, this whole thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger, eh?" His voice suddenly went back to his usual commander style. "Well have you guys captured on of those ponies yet?"
"Their probably all scared shit of us, no poor bastard out here," Abaztard replied coolly.
"Or their still in their beds, num-nuts," Torno corrected sarcastically.
"Better be quick, the sun will give off your location, find a hiding spot if I were you, we are gonna be delayed at bit." Wacko said.
The two spies looked at each other again then back to the device, "what'd you mean 'delayed?' captain?" Asked Abaztard.
"Well remember those engines that make our machines walk faster?" Wacko said. "Well it turns out they are making the machines top heavy to work on a planet with stronger gravity, we'll have to go back to the site and get rid of them, even if our machines will be working at half the speed."
"Oh shit on us," Torno groaned, tentacle-palming. "It's never easy isn't it?"
"I'll contact you guys later when we're ready, find a hiding place for the time being," Came Wacko's voice again. "Over and out." And the device stopped working again. The two spies could only curse at their luck. They had no choice but to hide. Cleary, things weren't looking too good for the Martians already in the early parts of the mission.
XXX
Not far away at Twilight's home, outside staggering towards it was an unusual figure, who wasn't a Martian, but a pony. From below a window, Twilight and Spike hid underneath, thinking that the sounds outside were one of the brown monsters. During all this, both of them tried to pluck up the courage to look out the window, but the thought of seeing one the creatures made them lose their confidence just at the very thought of them. However at this point Twilight plucked up the most courage to look out the window.
Slowly raising her head over, she was stunned to see that it was one of the stallions, an Earth Pony, from the platoon that went by earlier, though he was a fair distance away and couldn't quite make out what he looked like due to it still being quite dark outside.
"Anypony? Hello?" The stallion called, looking around for help, and still holding his sword.
"Over here!" Twilight called over to him, waving her forearms to him. Thankfully this did catch the stallion's attention as he quickly rushed over to her home. She looked down at Spike, who looked confused at what was going on. "Spike, it's one of the troops, let him in quickly!"
Without being asked twice, Spike rushed off downstairs to open the door for the solider, Twilight following closely behind. To Twilight, she saw this as a great opportunity to know what had been going on at that site, though the thought of there being only one survivor out of the many troops that came earlier did make think twice of how the stallion was feeling.
As Spike opened the door, the solider staggered in without his helmet, dropping his sword, clearly looking exhausted, weary but fear being written all over his face. The Stallion was a chestnut coloured pony, with a short blond mane and large bushy tail. His eyes were that of a dull blue and all over his face, there were streaks of blood and dirt all over. His armour looked burnt in some places, which did make Twilight and Spike wonder what had caused that.
But what surprised Twilight mostly was that the stallion looked not much older than she did, though of course this of no importance as such, if you really want to get into any more details.
Not long after he had gotten through the door, Twilight and Spike helped him over to chair lying nearby (thank goodness for plot convenience!) "Get him a drink of water Spike," Twilight ordered the little dragon, which he nodded quickly and raced off to find any water, well he would if he was ordered by Twilight, when wouldn't here? No really, when wouldn't he? And what the hell has this got to do with the story? I couldn't care less myself to be honest…
"T-Thank you," the stallion, still quite shell-shocked looking, thanked Twilight by shaking her hoof with both of his own.
Questions were burning like mad in her head, all wanting to ask him what had happened and where the rest of his platoon where. Though strangely, the first thing she said to him was, "What's your name?"
The stallion suddenly clapped his hoof on his head. "S-Sorry, I forgot to say my name." He gave Twilight a little nod as he introduced himself, "the name's Private Storm Speed, ma'am. But you can call me Storm simply."
Twilight was about to introduce herself when Storm interrupted her. "I believe you are Miss Twilight Sparkle?"
The purple unicorn looked at him surprised. "How'd you know who I 'am? Did Celestria tell you about me?"
Storm rubbed the back of his head looking strangely awkward. "Well…I did hear from my fellow troops…" He suddenly had his head in one hoof, sobbing softly. Twilight rubbed his back soothingly trying to comfort him. But before she could say anything, Spike came back into the room holding a mug of water.
"Here sir," Spike said to Storm, handing him the mug of water. The solider slowly looked up at the little dragon with his eyes all glassy eyed.
"T-Thanks," Storm replied stuttering, grabbing the mug before drinking half of it down in three gulps. He then let out a sigh before clutching the bridge of his nose, seemly deep in thought.
A ten second silence followed until Twilight finally broke the silence. "Storm…what's happened and where is the rest of your platoon?"
The stallion didn't say anything as he slowly turned his head to her; he almost looked too scared to say it. Breathing in a shaky sigh, he began telling them of his expeirece. "…They…they wiped us out…nearly all the platoon are dead, maybe all of them!"
Twilight and Spike looked at him shuddering at what they had heard. "Wiped out?" Spike asked, wondering how those seemly large bulky creatures that didn't seem to work well when he saw them, unless they had gotten use to the environment quite quickly.
"Wiped out indeed," Storm replied, still feeling pretty scared at remembering the events. "There were these massive one hundred foot three legged machines that fired these…beams of orange that turned everything on fire when they touched something."
A cold chill went up Twilight and Spike's backs, now that was something they could both be sure that they didn't remember seeing something like that.
"...Machines?" Twilight asked looking now worried at what those monsters were capable of doing.
"Fighting Machines," Storm corrected. "Just crushing us like we were like a bunch of ants, completely in control of the whole thing, knew exactly what they were doing."
Spike rubbed his chin about an idea that had appeared in his head. "Wait…did you guys last night see what had caused those sonic booms?"
The young solider drank down another gulp of water before answering Spike's question. "Yeah…it was these two large tube things with a green mist behind them, heading to the north of here, about twenty miles I'd say."
Their worst fears had been realised. More of those things were coming to Equestria!
"This isn't good at all," Spike said, covering his mouth with his hands in shock. Who knows what they were planning to do with all ponies in the land.
"But I'm glad I found you Miss Sparkle," Storm said looking at the unicorn with some hope now. "I hear you send reports to Princess Celestia, right?"
"Of course," Twilight replied. "But what has that got to do with this whole thing?"
"I need to write in a report to her to tell her about our situation and those…whatever they are." Storm explained to her, pausing towards the end of his sentence on trying to think of what the creatures were.
Twilight thought about it for a moment, surely from what had happened Celestia must've had an idea of what to do here. She then looked towards Spike. "C'mon, get him some paper and a quill."
Seemly getting the idea himself, Spike hurried off upstairs to get what Twilight was asking from him. Of course with countless bits of paper lying around, it didn't take him long to get a bit of paper and the quill sitting in its ink bottle as always. No chance for any tense story moment there.
With the asked pieces in his arms, he hurried downstairs to join Twilight and Storm waiting for him. Without any asking for them, Storm grabbed the paper and quill and started writing out his report to Celestia. Spike and Twilight could see that his hoof was shaking, still showing he was still feeling scared from his experience.
It took Storm about a minute to write out whatever he was writing. Twilight looked over at what Storm had written in the little report. She could only bite her bottom lip as she read it.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I regret to say that the operation to hold off the unknown creatures has failed, eliminating nearly the entire 2nd Ponyville platoon in the process. We failed to see the mentioned creatures that you described us; we came up against five monstrous tripod machines, unless the creatures mentioned created and are controlling them.
I do fear that the safety of Ponyville and possibly even all of Equestria is no longer guaranteed. As possibly one of, if not the only, surviving members from the platoon, I request that this operation of protecting Equestria and its citizens must be done at the highest scale.
Yours,
Private Storm Speed
The Stallion looked at both at Twilight and Spike wondering how to send his message. "What'd I do now to send it?"
"Let me do it," Spike replied taking the report and rolling it up. He drew in a breath of air before emitting his green flames from his mouth around the rolled up paper.
Storm Speed jumped back in surprise, startled at what the dragon had done with his precious report. "What'd you doing?" He cried out half shock and half angry.
"Don't worry Storm," Twilight assured him. "This is how I send my reports to Celestia; Spike can send it straight to Celestia with his fire breath."
The solider stallion looked on with a poker face at this new piece of information that the mare was telling him. Why hadn't in any of his training tell him he would meet dragons that would send reports with their fire breath? Then again where did it say he would encounter giant three legged machines that emitted lines of fire?
Suddenly the stallion stood up and walked over to pick up his sword that was lying on the floor, finally somehow finding his confidence again. "Miss Sparkle, we must call up an evacuation of Ponyville, I fear the machines will come here next."
The two friends looked at each other, eyes wide, before looking back at him, "an evacuation?" Twilight gasped in disbelieve.
"The only way I know this town will be safe from the enemy," Storm replied, opening the door to head outside. "Unless a miracle happens, there is no other choice but to leave."
After one last look at their home, Twilight and Spike followed the Solider, not knowing what they and maybe all of Ponyville were getting themselves into. Little did any of them knew that for Twilight and Spike, that it would be the last time they would see their home for the many strange days that followed.
