Equestria's Supreme Commander

Chapters

Gating in
Northern Crisis/Doubt
Diplomacy. Yay./ Revelations
The calm before the storm
Cybran Vs. Sun
New allies and new enemies
Training
War Council
Relations
To Ponyville (no way to make that sound epic)
First break since my arrival
I hate the universe
Waking up
Searching
Beginning of War
Mobilize
Questions
New allies
Rescue
A sad notice
Rewrite is up
Base building/Learning and Prophecies
The first battle

Gating in

I guess like with any story, I should start from the beginning. Okay, so for me, it all started a few years ago when I was at Comicon, dressed as the Armored Command Unit, or ACU for short, for the Cybran Nation from the game series, Supreme Commander. The reason why it was Cybran was multiple reasons. One, they look cool as hell, the units I mean. Second, out of all three factions from the original, I find them to have the most interesting backstory. To keep it short, they're humans with artificial intelligence implants, meaning they were part robot, which adds to the cool factor for me, that were enslaved by the Earth Empire, with a rogue group with the one who is the "father" of the Symbiotes, another name for the Cybrans, named Dr. Gustaf Brackman, fleeing to the furthest reaches of space, and, in the time period of the first game, are fighting to free those still enslaved. The others are basically a religious faction and a future United States, wanting to impress their ideals on others.

Okay, sorry there, I tend to get carried away with stuff I like. Anyway, it had taken a lot of time to make the outfit to the point it resembled the in-game model, but could be worn. A total pain in the ass. And I'm going off topic again. Sorry.

Anyway, I was walking around the main floor, going to different booths for stuff like Marvel Comics, my personal favorite comic company, by the way, when I saw a guy dressed like the aforementioned Doctor, the business suit, the white hair, the Hitler-esque mustache, I swear I am not kidding with that. Behind him was a table that on it a backpack resembling the part that's added to a Cybran ACU when you put a back mounted upgrade on, as well as the parts added to the right and left arms, respectively, with the upgrades for those arms. Those three parts are the only things i did not have time, or the skill, for that matter, to make.

I walked over to where the guy stood. "Ah, hello my boy," he said. Looks like he talks like the good doctor as well. "I see you are a Cybran fan as well."

"Well no shit," I said. "What did you think this was, a Fatboy?"

He chuckled. "No need to be hostile, my boy," he said. Now it is getting a little creepy. At least the in-game Brackman was allowed to do that, as the Cybran Nation wouldn't exist without him. "But I see you're missing some parts of it. Parts I just so happen to have. I'll sell them to you at a discount, ten dollars each."

Cheap, merchant, and something I would want? "Hell no," I said. "I know where this kind of shit goes. I buy something from you, and I get sent to a different world. Hell to the no."

"Why, I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. "How about this: I give them to you for ten dollars total, and throw in a bit of advice for the game?"

"Nope."

"You are the most stubborn cosplayer I have met," he said. "Look, I'm not trying to cause trouble unlike other merchants. The Equestria I was going to send you to is going to need help soon, and you are the only one here dressed as an ACU. Either you go, or they get utterly destroyed."

"And how do I know you aren't lying?"

"Because not every merchant is an asshole," he replied, crossing his arms. "Do you want to help Equestria, or not?"

"If I do," I said, "I want to remain my own person, the outfit becoming an actual ACU with schematics of every UEF, Cybran, and Aeon/Illuminate unit from the original to two, base game, no mods or DLC."

"If that will get you to go," he said. "I still need the ten dollars, though. I can't just conjure up money, and even some merchants need to eat."

"Fine," I say. "Back pocket. I doubt I'll be needing it where I'm going."

"My thanks," he said before using telekinesis, I am not kidding, to grab my wallet from the designated spot. I would have handed it to him, but this outfit did not leave much finger space. He then used said telekinesis to put the pieces of the soon to be ACU on. "Good luck. And that tip: Try not to piss off the royals."

Before I could reply, a portal opened under me, and I fell through, blacking out soon after.

I came to just as something shocked me. "What the hell," I exclaimed as my eyes opened quickly.

"Pilot conscious," a female voice said, one I recognized. Looks like the guy kept his word. "Retracting defibrillators." Why not.

I looked around as my eyes focused, and I saw I was sitting in a small compartment about the size of the interior for a tank, with multiple screens in my main view, or just to the side, and two finger pads that resembled. . . okay, I know what I want to say, I'm just not certain if you guys will get it. Basically, on both armrests for the chair I found myself in, there were five buttons arranged for the fingers, I imagine for weapon control and construction, as well as turning the upper body of the ACU, with foot pedals. I think it's obvious what those are for.

As my head cleared, memories came to me on how to operate an ACU, as well as giving orders to the units under my command. Well, at least I won't kill myself trying to make this thing walk. Thank god for that one. I sat back in the chair itself, which had red leather padding. Okay, so I know I'm in Equestria, but what was that threat the merchant was talking about. I wasn't able to think on that much, though, as the alarms in the cabin began to wail.

Alert:energy spike detected. Investigation recommended at range. One kilometer north.

"Looks like I know where my first destination is," I said before settling in to the seat to get full functionality going, and getting this thing moving.

Fortunately, my ACU moved pretty quickly, but I still had enough time to see what upgrades I had. "Okay, Quantum teleporter, liquid nitrogen coolant system, and microwave laser. I can work with that," I said. I quickly made my way to the top of a small mountain that overlooked the area the AI in my ACU had designated, weapons down by the sides. "Looks like I came in during season four finale," I said, seeing a large ass red and black Centaur destroy the landscape. But what surprised me, though, was that there was a shrinking Rainbow orb, with Tirek getting bigger. Talk about timing. I arrived just in time to save the ponies from Tirek. Well, time to get to work.

I made my way down the mountain, which was close to where Tirek was. "Hey," I yelled over the external speaker, getting his attention as I raised the ACU's main cannon on the right arm. "Step away from the ponies!"

"And what are you," Tirek asked, an evil grin on his face. "Actually, it doesn't matter. I have all the magic in Equestria!"

"Guess how many shits I give," I say. "Now, either you return all the magic you took willingly, or I shoot you in the face until you do."

"You can't harm me," he announced. Oh dear god. I hate these villains. The ones who think they are, to quote my favorite video game boss fucking invincible simply because they have all the power in a single country. "I have the magic of four alicorns and the Tree of Harmony!"

"And I am powered by a nuclear reactor that will kill you if you kill me," I say in a deadpan. "Don't believe me, try to kill me with out getting your ass roasted." I swear if he says-

"And why should I fear you?"

Fuck it, I'm kicking his ass. I pressed the button under my right index finger down, firing my main cannon, which, though it didn't kill him, it did injure him. "Any other smartass remarks?"

He snarled. "You'll pay for harming Lord Tirek!" With that, he tried to bull rush me. I'm not kidding, he lowered his head, and charged at me. Okay, ACU is not that agile. I need to improvise. I pressed down the buttons under my middle and ring fingers on the left and right, causing the top to spin out at speeds that probably would have killed me if not for inertial dampers inside keeping me from getting pancaked against my seat. "YIPEE-KI-FUCKING-YAY," I yelled as the top spun around like it was part of a tornado, with enough force that Tirek was sent flying as he hit the arm. Can't believe it worked.

Anyway, he was sent into the mountain I had come down from. "I'm not done with you yet," I yelled, turning the ACU around and walking in his direction, both arms raised. I fired my main cannon, with overcharge going. When I got to where he was visible, I stopped. "Now, how about you give the ponies back their magic?"

Tirek, whose body was bloody, scarred, burnt, and missing a few patches of skin even, said, "No."

"More fun for me, then," I said, firing a few more shots. After three, I said, "Do so, and I will stop harming you."

"Al-alright," he croaked out before a large stream of magic left his horns. When it was finished, he was back to his weak form.

"Now I keep my promise," I say before firing one last overcharge blast at him, and, with his weakened body, he was vaporized. I should probably start charging the teleporter, seeing as how, in the ponies' minds, I went back on my word. I didn't. I said I would stop harming him, and I didn't harm him. His death was quick. Thus, I did not go back on my word. Okay, now how do I charge the damned teleporter?

Twilight-1st- a few minutes ago

Me and the others were, for lack of a better term of our condition, were scared. I had given my own magic to have Tirek to free Applejack, Rainbow, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Spike, and Discord, with Discord having given me an amulet for it to show that he regretted what he did, which gave me my key to the box from the Tree. We quickly made our way there, with my friends and I opening the box. We were given new manes and our cutie marks were out all over our body, something that, in retrospect, I find a little too flashy. Anyway, the six of us hovered out of the chasm the Tree was in, certain it would defeat Tirek, who had drained all the magic in Equestria. It looked to work at first, but nothing changed, and he drained it after the first stream of magic hit him.

That's the situation we were in when that. . . thing arrived. Tirek was boasting that now he could take over the entire world when we heard, "Hey," from the mountains, and we saw a large thing raising its right arm. "Step away from the ponies!"

"And what are you," Tirek asked as he turned to look at the new arrival. "Actually, it doesn't matter. I have all the magic in Equestria!"

"Guess how many shits I give," the arrival said. "Now, either you return all the magic you took willingly, or I shoot you in the face until you do."

"You can't harm me," Tirek announced. "I have the magic of four alicorns and the Tree of Harmony!" Unfortunately, he was right. Even if I still had my magic, and Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Cadence were here, just Tirek having the Tree's power meant magic couldn't stop him.

"And I am powered by a nuclear reactor that will kill you if you kill me," the thing say in a deadpan. "Don't believe me, try to kill me with out getting your ass roasted."

"And why should I fear you," Tirek said.

The reply was the giant being firing something from its raised arm that looked like a blast of magic, but wasn't, seeing as how Tirek was hurt by it. "Any other smartass remarks?" Rainbow chuckled here.

"Jeez, who ever this thing is, he sure is a badflank. I mean, he just hit Tirek with something and simply asked if he had anything else to say!" I sighed.

"Rainbow, for all we know," I said, turning to face the pegasus, "he could be another escaped prisoner of Tartarus who's just trying to remove the competition." Before she could retort, Tirek snarled.

"You'll pay for harming Lord Tirek," he yelled before lowering his head and charging at the being, whose upper began to spin.

"YIPPE-KI-FUCKING-YAY," the thing yelled as it spun.No question, that thing is not natural, and it has to be from Tartarus. Still we were surprised when Tirek was thrown into a mountain by the spinning of the torso. As the thing followed Tirek to where he had landed in the mountain, saying, "I'm not done with you yet," the six of us looked at one another as it fired its weapon.

"Uh, Twi," Applejack asked. "Y'all got any idea what that thing is?"

"No idea, Applejack," I replied.

"Well, whatever it is, it looks absolutely atrocious," Rarity said. "It looks like a demon. And not the handsome kind either."

"And how'd you know that, Rarity," Rainbow asked, to which Rarity blushed and tried to hide her face.

"I have my reasons." Rainbow chuckled at this.

"Yeah, sure," she said before we all heard a loud sound at the mountain, and saw a column of smoke coming from it, as well as multiple wisps of magic, six coming towards us.

The streams matched one of our skin colors, which is to say the streams went into those who matched their color. "What do you think he did, guys," Rainbow said.

"I think he killed Tirek," I said, getting looks of disgust and horror from the others.

"Whta makes you say that, Twilight," Pinkie asked.

"He looks like he's from Tartarus," I said. "And Tirek came from there. I don't think it's much of a stretch to think he is, either, especially with how he looks."

"I guess you have a point," Rarity said.

"But what can we do," Fluttershy asked softly.

"We can use the powers the Tree gave us," I exclaimed. "That thing practically gave us the way to beat it and send it back to Tartarus."

"Ya sure that's a good idea, Twi," Applejack said. "Ah mean, he beat Tirek with ease, and Tirek had every bit a magic in Equestria."

Before I could reply, the ground began to shake. We all turned in the direction of the mountain to see the demon, as that's what I'm calling it for now, coming towards us. Each of us, except Fluttershy, that is, put on a brave face, but barely. We were brave, not suicidal. It stopped a few feet away, probably a single step for it, and looked down at us. Far as I could tell, it was a few stories high, maybe three Ponyville town halls stacked on each other. That's just a rough guess, though. "I assume you think me a monster for killing him?"

We were surprised that he asked us a question with an obvious answer, but i replied, "Yeah. Nopony should be murdered!"

"I did not murder him," the being said. "I was simply defending you from any future plots because of him. If he got out of his prison once, he may have done so again. I ensured he did not."

"We'll send you back to Tartarus," Rainbow yelled.

"You will not be sending me 'back' there," it said. "I've never been there. Now, if you six will excuse, it's time I run for my life before the three other princesses get here." With that, a ripple appeared around the figure before he disappeared with a bang, indicating he had teleported.

It was a few seconds later a second teleport was heard, this one being for Princesses Celestia and Luna, both wearing gowns thta matched their skin color, as well as Cadence, wearing a pink and white gown. "Hello, my faithful student," Celestia said. "Hello, my little ponies," she said to the others. "I am glad to see you six were able to defeat Tirek."

"Um, actually, Princess," I said, rubbing the back of my head. "We didn't beat him. He beat us."

"But he is not here," Luna said. "How can that be?"

"Honestly," I said, "we aren't entirely certain."

"Can you at least tell us what you know, Twilight," Celestia said with a warm smile. I am not going to like this, am I?

Josh-1st

Okay, then. I teleported quicker than I had thought. Maybe the magic in the atmosphere, I don't know. Okay, time to get oriented. I looked at my screens, and saw I was in the desert, which meant I'm in southern Equestria. Okay, that means I may be close to Las Pegasus or Appleloosa. May need to get a base online, but what should I use. Cybran, Aeon, or UEF structures? Ah, you know what, fuck it, I'm going with a mix. Here's hoping Celestia and Luna won't be able to find me. If it's changelings, though, and they attack me, they had best be prepared to get utterly fucked. Well, time to get to work.

But, first, I need to find a mass deposit or two. Joy.

Northern Crisis/Doubt

So, like I said, I'd pick my story back up where it's relevant and actually moves the story forward, and that's what I'm going to do.

It's been a week since I arrived, and both my Cybran and Aeon, desert and arctic, respectively, with both being built in a similar fashion, which is to say compartmentalized by tech levels. I had discovered that magic of any kind triggered the radar systems about three days prior to this, when a single unicorn explorer was at the edge of the range of a tech one system. And I had tech three radar. I had also detected some changeling magic, albeit at extreme tech three range, so I knew that each magic had a new signature, in terms of species. I had also rarely left my ACU, it having systems to keep the pilot as healthy as possible, but I did get out a little to stretch, which is when I found out I was fully Cybran, as I still had my ACU HUD in my sight. I guess that could help later on.

Anyway, I was out on a light run in the tech one area of the base when an alert came on over the HUD. Unknown magic signature detected near Fort Ramses- I am atheist, so I went with the closest figure I could from the bible, but was also real; hence, Ramses the Great- Course of action recommended.

Joy. Good thing I have a Spy Plane there. So I sent it in from a high altitude in the direction of said signature, as well as one over the Crystal Empire, the latter arriving first.

Okay, so, it looks like their's a shield over it, so probably hostile. Not changelings- wait what's that? Image enhance, focus on the city. The image from the spy plane did so, and I did not like what I saw, even if it was barely at good resolution due to distance. Still I could easily tell what it was. Which simply made the second Spy Plane's images worse. The images from the second Plane, the first one I had ordered to move off the patrol path, showed me an army a few miles away from the Empire, attempting to use stealth spells to approach my base- Nope.- and said army was the Caribou. Okay, how should I get a message to Celestia- I know. "Access build cue for land and air factory one. Construct tech one Hunter and tech one transport, with Hunter having message in pony magic signature saying 'Princess Celestia, I am sure you have heard of me, but right now, the Caribou have taken the Crystal Empire, corrupting the Crystal Heart and using mind control on its citizens. Whether or not you like me, if you wish to ensure the Caribou do not fully take Equestria over, you will not send forces North, as I already have a base there.' End Message. Once construction of once is completed, Hunter will board transport, which will drop off in Canterlot Gardens, then self destruct after returning one quarter a mile to base."

"Orders received."

"Spy Plane Three, hover over Fort Ramses. Camera, switch to view of Spy Plane Three."

"Understood," the AI system said before the camera view, in the upper left part of my sight, changed to an arctic one, all of Ramses in view as I made my way to my ACU. One interesting thing was that there was a ladder I could use to get back to the control center. Once in, I strapped myself in, and directed my secret weapons to hold a few miles away from the Empire, should they be needed. At max speed, it would take about thirty minutes for the Hunter to reach Canterlot, and double that for the Caribou to reach Ramases, so I had some time- what the fuck am I seeing? What I was seeing was a large crystal. . . thing shaped like a colossus, almost as large as the Galactic colossus. Damn it. "Czars One and Two, reposition over Ramses, and deploy all Gunships and bombers. Take hostile construct designate 'Colossus' out."

The orders were received, and I decided to get involved personally. Curse the long charge time on the teleporter. Only reason it was quick the first time was, if i had to guess, the ambient magic from Tirek, which was not here. Fortunately, my base was meant to hold, with point defenses, shields, artillery, auto aiming tactical missiles, would have been handy in the original and FA, that's for sure, which meant I could select a moving target, and it would actually track like those from SupCom 2.

Well, I'll let Twilight cover for now, because now, it was just me waiting.

Twilight-1st

Right. So, I was with Princess Celestia and Luna in Canterlot, working on negotiations with the Griffons. Cadence, with what she told us at the time, wasn't able to come because of last minute stuff. Which, when you look at it from a certain point of view, she was being honest. Any way, the three of us were taking a break during the negotiation intermission when Josh's Hunter arrived in the Gardens. Literally everypony but Luna and Celestia freaked out, and we, along with the Guards in the castle, made our way there, magical shields up to protect from its fire, which, really, wasn't needed, as it was idling. Somehow, it knew when we came out, and that's when it transmitted his message.

"No," Celestia whispered. "The Caribou are extinct."

"Apparently not, sister," Luna said. "I agree that the Demon may be a threat to our subjects but the Caribou are even worse. Do you not remember the first time they invaded? We barely pushed them back."

"The Caribou invaded before," I asked, shocked. I had learned a little about them during my time as Celestia's student, and I knew what the Caribou stood for.

"Indeed they did," Celestia said. "But that's not important right now. What is, though, is this thing thinks it can fool us into thinking the Empire was captured without a fight, and that the Caribou are still alive. Twilight?"

"Yes, Princess," I said.

"Would you mind going to the Empire to prove it is lying. If he is, I'm sure Shining Armor and Cadence will be happy to see you."

"Of course," I said before I teleported away. Oh, I wish I hadn't said yes.

Josh-1st

This is where I come back in. Just before the charging was done, which is when the ACU, with me in it, would automatically teleport to where I had designated, just outside the Empire, I picked up something from Ramses' radar that indicated a teleport into the Empire. So this may have just turned into a rescue mission? I can go with that.

And, just like that, I was in the arctic, a few ACU feet away from the shield dome. Okay, time to analyze it. It's Shining's magic color. Overcharge should take it out, followed by rapid normal charge strikes.

With that, I pointed my main gun at the shield, and initiated Overcharge, firing off a single, super shot followed by a lot of smaller ones at high speed, which, when combined, were able to shatter the shield. Time to move in.

Target priorities: Dainn if he's here. If he isn't, probably leading his army to their death. Second is the Crystal Heart/cock, I wish I was making that up, and finally was who ever had teleported in.

Just as soon as I had passed the threshold into the grass area, I saw a speck of lavender in the sky, and magnified it. Okay, re-prioritize: Twilight rescue, destroy heart, kill Dainn. "Czar Three, deploy two Air superiority fighters to escort Princess Twilight Sparkle to my location."

She was being chased by more crystal constructs, pony sized, and I would say from Sombra's army before he was destroyed, or something Shining Armor added after, well, Dainn, and, from the magnification, I saw they were. . . well endowed and stood straight. I continued toward the Empire proper as I heard the sound Corana fire, the Aeon tech three ASF, and small explosions. As I walked, I turned the main camera towards where I saw Twilight, and, though I doubt she wanted to, she was following the two ASFs over to me. "Hello, Princess," I say as she nears the ACU, turning the speakers down. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I guess I should have known I'd find you here," Twilight said, and there were hints of anger in her voice, and landing on the ACU's left shoulder.

"I did say I would be here," I said. "So, did Princess Celestia send you here to stop me?"

"No, she sent me to prove you were lying about the Caribou."

"Was I," I asked as she landed on the ACU's left shoulder.

"No," Twilight said. "But you're probably still here to take it over."

"If I do, then that's a side effect of me killing every single Caribou and freeing the Empire. I have no ambition to rule. I simply wish to protect Equestria, something I can not do while you and the other royals are hounding me for my methods."

"You killed-" she started yelling, but I cut her off.

"Tirek, who could have easily engineered his escape, and could have done so again when one of the Elements was dead," I say. "You Equestrians have the worst moral system I know of. Sometimes, you must do terrible things for the greater good, as cliched as it sounds. I hate those with a clean moral jacket, so to speak. They see the world only by its surface, not what lies beneath. For example, what do you see me as, disregarding my actions?"

"A monster," she replied, confidence in her voice.

"Yes, but that is only from my look. You do not know me. Must I point out Zecora?" Ah, how I love using people's moral lessons against them, and showing them that the world is gray, not black and white. "You, and all in Ponyville, judged her by her look, nothing else. A child was braver than the Elements of Harmony then, and made an effort to actually know Zecora as a pony, zebra, you know what I mean. One should not judge until they know the personality of those being judged. A simple rule many ignore. In fact, there is an old saying: 'Do not judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes.' Do not judge one until you who they, as an individual, are. I was certain the Princess of Friendship would know that basic rule." I then stopped the ACU, making Twilight, with a look of anger, shock, and something else on her face, nearly fall on her face. "This could be. . . problematic."

"What," Twilight asked smugly. "Something you can't handle? She then saw what I saw. "Ah, buck."

"My thoughts exactly," I say. "Czar Three, deploy all gunships and bombers. Destroy the Crystal Constructs in front of me."

"You use actual ponies," Twilight asked.

"No," I said. "They are purely machines. I simply address them like that for designation purposes. I control every aspect of my forces."

"Why are you even helping," Twilight asked.

"Because it is part of my nature," I say. "Now, I would suggest you brace yourself with a shield and something to keep you in place. My air units are coming in fast and low."

"Won't they get taken down," Twilight asked, putting a shield around herself.

"Not at all," I say as the first units, three strategic bombers, arrived and dropped their pay load. "They're pretty damned tough. Now come on." I stopped. "Did I really just say that while your'e on the ACU shoulder?"

"If that's what this thing is, yeah," Twilight said. "And I can't teleport so soon after teleporting here, so I guess we're stuck with one another, huh?"

"I'm not really complaining right now," I said. "And if I was, it would not change anything." The ACU, me inside and Twilight on the shoulder, made its way into the city. "I was afraid of that," I said, shaking my head in the control cabin as i saw where the Heart should have been, but now a crystal dildo, I seriously wish I was kidding, was. "The Caribou are lucky that they are already in my second base's defense range," I said, "or I would nuke their asses."

"Are you sure a base can handle an entire army?"

"Princess, you know not what my technology can do to organics," I say. "Now, brace yourself, I have an artifact to destroy." With that, I pointed my main gun at the artifact, but a shield was in place that stopped my shot at the last second. "That's how it going to be? Alright, I can play hard to get. Czar three, target crystal artifact and use Ventral beam until it is destroyed."

"You want to destroy the Palace!?"

"No, but what used to be the heart must be destroyed to free the Empire," I told Twilight before deactivating external speakers. "Feed, give me a view of Ramses."

A window popped up, and a feed of my Arctic base popped up, with the defenses holding against the assault, even the Crystal Colossus. Always pays to defend, am I right? I then reactivated the external speakers just as the Czar came into the city air space. "That is huge," Twilight said as she looked at the ship, and yes, I am aware of how it sounds, which is why I did not comment.

"Twilight, where is your brother and Cadence?"

"How do you know of them," she asked, glaring at the ACU head.

"I have my sources," I replied. "Listen, they will die if they remain in the palace, or if they are with Dainn's forces. If yo uwish to give them even the slightest chance at survival, you will tell me where they are now."

"Ugh, fine," she grumbled. "I don't know where Shining Armor is, but I saw Cadence in the palace before the Caribou gaurds in there tried to rape me."

I have an idea. "Czar three, hold position over the palace, but do not fire." I then unstrapped myself from the chair, and began to climb up and out, opening the hatch. "Twilight, I have an idea for how to get her out."

She looked at me, dumbstruck. "You- you look like a pony."

"What, you thought I was this thing," I say, kicking the ACU head. "Nope. I just control it. "Now, if you want to save Cadence, hear me out. This will need your full cooperation."

"If it means saving Cadence," Twilight said, "but you'll have to answer Celestia when we're done."

Good luck. I have a link to every system in my army, ACU included. If needed, I could wage war on Canterlot if I was in the deepest, darkest cell they could throw me in. "Okay, here's the plan. . ." So, Twi, want to handle this part? I mean, yeah, I came up with it, but they probably want to know how hard it was for you.

Twilight-1st

I don't see why not. Besides, it makes for some fun roleplay during our nights together.

So, the plan was, and I did hate it at the time, and the concept still now, for him to pretend to be with the Caribou cause, simply acting how he was to gain my trust to knock me out. I would cast a spell to make it look like he had cut my horn off, which was risky, believe me, and I had to go nude to help sell that trick, but put up a bit of a fight. Only reason it worked was because the main army, which actually did have Shining in it but he was killed in the first few minutes there, wasn't able to get a message to the Palace. Well, that and the morons trusted Josh because he was a male who had, quote unquote, "proven just how stupid a cunt really is." And can I get some water, I still don't like having to repeat that line?

Here.

Thanks, Josh. So, I guess I'll resume where we were just outside the Throne room. We had gotten past the guard, having just a single crystal pony guard escorting us. Josh had tied my hands behind my back with my own shirt, and my wings closed with my jeans, saying to the guards he didn't want to risk causing a bleed out. Surprisingly enough, you could make a pegasus or alicorn bleed out if you pluck their wings under the right, so to speak, circumstances, but that's off topic. "King Dainn is inside," the guard said, and I swore I saw a small smile on Josh's face. Oh, guess I should describe that for you, huh?

Well, he had brown hair that went just past the point a horn would grow, green eyes, almost like olives, and a few freckles. Aside from that, nothing spectacular. he was wearing what seemed to be some kind of armor that had the same coloration as his ACU, the same, triangular symbol on the right side of the armor and the size of his palm.

Anyway, the doors opened, and, with me on my hands and knees to keep the illusion going that he had gotten me with a rope leash around my neck and me pulling away from it a little, which he pulled, again for the illusion. We stepped in, the doors closing behind us, and, where Cadence should have been sitting, was a muscular Caribou with oversized, well, everything. Antlers, muscle, he was even near as tall as Princess Celestia was. He had on a loincloth that was barely covering his stallionhood, for lack of a more appropriate term that still has some amount of decency. Next to the throne, which had Cadence's horn at the top, was a bright pink pillow, on which a similarly colored alicorn sat like a dog, including the nude. "Hello, your highness," Josh said with a bow. "I imagine you were looking for this little slut," he said, yanking the rope at the word "slut".

"Indeed I was," Dainn said, his voice sounding like honey. Good thing I hate honey on its own. "And my guards told me of what you did. I am not sure if I should commend you for going so far to capture a princes,s or arrest and switch you for the same when mares are so stupid."

"The way I see it, highness," Josh said, "is that the more confused a mare is, the easier it is to turn her into a fuck happy toy."

The Caribou king laughed. "I like this one," he said once he calmed down. "For bringing me one of the alicorns, I will give you one thing."

Josh didn't hesitate. He told me what it was. "I think a threesome with myself and the ex-princess will help tame this one," he said. "May even teach her a few tricks to please a master. The sooner, the better, if you allow."

"If it will help tame the mare," Dainn said before he motioned with his chin towards us for Cadence, who got on her hands and knees and crawled towards us as Josh and I made our way to the nearby wall. So far, so good.

A few seconds later, Cadence was at Josh's feet with me, though for entirely different reasons than me.

"I do, however have one thing to say, though, before this all starts," Josh said.

"And what's that," Dainn asked.

"ACU, BLAST THE THRONE ROOM WALLS DOWN! TIME FOR SOME REMODELING, INCLUDING DAINN'S BODY STRUCTURE!" This is where things slowed down. I lunged to grab Cadence so she wouldn't get away as the wall beside us was blown open perpendicular to Dainn, meaning the debris would hit him, hopefully kill him. Unfortunately, though, he was able avoid the larger fragments.

"Female Sympathizer!"

"See ya, bitch," Josh said before he pulled the skirt around my wings, letting them come out as I used a spell to, at least, give me some decency before we jumped out the hole, me holding Cadence, right onto the ACU's right arm. "Hold her," Josh said to me as he climbed up to the ACU's control cabin.

He got there quickly, and the ACU began to move away from the palace. "CZAR THREE, VAPORIZE DAINN'S ASS!" Once we were away from the palace, Josh's air unit unleashed a beam of energy from its center that enveloped the entire palace. "Damn," I heard him say. "All gunships and bombers, redirect fire on the artifact, now. Send it to hell!" Using my wings, I carried myself and a struggling Cadence to the ACU's shoulder to see the area where the Heart was envelope din an energy beam, and with Josh's air force firing on it. Then I remembered something. "Josh, if you destroy the heart, it'll release all the energy it has!"

"Aw, shit," Josh said just before said explosion happened, and I blacked out.

Josh-1st-A few hours later

Good thing ACUs can withstand nukes. I was the only one still awake after the explosion, so it had fallen to me to make sure the civilians were alright. I set my ACU and air units on patrol outside the city, the Czar in the center of the city so the air units could refuel when needed. Both Twilight and Cadence had been covered with blankets. All in all, the explosion hadn't done much damage itself, most ponies were unconscious. Though I did make it a point any mobile unit that was ground combat capable unit was to fire on any Caribou. Only a few ponies had awaken in the hours since the Heart was destroyed and Dainn was killed. Most, I could not tell their feelings toward me. I mean, I did free them, but at the same time, I pretty much destroyed their prized artifact.

Anyway, I was using my HUD to use the Spy Planes back at Alpha to see if there was anything of note when the only crystal pony who I knew her stance on me, a crystal mare with an emerald green coat with light brown hair and tail named Forest Glade, wearing the only clothes of hers that weren't destroyed, a simple white t-shirt with knee length workout pants. "Uh, Josh," she said.

"What is it, Forest," I asked.

"Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight are awake."

I sighed. I had decided to stay until they woke up, at least to see how Cadence would be, seeing as how, in FoE canon, she, and this puts real life sex stuff to shame, in my opinion, would drown mares in pools of semen simply for the hell of it. I wish I was kidding. My mind is not sick enough, and I mean no offense to the FoE writers, artists, or any involved with it, to come up with that.

Anyway, I nodded. "Lead the way," I said, and I followed her close to where the Heart used to be, to see both Cadence and Twilight looking where said artifact used to be. "Princesses," I say in a monotone, hands behind my back. I may have a fucking army at my beck and call, but it isn't worth shit if I'm killed before I can use it.

"Why," Cadence said in a tone I identified sorrow in. "Why did you destroy it?"

"I did not wish to," I said. "But it was the only way to free you, and all of the Empire, from the Caribou's control. It was either that, or let them keep it, and take over Equestria later on. If there was another way to be used then that was known, I would have taken it, but the Heart was already corrupted. There was no other action I could do."

"And how did you know about it," she asked, venom in her voice, as she turned to face me, the blanket being pulled around her body.

"You would not believe me if I said. But suffice to say, I am something. . .interesting. Compared to the whole, only a few of my particular kind exist," I reply. "And no, your highness, I did not want your throne before I came here, nor do I want it now. I do not wish to rule, simply be alone when possible, and help the other times." I was silent for a while before saying, "I will leave my forces on the edge of the city until any property damages are repaired." With that, I turned to leave.

"Wait," Twilight said, making me turn my head.

"What," I asked.

"I just wanted to say. . .thanks," Twilight said. "For at least saving who you could, I mean."

I smiled a little as I nodded. "It's what I do." What was said next surprised me a little, as it came from Cadence.

"You're the one Twilight said killed Tirek, right?"

"Yeah," I said, fully turning around. "Why?"

"It's just that, well," she said, "you don't seem that evil like we thought."

"Like I told Twilight, maybe you should get to know someone before deciding they're evil," I said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get out of here before Celestia decides to come and stone my ass. Literally." With that, I turned back around. "Oh, and you can call me Josh, not Demon," I added and went to leave, but not before Cadence said one last thing that surprised me.

"Josh, right? I know I shouldn't, but I need to repay you for helping us. If you need the Empire's support, we'll see what we can do."

"No need to, but thanks," I say, and with that, I made my way back to the ACU after cancelling its patrol route. "I'll see ya the next time Celestia can't or won't do anything."

Twilight-1st

"That was interesting," Cadence said once Josh had walked a certain distance away.

"Yeah, it was," I replied, clutching my blanket closer. "You know, Cadence, I've been thinking."

"About what, Twilight," Cadence asked me, curiosity on her face.

"Princess Celestia said that the Caribou being here wasn't important, but the fact Josh wanted to remove them to protect us shows that they were, in some way. She sent me here just to see if he was lying about a message about them," I said. "Not to mention she just brushed aside the fact they had invaded before."

"They did," Cadence asked, surprised.

"Yeah, and she and Princess Luna barely pushed them back. That's what's been getting at me since I first saw him, and why he killed Tirek, after I got some time to think on his reasons. Princess Celestia has said the only way to win a fight was with nonlethal ways, but him? He not only won a fight, but prevented ones in the future."

"What are talking about, Twilight?"

I looked at my old foalsitter, seriousness on my face. "What if Celestia's been lying to everypony since she banished Luna?"

Diplomacy. Yay./ Revelations

It's been three days since the whole Crystal Empire/Caribou thing, and right now, I was jogging along the exterior of my base in the desert, and was passing the tech three area of it. I was jogging for a few reasons. One is because why the hell not. The second being I didn't have an Xbox or PC on me. Third and final being I wanted to be in shape if I got into a fight with something without my ACU.

Anyway, as I was jogging, I saw the more recent addition to my base, a Quantum Gateway. I had one built here at Alpha and Ramses so I could go between the two quicker, instead of relying on an ACU mounted teleporter. I would use it only when I needed to go someplace the Gateway wouldn't get me in range. Canterlot, for instance.

So, yeah, that was what I was doing for about three hours before the radar system here at Alpha gave me an alert. Changeling magical signature detected on mile north and approaching.

"Great," I muttered to myself. "Spook One, move in and keep an eye on them. Mole One, do the same and stay cloaked." Like I told Twilight, I gave them those designations to make it easier to give orders to individual units using my implants. Anyway, I continued my jog, being on the part that would take me to my ACU, as the land scout and spy plane, reverse respectively, meaning the first one I mentioned, the Spook, is the second unit, the spy plane, made their way. I was just a few steps after giving the order when the plane arrived, and, from the feed form its camera, I saw a small entourage of changelings protecting a chariot of some kind, but I couldn't see what was in it.

The Mole arrived just as i reached my ACU's feet and began to climb, and it supplemented the Spook's view with a different angle of the same view, and, of what I could tell from both views, it really was a small group, and they were on their way here. Two possibilities here. One is they are simply passing through, which I honestly doubt, as changelings are not the most public race, and would probably try to hide as much possible unless they were showing themselves for some reason like at Canterlot, or something else.

The second possibility was they knew I was here, which I find likely, as it took a while to get the base to the radar stage, which left a little room, and that went into sub possibilities, one being they want to try get me peacefully out of here (good luck, because I'm not leaving.) or an alliance with me.

I was brought out of my thoughts when a second alert came in. Alicorn teleportation signature detected. Energy consistent with recorded signature of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and amount given off indicate a group of eight.

My eye twitched. These ponies just love to show up in my life. "Location?"

Position designates them being half a mile behind changeling signal, and following it.

Fuckers. May as well do this personally. "Keep Mole and Spook one on overwatch, but have Spook One watch the ponies."

There was no verbal reply, but the camera feed from the spy plane did refocus on the ponies and I saw Twilight and the bearers, which was expected, as well as the other two alicorns who still had horns.

You know, now that I wonder about it, I wonder what Cadence was up to then.

Okay, anyway, I set my ACU to move on an intercept path with the changeling chariot, and the ponies, indirectly speaking. Seeing as how we wer eon a course for each other, we met in the middle about ten minutes after I left the base.

I turned the ACU head down to face the changelings. "What do you want," I asked through the external speakers.

"Our Queen wishes to speak with you," one of the guards said, and even from here, I could hear the fear in his voice.

"Then don't keep me in suspense," I said. "And to be chivalrous, whoever your Queen is, my name is Josh. And yours?"

The door on the carriage- which now that I think on it, what's making the thing go, I'm not seeing horses or something of the like- opened, and two other guards wearing black onyx colored armor with swords in their scabbards stepped out, along with a female changeling as tall as I guessed Celestia to be from estimation with Twilight and Cadence with a flowing, black and green dress that did not seem to impede her movement at all, as if she were in the nude. The figure was Queen Chrysalis. "I'm called Queen Chrysalis," she said. "You're the one who killed Tirek?"

"Indeed I am," I say. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I want to make an alliance with you," she replied. Huh. Possibility two, sub possibility two. Go figure.

"I would be happy to, but I do not have a building for diplomatic meetings, or any buildings for that matter." It was here I remembered something. "Though if you follow me to my base, I can get us someplace for that." I just hope Cadence keeps her word, as I need a building for the diplomacy, and she's the only pony who owes me a favor. But before that- "Oh, and Celestia? I know you're there. Either you reveal yourself and tell us why your here, or I blast you, your sister, and the Elements out of here."

Twilight-1st

I guess the fact him knowing we were here wasn't surprising, given how easily he had freed the Empire. So, I guess I should explain why we were there.

Well, me and the girls were in Canterlot earlier that day to meet with Celestia and Luna. At the time, I though it would have had to do with what happened three days prior, as I hadn't been able to meet with either after it because they were bogged down by paper work.

I was wrong.

We were escorted to the Throne room by a stock white and blue solar guard in golden armor. "The princesses are inside," he said.

"Thank you," I said before we headed inside, seeing the two princesses, standing at one of the windows, overlooking the city of Canterlot. "You asked for us, Princess?"

"Indeed I did, Twilight," Celestia said as she and Luna turned around.

"A guard patrol in the desert has found a changeling hive, Luna said, getting to the point, surprising the six of us, Rarity even gasping.

"Those beasts have a hive in Equestria," she asked, appalled.

"It is worse," Celestia said. "It isn't just any changeling hive. It belongs to Chrysalis, the one who attacked Shining Armor, may his soul find peace, and Cadence's wedding."

"Then what are we waiting for," Rainbow, as impatient as ever, said. "Let's go stone her flank!"

"Restraint, Rainbow Dash," Luna said. "We only know where the hive is, not the amount of changelings in it."

"Then what are we gonna do," Applejack asked.

"We were planning on using an invisibility spell to sneak in, then put Chrysalis to sleep with a spell before bringing her here for trial," Celestia said. "I wanted you six to come if your rainbow forms are needed."

Yeah. Even they called it that. Sure am glad we haven't used it recently. Anyway, the six of us agreed, and from there, we teleported to the desert and, with Rainbow in the air, we saw the carriage, and followed it. From there, well, nothing happened until then, when Josh called to Celestia, which let us know he somehow knew we were there.

"How'd he know we were here," Applejack asked.

"I don't know," Luna, the one who had cast the invisibility spell, said.

"I do," I said. "When I was in the Empire while the Caribou were there, I saw what his technology could do first hand. Just the armor he's wearing protected him from whatever spell the Caribou had going, and it was trying to turn him. It wouldn't surprise me if his tech could let him see through an invisibility spell." And it was here that I was, metaphorically speaking, hit by a train because I had told the girls of what happened in the Empire, and no detail, except for the plan, was withheld, and I saw a slight look of what I later realized as fear on Celestia's face.

"Uhm, Sugarcube," Applejakc said, "when did ya go to tha Empire? An' what in tarnation are 'Caribou'?" I freaked out here, for obvious reasons.

What does she mean? I told them about what happened in the Empire three days ago, I thought, panicking. I know i did, I even wrote it down on my checklist of things to tell them the next day, and Spike checked it off, and I double checked it on the double check-check list. So what happened?

Fortunately, I was brought out of this by Josh speaking up from his ACU. "Three seconds until I blow you all back to Canterlot the fun way. Well, fun for me, that is."

"Wait," I yelled, casting a counterspell on myself to make me visible to everyone as Josh raised his ACU's main cannon. "We were following Chrysalis!"

"Twilight Sparkle, are you mad," Luna asked. "If we are right, it will kill us."

"No, he won't, Luna," I replied.

"Why were you following her," Josh asked. "Also, how is Cadence doing, considering?"

"To bring her to Canterlot for trial," I replied to the first. "And well, I guess. I haven't seen her since then."

"Noted," he replied. "Now, two options exist for you and your friends. Either A: you return to Canterlot, and forget you saw me, or B: you come with me and Chrysalis for negotiations, or at least ensuring there will be no hostilities between you all. I do not care which you choose, but I will warn you. If the changelings and I reach an agreement, if you attack them, you attack me, as I protect my allies."

It was here that the others became visible, and their answer was not very surprising. All variations of "no", just to keep it short for you all.

With that, most of my friends left. Luna, though, actually stayed. "Um, Princess," I asked, "why are you still here?"

"Because it is better to have the changelings as an ally than that thing as an enemy," she replied, and she had a fair point.

"Sister, Twilight, come on," Celestia said from behind us, a teleportation spell charging on her horn.

And this is where my life changed first, and I did the one thing I didn't think was possible. "No," I said to her, surprising myself as well as the others, but I think the one most surprised was Celestia, and I went further. I guess a little of my frustration of being a practically useless princess bubbles over. "And seeing as how I'm a princess, I don't need to follow every order, and can't be labeled as a traitor by saying 'no' to you, princess," I said, crossing my arms. I actually felt proud there. I guess it was because I was growing a little, showing that I was willing to speka my mind, even against Celestia.

"And as a co-ruler," Luna said, "I have the authority to make treaties."

Celestia sighed. "So be it, then," she said before she and the others teleported away, and I felt sadness for abandoning my friends before Luna put a hand on my shoulder.

"You are growing into your role, Twilight Sparkle," she said. "Faster than Cadence, actually. It was shortly after my return that she spoke against Celestia for the first time. I know as she said it was the first time."

"Thanks, Princess," I said, "but I do fell kind of bad for doing that."

"To be expected for the first time," she said.

"So, I assume you two wish to come," Josh said from his ACU, making us face him.

"Indeed we do," Luna said.

"Then I recommend you either fly along side me, or ride with Chrysalis, as it will be a while for you all to get there."

"What do you think, Luna," I asked.

"I think I will ride with Chrysalis, so that I may try to find her reasons as to Canterlot. You?"

"I think I'll rid eon his shoulder," I said, blushing a little. "But before, do you remember my repor ton the Empire, including the Caribou?"

She nodded, at least helping me ensure I wasn't going mad. "Indeed. I find it odd that the others did not, seeing as how you told them shortly after my sister and I. I doubt even Rainbow Dash is that forgetful."

"It is weird, isn't it," I asked. "Almost like something stopped them from remembering it." I shrugged. "I guess i can try to find out later. I guess I'll see you in pony later."

"Indeed you will," Luna said before she spread her wings, and flew down to where Chrysalis was as I flew to the ACU's left shoulder.

"Interesting to see you here, Twilight," Josh said as I landed and we began to move, the speakers having been lessened. "And I heard what your friends said, and I think I may be able to help."

"How," I asked.

"A simple theory," he said. "You see, all over the desert, I have small forward operating bases protected from magical detection by jamming devices, and an unfortunate incident with a unicorn a day ago in the range of one such jammer taught me it was able to jam some magics. You were in the range on one by literally an inch, as well as Luna, while Changelings have a protective magical field around them, and I reoutfitted my ACU with the same tech upon learning that. That would mean-" he said, trailing off for me tofigure it out

"Whatever it was, it was magical in origin," I replied.

"Exactly," he said. "And your friends were outside the range. "And that would beg the question, to which I have a few guesses for the answer, I would like to say, as to who cast it, and why?"

"But who would be strong enough to do that?!"

"What do you mean," he asked.

"I mean who would be powerful enough to cast a spell that actively rewrites ponies minds all. . .over. . .Equestria," I said, thoughts coming in.

"I take it you have a few ideas of your own," he asked me.

"Yeah, I do," I replied. "But if it's alright, I need sometime to think on them."

"Of course," Josh replied.

Luna-1st

Chrysalis and I were her carriage on the way to wherever we were being led, sitting on different sides, the interior guards on either side of us on opposite sides of the carriage. "So," the changeling queen said, "I'm surprised you wish to have a treaty with us, considering the wedding."

I shrugged. "I figure it better to have you as an ally rather than having this demon as an enemy."

"Fair point," she said, crossing her arms. "And why do you call him a demon anyways?"

"He did kill Tirek-"

"Like you don't think that was a good idea in private?"

"-. . . Good point. Anyway, there's also his appearance."

"You're colored dark, an if any thing with horns could be considered an evil, then you, your sister, Twilight Sparkle, formerly Princess Cadence, I had changelings in the Empire when it happened, and I know what happened there, and you don't need to worry, they remember, and every unicorn could be considered villains."

"I find it funny you're able to say that when all of pony kind see your kind as monsters."

She shrugged. "Maybe, but unlike ponies, our first law isn't 'Love and Tolerate all creatures.' By the way, nice hypocrisy, seeing as how when our kind first met with ponies one thousand years ago, your first action was to purge us. And don't lie, i had agents in your government then, and I know that the laws were back then."

"You were draining our subjects of their life force," I retorted.

"Of only a few," she replied calmly. "And even then, those few knew of us, and some were even married to ponies who knew, and were forced to leave when their mates were found to be changelings."

"And yet you attacked Canterlot."

"Do you know why we attacked," she asked.

"Celestia said because you wished to have revenge on us because of a thousand years ago," I replied, to which the queen laughed.

"Maybe, but that would have been a side benefit I could care less about," she said. "We did it because we were hungry, and there was a spell that prevented us from feeding on ambient love energy unless it was being directed towards us. Before you say we could have disguised to get that, we were, but it didn't provide enough sustenance, and we avoided diplomacy because we knew what your tyrant of a sister would do to us just on sight."

"Celestia isn't a tyrant," I yelled.

"Isn't she," Chrysalis asked. "She let you be forgotten from history except as a story, and even then only let your corrupted persona be known as an old mare's tale. She pushed your, for lack of a better term, 'modernization' on to her student to begin with, as if she wanted no part of you, has done only one thing since your banishment herself, that one thing being losing to me when she tried to stop me, and put her student and friends in danger. And, to top it off, she thinks the god of chaos can easily be bent to her rules. Does that not sound like a tyrant, if not a dictator at least?"

I opened my mouth to retort to her, but, before I could say anything, my brain had processed what she said, and, much as I would have hated to admit so then, she did have a good point. "I suppose you think you have a point," I said in the end, not yet wanting to admit it.

"More then just 'think'," Chrysalis said. "But tell me, where were you during the wedding, anyway? None of my agents knew where you were."

"I was visiting some friends in the Void," I replied. "Which, now that I think on it, Josh has a similar energy to one of my friends."

"Meaning?"

"I do not know," I said, shrugging. "But still, I doubt it is important."

"I'd be careful there, Princess," Chrysalis said. "Often, what we don't think is important is. I speak from personal experience."

"Is that how you failed to take Canterlot," I asked with a slight, joking smile.

"No, that was me just gloating," the queen replied with a similar smile and a small chuckle. "I was talking about Discord coming free when I tried to take over Ponyville and the Elements and turn the half of the bearers into changelings."

"Why would you try to do that?"

"So your sister would be forced to live knowing changelings in her border, and yo remove them would be to get rid of three national heroes," she replied. "Can you think of any other way short of taking over a nation, which would be a financial nightmare, by the way, to make her accept changelings?"

"If what you say is true, I suppose not," I said. It was here the carriage stopped, and both of us heard Josh outside.

"We are as far as the carriage will be useful," he said. "Best to exit now, and do as Twilight is and ride on the shoulders."

We looked at each other, and she shrugged. "I don't see why not," Chrysalis said. "Guards, follow."

"Yes, Ma'am," her guards said, and we left the carriage, her and her guards before me, and each flew up onto one on the shoulder's of Josh's machine, me going to the same side as Twilight.

"Hello, Twilight Sparkle," I said upon landing. "You seem troubled."

"It's nothing important for you, princess," she said. "Oh, and you may want to put a shield up, seeing as how we're going through an artificial portal, and i have no idea what may happen to somepony who's not shielded."

"I had figured that," I said as I put a shield over myself and Twilight. "Did you hear that, Chrysalis?"

"Indeed I did," the changeling queen replied from the other side.

"So, is everypony ready," Josh asked.

"Yes," we all said.

"Then get ready," he said before walking into a building that had beams of purple and red energy going up and down, causing us to teleport.

Josh-1st

So, yeah. We went through the Cybran gateway in the desert, and came out the Aeon one in the arctic, which is when I made my way to the Empire. "Before you ask, Princess Luna," I said, "Princess Cadence did say she owed me a favor for freeing the Empire. I plan on cashing it in is all."

"That's not exactly how she worded it," Twilight said, "but the meaning is the same. I guess you need someplace to carry the negotiations out?"

"Yep, and I know Celestia isn't eager to have me anytime soon," I said. "Besides, I figured one of the terms would be for Chrysalis to help the Empire rebuild as compensation for the wedding. I'd help, but I don't want to risk hurting a civilian by accident, and I don't know where most of them stand in regards to me."

"Actually, most of them wanted to make a statue of you," Twilight said. "Only reason they didn't was bcause they didn't have you to model for it."

"They do realize I destroyed their only form of protection, right?"

"Yeah, but most do realize why you did it, and that you didn't have a choice," Twilight said. "Plus, your army up here could protect them just as well."

"Fair point," I said as I exited the Aeon base. With the size of each step of the ACU, it took me ten minutes to get to the edge of the Empire, and Cadence and a small group of guards were waiting for us. I stopped just before I would have hit grass, and had the ACU head look down. "Hello, princess," I said. "How are you and your subjects doing?"

"Well," she replied, the stump where her horn used to be hidden by her hair. Well, much as it can be, considering her horn's gone. "Why are you here, Josh?"

"I'm calling in the favor you owe me," I said. "I require a building to do diplomatic shit I know I'm going to find boring with Chrysalis, the changeling queen from your wedding."

"You want an alliance with the changelings?"

"She came to me," I said. "So, do I get the building?"

"You'll need to come out of that."

"Figured as much," I said before unstrapping myself from the seat and climbing up to the main hatch, then sliding down the ladder on the left side of the ACU, passing by Twilight and Princess Luna, who followed down with their wings.

"You look different than I had expected." Luna said to me.

"Okay, how many thought that," I said pointing to the ACU, "was my actual body?"

"To begin with, just about all of my friends, myself, and Luna, Celestia, and Cadence," Twilight said. "Now, I'm thinking all of Equestria except me, Luna, Cadence, and Celestia."

"What do you mean, Twily," Cadence asked, walking up.

"Long story, Cadence," Twilight said, and the two did their traditional greeting, which looks more creepy than cute in anthro, by the way.

"Hello, Cadence," Luna said. "Twilight Sparkle told us of what happened here three days ago. I am glad to see you are well, considering."

"Thanks, auntie," Cadence said. "I'm kind of surprised you're here."

"Because of the changelings, or me," I asked.

"Both, seeing as how news from Equestria paints you as a monster, and it was confirmed by my aunts," Cadence said. "And, well, my wedding."

"I thought it better to have Chrysalis as an ally than Josh as an enemy," Luna said.

She sighed. "Fair enough, I guess. Come on, I'll show you to what I'm using as my home until a palace can be built." With that, she went to meet with Chrysalis while leading us into the city to some unknown destination. On the way there, I saw multiple crystal ponies, now looking like Earth ponies with bright skin, I imagine as a result of my, ahem, glassing of the Crystal heart. Yes, I know that's a Halo term, but it's appropriate for this.

Anyway, just about each of them was working on reconstructing stuff that was probably damaged in the air runs by my units, and most saw me, stopping what they were doing to bow. Yeah, I was surprised too, as were Luna and Twilight. "It seems they hold you in the same position as young Spike," Luna said. "Then again, you did save them from another state of being enslaved, even if the males at the time thought differently."

"How'd you even know the Caribou were here, anyway," Twilight asked, to which I shrugged.

"I had one of my spy plane units investigate a magical signature my scanners didn't recognize, and saw it was the Caribou. I sent the message to Canterlot, which arrived around the same time I used the ACU mounted teleporter, which took thirty minutes to charge, by the way, to teleport outside the barrier," I said.

"Did you do the same to know where we were," Luna asked.

"Yep," I said. "To be fair, though, I would have intercepted you all even if you weren't following Chrysalis to keep my base a secret." I then tilted my head, thinking. "You know, if I had a blueprint of the palace, I could probably use an Engineer or my ACU to replace it, now that I think on it."

"That was a bit of a random thought," Twiligh tsaid.

"Eh, sometimes my mind goes off course," I said. "Usually when I'm talking, though. My mind is not as organized as some."

"That I can sympathize with," Luna said.

"So, Princess Luna," I said, "what's your stance on what I did to Tirek?"

"In all honesty, he got what he deserved," Luna said. "If Celestia hadn't turned into a pacifist after the first Caribou invasion, he wouldn't have come back."

"They invaded before," I asked, surprised.

"Indeed they did, ten years before my banishment and five after Discord's first imprisonment," she said. "They nearly beat us, but Celestia faced their king alone, and I had thought them killed, seeing as how we did not see them."

"Uh, Luna," Twilight said, "as much an introvert I am, even I know the only way to make a patriarchal race like the Caribou is to, well. . ."

"To be crass," I said, "to let them fuck her brains out. Just how old was Dainn, anyway?"

"Dainn," Luna asked. "That was the name of their king to begin with!"

"Oh," I said. "Well, with that, it explains a lot with Celestia," I added in a mutter, namely how Celestia of all ponies went from a black collar in the canon of Fall of Equestria, which is to say those who are against the Caribou regime, to a willing red. Seriously, I may hate her, but of all ponies, I would not peg her for that.

"But my sister would not give in to those beasts," Luna said.

"Well, we can discuss it later," I said. "Namely after negotiations."

"Yeah, it's not like it will mean the destruction of Equestria if we go off it for a while," Twilight said. That got looks of surprise from Luna and I as we continued to walk. "What?"

"It's not like you to not worry about something, especially where Celestia's involved," I said. To veer any questions off, I added, "I have my sources."

"He is correct," Luna said.

"Well I am the one to have come up with and vocalize it first," she said, crossing her arms.

"Fair enough," I said before the group stopped at a two tiered, crystal house that was definitely a noble house, if the fancy and pointless decoration was any indication.

"We're here," Cadence said.

"So I guess we head inside, then," I ask.

"Yep," Cadence said. "If you four will follow me," she said, and we followed her inside, the changeling guards staying outside.

Cadence led us inside and to a dining room with a rectangular table, five seats on the large sides, two on the smaller. "So, who's the owner of this place," I asked.

"Me," Cadence replied, taking a seat at one of the head chairs. "Shining and I bought this in case something happened with the palace for official business. Probably a good thing, I guess. And you guys can take a seat."

With that, we took seats on opposite sides of the table, Luna and Twilight on one side, Chrysalis on one side, and me on the same side, but a chair away. "So, what are we going to discuss first," I ask.

I'm going to spare you all the details of this part of the story, and go straight in to what was the outcome. Chrysalis and her hive, as reparations for Canterlot, were to help the Crystal rebuild and such, would not attack Equestria unless it attacked first or declared war, and were to provide me a place to rest outside my ACU, as well as food, in the desert base, while the Empire did so here in the arctic. As such, I would help protect both from enemies. As for myself and Equestria, it was simple: if they did not bother me, I would not attack them, but if something came up that either they couldn't handle or threatened me as well, I would step in. No tech yet, I don't trust Celestia to not declare war on me once she finds out how to use my tech.

It had been, and this is to the second, as my HUD also had a clock, five hours since the whole thing started when it ended. "That went better than expected," Cadence said.

"Agreed," Luna said. "I just hope Celestia does not wish to revise it. She thinks my banishment has left me incapable of doing treaties."

"Sounds like she's hogging as much of the power for herself," I said.

"You sound like Chrysalis," the lunar alicorn said, to which I shrugged with indifference. It was here that a crystal pony guard rushed in.

"Princess," he said. "I have a message from Princess Celestia!"

"Great," I muttered as the scroll said message was on was handed to Cadence, who opened and read it.

"Uh, Auntie, Twilight?"

"Yeah," Twilight asked.

"Auntie Celestia just said you were corrupted by dark magic and have allied with Josh, or 'The Demon', as she called him in the letter."

"Oh dear fucking god, here we go," I said, pinching the part of my face where my nose led into my forehead. "Anything else related to me?"

"Yeah," Cadence said. "And it isn't good."

"What is it?"

"She wants you to return Luna and Twily, as well as her husband-seriously? She has a husband?"

"What's the name?"

"Dainn."

"Nuke missile silo one, target but do not fire on Canterlot," I said. "Well, that explains a lot about that universe. And if I don't?"

"She'll declare war, and defeat you herself."

"And that confirms it," Twilight said.

"What," I ask.

"That spell your jammers protected me and Luna from? There were only two beings who could cast one like that, and with hindsight being twenty-twenty, I think I know who cast it."

"Who?"

"Celestia did."

Nuke silos one through three, target but do not fire on Canterlot. "Well, here's my reply," I say standing up. "You want war, Celestia? Well, you little Caribou cock slut, I plan on giving you war with all of my forces. I simply wished to be left alone, but events, including your stupidity, has not allowed that. So, to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, I challenge you to a one on one duel in the Crystal Empire, where I currently am, with every piece of equipment we have. You get every spell, and I get my ACU. But I warn you now, if you face me, you will not win."

The calm before the storm

The sun had set, and it was the same day as when Celestia had, whether knowingly or not, declared war on me. Myself, Cadence, Chrysalis, and, as going back would be a possible death sentence for them right now, Luna and Twilight were in the back up palace, as I'm calling the building we were in.

Currently, I was in my room, looking out the window to see the active streets of the Empire, and saw multiple crystal ponies in the streets. While the destruction of the heart had done little damage, the area damage on the bombers did do some damage. Fortunately, none were harmed, and everypony was working on getting everything repaired. I heard a knock on my door, but did not turn. "Come in."

The door opened, and a single pony came in, the hoofsteps stopping beside me. "An impressive sight, is it not," Luna asked.

"That it is," I replied, hands behind my back. "I can only imagine how impressive it was before."

"'Tis a shame you destroyed it."

"Only because I had to," I said. "I siad it once, I will say it as many times as needed: if there was another way, I would have taken it."

"That's why I think you're a good leader, even if you lead machines," Luna said. "You have no ambition but to protect, you have a loyal army, both in your machines, and I am certain in the crystal ponies as well, and, unlike my sister, when there are no other options, you do not try to make one. You choose with what you have, for good or ill."

I sighed. "Princess, I meant what I said in that message to your sister earlier. I wished to be left alone, and once I am certain Equestria will not come after me, that is what I hope will happen. I know I don't look it, but I was never a good leader where I come from. I am best when following someone else's lead."

The Lunar Alicorn chuckled. "Then you and I have something in common," she said. "When my sister and I took the throne, I always followed her lead, and it was that way until a century after we took the throne."

"What happened," I asked, turning to look at her, seeing she was wearing a navy blue gown that went to three quarters of the way down her legs, and a black shirt that went to her waist.

"Most of the specifics I have forgotten with time, but I still remember it enough to tell," Luna said. "Keep in mind, this happened a thousand years before my banishment, so that you can know the time line a little better. As for what happened, well-

"It was a week after the summer solstice, and no, the summer sun celebration was not known then. My sister and I were doing our duties. Fore her, it was paperwork. For me, as it was during the day, it was looking over the military. Celestia had just set the sun and we were preparing for our nightly duties when a unicorn guard came rushing into our throne room. When we asked him what had happened, he said a large being, nearly as tall as your ACU, actually, had appeared on the border between Equestria and the Zebra lands, and that what ever was sent was easily killed by it. So, as a result, Celestia and I donned our armor, and rushed to stop it. Even with our combined ability, we nearly lost."

Luna-1st-Equestria/Zebra border; two thousand years ago

"Sister, what dost thou think we will see," I asked my sister, who wore armor as golden as her sun, as we flew through the skies.

"We do not know," Celestia replied. "The guards hath reported a strange creature that can easily tear through their shields. We think it best if we do not stay still."

"Aye," I replied. I wore a darker version of what my sister was wearing, but it was still as effective as hers. As for weapons, she had a halberd in her hands, and twin swords as a back up in their scabbards. For me, a single long sword with an array of daggers as my secondary, the daggers being numerous enough to where I had to use my magic to use them all at once.

When we arrived at the border, what we saw was terrifying, to say the least. It was ninety hooves tall, its knees being like that of a bird's, which is to say backwards. Its shoulders had spires that pointed forward, and where its hands should have been were two different appendages. Its right arm ended in a sort of cylinder with three prongs at the end, while the other one had only a single curve at the end of it that returned back into the arm, and the tip of its hooves was slim, and ended in a vertical circle.

"Sister," I said. "Dost thou know what that is?"

"Nay," Celestia replied as we stared at the creature. "But whatever it is, we must defeat it to protect our subjects."

"Agreed," I said just as the creature turned towards us, and a light appeared on its right arm before it fired a beam of energy at us, which we dodged. As for the ground it hit after we dodged it, it was badly burned, as if a fire had swept through the area.

"Sister, or weapons are useless against this, we are certain of it," Celestia yelled to me, as we had went in different directions to avoid the blast. "We must retreat and find Starswirl to assist us!"

"Sister, if we do," I replied at equal volume, "than this thing may follow us, and slaughter our subjects. We must defeat it here!"

"We can not do anything to it by ourselves," Celestia said. "We must retreat."

"And if we are correct, and it follows us before we can prepare again?"

"Then what dost thou propose," Celestia asked as we came back together behind the creature.

"We can combine our two magics, and create a barrier around it," I replied.

"And if that does not work?"

"Then may mother and father judge our souls fairly."(1)

"Then what do you think we should do," Celestia asked as the top half of the creature turned around.

"Something that will most definitely destroy it," I replied. "We must imprison it in a mountain of flames."

"If you think it will work, sister," Celestia as just as the creature turned finished turning, and we teleported to the back of it, and charged our magic, creating a spell that hadn't been used since, as only alicorns were capable of it.

We began to change the very surface of the planet itself.

The magic built on our horns before we released the spell, my magic and my sister's combining just before they impacted the ground between the creature's feet, and the rock around it began to grow, combine, fall apart, and do untold millennium of work in a total of a few minutes for us. But not before the thing we were imprisoning gave one last shot of resistance against us.

Just as the rocks began to cover its top half, and molten rock envelop its legs, it spun around, faster than it had before, and fired off one, single projectile at me, but, just before it hit, Celestia teleported in front of me, and took the shot, her horn lighting as she put a magical shield up, which shattered a second after impact, stopping all but a tiny portion of the attack, which impacted on her chest piece, and it sent her falling to the ground.

"SISTER!!" I felt many emotions, seeing my sister injured and falling to the ground, the emotions at the front being concern for her, and rage for the being that had injured her. Rage that was soon fulfilled, as the new volcano finished enveloping the machine the rock sealing it away.

I then flew to the ground to where my sister had fallen, seeing as I landed that she was still alive, as her chest was still rising and falling with her breath. "Sister, are you alright," I asked her upon landing and kneeling next to her.

She coughed, then opened her eyes. "Mayhaps a little sore," she replied. "Is it sealed away?"

"Aye, it is," I replied. "Are you well enough to fly?"

"We believe so," Celestia said as I helped her stand up. "Now come. We must return to the castle so that our subjects do not worry."

"Agreed," I said. "But if thee feels weak, we will use our magic to carry you back."

She smiled a little as she said, "We thank thee, sister." With that, the two of us spread our wings, and flew back to our castle, which is in a long forgotten city only my sister and I know the name and location, the beast eliminated.

Josh-1st-present

All I could do was look at Luna, who, along with her sister, had taken on an ACU. But not just any ACU. "Luna, that thing was an ACU."

"It did not look like yours," she replied.

"My people aren't the only ones to have made one," I said. "And that one belonged to a race that wants to wipe all but their own kind out.

"The Seraphim."

Celestia-1st

It's funny. Then, I had thought everything I did was to protect my subjects. That spell that Twilight had figured? Meant to erase traumatic memories. It was not meant to do what it eventually did, which is have my subjects see me as a perfect goddess with no faults, even after some were clearly telegraphed. I suppose that's my fault, something I now regret not fixing.

But that's for later on. Right now, what I was doing while Luna was telling Josh of our first encounter with an ACU, even if we did not know it was called that.

I was in my personal room, torn. I didn't want to label my sister and Twilight as corrupted, but that was the only thing I could do her friends would be able to make sense of after so many years of unintentional brainwashing. Except maybe Pinkie Pie, even I was confounded by what she could do.

Anyway, I had gotten the reply from Josh, and was making my final preparations for the battle. I had perfected the spell Luna and I had cast two thousand years ago, and would use it against him. I also had my old battle armor, the same from the first ACU encounter, brought out and refurbished for the battle. That left only a single thing for me to do.

I used my magic to remove an illusionary spell on the middle wall, which revealed a small I suppose you could say shrine, given its layout. There were no pictures, not that there could be, none existed. Well, one did, one I had made in secret and made a part of this shrine. But other than that, there was not much, only what some, even Twilight, would think to be odd knick-knacks and such, bobbles, nothing more, when, in reality, they were devices I had found shortly after the first battle with an ACU in the area of its volcano prison. I knew not what they were for but, at the time, I regarded them as sacred, as the shot from the Seraphim ACU was not meant to harm me. It was meant to show me something.

I knelt down in front of the shrine, hands clasped in a praying fashion. "My high lords," I said in a whisper, "give me the strength to protect my subjects, your unknowing followers, from a heretic who dares imitate you, and defeat the heretic. May The Way give me strength."

Cybran Vs. Sun

Silence.

That is all there was in the Crystal Empire a noon. I sat inside my ACU in the center of the Empire, where the Crystal Palace used to be, looking over the preparations I had made yesterday and last night for this fight. I may have an ACU, but Celestia's the Solar Alicorn, and I am not going to be overconfident like most people with a nine story mech would be here.

Cadence, Luna, Twilight, and Chrysalis were in the estate, everypony else in their homes. They knew that this was my fight, and they weren't going to interrupt. Besides, I had a plan for Celestia with this fight.

You know, I wonder if that volcano is still there, the one that Luna and Celestia made when they went against that ACU. Definitely worth checking out after this.

Anyway, it was about twelve thirty when I heard the pop of teleportation, and, with the main camera, I saw Celestia wearing the armor Luna had described her wearing from the story, along with the five remaining Elements loyal to her. "Afraid to face me alone," I asked. "You do realize you bring the five of them into the firing line as well?"

"I brought them so that they could remove the taint in Twilight and my sister," she retorted in a yell.

"Good luck with that," I said. "If there is one here that is corrupt, Celestia, it is you with power."

She did not seem to have a response to me. Instead, she said to the Elements, "Find my sister and Twilight. They are most likely in Cadence's estate."

"You got it, princess," Applejack said to her before she and the other Elements ran off to the estate. Good. So far, everything's going to plan.

"You aren't trying to stop them," Celestia asked me.

"Why would I," I said. "They need all six of the Elements to use them, and even with their rainbow form, they are going against two alicorns who can still use magic, one of which has a rainbow form. Besides, when I'm done, they won't want to do anything to Twilight and Luna anyway."

"And why do you think that?"

"Because I plan shit out," I said. "Now, can we get this fight underway? I have stuff I need to do."

"Like becoming the next King Sombra," she said before she unfurled her wings, and launched up to my ACU's head level, her horn charged with magic as I raised my main cannon at her.

"No," I said. "Protecting your subjects where you can't," I said before I fired my cannon, and she fired a spell, the two projectiles colliding in between us, a large explosion occurring, bot of us enveloped it the fireball, but unharmed. Myself because obvious reasons, and her because of a shield she put up around herself. The fireball itself enveloped the entire center of the Empire, but was stopped by Cybran shield generators, at the fifth expansion level for maximum coverage, which stopped the fire ball from expanding past our combat area.

"I see you actually protected your hostages," Celestia said.

"One is not a hostage if they are willing," I replied. "Every Crystal pony here sees me as a hero, an honor I do not deserve, and would give their lives to help me, but to me, if it cost their lives, I'd rather kill myself to remove the threat that would lead me to seeking their help. And as much as I wish to have been left alone, something impossible, apparently, I would rather protect a single pony, even you if needed, than let a city die. Which reminds me, do you have any other weapons other than your magic?"

"Why," she asked. "So you can defeat me?"

I chuckled. "Oh, Celestia," I said. "You should know this rule as a leader: a battle can be won or lost before it's even begun by choosing the environment, and I have used my environment."

"What do you mean?"

"Simple," I replied. "Look around, what do you see? Innocent ponies, believing what they believe. As I said before, if it meant their lives, which I sorely wish it wouldn't, they would help. You would not see them harmed if at all possible, which it is. If you did harm them for no other reason than they follow someone else, even if said someone was controlling them, which I assure you, I am not, then you would be labeled as a hypocrite, quite possibly a tyrant, even. As such, I have already defeated you."

It was here that she did something I didn't think she would under the circumstances. She began to chuckle. "You think I care about the crystal ponies?"

Youtube Video

"Wait, what," I said, shocked.

"I never cared about the Crystal ponies well being," she said, and it was here, with my ACU's camera, as well as some over head spy planes, I saw something. . . odd with her. A faint yellow shimmer around her, one I knew well from my time with Forged Alliance, and I even saw here eyes change from magenta shaded red to blood red, as well as the magic on her horn. Fuck my life, I know each of those. "All I cared about was having offerings for when my lords would arrive. That's what the Caribou were for as well. Offerings so that they would spare me and Equestria."

"By 'they', you don't mean the Seraphim, do you?"

"Oh, you are smarter than you look," she said with another chuckle. "Indeed I do. When they arrive, they will bring The Way to all who follow me, and we shall be spared. I spent years charging a spell to allow them here, and it is almost done."

"Then you'll need to wait a while longer," I said. "Activate Stealth field Generators." Yeah, those jammers? They're the stealth field generators. The frequency they operate on is able to neutralize any horn based magic. In short, Celestia's going to nee dot restart that charge. But first- "Though I do have a question. If you need your magic to charge for this, and you were doing it for years, than why did you not restart after Tirek?"

"I had items that retained a large amount of magic, which I drained to get to my current charge. Which is to say, you'll ruin everything!"

"Good," I said. "Oh, and I had Twilight and Luna use a transmission spell to show everything to Equestria. So everypony in Equestria saw that little speech of yours."

"It doesn't matter," Celestia said, the shimmer behind her that I associated with Seraphim construction fading away. "The spell I placed on them after my sister's banishment ensures that they will side with me and see me as a goddess!"

"You mean the spell Twilight Sparkle broke through, and the one my jammers just removed?" Realization appeared on her face. "Everypony knows, Celestia." I said. "And they're forming their own opinions. You control them no more."

"It still matters little," Celestia said. "I have lead them since before they were born. They see me as their Goddess. And even so, you are but one. You can not hope to stand against me."

And now, it was my turn to laugh. "One thing you haven't learned Celestia. I may be one, but, well (00:57) I am one, but sparks turn into flames." With that, I raised the main cannon, and fired off shots at Celestia, who was agile enough to avoid each shot in the air, the shots impacting on the shields as she flew to my left side, and with her earth pony strength, remember, unicorn magic was blocked, nothing else, used a Halberd to slice through the constructor arm. Okay, so construction is lessened, but not removed, I thought as I turned to face her again, and fire off a shots at standard rate of fire, as i had to remove the fire rate upgrade to put in a tech two suite so I could build the jammers. She dodged these shots as well, and made her way to the cannon, slicing the power cable at the elbow, which made it fall limp to the side. The repairs are definitely going to take a while this time.

"I still have two weapons left, Celestia," I said, redirecting the power flow from the main cannon to my unibeam- I mean microwave laser mounted in the ACU's chest before firing it at her. Fortunately, even though she was able to avoid the beam, I was able to retract it behind the main armor at will, which prevented her from destroying it.

"Face it, Demon," Celestia said. "I've destroyed every weapon you have, and the one you still have can't hit me."

"Already forgotten, apparently," I said. "I said I have two weapons left. One was my chest weapon."

"Then what's the other?"

"Ingenuity," I said as I activated the construction drones my ACU had stored, which then hovered over the ACU's head. "You may be agile, but so are these little buggers. Now, En guard." With that, I directed the drones to use their beams, meant for construction, but, with enough skill, can be used as air based weapons, and, as I went to tech three suite, I was able to hold ten, which meant ten single beams, or five combo beams, each Celestia had to dodge, which, I noticed, she was doing with difficulty, as one happened to graze a wing. She could still fly, but she flapped the wing slowly to avoid the pain. Good. Now I have the advantage. "Celestia, give it up," I said. "So long as the jammers are active, and I have control over each, you have a disadvantage." 'Twas after I said it that I realized I had jinxed myself.

"So you think," Celestia said before she flew off to a distance, the edge of the Empire, and then, with a speed one would think impossible with an injured wing, she rocketed towards me almost like she was Ruby from RWBY, both pronounced the same if you don't watch Roosterteeth stuff, doing her crimson tornado move, the Halberd in front and making the tip.

The only thing going through my mind as I realized what she was doing was, Aw, shit. Before I was able to move to get out of her way, she hit the ACU's chest, and tore right through it, and i find it a miracle the reactor wasn't breached. Still, that action cut all power to the ACU, which began to fall face first into the crystal ground, a large crack appearing there when it had finished the fall.

"It seems as if you've lost," Celestia said as I began to climb out of the control cabin. "You've lost anything you could use."

"Not really," I said, chuckling as I fell back onto my ass. "You see, I said we can use everything at our disposal. I just so happen to have a link to the command system, which extends to all of my units," I said. "Of which, twenty AA Gunships and Combat fighters are on their way here to knock your ass out of the air, or vaporize you on the ground. That leaves no too many options for you," I say as I stand up. "One is you stay and die. The second: you surrender. Three is the one where you leave, and I declare war on you, and anyone who still follows you. What's it going to be?"

She snarled. "I'll admit, you are definitely more intelligent and crafty than I had thought," she said. "But I will bring an army with me next time."

"And you'll still lose," I said. "Deactivate jammer one." Said jammer deactivated. "If you want to go back and face the consequences, go to the southern edge. You'll be able to teleport back."

"Your kindness will not save you next we meet," Celestia said before she spread her wings and flew in the indicated direction.

"Maybe not," I said. "But one thing that will are the tactics I'll use. Unicorns can't stand against an ACU." It was here I coughed, and I saw drops of blood come out. "Well, shit," I said as I realized I had internal bleeding, adrenaline and my armor numbing the pain, and promptly fainted as I heard hooves running towards me."

Celestia-1st- a few minutes later

I had teleported back to my castle in Cantelrot, where, I had found, a riot was going on outside. The me then, the one Josh had brought to light, didn't care, but rather, I was filled with rage that a single interloper had stopped me from opening a Quantum rift for the Seraphim to use to enter Equestria and bring The Way to my subjects. Most of which, in Canterlot, anyway, were now in rebellion. Only a small group of guards and Nobles, all of whom were in the castle with me, were still loyal to me without the spell the old me had cast.

sigh I feel ashamed for what she did, if only because I have her name and memories. But more on that later. We, those still loyal to me and myself, were in the Throne room, preparing to leave the city, and vanish from the public eye for as much time as needed to rework the Quantum spell, and bring the fury of the gods.

Once all of that was done, myself and the unicorns in the group lit our horns for teleportation. Just before that happened, my thoughts went to my, or, rather, her sister and former student, and I remember rage. Nothing else. No sorrow. Just rage. And, just as those rebelling broke into the castle, the Loyalists and myself, their leader, teleported to parts unknown, leaving Equestria in the hands of the Moon, the Student, the Paramour, and the Soldier.

New allies and new enemies

I had no idea how long I was out, or how bad I was injured, but according to Twilight and the others, I was out for a week, and I had a few cracked ribs, and internal bleeding. Guess I should thank the adrenaline for numbing that, as well as the armor at least allowing me to survive to get medical attention.

Anyway, when I woke up, I had a pounding headache on my left side, and moved a hand to it. "Careful, sir," I heard a voice say as I sat up. "The doctors weren't able to remove that thing from your head." As I opened my eyes, I saw it was a crystal pony mare in guard armor with a purple coat with white hair and tail. I looked at her in confusion for a second before i knew what she was talking about.

"That's because it isn't meant to be removed," I said. "It's what allows me to stay connected to my forces. And why'd you call me 'sir'? I'm not a part of any military."

"An order from Princesses Cadenza, Sparkle, and Luna," the guard said. "Six days ago, after you had been stabilized, they decreed that you would be given the authority of a general for protecting the Empire, as well as revealing a corrupted official that meant to send Equestria to Tartarus. Which reminds me, sir, the royals wanted to speak with you as soon as you woke up."

"Well, go get them," I said as i stood up, revealing I had on a normal hospital gown, with civilian clothes on a nearby table. "I need to get dressed."

"Of course, sir," the mare replied before leaving the room we were in, which I recognized to be the medical room of Cadence's estate. Anyway, I took off the hospital gown and put on the clothes, which consisted, with what was visible, anyway, of a black t-shirt that was a little loose, but not much, and jeans.

I had just finished getting dressed when the door to the room opened, and the four royals that hadn't been deposed walked in. That is to say, Cadence, Twilight, Chrysalis, and Luna. "Given the circumstances," I said, "I'm not going to say anything else until I know why you guys wanted to speak with me."

"There is no need for that," Luna said. "Really, we wished to thank you."

"Really," I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because you freed not just the Empire," Cadence said, "but also removed a spell that had been going for who knows how long effecting Equestria."

"Just circumstances," I replied. "If Celestia hadn't tried to anything, it wouldn't have happened. Which reminds me, what exactly was the public response to that?"

"Mixed," Luna replied as she sat down in a seat near the main doors. Most, as far as I can tell, are angry at Celestia, and are glad she's gone for now, but most think you'll try to take the throne."

"Oh, hell no to that," I said. "I said it before, I'll say it again: I have no desire to rule over a country, just defend it."

"Well, that's a bit of a shame," Chrysalis said as she too sat down. "I heard that quite a few crystal ponies want to join a nation led by you, even some of my changelings."

"Even if I was planning on leading a nation," I said, "they'd need to have implants like mine that allow them to work more efficiently, or, in cases like me when they have an ACU, allows them to command their units without being in my ACU. Which reminds me, where is it, anyway?"

"If you're referring to your machine," Chrysalis said, "it is where it fell. It is too heavy to be moved with what magic we have, even with Princess Luna and Sparkle."

"In that case," I said, going into the command network, "Aeon Tech three engineers, move to repair ACU."

"Must you vocalize the commands?" Luna asked.

"Makes it easier for me," I replied. "My mind can get disorganized from time to time without speaking, so it helps for me to vocalize."

"I guess that makes sense," Twilight said.

"But why did you all come here?" I ask. "The real reason."

"You seem to have knowledge on those my sister called her lords," Luna said. "We were hoping you could tell us what you know."

"If that's the case, I'll start with the important point then: your magic will be as useful as shit against their tech. Where I come from, our world was invaded by the same group, and we were driven to the edge of extinction, even with technology to combat theirs. Only reason we won is because of a small civil war within the ranks of their followers, as well as a hell of a lot luck. We were able to close a dimensional rift that allowed them to get through, but, in reality, only a few actually made it there, something about the rift being unstable. Which is to say, if Celestia had opened a rift here, we would be dead right now, followed quickly by the rest of the planet."

"Is there anyway we can help," Cadence said.

"Not really, no," I said. "Evacuation plans would be useless against Seraphim, and only an ACU and the armies they make can have a chance."

The four were quiet for a time, I imagine letting that sink in, before it was Twilight who spoke up. "Then why not train us in using them," she asked.

I'll admit, I was a little surprised, but I got over it quickly and replied, "Because I don't know how to make ACUs-" I was cut off as a message appeared on my HUD.

Before you ask, I'm the one who sent you there, it said. And yes, I was talking about the Seraphim. The reason why I'm sending you this is to say I added ACU schematics for the UEF, Aeon, and Cybran to the build menus for the Gateways, and will take as long to build as an SACU, and will automatically move to where you set the move beacon. I also took the liberty of adding a Cybran surgery building for the implants into the Cybran banks, as well as a training facility for each. No thanks needed.

"Scratch that, I just got a message saying I can now build them. Which leaves the issue as to who I'm going to give them to after training."

"Well," Chrysalis said, "why not us?"

"Why," I asked, surprised.

"For one, it would help show ponies still doubtful of you that we can trust you," Luna said.

"And it will help us protect them," Cadence said. "I know I need something to help in that regard."

"Are you all sure?" I asked.

They nodded, and I sighed. "Alright, then. But first, Princess Luna, there's still one set of structures I've yet to build. With your permission, I would like to have an area of land to work with for it, as it will allow me to build all three ACU versions."

"If it will help, you may build on the Equestrian side of the Northern border," she said.

"Okay, then," I said. "But that will have to wait until my ACU is done getting repaired, as it holds every building schematic I have."

"And how long will that take?" Luna asked.

I shrugged. "No idea. Usually, when something goes through an ACU's chest, it goes boom in an explosion large enough to envelop most of the area around it, destroying the ACU itself. This is the first time that hasn't happened, and the chest, the main weapons, and proto-crafter, what's used for construction, all need to be repaired. At most, I'd say it'll be a week, so it looks like I'll be staying here."

"Then I had better return to Canterlot," Luna said, standing up. "I do not trust the Nobles there to rule Equestria effectively. Are you coming, Twilight Sparkle?"

"Actually, I want to stay here with Cadence and the others, for now," Twilight replied.

"Of course," she said. "I suppose I will see you all next time." With that, she teleported away.

"And I must return to my Hive," Chrysalis said. "I expect a message to be sent once Josh is able to train me in operation of one of his machines."

"Stay near Alpha," I said. "I'll come through personally."

"Right," she said before teleporting away.

"So," I said, "how are you two doing? And don't say fine, losing a loved one would take a heavy toll."

"You're talking about Shining?" Twilight asked.

"I am," I replied, to which Cadence sighed.

"I could be doing better," she said. "I've been able to hide it in public, but when it's just me, well, let's just say I've nearly ran out of tears to cry."

"Yeah, me too," Twilight said. "The girls, who decided to stay here while I'm here, by the way, are helping me out, Applejack, Rainbow, and Fluttershy especially, but it doesn't make it easier, even if it wasn't Shining you killed."

"What do you mean, Twilight?" Cadence asked.

"Just that, well, it wasn't Shining that was killed by Josh," the lavender alicorn replied. "He died when the Caribou corrupted him. It was just something with his name, looks, and memories that Josh killed. The real one died before Josh even got here to stop them."

"That's wise, Twilight," I said. "When did you come to that conclusion?"

"A day before everything went to Tartarus, which is to say the day before Chrysalis came to you. Which actually leads to something I wanted to ask."

"What would that be?"

"I was wondering if I could get those cybernetic implants," she said. "I want to join your nation, if you're making one, that is."

Unknown location

"Well," a figure that looked like Dr. Gustaf Brackman said, his voice just like the doctor's, "that was quite unexpected."

"That it was, my old friend," Discord, lord of chaos for every Equestria, said.

"So, does that vision of yours still happen?"

"Far as I can tell," he replied. "Only thing that'll stop it is him not meeting them, and with how they spread their tokens, I can't stop it."

"So then He's going to arrive at some point, then," the Merchant said. "Great. How long?"

"At best, about three and a half years. And with what she's planning on doing, that means the Commander will be fighting a two fronter. One, he could handle with ease, but with a two front war with these kinds of enemies?" Discord shrugged. "Well, let's just say it's a good thing Harmony and I have chosen our champions, and that they're going through their own trials. Do you have any other Displaced that may help?"

"Maybe," the Merchant replied. "I simply need to find an Equestria for them to go to."

"Well let me know when you need something to use for that," the lord of chaos replied before snapping his talons, which opened a dimensional portal. "But for now, I need to go home. Those Guardians sure were kind to give me a dimension in which I have free reign." With that, he flew into the portal, which closed behind him.

"I swear, no matter how many times I meet him, he always annoys me somehow," Merchant said. "Well, guess I had better get to work on something for the Valus." And with that, the Merchant vanished, leaving nothing but a void.

Badlands

In the badlands, more accurately, near the southern area where Eqeustria bordered the Griffon lands, a small camp of ponies sat in hiding. Most wore fancy clothes that wouldn't be out of place in Canterlot, others wore golden armor. These ponies, totaling forty five, were, as they called themselves, The Sol Loyalists. Their leader was the only mare of the group, and she wore golden battle armor, a small blade under her horn, a Halberd by her side. This was the now deposed Princess Celestia, and the few still loyal to her after what had happened in the Empire.

"What is the plan, Highness?" Captain Lone Shadow, a unicorn stallion with black skin, as well as hair and tail, both of which had red and orange accents for a flame like appearance, asked.

"Quite simple, Captain," Celestia replied. The two of them, as well as three other rogue guards, were having the daily war council, where Celestia had decided to lay a plan out. "If we are to bring the Seraphim here to remove the Demon that's taken control of most of Equestria, we will need as much magic as possible to do so, as it took me ten years to reach the charge I had before itcompletely removed, and that was with putting parts of the charge in objects as a back up. The plan is that we liberate as many unicorns from the Demon's control, and have them help us create a rift."

"Then where will we target first, Ma'am?" Azure Shadow, a unicorn mare with dark blue skin, black hair and tail with white accents, asked.

"The Crystal Empire," Celestia said. "We must free Rarity Belle from the Demon, as my once faithful student believes, without magical influence, that the Demon is a savior. Having an Element would help us greatly."

Training

Okay, so, where should I start here? After I got the training facilities built, which had a simulator in them, or the ACUs being finished? Aw, fuck it, my story.

This is our story too, Josh.

Maybe, Twilight, but which one of us was the first one with an ACU? Oh, that's right, me. But, still, where do you think I should start?

When we got the training.

Okay, fair enough.

Yeah, so that part of the story picks up a few days after the whole Celestia incident. The reason being was that volunteers had to be found for the ACUs. Now, don't get me wrong, a shit load of crystal pony guards signed up, but I only had four ACUs for each faction, mine included in the count for the Cybran ones, and I had to screen a shit load of ponies for it to ensure that they wouldn't use it to attack me, or anyone, for that matter.

Regardless, the other three I had chosen for Cybran augments, which included Twilight, by the way, had gone through them well, with Twilight helping before the first one, her, by putting biology books into the data banks for ponies, unicorns especially, so they wouldn't lose any natural ability.

For Luna, and those under her command, as each faction would be separate, and Equestria, somehow, became, with a few alliances made within the week of Celestia, became as, I shit you all not, the United Equestrian Federation. UEF. I may be able to make this shit up, but I would not stoop to lows like that just to fulfill someth-

If I remember correctly, you suggested that name, Josh.

Shut it, Chrysi. Okay, sorry. Anyways, they would, quite obviously, use UEF shit. It was with Chrysalis and Cadence that things got. . .interesting, to say the least, as there was one faction left, but leaving every ACU from a single faction was not good for keeping peace, so I decided it best for the Aeon ACUs to be half crystal pony, Cadence being the leader there, and half changeling, Chrysalis there. It was meant to help with relations. It did, don't get me wrong, but I thought that they would try to nuke each other, intentionally or not, over a simple argument, and the rest of us had to intervene. That was an interesting week.

Again, sorry. So, there we, meaning me and the others for the Cybran ACUs, each wearing some variation of the suit from the Cybran opener from the original game, were in Canterlot, outside the Throne room. Twilight and I were at the ends of the chairs laid out for us. Now, I don't know why, maybe it's my pale skin, but the red lines from Gen 1 augments weren't visible on me, but on the others. Well, not really.

The other two ponies were both Earth ponies. One had green skin with brown hair and tail. His name was Shadow Specter, and, when his screening was in progress, I learned that his brother, Lone Shadow, was in the Guard, and one of the relative few who remained loyal to Celestia, along with his brother's marefriend, Azure Shadow. And his brother was a unicorn. Either genetics, or adopted.

The other pony had red skin, which is why I said 'well, not really' earlier, as his red skin hid the augment lines well, and he had black hair. His name was Ace Swift and, from what he had told me upon asking and what I know from screening, he used to be a card counter, but was laid off for some reason, and had joined the Crystal guard about a year ago.

"Wonder why it's taking so long," Shadow said.

"No idea," I said. "I haven't exactly gotten clearance to have radio set up for communication. Yet, anyway."

"I just wonder when Princess Cadence and Queen Chrysalis are going to get here," Ace said.

"Soon," Twilight said. The reason why she didn't say much was because, well, it's Twilight with an A.I. implant. Take a fucking guess. And don't sass me, Twilight.

You weren't wrong.

I figured that. And apologies if that sounds like something a jerk would say.

Anyway, as soon as she said that, and I mean 'soon', there was a green colored flash of light. I closed my eyes to prevent temporary blindness. When I opened them again, I saw Chrysalis, Cadence, and the other two pilots for the Aeon ACUs, a sky blue crystal pony mare with white hair and tail and a changeling with gray skin, or is it chitin, and dark blue frills. As I had used the Aeon Engineers from Ramses to build a few civilian structures for the changelings that lived in the Empire, brought on as a result of the current treaty, I had also built a few production facilities, which included one that made the Aeon pilot outfits. As such, the four wore Aeon pilot outfits. As a side note, why do they have to be formfitting?

"Took you long enough," Ace said.

"Shut it, Ace," the crystal mare said. Yeah, did I mention the two often served together? Her name was Amber Gleam. I didn't know the changeling's name. "So, how long until the other group?"

"No idea," I said. "Chrysalis, Cadence, good to see you."

"You too, Josh," Chrysalis said as Cadence and Twilight did, well, guess. "So, I see those augments went well."

"Yeah, Twilight's been going bat crap coo-coo over all the intel about the Cybran Nation, my government from before coming here, as well as the other two civilizations. That's to say the UEF, the original one from where I'm from, and the Aeon Illuminate, whose ACUs are the ones you four are piloting."

"I was not," Twilight pouted, crossing her arms.

"Uh-huh, sure you weren't," I said just as the throne room doors opened, and Luna, along with a pegasus, a unicorn, and an earth pony walked out, each in Equestrian BDU. Oh, did I mention that Rainbow and Applejack were the aforementioned pegasus and earth pony? No? Sorry about that. As for the unicorn, she had pink skin with light brown hair, and her horn had a pointed end.

"Princess," I said with a slight nod as the others and I stood up. "Can I just say I'm surprised two of the most stubborn ponies are among the first to pilot an ACU is a little surprising to me?"

"And me as well," Chrysalis said, getting glares from the two.

"Well, for y'all's information," Applejack said, crossing her arms, "we did so ta pratect our families."

"Fair enough," I said. "So, is everyone ready?"

"Indeed we are," Luna said. "But how are we going to get to your bases?"

"Twilight, can you get us to Alpha? And I mean all of us," I said.

"On it," she said before she lit her horn, which had a slight red tint at the edges due to the augments, and we all teleported to Alpha, which was under heavier guard with bomber patrols, of each tech, and assault bots.

"What's with the patrols?" Chrysalis asked.

"Been having multiple Zebras using some kind of potion that is on par with the top tier bombs my forces since Celestia went, as I like to say, bat shit insane, which leads me to think she's controlling them, as I have done nothing to the Zebras," I said.

"Do you have any proof as to that?" Luna asked.

"Nope," I said. "And note, the reason why we're here is because I had each ACU brought here, including mine by transport once the repairs were done."

"Why?" Cadence asked.

"Because Alpha's the most protected base I have," I said, accessing the ACU commands as I spoke. "And that is saying something." With that, I mentally had each of the ACUs, each but mine blank for personalization reasons, come from the tier three portion of the base to where we were now, the outside just out tier one. And by that I mean, the main accent for each but mine was gray, while mine still had its red accent, plus a little more i had the Engineers put on once it got here.

A few seconds later, the ground shook as the twelve ACUs approached. "And I would like to point out that they are the way they are aesthetically for customization," I said before they could question. "Luna, you and the others are in the more block-like ones. Cadence, Chrysalis, the ones that seem organic. Twilight, Ace, Shadow, take a guess."

Before I go on, I want to describe my ACU's new look. It still had the red accents where it would in the games, but I had red striped put over the eye things, like war paint, and stripes of red and cyan on the main cannon and proto-crafter, which is the in universe term for what allows an ACU to build. Why those colors? Well, before i came to Equis, I was a gamer, and, when ever I could, I would have those two colors on my avatar, cyan as the main, and red as the secondary. True, it was reversed here, but I figured, "my ACU, I should personalize it how I want."

"I would like to point out, though," I said as the others went to an ACU I had designated for them, "that you can name them as well."

"What did you name yours?" Twilight asked, the one nearest me.

"Devil Slayer," I said. "And I locked out the more advanced features until you're ready for them." With that, I made my way to my ACU, and began climbing once I was at the ladder.

Once I had finished the climb and was in Devil Slayer's cockpit, I strapped in, and opened a channel to the other ACUs, of which the only ones occupied were those whose pilots had wings, as the others had a hard time finding the ladders. "Twilight, would you mind highlighting the ladders with your magic so everyone can get up?"

"On it," she said, and I saw magenta glows coming from near half the other ACUs. After a few minutes, I got readings from the other ACUs indicating they were now occupied.

"Okay, now that everyone's in one," I said over the radio, surely freaking a few of them out, "I'll have the movement portion of the training go through now." Now, one thing I had programmed into each of the new ACUs was the movement portion of training. The rest would be handled in a simulator. Of which, I had one made at each base. After a few minutes of, admittedly, funny scenes of ACUs crashing into each other, they got everything there down, those with the augments first. I gave it a few more minutes until I was sure they had it down before coming on back over the radio.

"Okay, first off, fast improvement. Second, the next part is going to be done out of the ACUs, and in the simulation building, of which I have one at each base. That one will be at the next location. So follow me." With that, I turned Slayer around, and towards the gate way. You know, I just remembered. In season three, more accurately "Keep calm and Flutter on", a reformation spell was mentioned. I wonder if that was a modified version of Celestia's spell, or vice versa. Which also begs the question as to how fucked up the minds were if Twilight thought a reformation spell was "morally sound", even on a villain. Which reminds me, if I meet any displaced who have not gone through that yet but will, tell them to burn that book.

Now, once we made it to the gate, I stepped through, and didn't arrive in Ramses, but Washington. Look, the way I see it with the UEF, they name their forts after historical military figures (I.E.: Fort Clarke from FA, named after General Samantha Clarke from the game series who dies in the opening cutscene), so I went with what I knew. Okay?

This one was built differently from the others. Why? Well, because of the faction. UEF mobile units have more health than their equivalents from the other factions, and I built around that. The base was in a square fashion, built with the important facilities, the extractors, generators, and factories in the middle, resource storage in the back, and a mix of SAMs, Ravager point defense, basically a laser gatling gun, and Klink Hammer, yes, that's the actual name, T2 artillery stations. The wall segments, in the corners of the base, were open to allow me to swap out T3 Demolisher mobile artillery or T3 Spearhead mobile missile platform for defense, while the very center of the base had a T3 Omni sensor. Where was the gate, you may ask. Well, I had smaller areas in similar builds around it, most economic production or storage, but a few were unit production or, in this case, travel. For each including the main one, I had T3 heavy shield generators to the point where their fields overlapped when there were more that one, allowing for max defense that the base would allow. Though, only the main area had nuke defense. I also had large patrol groups going around the base.

"I assume this is the base you requested my permission to build?" Luna asked once each ACU was through.

"Yep," I said. "Now, if each of you will exit your ACU, and go toward the only building with a roof and a door." Yeah, this outpost base also had the simulator. "That will be what you use for the final parts of training. Twilight will help each of you, as she volunteered to get in the first one to see if it worked. That is, if you don't mind, Twilight?"

"Not at all," Twilight replied. "But what about you?"

"I'll view the feeds from here," I said. Now, I don't have a sixth sense, but even then, I still felt that something was about to happen. "Besides, then I can add something in to see how well they adapt."

"Fair enough, I guess," she said, and she and the others left their ACUs, while I remained in mine. Note, the sim here looked like an administrative structure, in case you were wondering. Anyway, as they made their way there, I connected Slayer to the simulators systems, so that I could add stuff to it, as I was going to see how well each could adapt. Oh, and it would put them in a free for all skirmish match. After all, the best learning is on the job. And you must admit, if that was the canon, it would explain the skirmish matches in the games. For an example of that, look at 343 industries and Halo. Though not everyone enjoys how they're handling the series, I personally couldn't care, you must admit they put in a canon explanation for the multiplayer for their games: that they are training simulations.

Yeah, I am going to enjoy watching this.

So, an hour later, believe me, nothing happened in that hour, the others got in the sim. Before you ask, it has to do with first time prep, the details of which are classified to the public. . . I'm joking. Honestly, the preparations were all Twilight, and she never told me what they were exactly, and I never went through them. That, as Twilight told me, is because of my implants having a "natural dock" for them. i imagine it's because of ye old Merchant that sent me here.

And I thought I was the only one to speak like that.

That, Luna, is because A: the way I used it is just in a manner of speaking, and B: I like talking like that sometimes, and can understand it.

Sorry about that. So, anyway, after they all go tin, quite confused, I imagine, I started up the simulation director, which, in one of my moments of creative slump, was QAI. Fortunately, without Seraphim tech. Why fortunate? Well, short version, that allowed the Seraphim to tun him against his creator, Dr. Brackman.

Basically, it got them started on base building, and after that, told them that a hostile commander, was near, without telling them who, with prerecorded messages from the games and random names showing up from the same sources.

It was about an hour after the whole thing began, after Rainbow had done the tactic I hate most, mass bombing, basically sending a shit ton of bombers, T1, mind you, against a single target; I'll admit, it's a little more effective with Scorchers, but, in my mind it's a huge waste of mass and energy, as any competent commander, or a lucky one, would either have a shit ton of air, like one of my favorite defensive formations for turrets, or not be targeted by the bombers for, say a single extractor, which, if nothing's around it, means you wasted all those resources on a single, isolated target. Now if it was T2 or T3, I would understand, as those have more health, but still.

Sorry, got carried away again. Anyway, after she had used that tactic to the rare good effect by making Applejack go boom, I got something from the Spy planes in the north, near Ramses and the Empire. "Main feed, Seer one. Move over signal source." Now, what I got was the signature of teleportation. That meant a few things then, but none were certain, which is why I had the spy plane move over the source of it, which was in the Empire. It automatically zoomed in on a single part of the place, and, to start off with, I didn't see anything. But then-"Camera, focus on what I'm looking at." What I thought I saw was indeed what I was seeing.

What was it, you may ask. Well, what I saw were two unicorns, matching the descriptions of Lone and Azure Shadow, dragging an unconscious Rarity between them, with Sweetie Belle on Azure's shoulder. Now, you may be wondering why Rarity and her sister were still in the north. Well, from what I know, she was there for the, ahem, "fashion" and Sweetie was there to, well, be with her sister, Luna herself having brought her there. As for why they didn't just teleport out? The jammers were active, but only prevented teleportation from going out, not in. An experiment Twilight proposed and had me help with showed that, and it must have gotten to Celestia somehow.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything, as they soon exited the jammer range, and, with the two unconscious unicorns in tow, teleported away/.

I activated my radio to broadcast into the sim. "Guys, we have an issue."

"What?" Twilight asked.

"Celestia's kidnapped Rarity."

Badlands-Loyalist camp-Celestia 3rd

Celestia, still in her armor, was in her tent, the group had to resort to stealing to survive, even with the Zebras giving them some supplies, the tents being part of those, meditating in a circle, surrounded by the few Seraphim artifacts she had been able to bring with her when one of the guards spoke from outside. "Princess? I hate to interrupt, but Captain and Lieutenant Shadow have returned, with the Element of Generosity, and someone else."

"Who else?" Celestia asked.

"Generosity's sister, highness," the guard replied, to which Celestia smiled slightly.

"Good," she said as she stood up. "Where are they?"

"The center of the camp, Majesty," the guard said. "Also, the prisoners are awake, and had to be restrained, as well as gagged and have an inhibitor ring placed on their horns.

"Noted," the solar alicorn said as she left the tent. "Tell the two that they have the rest of the day off."

"Yes, princess," the guard said, bowing, before rushing off as Celestia strode to the center of the camp, where she saw Rarity and Sweetie Belle, bound and gagged.

"My, I did not expect this," Celestia said. "Tell me, Rarity, what happened," she said in a mocking tone, to which, while Sweetie Belle was only confused, Rarity was quite livid. "Oh, wait, I remember. I had two of my still loyal guards get you, and your sister, it would seem, so that I could free you from the Demon's control." With that, the alicorn lit her horn, making Rarity struggle even more, but it was ultimately useless, the ropes binding her and stopping her from moving, and the solar alicorn touched her horn with, surprising Rarity as well as terrifying her, Sweetie Belle's, making the fillies eyes roll back after the glowed yellow like the sun. "Such a shame that it brought somepony so young under its thrall," Celestia said, removing the ropes and gag from Sweetie Belle, who began to stir. "As well as an Element," she said before lighting her horn again, and touched her horn with Rarity's, the same effect happening. A few seconds later, the binding and gag on both mares having been removed, the white mare woke up with her sister.

Both stood, looked around, and, upon seeing Celestia, bowed, saying, "Thank you, princess."

Celestia smiled. "Of course, my little ponies. Tell me, do you wish to help me free everypony else in Equestria?"

"But of course," Rarity said.

"Then perhaps you can help me charge a spell," Celestia said, as her thoughts went to who would next be "freed". Oh, I know, she thought with s small, but sinister grin. My former student's parents, so that she can know what it is like to be betrayed.

War Council

It's been only a few hours since Rarity was abducted, and myself, along with Luna, Twilight, Cadence, and Chrysalis were in the Throne room in Canterlot. "Why would Celestia abduct Rarity?" Twilight asked.

"Honest guess," I said. "Probably to get more magic to open a portal for the Seraphim to come through sooner."

"How would that happen?" Chrysalis said. "Unicorns, or even alicorns, can't channel their magic into another."

"Who said that was what Celestia was going for?" I asked in reply. "She may teach Rarity, and any other unicorns her Loyalists capture, the spell she was using. It's like with engineers and buildings: the more there are, the less time it will take, albeit with more resources being used up for it."

"So how do we stop it?" Luna asked.

"I don't think we can," Twilight said. "To do so would mean knowing exactly where they were going to strike, or be lucky enough to be nearby."

"So we can't do anything?" Cadence asked. "Now I'm even more useless to my subjects."

"Cadence, nopony thinks you're useless," Luna said. "And besides, your horn will grow back."

"No, it won't," Cadence said in a sad tone. "The damned Caribou put some kind of salve on the stump that prevents it from growing back."

"Well, I'm sure Twilight can find a way to counter it," Luna said before looking at Twilight. "Isn't that right, Twilight Sparkle?"

The lavender alicorn put her hand on her chin. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe, with enough time and a sample to analyze of that salve."

"I'm sure there's a few jars of that still in the Empire," Cadence said, sighing. "I'll see if I can get you one."

"Thanks, Cadence," Twilight said with a small smile.

"Well, now that that's taken care of," Chrysalis said, "that still leaves the question as to what we're going to do if we can't find and stop Celestia. With what Josh has told us, we'll barely be able to stop the Seraphim."

"We'll need evacuation plans," Luna said. "As well as air units capable of transporting civilians."

"I think I have that solution," I said. "But I'll need time to see if it'll work."

"How long do you think it'll take?" Chrysalis asked, to which I shrugged.

"At worst, a few weeks," I said. "At best, a week, max. Which reminds me, I need to put Seraphim into the simulations so that we're ready to face them if we can't stop Celestia."

"Too bad we can't predict where she's going to strike," Chrysalis said.

"And I can't think of any way to stop them from teleporting into a city, either," I said. "That would make it easier to stop them from abducting, at least." It was here I got an alert on my HUD.

"Uh, Josh," Twilight said, "did you just get an alert?"

"Yep," I replied. "Checking now." I opened the alert, and it showed an areal view of Canterlot, meaning it's the Spy Plane I had posted over us while this was going on.

"What is it?" Chrysalis asked.

"Magic spike, noble housing area," I replied. "Teleportation signature. Damn it."

"They're here?" Luna asked, shocked.

"Yep. I know it's them because I had Deceivers, mobile jammers as I'm using them right now, transported to where their range had the entire city," I said. "This means it's a teleportation from outside."

"No," we heard Twilight whisper, as she had access to the same feed. "That's my parents' home."

"Then we'd better get moving," I said. Then I activated the A.I. link I and the others with implants had, which allows for communications. "Ace, Shadow, get to Twilight's parents' house, now. Possible Loyalist incursion. Twilight and I are enroute now," I said as I made my way to the door, Twilight beside me.

"Already on our way," Shadow replied. "Got the alert same time as you two. Should be there in a few minutes."

"Right," I said. "Spook One, keep an eye on any ponies that exit that house hold."

"Do you need help?" Luna asked, making me and Twilight stop just before we left.

"The more the merrier," I said. "Come on, no telling how much time we got."

With that, the five of us made double time out of the castle and towards our destination, with Luna pausing to give orders to guards to seal every exit out of Canterlot.

"Josh," Shadow said over the link as we left the castle grounds, "we've got noise inside the house, probably a fight going on."

"Hey, Twilight," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Other than your brother, any members of your family in the guard?"

"Yeah," she replied as we turned a corner. "My dad was in it for a few years before he met my mom. Why?"

"There's a fight going on at your house," I said. "From what I can hear over Shadow and Ace's side of the link, it's a hell of a fight."

"Yeah, that sounds like my dad, alright," she said with a hint of a proud smile. "He always kept a sword hidden in the rooms in case of an intruder, and only he could get to them."

"If these are former guards stallions," Chrysalis said, "they most likely brought their own weapons in case of engagement. How many teleported in?"

"That wasn't in the data," I said as we turned another corner, and we saw Shadow and Ace down the street. "Only one spike, which could mean one pony to a few, depending on the strength of the caster, and if any were helping them."

"So we're going in blind?" Twilight asked.

"Exactly," I said as we slowed down, to stop in front of Ace and Shadow. "Status?"

"Less noise, but still noise," Ace replied. "No idea as to who's losing."

"Well, if they want to leave, they'll need to come out one of the exits." Okay, let's see, there's me, Luna, Chrysalis, Twilight, Cadence, Ace, and Shadow. That's seven. "Twilight, how many exits are there?"

"There's two above ground, and a hidden one that leads to the sewer system," she replied.

"Right," I said. "Ace, Shadow, take the rear. I'll take the sewer one."

"But you don't know where it is," Twilight said.

"Care to show me, then?" I asked.

"Fine," she said, rolling her eyes. "Good thing the implants are water proof, because both of us will need a shower after this. Come on." She made her way to a nearby manhole cover, I don't care what the terminology is here, if I can, I'm calling everything how I'm used to it, and opened it.

"Geronimo," I said before jumping down the manhole and landing in ankle deep sewage. Twilight came down a few seconds later, using her wings to stay above the sewage.

"The exit should be here," she said, landing on the sewer equivalent of a sidewalk and feeling the wall. "Yeah, it's here," she said as her arm vanished behind a wall, making me jump back a bit. "Sure you want to handle this one alone, Josh?"

"You volunteering?"

She chuckled. "I may not be Rarity, but nopony likes to be in sewers if they can help it. Still, if it means you stand more of a chance, I'll stay. But I'm not getting in there. No telling how many diseases are in that."

"The armor's meant to keep the wearer healthy, Twilight," I said, stepping out of the sewage. "And you do have the armor on." Forgot to mention that. Twilight and the others had on Cybran ACU pilot suits of Gen one, mine resembling Ivan Brackman's from SupCom2. This meant that Twilight wore a black under suit that connected with the A.I. implants, and an over suit that was the color of steel and segmented to allow for maximum protection while sacrificing as little range of motion as possible, with Ace and Shadow just having bulkier oversuits.

"Force of habit, then," she said.

"Fair enough," I said before sitting down next to the hidden exit. I looked at my HUD. "Still got signal, so if need be, we can talk with Ace and Shadow if something happens."

"Fortunately," Twilight said, sitting on the other side of the exit. "So, Josh, mind if I ask a few questions?"

"Long as you respect if I say I won't answer," I said. "Shoot."

"How did you know of the Caribou? was her first question. "I mean, you seemed to know ho to go after, as well as what they were when only Luna and Celestia seemed to know."

"I can't say much," I replied. "For now, let's just say it's related to a scientific theory called the 'Multiple worlds' theory. Fair enough?"(1)

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "Next question: why did you run when you took down Tirek?"

All I did was look at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're asking me that when usual law is a slap on the wrist and I killed someone?"

"Fair point," Twilight said. "Three: why is it you decided to intervene and kill Tirek, anyway?"

I chuckled. "Simple: I had the ability to do something, and, though I can be greedy sometimes, as with any sentient being, I decided to use it to help. Besides, you guys were literally unable to do anything. Mind if I ask you a question, Twilight?"

"Not at all," she said.

"Why did you want the augments?" I asked. "You were the first to get them, so you had the most danger. Why?"

"Honestly?" she asked. "I just wanted to help protect my friends and family, and I thought by helping you, I'd be able to do that."

"I guess I'll have to live with that answer," I said. "So, any other questions?"

"Just one," she said. "Though I'll understand if you say no." Here, I thought I saw a small blush on her cheeks.

"Shoot," I said. "Remember, Twi, you can ask me anything."

"Well, I wondering, well, um, if you'd, I don't know, maybe-" she was cut off by Shadow coming over the link.

"Guys, there are ten hostiles inside, coming out the back, with Twilight's parents. Two unicorns, eight earth ponies. Ace, go get Princess Luna and the others, I'll hold them off!"

"Whatever the question is, Twi, it'll have to wait until after this," I said as I stood up. "Can you lift both of us up?"

With a blush still on her cheeks, the lavender alicorn stood up and said, "We could use this to get up," gesturing to the hidden entrance.

"Oh. . .Right. Let's go." With that, the two of us, ran into the hidden entrance, which simply passed over us, and to a staircase that led up. I was the first to reach it, and went up two at a time, Twilight using her wings to keep up with me.

"Josh, slow down!"

"Only if I want to let Celestia abduct two more ponies," I shot back just as I saw a crack of light. Great, there's a door in the way. Time to improvise. I began to go one step at a time as I positioned myself to where my right shoulder was facing the door as I went up as fast as I could.

When I hit the door, I was lucky enough for the door to break from the kinetic energy of my impact, and the armor preventing my shoulder from breaking. I hit the floor, then rolled on the ground. "Remind me to not do that again," I said as I stood up.

"Right," Twilight said as she came up from the trap door.

"To the back yard," I said, and the two of us made our way to the back door, which, when we saw it, was broken off the top hinge, and a sword nearby, with another above the mantle, as there was a fireplace here. Living room, I guess. Makes sense. I went to the one above the fireplace, and took it off.

"You know how to use swords?" Twilight asked.

"Best way to learn is on the spot," I said. "So no."

"Then why are you getting it?"

"Because my armor stops me from cutting myself, and sword play is fun. Now, let's go." She rolled her eyes, but followed me outside, where the others were just barely holding the Loyalists from escaping, and I saw the eight Earth ponies protecting the two unicorns, who carried Twilight's parents. I didn't want to risk them teleporting out, so I kept the jammers on, but, fortunately, Luna and Cadence still had Earth pony strength, and Chrysalis kept changing forms, as that magic is not horn focused with changelings. Still, it was barely enough to keep them there.

Fortunately, the attention was not on me, which allowed me to walk up to them, and slice one's head off, and stab another in the chest, which got their attention. "What, no invitation?"

"Kill the demon!" an earth pony in golden armor yelled before charging at me. I rolled my eyes, sidestepped, and sliced at his back, hitting his spine by luck, which paralyzed him from the waist down. I finished the spin, and placed the sword behind my back, my left hand facing the Loyalists.

"Come at me, morons," I said, taunting them with my left hand by making a "come on" gesture.

"Ignore them," one of the two unicorns said. "We need to get out of here."

"Good luck with that," Luna said. "We were able to hold you before, and now you have lost three of your members, and the other two of our allies have arrived."

"Perhaps," the other one, this one carrying Twilight's father, said. "But we each know you won't risk harming innocents.

"And that is where you fucked up," I said. "Sprite Striker one, fire a warning shot."(2) I gave a cheeky grin as a small bolt of energy hit next to the group of ponies. "Next one will be through one of your heads at random." Not. As I was controlling the Sniper bot through my implant, I was essentially playing an FPS sniper game with it. And I was aiming right for the unicorn's head that was closest to me. Though the others did have looks of shock on their faces.

"So, what's it going to be? If you run, you'll get killed from a distance. If you fight, same. If you surrender, though, then you live. If you ask me, surrender is the best option here. After all, if you have family, don't you want to see them?"

"I. . . never did get a chance to say bye to my wife and foal," one of the earth ponies said. My god, I can't believe this worked. Anyway, eventually all but the two unicorns had surrendered. Seriously, my plan worked? I thought each of them would need to be killed or disabled.

"Traitors, the lot of you," the unicorn holding Twilight's mom snarled. "We'll kill you when Princess Celestia takes the throne back."

"I don't think so," I said as I walked up behind them, and sliced each in the legs, making them fall down, before I planted the sword in their chests. "After, can't do anything when you're dead."

"Josh, I'm not sure whether or not I should put you in the dungeons for today for putting Twilight Sparkle's parents in danger," Luna said, "or applaud you for the bravado of the move."

"Decide later," I said as I mentally deactivated the jammers. "We need to get them to the dungeons first. And you can use spells again, by the way. Oh, and with what Twilight and I saw inside, her parents may need a place to sleep."

"They can stay in my castle," Twilight said. "And besides, they'd be happy to see Spike. But there's still something I wanted to ask you, Josh."

"What?" I asked as Luna and Chrysalis used their magic to restrain the Loyalists. Or carry, in the case of the one I disabled.

"I was wondering," the lavender alicorn said, rubbing the back of her neck as she blushed, "if you'd go on a date with me?"

Relations

Yeah, that surprised me, too. What Twilight had asked cause the others, even the prisoners, to look in surprise. Before I could answer, though, she said, "I-I shouldn't have asked that," before she ran off into the house.

"Go," Shadow said. "We got this."

I nodded. "Right," I said before I went off into the ruined house in search of Twilight. It wasn't much of a search, as I found her in her old room a minute after I entered, with her crying on the floor.

"You alright, Twi?" I asked her, already knowing the answer.

"N-no," she chocked out. "I shouldn't have asked you that."

"Why?" I asked. "Worst that could have happened was I said no."

"No, it wasn't," Twilight snapped as she looked at me, tears in her eyes. "The worst you could have done was say yes."

"What do you mean?" I asked, honestly confused.

"I mean these!" she yelled, flaring out her wings. "Don't you get that I'm practically immortal?! I may be the princess of friendship, but I have to deal with the fact that, eventually, I'll be the only one left, everypony else having died of old bucking AGE! The only ones left would be Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, and Cadence, and who knows with Cadence, without her horn! Celestia may as well be an enemy now, and Luna, I barely even know enough to call her a friend." I chuckled. "What's so funny!?"

"Just the fact that the princess of friendship doesn't know one of the most basic friendship rules: some friendships go on, even after death." Thank you, Avatar, the Last Airbender. "And besides, don't Equestria's believe in reincarnation or some shit like that?"

She glared at me. "In a way," she said. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Simple," I said. "That means that, even if they have a new name and body, if you meet them, they will be your friends, still, and you can make new memories with them."

She looked down at the floor. "I-I hadn't thought about it that way," she said. "But still, I shouldn't have asked you on a date."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because, I doubt you'd go out with me," she said. "You were able to save both Equestria and the Crystal Empire by yourself, after all."

"True," I said. "But that's once on each. You and your friends have done it more than that. If anything, I should have been the one to ask, not you."

"Then why didn't you?" she asked in an accusatory tone, to which I shrugged.

"Honestly? Never been that good with the opposite sex back home," I said. "Still, even I know it's rude to ask a question and run off before it can be answered. And I do have an answer, Twilight."

"Wha-" she began before I leaned forward, grabbed her by the wait, and pulled her into, admittedly, my first actual kiss. She was tense, as was to be expected, but she relaxed into it, and relaxed her arms across my shoulders and behind my neck.

After what felt like forever, but my HUD's clock saying thirty seconds, I pulled out of the kiss, a small strand of saliva all that connected our lips. "I'd be happy to go out on a date with you, Twilight. And besides," I said with a small smile, "the fact I can't live forever just makes me want to give you as many happy memories as possible. Now, what did you have planned?"

"Well, actually," Twilight said as she blushed, "I was planning on just playing it by ear, for once."

I chuckled. "That's new for you, Twilight."

"Well, like you said once the augmentations were done," Twilight said, "'no plan survives contact'."

I chuckled. "True enough," I said. "So, want to help Luna and the others take the Loyalists to the castle, or what?"

"May as well," Twilight said. "Besides, once we get to Ponyville, we'll have plenty of time together."

"Can't wait," I said, and the two of us then made our way to meet up with Luna and the others.

Somewhere in the void

The merchant resembling Dr. Brackman was leaning over a table that had a disassembled device of sorts, the parts scattered around. He was intent of finding out what it did when a small pop came from behind, breaking his concentration. He looked back, and saw an anthro earth pony mare with a white dress, her hair and tail an etheric rainbow. "Ah, Harmony," he said. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I need something," she said. "Well, more accurately, my most recent displaced does."

"So, you found the one to gather the six once they're needed?" Brackman asked.

"I have," the mare replied. "But he's short on equipment, and I was hoping your displaced and the Spartan would be able to help with that."

"What do you need?"

"From the Commander," Harmony said, "I need a ship. I'll send you the specs later if you're willing."

"Oh, I am," Brackman said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to studying this piece of tech," he said, turning back around. "It appeared in front of me an hour ago, and I've been trying to study it for the past half hour." Harmony looked over Brackman's shoulder.

"I can honestly say I've never seen anything thta uses those components before," she said. "But I do have another question for you."

"If it's about the next group, then no, I still have not found a world for them, even with your brother's help in that regard," he said.

"Noted," Harmony said. "Well, Brackman, I will see you next time, I suppose."

"And to you as well, Harmony."

To Ponyville (no way to make that sound epic)

So, a day has passed since the Order tried and failed to take Twilight's parents, and myself, Twilight, sitting next to me in a blue shirt with a white stripe at the top, just below her collar bone, with straps going over her shoulder, and a pair of jeans, her parents, her father wearing a business suit, her mother a gray dress that went to her knees, Rainbow and Applejack, both wearing their usual outfits, were on the train, heading to Ponyville, where the other Elements, those not kidnapped, and Spike were waiting.

I had on a simple pair of jeans, and a black shirt with the Cybran symbol in the middle, and the six of us had our own train car, I imagine due to Twilight being a royal, and, aside from the usual train sounds, it was awkwardly silent. Fortunately, we'd only been on for five minutes. "Soooo," Twilight said, trying to break the silence, "how have you guys been?"

"Fine, dear," Night Light said.

"That's good," Twilight awkwardly said. "Sorry that you guys need to stay some place else."

Velvet giggled. "Oh, it isn't much of a problem, Twily," she said. "Your father and I were planning on remodeling the house a little, and were hoping to visit you while it was going on. We may just be staying a little longer than we had thought. But still, it'll be nice to spend some time with you and Spike."

"And don't forget Josh," Twilight said, dragging me into the conversation.

Night Light glared at me. "So you're th eone who gave our daughter those. . . things?"

"She chose willingly," I said defensively.

"We know," Velvet said. "Princess Luna told us." She smiled a little. "If you ask me, though, it'll be good. Now she doesn't have the excuse of reading to not leave her castle."

"Mom," Twilight groaned. "I don't do that anymore."

"You sure, egghead?" Rainbow said. "You practically left Spike on his own for that weekend when Celestia sent you those books, which led to him essentially being AJ's slave."

"Naw, ah told y'all, ah tried ta make him stop," Applejack said.

"Yeah, but still."

"Ifn ah remember correctly, Rainbow, ya were talking about how nice it'd be ta have one," Applejack said, getting chuckles out of the rest of us.

"Well," Night Light said to me after we had stopped, "if you so break Twily's heart, I'll make sure you regret it."

I raised an eyebrow. "Said to a guy with a giant robot capable of making an army, and a force unto itself," I replied with a slight, joking smile and tone. "I won't," I said. "Besides, I like women for their personality and mind, and, well, Twilight reminds me of me before I came here, personality wise."I don't like them for their status."

"Good," Night Light said. "So, what are you, anyway? Twilight wasn't able to tell us much on the way here because she was worried we'd be late."

We chuckled. "Sounds like her," I said, getting a small glare from the lavender alicorn. "Well, generally speaking, I'm a human. The sub-group I'm a part of, though are called Cybrans. Essentially, we're humans with implants that allow us to be more efficient." I shrugged. "Aside from that, nothing really special, except my ACU, which would include a lot of techno babble you guys wouldn't get."

"He isn't wrong," Twilight said. "I barely get it with my augments, and that I pilot my own."

"Same," Rainbow said.

"You don't even have augments," I shot. "Besides, you could care less about what makes it work."

"Yeah, yeah," Rainbow scoffed, and Twilight, Applejack, and I rolled our eyes.

"So, if you don't mind me asking," I said, "what do you guys do?" I asked Twilight's parents.

"Well, I'm a writer," Velvet said. "In fact, I'm also an editor for A.K. Yearling."

To save you all this, I decide to skip Rainbow's fangasm to where Applejack had forced her back to her seat. "Now calm down, Rainbow," she said, pushing Rainbow by the shoulders to back to her seat.

"The writer of the Daring Do books?" I asked. "Never really liked stories about just adventure," I said. "For me, it needs to have a bit of action, and plot twists in one of two schools: the ones that can be guessed, and those that come out of left field. I like to speculate, and to be surprised."

"I can understand that," Velvet said. "Nighty here used to be an astronomer, but he quit."

"Why, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Because I'd sometimes have to go out of town," Night Light said. "Velvet's job as an author and occasional editor brought in enough for Canterlot. And if it didn't, we would have had moved some place."

"Which begs the question as to what would have happened with Luna's return?" I said, though season five gave a clear answer to that one.

"Probably nothing good," Rainbow said.

"Yeah," I lied. "Probably." If anything, the Nightmare universe was peaceful. Besides, I saw an alternate you in her guard. Which reminds me: are there any displaced in that one, or the other season five finale universes?(1) Meh, guess I may find out later. "Still, is Spike going to tackle me, or has he heard about what's been going on? And I mean tackle because he's protecting you guys."

"I doubt it," Twilight said. "Pinkie's probably told the entire town by now, if they hadn't heard it from the Canterlot newspapers."

"Yeah, probably," Rainbow said.

"Well, I guess, with it being Ponyville, we can just hope nothing out of it's ordinary happens," I said. I had just jinxed my life.

First break since my arrival

The six of us stepped off the train in Ponyville-the order being Twilight's parents, Applejack and Rainbow, and finally Twilight and me- and the first thing I experienced in Ponyville was a punch in the jaw from a dragon. Yeah, you think it hurts bad, but it's worse than it sounds. Trust me. "Fuck," I exclaimed as I rubbed my jaw to make sure it wasn't dislocated. Thankfully, it wasn't.

"Spike!" Twilight yelled. "What was that for?!"

"What?" Spike replied. "The girls told me what you told them about the Empire. That was for making you strip!"

"So we could get Cadence out of there," Twilight said. She turned to face Pinkie and Fluttershy, the other members of the Elements who hadn't been kidnapped. "I thought you guys told him that."

"We did, Twilight," Fluttershy said, her voice barely audible. "But, well, Spike was mad."

"Eh, don't blame him," I said. "I'd probably react the same way."

"I know I nearly destroyed the living room when I heard about it," Night Light said.

"Hey, she could have proposed her own plan," I said in a defensive tone. "Blame me not that she went with mine when she could have made her own."

Twilight shrugged, and her reply got looks from each of us. "I don't see why it's a big deal. I liked it, anyways."

"Uh, what?" I asked, pretty sure I had just voided our collective thought. "Care to run that by us again?"

Twilight blushed as she replied. "Yeah," she said as she rubbed the back of her head. "You see, I'm actually a bit of a. . .well, a nudist." And parent confusion mixed with outrage, go.

"What?!" Night Light yelled. "When did his happen?!"

"There goes my right ear," I muttered.

"Honey, does it really matter?" Velvet asked her husband. "If Twily likes it, who are we to judge?"

"I'm not worried about that," Night said. "I'm worried about Spike!"

The dragon, who I just noticed was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts, rolled his eyes. "Mom, dad-" noted, this version has Spike sees Twilight as a sister- "she's been like this since a few weeks after we first moved here due to the heat wave."

"Oh, I remember that one," Pinkie said cheerfully. "I was able to open a snow cone stand. I definitely got a lot of business that week."

"It still open?" I asked.

"Yeparoonie," Pinkie said.

"Anyway," Spike said, "I know I don't look it-" I forgot to mention he's about the height of a ten year old- "but I am seventeen. Dragons, when not on a greed rampage, just grow slower than ponies, and you forget-Twilight and I lived in the same castle as Blueblood. We agreed that as long as we don't get in each others way, we wouldn't tell the others."

"Tell them what?" I asked. "Because I think everyone knows you have a crush on Rarity, Spike. Before you ask and knock my jaw off, Rarity told me in the Empire before everything went to hell."

"Actually, I'm over that," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Then I will not inquire further," I said. "Now, can we get into a tantrum later?" I asked Night, getting a slight chuckle from Velvet. "I don't know about you guys, but I need some sleep. Been interrogating the prisoners all night with no sleep."

"Then I guess we'd better get to the castle," Twilight said with a hint of nervousness. "I guess we'll see you guys later, then."

"See ya, Twi," Rainbow said. "Don't anything let hang out, Kay?" A chuckle out of Pinkie, Fluttershy hiding in her hair, and a roll of the eyes from Applejack later, she added, "Seriously, though, Egghead, see ya later."

"Same," Applejack said. "Need ta get back ta the farm."

"And I need to go feed my animals," Fluttershy said, and, with that, the three of them left.

"You guys go on ahead to the castle," Twilight said. "I need to see if anypony's gone missing here."

"Right," Spike said. "So, castle first, or somewhere else."

"Castle," Night, Velvet, and I said at the same time.

"Then come on," Spike said, and we followed him.

On the way there, I got two message alerts. One from Twilight, and from you know who. I opened his first.

Displaced, or whatever you decided to go by, I require help. An ally of mine, who is not a merchant, needs something built, something I can not make. If you are willing to help, the blueprints are in the message. Until next time. Okay, then. So, I looked at the blueprint. Why does it look like a horseshoe crab? Meh, if someone wants it built and an ACU's needed, I guess it must be important.

ACU, construct new diagram, designate- I looked at the blueprint for the name- Liset. The order was received, and that name seems familiar, just can't place it. Oh well. The one from Twilight was, in short, her saying that none had been taken form Ponyville at the moment. Well, I guess that's one upside to everything right now.

You still with Pinkie? I asked Twilight over the link we had via the augments.

Yeah. Why?

Ask her if one of the flavors from her snow cone stand's blue raspberry, I said. Been a while since I've had one, and that's my favorite flavor.

I'll ask, then, she said.

Thanks.

No problem, Josh.

With that, it was only a few minutes until the four of us made it to the castle, Twilight arriving after we had gotten in, and her parents and I had chosen our rooms. Given the fact Twilight and I had just started our relationship, I went with the guest room next to hers on the right, Spike already having the room to the left.

I didn't have much luggage, none, really, so I just jumped onto the bed, and took a nap. One interrupted, according to my HUD's clock, about an hour after it began. There was a knock on my door, one to which I replied, "Come in." The door opened and, as I had my eyes closed, I didn't see who it was, but I did recognize the voice. Really wish Twilight had put some kind of spell on the castle now.

"Now, I can kill you, demon," Celestia said , causing me to open my eyes, and see her with a sword in hand and poised to strike.

Deceiver group one, transports! Destination, Ponyville!

I hate the universe

I jumped out of bed just as Celestia's sword plunged downward, burning where my chest had been a second before . "How th efuck did you get here without anyone seeing you? Or sensing you, at least?"

"Do you really think I'd tell you?" Celestia said. "Perhaps just before I land the killing blow, but not before, I will tell you. And I'm sur eyou know why I'm here."

"Yeah: try and kill me," I said as I got into a fighting stance, even though it'll do me little good against an alicorn, and even by air, it'll take a while for my ACU to get here. "With how much you hate me, doesn't take a genius to figure out your motive. You do know even if you kill me, you'll still die. The Seraphim will just use you until enough of their people are here, then they'll kill you, and everyone who follows you. Believe me, it would have happened where I came from if we hadn't stopped it."

"You lie," Celestia said. "The Seraphim would never kill a fellow follower of The Way."

"Really?" I asked. "Which of us has seen them in action more? You, or me? I've seen what they're capable of and are willing to do They don't care about any but their own kind."

"Then I'll cross that bridge if it comes," Celestia said. "But for now, it's time I remove the more dire threat." With that, she jumped at me, and I just barely was able to avoid it with a roll to the side, the blade burning where I had been standing a moment ago.

She probably anticipated that, though, as she kicked me in the chest as I stopped with enough force to send me through the wall. Thankfully, I had been paranoid enough to wear some level of armor under my clothes. As such, I didn't take any injuries. Still, I rolled on the floor and in the main hall. I had thought the sound of that would have caused the others to come running, but, as Celestia stepped through the hole, I heard not but my breathing and her hoofsteps on the crystal floor. What the hell did she do, cast a silencing spell?

"Nopony will be here to save you this time, demon," Celestia said as her blade began to be engulfed in flames. "It is just you and me."

"Yeah," I said, "and in the past, I always won without help from ponies. Not because of any powers, but because I'm able to adapt to any circumstance."

"Then let's see how you adapt to this," Celestia said just as Twilight walked out of the room next to the one I had been in, and a small smile adorned Celestia's face.

"Oh, Princess," Twilight said, catching me off guard, "what are you doing here?" The fuck is going on?

"Hello, Twilight," Celestia said. "I'm simply here to bring this demon to Canterlot for examination. Would you care to help me out?"

"Of course, princess," Twilight said before a sword just appeared in her hands.

Where the hell did that come from? I thought to myself, but didn't have time to guess as Twilight swung the sword at my head.

"Twilight, what are you doing?" I asked, but she didn't seem to hear me.

"Princess, did it just try to speak?" Twilight asked Celestia.

"No, id didn't," Celestia replied. "It is but an animal that we need to examine to protect Equestria."

"Well, if it's to protect Equestria," Twilight said before I was suddenly thrown out of the castle, so fast I didn't even process it until I had already landed in front of Rarity's house.

"I hate life right now," I muttered as I stood up, my body not aching for some reason. Probably just adrenaline.

Anyway, just as I stood up, the two alicorns teleported in front of me, swords in hand. "How come my friends and I just don't use our rainbow powers on it?" Twilight asked Celestia.

"Because it may very well be able to escape it," Celestia replied just as I saw a shimmer behind her, and thought I saw Rarity behind her, as well as a faint yell, one that I could not make out, the shimmer fading just as quickly as it came.

Okay, so Rarity's invisible and is most likely controlling Twilight on Celestia's orders, but that wouldn't explain why no one but us are out. Maybe a sleep spell? Who knows, I just know that when the Deceivers get here, it'll go away. Damn it, why'd I have to have my ACU at Alpha? Even by air, it'd take to long to get here. "You do realize that even if you beat me, you'll have the others to deal with, right?"

"No, they've already been taken care of," Celestia said, and it din't seem as if Twilight had heard. As she said this, I again heard the yelling, louder, but still not clear. Just what's going on.

Anyway, before the three of us could make the next move in this fight, there was an earthquake, and rocks seemed to pulse up from the ground, and ensnared me. "As for you, I actually think it better if your memories were erased, and became one of my loyal soldiers," Celestia said before she strode up to me, and raised her sword. Why would she raise her sword to erase my memories. Killing someone doesn't do that.

Wait. There is one time that happened.

I closed my eyes just as the sword came down, and, though I felt it's heat, the blade did not touch me. "What?" Celestia said before the rocks around me shattered, and I stood up.

"A clever plan," I said. "Nearly had me fooled. But it was your last action that gave you away. You said you would erase my memories, but you brought your sword up to kill me. It just so happens a form of entertainment from where I come from did the same thing: killing someone just to erase their minds. Only place that happens is in their minds."

"So, you're smarter than you look," Celestia said as dream Twilight vanished. "Still, you can't beat an alicorn in combat."

I scoffed as I summoned one of my favorite up close and personal weapons, the Halo Energy sword. Hey, when in one's mind, anything goes. Besides, this thing was meant for dueling. "Yeah, in the real world, maybe, but the reality is that we aren't in the real world: we're in my head, which allows me to do this," I said, snapping my fingers, making both Celestia's horn and wings disappear. "Now you can't do shit unless it's by the sword. And believe me, I've seen enough of this sword," I said, igniting the energy swords dual blades, "and imitated enough of those moves to know how to use it. In other words, more accurately those of one of my favorite anime villains, reality's tough, wear a cup, bitch."

She growled at me. "Even so, you won't be able to beat me in the real world."

"Yet I'm the one with an army at my beck and call," I said. "But I want some rest and no excitement for a while, so bye," With that, I snapped my fingers, and she disappeared, and I was back in the castle. More accurately, my room. "Better," I said as I jumped onto my bed, and slept in my dream. Waking up's going to be confusing, that's for sure.

Waking up

"Wake up, you moron!" I heard from beside me, the yell jolting me awake.

"Ow, shit!" I yelled, rubbing my ears as I shot up. "The fuck was that for?" I asked, looking in the direction of the yell, only to see Luna, Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack. "I was fucking sleeping."

"We know," Luna deadpanned. "That's why we were yelling: to wake you up. My sister-"

"Was trying to control me, I know," I said, getting looks of surprise from the mares. "What? She was in my mind, I kicked her out, simple as that."

"You defeated an alicorn in combat?" Luna asked, and I could hear the skepticism.

"Well, it was my mind and dream," I replied, shrugging. "I don't see why it isn't possible."

"Because any alicorn should be strong enough to defeat anypony in their mind," Luna said, to which I laughed.

"And to which you forgot I'm not a pony," I replied. "It also kinda helped that it was just her in there herself. Though I did see a shimmer of Rarity-"

"You saw Rarity?" Twilight asked.

"Either it was a dream version of her, or something else," I replied. "But what I want to know is how Celestia was able to get in my mind while I was asleep." I then looked at the lunar alicorn. "I thought only you could do that type of shit, Luna."

She sighed. "That is what is public," she said. "Celestia hid it for fear of the ponies going crazy over the possibility of being observed whenever they slept. The only reason I did it and it was known is because it falls under my rights as princess of the night."

"Though it would make sense for both of you to have," Twilight said, hand on chin. "I mean, some ponies are nocturnal, and because of that, you wouldn't be able to dream walk with them, so Celestia would have to." She then shrugged. "Not that those facts matter right now, but still."

"Yeah, um, it kinda does, Twi," Rainbow said. "I mean, it could mean she'll try to mind buck anypony who sleeps during the day. Which would be about anypony who naps during the day while they're exhausted or after work, or just ponies who get bored easily." She shrugged. "Just saying that if I was evil and had that ability, that's what I'd probably do."

"And we don't have a way to counter that, do we?" Applejack asked.

"None I can think of," I replied. "Which means she'll have free reign over the weak minded ponies, or those who don't know that they're dreaming. Anyone could become an agent." I rolled my eyes and sarcastically commented, "Fun."

"Which manes any who we let pilot ACUs will need to go through a lot of mental tests," Twilight said as she rubbed her forehead. "And since we don't know the full length of Celestia's skill, there's no telling how good those tests need to be."

"Well, strong 'nough to brainwash Rarity," Applejack said. "An' next to you, Twi, she's one ah the most organized ponies I ever knew."

"So we may very well be screwed," I said before an idea came to mind. "Hey, Luna, where's that mountain you and Celestia created when you faced off against that Seraphim ACU?"

"It should be located on our southern border with Zebrica," she replied. "I'm certain I'll be able to lead you to it. Why?"

"Nothing much," I replied. "Just. . . let's call it a hunch for now, shall we?"

Searching

So, it was the next day, and Luna and I, inside our ACUs-which were connected to a Dragonfly transport-were on our way to the volcano in which she and Celestia had imprisoned the Seraphim ACU two thousand years ago. "So, is there anything political I should worry about?" I asked.

"Not likely," Luna said. "The area around the volcano is mainly Equestrian territory, with just a small part of it being in Zebra lands. Still, if what you said about Zebras attacking your southern base is true, than they may try to take it back. With aggression if needed."

"Then we may need to keep the weapons on these ready," I said as I did so, but keeping the chest laser deactivated. "After all, they have potions that are volatile on the level of strategic bombs, which can destroy an ACU in just a few hits."

"As long as we use those as a last resort," the lunar alicorn replied.

"Don't worry, that's what I'm hoping for," I replied. I checked the main monitor on my ACU, and saw a large mountain in the distance. "That it?" I asked.

"I believe so," Luna replied.

"Right," I said. "Setting us down now." With that, I typed in a command for the Cybran transport to set us down and release the latches holding the ACUs on to it. As we dropped to the ground, the shock absorbers in the legs of the ACUs took the impact, and, after the legs straightened, the two of us began making our way toward the mountain.

"Do you have anything on overwatch?" Luna asked,

"A spy plane," I replied. "Better safe than sorry."

"I suppose that will have to do," Luna replied.

"Yep," I said a we reached the base of the mountain, which towered above our ACUs. "So, where would the Seraphim ACU be?"

"I would imagine near the base," Luna replied. "Josh, if I may ask, why did you not bring Twilight along?"

I chuckled. "You're kidding, right?" I said. "Twilight coming with us on an expedition to find a lost, alien ACU? We may be in a relationship, but I don't want to be blown up just because she couldn't resist finding out what a button did."

"I suppose that is fair," Luna said. "But I thought an ACU could survive another's explosion."

"Yeah, but we may be going into magma, which will weaken the armor integrity to where they could be destroyed by a lucky shot," I replied. "Like I said: I don't want to be blown up."

"Ah," the lunar alicorn replied. "So, how do you propose we get up there?"

"Really?" I asked, turning my ACU's head to Luna's. "We're in giant robots that can traverse miles in a matter of minutes when on foot. We walk up there."

With that, I had my ACU lead the way up to the top of the mountain, with Luna's UEF ACU following close behind. I should point out that her ACU had dark blue-akin to her skin- as the main accent, with silver is the third color. It also had each of the upgrade parts, but I don't know what the specific upgrades were short of the shield I saw shimmering just above her ACU's armor.

After a few minutes, we made it to the top, where, to our surprise, the top layer of the magma-I don't know what it's called, honestly-was broken, with nothing coming out. "Oh, shit," I whispered to myself before typing in a few commands for one of the constructor drones stored in my ACU's back. It detached, and made its way inside the hole, lighting it up as it looked around.

"Did you find anything?" Luna asked as the drone returned ten minutes later.

"No," I replied. "Nothing in there. No ACU, no magma, nothing. That leaves two possibilities. One is the original pilot teleported out-"

"-Or my sister has already retrieved it."

Loyalist camp-Celestia-3rd

There was a flash of light as the Seraphim ACU, piloted by Celestia herself, arrived just outside the Loyalist camp, casting a large shadow over all there. The numbers of the Loyalists had expanded since taking Rarity and Sweetie, now consisting of farmers who were afraid of Nightmare's corruption and Eternal night returning. unicorns with promising magical capability, and most of the Wonderbolts. All but the farmers and the original group had been corrupted and brainwashed by Celestia's forces.

It's a good thing that the lord who previously piloted this was able to upgrade it before he joined the Way, Celestia thought, as the ACU had an Engineering suite equivalent to a tech three engineer unit, a teleporter, and a range and rate of fire upgrade for the main weapon. Now, we may cleanse Equestria. And with that, Celestia began to construct her own army, starting with a Gateway so as to contact her lords, and summon more ACUs for her followers.

Beginning of War

A week has passed since Luna and I had gone to that volcano, only to find the Seraphim ACU missing. Because of that, I had every single base I had direct control over pump out transports and trucks so as to work as evacuation vehicles, and every major city had SAM defenses and artillery, coupled with point defense, while any major port cities-or cities like Manehattan- had torpedo defenses as well.

Luna, myself, Chrysalis, and Cadence were in the Canterlot castle war room, a map of Equestria laid out on a table in front of each of us. "So, given this is Celestia," I said, "we know that she knows what areas would cripple Equestria's response to an attack. She may go after those."

"Unless she knows we'd think that," Chrysalis shot back. "Your first order after getting any major cities defended was to put heavy guard for areas like the research sites that are working on new unit schematics for us. If your description of those Seraphim units are true," she pointed out, "Celestia may just decide to send that Experimental bomber to nuke everything!"

"That's why I had shield generators built," I replied. "It can't drop a second payload before they recharge, and the shields take everything they're given, even if they only have one percent, and why I built multiple air staging facilities nowhere near those areas, and filled those ares with ASF and SAMs that are spread out."

"Still, it would be best to make those priority targets should they show up," Luna said. She turned to me. "Have you had any luck finding their main camp?"

I shook my head. "They're using invisibility spells, most likely, and I don't have infinite energy for enough tier three Omnis to cover the entire planet, and the stealth field generators that counter magic are to impractical for the same reason coupled with their low range, relatively speaking," I said.

"So we have to wait fer them to attack?" Cadence asked.

"Now, who ever said that, 'cause I didn't," I said. "Just because I don't know where they are specifically doesn't mean I can't make a guess." I then used my implants to have a constructor drone from outside project holograms of the Seraphim units on the table in front of us. "The Seraphim units may be powerful, but only the Cybrans have mobile stealth units. Namely the Deciever and Mole scout unit, along with the Spy plane. As such, and assuming Celestia knows this, she most likely has her base somewhere where none or few would notice large tracks in the ground, or where there are no known creatures capable of doing that, which rules out the heart area of Equestria and the north, leaving the southern portion of the continent, for the most part."

"I still don't see how that helps," Chrysalis muttered.

"Simple. Population density," I replied as I brought up a map of Equestria. "The south is as populated as everywhere else number wise, but density wise, not so much. There are more small town and frontier settlements there. Less density means groups are much more spread out. For the entire week, Specter, Ace, and Twi-who is in disguise- has been asking around down there. With the large area, that's better chances betwene towns."

"So look where there's low density?" Luna asked.

"That is one possibility, yes," I replied.

"But Celestia would know this," Chrysalis said as her train of thought hooked with mine. "So she's somewhere far enough away to not get sighted easily, but close enough we wouldn't suspect to a town or something. That is, of course, assuming, she didn't think of us thinking that, which would lead to circular logic."

"And that brings me to the second piece of narrowing evidence," I said. "In orbit, I have a few satellites-originally meant for orbital bombardment- but I've been able to use their lenses to scan for magical signatures. Have been since I got Fort Washington online. As a result, I have this image, showing little magical signature in the south." As I said this, an image of the continent appeared and overlapped with the one already there, most of the south being colored blue due to the high amount of Earth pony magic there. "A week ago, however, it changed to this." Another image, this one having hints of red to indicate unicorn magic. "I doubt highly this would happen in a week. And the areas fits with both of the area criteria I mentioned."

"Then what are we waiting for?!" Chrysalis yelled. "We need to get out there, and make sure that bitch can't do anything!"

"You don't think I tried that when I noticed this before I called this meeting, Chrysalis?" I retorted, arms crossed. "I sent a single tech one transport with a Mole, a Mantis assault bot, two mobile anti-air batteries, and two hunter bots. This is what happened." With that, I changed the projection to show the recorded footage.

It started from the view point of one of the attack drones as the six units were released form the transport. Soon as they landed, the Mole went out from the group, only to be hit by an orb of energy colored white, followed by what I recognized to be the unit that, to be honest, scared me when I first saw it in the starting cutscene of Forged Alliance.

The Ythotha.

Oddly, it did not fire, not at first, on the rest. Instead, it played a message. "Demon, if you are hearing this, which I'm certain you are," the recorded voice of Celestia said, "know that no matter what you do, no matter how many or who you corrupt, I and the faithful who follow me and the Way will fight against you, and we will prevail." At this point in the recording, multiple Seraphim model ACUs showed up in the view. "You have one more week to surrender. If not, then Equestria, and the Heretics within it, will burn by the cleansing fire of the Ahwassas." To both prove her point and destroy my units there, a single bomber came into view before quickly overshadowing my units, the anti-air units firing on it to no avail, as it dropped its payload, and only static was seen.

"Well," Chrysalis said after a tense minute of silence. "Looks like we're fucked."

Mobilize

"And are the evacuation ships ready if need be for Manehattan?" I asked Twilight as we walked to the throne room in Canterlot. It had been six days since Celestia sent that message, and we were on the last day of the deadline. The princesses had gone to other cities and towns to warn them of this, and gave them the option of becoming independent city-states for the duration of this so as to be safer then they would be otherwise. Those that remained would have forts of all three factions built there, along with transports for evacuation ready.

"Ready," Twilight said. "We also found some ponies who want to help out with the war, and want implants."

"Send me their bios," I replied. "And what about the outposts?"

"Picked up small traces of Seraphim movement, but nothing major to find out what they're planning."

"Well, shit," I muttered. "Good thing I've been working on our own Experimental unit to combat their bomber and assault bot."

"Really?" Twilight asked as we stopped outside the throne room. "How come I haven't heard about it."

"Because not all the bugs in their programming is done yet," I replied. "Now, let's see how the others are progressing." With that, I opened the door and we walked in to see Cadence, Luna, and Chrysalis talking.

"My hive has pretty much all asked for an ACU, but most of them aren't even in the guard," Chrysalis said. "If there's one thing wrong with changelings, it's that many want glory, even if it means death for the hive."

"It's the opposite with the Empire," Cadence said. "Not enough ponies volunteering."

"And the ponies not in the guard think this is currently just an issue the guard can handle as is, if our recruitment is any indication," Luna said.

"Then I guess it's weird we're in the middle of that scale," I said as I walked up to them.

"Yes, it is," Luna said. "I still wonder how."

"Well, I have heard it's because he's the only one of us to have beaten Celestia before, while you two," Cadence said to the other two rulers, "were defeated, and I, in retrospect, haven't done much outside of anything that has to do with love."

"Plus he does have the alicorn who was able to equal Tirek on his side," Chrysalis muttered. "I imagine that helps make it look like he's capable."

"Still, I will take what we can get here," Luna said as she rubber her forehead. "I hope you all have ways to counter Celestia's aircraft, as i have not."

"Just one," Cadence said.

"Same," Chrysalis replied.

"A few for me," I said, crossing my arms.

"And I have been working on a new unit to give shields to our ACU's to help supplement their current defenses, especially the Cybran model ones," Twilight said. "So we may be able to protect otherwise vulnerable sites from them."

"Yeah, tests for it are promising, so far," I said. "Nothing on the scale of those bombs, th- SHIT!" I yelled as a massive headache hit my skull, which usually indicated a large unit loss at once, and as a feed popped up on my HUD, showing a rural town under Seraphim attack, the bomber passing over.

"What is it?" Luna asked.

"Celestia's a day early," I said. "Head to the ACU's, I'll send them the location."

"What are you going to do, Josh?" Twilight asked.

"Get something of my own ready," I said before going to leave the throne room and toward my ACU, currently held in the air by its own transport. It lowered as I neared and lowered a ladder for me to get on an climb to the cockpit. Once i got strapped in, I had my destination be set to a base only i knew about, Base designate: Kaiju for what I had there. I hope Celestia's ready for a war, because that's what she's gonna get.

Now I just hope my custom Experimentals will work.

Questions

A few hours have passed since the first fielding of my custom Experimentals, and I was currently back in Ponyville. Why? Well, because it was close to my new Alpha base, designated as Hybrid as it uses structures and units from the UEF, Cybran nation, and Aeon Illuminate. That, and the other reason I was here was because the rulers wanted to talk with me. Good thing I have a neural link to my units, as it means my mind can survive if my body is destroyed, because I'm pretty sure they're mad at me for withholding information.

Anyways, I was currently in one of the guest chambers in Twilight's castle as I waited for Spike to come and get me as I looked over the combat statistic for the four new units. The fliers had taken some damage-expected, to be honest- but that was quickly fixed via Engineers, and the link between ACU and Jaeger worked perfectly, which makes sense, as it was the first thing about the unit that had been researched. The sword and cannons also worked, though the fact it came out as a whip every time during the testing and fight, even when I wanted it to come out as a sword, is something that needs to be worked on still, but at least it's able to cut through things.

Now, before you ask, the Jaeger can only work with Cybran ACUs given the neural implants myself and the others who pilot the Cybran ACUs use. No other pilot will be able to use them, basically.

Now, they were all currently at Hybrid, which is also where they had been built, and currently protecting it, Ponyville, and a few other units in the point of construction that weren't field ready quite yet, and didn't follow any of the ways my other bases had been built, but I'll explain that next time I'm there.

Anyway, I had been waiting for about an hour and a half when I heard Spike knock on my door and say, "Hey, Josh, they want to see you."

"Right," I said before sighing and going to leave the room. For this, I wore what I always wore now, which is to say my armor. Anyways, I made my way to the throne room, passing a few recruits for Luna's forces on the way, most eyeing me with suspicion as I walked past them, while a few got out of my out of respect. Upon reaching the throne room, the two guards-thestrals in the Lunar guard- opened the door, and I walked in as i saw Chrysalis, Cadence, and Luna sitting thrones that had been brought from Canterlot. Twilight was sitting in the throne the Tree had grown with this castle. "Before you ask, the ground unit you all saw is only compatible with Cybran ACUs," I told them.

"Well, it seems he has a partial idea of why we wanted to talk with him," Chrysalis muttered. "But still, you should have at least told us of it before hand, Josh."

"And risk any of Celestia's agents getting a hold on their specs or even knowing they existed before they were fielded?" I asked. "That's tactical suicide right there. If she had gotten intel on it, she could have easily defeated it. The thing working for it was the fact I was the only one who knew about the full thing. Even a little leak could lead to her having an advantage," I said. "Hell, it's why I made it to where it could fit an ACU! So it can't be captured and reverse engineered!"

"He makes a fair point," Luna said. "If Celestia had known of it, she would have had forces in reserve to deal with it should it arrive."

"He still could have told us about the fact he was working on new units," Cadence said. "As long as he said it was new units, that probably would have been vague enough."

"I hadn't thought of that," I muttered to myself.

"And suddenly I'm glad that he's not the only one commanding the robots," Chrysalis commented.

I sighed. "Okay, I know I should have told you guys a bit of what I was doing like I did with Twilight-" this got a few looks from the three elder rulers to the lavender alicorn as she blushed- "and I will for everything I think up from this point in time onwards. Because right now, we can't argue. One thing I was waiting until now ot tell you guys is that Rarity has her own Seraphim ACU, which leads to two possibilities to her fate: either we capture her out of it, or we destroy her ACU, causing it to go nuclear, and her to die."

"What?!" Twilight yelled. "But she's not in her right mind!"

"And do you think she'll want to live with the stuff she's done and will probably do before we can finish that fight?" I asked. "From what you've told me, she'd see herself as a monster. Do you think she'd want to live like that?"

"No, but she would want to atone and help us," Luna said.

"True, but here's the thing: we don't know where she is, or even have anyone to-"

Hey, it's me, the guy who Displaced you. Look, I know you're having issues, but I was able to get in contact with some of my allies. Head to the Everfree later tonight at twenty two hundred, and there'll be a few tokens for other Displaced there. One of them, which will be marked, will summon a Displaced who can get Rarity, and another has someone who can remove the mind control.

"Never mind, I just got a message from the guy who sent me here he was able to get some assistance that'll meet tonight for that purpose, so that plan is a go," I said. "Now, can you all save your bitching for after this works or fails?"

New allies

A few days after being summoned by Snake, the three were talking with both Twilight and Rainbow about putting up defences around the town.

“I'm not so sure that this’ll please every pony….” Twilight said.

“Twi, we have to at least put up some kind of defense, the turrets and Droids won't be enough to stop the enemy if Flame Tail sends forces to attack again.” Sebastian replied.

“He has a point, I’ve seen footage of those tanks the enemy uses and unless you have anti tank weapons, we need to set up walls.” Viktor said.

“Like walls are gonna really do anything against a tank shell.” A new voice entered the conversation. Twilight jerked her head around and gasped.

“E… Eliteslayer?!” She said in shock, “What are you doing here!?”

The Spartan chuckled. “I wanted to surprise you. Besides, I haven't gotten to see you and Nyx for a while.”

The Alicorn practically flew over to him and glomped him. The three other humans looked on in shock.

“Okay, just what the hell is going on here?!” Viktor asked. “How do you know this guy?”

“Because I’m part of the Equestrian Royal Guard reserves. I arrived here way before you three, and ended up meeting Celestia and Luna. It was after the battle of Los Pegasus that I was asked to join the reserves and was stationed here to keep an eye on things.” the Spartan explained

“I met him a few days before you three appeared. He’s… been like a father figure to Nyx.” Twilight said.

Rainbow grinned. “I was wondering when you'd show that helmet of yours!” She said to him

Eliteslayer also grinned, the smile hidden under his helmet. “Still getting yourself into trouble Dash?” He asked the pegasus.

“Eh, been doing this and that…” she said. Alex then spoke up.

“So that's how you knew Twilight?” She asked. Eliteslayer nodded, but before he could say anything else, two separate portals opened under them.

Impossible! My token hasn't worked since I was sent here! The Recon thought before he fell through, Twilight hanging on for dear life.

Rainbow was also dragged in, trying to rescue Alex from falling in. “Rainbow, hang on!” Alex yelled before the portals closed.

(Josh’s perspective

A few hours have passed since my meeting with the rulers, and I was currently on my way to the Everfree to look for that cache of tokens. “You seriously couldn’t have given me better direction?” I muttered to myself, referring to the guy who informed me of the tokens.

And, just like that, the universe laughs at me as i find the cache on the outskirts of the forest. “Fuck you, Luck,” I muttered as I went to investigate. The ones that stood out to me were an old, battered Assault rifle. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Another was what I did recognize to be an Energy sword hilt, though the lines on it were red instead of blueish white. Though three in particular glowed.

The first was some kind of sword which-wait a minute, isn’t that Ivy’s sword? Yeah, think so, though I can’t remember. Damn it, where’s youtube when you need it, I need Death battle. Okay, sorry. There was also a sword which had an upside down skull on the crossguard, which in and of itself looked like wings, and another Energy sword, though this looked like the in game models.

“Looks like those are it,” I said as I went to them, and picked them up. A challenge, given I have two hands. “Yeah, um,” I said, “no idea who you guys are, but I need help, especially if you’re good at covert snatch and grabs.” No sooner had I finished speaking when a portal opened in front of me, and out popped six figures. Four were humans in some kind of armor, though three were in Halo Spartan armor, while the third was in I think Warhammer armor? Never played it. The other two were pony shaped. Sure, why the fuck not.

“Ugh…. Twi? You okay?” A familiar rainbow maned pegasus asked, getting a nod from the Alicorn.

“Okay, got four humans and a pony Rainbow and Twilight,” I said. “Somehow, this is not as weird as everything else right now.”

Rainbow spun around, and I noticed that she was wearing some kind of armor with gauntlets that gripped what looked like an automatic gun. “Who the buck are you?!” She asked.

“One: I’m the guy who apparently summoned you,” I said. “Two: name’s Josh, General of the Equestrian Cybran forces and probably on par with Princess Luna in leadership right now. Three: don’t try to use the gun, my armor can't be pierced by bullets, only lasers. Trust me, I tested it a few weeks back.”

The four humans soon stood up and I noticed that one of them had Ivy’s right arm armor instead of the regular Spartan armor. “So, who are you four, exactly?” I asked.

“Name’s Sebastian, these three are Alexandra, her brother Viktor, and the Recon is Eliteslayer.” The human in Warhammer armor said.

“Nice to meet you four,” I said. “I’m guessing you four are Displaced too?”

“Yeah, for a few days now.” Alex answered. The pony Twi trotted over to them and looked on in curiosity.

“For me, a few weeks,” I replied. “So, quick question: how good are you guys at stealth ops?”

Eliteslayer stepped up. “That would be my department.” He said.

I sighed in relief. “Thank god, because I seriously need some help,” I said. “If you’ll follow me, I'll take you to my current war room.”

Eliteslayer nodded before a Pelican suddenly appeared next to him, the troop bay hatch open.

“No need for that, it’s close, and it can’t hold the Pelican,” I told him. “Come on.” With that, I turned around, and made my way towards Ponyville, hearing heavy footsteps and hoofsteps behind me. Once we got close to Ponyville, I heard pony Twilight gasp.

“WHAT THE BUCK IS THAT?!” she yelled. I turned around, saw her pointing, and followed her hoof to see she was pointing at my ACU.

“That, Twilight, is an Armored Command Unit, or ACU for short. It is essentially a heavily armored command vehicle with combat capabilities capable of creating whole armies. And that fucker is mine,” I said.

Viktor whistled in amazement. “Dang, it's practically a mobile 40K forge world!” He said.

“I have no idea what that is,” I said. “Still, the others are waiting, and trust me, a few do not like being kept waiting.” With that, I continued towards the crystal palace that this world’s Twilight called home. Upon reaching there, I mentally entered the passcode- a security precaution given circumstances- and the doors opened, allowing us entrance. Once the last of us- pony Rainbow- entered, the doors closed. From there, it was a short walk to the throne room, doubling as the war room. “Now, Rainbow, whoever you see, do not shoot.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Changelings,” I replied before opening the door, revealing Luna, Cadence, and Chrysalis. For those who have forgotten, Chrysalis and Cadence, using Aeon units, wore the Aeon pilot suit, a skintight-why?- thing made mainly of black material with the chest piece and actual armor being silver with green lights, while Luna wore a basic military outfit. My Twilight was currently trying something with the satellites in orbit to find Rarity.

“Well… this is something…” Sebastian said, causing everyone in the room to look at him and the other new arrivals in shock.

“Josh, you mind telling us why we’re seeing more humans and quadruped versions of Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle?” Luna asked.

“From another universe,” I replied. “Ponies got dragged along, and they’re willing to help with the Op.”

Eliteslayer then saluted to Luna. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, your highness.” He said.

“Thank you,” she said. “So, I assume Josh has filled you in?”

“No I have not,” I said before turning to them. “Essentially, this world’s Celestia has been mind raped into becoming a fanatic for a stupid religion, and has brainwashed who knows how many others, including Rarity and her sister. We were hoping you guys could help.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa! Hold it a sec, you mean you lost Celestia to a Zealot that brainwashed her?” Alex asked in confusion.

“No, she is the zealot,” I replied. “Something about what happened around a thousand years ago. Ask Luna for the whole thing. And don’t worry, you’ll have support for the mission.”

Twilight then spoke up, “Nightmare Moon. Celestia must have been harboring a lot of guilt over banishing Luna.” She shifted her wings and I heard a small whirring of servos.

“No, this is before that happened,” I said. “Point is the fact that a slong as she has one Element, we’re at a huge disadvantage right now.” I then looked at Twilight, and my neural implant showed specs for her wings. “Huh, that’s new. So, how’d you get the mech wings?”

“I… I lost them fighting enemy troops in Manehatten.” She said.

“Ah,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

“Can we get back on topic?” Chrysalis asked. “The more time we spend talking is more time for Rarity to plan an attack on us.”

Sebastian looked at me, “So what's the plan of attack?” He asked

“Whichever one of you is best with stealth sneaks into the camp, finds Rarity, and uses this,” I said, bringing out a small device, “to signal for evac, which my Twilight will handle. If things go south, you’ll have some support.”

“You know where they are?” Rainbow asked.

“Currently,” I said , “n-” I was interrupted as Twilight, the anthro one from this universe, burst into the room.

“Josh, I have the location of the camp Rarity’s at!”

Rescue

The visitors jumped as Twilight burst in. “Geez, and I thought our Twilight bursting in was surprising!” Viktor muttered, getting a glare from the pony version of the Princess.

“How?” Josh asked.

“By scanning for Rarity’s magical frequency and cross checking it with Seraphim tech signatures,” the anthro lavender alicorn said excitedly before noticing the guests. “Uh, who are they?”

“Visitors from a different Equestria,” Eliteslayer replied.

“Multiverse theory, don’t think on it too hard,” Josh said. “So, where is she?”

“In Zebra lands, near where those extremists who attacked your main base were last seen.”

Josh put a hand to his chin. “So we either attack and risk pissing off the zebras, or don’t, and have them at full strength?” He then looked at the other Displaced. “Of course, nothing has recorded you guys before, so they may think it a third party.”

“And that’ll play in your hands because while we're distracting them, you’re able to pull off your mission,” Sebastian said.

“Somewhat what I have planned,” Josh replied. “Whichever of you’s the best in stealth ops moves in and takes Rarity and Sweetie Belle if you can find her, and high tail it to the extraction point. In the mean time, I’ll have a combat Engineer and a deceiver move in and capture Rarity’s ACU if it’s there before moving a transport into move it here. Of course, I’ll have units on standby for support if need be.”

“I can handle both Rarity and Sweetie,” Eliteslayer said, smirking as a hardlight copy of himself appeared next to him. “Hardlight Holograms.”

“Nice,” Josh muttered. “Still, best if each of you come in case of support. Also, may want to make sure you’re shielded, as we’re heading to Alpha, and the only quick way there is gating.”

“What the buck’s gating?” the pony Rainbow asked.

“Think teleporting but using a structure for it,” Josh replied. “Come on, you’ll need to ride on my ACU.”

“Copy that,” Eliteslayer replied. “Let's roll!”

With that, the other Displaced, along with their pony allies, followed Josh outside, where his ACU was right next to the castle. He climbed up it and into the head, where the control area was as the others took position on the shoulders of the thing, the two Twilight’s putting a shield up to protect from the adverse effects of gating. Once they were all situated, the ACU lurched forward as it began to move toward the forest before a purple glow lit the night up. Josh maneuvered his ACU towards it and, upon reaching it, the ACU and those riding it vanished in a flash of light.

a few hours later-Zebrica-Seraphim loyalist camp

“G’day!” Eliteslayer said before he knocked out two guards while still in active camo. “And G’night!”

“I thought you said were good with stealth,” Josh said over the comms. “Stealth does not involve yelling as you knock people out.”

“Hey, they never saw it coming! And I wasn't that loud!”

“Doesn’t mean their friends didn’t hear it!”

“Whatever, I'm near Rarity's tent, the other guards are more occupied with the other three at the moment.”

“Long as no explosions occur, I think we’re good,” Josh deadpanned. “Make sure she’s out, grab her and Sweetie if she’s in there, and get to the extraction point. Hurry up, too. Spy planes show unit patrols you were lucky to avoid on the way in, and they’re comprised of Assault tanks. Trust me, those things are a bitch to ground forces.”

“Roger that. And if it comes to a tank fight, I have armor of my own. Eliteslayer out.” The Spartan said before he headed towards the command tent. Peeking in, he saw two unicorns, an adult and a filly. “Gotcha…” he whispered before he snuck in and with two powerful blows, rendered them unconscious. He then concentrated and a hardlight copy of himself appeared. With a nod, the two picked the unicorns and retreated before the troops could even spot them.

“You got ‘em?” Josh asked

“Yep, heading towards the rendezvous point as we speak.” Eliteslayer replied.

“Copy that, sending capture team bravo to get the ACU or, failing that, the SACU, or maybe a Seraphim ACU, whichever they encounter first,” Josh said. “Evac transport’s waiting for you and the others.”

“Roger that, I’ll let them know.” Eliteslayer then switched to a different channel. “Vik, Package has been retrieved, fall back to the rendezvous point!”

“Copy that,” Viktor replied, “We’ll be there in a few minutes or so!”

Before Eliteslayer could reply, he heard Josh say, “Oh, shit, forgot about those.” He then heard a beep, which indicated Josh had gone to all frequencies. “All groups, pull out now. Fucking Spy Plane got us, and any enemy units nearby are on their way here. Suggest you hightail it. My forces and I will buy time.”

“Copy that!” Eliteslayer said before skidding to a halt and summoning a Pelican. After making sure Rarity and Sweetie were secured, the Spartan then activated the engines and flew to where the others were. “Anyone call for air support?” He radioed before unleashing a burst of machine gun fire on the enemy squad. He then opened the bay door and yelled, “Get in!” Both Twilight and Rainbow quickly flew in while Viktor and Alex used their thrusters to make the jump. Sebastian also managed to make the jump, but nearly fell out before Alex grabbed his hand and pulled him in. Josh's Twilight was the last one in as the hatch closed and Eliteslayer opened up the throttle, flying away from the base.

“Also works,” Josh said over the radio. “You got air superiority fighters gaining. Sending some of my own after ‘em.” Soon after he said this, five, jagged aircraft zoomed past the pelican, and explosions were heard. “Get back to the castle, I can handle these ass hats.”

“Copy that. Erm… what if a nuke hits the ACU?” Eliteslayer asked.

They heard laughing before a reply. “With how I modified this thing, that won’t fucking stop me! Hell, a lower health version of this survived Celestia drilling a hole in it’s chest! And even then. . .well, let’s just say I’m a huge sci-fi fan, and I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t make a mech to hold another mech. You guys seen Pacific Rim?”

“Hell yes!” Sebastian chuckled. “I loved that movie when it came out in theaters!”

“I made a Gypsy danger that can hold my ACU and take three Experimental Strategic nukes, and still function. Not at full strength, but still function. Oh, and also three mechanized Otachis. The winged ones.”

“Geez, that Kaiju was just nasty! But we'll see you at the castle, ETA, 30 minutes.” Eliteslayer said before aiming his vehicle towards the direction of the Castle.

“Egg-xactly, and copy that. But I won’t be there. I’ll be having fun here.” Josh said before he spoke to the oncoming hordes of mechanical enemies. “Come and get me you fuckers!” Various explosions were heard soon after.

Twilight’s castle-thirty minutes later

The Pelican landed with a thump of hydraulics in front of the Castle, causing the ship to shudder. “Alright, let's get these two inside.” Eliteslayer said as he got up from the pilot’s seat. “Everyone okay?” He then asked.

“I’m good,” anthro Twilight said. “Just wondering how Josh is doing.”

"I'm guessing you two are an item?” Eliteslayer chuckled. “You’re not the first Twilight to fall for the Displaced in their world.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “We started dating just after this whole thing began and before Celestia actually declared war.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about him,” pony Twilight said as she got out the Pelican and pointing in the direction they had come. “Look.” The group did so, and saw a single transport-a tier three UEF heavy transport- on it’s way to their location with Josh’s ACU on it, along with a weirdly shaped machine that didn’t seem to have wheels. The transport itself was protected by five Gemini air superiority fighters and five renegade class gunships.

“Holy throne….,” Sebastian muttered in shock. “That's some firepower!”

“And he didn’t even have Experimentals with him,” anthro Twilight said.

Viktor and Alex soon walked out, carrying the two bound prisoners. “What should we do with these two?”

“I guess the cells in the basement,” anthro Twilight said. “Oh, I just remembered. Josh told me before we left to get Rarity and Sweetie to offer you guys an ACU if you want one, but it won’t be the same model. He also said something about an extradimensional communicator you can use to summon him if you need help.”

“Honestly, we need the firepower we can get. So we’ll take an ACU.”

“Right,” she said, nodding. A second passed before she said, “A UEF model is on it’s way to the gate we used to get to Alpha. He built most gates with the intention of bringing an army from other dimensions if he had allies there, so you just need to put something from that universe into a receiver at the base, and it’ll open a portal up to it.”

“Hmm… that will be interesting…” Eliteslayer said.

“Guess we’ll see you guys later, then,” anthro Twilight said. “It’s been interesting.”

“It was nice meeting both you and Josh. And I have a feeling you two will pull through this and survive. As for your Celestia, hopefully you'll find a way to restore her, but when you do, she’ll need all the support to help recover.” The Spartan said.

“Thanks,” anthro Twilight said.

Half an hour later, Rarity and Sweetie-now awake and thrashing about in their prison cells- were being guarded as Josh was in his room going through tokens and talking with his Displacer to find someone to help with the mind control on the two unicorns, and the Displaced that had helped him were getting ready to leave next to their newly acquired ACU.

A knock on Josh’s door made him look up. Standing at the door was Eliteslayer, his helmet under one arm, revealing his face for the first time. With a mop of short reddish brown hair and green eyes, he looked like he was in his early 20s, but the most discerning feature on his face were two slash scars across one eye.

“Slayer?” Josh asked. “Figured you’d be with the others at the ACU.”

“I just wanted to say goodbye before we left. That Assault rifle you had that summoned me… it wasn't supposed to work. Until I do a new token, my old one wasn't supposed to work. Guess it didn't get that memo.” He chuckled.

“New token? You’re an old Displaced?” Josh asked. “That’s a new one. First time I’ve heard of that happening.”

“Yeah, I was redisplaced into the universe the others are in. But I have seen more than those three would ever believe. But when I was sent to their Equestria, a good majority of my memories were blocked, so I now only remember those I’ve encountered.

“Huh. Interesting,” Josh said before reaching into the pile of tokens, and taking out what looked like a gauntlet that was colored red and had ridges on it, the forward edge glowing as if it had flames inside it. “So, you know who this belongs to, ‘cause my guy isn’t telling me who.”

Eliteslayer looked at the gauntlet in shock before he then chuckled. “So the big guy actually did it… His name is Mau’ual, a Displaced that I had the pleasure of meeting with an… old colleague of mine before I was re Displaced.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Josh said before taking an Energy sword hilt out of the pile, and tossing it to Eliteslayer. “Got two of those, and my guy’s telling me it belongs to a Displaced neither of us have met. Just says the guy’s name is Ruso ‘Tafam, and he’s having to deal with a war against flame creatures or some shit like that. Given the hilt, I figured you’d be interested. Helping out a fellow Halo Displaced, and all.”

“I’ll give him a call when I have the chance. But right now, the war against Flame Tail is my top priority.”

“I was told the guy took on an entire army by himself with just two swords and daggers. He may be able to help you.”

Eliteslayer nodded before he extended his hand to Josh. “It was an honor meeting you Josh. I wish you luck in this, and you’d better be prepared for Twi’s… OCD.” He chuckled.

“Dude, I’m somewhat OCD myself,” Josh said as he took Slayer’s hand. “I should be able to handle it.”

The Spartan gave a rare grin before the two shook hands. “Until then, good hunting.”

“Thanks,” Josh said. “See you later.”

Eliteslayer gave a quick military salute before he then left. Soon afterwards, a massive flash of energy was seen outside as the four and their Twilight and Rainbow entered the portal, along with the ACU. Soon after, the massive portal closed, leaving no trace of the visitors.

But what they didn’t see was a shadow of a figure approach the gate, and scan it. “Perfect,” the voice said. “May the Way guide us,” it said before vanishing in a smaller flash of light.

A sad notice

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Rewrite is up

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Base building/Learning and Prophecies

So, as it turns out, an ACU has scanners for mass deposits. Explains that part of the games, I'll admit. A large amount of deposits had been found near where I teleported in, actually at an area with a large hill, a small mountain, really, facing Equestria. Perfect. I pressed the middle finger button of the left control panel, which brought up the build menu. "Access Cybran Schematics," I say to make it easier to find what I need. "Mass Extractor." This selected said structure, and, on three of the deposits, I placed a single mass extractor. "Power Generator," I said, and that was brought up next, and I placed three in a sort of triangle pattern, away from everything else right now, the beginnings of a energy grid. "Land Factory." Again, it was selected, and I cued up two next to to each other at the base of the mountain. I also had a HUD, which showed what my mass and energy total, current, and storage maximum was. Too bad I don't have anything to use to use strategic zoom. Shame. Any way, due to the close proximity, I finished the Extractors quickly before moving to the generators, which would be at the back of this compartment of the base.

Now, how I was building this thing had defense in mind. It would have three sections with a wall on the outside and between, a single path leading to each. The current one was for tech one levels, the middle for tech two, and the last would be tech three, where I would have to use a UEF engineer for the Ravager point defenses, four factories of land and air at each. I had turned the factories to where the open end, which would leave units open to fire, faced back towards where the very back of the base would be, a safety precaution to prevent unit destruction while being built. I still wonder why the original and FA didn't allow that. At least SupCom 2 protected the units.

Once all three groups had been finished, I set up a more complicated cue. My two factories made tech one engineers, two each. One, I had finish my energy array, which is a square, of increasing size from the base model of four storage sites, which add five thousand units of energy to my standard,and five actual generators, four at the corners of the center one. Just add a second square to that, an energy facility at the corner of each generator in the first level, a storage facility adjacent to the level ones. That engineer was finishing the first level and adding the second. Engineer two would build mass facilities at the remaining points near the base, which totaled twelve without the ones already taken, fifteen with. By luck, they were arranged in groups of five spaced well apart, with would help with base separation. Three would do mass storage, adding five hundred units of mass to my basic. Four would handle the most important right now, and that is intel, which would be followed by two air factories, which I would give a patrol route to be followed by interceptors. Low altitude to avoid detection, of course. Hey, if they declare war on me, I will gladly show them where my base is, then nuke Canterlot to hell. Only if they attack me. Cybran units may be built to be aggresive, but they can be very effective defenders.

Once the radar and air factories were done, and the first part of the wall that represented the front of my base in an arrow shape was completed and I moved on to the next part as I had Engineer Two begin on point defense, which I had set to track, but not shoot. In other words, hold fire, though I did make a shortcut to make it to where they would go to return fire mode, and Engineer one would be set to building AA clusters in X patterns, lines, or small clusters, as it's my personal experience that tech one AA is not that accurate, like a shot gun at range. Once the intel was done, I began to get readings, small stuff, mostly, just birds for now, but it would come in handy for later to see any pegasai guards inbound. Four begin work on the air factories, which I would have make five interceptors on a patrol route. Well, for the Cybran ones. The Aeon ones, I would tech up to two, and transport engineers to other locations. In the Aeon case, the north, as their chrome armor is extremely reflective. Add white coloration, and pretty much invisible in a blizzard. For UEF? Yeah, probably wait on them. Once every thing but the AA was done, I put the land factories to teching up to level two, who would then construct, in order from first tech two engineer to last, air staging facilities, anti air flak, tech two power, which actually gave out twenty five times the tech one, which would power the shields the last would build. But that would be boring for you guys, I'm not stupid. So, I'll pick my part of the story back up a few days later from when I began to build the base, otherwise I'd be holding the story up, so I'll let Twilight start where she left off, as that has stuff currently relevant to the plot. Twilight?

Twilight-1st

Thanks, Josh. Okay, so, it had been an hour since me and the others had seen Josh kill Tirek, we still didn't know his name. Really, all we knew was that he was powerful enough to kill Tirek, which scared each of us, even Rainbow, even if she hid it. Anyway, the nine of us, my friends, myself, and the princesses, were in Canterlot, Discord who knows where, even if I had objected otherwise to Celestia letting him go after what had happened with him, even if he felt sorry for it, and Spike was in Ponyville, getting what he could to help build us a new home. Of what he said, everypony was helping out.

"So you six were beaten by Tirek," Luna said, making sure we had explained everything right, "and he was beaten by something you believe to be another demon from Tartarus?"

"Yep," Applejack said. "Ah mean, it had horns and was colored red with a hint of black."

"And that makes it evil," Luna deadpanned. I saw where she was going with that logic, I don't know why, but I used my magic to close Applejack's mouth before she said something. She may be the Element of Honesty, but even she didn't think some things through before saying. In case you couldn't tell, her logic train was that ponies assumed that dark colors equaled evil, which would bring the question is she was evil, which we all knew she wasn't, which would lead to us just assuming it was evil. I'll admit, she wouldn't be wrong. And, when you think about it, Josh did have a fair point earlier. For all we knew Tirek could have engineered his escape, including Cerberus leaving his post. Which meant he could have done so again. So from Josh's perspective, he was doing what was right. Still didn't excuse him. Of cours,e he did do that later, but that's getting ahead here.

"But princess," I said, "it also killed Tirek. I mean, Tirek wasn't good, but I don't think he deserved death."

"By today's standards, you would be correct," Luna said. "But by the laws from before my banishment, what he would have done would have gotten him death. The only reason he was in Tartarus was because it was on conspiracy to do so."

"Luna, that's enough," Celestia said upon seeing our surprised, and shocked, faces.

"Of course, sister," Luna said, though it was clear she was a little bitter. I wouldn't find out until later as to why, even if all of Luna didn't know then. I know that's confusing, but I'll get to it later, I promise. Celestia then sighed.

"I was afraid of this," she said. "There is something the seven of you must know."

"What's that, auntie," Cadence asked.

"An old prophecy from Starswirl's time," the princess replied. "Luna and I call it 'The Demon Prophecy'. I do not remember it all, but the basics went like this: When Equestria has fallen, a force from the stars will arrive, the first sign being the arrival of a black and red being with no qualm of killing. The demons shall ravage Equestria, destroying the sun of Equestria and bringing with them an eternal darkness for those on Equis. When things are at their darkest, a demon born of flames will appear, and Equis' fate, decided. I believe it clear what you all saw is the first sign, and that more of its people will soon arrive." She looked at me and the others. "You six must be ready to defend Equestria, as it is stated they have no qualms against killing."

We looked at each other, and nodded before standing up. "Princess," I said, "if it means protecting Equestria, we would do anything." Little did I know that statement would cause chaos on an unimaginable scale later on because I couldn't follow through.

The first battle

"Damn it, I knew we should have a built a fire base out here," Twilight muttered as she and the others with ACUs were busy fighting off Seraphim units to buy a town time to evacuate. Unfortunately, that replied on air transports, and a ring of SAMs had been built around the town, making that impossible, and tier two assault bots and tanks kept coming in from land. The only reason they had yet to fall was that the ACUs all had combat upgrades, making it harder to kill them while they can dish out more damage.

"I do not see how that would help," Luna said. "They most likely would have had bombed it as they did the small forces that were here."

"Luna's right," Chrysalis said as her ACU shot an Overcharge shot at a cluster of tanks. "Celestia is many things, but stupid is somehow not one of them!"

"Doesn't change the fact that unless Josh gets here soon with a lot of reinforcements, we're screwed!" Rainbow yelled just before a tank shot hit her, though it only damaged the shields. "BUCK OFF!" An explosion sounded. "Where'd he go anyway, Twilight?"

"I don't know," the lavender alicorn replied. "He just told me a few days ago he had a project. Best guess is that he's going to get it."

"Oh, shit," Ace groaned. "Sending feeds to you guys." A screen appeared on the HUD for each of the pilots, showing a force of three Ythothas and five Ahwassas moving closer. "We're so screwed. "We'd barely survive a single bomb from the fliers, but five plus three of those bots?"

"And that isn't counting the small army with 'em," Shadow said. "Still, at least we'll be going down fighting."

"I hear that," the changeling pilot, named Green Mist, said. "Routing all non-critical power to shields and weapons."

Applejack sighed. "Migh' as well," she said before she and the others did the same, and began to fire at whatever hostile unit came into range, wanting to take as many as they could with them, even if they knew the units could easily be replaced.

"There they are, north side," Ace said, and they all looked, and saw the army nearing. That is before, anyway, artillery shells began to rain down on them, easily hitting units in the large group and destroying the weaker ones.

"Time to put these new ones out for a test."

"Josh?" Twilight asked, amazed at the timing.

"Yeah, it's me," he replied just as the ground began to shake, not that it was noticeable for the pilots. "Just had to grab a few things. South side is clear of SAMs, and I have transports on their way for you all. Trust me, if you stay, you'll be caught up in the carnage."

Before any could ask, a roar was heard form above just before an army of Loyalist assault bots and Bricks dropped form the sky, making the pilots look up as far as they could using an ACU, and, to their surprise, saw three giant, metallic dragons-the wings attached to the front arms- flying in a 'V formation as they fired lasers at the bombers. Over the radio they heard, "Otachi fliers engaging targets, time to bring in the ground units."

It was hear the shaking became noticeable for the pilots as five Spiderbots passed by them, and a new unit- one as tall as the Experimental assault bots but with out the weapons arms and more pony like look to it with arms and hands-the knuckles having spikes attached to them, and an orange glow coming from its chest- pass over them. "All units, engage." As Josh said that, the Spider bots unleashed their microwave beam lasers on the non-experimental units that hadn't been destroyed.

"The buck?" Ace said, which was all their thoughts, as they saw the larger robot start to run towards its Seraphim counter parts as they tried to hit it with their weapons, but seemed to miss as it, somehow, dodged their fire where other units would take it head on. As they saw this, a file came to their ACUs. Two, actually.

One was for the new flier unit.

Experimental Air combat carrier. Designation: Otachi.

Purpose: to transport large assault forces and engage enemy air born Experimental units.

Description:Using specialized lightweight alloys combined with micro jets on the wings, this unit is able to fly and hover. Inside it is a factory allowing production of ground assault units, with the capacity for ten tech threes and up to thirty tech ones. Armaments include three microwave laser emitters, four missile launchers, and depth charges. A special ability is that this unit, when on land, can still initiate in combat with its razor sharp, titanium claws.

The second was for the new ground unit

Experimental ground combat unit/ACU shell. Designation: Jaeger MK1. Model designate: Gipsy Danger

Purpose: spearhead assaults against enemy bases that are heavily defended and engage heavily armored ground Experimental including Colossus class and to act as an armored case around compatible ACUs.

Description: Made of raw mass converted to Titanium and running on Nuclear power, armor has not yet been tested but theorized to be at Colossus level. Special joints allow for range of motion equal to human while connectors to ACU- and pilot by extension- allow orders to be carried out with ease to the unit if an ACU is connected physically. The first Jaeger made, the size required it be operated by analog signals. Though initially a drawback, this makes it immune to EMPs, and the ACU hardened exterior prevents power loss, resulting in the unit being immune entirely from EMP effects. Armament includes two plasma cannon- one on each arm- and two swords-also one on each arm. Both are collapsible, and the swords have a special ability to be turned into whips at the pilots command.

"Yeah, um," Ace said, "anyone else bucking terrified of that last one?"

"I'm more terrified it implies there's either more now or will be more later," Shadow said as the Dragon fly transports arrived.

"We can discuss it with him later," Luna said. "Now, I think it best we get out of here." They all agreed, and made their way to the transports, with Twilight giving one last look in her ACU towards Josh before leaving.

Josh-1st person- five minutes earlier

As I neared the combat zone-my ACU plugged into the Jaeger-hey, Pacific rim was a good movie, and what kind of science fiction guy would I be if I had access to a giant robot and didn't build it?- I looked over the force I brought with me. Three Otachies- based off the winged Kaiju from Pacific Rim and with five Loyalists and Bricks each- five Spider bots, three of the rapid fire artillery, and my currently only Jaeger was my force, along with three of the satellites in orbit ready to provide support if I needed it.

I was looking at the feeds from the satellites to know how to deploy my units when I saw the Seraphim army move in. I brought up the range overlays for the artillery stations, and smiled, as they were in range. "Perfect," I muttered as I had the three stations stop, unpack their multi-barrel guns, and begin to unleash their shots as I sent the fliers in to deploy their units for clean up. From there, I contacted the others and relayed to them I was inbound with help, and that transports were inbound form the south to get them out of there, finishing just as the Yathothas came into view. "Let's go," I said as the Spider bots passed the others, and i stepped over them as the Experimental hostiles began firing on me.

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As it was plugged into my implants, I was able to have the Jaeger dodge them as I would out of my ACU as I crushed a few of the Seraphim tanks under the feet on my way there. The first Yathotha I reached, I activated the elbow rocket on the Jaeger to drive a right hook right through the armor and into its inner workings before turning the hand into a plasma cannon, and shooting at it while using the energy inside it to power the thing further. Yeah, one thing not in the file is a happy accident being that the thing can absorb certain energy types. No idea why, but I like it. After utterly and completely blowing its insides to hell, I kicked it off the cannon before converting it back to a fist, and then whipping the right arm to the side to bring out the sword, which snapped together just as I turned left and sliced another bot in half from what would be its waist, then grabbed that, and threw it into the third before essentially using the things unibeam, which was really just ejecting some of the reactor heat, to melt them together, and them converted the left hand into a cannon, charged it to full, and blew them both to hell.

I then looked up, and saw the three Otachies engaging three of the bombers, the other two already having gone down form the lasers, missiles, and talons-make that three going down, because another was just taken down, meaning they'd fall even quicker with more than one targeting a single.

An alert then popped up on my HUD. I opened it, and saw it was a satellite camera feed, showing a Seraphim ACU with purple lighting. That made me look at the legs of the bot I cut in half, and saw it was purple as well. Then a simple message over basic radio. "An impressive show," Rarity said. "But your new toys won't be able to stop us. They only delay the inevitable. You will submit, or die."

I decided to reply. "You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" I asked as I turned the Jaeger to face the ACU. "Well let me tell you something, Rarity. This is for you and those who you work with and under: if you want Equestria, you'll need to get through me and the others." And because it was one of the most badass lines in Pacific Rim- "Because whether or not you know, we're cancelling the apocalypse you wish to bring.

"In short, fuck off, both you and Celestia."