War, Friendship, and Crisis: The Tale of a Torn World

After an hour of flying through specified air zones due to aerial assaults, the quartet and their broken Pinkie Pie reached GEST Corp.'s base in Ponyville. The drop ships descended onto the landing pads and shut down to save power. The ramp doors opened to release multiple soldiers, a medbot, a sergeant, and five ponies. Pinkie was carried to the base with a bed and one soldier, and the other four ponies followed at a moderate pace. For this case, the soldier and four ponies used the elevator to safely guide Pinkie's bed below the surface of the planet. The group entered the elevator, and the soldier pressed the button that led it to the third floor. Twilight Sparkle, the most curious of the bunch of ponies, asked a question to the soldier while the elevator moved downward.

"What do you think is wrong with her?" she asked politely and calmly to keep the peace.

The soldier turned his concealed head to Twilight. "The neurologists believe that she is going through some type of trauma from the kavarians' experiments. She is going to be scanned to detect any other illnesses or defects on her body that might have caused her to acquire the taste of human and pony flesh."

"But, you're all human, right?" Applejack asked. "Aren't ponies and humans different altogether? I don't think your technology and knowledge could correctly label her."

"Half of our scientists in this base are equine. They have studied our machines and the fields involving pony and human bodies enough to grasp a very detailed idea about what happened to her. The only problem we might have is if we have no idea what caused her to break."

"I hope she gets better soon," Fluttershy almost whispered, remembering the Pinkie before her disappearance. "I don't want her to eventually find me delicious."

"I bet these humans will fix her," assured Twilight. "They know what they are doing."

The elevator slowed to a stop as the metal doors slid open. The ponies and soldier walked into a huge room with multiple surgery and analysis stations teeming with active doctors and wounded soldiers. Both ponies and humans were on the recovery beds, and some of the stations were concealed with a singular sheet of fabric on a pole. The soldier rolled Pinkie's temporary bed to one of the empty stations. The station held a doctor and an assistant, both reading papers and examining x-ray and MRI scans. when Pinkie's constrained body rolled up to them, the doctor looked up from the papers and smiled with interest. His face was covered with a graying mustache and stubble along his chin. His head hair was only located around the sides and back, creating a bald dome on the top of his head. A rectangular pair of glasses covered his eyes and rested on his ears and nose.

"Well, this looks very intriguing," the doctor mused while opening Pinkie's eyes and examining them with a light. "I didn't know you'd be bringing a psychotic one here." He switched to examining the ears with an otoscope. "What seems to be the issue?"

The soldier spoke up in a calm and clear voice. "She was originally bright, happy, and cheerful until she was taken hostage by kavarian troops. Now, she loves to eat people and ponies for their taste. The neurologists on the drop ships stated it was due to trauma, but we would like your take on it."

The doctor removed the muzzle and examined Pinkie's teeth. He then proceeded to pick out scraps of blood and flesh from her teeth. "Interesting. This might be a very exciting case, then."

He gestured his assistance to help him carry Pinkie onto the station's bed. When she was successfully placed on the bed, the assistant untied the arm section of the straitjacket and strapped her four hooves to the bed to ensure the safety of everyone in the area. The assistant looked like a younger man with a five o'clock shadow and short, brown hair. Just like the doctor, he wore a white lab coat with a tag labeling him 'assistant'. He then completely removed the straitjacket from Pinkie's body, revealing a healthy and pink coat.

The doctor examined the limbs and chest for any external injuries. Since there were none, he then took out his stethoscope and listened to Pinkie's breathing and heartbeat. Since they were normal, he moved on to the next procedure and took a out a unique device. It had a handle and build similar to a handgun, but the end was replaced with a rectangular scanner, and the rear sight was replaced with a screen. He aimed the device with one hand on top of Pinkie's forehead.

He pulled the trigger and activated the screen. The picture showed a colorful visual of the brain. Various parts of the brain were redder or bluer than others, showing the activity of the different parts of the brain. When the doctor found some areas with unusual activity and began matching with with the symptoms she has, he drew conclusions and told them to the ponies and soldier.

"This pony has an early form of PTSD. Apparently, you were right about the disturbing event with the kavarians, but we need to know what this situation was. She will be scheduled for a memory alteration procedure that will take place in about a minute."

"Wait a minute," Twilight started with realization of what that meant, "you're going to change her memories? How?"

"We have a few machines that are able to plug into the hippocampus and read all of the stored memories. We can go through her most recent ones, the ones involving her captivity, and erase them by altering the memory patterns inside the neurons. We can detect which memories are from which time, and we can catalog them for elimination. If the process ends successfully, she should wake up without knowing anything about what happened to her. It would be like she woke up from a nap and all of her horrible memories were a dream. Well, a dream she cannot remember or recall, but you get my point."

"That's, impressive," Twilight's eyes beamed with joy and excitement. "Can I disassemble one and study every part of it?"

The soldier looked to his left with a disturbed look. The doctor chuckled heartily to himself while holding a hand on the bed frame. "Not at this moment, but that's something we might be able to provide. Ask the general if you want to do something like that." He gestured his assistant to unhook the latches on the bed's wheels. The doctor pushed aside the other bed while readying Pinkie's for mobile transport. He then walked behind the bed and pushed it out of the station and into the clear section of the long room. The quartet followed, but the soldier regrouped with his squadron upstairs. The doctor looked at the ponies and speculated a little bit.

"I'm guessing you four do not want to leave your friend alone, hmm?" he questioned while pushing the bed along the long hall. Other soldiers, ponies, and doctors moved around in the background and chattered a little. Another doctor pushing an empty bed waved to Pinkie's doctor, and he waved back as well.

"Yes, we don't want anything bad to happen to her," Twilight answered while looking around the vast room. "She's too important to us."

"If that's the case, I will allow you four to watch her while we perform the memory process on her. After all–" the doctor looked down at their suits "–you four must be specifically chosen to work for Solk. Those suits are not the usual ED brand that the others wear." To emphasize his statement, he pointed at three passing unicorns with armor suits. "Those soldiers usually come in with entire limbs off their bodies. You have no idea how much they sacrifice to keep Equestria safe."

The group turned a sharp left to a smaller hall indicating location of the memory manipulation rooms. The doctor opened the second door on his right by waving a keycard in front of the door's sensor. The door dinged and automatically opened, allowing the doctor, the bed, and the ponies to enter the smaller room.

Three scientists in blue lab coats were preparing a bulky machine for activation. The machine was shaped like a chair with a big set of machinery on its back. Five metal straps were placed on it to secure the legs, arms, and head of anything sitting on the seat. A head-sized, dome-shaped piece of metal hung from the top of the chair, and it waited for a subject to strap into and read all of its memories. Multiple levers, buttons, panels, knobs, lights, screens, and monitors poke out of the mechanical box. A control station that sat on the other side of the room was connected to the machine by bundles of wires and tubes. After the machine's lights flashed green and multiple beeps emanated from the its startup, the scientists walked behind the control station and took out their note-tablets and styli to record the procedure.

The doctor rolled the bed to the chair and carefully unhooked the straps off of Pinkie's hooves and forehead. He then picked up her body and placed it on the chair. Huffing from the weight he just lifted, the doctor positioned and strapped Pinkie's forehead and hooves again. Surprisingly and thankfully, she was still asleep and calm. He lowered the dome piece to her head and strapped it around her chin. He flicked a lever next to the machine that read 'activate memory reading'. The machine emitted more beeps as the main screen behind and above Pinkie converted from static to actual footage. The screen showed the battle between her and the four ponies through her eyes. Every breath, blink, hoof movement, and attack were recorded from the pure memory. The quartet kept themselves quiet while the scientists examined the screen.

One of the scientists pushed their glasses with an index finger while studying the footage. "The memories are still fresh, but the readings are not showing any signs of potential trauma creation. Go back a few hours."

The doctor turned a knob that read 'time jump' to four hours. He pressed the 'backwards' button and examined the screen again. The image zipped from multiple mutilations and cooking techniques to peering up at two armored kavarians that escorted her out of an assault ship. She was chained with metal cuffs that kept her hooves behind her back. She walked on her hind legs as if she knew to do so for years. She was eventually shoved into the familiar cooking room inside the catacombs and locked inside with a steel door. Her cuffs deactivated themselves as the soldiers left the hall and walked up the staircase.

Another scientist shook a no with his head. "That's not it either. Go back by two days."

The doctor turned the same knob to twenty four hours and pressed the 'backwards' button twice. The footage shifted again to eventually recreate itself into a dark and empty room. Pinkie Pie was inside a testing chamber with two ponies that she recently killed, and she was chewing their lungs and hearts with a pleasure-filled smile on her face. Gooey chewing crackled in the audio as the graphic detail of running blood and two pegasi's inner organs, flesh, and bones covered the screen. Pinkie continuously chomped off bites of a lung, savoring every bite with another fire of dopamine and addiction to meat in her brain. One of the scientists, a newcomer in the field of gore, vomited on the floor in vile disgust. The other two had their mouths wide open while signaling the doctor to go back a little more. The four ponies looked away from the footage while covering their ears with their hooves.

"It's so chewy and sweet!" chirped the Pinkie Pie from the footage. "I could eat this all day!"

With absolutely no regret, the doctor turned the knob to two hours and pressed the same button again. The visuals now represented Pinkie's stylish and homey cell that was replicated to look like her room. She sat on the floor while slowly nibbling at the red velvet cake recently given to her by a kavarian soldier. Twilight slightly opened one eye to see if the screen was showing any gore. When it wasn't, she opened her eyes and shook the other three ponies while she quietly whispered, "You can look now."

The scientists picked up a heavy amount of data from the memory recall. One of the scientists who did not vomit spoke up hastily. "That's the source of the trauma, but we need to go back a little more to be sure that she doesn't remember that place. Go back some more again."

The doctor turned the knob to twenty four hours again and pressed the same button thrice. The footage shifted one last time to a half asleep Pinkie in her original bed in her room. Two figures were creeping through the window and door of her room and prepared to knock her unconscious. The vomiting scientist glared at the screen and pressed a button on the control station to bookmark the memory sequence. "That is where we need to start the memory erasing. Erase all memories from that point to the current time. Hopefully, that solves our problem."

The doctor flicked a lever that read 'erase memories' and pushed a button that read 'erase all from then until now' to start the process. The screen changed to a loading screen with fifteen percent above a partially filled bar. While the bar slowly filled all the way to one hundred percent, the quartet conversed between each other about the footage.

"Well," Rarity started while attempting to forget the third clip, "that was quite an interesting discovery. Would you say so, Twilight?"

"We did get to see some other events before we met Pinkie again," Twilight responded with lingering disgust in her words, "but that one bit was too graphic." She turned her head to the scientists and donned a deadly serious face. "Don't show that ever again."

"Hey, we hated seeing that as much as you four do." The leftmost scientist shrugged while pointing his eyes towards the other scientist that vomited all over the floor. "We'll need to clean that up pretty soon. This place is supposed to be 'exquisitely sterile', but not too sterile."

A cylindrical machine with four wheels and multiple cleaning utensils in its four arms rolled over to the vomit. It cleaned the entire area to near perfection and with dead accuracy. After it cleaned the vomit, it casually left the room. The doctor examined the screen again. The bar was at fifty-seven percent, giving a little more time for more conversation.

"Do you think Pinkie will be fine after she wakes up?" Applejack asked curiously. "Actually, will she ever wake up? That rock put her to sleep for quite a long time."

"I'm sure that she will wake up," Fluttershy chirped in a low voice. "I don't think a special artifact would keep her like that forever."

"The real question here is about her suit," Twilight stated while she returned her attention to the other three ponies. The bar was at seventy-seven percent. "Does GEST Corp. have it ready?"

"That would be a yes." A familiar general with a laser rifle and bald head walked into the room. He stood next to Pinkie's body while glaring at the machine. "Also, what exactly happened to her?"

The doctor turned his head to Solk. "We believe she is in a deep sense of trauma from the kavarians' experiments. Luckily, we were able to retrieve her safely and successfully discover what caused her trauma."

Solk briefly held out a hand to tell that he wanted an answer. "Well, spit it out. What caused it?"

"She was cannibalized, and it somehow twisted her psyche to a rather horrifying extreme. Humans have been known to be cannibals in very rare cases, but she responded to pony flesh as if she was starved for an entire month. She even collects withdrawal symptoms after just a few hours of neglect!"

Solk raised a hand to his chin and pondered the psychological response. "Seems like that response was intended. I bet at least one pony in this barracks at least tasted a drop of their own blood, but none of them were driven crazy from that. Something's not right here."

"But she always acts that way with sweets and deserts!" Rarity added to the mix. "It would be understandable if she reacted like that."

Solk pointed a finger briefly at Rarity. "Well, you have a point there, but why would she go so far to kill you four for that taste? To me, that seems like the odd bit out."

"Definitely," Twilight agreed. "She doesn't risk her friends' lives for a cause. To be a little more precise, she doesn't risk anypony's lives because she thinks all of them are her friends. I think that those kavarians changed her before the cannibalism took place."

The scientist in between the other two raised his hand and lowered it hastily. "We actually have a few instances in her memories where she was put in different experimental chambers. One of them involved, killing you, Twilight. Maybe they did something to her during the tests."

The scientist to his left shook a no. "That's not possible. Her mental patterns were mostly normal after those tests. They only changed dramatically after that cannibalistic act. The only thing that happened to her from the tests was a lingering sense of sadness, not psychopathy or sociopathy. If that was the case, she would've responded differently to the 'cake'."

The conversation halted when a beeping noise and a filled bar indicated the end of the memory erasing process. The doctor rushed to Pinkie's body and loosened the straps around her hooves and forehead. "She will be hysterical if we keep them on her. I don't want to risk another incident involving trauma."

Solk, the doctor, the three scientists, and the four ponies watched Pinkie Pie closely. Her eyes slowly opened while her body sluggishly moved around the metal. After a couple seconds, she rubbed her eyes with her hooves and yawned. When she finally looked around the room, she felt completely confused. "What's happening?"

Fluttershy leaped over to her and hugged her tightly. "Pinkie, you're safe! We missed you so much!"

Pinkie felt even more confused. "Safe? I'm perfectly fine though! Why would you think I was not safe?"

Solk shot a stern glance at the other three ponies. Don't tell her anything about what happened to her, he thought while he gave the glance. Twilight nodded and understood what the face meant.

She kept the ideas of cannibalism buried deep in her mind as she conversed with Pinkie. To hide her ideas even more, she remembered Rainbow Dash's disappearance and used it as the topic. "That's not the issue here. What we're worried about is where Rainbow Dash is." Twilight improvised her description a little while she spoke. "She disappeared, last night, and we have no idea where she went. She might be right above us or in another world. Who knows!"

Solk nodded in agreement. "You're right. We usually have the technology and information to pinpoint her location, but her Element of Harmony signal faded quite a while ago. The last area we found her signal at was in her floating house. We have no traces of evidence to prove where she is at this point."

One of the scientists' communications chips beeped and chattered faint words. The scientist nodded and continued saying okay until another beep indicated the end of the call. "General, we have a dire situation on our hands."

Solk turned his head in urgency. "What is it?"

"GEST Corp. squadrons in Manehattan are reporting a terrorist mission on the city. A demon waterborne fleet and aerial armada just stormed the city and are destroying entire skyscrapers as we speak. We need reinforcements there stat."

Solk turned to the ponies and cocked his weapon. "That's our call. You five need to get on our assault ships. Those little drop ships will fall out of the sky as fast as a tsunami can destroy an entire coastal city."

"Assault ship?" Twilight, Rarity and Applejack questioned in unison. Fluttershy stopped hugging Pinkie and listened closely. Pinkie hopped out of the chair and reunited with the other three ponies.

Solk decided to answer that little question. "It's a flying ship that's made to handle bigger and badder threats. We use them in aerial battles due to their low cost and effective firepower. If it is true the demons have an armada in Manehattan, they might have a dreadnought class warship there too. We can't fight it with just assault ships, so we need to break into it like we did to their first dreadnought."

"How are we going to do that?" asked an intrigued Twilight. "It sounds like we will be taken into a heavily guarded location."

"Exactly," Solk continued. "The armada will be too strong to take down in midair if ground forces also destroy the city beneath us. That's why you five will weaken their infantry and land vehicles first before we send you to the ship by teleporter. We need all the help we can get to fight off the aerial forces."

"So, let me straighten what you're saying up a little," Applejack started with slight concern and fear. "We're going to travel by air, fight off demons on the ground, and then invade their giant warship? That's a lot of jumping around from place to place!"

"Yeah, the demons are really good at killing off things like assault trucks. Their ground troops for terrorist missions are very good at destroying land vehicles. If we send you five there on a truck, they'll blow it up before it hits the city limits." He looked at Pinkie's unarmored body in slight concern. "But first, we need to get Pinkie Pie her new set of armor. What she's not wearing right now won't help with the mission."

Solk grabbed his personal pocket chest and pulled out a pink suit in the shape of a pony's body. He handed the suit to Pinkie and put away his pocket chest. "That'll prevent some damage to your body during the fight. Plus, it's slightly customized to fit your personality and method of fighting. The cloaking mechanism will allow easier sneaking and elimination of targets, and the hard cleats on the bottom of the hoof straps will enhance your melee attacks. The two pocket chests on the suit's sides will also make holding and carrying dozens of healthful or painful items a lot easier."

Pinkie Pie put the suit on herself in very little time. After only about ten seconds, she tested the suit's flexibility and mobility. Her smile widened and her eyes brightened as she looked up at Solk. "Thank you, mister! I really like the style and build you used for it!"

has rejoined your party.

Solk denied some of the compliments. "It's the least I can do. Now, you five better get ready and pack or remove some of your things. This isn't going to be an easy fight."

The five ponies left the room and walked all the way back to their homes. Solk also walked out of the room and opened a comm link to Colonel Vincent. "Vincent, I need you and your army to check up on Cloudsdale."

Vincent was slightly confused on the order. "What's the reason? Are they blowing themselves up or something?"

"They haven't provided more troops to us in days, and they promised to bring some more. I need to see if something bad happened over there while we were gone."

"Can do, general. Let me round up my troops first."

"Alright then. Solk out."

•—————•

After emptying their chest pockets and refilling them with healing treats, extra projectiles, and spell books, the quintet traveled back to the assault ship. It was a lot bigger than the drop ship, and it looked like it could house dozens of troops. It was as long as two commercial planes, and it was as wide as two American football fields. The ship had a ramp door in the back, and it was at least four times larger than the drop ships' doors. The ship had a wingspan about as long as five American football fields in width. Twelve thrusters pointed outwards from the back of the ship, and six more rested on the gargantuan wings. The five ponies were in complete awe from the size of the ship.

Multiple soldiers of both human and equine forms funneled into the ramp door. Two tanks with slick bodies and two slender barrels on swiveling heads rolled into the assault ship. One gunner and one driver were placed in each tank, ready to fire their weaponry whenever it was needed. Special human soldiers with bulky silver armor and huge machine guns walked up the ramp. Lightly armored human soldiers with jetpacks strapped to their backs also walked into the ship. They carried special rifles with laser pointer sights and homing bullets, allowing easy destruction to rapidly moving targets. When the rest of the soldiers boarded the ship, the five ponies followed them into the ship.

Despite the large amount of troops inside the ship, there was still a lot of room for the ponies to move around. The two tanks waited in the middle of the room, and the rest of the troops joined their fellow squad members in various places around the ship. Some of them guarded the halls while others sat or stood around and waited for the ship to arrive to Manehattan. The five ponies decided that they should wait near the ramp door if they want to leave as fast as possible.

After every soldier finally found their places, the ramp door rose up to its closed position. The ship activated its thrusters and ascended into the sky slowly. After about ten seconds of ascension into the sky, the ship set course for Manehattan. At this point, all the quintet had to do was wait for the action.

•—————•

After about thirty minutes of waiting, the ship finally reached Manehattan safely. Even though the ship was heavily armored and prepared to take multiple beatings, GEST Corp. was not confident enough to release the troops in midair or on an enemy aircraft. The ship descended at the city limits and opened its ramp door. All of the soldiers inside were ready for battle. Weapons cocked, tanks roared, and jetpacks activated as the ramp door slowly lowered onto the ground. When the door completely opened up, all of the soldiers rushed out of the battlefield with a united war cry. Luckily, the quintet were able to exit the ship before the sea of troops trampled them into confusion and disunion.

Despite GEST Corp.'s efforts to keep as many soldiers alive as possible, some of them still died in the first few seconds of the fight. The demons planned a special defense involving a fleet of battleships to guard the outskirts of the city, and they bombarded the land with multiple mortars that fired explosives into the air. The demons also destroyed the entire bridge leading into the city, leaving nothing but a mass of water between the mainland and Manehattan. Even though it looked as if there was no chance to enter the city, the soldiers still pressed on.

The five ponies kept themselves in the back of the firefight to avoid dying in the scramble near the middle and front. Twilight was watching the covered sky. Warships littered the air, and the dreadnought that Solk predicted was sitting near the border of Manehattan. It blasted pieces of the city to bits, damaging its grand skyscrapers harshly. The ponies eventually reached the coastline where multiple soldiers prepared their own mortars. They fired at the battleships with fast moving rockets that arched in the sky. After a few shots from the mortars, two battleships exploded and sank into the water, but more of them cruised into the open space to take their place.

When it all felt nearly hopeless to destroy the battleships, a fleet of GEST Corp. drop ships flew by and bombed them, destroying some of the ships and damaging the others. Another fleet of drop ships bombed the ships again, destroying the entire array of battleships.

A masculine voice crackled in the ponies' communications chips. "That one was on us, fellas. You know what to do from here."

The soldiers examined the carnage in the water. Bits and pieces of both the bridge and the sunken ships dotted the rough seas. One of the not as experienced foot soldiers scratched his head in complete bafflement. "How are we going to cross this mess? There's no way across!"

"There is," an ED unicorn soldier gruffly disagreed as he walked up the water. He turned his head to the crowd of soldiers behind him. "Unicorns, get in formation stat!"

Dozens of unicorn soldiers walked up to the first soldier and formed a long line. They lowered their heads and activated their magic, illuminating all of their horns as they did the unthinkable. Pieces of the original bridge levitated out of the water and into their assigned places. More and more pieces with various auras linked together with other pieces, recreating the downed bridge piece by piece. After a few more seconds of alignment, the bridge looked almost exactly the same as it was before its destruction.

The sergeant unicorn soldier strained under the weight of the bridge, but he was still able to order his fellow soldiers. "Now, activate, your, mending, spells!"

The unicorns strained even more as they added more power to the bridge. The pieces of the bridge repaired themselves, providing a route to the city without the need to swim. After a few more seconds of mending, the bridge looked as good as new. Twilight Sparkle's jaw dropped in surprise after seeing an entire array of unicorns repair an entire bridge. Pinkie Pie celebrated with the cheering troops, tossing random streamers and confetti around the battlefield. Some of the more observant soldiers noticed her celebrating and questioned themselves on what was happening. Applejack and Rarity realized how powerful their army was compared to the enemy, and Fluttershy only thought about the stability of the bridge.

After most of the soldiers stopped cheering, they marched on the bridge with their intact tanks following from the back. The quintet still kept themselves in the back of the battalion to avoid another set of mortars. Some of the soldiers in the front discovered demon forces moving onto the bridge and creating a barricade to halt the troops. The tanks in the back fired at the demons and blasted them into fireballs. Most of the demons disintegrated into nothing or jumped off the bridge In a last effort to save their essences. Without any opposition in their way, the battalion reached the other side of the bridge in one piece.

The lieutenant class soldier in the front of the battalion turned to his men and ponies at arms. "Soldiers, this is where we will split up! I need the two assault tanks in the back to enter the central area of the city and protect it! Our pegasi and aerial troops need to clear the top area of the city, and the rest of our infantry, including all of you heavy duty guys in the front, needs to fan out into three separate groups! Also, protect our unicorns! They're a little low on magic at the current moment, so don't rush them into battle!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" the entire battalion responded in unison. Every soldier fanned out of the bridge and marched onwards to their designated location. The five ponies who were at the end of the bridge at this point were confused on where to go.

The lieutenant saw the quintet and confronted them. "You five, I have special orders for you. We already have some resistance that has been placed in this city and hour ago. They might need some help fending off the demon forces and saving the civilians." He pointed to his left. "That's where you'll need to go to find the first team. When demon forces on the ground thin out enough, report to the central area of the city. We'll have a teleporter ready for all of you to use."

"We'll complete the mission, commander!" Twilight triumphantly exclaimed. "We won't let you or anypony else down!"

"That's what I like to hear. Now, get to the mission!"

The quintet galloped to the south section of the city. Their first encounter with the demons involved only a few novice demons with laser rifles and one greatsword demon that bashed his way into a nearby house. The door was nearly in shambles at this point, and the rest of the demons were waiting for the signal to rush into the building. Twilight alerted them by firing a magic blast at the greatsword demon, severely damaging his essence and throwing him onto the ground. The rest of the demons hid behind destroyed carriages and drop ships. Rarity conjured and fired a few of her gemstones towards one of the demons, destroying them nearly instantly. Pinkie Pie rolled from one pile of debris to another, and Applejack kept her head low in the piles while finding an opening in the demons' defenses. Fluttershy called for an eagle that swooped into the battlefield and clawed the greatsword demon to bits and pieces.

One of the remaining demons took out a walkie talkie and screamed into it with panic in his words. "We need reinforcements at our location now! The Elements of Harmony are here, and they're killing all of our troops!" One of the other demons next to him was crushed to bits when Pinkie stomped on his entire body. He panicked and crouch ran to another pile of debris. He primed his weapon and aimed for Pinkie, but Twilight fired a magic blast straight into his cover, destroying the entire pile and him with it.

The last two surviving demons retreated while examing the quintet's power. "Is is me, or did they get a lot more powerful than the last time we fought them?" one of the demons asked with worry.

The other demon looked at the ponies and saw an entire pile of debris explode into bits and pieces of metal and wood. "Maybe, but we need to do something fast no matter what! They'll kill off our basic troops in no time!"

The first demon rolled his nonexistnent pupils from the statement. "Then call for our special ones! They're made to handle situations like this!"

Despite their efforts to call for stronger troops, Applejack and Pinkie Pie clobbered both of them, destroying their essences entirely. The other three ponies galloped over to them to regroup. The eagle did the same after it finished pecking and clawing at whatever was left of the greatsword demon.

Applejack was extremely confident in her and her friends' skills. "These fellas are too easy. If they're planning an entire invasion, we'll win it for sure."

Pinkie shook her head in denial while watching and pointing at a demon attack on a skyscraper. Seven faraway demons with wickedly long claws and gaping maws were ripping the doors and windows apart. Some of them hugged the support beams along the building and dug their claws deep into the concrete. After only a fraction of a second of preparation, those demons exploded into fiery plumes, crumbling the skyscraper into the other buildings and itself in the process. The surviving demons evaded from the debris and cackled a maniacal laugh at the destruction.

One of them twisted their head hastily and hungrily. "Who else wants the explosions?" Another loud cackle emanated from the demon as he sniffed around with a bloodlust for death.

The five remaining suicide demons detected the quintet and opened their claws. One of them smiled sadistically. "They wants the explosions! Well, come here and we'll give you all a bunch!"

The demons sprinted towards the ponies in random directions. Twilight Sparkle fired a couple magic blasts at one of them, but they were too fast and agile to be hit while moving. One of the suicide demons leaped onto a pile of debris and onto Pinkie's body. She quickly grabbed her party cannon and blasted the demon back into the pile, somewhat damaging him in the process. Rarity kept her distance from another demon, firing constant gemstones at him as she backed further and further away. The demon eventually fell to the ground and exploded into another plume of fire. Applejack lassoed another demon in midair and flung him into a building on her left. The demon sprawled on the floor a little before getting back up and hopping on a pile of debris. Twilight destroyed him with a magic blast, also destroying the debris in the process.

The last three suicide demons were all over the place at this point. One of them surprised Fluttershy with a cackle from behind. Rarity quickly fired a few gemstones to destroy the demon before it latched onto Fluttershy. Even though he still exploded and injured her, it wasn't as bad as what it would have been if he succeeded. Fluttershy collected a few scrapes and bruises as her body bounced on the hard ground. Pinkie discovered the last two suicide demons. They trapped her between two debris piles and closed in on her. She decided that this was the time to test her cloaking ability.

The suicide demons stopped closing in as their target disappeared into thin air. They looked around for her, but she was completely gone. Suddenly, the demon that was to her right was punched into a building. The other prematurely exploded in panic and paranoia, throwing the invisible Pinkie into a debris pile near Applejack. Her invisibility deactivated as she fell to the ground. The last demon got back up and cackled once more. "My comrades may have tasted death, but I will be the harbinger of the explodes!"

He leaped into the air with his claws open and directed downward towards Fluttershy's injured body. Before he could reach her flesh, the eagle from earlier rammed into the demon and broke his chance for a kill. Twilight finished off the demon with a swift magic blast to the chest, destroying every little piece of his body in a fireball.

"Don't get too cocky, Applejack," warned Pinkie as she got back on her hooves. "Our enemies will always get stronger no matter what we do. It's only natural to discover new ways to checkmate the other."

Applejack looked at the crumbled building that cooked in the flames. "Yeah, I think I know that now. Anyway, where's this group we have to find?"

The communications chips crackled with a familiar voice. "Well, it's been some time," Travis noted as his monitors turned on.

"Travis, you're still here!" Pinkie exclaimed in excitement. "Where have you been all this time?"

Travis felt a little embarrassed from the fact that he couldn't help out the quintet for quite a while. "A robot supremacist organization was attacking our capital. Apparently, they also want dimensional travel to enter this world."

Twilight felt irritated by that fact. "How many other armies are going to invade our world? At this point, it's just ludicrous!"

"I know. A lot of other creatures are interested in talking ponies with magic powers, and I can perfectly see why. They want to win a war, so they'll go to any length to succeed. Whether it be to make a species extinct or to align with another organization, they will try anything they can to eliminate their adversaries. Sadly, your world is in the middle of all these groups, so this dimension is a great candidate for invasion and protection."

Rarity glared at the dreadnought in the sky and saw and entire section of Manehattan fall into the ocean from the ship's devastating beam. She quickly expressed fear and concern from the blast. "I think we should depart now. These monsters are breaking the entire city into pieces."

The rest of the ponies acknowledged the carnage and agreed through nods. The quintet then traversed through the constant debris and maze of buildings. After a few mini-fights with some demon squadrons and a couple more suicide demons, they reached the first group of defending soldiers. They created a small defense out of debris and a functioning tank. Three Mk 3.5 demon tanks, the same ones that attacked Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie in the Everfree Forest, were firing explosive rounds at the ducking soldiers. Five elite demons with two hellfire demons hurled both fire and lasers towards the tank in an attempt to destroy it and blow up the entire defense.

Twilight fired a magic blast at one of the hellfire demons, damaging them significantly. The demon and three of the elite demons stopped firing and glared at the five ponies. One of the elite demons pointed at them while aiming his rifle. "There they are! Kill them first!"

Pinkie tossed a wrapped present to the hellfire demon while she evaded behind a building. The demon muttered ancient speak while he picked up the present. The present opened itself to reveal a pink bomb with 'Surprise!' wrote on it. The bomb exploded and destroyed the demon in a ball of pink fire. The rest of the infantry diverted their attention to the quintet now, firing multiple blasts of fire and lasers at the dodging and ducking ponies. Applejack galloped over the soldiers' defense and hid behind the debris with them.

The soldier right next to her grew in curiosity. "What are you doing here?"

Applejack turned her head to the soldier. "I'm hiding from enemy fire, that's what. Keep your head down if you want to live through this!"

The soldier noticed that his head was poking out of the defense, so he lowered his body to conceal all of himself. Two more soldiers fired multiple blasts at the distracted elite demons, killing one of the demons in the process. Rarity strafed towards the defense while firing multiple gemstones at the demons. Two more of them dissipated into darkness when Fluttershy's eagle sliced through them relatively easily. The hellfire demon and the other two elite demons fired their fire and lasers at Twilight, but their shots were deflected when she quickly raised a deflection spell. The last two elite demons fell apart from both the lasers and a tank blast. Pinkie hopped from pile to pile to reach the hellfire demon. When the demon was about to charge a deadly stream of fire, Pinkie jumped up and punched the demon in its face. Distracted from the pony next to him, the demon swiped his claws in her direction, but he missed. Pinkie punched him again, this time between the sides of his head. The severe damage to his essence caused him to dissipate into a bundle of fire and red particles.

The three tanks swiveled their tops to Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle. Pinkie dodged the blast by dodging to her left and dashing towards the first tank. Fluttershy kept her body behind the now crumbling building while the tank threw shell after shell into the concrete and metal. Twilight grabbed the tank's projectile with her magic and fired it back at the tank, destroying it entirely. The soldiers' tank fired at the tank aiming for Fluttershy while Pinkie ripped the metal off of the other. Pinkie then climbed into the driver's station of the tank and slammed her hooves onto the demon driver. When her clobbering ended, both drivers inside the tanks were destroyed, leaving nothing but multiple hunks of useless metal sitting in the middle of the street.

All five of the ponies regrouped to the soldiers' defense. Twilight was the first speak to the soldiers. "Are there any other areas full of these creatures?"

One of the soldiers nodded while pointing towards the road that held the destroyed tanks. "Demon forces are all over that area. In fact, we've all retreated from there to avoid their super weapon sitting in the center of Manehattan."

"Super weapon?" Applejack questioned.

"It's the dreadnought in the sky," another soldier further back informed. "That's where they send all of their troops from the sky, and it's wearing our squadrons down."

"How do we travel to the dreadnought?" Rarity asked to collect more information.

Another soldier got out of cover and answered her question. "We have a teleporter over there that needs to be calibrated, but the demons are not allowing that with their growing numbers."

"That's it?" Pinkie thought that there would be more to the mission, but she appreciated the simplicity. "Alright then, off we go!"

The quintet galloped towards the center of the city and encountered more demons along the way. Just like the other squadrons from earlier, they were fairly easy to defeat due to their faulty strategies and ineffective weapons. When they finally fought their way to the designated point, they discovered that the fight was a lot more dire than they expected. Dead GEST Corp. soldiers of both human and pony origin littered the streets, broken down tanks and assault trucks blockaded the streets, and demons fired multiple projectiles in every direction. Some of demons were able to break into the buildings, so they took hostages from them and threatened to kill them. Some of the time, they did, and it would usually involve a bloody decapitation or a gunshot to the pony's head. Some of the surviving human and pony soldiers hunkered down in the debris and chaos of the firefight, and most of the demons kept themselves behind cover or inside vehicles.

Fluttershy couldn't watch the terror, but she kept herself confident and brave. Her runaway earlier was rather cowardly, and she knew that perfectly well. She was the first to confront the terrors of the battlefield by using her powerful voice to empower the civilians. She pressed her front right hoof on the ground and took a deep breath. "This is madness! All of you should be fighting back, not panicking and letting these monsters keep you captive!"

One of the terrified civilians heard her words. Since they were a unicorn, they attempted to hurl a piece of the scrap metal into the demon that was constricting them. The attempt succeeded, causing the demon to lose his grip and fall to the ground in blunt pain. Some of the captive earth ponies kicked, bit, and bucked their way out of the demons' grip, but they didn't stop there. Some of the civilians took another step and assaulted the demons with either their hooves or random scrap from the ground. The weaker demons panicked and fell apart easily, but the greatsword and elite demons stood their ground valiantly. The soldiers in cover used this chance of confusion and terror to their advantage by firing multiple laser blasts at the demon troops.

The quintet joined the scramble shortly after this abrupt turn of events. Pinkie used her party cannon to rain terror upon the surviving demon troops near the theater. Twilight hurled magical blasts at the greatsword demons, destroying every piece of them with the help of multiple laser blasts and even more magical blasts. Applejack used the mass confusion to get up close and personal with some the elite demons. She bucked some of the demons into walls and debris, destroying pieces of their armor and weaponry in the process. Rarity wedged multiple gemstones into the sides of one of the demons' tanks and caused some major malfunctions in the machinery. Entire gears and springs snapped out of place inside the tanks, coating the chaos in flames and melting metal shortly afterwards.

The aerial assault in the sky soon added more soldiers into the field when four demon drop ships dropped two more tanks and dozens of marching novice soldiers with various weaponry. A GEST Corp. assault ship flew above the carnage while firing at and destroying the drop ships. The two GEST Corp. tanks from earlier arrived with multiple machine gunners that coated the streets with endless barrages of lasers. At this point, a simple battle in one location converted into an all-out war that even involved the civilians.

Twilight avoided the crossfire while she rushed over the crouching soldiers. She had to yell for the soldiers to hear her through the sounds of war. "Where's the teleporter? Shouldn't it be around here?"

The soldier next to her fired at a demon carrying a blunderbuss with four blades sticking out of the barrel. "Its right behind us! We can't really calibrate it under all of this mayhem!"

"Can I help then? I know my way around machines and how they work!"

The soldier shot a demon with a crossbow that stabbed one of his bolts through a violent pegasus. "Go nuts!" He was not too sure if Twilight could calibrate the teleporter. "You probably won't understand English writing though! I sure as hell don't understand half of the things your species writes!"

Twilight ducked her head under the crossfire while she galloped towards the teleporter. It looked like a circular panel with six small ramps extending from it. Four poles with spheres at their ends crackled with electricity, and a green circle glowed in the center of the teleporter. One control panel was placed in the front of the teleporter, containing a keypad, two buttons labeled 'start' and 'stop', and a lever labeled 'power system'. Twilight examined the setup of the entire machine, but it was too confusing to understand without a manual. She then noticed a pocket on the side of the teleporter's control panel that contained paper instructions.

Twilight examined the instructions carefully. Surprisingly, it was not as foreign as she thought. She skimmed through the instructions to find the calibration page. When she finally found it, she read the instructions out loud. "To calibrate this device, you will need to know the correct coordinates for the trip. Place the coordinates in the machine by typing the numbers of the coordinates."

She had no idea what the coordinates were for the teleporter, so she tried to ask the soldiers behind her. One of them was blasted into giblets by a rocket blast. "Hey, do any of you know the coordiantes for the teleporter?"

One of the soldiers ducked under the debris and spoke the coordinates. "They are 445, 127, and -634!"

Twilight took those numbers and bashed them into the keypad. After she pressed the starting button, the teleporter whooshed and created a blue-green field of power. Twilight screamed as loud as she could to get her friends' attention. "Girls, comes over here right now!"

Pinkie Pie retreated to Twilight after noticing the squadron of knightmare soldiers that tore through the straggling soldiers and civilians with ease. Rarity and Applejack fought off a few novice demons with uzis and semi-automatic bullet guns before they galloped towards Twilight, and Fluttershy flew as fast as she could before a greatsword demon could slice her body in equal halves. The quintet regrouped and stood next to the teleporter. Twilight was the first to enter the teleporter. After she disappeared into blue and green particles, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack in that order funneled through the blue-green energy to escape the madness. When all of them disappeared from the battlefield, more demon drop ships closed into the location. They dropped off even more tanks and novice soldiers to keep the fight alive. If this battle against Manehattan fails to end, nothing will survive the aftermath.