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

Twilight Sparkle's escape pod was out of control. The entire pod ricocheted off of flying GEST Corp. and demon drop ships as it chose its landing location. The three ponies inside, Pinkie Pie, Twilight, and Fluttershy, flipped and rolled around the pod as it tumbled and bounced around the air. The madness finally ceased when it hurled towards the ground outside of Manehattan, separating them from the city and soldiers altogether. The pod threw dirt and grass everywhere while it caused a crater in the earth. Despite the rough and dangerous landing, the pod kept itself intact.

Twilight got back up from the mess of ponies on the pod floor and opened the door. She was disoriented from the landing but not injured. The other two ponies also stood back up and walked out of the pod with Twilight. They examined their surroundings and found a few scattered trees and dead GEST Corp. bodies. They saw the city of Manehattan in the distance, alight with mechanical activity and hungry flames from the entire invasion. The sky looked much less thick with demon ships than it was before, and multiple GEST Corp. troops already cleaned out most of the city.

It was nice to see the city in one piece, but it still broke Twilight a little from the horrible sight of warfare right in Equestria. Ever since she first encountered those demons in Ponyville, she wanted to run, and she wanted to run so far away. She wanted to escape the hell that met her, and she wanted to ignore it for the rest of her life. Sadly, she was forced into the bloodshed even more from both passive force from GEST Corp. and literal threats from otherworldly monsters. She wanted this war to end soon, but there was no end in sight. The demons only came back stronger than before after every battle, and they don't slow down. Sure, they lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but they replenished that loss already with fresh recruits.

After thinking about the entire city and the demon invaders for a short while, three escape pods soared through the sky. All three of them crash landed into the hills in the distance. More dirt splattered and tossed around the pods' location, signaling that the other two ponies, Applejack and Rarity, and Hannibal were possibly over there.

Fluttershy noticed a detail about the pods. If the other ponies and Hannibal took only one, then what were inside the other two? "I think that's them, but we need to hurry. They might get attacked soon from the demons over there."

"Then that's where we're headed," Twilight affirmed. "Come on girls, you know what to do!"

The trio galloped towards the hills to search for their friends. Apparently, some of the other demons on the dreadnought were fairly early with their departure, so the group had to fight off a few squadrons of novice and elite demons. They did encounter a knightmare demon, but he was easily put down when Pinkie Pie's bombs continued to explode on him one after another. When the trio nearly entered the crash site, Twilight fiddled with her communications chip to check if Travis was still there.

"Hello?" she asked calmly. "Travis, are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," Travis answered while he stretched his body. "I was checking on some of the ED squadrons inside of Manehattan. They're still intact, but they lost a few soldiers during the invasion. Anyway, what's the situation?"

The trio was now on the last hill that blocked them from the crash site. "We're looking for our friends," Twilight answered in a more quiet voice while she glanced at the escape pods. "If you don't know, we were separated after the dreadnought crashed, and now we have to find them. Can you get a signal to where they're located?"

"I'll check to see where they are."

"Twilight, you there?" Applejack questioned through the communications chip. "Where are you three?"

Twilight was a little confused on how Applejack was talking to her. "How did you calibrate the communications chip to speak to us?"

"It was simple. Rarity and I just guessed on what frequencies led to you. We probably tried at least eleven others before reaching you."

"Well, are you in a valley with two other pods or what?" Pinkie piped with slight irritation in her voice.

"Well, we do see another pod outside if that is what you are asking," Rarity noticed. "I still don't see you three though. If you are somewhere nearby, could you come a little closer so that we can see you three?"

"Sure thing," Twilight answered happily. The trio walked down the hill and examined the three pods. One of them showed a white unicorn with a stylish purple mane while the others were clouded with darkness. Twilight noticed that the pod's door was slightly submerged in the ground, so she used her magic to levitate the entire pod out of the crater. The pod was very heavy, causing Twilight to strain from it, but at least she didn't have to lift it for too long. She set the pod down and opened the door. Two ponies, Applejack and Rarity, and one demon named Hannibal walked out unharmed.

It wasn't long though before the other two pods' doors swung open. Six novice demons rushed out of the pods. Two held anti-magic guns while the rest used kite shields and laser submachine guns. Twilight threw a wave of magic at the shielded demons, knocking all four of them to the ground. Pinkie hopped around the anti-magic demons and repeatedly punched them while Rarity and Hannibal fired at the four incapacitated demons. The battle was fairly quick and painless for the ponies, leaving nothing left of the demons but their weaponry afterwards.

The ponies received a new feed that connected to them from the communications chips. A familiar voice from General Solk emitted out of the chips. "Are all five of you together?"

"Yes," the ponies answered in slight disorder.

"Good. I just obtained a new mission for all five of you, and it involves Cloudsdale."

"Cloudsdale?" Applejack stated in confusion. "What's wrong with Cloudsdale?"

"This new group on the block apparently fortified the entire city and converted it into a deadly fortress. We recently entered the area with Colonel Vincent's forces, but they were blown out of the sky rather easily. Plus, the ones that did make it on the cloud roads died from their quite powerful defenses. We saw a few humanoid soldiers, but they also have ships and turrets all around the place. Plus, they changed the Cloudsdale Weather Factory."

"So that's why the supposed rain never came," Pinkie mused as she studied the nearly vacant sky.

"Wait a minute, your troops walked on those clouds?" Twilight realized from Solk's statement.

"They have this technology we used from Equestria's clouds themselves," Solk informed. "The boots are lined with a layer of those clouds in a special order and state, allowing the wearer to walk on clouds. I thought all five of you, excluding Fluttershy, might need these boots."

"There's no need for that." Twilight shook her head as she denied Solk's offer. "I have a spell that can do the exact same thing."

"Alright then. Now, do you five know where you're located? We're sending a drop ship to your location."

"We're in a hilly area outside of Manehattan," Applejack answered while she examined her surroundings. "We're a little bit north, and we're also in a small valley."

"We'll have a drop ship there shortly. Solk out."

The communications chip feed died out as Travis soon replaced it. "Okay, I already telegraphed your locations. Just wait until the ship comes by."

After about three minutes of waiting for the ship, the drop ship finally arrived. It slowly descended to the ground as its ramp door opened. When it finally landed, the group entered the ship and took their seats. The pilot looked back at the group and smiled through his helmet. "Get ready, because we're going to Cloudsdale!"

The ship ascended into the sky, but it didn't stop in midair. It kept ascending until it was at the exact same level as the clouds passively hovering over the planet. He took his mic from the wall and pressed it up to his helmet. "Attention all passengers, we're about to speed all the way to your destination. Please hold onto something, maybe each other, as we soar through the sky at Mach ten." He put away the mic as he held back onto the wheel. "Hang on, now, 'cause I'm about to rocket faster than anything you've seen!"

The passenger to his left looked down and massaged his helmet with irritation. "Derald, why do you do this every time a pony gets on this ship?"

"It's fun to freak them out! Plus, I love the thrill of speed!" His grin became a little cocky after that statement. "Hey, I bet I can beat Rainbow Dash with this thing, but anyway, time to start in three, two-"

He rocketed towards Cloudsdale before he reached one, catching the ponies off guard. The ship accelerated so fast that the ponies smashed back into the ramp door. Hannibal held on to the metal rod above his seat and resisted the motion. Almost all of the ponies were screaming their heads off in terror. Pinkie Pie was instead screaming with joy and thrill. She knew that this ride was perfectly safe, so why not enjoy it instead of fear it?

The ship used both aileron rolls and barrel rolls as it sped to its destination. It rammed through multiple clouds and became a near blur to some of the ponies and soldiers that saw it from the ground. It looped around various imaginary and physical obstacles as it passed through the sky. The physical obstacles, however, were actually just clouds.

It took ten minutes for the ship to reach Cloudsdale from its fast and absurd travel. The ship slowed all the way down to a crawl and moved near a few metal landing pads placed next to a road of clouds. The ship slowly descended and landed perfectly. The ponies fell from the door and fixed their disorientation from the ride. After a few seconds of recovery, the ramp door opened, and the ponies left the ship. However, Hannibal stayed inside the ship and let go of the bar above his head.

Pinkie looked back at Hannibal and cocked her head in confusion. "Aren't you coming with us? We might need you!"

Hannibal looked at Pinkie with a sad expression. "Sorry, Pinkie, but I need to stay here. This is as far as I can go for now."

"Why? We can just have Twilight activate the spell with you! It'll still work!"

Hannibal shook his head and looked back at the pilot. "I need to head back to base to join my fellow revolutionists. If I don't, I could be tagged as both a heretic from Lord Zedin and a spy from GEST Corp., so I have to stay."

The pilot nodded in agreement. "He's right. That's Solk's policy. If he doesn't regroup, he'll be cataloged as a spy and hunted down from our hitmen for interrogation. He needs to leave."

Pinkie hopped over to Hannibal and hugged him tightly. Tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she looked up at Hannibal with glossy irises. "Goodbye, friend. I hope I see you soon."

Hannibal would cry too, but his body doesn't have tears or actual eyes, just hollow, glowing spaces. "Goodbye, Pinkie. I hope we cross paths again in the near future."

Pinkie hopped back to Twilight and company after her little bid farewell. The passenger quickly looked back at the ponies and told one last thing before the ship left. "Oh yeah, another ship is supposed to come over here with supplies like medkits, medbots, and soldiers. They should be arriving in thirty minutes or so, so you can go ahead and storm the castle before they arrive."

The ship closed its ramp door and ascended a slight amount. It then flew at a moderate pace to Ponyville. Twilight walked back to the middle of the landing pad and gestured the others to come to her position. "Alright, I'm going to activate our cloud walking spells, so hold still."

Twilight lowered her horn and created a ball of blue light. The light connected itself to Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity as it absorbed the four ponies in a bubble of blue light. Fluttershy kept her distance to avoid any interference with the spell. After a few more seconds, the light dissipated from Twilight's horn and escaped through the ponies' hooves, signaling the end of the spell. Twilight made sure that it worked by walking over to the road of clouds and placing her hoof on it. She pressed down without falling through the cloud, which meant that the spell succeeded. She and the rest of her friends then walked on the road and examined the entirety of Cloudsdale.

The entire city was completely remodeled from the cloud layer up. All of the buildings were packed closer together, and every single one of them was connected with cloud roads. Metal buildings and fortifications floated next to the clouds, holding various turrets and soldiers that patrolled the area. The inner section of the city was structured like an Ancient Roman capital. Streams of water and rainbows flowed through the city and into the open sky, spreading across Equestria calmly. Plumes of steam and new clouds funneled out of various smokestacks and funnels, and huge wind turbines and wind generators were positioned all around the area.

Despite the entire city looking so much more beautiful and whimsical than it originally was, the grandest building of them all was definitely the Cloudsdale Weather Factory itself. Its size was increased by tenfold, and so many columns, arches, pipes, streams, domes, balconies, walkways, guard towers, fluid tanks, and stairways covered the entire building from top to bottom. Its mastery in architecture and pure exquisite and careful design almost made Rarity drool with envy and admiration. Fluttershy was only frightened by the new and strange Cloudsdale, but Pinkie Pie enjoyed the various roads and stairways that led to who knows where. Applejack whistled at the designs and framework while Twilight only gaped her mouth in shock and awe. Even Travis was shocked by how beautiful the place was despite it being completely taken over by humanoid soldiers.

"Well, that's a lot of walking and exploring you five got to do," Travis stated while he pinpointed where the various pathways led to. "Better get started!"

Twilight groaned from the insane setup and attempted to figure out where to go. She immediately had her eyes on the factory so far in the back, expecting it to be the 'castle' of this kingdom. "I think we should head to the factory. Something tells me that's our destination."

"Like a hunch?" Pinkie asked with slight speculation.

"Yeah, pretty much. Just whatever you girls do, don't get too close to those metal structures. Who knows what we might be facing here."

The quintet proceeded ahead with caution. This place felt so familiar, yet its entire build was completely different from before. When Twilight walked up to one of the houses, she knocked on the cloud door.

There was no answer.

She tried again and knocked a little louder this time.

There was still no answer.

"Hello?" She asked with her voice raised to a slight holler. "Is anypony home? We need to know what happened here."

The curtains in the window shuddered a little as an aqua tinted eyeball peered at the group. The curtains closed quickly as the door unlocked and opened only a tiny bit. The gilded pegasus mare with a curly dark blue and purple mane on the other side of the door didn't even poke its head out. It kept itself concealed by the door as it conversed with the ponies.

"Why the hay are all of you here?" she asked in a whisper while she glared at Twilight's horn and Applejack's absence of wings. "Nopony should be wandering about this place, especially if they're not a pegasus."

"What are you talking about?" Twilight asked. "What's going to hurt us that's so bad?"

The mare quickly shut her door and locked it as footsteps, not hoofsteps, became audible. Five humanish soldiers in black armored suits walked up to the ponies. Their suits looked like a special leather with very durable scales placed evenly on them. Two bulky shoulder pads sat on their shoulders and straps, and two knee pads guarded their legs. Special black gloves with claws at their ends covered their hands firmly. They held laser submachine guns in their right hands and toothed daggers in their left hands. Their eyes were covered by crimson-lensed googles, and their hair was slicked back into arching rainbows. Their teeth were sharp and rigid like pure carnivores, and their skin was as pale as the moon. The emblem of a screaming, maniacal human face with a sword stabbed into its bleeding head presented itself on the soldiers' chest plates.

The frontmost soldier looked down at Twilight and company and tsked at them. "Well, it looks like a few ponies don't know what a 'lock-in' is." His face grew into a sinister smile of jagged canines. "Welp, that means you five are about to find out what it's like to have your throats slit open."

Twilight primed her barrier spell and activated it in front of the group. The soldiers immediately organized into a firing squad and fired bursts of bullets at the barrier. Rarity fired some gemstones at them, but their armor was too durable to puncture from a few gems, so she aimed for their heads instead. She launched a gem into the rightmost soldier's left eye, damaging him severely. Blood ran down his face as he winced and flipped his dagger to face its blade towards Rarity.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie kept close to the other buildings to avoid the gunfire. Pinkie threw a bomb next to the two leftmost soldiers, slamming them into the cloud walls as the blast pushed them backwards. Fluttershy flew behind a building to hide from the gunfire. Twilight lowered her barrier and fired a wave of magic at the two unhurt soldiers, knocking them down and damaging their legs. The eyeless soldier sprinted up to Rarity and grabbed her by the throat. He stabbed the dagger into her cheek while his face slowly contorted to a twisted grin. Twilight noticed him from Rarity's shrieks in pain and terror and blasted a magical blast at him. His left arm felt numb and burnt from the blast as another smashed into his head. He fell to the ground with a groan in pain. His brain was fried from the blast, killing him rather quickly.

All four of the incapacitated soldiers got back up hastily. The two closest soldiers aimed for Twilight and fired dozens of lasers at her. She deflected them back and opened cauterized holes in the soldiers' bodies. Rarity grabbed a few more gemstones and impaled their heads with them, stabbing their brains and killing them in the process. Pinkie confronted one of the soldiers and bashed a hoof into their chest. The soldier responded with a slam into her face with the butt of his submachine gun, knocking her backwards. Applejack retaliated with a buck into his torso. His body slammed into the other soldier and caused a few bruises on him. Both soldiers fell to the ground and scrambled to get back up. Rarity, pushing through the pain and blood from her open cheek, fired another round of gemstones at them and stabbed their necks. They fell back to the ground as blood gushed out of their impaled arteries. One of them attempted to lift their gun to shoot the ponies, but Twilight fired magic blasts at both soldiers to finish them off. The battle ended there with five dead bodies of humanish soldiers. Pools of the crimson liquid collected on the clouds and stained them.

The ponies looked at the mess they made. Twilight quickly used a mending spell to fix Rarity's cheek, filling the hole with new cells as her magic surged around the injury. Pinkie and Applejack looked at the blood sickly, and they didn't want to touch it at all.

Rarity walked over Twilight and nodded her head thankfully. "Thank you, dear. We all know by now that battle wounds hurt a lot."

Pinkie kept staring at the blood with the same thought of disgust flowing through her head. "These ones bleed? Eugh, that's disgusting!"

"Well, we know that they're really alive then," Twilight quietly concluded. "Plus, they're completely insane too."

"They're almost like the Kavarians," Travis noticed. "Their armor is rather advanced, and their style of fighting is more sophisticated than the demons or Dr. Scraps's army. You five better be careful then."

"What are these things anyway?" Applejack asked while she examined the mangled face of a soldier. "Are they supposed to be human, or are they some other type of alien?"

"I have no clue, and neither does the rest of GEST Corp. Whatever they are, they've already built this place like its their own. Stay sharp."

The ponies continued along the road of clouds until they entered a crossroads area. Locked houses still settled next to the roads, but a metal tower was now coming into view. A lone turret that swiveled around the area searched for any potential enemies. It held two laser gatling guns and a laser sight on its top. When a lone bright red and silky orange Pegasus attempted to fly out of the city, the turret swiftly turned to it and fired its guns. The pegasus shrieked and tumbled down to the ground thousands of feet below. Fluttershy covered her eyes with her wings as blood spilt from the pegasus's injuries.

"I think that turret will be a problem," Twilight said with discomfort. "I'll see if I can destroy it from here."

Twilight activated a precision blast and shot it at the turret. The turret exploded into fractured pieces of metal and circuitry as the magic sliced through it. The ponies continued along the right path to head deeper into Cloudsdale. The buildings increased in size as they trod deeper and deeper into the urban section. Markets filled the area, large apartments sat next to the roads, and various market stands and streetlights dotted the much broader roads. Cloudsdale was looking more populated and beautiful, but this felt only like an illusion to Twilight. She thought that this buildup was to deceive, not to improve.

Another set of three Psycho Grunts spotted the ponies. They immediately took for cover and aimed their guns at the ponies. Twilight and Rarity fired a few magic blasts and gemstones while they strafed for cover. They successfully hit two of the soldiers and damaged them, but it wasn't enough. Pinkie Pie took out her party cannon and rolled it towards one of the market stands that a soldier was hiding behind. She destroyed the entire stand and sliced up the soldier as a flurry of razor-sharp confetti shredded everything in its path. The soldier stumbled back and fired a few blasts at Pinkie, but he missed. Applejack kicked a metal ball into the same soldier, knocking them out.

The other two soldiers rolled out of cover and ran towards Twilight and Rarity. Both of the ponies fired more magic and gems at the soldiers, hurting them more and more as the soldiers kept moving closer to the ponies. Pinkie finished them off with slams to head from behind. The soldiers fell down to the ground with severe concussions as reinforcements entered the area.

Four more Psycho Grunts, along with a new soldier, entered the area from in front of the ponies. This new soldier carried a laser rifle with laser sights, and it had a long sword currently sheathed. Instead of wearing a pair of googles, this soldier wore black sunglasses over his eyes, concealing them completely. His armor was darker than the Psycho Grunts, and the shoulders and knee pads were bigger. The soldier pointed a finger towards Fluttershy and shouted to the other soldiers. "Take her first! She'll be the most useful!"

The Psycho Grunts aimed towards Fluttershy and rushed to her position. She flew back to a treat stand and hid behind it for cover. Rarity fired a line of gems and positioned them so that they hit the soldiers' heads. She impaled the soldiers with the line of gems, killing two and mortally wounding the rest. The other two soldiers knew they were bleeding out and pulled out their toothed daggers. They sprinted towards their two unicorn targets while Pinkie and Applejack bashed them from behind. After a few beatings, Applejack hopped above the Paycho Grunt and slammed its head into its body, breaking his neck from the force. The soldier fell down to the ground as the other Pyscho Grunt was disintegrated by Twilight's magical blasts.

The Pyscho Trooper mused at the ponies' success, but he wasn't going to give up. In fact, he couldn't fear them even if he wanted to due to the lack of that specific emotion. He strafed to a building wall and fired his gun at the ponies. He poked holes in the stands in front of him while Rarity and Twilight fired gems and magic at him. His armor was too durable, and he was protecting his head every time a new barrage of gems approached him. He had a few of the gems stuck in his forearms, but it was not a big deal. Pinkie Pie and Applejack knew that this soldier was not one to just let them approach, so they waited in cover until he got out of cover.

But he didn't. He fired more shots in some attempt to hurt the ponies while he stood behind the building. At one point, Twilight noticed that he was talking into a device similar to a walkie talkie. After about ten seconds from that incident, lightning cooked the area. Twilight knew that there wasn't a storm above them, so what was causing the lightning?

She looked up and gasped at three pegasi that wore dark uniforms and thrusters on their sides. They cruised on small, dark clouds that spewed lightning whenever they slammed a hoof into it. She couldn't see their manes, coats, or faces from the full body suits, but she could see chestnut wings and rainbow tails on all of them.

She had to react fast to the incoming lightning, or else she would be electrified to death. Despite a pony's great resilience against the elements, they couldn't hold back a direct lightning strike to the head. She galloped out of cover and fired multiple blasts at the Pyscho Storms, injuring them but not killing or distracting them from their lightning.

Applejack and Pinkie couldn't reach them, but Fluttershy could. She only hid in cover as the Psycho Storms directly aimed for her. When one of the pegasi struck her hoof with a lightning strike, she shrieked in pain and oncoming anger. She flew into the same cloud that struck her and threw the Psycho Storm off of his ride. She then proceeded to direct the cloud to the Psycho Trooper in the back. The other pegasi threw punches and kicks as they moved closer to Fluttershy, and she retaliated against these attacks by punching them off of their platforms. The other ponies on the ground, especially Pinkie, cheered her on. She finally positioned the cloud right above the soldier and lashed lightning at him. The lightning struck him very harshly, shredding his inner neural network and destroying all of his cells that the lightning touched. After about four lightning strikes in a row, he fell to the ground with the smell of cooked flesh emanating from his corpse.

The Psycho Storms fell onto the ground and recollected themselves. Twilight fired a wave of magic to keep them down, and Applejack slammed multiple metal balls into them, knocking them out. The area was once again calm with no sight of any potential danger.

Twilight was shocked to see ponies assaulting them. "They have pegasi too?"

"Apparently," Travis answered. "Whatever these things are, they seem to adore ponykind a little too much."

"We better get going," Applejack warned. "We already caused a big ruckus here. If we dilly-dally now, we'll be knee-deep in these things in no time."

Twilight nodded in agreement and called for a regroup. The quintet traveled deeper in the urban zone of Cloudsdale, and they were starting to face much more dangerous situations. As they traveled through the city, more Psycho Grunts and Psycho Troopers attacked them from both the ground and from balconies around the city. Sometimes, a couple Psycho Storms would arrive to blow some gale or hurl a few bolts of lightning. Even though these soldiers were well trained and equipped for slaughter, the ponies still fought back valiantly. In a few instances of the battles, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, or even Fluttershy would find a dagger stabbed into their body. Luckily, mending spells and healing cupcakes were cheap, so they didn't have to deal with these injuries for long.

After these constant fights, the ponies finally reached the supposed town square. The area was very large and represented a crossroads involving eight roads. The center of the town square held a statue of a pegasus with what looked like to be a similar outfit to the Psycho Storms. The armor on the uniform was bulkier than the Psycho Storms' suits, but it still resembled them. Next to the pegasus was an upright laser rifle and a flowing flag that read 'The Dawn of a New Era'. Twilight concluded that this must be these creatures' commander or leader as she examined he detail and devotion put into the statue.

"Burn them! Burn them all until they blister and blacken!" A maniacal but muffled voice screamed from afar. The ponies turned to their two o'clock and discovered two new soldiers. Their suits were a glossy crimson, and they wore gas masks for helmets. Two huge, black lenses peered deeply into the ponies' souls from the mask, and a large cylindrical piece extended from the mouth area. The back of the helmet was rather big, most likely to keep their long hair in one area and out of their view. The soldiers also carried two huge, metal guns with cones at their ends and cylindrical tanks on their sides. The guns connected from long tubes all the way to the even bigger tanks on the soldier's backs. These new soldiers reminded Twilight of the very first demon she encountered. That encounter was definitely not on her 'best discoveries' list.

"Come here little ones," one of the Psycho Flames singsonged through his mask. "We have a special gift for you."

"I bet that gift involves some sort of pain, right?" Pinkie knew exactly what the soldiers intended to do.

The Pycho Flames only smiled behind their expressionless masks. They hustled to the ground and flicked levers positioned on their flamethrowers. Twilight and Rarity backed away as the other three ponies scrambled to the left and right. Twilight activated a barrier spell while the gouts of deadly fire curved along the magic. Rarity positioned a few gems around the soldiers and stabbed them into their arms. Holes opened up in their suits, releasing flowing blood, but the soldiers barely flinched. They rammed into the barrier spell and destroyed it from the sudden addition of their raw power. Twilight staggered back and felt the flames flicker around her mane. Small patches of fire grew along the hair strands in her mane, so she dabbed them out with magic. The soldiers only shortened the distance between them and Twilight, slowly cooking her from the radiating heat of the fire.

"Don't worry, Twi! I got this!" Applejack rammed through the two soldiers headfirst. They fell down and lost their aim from the unexpected charge. Little did the ponies know, three more Psycho Flames were already on their way, and they were not so fond of cooking Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was galloping around the statue as three more Psycho Flames caught her. They firmly held on to her legs and wings, refusing to let go. Her screams in terror were cut short when one of the soldiers injected a special substance into her neck by syringe. Her flailing stopped as her eyes closed groggily. One of the soldiers then carried her on his shoulder and ran off to the direction of the factory. The other two soldiers readied their flamethrowers and joined their other two Psycho Flames on the ground.

Rarity glared at the escaping soldier and pointed a hoof with shock. "He's foalnapping Fluttershy! Stop him at once!"

But they couldn't stop him. The original two soldiers got back up, and the other two drove Pinkie away with their licking flames of blistered death. Pinkie used her party cannon to fend off the soldiers, but they saw it coming and dodged around the blast of confetti. They were now on her left and right. Even though they could kill her here, they didn't. Instead, the soldier to her left stabbed another syringe into her neck, causing her to fall to sleep. The same Psycho Flame picked her up and followed the other soldier that left the area. The other soldier, the one who was still with the other three ponies, readied his flamethrower again.

Twilight was sick off the foalnapping and fired an explosive blast at the two soldiers backing her up to a wall. They exploded into chunks of flesh and blood, throwing their limbs and pieces of their chest around the area. Rarity impaled the soldier that foalnapped Pinkie Pie in the back of the head, stabbing his brain and spinal cord. The soldier fell to the ground in a paralyzed state and dropped Pinkie. The other foalnapping soldier already escaped and left the area entirely. The last soldier ran towards Applejack with his flamethrower already spewing flames, but his standard approach and tunnel vision from his mask and the flames threw himself into his own demise. Rarity stabbed a few more gems in him while Applejack kicked three metal balls into his head. He fell to the ground as the tank on his back ruptured and destroyed his entire body. More viscera rained on the cloudy battlefield.

The three ponies quickly regrouped over to Pinkie's body. Twilight used an anti-sleep spell to wake her up, cutting her mini doze short. "What happened?" Pinkie groggily asked.

"That darn thing just took Fluttershy, and he's getting away!" Applejack exclaimed through her anger.

Pinkie immediately hopped back to her feet and signaled her friends to run with her to Fluttershy. The quartet sprinted into a few fortified areas with Psycho Grunts and Psycho Troopers, but they spent little time fighting and more time chasing the Psycho Flame. They eventually found him and pursued quicker than before.

By the time the factory stairway was only a hundred meters away, a new soldier blocked their path. Threatening to slice up the ponies if they got too close, he held out a clawed glove with hooked blades. His other hand held a modified submachine gun with spiked ammo, and his hair was frizzy and jagged unlike the slickness of the other soldiers' hair. His armor was asymmetrical from the misshapen shoulder pads and excess armor plating around one of the sleeves, adding a long sleeve to the chest plate's right arm socket. His pants were just modified and shaggy jeans with the same scale plating covering them. His boots shot out spikes from their ends, and so did his shoulder and knee pads. His goggles tinted his eyes a burning orange, and his teeth were jagged and misplaced like a shark's. A necklace charm in the shape of a severed human head with its eyes missing rested on his chest. This soldier was definitely not going to die easily.

"Ooh, it looks like I have some fresh meat!" The Psycho Wicked licked his lips with his long, slender tongue. His eyes then scanned the entire group. "Let's see, what do I want to eat today?" He glared directly at Pinkie Pie. "Aha, something that looks like candy! I love candy!"

"Whatever that guy is, don't let him get near any of you!" Travis warned.

Pinkie backed up in fear as Twilight and Applejack walked in front of her. The Psycho Wicked raised his submachine gun and fired a five round burst at Twilight. Three of the five spikes stabbed into her body, immediately causing slight bleeding and terrible pain. The Pyshco Wicked then hopped over to Applejack and slashed his claw right across her face. Three rips in her right cheek formed as she screamed from the pain. Pinkie backed way a little more and pulled out her party cannon. The Psychopath kicked Twilight and Applejack out of the way and smiled sadistically at Pinkie. She fired her cannon to stop his slaughter, but only a couple rips formed on his face. He didn't flinch, nor did he feel the pain. All he felt was a numbing resistance to his desires.

He grabbed Pinkie's right foreleg with his claw hand, digging into her flesh. She cried and screamed for help, but all she got was a chomp and a ripping in her chest area. Blood immediately ran down her body and onto the Psycho Wicked's crooked face. He loved every part of this encounter. Even if she bucked him in the face, it wouldn't be enough to make him feel any pain. All this monstrosity knew was pleasure, killing, and devouring meat. He was a pure carnivore, and in severe cases of distraught, he was a cannibal. He bit again into her body, this time on her right foreleg. Tears ran down her face, but she didn't want to cry. Crying hurt now, and every addition to her already severe pain made her want to die at that moment. She was thrown to the ground, crashing onto the cloud road and sitting there, paralyzed from the astronomical pain.

"I, I'm seeing black, girls," she weakly coughed. "I, I just want to, lay down here, for some time."

The Psycho Wicked glared back at Twilight. "You're next, walking magic drumstick!"

Twilight screamed and fired a fire blast at the Psycho Wicked. The flames danced on his face and blistered his skin, but he kept his twisted grin through the absence of pain. He didn't know what pain was like, and he won't ever know how it felt to lose an entire piece of your body from a bite. He walked closer to Twilight, firing his submachine gun again. Twilight deflected the spikes back at him, but they only bounced off his powerful armor. As his face melted and began to show his bony skull from the fire, he laughed a distorted cackle. He was about three feet from Twilight now, and he reached out his claw hand to touch that delectable face of hers.

The only thing that stopped him was a buck from his right side. Applejack came back to finish the job, exposing the right side of his waist to attacks. Rarity fired a few gemstones there and in his face, but the Psycho Wicked only laughed again. "I love it when my prey attempts to fight back! They're so weak, but they still have fire in their bellies!"

"Enough of this, you savage scoundrel!" Rarity fired a line of gems in the Psycho Wicked's eyes and mouth, blinding him and cracking his jaw. That didn't stop him though, as he could smell the blood coming from Twilight's wounds. He sliced at her, but she hopped back and fired a magic blast into his chest. He flew backwards, but he quickly regained his original stance.

The Psycho Wicked pulled out his submachine gun once again and laughed maniacally. "I can't see you, but I'll surely hit you!"

He fired his gun wildly, laughing and cackling as the spikes flew in the air. Twilight intercepted some of them and fired them back at the soldier. By the time she stabbed his face again, a skull with bleeding eyes was glaring at her. Applejack got near the Psycho Wicked again and bucked into his head. The skull fell off his body, forever contorted into a grinning face of insanity.

Twilight and the other two ponies rushed to Pinkie's bleeding, mangled body. Pinkie laughed halfheartedly while she looked up at Twilight. "I guess he, wasn't one to, be nice, right?" Her eyelids slowly shifted downwards, covering her blue irises.

"We need to get her medical attention now!" Applejack ordered. She quickly turned her head to Twilight. "Heal her right now!"

"My mending spells can only heal minor wounds, not a missing rib!" Twilight panicked from the insane damage done to Pinkie. "What do I do, what do I do?"

"Ahem, there was going to be a little visit from the humans back at the landing pad," Rarity proposed. "If they have healing supplies, we can use those to help mend her, injured body." Rarity winced at the blood and missing chunks of flesh from Pinkie's body.

"Hey, good thinking, Rarity!" Applejack praised. She turned to Twilight again. "Teleport us there before she gets any worse!

"You might as well go ahead," Travis urged while he examined the terrible condition Pinkie was in. "They should be here by now."

Twilight engulfed herself and the other three ponies in an aura of purple light. The quartet disappeared from the scene before four more Psycho Grunts could open fire at them.

One of the soldiers screamed in annoyance and bashed his weapon on the cloud floor. "We almost had them! What happened?"

"Magic," one of the more sophisticated soldiers answered. "They had a pony with a lot of magic."

"Oh, so they think they can use their world's tricks to stop us?" A twitching and convulsing soldier looked down at the ponies' original position with a twisted smile. "Well, two can play at that game!" He then laughed maniacally until another soldier slapped him in the back of the head. "Sorry, I'm just not as sane as you three right now, right?"

The soldier who slapped him glared at him while he answered the question. "Yeah. You need another shot, pronto."

•—————•

Twilight and company quickly popped into existence near the landing pad. Twilight teleported the entire group a few yards away from the pad because she thought that the ship must have already landed. She was completely correct. The drop ship was sitting on the landing pad with its ramp door open, and three GEST Corp. soldiers were outside, firing at a few Psycho Grunts that discovered the ship. They were soon dispatched after a hand grenade destroyed all three of them in a fireball.

Twilight and company ran to the soldiers' encampment as fast as they could. Applejack carried Pinkie on her back, dropping her near the soldiers so that they could help her. She already lost a major amount of her blood, and she was currently unconscious. The soldiers only gasped at how much of a bad condition she was in. They could see the outlines of two bite marks around her gaping wounds. One of the closer soldiers was more shocked than the others. "What the hell happened to her? Did some damn thing try to eat her or something?"

"I think it was someone who tried to eat her." Twilight informed. "Something that resembled a human attacked her while we tried to get back our friend, Fluttershy." Twilight shed a few more tears than she had before her statement. "Will she be okay?"

"She's pretty screwed up, but that's nothing for our medbot," a soldier explained. "As long as she's alive, she'll be fixed."

The same soldier called for the medbot. The same small robot that healed Applejack rolled out of the ramp door and scanned Pinkie with its one optical sensor. It etched and outline around the bite on the arm and refilled the area with bone, tendons, and muscle. The area was eventually fully replenished and coated with skin and a pink coat. The robot then flipped Pinkie over and outlined the bite on her chest. This injury was much worse than the other bite, but the medbot still found it easy to fix. It analyzed the bone structure and fixed the missing rib. It then filled the area with the appropriate tendons, muscles, and blood vessels needed. After this was finished, it placed a layer of skin and a pink coat to finish the job. It quickly fixed the puncture wounds in her foreleg with no problems. After all of her body was fixed, the medbot fixed her unconsciousness by placing a small amount of ammonia inhalants up to Pinkie's nose.

Shortly after the medbot finished its work, it rolled back to the ship. Pinkie slowly woke up and examined the area around her. "I'm, not dead? I thought I was a goner after that encounter!"

"Luckily, you weren't," Twilight replied with a small smile on her face. She looked back up at the soldiers with an extremely grateful expression. "Thand you so much for fixing her. I don't know how I can ever repay you."

"Don't be," a soldier stated while he batted the air with his right hand. "This happens all the time with civilians and soldiers."

Applejack was worried from that statement. Did that mean their civilians at home would be as mangled or worse than Pinkie? "You mean good things when you say that, right?"

"I wish." The soldier's answer terrified her, but she only showed a glimpse of her fear with a disturbed laugh.

"Well, you four should be going now," a tougher sergeant advised to the quartet. "If you don't get to that factory soon, these guys will set up their defenses again. They'll be ready for anything if you wait all day."

Another soldier realized Twilight's loss of magic from the mass teleportation and handed her a small metal cube. Twilight looked down at it in curiosity. "What is it?"

"That's a teleporter," he answered. "Whenever you press that button, it'll unfold into a device that will send all four of you back to our teleporter. Use it wisely, as it'll not come back with you."

Twilight took the teleporter and placed it in her pocket chest. "Thank you. I'm sure it will come in handy."

The four ponies, now without Fluttershy on their team and carrying a pocket teleporter, traveled back to the factory stairs. They encountered multiple Psycho Grunts, Psycho Storms, Psycho Flames, Psycho Troopers, and another Psycho Wicked when they traveled back to the stairs. When they faced the Psycho Wicked again, they immediately opened fire at him and destroyed him before he could land a single hit.

When they reached the stairs, they discovered how big the factory really was. From far away, it looked rather massive and grand, but it looked like an entire kingdom from up close. Whatever these ponies were about to enter would be possibly the biggest foundation they ever stormed.

They walked up to the front gate and examined the area. There was no lever or button in sight, but that didn't stop the ponies. "It's just clouds, right?" Travis presumed from the fluffiness of the entire building. "Perhaps you can ram through it."

Applejack took that thought and put it to use. She rammed into the door, but it felt like solid rock. She bounced back in blunt pain, but she was in no need of medical attention. "What the hay? I thought clouds were soft, not hard as rocks!"

Twilight scraped off some of the cloud on the door and unveiled onyx colored metal. "That's because this isn't made out of clouds."

Pinkie examined the area and check for any noticeable differences in the architecture. She only found one on the side, and it resembled a metal keypad that stuck out of the clouds. "Hey, I found something!" She pointed her hoof at the keypad.

The other three ponies examined the keypad. "We don't have any ideas on what the code could be, though," Rarity pointed out after glancing at it once. "How can you possibly know what it is supposed to be?"

Pinkie pulled out a keycard with six numbers written on it. "This dropped from that mean claw thing. It must be the code to the keypad."

Applejack typed in the numbers 3-8-2-0-2-5 into the keypad. A green light emitted from it while the front gate opened. The four ponies then walked into the newly opened entrance, descending into the unknown.

The inside of the factory was rather dark. Only a few lights hung from the top of the halls, and the entire factory resembled a darkness covered variant of the original Cloudsdale Weather Factory. The lobby area remained the same, but the entire area beyond that was morphed into a completely different setup. Hallways with pipes carrying water, rainbows, steam, and other essentials for weather formation lined the ceilings. The hallways were considerably large, about twelve feet in width and nine feet in height.

The ponies kept walking through the facility, unsure of what they were to face. There was nearly no activity in the halls. Nothing moved around the halls or created any twisted shadows. It was as if the ponies entered a place abandoned for decades. Some of the doors leading to maintenance rooms or stairwells were locked, and others led to various offices with various documents, filing cabinets, and desks.

"This is not right," Twilight believed as they examined the vacant labyrinth of halls. "There should be a lot of activity from the creatures outside, but nothing is here."

"That's mighty strange for an army that big," Applejack mumbled as she looked into more empty offices. "It's like this place is its own world."

"Maybe." Twilight had no idea what these creatures were doing here or why they were keeping this place abandoned, but she was too deep in the 'anything can happen' hole to analyze this situation. "I have already seen so many crazy events and creatures, so I wouldn't dismiss that we are in another world."

The ponies then came across a bump in the ground. It was similar to the one in the Craw dreadnought, but it was at least twice the size. When they walked a little more, it shot straight up with a strange machine below it. The machine resembled a human, but it was completely made out of metal. It moved around on one wheel, similar to the R-Bots' style of movement, and it carried a laser blaster and a metal claw for its hands. The head had a set of metal teeth with two darkened eyes and a hole where its nose should be. The body resembled a human's rib cage and spine with a metal grating and various pieces of circuitry wrapped around it.

The machine raised its lowered head and activated it's now blue eyes. "Hostile organisms detected. Activate locomotive and weaponry functions."

The machine rolled out of its chamber while it stretched its arms and moved its body around. It raised its laser blaster arm to the quartet and flashed its eyes to a red glow. "Exterminate hostile organisms."

The ponies dodged the Psycho Sentry's blast of lasers and surrounded it. Applejack bucked it in the head, severely damaging the connection to its body. Pinkie then punched its already ruined head off its body. She then stomped on the deactivated body to ensure the end of the battle. After she finished destroying the machinery, she cheered happily. "We won, and these meanies are getting weaker!"

Five more bumps in the ground shot up and released more Psycho Sentries. They spoke in unison as they activated their systems. "Hostile organisms detected. Exterminate at once." Twilight could only glare at Pinkie in frustration from what just happened.

Twilight fired a wave of magic at the machines, slightly damaging their core machinery. The robots fired lasers at her, but she deflected them back to increase the damage dealt to them. Pinkie punched a few of them down while Rarity fired more gemstones into their bodies, destroying one and incapacitating another. Applejack bucked one of the still functioning robots into another, finishing off the squadron.

"Well, now we know this place isn't too abandoned," groaned Twilight in displeasure. "Let's find Fluttershy before more of these things activate beneath us."

The quartet then traveled down the many hallways. They encountered more of these Psycho Sentries, correction, a lot more of these Psycho Sentries along their journey. Some Psycho Grunts, Psycho Flames, and Psycho Troopers also joined the fight in some locations along the way, but they were dispatched with only some difficulty. The ponies eventually reached a large room with multiple pieces of machinery and a hanging catwalk above the floor. A few doors stretched along the walls, giving access to the floor and the catwalk.

A bigger bump shot up and released a bulkier machine. Unlike its Psycho Sentry predecessor, this machine carried a rocket launcher instead. Its body and head were armored better too. Its eyes didn't switch to red, they were already red.

"Hostile organisms detected in illegal premises. Extermination mode activated."

Twilight raised a barrier spell to block the incoming rocket. The Psycho Enforcer kept firing rockets, not showing any signs of slowing down. Pinkie used this as a chance to use her cloaking ability and sneak around the robot. She snuck up behind it and bashed it to the ground, disrupting its assault. The machine got back up and slammed her into a wall. It then flashed its eyes a yellow color while a siren blared around the room.

"Warning, hostile organisms too powerful. Assistance is needed immediately."

Four Psycho Sentries rolled out from an opening door to the ponies' left. They immediately opened fire on the ponies, disrupting the group's original plans. Twilight switched her barrier to a deflection spell, destroying some of the machines with their own lasers. Rarity helped by firing multiple gemstones into the machines, destroying their circuitry in the process. The Psycho Enforcer rolled up to Twilight and swiped its claw arm towards her. Applejack bucked it backwards, ruining its body and contorting it to scrap metal. The machine whirred and shut down from the damage.

As if it was on cue, a door opened near the catwalk and released a trio of pegasi. Two of them were wearing masks that covered their faces and manes, and one bore the usual rainbow mane with a shimmering silver coat. The not so faceless pegasus glared down at Twilight and scowled at her presence. "Ah, it must be the perpetrator who is after their friends, yes?"

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but the stallion cut her off. "I will keep this brief for you four. We need some, essentials if you will, that can help fuel our machinery and world. Would you be ever so kind as to please stay in this room? If you do not-"

His voice cut off as three Psycho Wickeds sprinted out of the entrance the ponies used. "Come over here, and we'll make you four into delectable treats!" His sentence ended with a maniacal cackle.

"What is the reason you are here?" Twilight demanded the stallion. "This is our world, not a playground for your kind to kill others for no reason!"

"As I said," the stallion started to answer with a slightly irritated tone, "we are here to collect fuel. More preferably, the ponies that can create it. Also, we like the pony body as a new vessel for our kind. If you do not know, our world is falling apart from pollution, and we need this fuel to combat it. Plus, the usage of ponies into our DNA would help fix these problems."

"Then why don't you ask?" Applejack asked. "You guys don't need to invade our land to fix your problems! Instead, we can go there and help you!"

"No no no, you misunderstood my words. To combat this pollution, we need your world and its resources. For example, we're using this facility to create a new climate for our world. However, we also need this world to fix our population woes as well. Care to give this world to us?"

"Why would we give this world to the same creatures that attacked and almost killed our friend, Pinkie?" Rarity spat back in a bundle of anger. "Ruffians like you don't deserve a world of this beauty!"

"I figured none of you would listen to me passively, so why don't I introduce you to one of your friends?" He turned his head to his right and shouted for somepony else. "Miss Dash, your presence is required!"

A black suited mare with light blue wings and a rainbow mane and tail walked onto the catwalk. She walked over to the stallion. Just like the stallion next to her, she glared down at the ponies and scowled at their presence.

Pinkie realized who this mare was and jumped up and down wildly. "Dashie, you're here! Can you pretty please knock some sense into that meanie? He's acting crazy!"

"Yeah, it would be nice if you came down here and helped us out here a bit," Applejack proposed. "As you can see, we're in a little trouble here."

"Girls, I don't know about this," Twilight cautiously stated. "This doesn't seem right."

"Mother of god," Travis announced while he examined Rainbow Dash again. "Is that her?"

Rainbow Dash looked over to the stallion. "Who are these featherbrains, and how did any of them reach this place?"

"I do not know, Miss Dash, but they are responsible for invading this factory and assaulting our soldiers," the stallion answered.

"Oh, so we have some useless troublemakers? Well then, off they go!"

Rainbow Dash flicked a lever on her right side and opened up the floor under the ponies. All four of them fell down into the newly created hole, screaming as they fell down to who knows where. As she flicked the lever again, the hole closed up into the floor it originally was. The ponies were now lost in this factory, unsure of what just happened or what will happen. The only thing they know now is that Rainbow Dash just betrayed them. Why did she do this? Who knows, but what she did what indisputably unexpected for everyone, even the stallion beside her.