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

After Lieutenant Drimmin met his death and his army retreated from the ED Space Station, the two Elements of Harmony bearers traveled back to Solk’s office. General Solk sat in his chair again, and the two ponies stood in front of his desk, waiting for whatever he had to say. Rainbow Dash fiddled with her mane while she waited for something of interest to pass through her mind. Twilight Sparkle wondered when the other ponies would be sent back to Ponyville. Hopefully, it was soon, but not too soon. After a few more seconds of thinking and fiddling, Solk spoke up.

“So, Twilight Sparkle, the strategists and I have a little plan on how your occupancy with us will run,” he started with a passive and clear voice. “With what you have so far, we will have no way of communicating to you properly. In order to avoid any situation where we cannot converse, you two will be given communication chips. These little devices can fit snugly on your ears, and they will allow full communication and visuals on anything you encounter.” Twilight stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the communication chip is in general. Rainbow Dash wanted to hear the words that meant go kill more baddies for me so that she had a reason to let out her frustrations on the demon horde.

“Your communications advisor will be Travis Lawson. He is a skilled strategist that has helped out a lot of soldiers in the past. His devotion to this job will make him an asset to the entire operation.”

“What do you mean operation?” Rainbow Dash questioned, hoping to hear the magic words.

“This operation is a rescue mission,” Solk answered.

Rainbow’s face shifted to a glance away and a disappointed frown. Sure, she liked helping others sometimes, but at the moment, she needed a fight, not a rescue.

“You two will have to break the circle the demons created. This circle of defense was specifically made to choke out the inner portion of Equestria. If you two can enter the Everfree Forest—the circle’s weakest link—there is a good chance that you two can break it apart. This should be an easy mission if you two could kill a lieutenant. Anyway, after the demons panic from the disorder, my troops will strike. Also, from what our new Element of Harmony scanners are telling us, another Element of Harmony member is located in that forest. That is the rescuing part of the mission. Hopefully, you two come back as three whole ponies ready for action, not two or one and a half.”

Rainbow Dash’s grin grew wider as she thought about releasing her pent up anger on these demons. She hated them so much for ruining Ponyville, and now, they will pay for all the damage they caused.

“I’m in,” Rainbow Dash agreed with a nod. “If there’s somepony out there that’s one of my friends, I’ll save them anytime.”

“I’m fine with this too,” Twilight responded as she guessed who that captured pony could be.

Solk handed out two little metal devices to the two ponies. “These are the chips.Travis is going to check if they work, so put them on and listen carefully.”

The two ponies placed the chips on their ears, waiting for a response. After a few seconds of waiting, they heard a buzz. This buzz shifted to static, and static faded to reveal words.

“Hello?” a young but still mature and male voice asked. “Are you two there?”

“Yes,” Twilight responded, “you’re loud and clear.”

“Actually, he might be too loud,” joked Rainbow Dash. She covered her ears to block the nonexistent pain.

“Heh, I guess.” Travis put an awkward smile on his face. “Anyway, you two are needed in sector H-02. They have a drop ship ready for your departure. Also, since you’re members of GEST Corp. Now, you should check the armory before you leave.”

“That’s all I have for you two,” informed Solk. “Now, go. You have a world to save.”

The pony duo trotted down the hallway and to a door labeled armory on it. Twilight levitated the door open, allowing both of them entry. When they entered the armory, an unarmored man behind a counter and in front of rows of battle suits and other gear gave them a small, half fake smile.

The man’s face, wrinkled with age, presented one aqua blue jewel in its rights eye. The other eye, slashed with a scar, replaced its aqua with a gray. Some stubble collected on his chin and his cheeks’ edges, and his teeth refused to align themselves properly but not to where they rivaled Drimmin’s teeth. His left hand was a mechanical hybrid tool of a hammer and a power drill, and the gray and brown shirt he wore bore both sweat and a GEST Corp. Logo.

“Well hello, uh, whatever you two are,” he greeted in a deep, perplexed voice. “What is it that you need?”

“Do you have any armor that ponies can use?” asked Twilight.

“Not at the moment. Even if I did have some, random, ehm, ponies like you two are not allowed to have them. This armor is for GEST Corp. Soldiers only.”

“We are soldiers.”

The man narrowed his eyes at the duo. “How come?”

“General Solk sent us on a mission to break the demons’ circle around Ponyville. Also, we have these communication chips, which are probably the same ones your soldiers use.”

The man juggled the words in his head for a few seconds. “Alright. I can modify some basic armor for your build. Now, is it just you two, or is there a parade waiting outside?”

“No. I just want two for us, and one for a friend down on the surface,” Twilight ordered.

“Alright, let me see what I can do.” The man turned around and walked up to the racks of armor. He took three chest pieces, six leggings, and six pairs of boots of the rack. He then disassembled the armor with his power drill and wits, placed a few pieces in a hot forge to his right, and reassembled some of the other pieces into a different formation. After about ten seconds of heating, he pulled the now glowing yellow pieces of metal and hammered them over a table structured like an anvil. He glanced at the ponies’ bodies every now and then as he bent the pieces into the shape he desired. He then took the bent pieces and the other pieces and combined them into new pieces of armor. Once he finished reforging the armor, he placed six sets of boots shaped for ponies on the counter, three chest pieces with resized sleeves and clamps on the sleeves’ ends and on the chest pieces’ bottoms, and three pairs of leggings with clamps for the chest pieces and the boots.

Twilight examined the armor and noticed one component missing. “Um, shouldn’t we also have helmets, too?”

“If I could reforge those helmets, you would have them as well,” the man began with a rizzz from the drill, “but reforging a helmet is much more complicated than these. I have to reshape the visor—which is impossible without breaking or thinning it—move around machinery since it’s all located in the helmet, and do what I just did with this armor. If you want a helmet with no visor, HUD, or any other fancy stuff that can save your lives, I could make a few just for you.”

“Some protection is better than none,” Rainbow Dash commented. “Go ahead, make a few for us.”

The man took three helmets off the shelf and disassembled them. “Oh, you two did say that you have communication chips, right?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s what convinced you to make us some armor.”

“Mind if I take them and implement them into the helmets?”

“No, you can use them.” Twilight nudged Rainbow and levitated a communication chip to the man. Rainbow used her wing to take the chip off and set it on the counter. The man took them both, smacked them into two helmets, performed a few more modifications and tweaks, and set three helmets on the counter.

“There you go. I took the liberty of painting a colored stripe on the ones with communication chips. One’s purple, and one’s blue.”

Twilight levitated the purple striped helmet to her face and cracked a delighted smile. “That’s really nice of you!” Twilight levitated the rest of her armor and the set for her unknown friend. “Thanks for the armor!” The man caught her happiness and smiled as well, watching the content mare float the armor through the doorway.

Rainbow Dash hovered over to the remaining set and stared at the helmet for a few seconds. “Eh, you could’ve made it cooler.”

Rainbow scooped the armor into a pile in her forelegs and carefully flew out of the armory. The man shrugged, pulled out a washcloth, and scrubbed the front of a chest piece on the rack.

Rainbow flew a little faster to reach Twilight and almost dropped her own armor She caught her helmet with her right hind leg and angled her body to prevent the rest from falling. Twilight, encircled by the armor she levitated, noticed Rainbow’s struggling after turning her head and levitated Rainbow’s armor into the air.

“Need some help?” Twilight asked with hindsight.

“Heh, maybe I should’ve asked,” Rainbow responded with hindsight also accompanying her. “Can you help me put that on?”

“Sure. Just stay still so that I can fit the armor on you properly.”

Rainbow Dash obeyed Twilight and kept herself as stiff as a garden statue of stone. Twilight unlocked, opened, and placed the chest piece and leggings on Rainbow’s body. Twilight closed, locked, and clamped them together. She then slid the boots under Rainbow’s hooves and pushed the boots onto them. After clamping the boots to the armor, she unlocked, opened, and placed the helmet on Rainbow’s head. To finish the suit, she closed, locked, and clamped it onto the chest piece.

Rainbow Dash, now coated in light blue and gray armor, pushed her wings through the provided wing holes and shuffled her tail out of its hole. She shook part of her mane out the helmet and grunted. “This armor feels really weird, but I kinda like how that guy gave my wings and tail some room. My mane’s cramped, though.”

Twilight performed the same steps with the armor on her and examined her own body. “I get what you mean. It’s pretty tight around the back, and it makes my legs feel a little stiff.” She tested her legs by moving them in different directions and positions. “But, I’m surprisingly supple for such bulky armor. What did they use to make this?”

“I don’t know” —Rainbow smirked— “but now I know where those hayburgers from last Tuesday gone to.”

Twilight stared back at her and narrowed her eyes. “Very funny.” Rainbow suppressed her laughter by muffling her snickering with a hoof. Twilight took the extra suit parts and compressed them down to the size of apples. She then dropped them into a compartment in her leggings’s right side.

Twilight shifted her eyes back to the halls and recalled the past for about ten seconds. “Oh, I need to go to Spike! If I remember correctly, it’s over—” Twilight U-turned and speed walked down the hall “down this hallway.”

Rainbow followed her and glanced around the area, now noticing how vacant the halls were. If this place is chock full of soldiers, where are they? she thought after seeing only one soldier pass by with a half-hearted hand wave.

“Aha!” Twilight turned to her left and to a familiar lobby next to a scanning area. A few various ponies conversed, wandered, and slept on the floor or in a few cushioned benches. Spike, the only one standing near a scanning gateway, tapped a foot and crossed his arms. After seeing Twilight in her new set of GEST Corp. Armor, he smiled and contorted his face into a perplexed frown half a second later.

Spike walked over to her and skimmed over her armor. “Hey, Twilight. What’s with the getup?”

“It’s my battle armor.” Twilight turned a full circle and stared down at Spike with a small smile. “Like it?”

“It sure is shiny, and tight looking. Doesn’t it feel uncomfortable?”

“It does, but at least it lets me move like it’s not there. Anyway, I came here to check up on you and tell you something.”

Spike glanced over to the pegasus right behind Twilight. “You’re going on an adventure with Rainbow Dash, right?”

“Exactly.” Twilight rolled her eyes through the crowd. “Are they letting you go back to Ponyville? There’s definitely fewer ponies here than earlier.”

“Not yet. Some of them were moved somewhere else. If we do come back, is there anything you need me to do?”

“Everything is on the list on my bed. If there’s something you can’t do, skip it. Also, you might have to watch over the library for a while. You know how to sort the books, light the candles, dust the bookshelves, wate–”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it covered. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

“Alright. See you after I finish this mission.” The pony duo disappeared into the halls, leaving Spike with the others once again.

“You too.” Spike winced after remembering the horrifying monsters that almost kidnapped him and Twilight. “I hope.”

•—————•

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash rode a dropship—the same aircraft they saw countless times on the ED Space Station—down to the Everfree Forest. The dropship hovered over a dense section of it and aimed for the edge facing Ponyville. The aircraft descended and lowered its ramp door. The two ponies walked down the metal ramp and back onto their home, Equestria.

The pilot of the aircraft turned to them. “Good luck! It usually takes two or three nine men squadrons to do this!”

“Real helpful!” Rainbow grumbled back, concealing the ball of fear creeping out her face.

As the dropship ascended and faded into the clouds, the duo heard the untamed growls and rustles of the forest. In front of them sloshed the darkness of the thick trees and undergrowth. Despite fearing the forest every time they confronted it, this time, they felt more confident to traverse it than ever before.

“So it still works?” buzzed Travis on the communication chips.

“I can hear you fine,” Twilight answered.

“you know, a thing I find funny about this forest is how foreign it feels to you two. This forest is more earthlike than any other area on this planet. In fact, we live in this type of weather!”

“Wait a second,” Rainbow Dash started, “you live with constant tornadoes, lightning, and other horrible weather?”

“Yep. We humans have been dealing with that for thousands of years, and we’re this advanced already.”

Rainbow rewarded Travis with a little smile. “Wow, that’s pretty awesome. I’d never expect such a cool army to come from a world like that.”

“Oh, that’s what your species is?” Twilight sent the term human to her long-term memory.

Travis remembered all the horrific human on human wars he studied. “Uh, yeah. We had a few other problems here and there, but we solved them in the end.”

Twilight watched a leaf fall from the forest and shook the distractions out her head. “Alright, we might want to enter the forest now. We don’t want to be responsible for any, accidents.” She hesitated on the last word, afraid that her mystery friend might meet their death if she lets the demons keep hold of them any longer. Worry clawed her mind away, and a barrage of questions smacked her face over and over, begging to seize her sanity.

Rainbow Dash and Travis agreed with her statement and ended their small conversation. The pony duo, now undistracted, took their first steps into the demon infested Everfree Forest.

•—————•

As the two ponies and their distant ally trekked through the forest, one peculiar trait struck their minds: no feral or nasty creatures interrupted them to strike or kill one of the ponies. Manticores in the distance avoided the two and focused on harmless critters, and cockatrices slithered to a distance they knew would not hinder the duo. To their own misfortune, some of these creatures felt their bodies rip and burn from either distant laser blasts or close quarters encounters with a lone demon and their steel weaponry.

“So, Rainbow,” Twilight started, “did you notice anything strange before that invasion on Ponyville?”

Rainbow switched from the sight of a twisted tree to Twilight. “What do you mean by strange?”

“I mean anything that is abnormal or suspicious. Were there any creatures or figures you found unusual?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How about sounds?”

“I heard a crash from one of those hunks of space junk.”

Those things were proven to be harmless by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Twilight thought to herself. There’s no way they could contribute to the demons. “Is there anything else you found odd?”

Rainbow tapped her head for anything helpful. “I got nothing.”

“How did these things just come out of nowhere, then?”

“There’s a high chance they used portals to their realm,” Travis answered. “The demons use them as easy travel from one point to another. However, they need the destination to have demons already there, so they could have entered this world by spaceship and landed where no one would see them.”

Rainbow’s head popped back up. “I remember now! There was that one star that randomly appeared in the sky the day before you moved to Ponyville!”

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded. “There was. Maybe that star had something to do with the demons.”

“And the junk that crashed from that star might be important to them, too!”

“Hold up a second,” Travis blurted, “the time you said you saw that star is awfully close to when we first discovered Equestria, and the space junk you mentioned that came from the star is probably the scrap metal we dumped. That star wasn’t the demons, it was us.”

Twilight frowned and slanted her eyebrows. “Why were you dumping metal on Equestria?”

“That was to both dispose of it and give your species a special material to use. You could’ve made the same things we have with it.”

“So, this metal you dumped were the flying hunks?” Rainbow grumbled. “Your metal wrecked the roof of my house! And Cloudsdale has to fix their steam pipes because another hunk ruined a whole bunch of them!”

Travis gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that. The calibrations for ejecting metal sometimes change midflight.”

“Both of you quiet for a moment,” whispered Twilight after pointing to a clearing.

Inside the clearing resided a stone and steel fortress with a moderate amount of activity. Four towers sprouted out of the fortress from its four outer wall corners, and a few demons patrolled along the top of the wall and beside the front gate. Twilight scanned the fortress for a way inside without resulting in a destroyed wall or horde of angry demons. After just a few more seconds of scanning, she detected a fatal weakness in its defenses: a demon guarding the back entrance to the fortress collapsed from exhaustion, leaving the door open for anything harmless or harmful.

“Rainbow Dash, enter the fortress through that door and check the halls for demons,” Twilight ordered with a whisper. “I’ll help you fight them.”

Rainbow nodded and flew through the door with absolute silence. Twilight conjured an invisibility spell on herself and trotted to the door. When she discovered a hulking giant lumbering through the halls, she prepared a magic blast and turned to Rainbow. “Get that sword out of that demon’s hands.”

Rainbow Dash nodded and flew behind the giant. She noticed that the sword could cut the entire demon in half by the waist if she bucked the sword into it. As she flew into position, the demon outside returned from his unconsciousness. Rainbow bucked the sword into the giant’s waist, incapacitating it with a clean slice. It tumbled with a bellow and a huge thump as it struck the stone ground.

The demon outside scrambled to his feet and gripped his longsword. Finally realizing that he granted a few intruders unopposed access, he slipped into the hall and prepared for battle. When he checked his right for hostiles, a hoof smashed into his face and propelled his body into a wall. He cracked and crumbled into smoky dust thereafter. Twilight, now without her invisibility, called Rainbow over to the front gate.

Twilight defended herself from a demon’s laser blasts and a smaller demon about her height by manifesting a barrier. The smaller demon smacked into the barrier and flopped onto his supposed face and chest. The other demon fired laser after laser at the barrier in hopes of destroying it. Rainbow Dash entered the battle and hurled a storm cloud at the shooting demon. That cloud struck him with enough deadly electricity to numb and diminish his essence. He fell lifeless and disintegrated away. The shield demon—the name of the smaller demon—waddled to the flying pegasus and hopped in the air repeatedly. With every hop, he swiped his razor sharp nubs for hands at her, but he missed every time due to his height. Twilight lowered her barrier and struck the shield demon with a fire blast. He burst into flames and panicked with high pitched screams. In one last attempt to end Twilight’s life, he sprinted at her and slashed his burning arms with wild fury. Rainbow disposed of him with a kick that sent him into a wall, letting the flames burn his body to naught.

“That staircase leads to the first roof,” informed Travis. “Be prepared to fight more baddies when you climb up there.”

“Travis, I think we got this,” Rainbow Dash gloated a little.

The pony duo climbed the stairs and dueled a few descending demons. Since the demons were novices, they collapsed to dust after a couple magic blasts and physical strikes each.

When Twilight and Rainbow reached the roof, a new demon in the shape of a pulsating plus sign with four tentacles sprouting from its ends hovered over a quartet of injured demons. The new demon wrapped two of its tentacles around them, rejuvenating them all to perfect spiritual health.

“Amazing,” mused Travis as he typed on a keyboard. “It is as if this demon is replicating its own essence and transferring it to the others. Be careful, that thing might keep the fight going on for a bit longer.”

Twilight processed that information and used it to her advantage. She activated her magic and fired a few magical blasts at the healer demon. Painful shrieks resonated from the healer demon as its glow dimmed. The other demons gathered around it and formed a makeshift wall.

“Shoot their heads!” ordered one of the demons. “That’s the weak spot! Or was it the back? I don’t know, just shoot!”

Rainbow Dash flew backward and flapped her wings at accelerating speeds. Once her wings reached beyond basic fan speeds, wind gathered and whooshed from her wings and to the demons. The wind strengthened and started shoving the demons away once her wings flapped at tornadic speeds.

A novice looked down and watched the ground move under their feet.”Whuh?”

“I think we’re sliding!” suspected another novice now a meter away from the healer demon. The demons slid farther and farther away from the healer demon until it had no cover left to exploit.

“Twilight, shoot, it!” strained Rainbow Dash as her wings achieved speeds fast enough to force the demons on their knees.

Twilight charged her magic and blasted it into the center of the healer demon’s body, shredding its matter into puffs of smoke. The novice demons widened their own eyes at the sudden death and trudged through the wind as much as possible. Rainbow Dash ceased her incredible wing flapping and landed on a demon’s chest. She punched the demon’s face five times before leaping at another and kicking it across the face. Once Rainbow ascended a few feet, Twilight conjured a wave of deadly magic and unleashed it upon the four novices, throwing all of them to their feet. Two of them returned to their feet and fired a few inaccurate laser blasts. The other two rolled out of Rainbow’s way and picked themselves back up. She pinned down one of them and smashed their face through their head. Bundles of magic soared from Twilight’s horn and into the other three demons. Two of them succumbed to the power and broke into black smoke, and Rainbow slammed so hard into the final demon that it split into four separate pieces. As the battlefield calmed, the two ponies decided that there was no reason to continue storming the fortress.

“I’m detecting another fortress not far from here,” Travis informed. “It’s just beyond those trees, and that’s also where I’m getting the Element of Harmony readings.”

“Um, what trees?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, right, you can’t see me. Keep going northeast, the direction where you see that little dirt path.”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash started through her panting, “we don’t have, any time to, mess around. Let’s get moving!”

Both of the ponies exited the fortress through the front gate and directed themself toward the dirt pathway. They reached its end a few meters later and pushed through the thick undergrowth. At the same time, Twilight remembered a question she wanted to ask. “Hey, Travis, why are the demons here?”

“It’s a little complicated, but I’ll simplify it as much as I can,” Travis answered. “The demons want to do nothing but serve their lord, Zedin. He decided to declare war on us because he saw us as obstacles in his way of destroying our universe. Many events and battles big enough to take up five history books, he saw the humans as a species that needs to be destroyed at all costs. He’s attacking here because he wants to keep us alone and undefended, and he’ll wage mass extinction of everything living in this world to do it. If your species was not as advanced as it is now, he would’ve spared you.

“So their reasons for invading stem from your species?”

“Pretty much. Don’t think you’re unlucky, though. When a group of humanlike creatures, the clogans, decided to help us and provide protection, Zedin declared war on them and leveled their capital city. They’re still alive, but he’s still attacking them relentlessly. If we didn’t come to your world, he would’ve destroyed all of Equestria behind our backs.”

Twilight’s fear silenced herself, letting her mind run from terrifying result to terrifying result. She hid from the thoughts and focused the dark greens and browns of the forest around her.

•—————•

After Twilight and Rainbow fought five separate novice demons patrolling the forest, the fortress they searched for finally revealed itself. Such as the last one, it was located in a clearing, but one glaring difference changed all of it. Only its roof remained visible. The rest of it, which was about the same amount of space as the last one, resided underground. One staircase on its north end led down into its chambers.

Four demons at the top of the staircase carried a cage out of it. The contents of the cage held open Twilight’s mouth and eyes. Sure, she expected one of her friends to be somewhere in the fortress, but she did not expect such a sudden reunion.

“Hey, Twilight and Dashie!” exclaimed the pink and frizzy pony inside the cage.The demons dropped the cage onto the stone ground and primed their weapons and wits for battle.

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash responded with an ungrateful groan.

“Alright, you two, come out so I can stab you!” ordered a demon who waved a scimitar around himself.

“Yeah!” started another gripping a flaming mace, “Come out so we can see who or what you are!”

Rainbow Dash shot out the underbrush and slammed into a startled novice demon. After pummeling them into dust, she aimed for the scimitar wielder. He lunged after her for a quick strike but missed after meeting Twilight’s well-timed magic blast. The last two demons fell down from the close blast and scurried onto their feet. One of them, close to death, noticed that he died after his head exploded into smoke bits from a cyan kick to the forehead. The last demon alive, which was the one still gripping a flaming mace. He swung it at Rainbow Dash and almost hit her. However, his almost did not prevent two kicks from striking his chest. Begging for mercy yet still aiming for rainbow, the demon hobbled backward and swung one final time. Twilight seized control of the mace that almost smashed into Rainbow’s face and threw it into the demon’s chest. The flames consumed and tore away his body layer by layer. In the last moments of his life, he clawed at the ground for anything to prevent his inevitable demise.

Twilight Sparkle, the mare who watched the last demon burn away to nothing, noticed that the demon left nothing behind. Where do they go after they die?

“Hey Twilight,” Rainbow Dash started, shattering Twilight’s mental focus, “do you think there’s a way to break this cage open? This metal is too strong for me.”

“That must be made out of a neotitanium alloy then,” Travis informed. “The demons started using that for a lot of their ships and weaponry. Luckily, the scientists in the labs found a fatal weakness. It’s easily tampered with by heat. Just blast it with one of-”

Twilight Sparkle melted a chunk of the cage’s bars with a fire blast. “Like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.” Travis felt indifferent from her actions since he grew numb to such events after guiding batches of shoot first, ask questions later soldiers. The only thought that he did not feel numb to was that every soldier he met with that mindset died from it. He shuddered the thought away and returned to examining his own data and the ponies.

The pink pony once locked in the cage twisted its mouth into a wide smile and leapt through the hole and onto Twilight and Rainbow Dash. It pulled both ponies to the ground and constricted them in an inescapable hug.

has been added to your party.

“It’s soooo nice to see you two again!” the manic pony squealed in a higher tone of voice than the other two.

“Pinkie, need, breath,” Twilight wheezed as she used all her might to force the fluff and cotton off her. Rainbow agreed with a small nod and fluttering wings.

Pinkie Pie eased her grip and hopped off the pony duo. “Oops, sorry. I’m just so full of happiness that I can’t help it!” And as if a switch in her mind flicked, her happy smile spun into a disgruntled frown. “What took you two so long?! I’ve been waiting all day with those unfun meanies for you to find me! Well, except for that one that told me my laugh is cute and I have a great personality, but he was removed from my room after that. Also, who is that guy talking from your weird helmets?”

“Wait, you can hear me?” Travis checked if Pinkie wore a communications chip or not. She did not even wear a single piece of armor.

“Of course I can! You’re louder than the girls!” Rainbow Dash failed to resist snickering. “Hey, uh Twily, did you destroy a giant machine while you came here to find me?”

“No,” Twilight answered, ears flopping downward. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, while I was up here, I saw one in the distance.” The ground rumbled to the rhythm of powerful machinery and rolling treads. “And it’s coming for us now.”

A giant metal behemoth of rolling thunder exploded out the southwest undergrowth and slammed its body onto the battlefield. A long barrel stretched from its head, and two filthy and grimy treads massaged the stone ground. Two swiveling machine guns stretched outward from the sides of its head, and a one-way windshield paired with two inactive headlights in the machine’s front stared at the pony trio. The top of its groaning and bustling body busted open to release a demon wearing neat and durable clothing resembling a twenty-first century American colonel’s outfit.

“Hey, who are you two, and why are you not in the cage?” the demon pressed with an inexperienced voice. “Wait a minute.” He held out his hand against the three stunned ponies. “I sense a great power, a power that Lord Zedin desires. You three are too good of a batch to waste. Instead, I’m going to beat and sack all you three! After that, I’ll take Drimmin’s old spot!” The demon slammed the top of the machine down as the engines gnashed at the ponies once more. Its head swiveled to where the barrel faced the group of ponies.

A challenger approaches: Demon Tank Mk 3.5 of Lieutenant Drimmin’s forces

“Twilight,” Travis started with a crescendo for a voice, “you might want to get out of the way now!”

The barrel unleashed a round that exploded on the fortress’s roof. The roof caved into itself and demolished everything else in the fortress. The tank rolled away from the carnage to both avoid falling into the new hazard and achieve a clear shot at the three startled and scrambled ponies. Rainbow Dash smashed her hooves onto the metal hull, but it refused to dent or crack. Twilight fired some magic blasts, but they only dented the hull by micrometers. Pinkie, after hopping around the tank and scanning its entire form, conceived an idea in the form of a lightbulb.

Pinkie jumped from behind the tank and waved her forelegs at Twilight. “Twilight Twilight Twilight!”

“Yeah, Pinkie, what is it?” Twilight asked with a grumble as she dodged the tank’s laser rounds. “This better help me!”

“Oh, it will! I know how to beat this boss! You need to use some sort of fire move on it since it has a weakness to fire elemental attacks! Once you do that, Dashie can take it down with her smashes and slams!”

Twilight noticed that Pinkie called it a boss and noted that it is weak to fire moves. She shrugged those words away and charged a fire blast. The blast smashed into the side of the tank, causing a little smoke to trickle out.

“Hey, what are you doing out there?” screamed the driving demon, but his voice lost its volume from the tank’s noise and the thick metal.

“Now, Dashie,” Pinkie instructed after cartwheeling away from dozens of laser rounds, “you need to damage that seal at the top! Once you do that while the machine is overheating, you’ll be able to pull the driver out!”

Rainbow Dash nodded and held onto the metal top. She threw punch after punch into it, denting and ripping the metal layers apart. Twilight charged and fired a few more fire blasts while she dodged the tank’s artillery.

“Hey, stop that!” the enraged demon commanded. His voice gained some clarity from Rainbow’s punching. “This is a rental given to me from Lord Zedin himself. If you ruin this thing, I’ll never be promoted to commander class!”

The machine grew spinning blades along its treads and hull, adding another obstacle to the ponies’ pursuit for success. Twilight conjured and hurled more fire blasts, Rainbow Dash bashed the top to nearly nothing, and Pinkie hopped around the blades and cracking metal while spewing out tips and encouragement. After one minute, the tank lost so much metal and gained so many rips, leaks, and dents that it struggled to function. Treads bent into each other, the head locked into place, and the laser machine guns spiraled off like loose screws.

“Well”, the demon driver sighed to himself, “I guess I’ll never get a promotion or a second chance.”

The tank burst into colossal flames and warped and crunched as it broke apart and lost its booming roars and groans. The pony trio galloped away from the wreckage and into the trees, panting and dragging their hooves once they settled near a couple rocks and a bigger, less threatening tree.

Demon Tank Mk 3.5 has been defeated!

“Whoo! That was quite a workout!” Pinkie returned to hopping around and cheering various nonsense words after she recovered from exhaustion. Twilight and Rainbow still panted and rested for another four minutes.

About two minutes after fully recovering, the ponies heard a dropship land to the southeast of their location. They navigated themselves through the undergrowth and out the Everfree Forest. The dropship waiting for them sat on hilly terrain on the outskirts of Ponyville. Twilight could hear distant gunfire and shouting originating from the town.

“So, I heard that other GEST Corp. Soldiers are going to attack the demons down here, right?” Twilight assumed.

“Right on the money,” responded the pilot. He was a skinnier but rougher sounding soldier. “The comrades on the field are all the way on the Canterlot side of the demon circle, though. They want to open up the capital city before they move on to Ponyville. Until we clean up the surface, Ponyville is not safe enough for the residents.” Pinkie frowned a little and wondered about the condition of Sugarcube Corner and every other pony from Ponyville.

“Oh yeah,” the co-pilot started. He sounded deeper and rougher than the pilot. “Who are you? You weren’t on the mission when we dropped these two off.”

Pinkie returned to smiling and greeted the co-pilot with a wave. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie, or Pinkamena Diane Pie if you want to be fancy, but please call me Pinkie Pie.”

The co-pilot jumbled the words Pinkie and Pie for a while before facing the controls. He conversed with the pilot at a voice level low enough to give Twilight time to think. So, since she had the peace to do so, she wondered about Princess Celestia and how she felt about the invasion. A darker side of her mind focused on the idea of the demons reaching Celestia and killing her. As with the darker thoughts from before, Twilight suppressed them with more thoughts and her friends’ faces.

•—————•

Inside a familiar throne room, the great and powerful lord of the demons floated in front of a monitor. He watched through the eyes of a novice demon battling against the legions of GEST Corp. And avoiding as many lasers as possible. The eyes crashed to the ground after a set of laser blasts and a cry in pain. The lord stared at the static with a deep interest filling its black and white speckles. In all of his immortal life, he never witnessed such a short battle ending in defeat for his army. As he thought about what strategies to use next, the main gate burst open, and the same novice demon rushed over to the lord’s side.

“Sire, sire!” he wailed as he took a knee to the floor and lowered his head. “The pink earth pony is gone! The two ponies that killed our brother Drimmin stole it and brought it to their base! What are we going to do?”

“Hmm,” the lord pondered with a chin scrape. “This pony is quite the mischievous purple unicorn, isn’t she? Is the army prepared?”

“Yes, sire! Lieutenant Vyshnaam has all of his forces ready for battle. Should we send them out now?”

“No. These ponies and humans are performing far too well with their harmonic relationship, or what I believe it to be, than I estimated. Wait until another group weakens them. I shall grant permission whenever these wretches are penalized for their insolence.”

The novice demon bowed and departed from the throne room. The lone ruler spoke to himself once more.

“This unicorn, she possesses an uncanny feeling. Is she the one who will extinguish my army, or is she full of unnatural luck?” He shuffled the words around his mind and forged a conclusion. “No, she must have a wealth of luck. Some human and nonhuman soldiers dueled mine and survived. Her time to die will arrive soon.” He snatched another thought from the air and patched it into his other thoughts. “But, what if this unicorn does unite the Elements of Harmony, and what shall follow if they approach and interrogate me?” He banished the thought from his mind and recollected the rest. “They are naught but livings. They will all meet their mortal ends soon, if my army remains competent.”