Lux Locus: Blue fings 'n Big humesby The PsychopathChaptersNow or neverCrump da gumps! Crump 'em eyll!Hunting the biggest oneWorth every spellNow or neverAuthor's Note Might have four chapters in total. This wasn't meant to last so long. Now or never "Princess, there's a dispute over the percentages of shares of silks from the Saddle Arabians by two merchants importing them." "Did they sign a contract?" "N-no. They shook hooves on it--" "And now each is trying to say that they did the most work and deserve a large share. Tell the one who went to the country and negotiated the prices to import them here legally deserves a sixty-one point one percent share of the trade, and if there are any new items that pop up in the debate to take it to the import-export court. Give them something to do." Twilight was barreling through her crystal castle, accompanied by a small advisor pony. He wore a little black tie around his brown neck, and his mane and tail were both a slightly curled pink. His cutie mark was a pen drawing a wavy line on paper, and it showed. His saddle bags overflowed with scrolls, notes, and other poorly placed papers. As for the lavender alicorn, she wore royal apparel as befitting a princess. Of course, they were colored purple, but she wanted them to be a deep blue. She was as tall as Luna was now, and her mane and tail had gathered up so much magic over the years that they now waved without any outside intervention. With proper maintenance, they would behave like any pony's mane and tail, but Twilight much enjoyed this state of things. Her muzzle had elongated slightly and her figure became slimmer over the years, but her 'kind and unsure' disposition made way for a more 'matured' thought pattern; One that helped carve the Ponyville of today. Twilight stopped her walk and faced the small stallion. "Pinkfuit," she started. "You're overworked. You need a break." "But all the others are on vacation. As a descendant of an element of harmony, I find it my duty to--" The tall alicorn placed her hoof on the pony's mouth, stopping him, and gave him a worried smile. "You aren't Pinkie Pie. You don't need to pretend like you are or think that you owe me anything. Your ancestor did a lot for Equestria, and we did it TOGETHER. She didn't do it it for me." "But--" "This is a job that requires at least twelve ponies on a calm day, and this is a very busy day. I already have the diplomatic advisors and heads of each party." "And they can-- "Yes. There are several dozens members in each party, and only a hoof full will be needed during this busy day." Pinkfruit took a deep breath and tried to relax. "Okay. Before I leave, can I see the soldiers during inspection?" "Why? That isn't a place that you are allowed to go. These are trained warriors meant to protect the city, not a tourist attraction." Twilight leaned to the side and hid her annoyance very poorly. "Unlike those in Shetland..." she mumbled. "What?" "Nothing." Twilight tapped her head and sighed. "Alright, fine. You've worked hard enough to merit the chance to see their private quarters while I inspect, but if you interrupt me or the ranking officers, you get out and go home immediately, okay?" Pinkfruit bounced eagerly in place. "I always wanted to be a guard," he stated cheerfully. Then he shrunk down and his mane deflated. "But I was too small for it." His mane reminded Twilight so much of her old friend, but that was a long time ago and she didn't like to stay on that. "Well, it's not because you wanted something that you're necessarily good for it." Twilight chuckled. "I learned that the hard way." She stared into the abyss. "A VERY hard way, but that's a tale for another time. Follow me." Twilight's empty castle had become, over the years, easily capable of rivaling her former teacher's. Carpets of vibrant blues and purples lined the floors, stained glass windows depicting the dozens of actions the first elements performed in their lifetime awed those walking in the hallways, and dozens of ponies were around the clock to keep every inch of the castle in a clean state. Of course, the stained glass windows didn't depict just the FIRST elements. The guards awaited on the fourth floor balcony, where they would place all their training equipment and work all day long to not lose their edge. Only a small opening directly opposite the entrance showed any chance of anypony falling as the walls had been extended several feet above the floor, ensuring that even stray fireballs would hit the walls, and the amount of scorch marks from trainees proved this a smart idea. Twilight's own wore armor of identical color to her coat, mixed with aubergine purple and passport blue. Their helmets, much like Celestia's Royal Guard, covered both sides of their heads, but with the centuries that passed, metallurgy had improved, and so scales extended from them to cover and protect the guards' necks. A little beak extended slightly over their eyes to protect them from any excessive sunlight, and a blue jewel was placed where there would normally be a unicorn horn for pegasi and earth ponies. Their leg armor wrapped the lower legs several times, creating a scaling row of jutting 'dragon scales' stopping just above the knee whilst the scales for the hind legs were reversed. A delicate singular line traced and glowed along the sides of the body armor following waving pattern with smaller lines branching off into curls. "Princess Twilight!" a captain saluted. "Here for the inspection." "Yes, captain, and I'm already pleased with what I'm seeing." Twilight smiled. The stallion blushed. "Oh. T-thank you, princess." Twilight frowned and pointed at the guards. "I'm talking about the guards that were capable of presenting themselves today for inspection." "Oh. Right," he chuckled. "Say, what's that tiny pony doing there?" he asked. "He's only there to quell his curiosity once and for all. It's okay. If he speaks or interrupts, he's going out of here pronto." Twilight cleared her throat. "So, what weaponry have you been using lately?" Twilight asked. "We've been using spears, leg-mounted crossbows, shields, swords, and for the pegasi; double-bladed spears." Twilight nodded in approval. "Close and long range combat, but what about artillery, should somepony attack us from afar? The walls were built to protect my ponies, after all. What good are they if we have no way of destroying incoming siege equipment?" "The ballista and catapults have been placed, as well as unicorn-centered 'golf balls'." Twilight reared her head back. "What in the world are 'golf balls'?" "Well," the captain started. "They're a new type of weapon made by a mage and scientist in Stalliongrad that uses unicorn magic as a power source. It basically launches highly focused balls of magic at the target and explodes. It's handy in that it's not dangerous to the user as it is to the enemy, unlike a canon." "I see." Twilight frowned. "I'm not that happy about all these weapons." "But the day today isn't like it was in the past. We have genuine threats building up on the borders and in our own lands." The captain shrugged. "Evolution, eh?" Twilight was starting to feel melancholic. "Evolution," she repeated. "Hey, what's that?" Pinkfruit asked. "Okay, I warned you," Twilight said. "Get out." "But--" "Your princess told you to leave," the captain compounded. "You should do as she says. It's disrespectful." Pinkfruit pointed enthusiastically at the sky. "But there's a ball of fire coming from the sky!" Twilight rolled her eyes and looked behind her, but her assurance of it just being the stallion's imagination made way for shock and, quite simply, an inability to react appropriately to what was about to occur. A huge ball of fire really was falling from the sky, but it was going in a sharp, diagonal arc downwards like most catalogued meteors. Rather, it 'surfed' the air and punched through several buildings and landing somewhere in the western section of the city. Twilight could hear ponies screaming, but Celestia had taught her well how to control herself. "Get down there right away!" she ordered. "Keep the civilians away from the crash site and debris and help the medical teams--" A loud explosion erupted from the crash site, followed by what sounded like multiple thunder cracks. "Wooooo!" a low, gravely voice shouted from afar. Twilight looked towards the fires and sources of the screams in concern. She never heard a voice like that. "We're under attack," she said. "I don't know by whom, but I need you to--" "Princess," Pinkfruit started. "Look." Several more balls of fire were plummeting from the sky followed by long barrels of hastily put together metals. "They're coming from Luna's stars," the small stallion continued. Crump da gumps! Crump 'em eyll!Ponies ran through the streets, some dodging the debris falling from the damaged skyscrapers; others not being as fortunate. Flashes and bursts of light came from the smoke of the impact site, punching little holes into walls, floors, benches, wagons, and even those simply having a walk on the sidewalk. One daring young stallion dared to muster up his courage and approach the smoke cloud despite everyone else fleeing for their lives. As the saying goes: Curiosity killed the cat. A giant blue hand reached out and grabbed his whole body: A thumb around the neck and four fingers around the rest. A loud crunch was followed by the sound of a body limply hitting the hard pavement below it. "Oops. Ey dropped it." "Wot'd yeh go 'n do agaeyn? Theht's sehm preper meat fer latehr." Two, massive blue figures came out of the smoke to look at what had been killed. They had a very muscular build, wore patchwork leather armor and boots with metal pieces on the joints, and possessed a large overbite with several crooked teeth attempting to escape their mandibles. They had no hair on their heads and had small, beady eyes with which to see the whole world around them. A few dozen more came out of whatever vessel they were in and started surveying the landscape. "Wut'd theh Big 'Un say teh do ageyn?" The clumsy one scratched his head. "Uhhh..." The second one put a large finger to his mouth and started drooling. "Oy have nehw eydea." A third came from behind the corner of a skyscraper with a mare in his clutches. "Look wheht ey din' found!" he cheerfully presented. "Wuzzat? Looks leyk sem keynda colerful meat 'fing wif feyr legs." "Could be good feyr eatin'." "P-please don't eat me!" the mare begged. She was crying and struggling against the massive hand around her neck. With a living pony next to them, one had a better perspective of their sizes. They were twice the size of a pony, perhaps as tall as Celestia, but they still varied in height. "Awww," one of them said. "It's beggin' fehr it's loyf." "Crump it?" "CRUMP DA GUMP!" "CRUMP DA GUMPS!" the others bellowed. The creatures all took black rifles from their backs and started shooting at everything in sight. 'Oomphers', as the rifles were called, simply because the cartridges faced inwards and could slam into the creatures' stomachs. The pony in question was as fortunate as the one who came before her, and the advent of more balls of fire and ships in orbit boded poorly for the city. "Grab teh best things yeh can get yer mitts on. We'ze geht sehm tings teh make!" One of them threw his arms into the air, roared, then front flipped through windows and part of the wall of a nearby building's entrance. "Everything is in hehr!" "Git it all!" In less than thirty minutes, an entire, sixty-story tall building ended up crumbling from the 'termites' infesting it and creating a creeping cloud of dust and debris in the city. Two weeks that the blue creatures had been ravaging and pillaging through the city. The multiple layers of walls did nothing to stop them, mainly because they kept coming from the sky and landing randomly throughout the city. The massive cylinders floating overheard screamed and bled smoke as though in pain, and they showered burning sections of themselves onto the landscape below. Pegasi trying to board them and kill the crew were met with flak and bullets streaking by them. They also got to see the crew swinging around on ropes and randomly hammering pieces of the ships back together whenever one fell down. They were incredibly fast and didn't care about the dangers accompanying such tasks, just that they could do them as soon as they could and as fast as they could. Down below, Ponyville was in shambles. Entire sections of the city were leveled and the playgrounds of soldiers and invaders. Hiding in the debris was one thing, but having to do so amidst the lifeless bodies surrounding you was something that even the ponies couldn't have prepared for, and it was affecting them mentally. More of the blue giants were rampaging through the streets and trying to break through heavily defended blockades at key chokepoints leading to Twilight's castle, and it was clear that even the slightest error would be fatal to the defenders. All the ranked soldiers bellowed orders to those under their command to defend or to attack, but neither were very useful. The blue creatures have even made artillery pieces and randomly placed them in the city. What this did was created various random zones dotted with craters, and the crew of these weapons didn't care who they were shooting, as long as they were shooting with the 'Giant Boomies'. That wasn't excluding the mechanical abominations they had created that were roaming the streets, and Twilight was about to enjoy such 'creativity' from such 'bored minds' first hoof. "Keep them back!" the alicorn shouted. "We've lost too many on that left flank. Go reinforce it with some more sandbags and soldiers, now!" Twilight heard the sound of pegasi flying overhead and towards the swarming blue masses. On their fore hooves were golden bracelets glowing orange, and the reason why was immediately apparent when they thrust them downwards: Fireballs came out and exploded against the ground, charring some of the blue creatures and tearing others to pieces. The lavender alicorn nodded in approval as she watched the ponies round the corner with due speed. "Good job, everypony. Keep this up." Canon fire by the earth ponies deafened her briefly, but she recovered rather quickly enough to see five flying machines chasing quickly after the pegasi. They had two-to-seven wings, had a flattened, cylindrical shape, and still belched out as much as the rest of their machines. In fact, there were even more of these creatures hanging onto the rudder and cheering loudly as their 'mounts' reared around the corner at full speed. The barricade of the ponies was little more than a few damaged tents placed in a four-way lane and protected by the destroyed buildings in its corners. Large and tall black walls had been erected by the earth ponies and sealed in place by the unicorns with openings big enough to fit canons through. Unicorns had small platforms from which to summon various spells to attack the invading blue creatures, but it wasn't enough, especially with the flying ships in orbit using their own canons to bombard the surface below. "Princess, how are we going to survive this?" a wounded soldier asked her. "These...these things. I've never seen anything like them before. Can't you use your magic to destroy them all?" Twilight shook her head. "I don't have that kind of power, and there are too many to attempt such a thing. I would rather use my magic to protect all of you here until Princesses Celestia and Luna arrive with their reinforcements." The pony blinked. "You got a message through?" Twilight nodded. "Yes, but with the trains out, it would take them three weeks to reach us, and I sent that message two weeks ago on the dawn of the invasion." Twilight levitated a piece of paper from a desk within a damaged tent to her and looked at it. "From this message, the train lines shut down while in transit, but I haven't --" A loud explosion interrupted her momentarily, and she brushed some debris out of her flowing mane. "I haven't heard anything since. I think they were intercepted by a group of these things out there." The pony struggled to sit up, but Twilight forced them back onto their mattress with her magic, certain that she would not undo the bandages around the pony's torso and left foreleg. "Princess, please. I can still help." "No. You're staying there," she commanded. "But I assure you--ah!" he winced in pain. "See! You're very hurt, and we don't have enough medical supplies to treat you again if your wounds op--" For just a brief moment, Twilight saw a pony and a large section of the barricade wall fly by her right side and punching through the opposite wall, taking more ponies with it. "PRINCESS! INCOMING ABOMINATION!" "CRUMP 'EM ALL!" the blue creatures yelled. "Weh ehr theh greatest feyters of all!" A giant, poorly built contraption on wheels rolled slowly towards the barricade and was sized at about fifteen meters by the ponies. It rolled on two large metal wheels while a long, tri-segmented, mechanical arm pushed it randomly across the floor as added propulsion. A torso rested on the armored section holding the wheels and possessed two arms ending both in large guns. The right 'hand' was an assortment of randomly sized pipes firing various calibers at irregular intervals at the pony barricade. The left 'hand', however, kept firing blue orbs that slowly dissolved whatever it went over, but it had a very poor reach, and considering the machine itself was only about fifteen meters (hundred and fifty feet) from the barricade, it had no chance of hurting anyone. Its head, on the other hand, was just a massive canon with its loading mechanism on the inside, which made it more efficient and destructive than the left arm, as Twilight witnessed. Its back belched out flames and smoke and sputtered with every mere millimeter the contraption made along the ground. Any normal person would run for the hills with the utmost certainty that the machine would explode. "What in Equestria is that thing?!" one of the guards shouted. "I don't know, but take it down!" Twilight ordered. "Use EVERYTHING you have at your disposal to shred it to pieces!" The small pony cannons weren't strong enough to destroy whatever the smoke belching machine was, and even more insulting was how its shoddy armor would get the cannon balls lodged into it to serve as even more armor for the massive thing. Unicorns tried throwing fireballs or even combining their magic to make a lava ball, but it wasn't working. For things of magic thrown against were blocked by a colorful-rag wearing magician of the creatures dancing in the background behind the line of fighters. More blue giants came around with giant, make-shift heavy weapons mounted onto their stomachs. Six long cartridges extended from the sides of these weapons, providing a lot of ammo for what the gunners wanted to do. Held in place around their waist and shoulders by thick straps, the gunner didn't care about his own well-being, so long as he could fire at the ponies. Of course, standing in the open next to the machine was a bad idea, but even a crossbow hit to the skull couldn't kill them. Their skulls were thick for just such an occasion. "Stay behind cover," Twilight ordered. "I'm going to erect a shield dome. They won't be able to get past it, but we can attack them!" The alicorn's horn crackled and glowed with focused magic then released it all outwards, creating a solid dome of purple that absorbed even the artillery shells. The lavender alicorn flinched from the explosive impact but stood her ground nevertheless. Some curious aliens charged at the shield with axe and mace in hand and bashed them on the shield, only to be shot multiple times by crossbow and magic bolt. Many of the ponies felt relief that they had been lacking for two weeks, but their was as resourceful as they came, and a flying ship rotated away from its trajectory and started opening fire as the stubborn dome. Such impacts were far deadlier than the artillery rounds, and Twilight screamed in pain as her horn was starting to give out under the stress!" "Princess!" multiple ponies yelled. They all ran to Twilight's aid, but she stopped them with a hoof. "Keep fighting them. I can hold." Many hesitated but were pressed by their comrades to do as their princess said. While the creatures themselves were collapsing, their machine wasn't, and further away, one could see several more of these contraptions coming up along with other machinery too far to be able to make out. The cannon-head, once next to the shield, sent out another of its strange orbs, but the millisecond it came into contact with the shield, Twilight howled and fell to the ground, writhing, shaking, and crying. Her dome flickered and dissipated, allowing the aliens to charge in and start shooting at everypony present. The barbaric creatures would grab ponies and shoot into them at point blank range while others found twisting them to be much more amusing and practical. A few of the remaining guards rushed to their princess and surrounded her. Their spears and bodies were the only shields Twilight had left. "Princess Celestia, I'm sorry," Twilight thought. A loud explosion accompanied by a bright flash attracted everyone's attention. A rectangular vessel with outward ridges of a strong metal rammed into the ship that had been firing at Twilight's shield and kept pushing the vessel until its entrails were shared with as many buildings and blocks as possible. One of them floated above the street and opened up a large compartment in its back. A large, metal cube dropped from there and crushed several aliens below. "Theh humes!" a blue alien shouted. "Theh humes ey'r the giant humes?" "Giant humes!" "Crump 'em dead!" Bullets were ineffective against the machine that rose from the impact point and its size dwarfed everything below it. It was quite a ways shorter than the giant contraption before it, but surpassed it with sheer quality. The machine stood on two thick, heavily armored legs meant to carry the large weight of its upper body which consisted of a single crew compartment flanked by multiple missile pods and other hidden goodies. A creeping missile barrage swept through the swath of alien soldiers and damaged the contraption, attracting its attention. More of the blue barbarians tried patching up their creation as best as possible, but it was pointless. In the head of the machine itself, flanking what would have been the glass window for the pilot, were two machine guns sniping the monsters off. Another volley blew the contraption to pieces whilst the blue giants charged to attack their new enemy, but the machine had been built with them in mind. The legs started humming. At first, the sound was quiet, but then started to gradually and smoothly strengthen in noise until a leg was lifted and thrust downwards. Whatever weapon it used deafened everyone around, threw the blue monsters around like pebbles, and shattered all glass around as well as damaging the already unstable structures even further. A circular pod slammed in front of the barricade where it opened and released six giant bipeds wearing thick armor. The metal wrapped around their joints unnaturally, the folds of metal actually sectioning into cubic forms glowing a neon blue whenever stress was applied onto them. The helmets these bipeds wore only had thin yellow slits serving as eyes, and a thin bit of metal protruded from their cheeks bones and thinned out at the top of the nose bridge. The metal went around the back of the helmets to meld into the metal. The upper right and lower left sections of their bodies were painted candy red while the other parts were admiral blue. The outlines of the pauldrons, gauntlets, knee pads, and boots differed in coloration between each that appeared, but most were black. The sole exception to this was one in a fully golden suit with a pitch black helmet. This one's hands were easily twice the size of his fellows and crackled with blue energy. It approached the fallen alicorn, punching away two of the blue monsters into the sixth floor of a nearby building, but found itself blocked by several wounded soldiers. "Don't you get any closer," one of them warned. "If you touch Princess Twilight you'll regret it!" The creature was not amused and approached, ignoring the threat of the spears. Ponies cried war and thrust their weapons into the biped's armor. Unfortunately, they could not hit the metal as a thin, blue barrier revealed itself with every strike, negating their attacks. "Equines creatures that can talk? What sort of abominations could these possibly be?" the golden figure pondered aloud. "You needn't worry, so long as you don't intend to war with us as well," it assured. "We're only here to deal with the puwandese aliens." Hunting the biggest one"The what?" the guard responded. "Those giant blue things invading you. They attacked our transport fleets and I dispatched a group of my pillar scieldans after them then joined up in the fight after learning how big this fleet truly was." The biped tapped his helmet a few times and looked upwards, where brief flashes of light broke through the blue sky. "We're currently fighting them in orbit around your world." "Impossible. No pony can reach Luna's stars!" The biped tilted his head. "I understood only the word 'impossible'. I guess I will have to work from that." Before he could continue, another pillar rushed to him. "My bregu, the sawol vice and tower geat are to arrive any minute." She looked at the armed ponies and stared for several seconds. "Are those colorful equine creatures?" "Yes." "They made all of this?" "Yes." "That's...very weird." "Do we have any pillar flaesc nearby?" the bregu asked. "The closest is establishing a barricade six blocks away and making a census of medical supplies." "Have them come here to see what they might be able to do for these equine creatures." "But--" "It will be something the Imperator Flaesc will appreciate: Exploration of alien biology." Twilight shook her head and forced herself up. Her noggin' was throbbin' like mad, and she knew that if she used magic, it would end poorly. A guard held up Twilight as her drowsiness made her teeter left and right."Easy, princess." "What happened? Are we dead?" "No. These...bipeds arrived and chased the blue giants away." The guard noticed the sparks coming from Twilight's aching horn and frowned. "Is your horn going to be okay?" "I don't...know. I can't use my magic." The golden biped hummed. "They can even use mana. Could be a threat to human kind in the future," he said with a dark undertone. "We don't want to attack anypony," Twilight struggled. "We just want to live tranquilly." "Hm. Well, if what I saw attacking you was correct, you got hit by a puwandese 'braapa'." "A what?" "It's the sound that the weapon makes coupled by the screams and eventual fall of the victims when hit." He mimed the actions with his giant hands. "They name things after the sounds they make and-or cause." "And who are you?" The biped tapped his helmet a few times and analyzed his surroundings. "I can tell you. You aren't a threat to us," he explained. "I am Killigan Ghor, known around some circles as 'Golden Fist' due to these weapons." "I thought you just had huge hands," the defensive guard commented. "I am the bregu of the pillar scieldan foundation know as the Emperor's Guard." "And what is a 'bregu' and 'pillar scieldan'?" Twilight asked. "Bregus are the highest ranking member of the pillar scieldan, and pillar scieldan are genetically crafted super soldiers of humanity." "And--" "No more questions. I don't trust you enough." Twilight groaned in annoyance. She was actually feeling her excitement for new knowledge coming back after so long."If you can't explain what you are, can you at least explain what those blue things are?" Killigan looked behind him to see the giant machine firing a single, large missile at more of the rolling contraptions, causing a massive explosion which ate away at the ground. "They are the puwandese." "I take it they love war," Twilight frowned. Killigan sighed. "They were the first aliens we encountered and one of our oldest enemies, yet we still don't really know how they work, but I am certain," he started. "That, despite their obvious technological limitations, that they have a primitive but efficient ruling system." "Oy'm yehr boss." "No, OY'M YEH'RE boss!" "Oy'm beggehr than yeh!" "Oy'm STRONGER than yeh!" "Neither of yeh's is the boss! Oy'm yer boss!"a booming voice shouted from atop the scrap walls. It was an immense puwandese, easily three times the size of the 'normal' ones below him. His overbite was more pronounced, and his lower jaw's teeth stuck out more as well. His skin was also turning a shade of blue-green with the green more apparent around the inner-areas of his body. He was covered head-to-toe in thick, multi-layered sheets of metal. A multi-barreled canon had been built into his armor's left arm with the twelves belts feeding into it coming from a gigantic backpack affixed rather haphazardly with string and chains. In his right hand was a metal fist complete with electrified spikes of varying sizes melted onto the surface. On a few points of his armor were some skulls of humanoid bipeds, while, over his right pectoral area hung a glass jar with some type of rotting, crab-like creature actively trying to escape its container. The colossus jumped down from the walls, crashing loudly into the ground. "Oy'm yehr boss, 'n when ehy say...Where'd they go?" The creature looked around, confused. The puwandese nearby pointed downwards to his feet, an area that the giant saw was occupied by two, newly crushed puwandese. "Oops," he said nonchalantly. "Eh, whatevehr. Weh'll get more aftehrwerds." He wiped his right hand on his chest, cleaning him of any responsibility. "Weht's yeh seyin', goyz? Yeh're be meykin' sem gud crumpy tings?" The colossus was in a camp made by the puwandese in front of the second wall's entrance, several groups of the leather-and-shrapnel fitted creatures were carrying debris to their engineers building everything up on a wide assortment of wheels and/or legs. There was no real rhyme or reason to how they put the pieces together. They just needed to fit and work. One of the machines blew up when a puwandese tried to turn it on, so he and the other merry builders built it back up exactly how it was before but, instead of putting a single piece of scrap metal sideways, they placed it diagonally, and then the contraption worked. "Send it oot!" One of the puwandese carried a massive, two-headed wrench easily bigger than his body, and wore a smithy apron and solid metal underneath, although it still demonstrated unrefined fusion lines where scraps were superheated on their edges and clumped together in hopes that they would fit. His left eye had been replaced by a multi-lens monocle allowing him to see the finer details up close and afar. He looked up to see the remaining floors of nearby skyscrapers converted into wire-rope transport that the puwandese had no trouble building. Puwandese would roll down them with the help of winches and shoot up them with the help of rockets. That wasn't to say they didn't transport equipment the same way. A large crate of metals and tools rolled down another skyscraper. Of course, without breaks, the wooden box they were held in was likely to punch its way through anything in the path on the floor, but several of the blue beasts held themselves together to take the incoming projectile, and they held. That wasn't the case when a second came down, smacking into the first box unexpectedly and flattening the catchers. The colossus tossed something red into his mouth and chewed it eagerly, wiping his mouth of slobber and observing his warband. "So oy hear theh humes iz heah," he remarked calmly. "Yeah, Big 'Un. They'z jest went 'n shehwed up when weh're were crumping up theh cahlerful thengs heah. Ruined mey pushie-guns." "Thehy wheht?!" The colossus backhanded a nearby puwandese accidentally, making him fly through another of the 'pushie-guns'. "Wheht abewt ehr sparkly 'uns?" The mechanic pointed to the same, cloth covered magician from earlier, having survived the arrival of the pillars that his fellows did not. He was still dancing by bouncing from one foot to the next and chanting tribal songs with thrumming beats created using his mana. This song was encouraging the nearby puwandese, making them work even faster. Without warning, he launched a ball of crackling energy into the air, impacting a pillar strike craft chasing after a puwandese one and causing the ship to plummet and explode just outside the walls. "Thehy seem teh be doing okaey." "Dats good, because thehs is mehy world, 'n MY warband gets teh crump it reall good, 'cause Oy'm theh biggest. OY'M the boss. Oy'm the strongest and cleverie...clav...OY'M DA THINKIEST OF ALL! Thehy're goin' teh bring theh Big' Un Crompa theh fun weh needs!" The other puwandese cheered in excitement and a truck passed by the big'un, nearly hitting him, but he wouldn't let that slide. He grabbed the back of the vehicle with his right hand, lifted it over his head with both, then chucked it into a group of 'pushie-guns'. "Theht's fehr rolling on moy feet!" "Can we fight them?" Twilight asked. "Considered your technology?" Killigan kicked a spear as he spoke. "No. You have no chance. You need powerful ranged weapons, and the one magitech weapon I noticed didn't do much." "Ah...So you saw the golf balls," Twilight sighed. Killigan was speechless. Not because of the name, but because he had absolutely no idea what 'golf' meant. He was more confused than anything. "So, what you're saying is that we depend wholly on you?" "Only if you have no control over mana." "By mana, do you mean 'magic'?" "I suppose so. We all tap into the essence of Mana Magis, or so I thought," he trailed off towards a darker tone. "But I take it you have strong mana connections?" "Oh yes," Twilight grinned. "Good. Then you will need to bring as many of your magus as you can. We have a giant to hunt, and our backup has just arrived," Killigan stated as another one of the immense, rectangular vessels came down from the sky. Worth every spellAuthor's Note Hoo-wee! Now that was tiring, but it was fun to write. I hope you enjoyed. Worth every spell After sending out messengers to the other barricades around the city, Twilight decided to be a more contributing factor for this sudden war. A wide cone of turbulent, purple magic engulfed the city in an ever widening chunk; devouring any puwandese caught within it and throwing them haphazardly all over the place. Twilight reveled in this chance to finally unleash her power after so long rather than needing to stay on the defensive. After the pillars blew up a camp set up by the blue monsters, Twilight summoned whips and crashed them into the ground at regular intervals between each other, tossing puwandese and their creations around like salad. "I'm impressed with your control over mana," Killigan complemented. "Thank you," Twilight responded. "But..." A puwandese magus appeared on a roof corner, dancing and grunting his tribalistic songs. He gestured holding something with both hands and swung from right to left. In tandem, an outstretched arm of magic sweept across the landscape, 'cleaning' what remained of the debris around. "WATCH OUT!" Twilight shouted. The lavender alicorn erected a barrier to block the arm, and the magus visibly struggled trying to force his arms forward. "I can't hold this for long!" Killigan remained silent for a moment, then nodded. "You don't need to worry. While the tower geat haven't been deployed, some tower forweall have. "Tower...forweall?" Twilight struggled. The arm dissolved as suddenly as it appeared, and the magus fell from he roof to crash into the earth below. He had received multiple bullets to the back of his head. Killigan knelt down and analyzed the marks. "It seems they brought in the geats equipped with prototype sniper helmets I designed and the weapons that Eriee designed. She does that position of head pillar craeft justice." Twilight was released from the strain and gasped for air. "What in the world are these geats?" "Elite pillars specialized in infiltration and assassination. Their armor is thinner and lighter than ours-" He tapped his shoulder plate. "-but provide the same amount of protection. It improves the wearer's agility and flexibility with no consequences to their body. As a consequence, it drains their mana exponentially." "Then what were the others you mentioned?" A group of the pushing contraptions burst through a partially collapsed wall and adjusted themselves to shoot at their targets, but were destroyed before they could do anything but pegasi carrying unicorns launching giant fireballs. "I do like these explosions you've been creating, equine." "Well--" "Let's keep going. They probably have a chieftain somewhere leading them all." The two continued through the burned streets, occasionally dodging falling rubble and debris from destroyed aircraft flailing about in a ball of fire to crash somewhere else. Pillars and Puwandese clashed about the environment, both having no need to falter in this war and wanting victory at all costs. "Watch out!" Twilight shouted. She used her magic to pull the giant biped back just before a giant puwandese smashed down into the cement. It was much larger than Killigan and bulkier to boot, but like all the blue monsters, it didn't think ahead. "Wheht?" it grumbled. "Moy claw ehrm is steck in thehs 'ard steff." Killigan shook his head in disappointment and rushed the beast, punching it once, then twice, and a final third time to finally kill it; Each blow creating a thunderous crack and powerful shock wave. "That was one of the stupider puwandese well on its way to becoming a big 'un," Killigan explained. "So, the bigger they get, the stupider they get?" Killigan shook his head. "The bigger they get, the stronger, smarter, and craftier they become, but it's only proportional to their base intelligence and strength." "So," Twilight pondered. "Does this mean that most of them are complete idiots despite being gigantic?" "Fortunately." "Fascinating." Twilight started salivating and giggled maniacally. "I need a specimen for my studies." Killigan stared at her in silence, occasionally moving his fingers during the awkward silence. Their attention was taken to a flight of stairs where a group of puwandese were gradually backing up whilst shooting at something in front of them. In a flash of blue light, they evaporated almost instantly, causing Twilight to scream briefly. "What was that?!" "Most likely a Sawol Vice with a mana discharger." "Wh-what is that?" "Uses the mana in your body as a weapon. It--" "Not that; a sawol vice!" Killigan chuckled. "Let's go that mass of debris built up like a hill should be our way forward. I have better things to do that explain the intricacies of mana with those not even liked to the realm of Mana Magis." Twilight huffed in annoyance and followed suite. They were attacked multiple times by more of the blue monsters and those much larger, much like the one encountered previously. Unfortunately for the blue barbarians, they found themselves sniped by the tower geat, smashed by Twilight, and for one unfortunate soul: Backhanded by Killigan through the same building it tried to ambush him from. Twilight instinctively raised a barrier for the two when they approached the mound. The puwandese had fortified the top with metal walls and slowly rotating, rapid firing turrets. Every successful hit dissolved Twilight's magic shield by a little bit, and she needed to focus to reform it. "Hmmm. They laced the turret's chamber with mana bullets, and it looks like their effect is to weaken any spell nearby," Killigan noted. "Then how do we stop it?!" Twilight strained. The biped pushed against the underside of his jaw and started talking. "This is Killigan Ghor. We are a fortified mound of the puwandese with no heavy support. Their turrets are laced with mana dissipators." "Stand by for tower forweall deployment. They have their own surprise for you." "Surprise?" Killian was cut off by the responder and looked at Twilight curiously. Four absolutely massive armored bipeds stomped from around the corner of nearby debris while carrying earth ponies. The giants' armor was extremely bulky and heavy, nigh four times that of the regular pillar scieldan armor and six times that of tower geat. Their helmets resembled towers with multiple 'murder holes' parallel to each other and separated by ramparts while the top of the helmets were completely flat. "Prepare to launch!" one them said. The earth ponies balled themselves up and were placed in the giants' right or left hand. "Aim!" They pulled back their arms, and Twilight could see their elbows and biceps glowing with a faint blue shimmer. "Throw!" "What?!" Twilight screamed. The ponies were jettisoned, practically breaking the sound barrier once they were separated from the hands. The blurry balls of fur crashed into the towers and walls, ripping them asunder whilst not harming the ponies themselves. They proceeded to pummel the puwandese around them while the blue fings were still dazed and confused. "Good work, towers. Now let us be continuing for--" Killigan was interrupted by a tower stopping him. "I apologize for this apparent lack of respect, but we need to activate our actuators," she explained. "Oh." He backed away. "Charge through the barricades." The tower nodded and rejoined her comrades. Before Twilight could ask anything, the massive creatures' legs started to hiss loudly and expel faint traces of steam and gas. "Let's go!" the tower commanded. The four zipped up the hill with little effort and walked through the wall of scrap as though there were nothing. The bregu hummed and thought a loud. "The first iteration of the actuators really do work as intended," he noted happily. "But...they produce too much noise and still have the backfire of straining the armor's leg pistons. I will need to consult with Eriee about this. Perhaps she can take care of the flaws...As long as she isn't still obsessed with building our titan vessel," he sighed despondently. "Titan?" "Nothing that concerns you. Let's go. The other pillars have been encircling the base here, so we shouldn't have to rely on our wits and the chaotic nature of the puwandese." Twilight's face puffed up. "You could be more polite, you know." "Politeness on the field of battle is overrated!" the bregu joked. Sure enough, a horde of pillars and the same giant mech from earlier were having a shootout, but neither party was making any leeway. Some pillars and puwandese had met in hand-to-hand combat and were more preoccupied with punching each other than the bullets whizzing past their heads. Many of the pillars chopped the puwandese apart with their swords -the glowan swol- sheathed in burning mana, but the armored giants weren't immune to losses and saw a few of their get cut down to size. Twilight looked at the giant mechs firing volley after volley of missiles at the fortified positions in the destroyed buildings and makeshift walls but not move forward. "Why aren't you attacking them with those huge machines?" she asked. "Because they aren't made for direct combat. Its intervention earlier was luck from a surprise attack. They aren't meant to fight like that. While the designs are somewhat stupid, they were made to carry multiple weapons with plentiful amounts of ammo whilst consuming as little fuel as possible." "Now what?" "Well, orbital bombardment is out of the question. Too much collateral damage, plus there's your people I need to think of. I wonder if--" "WHEHT'S THEES 'N? TROYIN' TEH CRUMP MOY NEHW STUFFS? EY WON'T LET YEHS!" The colossal puwandese ripped off one of the doors to his base and threw it at some puwandese further down the street, crushing them and taking an unaware pillar with it. The colossus bellowed in laughter. "Now theht's hehw yeh crump sem humes." His laughter was interrupted by Twilight approaching him angrily and looking up at him, straight into his eyes. "Listen here, brute," she started. "I want you to repair the damage you've done to my city, and then I want you gone. Am I clear?" The big'un looked surprised and just stared at her blankly. Killigan put a hand to his helmet and sighed, creating a collective facepalming event by most of the pillars around. Yet, Twilight persisted glaring at the beast, but it responded -finally- by erupting in laughter, taking the others with it into the collective hilarity. Twilight's face puffed up in annoyance. "Yehw hear theht? Theh toyny cahlerful thing wif a purple toof grehwin' eut its 'ead fings it cen ordeyr moy areynd." He knelt down, still gigantic in comparison to her, and smiled complacently. "Ere's wheht oy think: Yeh're genna geve me theht toof on yeh're 'ead, den geht royt in moy mouth ta--oof!" A massive flash of purple light came out of Twilight's horn, impacting into the chest of the colossus and launching it several dozen feet in the air to crash through two buildings. While he did get stuck in the third; a sky scraper of one hundred and twenty floors, he was all that the structure needed to let go of the small molecular bindings still keeping it up. A thick cloud of smoke and debris once again swept through the streets, but the puwandese were fixated on where their leader had been punted to. "There," Twilight wiped her forehooves clean. "I killed your boss. Now git before I do the same thing to you too!" "Kill the big 'un, I see," Killigan noted when he walked next to Twilight. "Yeah. If they're really so barbaric, once their leader is gone, they should run away screaming." Killigan shook his head in disappointment. "You really don't know anything about the outside world." "What?" "There's now an empty spot in their hierarchy. Now they're going to try to get to the top of the food chain at all costs." He turned around and shouted to his comrades through the speaker in his helmet. "Prepare for puwandese power struggle!" All the pillars locked themselves behind cover and aimed in every possible direction whilst the walkers knelt down and compacted into a 'box' shape. The blue creatures all cried war and started attacking and destroying everything around them all while declaring that they were the new big 'un. More pushers burst through the makeshift walls and started pounding on each other whilst others went still to attack the pillars hiding away. Luckily, the timely intervention of some pegasi and their unicorn compatriots managed to disperse the hordes, creating easy pickings for the geats further back to snipe in quick succession as well as the pillars themselves to shoot them all down. Killigan picked Twilight up and ran to the nearest cover where a few pillars and an earth pony from earlier were stowed. "Where are the forweall that were with you?" the bregu asked the pony. "Th-they rushed to the right of the complex and disappeared." "Hm. I know what they're doing." Loud, consecutive booms drowned out the yells of the puwandese. More explosions occurred in the reinforced camp. One pusher even lost control of its wheels and rolled through the walls to crash into a stone with puwandese around. The towers had grabbed twin, tri-barreled gatling cannons and were mowing down anything in their path. One of them wore gauntlets like Killigan and was pummeling everything into a pulp. Even the large puwandese had no chance. "OY'M GENNA CRUMP YA FEYR THEHT!" a furious voice threatened. The big 'un rushed from the debris and slammed through one of the towers, throwing him aside slightly. The big 'un had a massive scorch mark on his body, and his armor still burned red at the edges. "Yeh're genna pay fer that you are!" He aimed his weapon at Twilight hiding behind cover and let loose a flurry of bullets of various caliber, tearing up anything he aimed at. Twilight couldn't hold her shield appropriately, and the aetgar of the pillars did little more than inconvenience the behemoth with bouts of pain as they penetrated his thick hide. "Stehp that! Yeh're ruining moy moment!" "Pillars, keep away from him. He'll crush you with his strength." The big 'un bellowed in laughter. "That's royt oy will, now cem closehr so'z oy cen do jest theht!" Twilight broke her shield and rolled to the right behind cover. Evaluating the distance of the creature and its guns, she created a boomerang spell that the big 'un ignored complete. It hit him in his left shoulder, cutting up his weapon slightly. "Oy!" he shouted. "Theht's moy favorite! Stahp cuttin' it up!" He continued firing at the pillars and pony, but took the opportunity to pick up slabs of stone and concrete at his feet and lob them at the hiding humans. "For Equestriaaaaaa!" several ponies shouted. Ponies burst out from the sewers below, makeshift tools and farming equipment in hoof, intent on killing the giant. Whilst Killigan admired their bravery, Twilight did not. The big 'un laughed as he grabbed one by the head and threw it into another pony coming from his left. "Ho ho ho! This is fun! Come 'ere, cahlered meat. Yeh're gonna get crumped!" Some of the puwandese not affected by the brief power struggle started working in what was left of the camp, but they were immediately stopped by the towers present and a pillar vessel falling from the sky in flames that dumped its payload right before disappearing beyond a line of collapsed buildings. Containers crashed onto the puwandese constructs whilst the pillars themselves rolled upon landing, some even doing so into the puwandese themselves. The big 'un noticed and rushed towards them, using his weapon to punch multiple holes into their bodies, completely destroying their mana shield and their thick armor. "Ha ha ha! There's neh eh thing theht oy can't destroy with moy mega rumblah!" He continued catching and smacking the ponies against each other whilst pillars unloaded as much as they could into him. "We need a magus," Killigan spoke into his helmet. "Yes. I'm well aware these creatures are magic users and I have a strong one with me, but we need more of them to fight this big 'un. It's much larger than the usual breed, and a direct blow to its chest plus the damages of a collapsing building on it failed to terminate." Killigan nodded and fumbled under his jaw again. "Towers, focus only on the big 'un." Sniper fire from the geats were complimented by the gatling fire of the forweall still in the camp. The gauntlet wielders ran between their comrades and punched the giant, the thundering cracks deafening everyone around. "Gaaaah!" the big 'un cried. "Filthy creature. You won't acquire another planet from which to do your raids," a forweall said. "Just because you 'ave those wehird boom 'ands dinnae mean yeh're genna kill me." The giant punched the tower, but where heavy slabs of concrete his size were easily thrown, the tower barely even budged. The puwandese's face distorted to a mixture surprise and confusion. "Yeh're royt dense ye'r." He covered his face when the other two towers shot at him with their gatling cannons. Killigan looked to his side to see a robe wearing pillar -colors identical to his own foundation- approaching him quietly. "I'm here, my bregu." The bregu nodded and looked to Twilight. "Colorful equine." "Hm?" "I need you to use your magic against the puwandese big 'un again, but I need you to do so with my magus." "Why." "Because more mana in an individual spell can double its power as well as add some potentially interesting secondary traits," the magus explained. "Okay then. If you think it'll work." The magus clapped her gauntlets together, and a blue glow emanated from the forge lines. "It will," she confirmed. The two jumped out of cover and aimed at the puwandese currently preoccupied by the towers attacking it. "When you cast your spell," the magus started "I will add to it with my own mana. Ready?" Twilight nodded and gathered magic from the atmosphere seeing as she drained herself severely as of late. When the lavender clouds were done gathering, her horn glowed a bright purple, and with a glare and bared teeth from the pony, was fired at the puwandese in a concentrated beam. The magus, preparing for just that moment, performed multiple hand gestures and joined her own spell with Twilight's. The beam of solid magic soon began to distorts as streaks of purple and blue mixed together and the solid pillar of magic separated into four, intertwining threads. It impacted the big 'un entirely, pushing him back a little, but he stood firm. "Oy ain't...so easeh...teh kill!" He pushed against the beams head on, intent on crumping those attacking him, but he wasn't able to ignore the damages being caused. His armor was melting away and his skin was growing darker and darker as the magic burned him. One of the towers punched him in the side of his leg, making the giant howl in pain and collapse to the floor. "Whe blue fings eh'r theh toughest of all!" The magic, now unabated by the big 'un's stubborness, could destroy him with its raw force; and destroy him it did. The creature was flung backwards via multiple back flips to finally land -heavily- against the ground, its upper torso and head thoroughly melted. Killigan stood up and sighed. "I do like a fight with the puwandese big 'uns. It always takes a bit of craftiness to kill them." Twilight tried to say something, but every time she opened her mouth, nothing came. She was at a loss for words for these creatures that came from the stars. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a larger infestation to deal with. With the loss of their big 'un, the power struggle will reach all of the blue fings and eventually creative multiple chieftains making camps on this planet." "You mean it's not over?!" Killigan stared blankly at Twilight through his helmet. "What, you thought it would be that easy? Just be thankful they aren't xith'kai." "Wh...Wait!" Twilight called after the pillar. "If there's a war happening in Equestria, I know somepony who could help us!" "'Somepony'? You equines have strange mannerisms in your speech, let alone talking a language similar to ours." He paused for a moment and hummed. "Maybe we should look into that," he mumbled under his breath. "What?" "Nothing. Now then, my fellow pillars, we have more puwandese to destroy. For humanity!"
Now or neverAuthor's Note Might have four chapters in total. This wasn't meant to last so long. Now or never "Princess, there's a dispute over the percentages of shares of silks from the Saddle Arabians by two merchants importing them." "Did they sign a contract?" "N-no. They shook hooves on it--" "And now each is trying to say that they did the most work and deserve a large share. Tell the one who went to the country and negotiated the prices to import them here legally deserves a sixty-one point one percent share of the trade, and if there are any new items that pop up in the debate to take it to the import-export court. Give them something to do." Twilight was barreling through her crystal castle, accompanied by a small advisor pony. He wore a little black tie around his brown neck, and his mane and tail were both a slightly curled pink. His cutie mark was a pen drawing a wavy line on paper, and it showed. His saddle bags overflowed with scrolls, notes, and other poorly placed papers. As for the lavender alicorn, she wore royal apparel as befitting a princess. Of course, they were colored purple, but she wanted them to be a deep blue. She was as tall as Luna was now, and her mane and tail had gathered up so much magic over the years that they now waved without any outside intervention. With proper maintenance, they would behave like any pony's mane and tail, but Twilight much enjoyed this state of things. Her muzzle had elongated slightly and her figure became slimmer over the years, but her 'kind and unsure' disposition made way for a more 'matured' thought pattern; One that helped carve the Ponyville of today. Twilight stopped her walk and faced the small stallion. "Pinkfuit," she started. "You're overworked. You need a break." "But all the others are on vacation. As a descendant of an element of harmony, I find it my duty to--" The tall alicorn placed her hoof on the pony's mouth, stopping him, and gave him a worried smile. "You aren't Pinkie Pie. You don't need to pretend like you are or think that you owe me anything. Your ancestor did a lot for Equestria, and we did it TOGETHER. She didn't do it it for me." "But--" "This is a job that requires at least twelve ponies on a calm day, and this is a very busy day. I already have the diplomatic advisors and heads of each party." "And they can-- "Yes. There are several dozens members in each party, and only a hoof full will be needed during this busy day." Pinkfruit took a deep breath and tried to relax. "Okay. Before I leave, can I see the soldiers during inspection?" "Why? That isn't a place that you are allowed to go. These are trained warriors meant to protect the city, not a tourist attraction." Twilight leaned to the side and hid her annoyance very poorly. "Unlike those in Shetland..." she mumbled. "What?" "Nothing." Twilight tapped her head and sighed. "Alright, fine. You've worked hard enough to merit the chance to see their private quarters while I inspect, but if you interrupt me or the ranking officers, you get out and go home immediately, okay?" Pinkfruit bounced eagerly in place. "I always wanted to be a guard," he stated cheerfully. Then he shrunk down and his mane deflated. "But I was too small for it." His mane reminded Twilight so much of her old friend, but that was a long time ago and she didn't like to stay on that. "Well, it's not because you wanted something that you're necessarily good for it." Twilight chuckled. "I learned that the hard way." She stared into the abyss. "A VERY hard way, but that's a tale for another time. Follow me." Twilight's empty castle had become, over the years, easily capable of rivaling her former teacher's. Carpets of vibrant blues and purples lined the floors, stained glass windows depicting the dozens of actions the first elements performed in their lifetime awed those walking in the hallways, and dozens of ponies were around the clock to keep every inch of the castle in a clean state. Of course, the stained glass windows didn't depict just the FIRST elements. The guards awaited on the fourth floor balcony, where they would place all their training equipment and work all day long to not lose their edge. Only a small opening directly opposite the entrance showed any chance of anypony falling as the walls had been extended several feet above the floor, ensuring that even stray fireballs would hit the walls, and the amount of scorch marks from trainees proved this a smart idea. Twilight's own wore armor of identical color to her coat, mixed with aubergine purple and passport blue. Their helmets, much like Celestia's Royal Guard, covered both sides of their heads, but with the centuries that passed, metallurgy had improved, and so scales extended from them to cover and protect the guards' necks. A little beak extended slightly over their eyes to protect them from any excessive sunlight, and a blue jewel was placed where there would normally be a unicorn horn for pegasi and earth ponies. Their leg armor wrapped the lower legs several times, creating a scaling row of jutting 'dragon scales' stopping just above the knee whilst the scales for the hind legs were reversed. A delicate singular line traced and glowed along the sides of the body armor following waving pattern with smaller lines branching off into curls. "Princess Twilight!" a captain saluted. "Here for the inspection." "Yes, captain, and I'm already pleased with what I'm seeing." Twilight smiled. The stallion blushed. "Oh. T-thank you, princess." Twilight frowned and pointed at the guards. "I'm talking about the guards that were capable of presenting themselves today for inspection." "Oh. Right," he chuckled. "Say, what's that tiny pony doing there?" he asked. "He's only there to quell his curiosity once and for all. It's okay. If he speaks or interrupts, he's going out of here pronto." Twilight cleared her throat. "So, what weaponry have you been using lately?" Twilight asked. "We've been using spears, leg-mounted crossbows, shields, swords, and for the pegasi; double-bladed spears." Twilight nodded in approval. "Close and long range combat, but what about artillery, should somepony attack us from afar? The walls were built to protect my ponies, after all. What good are they if we have no way of destroying incoming siege equipment?" "The ballista and catapults have been placed, as well as unicorn-centered 'golf balls'." Twilight reared her head back. "What in the world are 'golf balls'?" "Well," the captain started. "They're a new type of weapon made by a mage and scientist in Stalliongrad that uses unicorn magic as a power source. It basically launches highly focused balls of magic at the target and explodes. It's handy in that it's not dangerous to the user as it is to the enemy, unlike a canon." "I see." Twilight frowned. "I'm not that happy about all these weapons." "But the day today isn't like it was in the past. We have genuine threats building up on the borders and in our own lands." The captain shrugged. "Evolution, eh?" Twilight was starting to feel melancholic. "Evolution," she repeated. "Hey, what's that?" Pinkfruit asked. "Okay, I warned you," Twilight said. "Get out." "But--" "Your princess told you to leave," the captain compounded. "You should do as she says. It's disrespectful." Pinkfruit pointed enthusiastically at the sky. "But there's a ball of fire coming from the sky!" Twilight rolled her eyes and looked behind her, but her assurance of it just being the stallion's imagination made way for shock and, quite simply, an inability to react appropriately to what was about to occur. A huge ball of fire really was falling from the sky, but it was going in a sharp, diagonal arc downwards like most catalogued meteors. Rather, it 'surfed' the air and punched through several buildings and landing somewhere in the western section of the city. Twilight could hear ponies screaming, but Celestia had taught her well how to control herself. "Get down there right away!" she ordered. "Keep the civilians away from the crash site and debris and help the medical teams--" A loud explosion erupted from the crash site, followed by what sounded like multiple thunder cracks. "Wooooo!" a low, gravely voice shouted from afar. Twilight looked towards the fires and sources of the screams in concern. She never heard a voice like that. "We're under attack," she said. "I don't know by whom, but I need you to--" "Princess," Pinkfruit started. "Look." Several more balls of fire were plummeting from the sky followed by long barrels of hastily put together metals. "They're coming from Luna's stars," the small stallion continued.
Crump da gumps! Crump 'em eyll!Ponies ran through the streets, some dodging the debris falling from the damaged skyscrapers; others not being as fortunate. Flashes and bursts of light came from the smoke of the impact site, punching little holes into walls, floors, benches, wagons, and even those simply having a walk on the sidewalk. One daring young stallion dared to muster up his courage and approach the smoke cloud despite everyone else fleeing for their lives. As the saying goes: Curiosity killed the cat. A giant blue hand reached out and grabbed his whole body: A thumb around the neck and four fingers around the rest. A loud crunch was followed by the sound of a body limply hitting the hard pavement below it. "Oops. Ey dropped it." "Wot'd yeh go 'n do agaeyn? Theht's sehm preper meat fer latehr." Two, massive blue figures came out of the smoke to look at what had been killed. They had a very muscular build, wore patchwork leather armor and boots with metal pieces on the joints, and possessed a large overbite with several crooked teeth attempting to escape their mandibles. They had no hair on their heads and had small, beady eyes with which to see the whole world around them. A few dozen more came out of whatever vessel they were in and started surveying the landscape. "Wut'd theh Big 'Un say teh do ageyn?" The clumsy one scratched his head. "Uhhh..." The second one put a large finger to his mouth and started drooling. "Oy have nehw eydea." A third came from behind the corner of a skyscraper with a mare in his clutches. "Look wheht ey din' found!" he cheerfully presented. "Wuzzat? Looks leyk sem keynda colerful meat 'fing wif feyr legs." "Could be good feyr eatin'." "P-please don't eat me!" the mare begged. She was crying and struggling against the massive hand around her neck. With a living pony next to them, one had a better perspective of their sizes. They were twice the size of a pony, perhaps as tall as Celestia, but they still varied in height. "Awww," one of them said. "It's beggin' fehr it's loyf." "Crump it?" "CRUMP DA GUMP!" "CRUMP DA GUMPS!" the others bellowed. The creatures all took black rifles from their backs and started shooting at everything in sight. 'Oomphers', as the rifles were called, simply because the cartridges faced inwards and could slam into the creatures' stomachs. The pony in question was as fortunate as the one who came before her, and the advent of more balls of fire and ships in orbit boded poorly for the city. "Grab teh best things yeh can get yer mitts on. We'ze geht sehm tings teh make!" One of them threw his arms into the air, roared, then front flipped through windows and part of the wall of a nearby building's entrance. "Everything is in hehr!" "Git it all!" In less than thirty minutes, an entire, sixty-story tall building ended up crumbling from the 'termites' infesting it and creating a creeping cloud of dust and debris in the city. Two weeks that the blue creatures had been ravaging and pillaging through the city. The multiple layers of walls did nothing to stop them, mainly because they kept coming from the sky and landing randomly throughout the city. The massive cylinders floating overheard screamed and bled smoke as though in pain, and they showered burning sections of themselves onto the landscape below. Pegasi trying to board them and kill the crew were met with flak and bullets streaking by them. They also got to see the crew swinging around on ropes and randomly hammering pieces of the ships back together whenever one fell down. They were incredibly fast and didn't care about the dangers accompanying such tasks, just that they could do them as soon as they could and as fast as they could. Down below, Ponyville was in shambles. Entire sections of the city were leveled and the playgrounds of soldiers and invaders. Hiding in the debris was one thing, but having to do so amidst the lifeless bodies surrounding you was something that even the ponies couldn't have prepared for, and it was affecting them mentally. More of the blue giants were rampaging through the streets and trying to break through heavily defended blockades at key chokepoints leading to Twilight's castle, and it was clear that even the slightest error would be fatal to the defenders. All the ranked soldiers bellowed orders to those under their command to defend or to attack, but neither were very useful. The blue creatures have even made artillery pieces and randomly placed them in the city. What this did was created various random zones dotted with craters, and the crew of these weapons didn't care who they were shooting, as long as they were shooting with the 'Giant Boomies'. That wasn't excluding the mechanical abominations they had created that were roaming the streets, and Twilight was about to enjoy such 'creativity' from such 'bored minds' first hoof. "Keep them back!" the alicorn shouted. "We've lost too many on that left flank. Go reinforce it with some more sandbags and soldiers, now!" Twilight heard the sound of pegasi flying overhead and towards the swarming blue masses. On their fore hooves were golden bracelets glowing orange, and the reason why was immediately apparent when they thrust them downwards: Fireballs came out and exploded against the ground, charring some of the blue creatures and tearing others to pieces. The lavender alicorn nodded in approval as she watched the ponies round the corner with due speed. "Good job, everypony. Keep this up." Canon fire by the earth ponies deafened her briefly, but she recovered rather quickly enough to see five flying machines chasing quickly after the pegasi. They had two-to-seven wings, had a flattened, cylindrical shape, and still belched out as much as the rest of their machines. In fact, there were even more of these creatures hanging onto the rudder and cheering loudly as their 'mounts' reared around the corner at full speed. The barricade of the ponies was little more than a few damaged tents placed in a four-way lane and protected by the destroyed buildings in its corners. Large and tall black walls had been erected by the earth ponies and sealed in place by the unicorns with openings big enough to fit canons through. Unicorns had small platforms from which to summon various spells to attack the invading blue creatures, but it wasn't enough, especially with the flying ships in orbit using their own canons to bombard the surface below. "Princess, how are we going to survive this?" a wounded soldier asked her. "These...these things. I've never seen anything like them before. Can't you use your magic to destroy them all?" Twilight shook her head. "I don't have that kind of power, and there are too many to attempt such a thing. I would rather use my magic to protect all of you here until Princesses Celestia and Luna arrive with their reinforcements." The pony blinked. "You got a message through?" Twilight nodded. "Yes, but with the trains out, it would take them three weeks to reach us, and I sent that message two weeks ago on the dawn of the invasion." Twilight levitated a piece of paper from a desk within a damaged tent to her and looked at it. "From this message, the train lines shut down while in transit, but I haven't --" A loud explosion interrupted her momentarily, and she brushed some debris out of her flowing mane. "I haven't heard anything since. I think they were intercepted by a group of these things out there." The pony struggled to sit up, but Twilight forced them back onto their mattress with her magic, certain that she would not undo the bandages around the pony's torso and left foreleg. "Princess, please. I can still help." "No. You're staying there," she commanded. "But I assure you--ah!" he winced in pain. "See! You're very hurt, and we don't have enough medical supplies to treat you again if your wounds op--" For just a brief moment, Twilight saw a pony and a large section of the barricade wall fly by her right side and punching through the opposite wall, taking more ponies with it. "PRINCESS! INCOMING ABOMINATION!" "CRUMP 'EM ALL!" the blue creatures yelled. "Weh ehr theh greatest feyters of all!" A giant, poorly built contraption on wheels rolled slowly towards the barricade and was sized at about fifteen meters by the ponies. It rolled on two large metal wheels while a long, tri-segmented, mechanical arm pushed it randomly across the floor as added propulsion. A torso rested on the armored section holding the wheels and possessed two arms ending both in large guns. The right 'hand' was an assortment of randomly sized pipes firing various calibers at irregular intervals at the pony barricade. The left 'hand', however, kept firing blue orbs that slowly dissolved whatever it went over, but it had a very poor reach, and considering the machine itself was only about fifteen meters (hundred and fifty feet) from the barricade, it had no chance of hurting anyone. Its head, on the other hand, was just a massive canon with its loading mechanism on the inside, which made it more efficient and destructive than the left arm, as Twilight witnessed. Its back belched out flames and smoke and sputtered with every mere millimeter the contraption made along the ground. Any normal person would run for the hills with the utmost certainty that the machine would explode. "What in Equestria is that thing?!" one of the guards shouted. "I don't know, but take it down!" Twilight ordered. "Use EVERYTHING you have at your disposal to shred it to pieces!" The small pony cannons weren't strong enough to destroy whatever the smoke belching machine was, and even more insulting was how its shoddy armor would get the cannon balls lodged into it to serve as even more armor for the massive thing. Unicorns tried throwing fireballs or even combining their magic to make a lava ball, but it wasn't working. For things of magic thrown against were blocked by a colorful-rag wearing magician of the creatures dancing in the background behind the line of fighters. More blue giants came around with giant, make-shift heavy weapons mounted onto their stomachs. Six long cartridges extended from the sides of these weapons, providing a lot of ammo for what the gunners wanted to do. Held in place around their waist and shoulders by thick straps, the gunner didn't care about his own well-being, so long as he could fire at the ponies. Of course, standing in the open next to the machine was a bad idea, but even a crossbow hit to the skull couldn't kill them. Their skulls were thick for just such an occasion. "Stay behind cover," Twilight ordered. "I'm going to erect a shield dome. They won't be able to get past it, but we can attack them!" The alicorn's horn crackled and glowed with focused magic then released it all outwards, creating a solid dome of purple that absorbed even the artillery shells. The lavender alicorn flinched from the explosive impact but stood her ground nevertheless. Some curious aliens charged at the shield with axe and mace in hand and bashed them on the shield, only to be shot multiple times by crossbow and magic bolt. Many of the ponies felt relief that they had been lacking for two weeks, but their was as resourceful as they came, and a flying ship rotated away from its trajectory and started opening fire as the stubborn dome. Such impacts were far deadlier than the artillery rounds, and Twilight screamed in pain as her horn was starting to give out under the stress!" "Princess!" multiple ponies yelled. They all ran to Twilight's aid, but she stopped them with a hoof. "Keep fighting them. I can hold." Many hesitated but were pressed by their comrades to do as their princess said. While the creatures themselves were collapsing, their machine wasn't, and further away, one could see several more of these contraptions coming up along with other machinery too far to be able to make out. The cannon-head, once next to the shield, sent out another of its strange orbs, but the millisecond it came into contact with the shield, Twilight howled and fell to the ground, writhing, shaking, and crying. Her dome flickered and dissipated, allowing the aliens to charge in and start shooting at everypony present. The barbaric creatures would grab ponies and shoot into them at point blank range while others found twisting them to be much more amusing and practical. A few of the remaining guards rushed to their princess and surrounded her. Their spears and bodies were the only shields Twilight had left. "Princess Celestia, I'm sorry," Twilight thought. A loud explosion accompanied by a bright flash attracted everyone's attention. A rectangular vessel with outward ridges of a strong metal rammed into the ship that had been firing at Twilight's shield and kept pushing the vessel until its entrails were shared with as many buildings and blocks as possible. One of them floated above the street and opened up a large compartment in its back. A large, metal cube dropped from there and crushed several aliens below. "Theh humes!" a blue alien shouted. "Theh humes ey'r the giant humes?" "Giant humes!" "Crump 'em dead!" Bullets were ineffective against the machine that rose from the impact point and its size dwarfed everything below it. It was quite a ways shorter than the giant contraption before it, but surpassed it with sheer quality. The machine stood on two thick, heavily armored legs meant to carry the large weight of its upper body which consisted of a single crew compartment flanked by multiple missile pods and other hidden goodies. A creeping missile barrage swept through the swath of alien soldiers and damaged the contraption, attracting its attention. More of the blue barbarians tried patching up their creation as best as possible, but it was pointless. In the head of the machine itself, flanking what would have been the glass window for the pilot, were two machine guns sniping the monsters off. Another volley blew the contraption to pieces whilst the blue giants charged to attack their new enemy, but the machine had been built with them in mind. The legs started humming. At first, the sound was quiet, but then started to gradually and smoothly strengthen in noise until a leg was lifted and thrust downwards. Whatever weapon it used deafened everyone around, threw the blue monsters around like pebbles, and shattered all glass around as well as damaging the already unstable structures even further. A circular pod slammed in front of the barricade where it opened and released six giant bipeds wearing thick armor. The metal wrapped around their joints unnaturally, the folds of metal actually sectioning into cubic forms glowing a neon blue whenever stress was applied onto them. The helmets these bipeds wore only had thin yellow slits serving as eyes, and a thin bit of metal protruded from their cheeks bones and thinned out at the top of the nose bridge. The metal went around the back of the helmets to meld into the metal. The upper right and lower left sections of their bodies were painted candy red while the other parts were admiral blue. The outlines of the pauldrons, gauntlets, knee pads, and boots differed in coloration between each that appeared, but most were black. The sole exception to this was one in a fully golden suit with a pitch black helmet. This one's hands were easily twice the size of his fellows and crackled with blue energy. It approached the fallen alicorn, punching away two of the blue monsters into the sixth floor of a nearby building, but found itself blocked by several wounded soldiers. "Don't you get any closer," one of them warned. "If you touch Princess Twilight you'll regret it!" The creature was not amused and approached, ignoring the threat of the spears. Ponies cried war and thrust their weapons into the biped's armor. Unfortunately, they could not hit the metal as a thin, blue barrier revealed itself with every strike, negating their attacks. "Equines creatures that can talk? What sort of abominations could these possibly be?" the golden figure pondered aloud. "You needn't worry, so long as you don't intend to war with us as well," it assured. "We're only here to deal with the puwandese aliens."
Hunting the biggest one"The what?" the guard responded. "Those giant blue things invading you. They attacked our transport fleets and I dispatched a group of my pillar scieldans after them then joined up in the fight after learning how big this fleet truly was." The biped tapped his helmet a few times and looked upwards, where brief flashes of light broke through the blue sky. "We're currently fighting them in orbit around your world." "Impossible. No pony can reach Luna's stars!" The biped tilted his head. "I understood only the word 'impossible'. I guess I will have to work from that." Before he could continue, another pillar rushed to him. "My bregu, the sawol vice and tower geat are to arrive any minute." She looked at the armed ponies and stared for several seconds. "Are those colorful equine creatures?" "Yes." "They made all of this?" "Yes." "That's...very weird." "Do we have any pillar flaesc nearby?" the bregu asked. "The closest is establishing a barricade six blocks away and making a census of medical supplies." "Have them come here to see what they might be able to do for these equine creatures." "But--" "It will be something the Imperator Flaesc will appreciate: Exploration of alien biology." Twilight shook her head and forced herself up. Her noggin' was throbbin' like mad, and she knew that if she used magic, it would end poorly. A guard held up Twilight as her drowsiness made her teeter left and right."Easy, princess." "What happened? Are we dead?" "No. These...bipeds arrived and chased the blue giants away." The guard noticed the sparks coming from Twilight's aching horn and frowned. "Is your horn going to be okay?" "I don't...know. I can't use my magic." The golden biped hummed. "They can even use mana. Could be a threat to human kind in the future," he said with a dark undertone. "We don't want to attack anypony," Twilight struggled. "We just want to live tranquilly." "Hm. Well, if what I saw attacking you was correct, you got hit by a puwandese 'braapa'." "A what?" "It's the sound that the weapon makes coupled by the screams and eventual fall of the victims when hit." He mimed the actions with his giant hands. "They name things after the sounds they make and-or cause." "And who are you?" The biped tapped his helmet a few times and analyzed his surroundings. "I can tell you. You aren't a threat to us," he explained. "I am Killigan Ghor, known around some circles as 'Golden Fist' due to these weapons." "I thought you just had huge hands," the defensive guard commented. "I am the bregu of the pillar scieldan foundation know as the Emperor's Guard." "And what is a 'bregu' and 'pillar scieldan'?" Twilight asked. "Bregus are the highest ranking member of the pillar scieldan, and pillar scieldan are genetically crafted super soldiers of humanity." "And--" "No more questions. I don't trust you enough." Twilight groaned in annoyance. She was actually feeling her excitement for new knowledge coming back after so long."If you can't explain what you are, can you at least explain what those blue things are?" Killigan looked behind him to see the giant machine firing a single, large missile at more of the rolling contraptions, causing a massive explosion which ate away at the ground. "They are the puwandese." "I take it they love war," Twilight frowned. Killigan sighed. "They were the first aliens we encountered and one of our oldest enemies, yet we still don't really know how they work, but I am certain," he started. "That, despite their obvious technological limitations, that they have a primitive but efficient ruling system." "Oy'm yehr boss." "No, OY'M YEH'RE boss!" "Oy'm beggehr than yeh!" "Oy'm STRONGER than yeh!" "Neither of yeh's is the boss! Oy'm yer boss!"a booming voice shouted from atop the scrap walls. It was an immense puwandese, easily three times the size of the 'normal' ones below him. His overbite was more pronounced, and his lower jaw's teeth stuck out more as well. His skin was also turning a shade of blue-green with the green more apparent around the inner-areas of his body. He was covered head-to-toe in thick, multi-layered sheets of metal. A multi-barreled canon had been built into his armor's left arm with the twelves belts feeding into it coming from a gigantic backpack affixed rather haphazardly with string and chains. In his right hand was a metal fist complete with electrified spikes of varying sizes melted onto the surface. On a few points of his armor were some skulls of humanoid bipeds, while, over his right pectoral area hung a glass jar with some type of rotting, crab-like creature actively trying to escape its container. The colossus jumped down from the walls, crashing loudly into the ground. "Oy'm yehr boss, 'n when ehy say...Where'd they go?" The creature looked around, confused. The puwandese nearby pointed downwards to his feet, an area that the giant saw was occupied by two, newly crushed puwandese. "Oops," he said nonchalantly. "Eh, whatevehr. Weh'll get more aftehrwerds." He wiped his right hand on his chest, cleaning him of any responsibility. "Weht's yeh seyin', goyz? Yeh're be meykin' sem gud crumpy tings?" The colossus was in a camp made by the puwandese in front of the second wall's entrance, several groups of the leather-and-shrapnel fitted creatures were carrying debris to their engineers building everything up on a wide assortment of wheels and/or legs. There was no real rhyme or reason to how they put the pieces together. They just needed to fit and work. One of the machines blew up when a puwandese tried to turn it on, so he and the other merry builders built it back up exactly how it was before but, instead of putting a single piece of scrap metal sideways, they placed it diagonally, and then the contraption worked. "Send it oot!" One of the puwandese carried a massive, two-headed wrench easily bigger than his body, and wore a smithy apron and solid metal underneath, although it still demonstrated unrefined fusion lines where scraps were superheated on their edges and clumped together in hopes that they would fit. His left eye had been replaced by a multi-lens monocle allowing him to see the finer details up close and afar. He looked up to see the remaining floors of nearby skyscrapers converted into wire-rope transport that the puwandese had no trouble building. Puwandese would roll down them with the help of winches and shoot up them with the help of rockets. That wasn't to say they didn't transport equipment the same way. A large crate of metals and tools rolled down another skyscraper. Of course, without breaks, the wooden box they were held in was likely to punch its way through anything in the path on the floor, but several of the blue beasts held themselves together to take the incoming projectile, and they held. That wasn't the case when a second came down, smacking into the first box unexpectedly and flattening the catchers. The colossus tossed something red into his mouth and chewed it eagerly, wiping his mouth of slobber and observing his warband. "So oy hear theh humes iz heah," he remarked calmly. "Yeah, Big 'Un. They'z jest went 'n shehwed up when weh're were crumping up theh cahlerful thengs heah. Ruined mey pushie-guns." "Thehy wheht?!" The colossus backhanded a nearby puwandese accidentally, making him fly through another of the 'pushie-guns'. "Wheht abewt ehr sparkly 'uns?" The mechanic pointed to the same, cloth covered magician from earlier, having survived the arrival of the pillars that his fellows did not. He was still dancing by bouncing from one foot to the next and chanting tribal songs with thrumming beats created using his mana. This song was encouraging the nearby puwandese, making them work even faster. Without warning, he launched a ball of crackling energy into the air, impacting a pillar strike craft chasing after a puwandese one and causing the ship to plummet and explode just outside the walls. "Thehy seem teh be doing okaey." "Dats good, because thehs is mehy world, 'n MY warband gets teh crump it reall good, 'cause Oy'm theh biggest. OY'M the boss. Oy'm the strongest and cleverie...clav...OY'M DA THINKIEST OF ALL! Thehy're goin' teh bring theh Big' Un Crompa theh fun weh needs!" The other puwandese cheered in excitement and a truck passed by the big'un, nearly hitting him, but he wouldn't let that slide. He grabbed the back of the vehicle with his right hand, lifted it over his head with both, then chucked it into a group of 'pushie-guns'. "Theht's fehr rolling on moy feet!" "Can we fight them?" Twilight asked. "Considered your technology?" Killigan kicked a spear as he spoke. "No. You have no chance. You need powerful ranged weapons, and the one magitech weapon I noticed didn't do much." "Ah...So you saw the golf balls," Twilight sighed. Killigan was speechless. Not because of the name, but because he had absolutely no idea what 'golf' meant. He was more confused than anything. "So, what you're saying is that we depend wholly on you?" "Only if you have no control over mana." "By mana, do you mean 'magic'?" "I suppose so. We all tap into the essence of Mana Magis, or so I thought," he trailed off towards a darker tone. "But I take it you have strong mana connections?" "Oh yes," Twilight grinned. "Good. Then you will need to bring as many of your magus as you can. We have a giant to hunt, and our backup has just arrived," Killigan stated as another one of the immense, rectangular vessels came down from the sky.
Worth every spellAuthor's Note Hoo-wee! Now that was tiring, but it was fun to write. I hope you enjoyed. Worth every spell After sending out messengers to the other barricades around the city, Twilight decided to be a more contributing factor for this sudden war. A wide cone of turbulent, purple magic engulfed the city in an ever widening chunk; devouring any puwandese caught within it and throwing them haphazardly all over the place. Twilight reveled in this chance to finally unleash her power after so long rather than needing to stay on the defensive. After the pillars blew up a camp set up by the blue monsters, Twilight summoned whips and crashed them into the ground at regular intervals between each other, tossing puwandese and their creations around like salad. "I'm impressed with your control over mana," Killigan complemented. "Thank you," Twilight responded. "But..." A puwandese magus appeared on a roof corner, dancing and grunting his tribalistic songs. He gestured holding something with both hands and swung from right to left. In tandem, an outstretched arm of magic sweept across the landscape, 'cleaning' what remained of the debris around. "WATCH OUT!" Twilight shouted. The lavender alicorn erected a barrier to block the arm, and the magus visibly struggled trying to force his arms forward. "I can't hold this for long!" Killigan remained silent for a moment, then nodded. "You don't need to worry. While the tower geat haven't been deployed, some tower forweall have. "Tower...forweall?" Twilight struggled. The arm dissolved as suddenly as it appeared, and the magus fell from he roof to crash into the earth below. He had received multiple bullets to the back of his head. Killigan knelt down and analyzed the marks. "It seems they brought in the geats equipped with prototype sniper helmets I designed and the weapons that Eriee designed. She does that position of head pillar craeft justice." Twilight was released from the strain and gasped for air. "What in the world are these geats?" "Elite pillars specialized in infiltration and assassination. Their armor is thinner and lighter than ours-" He tapped his shoulder plate. "-but provide the same amount of protection. It improves the wearer's agility and flexibility with no consequences to their body. As a consequence, it drains their mana exponentially." "Then what were the others you mentioned?" A group of the pushing contraptions burst through a partially collapsed wall and adjusted themselves to shoot at their targets, but were destroyed before they could do anything but pegasi carrying unicorns launching giant fireballs. "I do like these explosions you've been creating, equine." "Well--" "Let's keep going. They probably have a chieftain somewhere leading them all." The two continued through the burned streets, occasionally dodging falling rubble and debris from destroyed aircraft flailing about in a ball of fire to crash somewhere else. Pillars and Puwandese clashed about the environment, both having no need to falter in this war and wanting victory at all costs. "Watch out!" Twilight shouted. She used her magic to pull the giant biped back just before a giant puwandese smashed down into the cement. It was much larger than Killigan and bulkier to boot, but like all the blue monsters, it didn't think ahead. "Wheht?" it grumbled. "Moy claw ehrm is steck in thehs 'ard steff." Killigan shook his head in disappointment and rushed the beast, punching it once, then twice, and a final third time to finally kill it; Each blow creating a thunderous crack and powerful shock wave. "That was one of the stupider puwandese well on its way to becoming a big 'un," Killigan explained. "So, the bigger they get, the stupider they get?" Killigan shook his head. "The bigger they get, the stronger, smarter, and craftier they become, but it's only proportional to their base intelligence and strength." "So," Twilight pondered. "Does this mean that most of them are complete idiots despite being gigantic?" "Fortunately." "Fascinating." Twilight started salivating and giggled maniacally. "I need a specimen for my studies." Killigan stared at her in silence, occasionally moving his fingers during the awkward silence. Their attention was taken to a flight of stairs where a group of puwandese were gradually backing up whilst shooting at something in front of them. In a flash of blue light, they evaporated almost instantly, causing Twilight to scream briefly. "What was that?!" "Most likely a Sawol Vice with a mana discharger." "Wh-what is that?" "Uses the mana in your body as a weapon. It--" "Not that; a sawol vice!" Killigan chuckled. "Let's go that mass of debris built up like a hill should be our way forward. I have better things to do that explain the intricacies of mana with those not even liked to the realm of Mana Magis." Twilight huffed in annoyance and followed suite. They were attacked multiple times by more of the blue monsters and those much larger, much like the one encountered previously. Unfortunately for the blue barbarians, they found themselves sniped by the tower geat, smashed by Twilight, and for one unfortunate soul: Backhanded by Killigan through the same building it tried to ambush him from. Twilight instinctively raised a barrier for the two when they approached the mound. The puwandese had fortified the top with metal walls and slowly rotating, rapid firing turrets. Every successful hit dissolved Twilight's magic shield by a little bit, and she needed to focus to reform it. "Hmmm. They laced the turret's chamber with mana bullets, and it looks like their effect is to weaken any spell nearby," Killigan noted. "Then how do we stop it?!" Twilight strained. The biped pushed against the underside of his jaw and started talking. "This is Killigan Ghor. We are a fortified mound of the puwandese with no heavy support. Their turrets are laced with mana dissipators." "Stand by for tower forweall deployment. They have their own surprise for you." "Surprise?" Killian was cut off by the responder and looked at Twilight curiously. Four absolutely massive armored bipeds stomped from around the corner of nearby debris while carrying earth ponies. The giants' armor was extremely bulky and heavy, nigh four times that of the regular pillar scieldan armor and six times that of tower geat. Their helmets resembled towers with multiple 'murder holes' parallel to each other and separated by ramparts while the top of the helmets were completely flat. "Prepare to launch!" one them said. The earth ponies balled themselves up and were placed in the giants' right or left hand. "Aim!" They pulled back their arms, and Twilight could see their elbows and biceps glowing with a faint blue shimmer. "Throw!" "What?!" Twilight screamed. The ponies were jettisoned, practically breaking the sound barrier once they were separated from the hands. The blurry balls of fur crashed into the towers and walls, ripping them asunder whilst not harming the ponies themselves. They proceeded to pummel the puwandese around them while the blue fings were still dazed and confused. "Good work, towers. Now let us be continuing for--" Killigan was interrupted by a tower stopping him. "I apologize for this apparent lack of respect, but we need to activate our actuators," she explained. "Oh." He backed away. "Charge through the barricades." The tower nodded and rejoined her comrades. Before Twilight could ask anything, the massive creatures' legs started to hiss loudly and expel faint traces of steam and gas. "Let's go!" the tower commanded. The four zipped up the hill with little effort and walked through the wall of scrap as though there were nothing. The bregu hummed and thought a loud. "The first iteration of the actuators really do work as intended," he noted happily. "But...they produce too much noise and still have the backfire of straining the armor's leg pistons. I will need to consult with Eriee about this. Perhaps she can take care of the flaws...As long as she isn't still obsessed with building our titan vessel," he sighed despondently. "Titan?" "Nothing that concerns you. Let's go. The other pillars have been encircling the base here, so we shouldn't have to rely on our wits and the chaotic nature of the puwandese." Twilight's face puffed up. "You could be more polite, you know." "Politeness on the field of battle is overrated!" the bregu joked. Sure enough, a horde of pillars and the same giant mech from earlier were having a shootout, but neither party was making any leeway. Some pillars and puwandese had met in hand-to-hand combat and were more preoccupied with punching each other than the bullets whizzing past their heads. Many of the pillars chopped the puwandese apart with their swords -the glowan swol- sheathed in burning mana, but the armored giants weren't immune to losses and saw a few of their get cut down to size. Twilight looked at the giant mechs firing volley after volley of missiles at the fortified positions in the destroyed buildings and makeshift walls but not move forward. "Why aren't you attacking them with those huge machines?" she asked. "Because they aren't made for direct combat. Its intervention earlier was luck from a surprise attack. They aren't meant to fight like that. While the designs are somewhat stupid, they were made to carry multiple weapons with plentiful amounts of ammo whilst consuming as little fuel as possible." "Now what?" "Well, orbital bombardment is out of the question. Too much collateral damage, plus there's your people I need to think of. I wonder if--" "WHEHT'S THEES 'N? TROYIN' TEH CRUMP MOY NEHW STUFFS? EY WON'T LET YEHS!" The colossal puwandese ripped off one of the doors to his base and threw it at some puwandese further down the street, crushing them and taking an unaware pillar with it. The colossus bellowed in laughter. "Now theht's hehw yeh crump sem humes." His laughter was interrupted by Twilight approaching him angrily and looking up at him, straight into his eyes. "Listen here, brute," she started. "I want you to repair the damage you've done to my city, and then I want you gone. Am I clear?" The big'un looked surprised and just stared at her blankly. Killigan put a hand to his helmet and sighed, creating a collective facepalming event by most of the pillars around. Yet, Twilight persisted glaring at the beast, but it responded -finally- by erupting in laughter, taking the others with it into the collective hilarity. Twilight's face puffed up in annoyance. "Yehw hear theht? Theh toyny cahlerful thing wif a purple toof grehwin' eut its 'ead fings it cen ordeyr moy areynd." He knelt down, still gigantic in comparison to her, and smiled complacently. "Ere's wheht oy think: Yeh're genna geve me theht toof on yeh're 'ead, den geht royt in moy mouth ta--oof!" A massive flash of purple light came out of Twilight's horn, impacting into the chest of the colossus and launching it several dozen feet in the air to crash through two buildings. While he did get stuck in the third; a sky scraper of one hundred and twenty floors, he was all that the structure needed to let go of the small molecular bindings still keeping it up. A thick cloud of smoke and debris once again swept through the streets, but the puwandese were fixated on where their leader had been punted to. "There," Twilight wiped her forehooves clean. "I killed your boss. Now git before I do the same thing to you too!" "Kill the big 'un, I see," Killigan noted when he walked next to Twilight. "Yeah. If they're really so barbaric, once their leader is gone, they should run away screaming." Killigan shook his head in disappointment. "You really don't know anything about the outside world." "What?" "There's now an empty spot in their hierarchy. Now they're going to try to get to the top of the food chain at all costs." He turned around and shouted to his comrades through the speaker in his helmet. "Prepare for puwandese power struggle!" All the pillars locked themselves behind cover and aimed in every possible direction whilst the walkers knelt down and compacted into a 'box' shape. The blue creatures all cried war and started attacking and destroying everything around them all while declaring that they were the new big 'un. More pushers burst through the makeshift walls and started pounding on each other whilst others went still to attack the pillars hiding away. Luckily, the timely intervention of some pegasi and their unicorn compatriots managed to disperse the hordes, creating easy pickings for the geats further back to snipe in quick succession as well as the pillars themselves to shoot them all down. Killigan picked Twilight up and ran to the nearest cover where a few pillars and an earth pony from earlier were stowed. "Where are the forweall that were with you?" the bregu asked the pony. "Th-they rushed to the right of the complex and disappeared." "Hm. I know what they're doing." Loud, consecutive booms drowned out the yells of the puwandese. More explosions occurred in the reinforced camp. One pusher even lost control of its wheels and rolled through the walls to crash into a stone with puwandese around. The towers had grabbed twin, tri-barreled gatling cannons and were mowing down anything in their path. One of them wore gauntlets like Killigan and was pummeling everything into a pulp. Even the large puwandese had no chance. "OY'M GENNA CRUMP YA FEYR THEHT!" a furious voice threatened. The big 'un rushed from the debris and slammed through one of the towers, throwing him aside slightly. The big 'un had a massive scorch mark on his body, and his armor still burned red at the edges. "Yeh're genna pay fer that you are!" He aimed his weapon at Twilight hiding behind cover and let loose a flurry of bullets of various caliber, tearing up anything he aimed at. Twilight couldn't hold her shield appropriately, and the aetgar of the pillars did little more than inconvenience the behemoth with bouts of pain as they penetrated his thick hide. "Stehp that! Yeh're ruining moy moment!" "Pillars, keep away from him. He'll crush you with his strength." The big 'un bellowed in laughter. "That's royt oy will, now cem closehr so'z oy cen do jest theht!" Twilight broke her shield and rolled to the right behind cover. Evaluating the distance of the creature and its guns, she created a boomerang spell that the big 'un ignored complete. It hit him in his left shoulder, cutting up his weapon slightly. "Oy!" he shouted. "Theht's moy favorite! Stahp cuttin' it up!" He continued firing at the pillars and pony, but took the opportunity to pick up slabs of stone and concrete at his feet and lob them at the hiding humans. "For Equestriaaaaaa!" several ponies shouted. Ponies burst out from the sewers below, makeshift tools and farming equipment in hoof, intent on killing the giant. Whilst Killigan admired their bravery, Twilight did not. The big 'un laughed as he grabbed one by the head and threw it into another pony coming from his left. "Ho ho ho! This is fun! Come 'ere, cahlered meat. Yeh're gonna get crumped!" Some of the puwandese not affected by the brief power struggle started working in what was left of the camp, but they were immediately stopped by the towers present and a pillar vessel falling from the sky in flames that dumped its payload right before disappearing beyond a line of collapsed buildings. Containers crashed onto the puwandese constructs whilst the pillars themselves rolled upon landing, some even doing so into the puwandese themselves. The big 'un noticed and rushed towards them, using his weapon to punch multiple holes into their bodies, completely destroying their mana shield and their thick armor. "Ha ha ha! There's neh eh thing theht oy can't destroy with moy mega rumblah!" He continued catching and smacking the ponies against each other whilst pillars unloaded as much as they could into him. "We need a magus," Killigan spoke into his helmet. "Yes. I'm well aware these creatures are magic users and I have a strong one with me, but we need more of them to fight this big 'un. It's much larger than the usual breed, and a direct blow to its chest plus the damages of a collapsing building on it failed to terminate." Killigan nodded and fumbled under his jaw again. "Towers, focus only on the big 'un." Sniper fire from the geats were complimented by the gatling fire of the forweall still in the camp. The gauntlet wielders ran between their comrades and punched the giant, the thundering cracks deafening everyone around. "Gaaaah!" the big 'un cried. "Filthy creature. You won't acquire another planet from which to do your raids," a forweall said. "Just because you 'ave those wehird boom 'ands dinnae mean yeh're genna kill me." The giant punched the tower, but where heavy slabs of concrete his size were easily thrown, the tower barely even budged. The puwandese's face distorted to a mixture surprise and confusion. "Yeh're royt dense ye'r." He covered his face when the other two towers shot at him with their gatling cannons. Killigan looked to his side to see a robe wearing pillar -colors identical to his own foundation- approaching him quietly. "I'm here, my bregu." The bregu nodded and looked to Twilight. "Colorful equine." "Hm?" "I need you to use your magic against the puwandese big 'un again, but I need you to do so with my magus." "Why." "Because more mana in an individual spell can double its power as well as add some potentially interesting secondary traits," the magus explained. "Okay then. If you think it'll work." The magus clapped her gauntlets together, and a blue glow emanated from the forge lines. "It will," she confirmed. The two jumped out of cover and aimed at the puwandese currently preoccupied by the towers attacking it. "When you cast your spell," the magus started "I will add to it with my own mana. Ready?" Twilight nodded and gathered magic from the atmosphere seeing as she drained herself severely as of late. When the lavender clouds were done gathering, her horn glowed a bright purple, and with a glare and bared teeth from the pony, was fired at the puwandese in a concentrated beam. The magus, preparing for just that moment, performed multiple hand gestures and joined her own spell with Twilight's. The beam of solid magic soon began to distorts as streaks of purple and blue mixed together and the solid pillar of magic separated into four, intertwining threads. It impacted the big 'un entirely, pushing him back a little, but he stood firm. "Oy ain't...so easeh...teh kill!" He pushed against the beams head on, intent on crumping those attacking him, but he wasn't able to ignore the damages being caused. His armor was melting away and his skin was growing darker and darker as the magic burned him. One of the towers punched him in the side of his leg, making the giant howl in pain and collapse to the floor. "Whe blue fings eh'r theh toughest of all!" The magic, now unabated by the big 'un's stubborness, could destroy him with its raw force; and destroy him it did. The creature was flung backwards via multiple back flips to finally land -heavily- against the ground, its upper torso and head thoroughly melted. Killigan stood up and sighed. "I do like a fight with the puwandese big 'uns. It always takes a bit of craftiness to kill them." Twilight tried to say something, but every time she opened her mouth, nothing came. She was at a loss for words for these creatures that came from the stars. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a larger infestation to deal with. With the loss of their big 'un, the power struggle will reach all of the blue fings and eventually creative multiple chieftains making camps on this planet." "You mean it's not over?!" Killigan stared blankly at Twilight through his helmet. "What, you thought it would be that easy? Just be thankful they aren't xith'kai." "Wh...Wait!" Twilight called after the pillar. "If there's a war happening in Equestria, I know somepony who could help us!" "'Somepony'? You equines have strange mannerisms in your speech, let alone talking a language similar to ours." He paused for a moment and hummed. "Maybe we should look into that," he mumbled under his breath. "What?" "Nothing. Now then, my fellow pillars, we have more puwandese to destroy. For humanity!"
