Chapters Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Prolouge - fire in the night sky
Nighttime… A calm peaceful time of “day” that allowed many beings a time of rest, and for others, a time to roam the land. The night we are viewing takes about two days before where our story begins in the land of Equestria, in the Everfree forest, in a structure that is not unlike one of the buildings in the capital city Canter lot. It has been two month since the summer sun festival, and a full year since the return of nightmare moon, and more importantly Princess Luna. We join a black unicorn stallion on the roof of this structure to start this prologue; he has a black coat, blistering golden eyes, a golden mane, and a strange cutie mark on his flank. However this tale I am telling you is not his story. But it will provide insight for many things to come…
“Lousy heat wave… I can never get to sleep in the summer…” the stallion stepped out onto a balcony on top of the tower, standing just barely above the tree line of the Everfree forest. It didn’t take a good judge of character to see this was his usual attitude. He stepped over to a telescope near the railing and peered into it.
“Well I’ll be… that star… I’ve gotta tell Sid!” he then dashed back into the tower.
Inside the tower, another stallion sat, like his millennia old friend, he could not sleep. However, not due to the heat wave, he had something else on his mind. While he waited, he played a calming tune on the piano which occupied the back of his room. To a normal pony, he looked different; he had a green color, a black mane and jacket, a flight cap and goggles, a broad pair of wings and a unicorn horn. However, before any idiotic viewers who ignored our first character’s rant could start a flame war, said character had barged into the room.
“Sidways! You’ve got to see th-” he stopped short when he saw Sidways, as he was doing something that always ticked him off
“WHAT THE TARTARUS SID! How many times have I told you to stop turning on the hard light wings on your flight pack!?” the green unicorn stallion complied with his friends request and deactivated the pack. The unicorn turned to his friend.
“You know RaThor… most ponies don’t usually barge into another’s room just because they were doing something that was ticking them off, he then turned back to his piano and was about to resume playing when RaThor interrupted him again.
“There’s a star about to go supernova!”
“Why in Tartarus didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were wearing your stupid hard light wings again!” He shouted, running after Sidways
“Why won’t you just drop it?”
“Why do I have to tell you?”
“It’s because you screwed up your life when-”
“Shut up!”
“You left it pointed at the star right?” he glanced into the telescope. “Yup… that star is going to blow… in three days’ time by the looks of it.”
“We should tell the princess about it right?” Questioned RaThor.
The green unicorn gave a look to his partner, one that stated plainly “well duh!”
Dear Princess Celestia My partner, and your old friend RaThor has found that a star in deep space is about to go supernova I determined that the stars explosion will not pose a threat to any living being in this world, however as I have researched in my profession, supernovas can cause a rupture in time in space. This may cause a dimensional incursion with a possible alternate universe. You need not to worry about this until the supernova has passed, we will take care of any multiversal incidents.
Your friend and chief of the equestrian interdimesional research facility
Sidways Straxus
The stallion thought for a second before jotting down a note
P.S. apologies in advance if overdrive crashes through the castle wall again
“I know, important, fast as possible, don’t stop for no one, anything for your silly love letters to Luna.”
“IT’S NOT A LOVE LETTER!”
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 1 - Stormclouds and Snipers
"No the Clouds have to go here for the storm!!” Shouted a familiar, rainbow maned Pegasus.
“You’re putting them way too low! They have to go higher” a fiery orange Pegasus snapped back
“If they’re too high the heat will evaporate the water feather brain!” Rainbow Dash snapped back, pushing the cloud lower
“If they’re too low, then the wind that’s coming through will push them away balsa wings!” The other Pegasus shouted as she shoved the cloud back up
“The clouds are thick enough that they won’t move hot wings!” She shouts, shoving the cloud back
“Then the clouds will be twice as hard to push back when the wind blows them away Rainbow Crash!” The Pegasus yelled, bucking the cloud back into place
“Take that back radiator breath!”
“Not a chance technicolor!”
On the ground below, Applejack was pulling a cart of apples while Twilight told her about a letter she received from the princess.
“So what y’all is saying is that one of them stars up in the night sky is gonna go super… what was it called again?”
“supernova” the lavender unicorn replied. “it means that-”
“look, spare the fancy science talk, it means it gonna explode right?”
“yes, but-”
“Look Twi, you got the point across when you said it’s gonna explode, that’s all I need to know.”
Twilight sparkle sighed.
“Twitchy tail!” Twilight looked over at the voice. Pinkie pie was standing on the other side of the market square by sugarcube corner. Twilight knew what that meant, her eyes quickly surveying the skies above, before noticing Rainbow dash and another Pegasus shoving a cloud back and forth. She looked down at Applejack who was passing under them completely unaware of the danger. Without wasting time Twilight rushed forward
“Applejack!”
Applejack turned to her friend“Twi I told you I get the poi-”
Before she could finish her sentence Twilight sparkle tackled her out of the way just as the lightning cloud struck.
The lighting struck the cart Applejack was pulling just as Twilight tackled her away. Wood splinters and chunks of apples flew everywhere,and above it all was Rainbow dash and the other Pegasus shocked at what just happened.
“Look what you did featherbrain!”
We now look Into another universe, one quite different from the peaceful world of Equestria… it is filled with crime, the criminals here are the most destructive and menacing of all villains, but wherever the is villainy, a hero is there to stop it. However, our first character we meet will not be a hero, but a villain, whose deeds were stopped by these heroes.
Thunder was grumbling to himself. The tall brutish silver armored bot hated the heat wave that had come over Makuhero city. The brutish villain was currently on community service duty after a roster had been put up on the holopads in the villain containment area. He had lept at the chance. The darkness of the cells was unbearable and the hum of the laser security system was slowly driving him crazy. But now he was thinking about his choice, would he rather have gone slowly mad in his cell, or would he have rather dealt with the noise for the air conditioned cell?
“Well” he grumbled “too late to think about that now…” the service time he had signed up for was a construction job, several roads in the city were torn up from the rampage of a certain villain. “I swear” he silently thought to himself “if I ever get the chance, I will punch Core hunter in the face so hard, the only thing he’ll ever be hunting for is new optics” he continued his job, ripping up the old road, so a new one could be paved.
“Break time!” a call sounded from behind him. He just grumbled, he wasn’t allowed to take breaks per se, but it did mean he could slack off a bit. He looked over his shoulder. With Thunder being outside the villain containment center, he had a hero assigned to watch him so that he wouldn’t try anything. Nex was chatting with the workers on break, the rookie hero not taking his assignment seriously. But Thunder wasn’t an idiot, he knew that if he even twitched so much in a direction away from the worksite, the rookies probes would alert him, besides he didn’t even want to try running away, he was surprisingly close to being released for “good behavior” (the guards didn’t notice the sucker punch he threw at Drilldozer after he kept him up all night complaining about having his drill taken away) and he wasn’t about to throw a chance like that away.
“all citizens be advised” Thunder turned his attention to the radio that the workers were huddled around. “The villain known as Vapour has been spotted on the skyline of Makuhero city, if you have any knowledge to his current whereabouts, please contact hero factory immediately”
Almost as if on cue he felt as if he was being watched. He glanced upward, not turning his head spotting the black and blue sniper on top of a building across the street.
“shouldn’t you be working?” the orange hero questioned. Thunder looked at him. He could barely see it, but the orange color of Vapour’s laser sight could be noticed on Nex’s shoulder.
“does it feel like we’re being watched?” Thunder asked the hero. Nex just then noticed the sight on his shoulder.
“SNIPER!” he shouted, quickly firing at the rooftop Vapour was perched on.
The black and blue bot was startled, jumping out of the way revealing his presence to a lot more than Nex and the workers below. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a hero with gunmetal and orange armor flying towards him with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.
“Scrap” the irate sniper muttered. He was unaware of what Thunder pulled off, and he was very annoyed.
“Are you going to give up peacefully? Or are we going to do this the hard way?” the hero shouted as he landed on the rooftop.
“Well Bulk…” he said “why don’t you tell me” he threw a pale blue sphere filled with liquid in it towards the hero. Bulk had barely enough time to get away. The sphere hit the ground he was standing on moments ago and the roof they were standing on slowly began to rust.
“oxidium grenades?” the hero shouted, jumping back to avoid falling through the roof.
“liquid oxidium grenades my dumb brutish friend”, the villain sneered “they allow for a much more… controlled disintegration”
Bulk figured he had to take out the villain before he could do any more damage to the building, or him.
“That missed shot says othe-AUGH” the villain cried out and fell over, hit in the back with an ice blast shot, freezing him in place.
Bulk quickly cuffed the villain and looked over the edge of the building to see that the rocket had exploded as it hit far below. He activated his commlink to report the news. “This is Dunkan Bulk, I have captured Vapour, and I am requesting a medical transport now, we may have possible civilian injuries.” He watched as the smoke cleared to see Thunder struggling to get up after the rocket had hit him dead on.
“Scrap, that won’t be good for publicity”
“I am deeply disappointed in both of you!” the mayor’s voice boomed
Twilight sparkle was waiting outside the mayor’s office. Inside was Rainbow dash and the fiery orange pegasus, both of whom were being chewed out by mayor mare for their carelessness with the storm clouds had covered the market square with applesauce and splintered wood. Waiting with her were Pinkie pie, Applejack and Rarity.
“I’m surprised to see the mayor in such a bad mood” Rarity finally broke the awkward silence “she’s usually so cheerful.”
“Well if someone wound up making a mess of your house, you’d be mighty ticked as well.” Applejack mumbled.
“But they didn’t mess up her house silly!” Pinkie pie butted in
“That’s not the point Pinkie, they made a mess of the town, and she’s the pony in charge.” Applejack exclaimed.
“A very delicious mess! There was applesauce everywhere!”
“Please don’t remind me” Rarity mumbled. The applesauce had splattered as far as her boutique, just as she stepped outside to get some fresh air. A voice from outside town hall got their attention.
“Common Frostbite, you’re not really that mad at Inferno are you?” a voice of a stallion sounded
“Of course I am. We were both requested to assist with the rainstorm coming in and when I return from breakfast, the whole market is in a mess! I have told her many times to control her temper, and she never heeds my advice.”
“Probably because she hates your guts bro.”
“She ‘Hates your guts’ a lot more than mine Sparker-” A tall sky blue pegasus stallion with a black mask covering his face boomed as he opened the door , revealing himself and a yellow unicorn stallion behind him. “-and for the record, you are not my brother.”
The unicorn grumbled as he entered the town hall “it’s a figure of speech.”
The pegasus stallion turned his attention to the mares standing by the door to the mayor’s office. “Excuse me, is Mayor Mare in?” Twilight Sparkle looked at the stallion. He stood as tall as Big Macintosh, His snow white mane stuck out from his mask, his feathers appeared sharp and jagged, and an icicle cutie mark adorned his flank. As if to answer his question, the mayor once again raised her voice to the pegasi inside. Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes as she answered the stallion’s obvious question.
“Gee, do you think?”
Before the Pegasus could respond, the unicorn stallion interrupted him. “She means yes, Frostbite” the pegasus simply nodded, and sat down by the door. The unicorn stallion turned to twilight. “He doesn’t understand sarcasm… or idioms… or any sort of metaphor.”
“I see…” the lavender mare replied. She looked back at the pegasus who stared intently at the door to the office. Pinkie pie bounced over and tried to question him as she questioned all new ponies, however the stallion simply stared at the door with stoicism that would make even the royal guard jealous.
“The mayor isn’t really in a good mood is she?” Twilight sparkle turned back to the unicorn stallion. He stood the same height as her, he had a yellow coat similar to fluttershy’s, a darker yellow mane, bright green eyes, a caution sign yellow miner’s helmet and a solid yellow thunderbolt cutie mark.
“Not at all” She began “a friend of mine got in an argument with another pegasus over the positioning of some storm clouds, and wound up causing lightning to strike a cart of apples.”
“Let me guess, bright orange coat, fiery red mane, and a fire cutie mark? Sounds like Inferno to me” the stallion questioned.
Twilight blinked “how did you-”
“She’s my sister…” he grumbled “she’s stubborn, prideful, and has a hairpin trigger temper, but she only wants to help.” He looked like he was going to continue, but was interrupted by a sudden outburst from Pinkie pie.
“Ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch!”
Sparker turned towards the pink earth pony. “Is there something wro-”He was promptly cut off by the door swinging open in his face as the pegasus named Inferno stormed out angrily. Pinkie Pie began to bounce after her, presumably to ask the same questions she tried to ask of Frostbite.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, and I-”
“I’m busy” The pegasus snapped at her before charging out the front door and taking flight.
Pinkie, blissfully unaware of the cold reception from the fiery pegasi, just smiled and waved as she flew away “okay! I’ll talk to you later!”
Rarity and Applejack were helping poor Sparker up from the unexpected blow to his face. “Such horrid manners! It’s just disgraceful!”
“Disrespectful!” continued Frostbite, who had watched the scene unfold.
“dis- uh… dis… aw heck with it, just plain wrong!” Applejack ended bluntly. This earned her a look from Rarity.
Frostbite then walked into the mayor’s office. “Miss mayor, I believe you sent for me?” he kindly asked.
“Ah yes, Frostbite please take a seat.” She gestured to a chair next to the one Rainbow Dash sat in. The Stallion complied and gave a nod to Rainbow Dash, as if to say “hello”.
“Now as you are aware of by now, both Rainbow Dash and your sister Inferno-”
“She’s not my sister” he interrupted. “She and I are not related by bloodline.”
The Mayor nodded. “Well the point is they don’t get along well at all, and Inferno needs to learn how our weather team works, so I want you to take Rainbow dash and bring the town some rainclouds from the north, where the weather is cooler.”
“But I was supposed to help bring in the storm front in Tonight!” Rainbow Dash complained.
“With the delay you two caused with those rainclouds, you should be back on time.” The mayor replied, a hint of anger in her voice. Rainbow Dash quickly shied away, embarrassed of her mistake.
Frostbite then spoke up. “Mayor Mare, Inferno is a rather… sensitive mare, and she hardly learns from mistakes… and while I’m not around to keep an eye on her I believe she will need a mentor to help her control her temper and carelessness.”
The mayor sighed. “all of the pegasi are helping to put the storm together; the only one available is Fluttershy…”
“But she’ll be terrified of her!” Rainbow protested
“She’ll be fine.” Frostbite replied sternly “Inferno may be irate, but she would never lash out at a mare, especially one she doesn’t know.”
“It’s settled then” the Mayor decreed. “Now, I want you two back by tomorrow with those rainclouds from Stable town, Otherwise there will be consequences.”
“Yes ma’am” the two pegasi replied, before turning and leaving the town hall.
“Twilight Sparkle, Sparker.” The mayor called. The two unicorns glanced inside the office.
“Send for Fluttershy and Inferno please, I wish to speak to them.”
“Yes mayor mare” Twilight replied, however Sparker just groaned and went off to find his sister.
The mayor looked outside the office as the grumbling stallion and the element bearers left the town hall. “hopefully that will be all the trouble for today…”
Bulk and Nex walked back into the command center of hero factory after locking up Vapour and returning Thunder to his cell. “I’m just saying…” Nex continued “there’s just something wrong about that staff.” The staff in question was the black hole staff of Von Nebula, which was used against him to seal him inside the staff itself utilizing its mysterious powers. “and the way the villains look at it, it’s just eerie.”
Bulk sighed. He wasn’t very fond of the fast talking enthusiastic hero. Of the three rookies he commonly worked with, Nex wasn’t his favorite. If he had to have a partner, he would take another experienced hero, or at least Evo. But the rookie had a point. There was just something wrong about that staff. He looked around the command center. No heroes were bustling about, and the mission commanders were focused at their terminals. He walked over to Zib, one of the mission commanders he worked frequently. “Where is everyone Zib?”
Zib looked up “There’s been a large amount of crime sprees in the farther reaches of the galaxy, almost everyone has been dispatched to take care of it.” he stated “The only ones who are not on mission detail are Furno, Evo, Stringer, Stormer, Breez, Surge, and you two. Rocka just finished capturing Voltix as well. Oh and how well did the new armor work out for you Bulk? It’s still only in the prototype stage, and we have very high hopes for it.”
“It was for protection from Vapour’s high powered sniper rounds, one shot to your neck, and you would have been deactivated in an instant!” Zib snapped back. “But I’m still glad the armor worked out, soon it will be ready for all the heroes.”
“Yeah, where’s Stringer? We were gonna play a round of robo-ball.”
An incredibly loud guitar riff coming from research development answered his question, several of the mission commanders covering their ears.
Zib turned back to Bulk. “He’s been working on a new weapon after Core hunter ruined his sonic cannon… but knowing his taste in weaponry it sounds like it will work just fine.”
Nex grumbled. “I still can’t believe that core hunter got away.”
The door then opened up, Rocka walking into the room with the villain Voltix in tow, and Furno following close behind. Bulk couldn’t help but feel that the villain was smirking at something as the two heroes led him away.
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 2 - Countdown of the stars
Rainbow Dash wasn’t exactly happy after being sent to collect storm clouds from the north. It didn’t help that her companion for the journey was way too slow. She was getting impatient fast.
“Come on!” she shouted at Frostbite. “We’ll be late if you don’t speed up!” She never liked to be slowed down because of her teammates. At last Frostbite stopped and looked over to her.
“You know, Inferno was correct about the clouds.”
“Really? After all this time of me rushing you to get the job done faster, that’s all you have to say?! No, ‘quit rushing me’ or ‘it’s better to get a job done right, rather than fast?’!”
“You’re stereotyping me because you believe this mask makes me look like a ninja, aren’t you?”
Dash flinched. She actually had been doing that. “Um… well…yeah”
“Just as I thought, and for the record I’m not going fast because I doubt you have the ability to keep up with me for the duration of the trip.”
Rainbow dash turned to look at the stallion. “Are you saying that you’re faster than me!?”
“That isn’t what I’m saying-”
“Then prove it!”
“But I-”
“Right now!”
“What?”
“From here to Stable town! Last one there has to drag all the clouds back home!”
“It’s no use.” he thought. “She’s not going to let it drop, like Inferno.”
“I’ll even give you a head start!” Rainbow Dash boasted “just to see the look on your face when I leave you in the dust”
“Fine.” Frostbite could already see how this would end. Badly.
Fluttershy was wandering around the edge of the Everfree forest. The mayor had asked her to help out with the new weather pony after an accident in market square. Angel was riding along on her back, nibbling on a carrot. Fluttershy looked around. Sparker told her that the new pegasus was arranging clouds that had drifted towards the forest. “I hope she isn’t in a bad mood.” she whispered quietly to herself.
“Lousy stupid rainclouds!” a voice cried out. Fluttershy jumped up and hid in a bush. The only time she had ever heard a voice that angry was when Gilda the griffon shouted at her. She peeked out of the bush and looked around. In the sky was an orange coated pegasus with a red mane and a fire cutie mark. Fluttershy stepped out of the bush.
“Excuse me” she called, in a whisper.
The Pegasus didn’t hear her, and kept trying to move a large cluster of rainclouds.
“Excuse me” she called again, barely louder than the first time.
The Pegasus still couldn’t hear her, and tried to push the clouds away from the forest.
She drew in a deep breath and tried to shout.
“Excuse me”
Once again, her attempt to get her attention had failed. Angel bunny just face pawed. She jumped up on Fluttershy’s head, snapped of a bit of the carrot and threw it at the pegasus.
*Boink*
“What the?”
Then the rabbit whistled to get the pegasus’s attention. Inferno had finally noticed the shy pegasus and the rabbit, and glided down in front of them. The look of anger on her face had subsided to one of confusion.
“Is there a reason you need me, or do you two go around throwing bits of food at others for fun?”
“Oh no not at all, I just couldn’t get your attention, I’m very sorry” Fluttershy apologized.
Inferno stood well over Fluttershy’s height, about the same size as Princess Luna, and just about as intimidating to Fluttershy. “well?” the pegasus started, “is there something you need me for?”
“um well… mayor mare said that you needed some help-”
“I don’t need help with these rainclouds.” the pegasus growled. “If she believes that I don’t know what I’m doing, then she’s wrong.”
“umm, it’s not with the clouds-”
“When I am asked to help with the weather, the job gets done better and faster, so go back to your mayor and tell her I don’t need help!”
“It’s not the clouds; it’s something more about your temper.” Fluttershy whimpered, quite startled by her sudden change in mood.
“What.”
“She said that you needed someone to help with your short temper.”
Inferno looked like she was about to snap at the startled pegasus, but she stopped herself. She thought for a moment before turning to face her again. “Fine” she groaned. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. But there’s one thing I want you to do.”
Fluttershy smiled, she was quite happy about the new pegasus. “And that would be?”
“Just don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“So you’re Princess Celestia’s star pupil?” Sparker asked
“Yes, I was sent here originally to oversee the setup for the summer sun festival about a year ago. But now I stay here to study the magic of friendships.” Twilight was quite happy talking to Sparker; he showed a lot of interest in the town.
“It sounds a lot easier than my job; I work at the interdimesional research facility of Equestria in the Everfree forest.”
Twilight was shocked, most ponies wouldn’t even dare enter the Everfree forest, and the only one she knew lived there was Zecora. “You live in the Everfree forest!?”
“Well, the research facility is top security, and what better place to put it than in the middle of the one place no one dares set foot in.” Sparker replied, looking rather smug.
“So you know about the supernova?” Twilight questioned.
Sparker’s face quickly turned from smug to melancholic “Oh, right that’s happening tomorrow night.” He groaned. “it’s going to be another one of those weeks.”
Twilight didn’t expect his reaction. “what’s wrong?”
The stallion unicorn sighed. “It means that there is a very high chance of dimensional incursions, which means I’ll have to go all across the country, trying to see if anything got dropped in, or fell out of our world, and then I have to regulate the power to open the dimensional portal in order to send or bring back the foreign object. And none of it is a walk in the park.”
“Well, at least you’re keeping Equestria safe…” Twilight Sparkle said, in an attempt to comfort the sad stallion.
“Yes, but since we’re so top secret, we never get any thanks other than from a bunch of stuffy bureaucrats, the princess, and our leader.” He complained “and personally I doubt that the princess even means it when she thanks us. It’s always the same form letter I bet.”
“But it’s an important job to do, and you know that-”
“What? Someone has to do it? like managing the elements of harmony? Of course you six get plenty of recognition, but I doubt that you have to go through the same grueling hard work that comes with keeping or world safe from things from other dimensions! All you have to ever do is charge up those little trinkets and point them at whatever has put the kingdom in a state of disaster! We have to hunt down anything that shouldn’t belong here day or night, and don’t even get me started on how hard it is to put them back!” with that he turned and ran off, grumbling all the way.
Twilight was speechless. She thought about it for a moment, even after the Nightmare Moon incident, they weren’t by any standards famous. Ponyville was a small town, and almost everybody knew everybody, especially Pinkie Pie. The closest they ever were to famous was when Fluttershy had a brief stint as a supermodel. And the fame they had gotten from defeating Nightmare Moon and Discord faded rather quickly. “Maybe he just feels unappreciated.” She thought.
“Ugh….” Rainbow dash groaned. She felt weak, and her wingtips heavy. “What happened?” the last thing she remembered was challenging that boastful pegasus to a race, and after she took off after she gave him a head start.
“so you’re awake” a voice called. “I was getting rather worried after you crashed.”
“I crashed? How!? When!?”
“Settle down, you flew too fast in cold weather, and the ice on your wings caused you to crash. You’re lucky you didn’t break your wings, with the speed you crashed at.” Frostbite called “However you’re in no condition to fly I’m afraid, I tried to warn you that you would crash in this weather, however you paid no mind to my advice and learned your lesson the hard way.”
Rainbow Dash looked around. She was on top of a raincloud that was moving slowly. She looked over the edge and saw Frostbite pushing the clump of clouds along smoothly. “uh… thanks…” she mumbled. Inside however, she was somewhat upset. Not only did she wind up crashing and hurting her wings, she also wound up leaving all the work to a pegasus she hardly knew. Not a very good first impression to make with a newcomer. “look, I’m sorry that you have to do the work all by yourself.”
“it was part of the deal.”
Rainbow dash blinked. “I’m sorry, what? I didn’t catch that.”
“you crashed right into the middle of town square, several minutes before I arrived, you won.”
Rainbow Dash felt a bit better then. “well I did tell you I was the fastest.”
“For the record, I said you couldn’t keep up with me in the weather. It is standard procedure to routinely remove ice and snow from your wings in order to properly and safely fly through cold climates. I’m much more used to flying through freezing climates.” He then stopped and turned to face the rainbow maned pegasus. “You, however sped at dangerously high speeds through a cold high altitude storm climate and nearly paid the ultimate price. Any other pegasus could have broken their neck.” He finished sternly. “Just like Inferno would have done. I can see why you two cannot stand each other, you’re almost exactly alike!”
“What do you mean ‘Just like her’?” Inferno asked. She and Fluttershy had been working with the clouds over sweet apple acres for several hours now.
“Well…” Fluttershy started “you two are both very devoted two your friends, for starters, you both are prideful from what you’ve told me.” She was quite happy that Inferno had warmed up to her company.
Then the heard a voice from below. “You’ve done a great job with those clouds” Fluttershy looked over to see the weather team leader. “You’ve managed to more than make up for lost time!”
Inferno certainly was proud, and it showed. “so we’ve got nothing to do until tomorrow right?” The weather manager nodded.
“Yes! I’ll see you tomorrow Fluttershy!” and she flew off into the forest.
Fluttershy simply waved back and flew back towards her cottage as the sun slowly began to set.
Twilight sparkle was staring through her telescope at the night sky, searching for the star the princess had wrote about.
“Whatcha doin’ twilight?”
“Gah!” the unicorn jumped into the air. “Pinkie! Haven’t I told you to not sneak up on me!? What if I was practicing a spell and you caused it to backfire!?”
“Don’t be silly, the author won’t be using that silly excuse for this fanfic!”
“What do you- never mind…” Twilight sighed. As always, Pinkie Pie was being Pinkie Pie. “I’ve been trying to find that star that’s supposed to be going supernova tomorrow night.”
“Let me try!” Pinkie pushed Twilight away from the telescope, and span it as hard as she could. When it came to a stop, she peered through it. “Found it!”
Twilight stared at her in disbelief, checking the telescope to see that, indeed she had found the star. “how did you do that?”
“oh, it was easy-woah!” the pink pony began jittering like crazy. “f-f-full b-b-b-body shud-d-d-der”
Twilight gasped. She knew that meant a real doozy was about to happen. She was about to rush over to her friends side when a gleam of light caught her eye. She looked up and saw a blinding light in the sky. “The star!” then, before she could react, she was blinded by a light brighter than Celestia’s sun, a light that blanketed all of equestria.
However, unknown to all the ponies below, from the light, a group of twenty figures decended to the planet below.
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 3 - Breakout and Arrival
Thunder grumbled to himself, first there was Vapour’s unneeded attempt at rescue; Then Nex had ordered him of all bots to get the workers to safety and to top it all off he wound up getting hit by a stray rocket, and all this hype counted toward the construction site being worse off than before, and a terrible pain right in the middle of his robotic spine. “Just one more month and I’ll be released.” He sighed. “If only I could think of what I could do for work.” The clanking of footsteps brought him out of his train of thought. He stood up and walked over to the bars. Several of the other villains were jeering at the poor sap that got caught.
“We’ve been waitin’ for ya!”
“Voltix!”
“Hey Voltix! Now the party can start!”
“Poor, poor Voltix!”
Thunder just grumbled. He had no interest in the new capture. He snorted to himself. “What kind of lame name is that.” He heard the sound of a cell coming down for the new villain. He looked down to see Furno and a golden clad hero escort him to the new cell.
“Welcome to your new home Voltix.” The red hero said, gesturing to the cell
The golden hero shoved Voltix forward “the bad news is you’ll be staying here for a long, long time.”
“Finally” the villain mumbled, smirking.
Furno then returned the cuffs to Rocka, fitted with a new armor system and weaponry. “Nice villain catching, Rocka. I’m sure Mr. Makuro will give you a commendation when he gets back to Makuhero city.”
“Yeah! With this new upgrade, it was almost too easy!” the hero boasted proudly. The cell containing the newly captured Voltix lifted up. Behind it was a staff belonging to the most feared villain in the galaxy.
Furno flinched at the sight of the staff, when Stormer and he had fought against Von nebula; Stormer had taken the staff and sealed the villain inside of it. “Whoa… that thing still gives me the creeps.”
“Von nebula’s black hole staff?” Voltix sneered. “That’s funny, it gives me HOPE!” he then began crackling with energy.
“What’s he doing!?” Rocka shouted
As if to answer him, a black cloud of smoke erupted from Voltix’s body and flew out of the cell. Furno stared at the cloud; just barely he could make out the dark form in the cloud. Furno stood dumbfounded as the cloud flew around the workers in the cell block… until he saw what it was going after.
“The staff!” but it was too late. The ghostly form of Von nebula touched the staff, and the casing exploded, sending a shockwave out, knocking workers about.
*KRA-KOOM*
An explosion blew a hole through the roof, and a column of stars and darkness appeared through the hole. A few moments later, the laser security system failed, and Voltix jumped from his still rising cell to the floor below.
High up on the roof of the hero factory, two tall dark figures stood. In front of them, a recently blown hole in the roof, and below. The villain storage facility and ensuing chaos. Black phantom gazed down at the chaos interested. A blue hero was foolish trying to stop a rush of villains from escaping. A red hero punched Toxic Reapa towards the black hole; a white hero took a barrage of punches from Jawblade, shrugging it off like nothing.
“When do I get to rip more cores out?” a voice behind him grumbled. Black phantom scowled and turned to his partner, or as he himself would prefer, cannon fodder.
“You’ll get your chance eventually…bête…”
“I don’t speak German”
Black phantom did not like this plan. Sure, it was working sure it went of flawlessly, sure there was only nine heroes that could go after them, but he was partnered with Core Hunter. The black villain stood just barely shorter than him, he had quaza spikes jutting out of his soldiers, a chain gun in his right hand and his core remover. (Which he for von nebula knows why dubbed ‘pinchy’) he had a huge ammo pack on his back and a bandolier with nine hero cores adorned his front. “Its French dummkopf“he retorted, hiding his smirk.
“Oh…” the black and red villain went back to counting the shells he had in his ammo belt. In the meanwhile, Black phantom started counting.
“54… 55… 56…”
“What are you counting?”
Black phantom cradled his head in his hand. The moron he was partnered with was dense as iridium. And to make matters worse, he was the only thing between him and any heroes that were in the factory. “What do you think?”
Core hunter thought for a moment; however this miracle was disrupted by something he spotted near the black hole. A yellow hero had rushed over to the vortex and had tossed something through, sticking to Xplode as he passed through the portal. “They stuck a tracking device to Xplode!” black phantom looked over and was about to tell him off, but the villain had jumped into the vortex and disappeared.
“They all have tracking devices you moron!”
Core hunter soon found himself unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a dark crumbling stone complex. He glanced back and forth through the wreckage. Some broken windows, a bit over overgrowth, and some weird looking broken blue sparkling armor at the far end of the room. However all Core hunter cared about was smashing that tracking beacon attached to Xplode’s back… at least, until something in his head clicked.
“Hey! Wait a minute!”
He figured out what bête meant.
“Sorry about the damages…” Voltix cackled, staring back at the heroes. “Send us the bill!” and he jumped back into the vortex. He flew through the vortex towards the light. “At last, I finally can get back to work.” He was briefly blinded by a flash of light. When he regained his vision, he found himself falling through the air, a bright light from behind him illuminating the ground below. He landed on the ground, slightly shaken, but without damage. He looked around. Grass surrounded him in all directions. It was nighttime. He looked up in the sky. He saw a star fade from existence in the heavens above. He scanned the area. “There is power here, lots of it, but never in large clusters.” He heard a rumble in the distance. He turned to the southwest. A storm was blowing in his direction. He smiled. “Not the best way to gather power, but it will do…”
“Ugh… what happened…?” Thunder sat up. He went over what happened in the last two minutes. Voltix did something to the staff, the security system failed, everyone started escaping… but him. He thought harder. He remembered Rotor had jumped down and landed on the roof of his cell, the weight tipping the cell. Then he fell straight into the vortex. “Mystery solved” he muttered sarcastically to no one around. “Now to figure out where I am.” He looked around he was in the middle of a large forest. He saw the top of a tower in the distance. Deciding there was no other place to go; he stood up and walked towards the tower.
Black Phantom watched as Voltix jumped into the void, followed by its subsequent disappearance. He listen closely to the heroes below.
“Oh no! That was every villain in high security! What do we do!?” an orange hero stammered.
“Calm down rookie! We’re heroes! We don’t panic in a crisis!” the white hero shouted at the latter.
A voice came over the intercom; “all heroes report to mission command.”
He saw a red hero talk to the orange rookie, but he couldn’t make out the words. But he did hear the reverberating echo of the hero running straight into the door. When he was sure that the two had left, he rappelled down to the room below.
“Arachnix.” A silver drone spider crawled off his shoulder. “Wait for my signal.” The metal bug skittered off. The tall, lean black villain grinned. Without Core Hunter, it would be easier to sneak around.
“Twilight! Twilight! Twilight!” the pink pony shook her friend back and forth trying to wake her up. She panicked. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?” she thought. “Of course! Granny pie’s super special wake em’ up juice! She rushed into the kitchen and came back out almost instantaneously with a glass of a reddish liquid. However she tripped and spilled the glass over a pile of books.
“Whoopsie”
As if it were the magic words, the books instantly caught fire, which, as if by instinct woke the bookworm pony up
“Imsorrytwilightit’sjustthatyoucollapsedafteryoulookedintothatlightandyouwouldn’twakeupandiwassoworried-“ Twilight covered her friends mouth
“On second thought, never mind.” She trotted back to her telescope on the balcony. Peering through it she saw the star fade away into nothingness, a cloudy nebula in its place. She didn’t say it, but she was worried. The sound of something exploding did not help. “Pinkie!”
“It wasn’t me! It was outside of the town.” Pinkie was staring out of one of the windows. Twilight rushed over and looked outside there was the glow of a small fire outside the town’s edge. “Come on!” she shouted, and rushed outside, her party loving companion bouncing along beside her.
“Rainbow Dash!” a worried voice called. “Rainbow Dash!”
The cyan Pegasus stirred “what’s wrong Frostbite.” after the icy Pegasus had chewed her out about her reckless flying, she had dozed off to ignore him.
“I was just making sure you were alright.”
“What? Why wouldn’t I be?” she stood up and walked to the edge of the cloud.
“There was a huge flash of light, I was wondering if you hadn’t fallen off.”
“Trust me I’m all right.” She was about to go back to sleep when she noticed something.
“Frostbite, why aren’t we moving?”
“I… I can’t move”
“Were you struck by lightning?” Rainbow’s voice had changed from curiosity to concern.
“No, it isn’t that…” Rainbow dash noticed something, he wasn’t looking directly at her.
“Frostbite, how many feathers am I holding up?” she raised her unhurt wing in front of Frostbite.
“…two?”
“And now?”
“…five?”
“How about now?”
“……… eleven?”
Rainbow dash grabbed Frostbite by his front hooves and pulled him onto the cloud. “Frostbite, I’m going to take your mask off alright?” she pulled the ski mask off of his face. The stallion’s eyes were pure white, void of color. She waved a hoof in front of his face. “Frostbite, what was the last thing you did before waking me up?”
“I saw a bright flash out of the corner of my eye…”
“You’re blind.”
The stallion flinched at Rainbow Dash’s brutal honesty. “You mean the flash blinded me?”
“Yeah pretty much…”
“We’re stranded up here too, aren’t we?”
Rainbow dash thought for a moment. “Well… darn.”
Twilight came to a stop near the edge of town, a few ponies were barring the way, and the mayor was addressing the crowd.
“We are quite certain that the situation is under control! He have extinguished the fires and have roped off the area. Please return to your homes, we will be investigating this occurrence more thoroughly tomorrow morning!” the crowd slowly dispersed until only Twilight, Pinkie pie, the mayor, and the ponies who were roping off the area were left.
Twilight stepped forward. “Miss Mayor!” the mayor turned to face her. “Twilight, I already told everyone that we will be investigating this in the morning.”
“Miss Mayor, I’m princess Celestia’s student, and one of the bearers of the elements of harmony! This should be reported immediately!”
The mayor sighed. “I’m afraid it’s too dangerous to see up close, but you should be able to see it from the edge.” She led twilight sparkle to the edge of the crater, and the lavender pony looked down.
At the bottom of the pit, she could barely make out a twisted mass of metal. She couldn’t make out all the details, but she could make out the shape of a large rotary saw, something similar to an eagles talon, a few hoses, and two metal stakes. “It’s too dangerous to examine in the darkness with sharp objects like those down there.” The mayor continued. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Twilight Sparkle nodded, and turned to go home. The mayor looked back at the heap of metal, and walked away slowly.
*click-whirr*
In the middle of the mass of metal, a red glow appeared.
“XT4 reboot process complete.”
Princess Celestia sat upright in her bed, heavily breathing. “Another nightmare…” she got out of bed and walked to the balcony in her room. She glanced toward the heavens, seeing a lone star fade away. “Something’s not right…” she walked back into her study and looked over the letter that was sent from the research center in the Everfree forest. “Three days… but it’s only been two…” she smiled as she read the note at the end of the letter. Overload had wound up crashing through the wall again as usual, her cheerfully innocent smile and here obliviousness to the trouble she caused was always amusing, Like the look on the temporary guard captain’s face when she crashed through the wall of the barracks to leave. She then turn away and left her chamber. The royal guards by her door were surprised, she almost never was awake in at nighttime. “I’m leaving for the research facility in the Everfree forest, if my sister is curious to where I am.” The guards nodded as Celestia hastily made her way to the castle doors, and flew away. Her sudden departure was observed by her sister, standing on her balcony, as Celestia was only a minute ago.
“So, she’s troubled by it too…” she muttered to herself.
“Who wouldn’t be?”
The voice startled her. This was her private chamber, and the guards stood at her door day and night. “Who’s there?” she demanded “show thyself!”
The voice came again. It sounded familiar to her, but different. It spoke smoothly and coldly. “My, my, what a dreadful temper… all I did was speak my mind.” A star filled wisp of smoke gathered in the center of her room. “But it is rude of me to not introduce myself…” a tall black figure emerged from the fog. He stood as tall as Celestia, but his color was darker than that of a memory of Luna’s, one she wished to be forgotten. He stood on two legs, and had two claws, one of which held a strange staff. “I am Von Nebula, and I have a message for you… Princess Luna…”
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 4 - Introductions and intrusions
Twilight Sparkle woke up groggily early next morning. “Ugh… I can’t sleep.” She walked over to the window, peering through it; she could see the smoldering crater that had formed at the edge of town. She walked quietly downstairs. “Maybe some reading will put me back to sleep.”
“Who”
Twilight turned to the window. Sitting on his perch was Owlowiscious. Twilight sparkle managed to smile at here nighttime assistant, even in her tired state.
“Good morning Owlowiscious”
“Who”
“To you”
“Who”
“To you- right, you’re an owl…” Twilight giggled at her mistake. She looked over at the clock. “Five in the morning? I guess that’s not too early to start the day.” She walked into the kitchen and made her way towards a cupboard marked “in case of pinkie pie; lock cupboard” she opened up the cupboard and pulled out a coffeemaker.
Waiting for the water to heat up, she walked over to the window and looked outside. The moon was slowly lowering in the distance, and the soft glow of the sun could be seen coming over the horizon. The streets were empty, and the howl of a timber wolf could be heard coming from the Everfree forest. The sound of the wind slowly blowing through the village made it seem as though the town was deserted. The sky was filled with storm clouds for the storm later that day, and the sunrise illuminated them with colors. “It’s moments like this that make this place seem so peaceful.” Twilight thought. However, the peacefulness of the town was disrupted by a sharp exclamation.
“WOAH!” the sound of someone crashing snapped twilight out of her train of thought. She looked toward the source of the noise. She ran outside to find a strange sight. Just outside her door a figure with orange and white armor was face down in the ground.
“Oh my goodness! Are you alright?” twilight rushed over to the side of the figure. Upon further inspection, the figure appeared to be bipedal. He had two strange devices he was holding, one seemed to be an object which resembled a small cannon, and the other object resembled a metal shield.
“Oh… that smarts…” the figure groaned. “I’ve been through worse though.” The figure struggled to get to his feet, but collapsed to the ground. “Could you give me a hand?”
Twilight was perplexed by this predicament; she had hooves, not hands. “Um…”
“On second thought, just help me up.” The figure groaned. “My bad for the miscommunication.”
Twilight nodded and helped the figure to his feet with her magic. She levitated him inside and set him down on the couch. “You should rest here, you had a nasty fall.” She stated. “Even with that armor, you still might have broken something.”
The armored figure nodded. “Sorry if I scared you.” He rubbed the dirt from his eyes. “Was anyone else out there with me?” he looked over to Twilight and pulled a double take.
“Is there something wrong?” Twilight asked.
“Not really, it’s just equines don’t usually talk where I come from.” He looked around the library from the couch he was on. “Nor can they read…”
Twilight was skeptical at the figure’s statement. Every pony in Equestria could read. every pony on the planet even. “You’re not an alien are you?” she questioned.
“Well the term ‘alien’ is a bit rude, but I’m not from this planet at all.” He thought for a moment. “Do you have a star chart around here? I probably could show you.”
Twilight turned to Owlowiscious and nodded. The owl then flew from his perch and around the library. Then the lavender unicorn realized something. “Oh, how rude of me I haven’t introduced myself; I’m Twilight Sparkle, princess Celestia’s student and the caretaker of the Ponyville library.”
The figure stifled a laugh when she told him her name. “I’m sorry, I’m Julius Nex. And I’m a Hero.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at his statement. “Basically, think of it like an interstellar policeman. It’s our job to keep peace in the galaxy.” Owlowiscious flew over to him with a star chart. “Thank you” Nex then looked over the chart rather quickly. “well that’s unexpected.” Twilight walked over and looked at the chart. “Apparently…” he continued. “this galaxy is right next to the one I’m from.”
Thunder brushed aside another low hanging branch and stepped into the clearing. In front of him was the tower he saw from earlier. It was larger than he expected. He walked over to the door and knocked lightly on it.
“Occupied”
Thunder blinked. The tower was too big to be an outhouse. There was a wise guy at the door. He knocked again.
“Hey… no speak equestrian”
Thunder frowned; he knocked harder on the door.
“Go away! I’m reading twilight!”
Thunder snapped. “Open the door you wuss!”
“Never!”
Thunder growled. he briefly considered blasting the door down with his nebula gas cannon, but he wasn’t going to ruin his streak of good behavior… no matter how much the guy deserved it. Without thinking, he knocked on the door again.
“What’s the password?”
“Password?” Thunder parroted.
“Sorry, that was last week.”
Thunder was seriously considering whether he should break the door down or not. However, his sensors began acting up. Something powerful was heading his way. He had to hide. Of course, he got one of those bad ideas of how to hide.
Princess Celestia flew over the Everfree forest. even though she was the most powerful being in Equestria, she was cautious. Her nightmares seemed to become more realistic with each passing day. “where is it?” she scanned the forest below until she spotted a tower in a large clearing. She flew down and landed in front of the door. “What in the world?” Next to the door was a strange metal statue. “I’ll never understand his taste in art.” She then turned back to the door and knocked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Princess Celestia, I’m here to see-”
“he’s not here”
Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow at the rather rude response from the door guard. “well then-”
“he’s not here either”
“well-”
“no, no one is home, come back never”
Celestia frowned. The facility wouldn’t like her breaking the door down again, but this was important royal business. using her magic, she reached over and lifted the statue up, preparing to ram the door down with it.
“HEY! Put me down!”
Surprised by the voice the princess threw the statue straight through the door, causing a crash and a series of cries of pain from the other side.
“Oh God the back of my neck!”
“my leg!”
“MY ARM!”
The Princess cringed with each yelp of pain she heard. A voice chimed in on the intercom from the door.
Finally a small explosion could be heard from far inside the tower, followed closely by a sharp exclamation.
“MEDIC!”
Several minutes later
“Remind me to never put Star Vortex on guard duty again.” Sidways grumbled as princess Celestia walked alongside him. On his back were fresh bandages from his jetpack exploding, caused by the statue from earlier crushing it. “She always has been a brat.”
“I’m sorry about that little accident.” Celestia apologized
“Don’t be, I would have rigged it with C-4” the green unicorn replied.
“Melted it to sludge!” a fiery pegasus called.
“pulverized it to powder!” A red filly joined in.
“blasted it to kingdom come!” a yellow stallion called.
“Have it sliced and diced!” a green earth pony mare finished.
Celestia felt a bit better about the whole ordeal. “Is RaThor here, I need to speak with him.”
The unicorn stallion nodded. “he’s in the forge as usual.”
“Thank you” Celestia turned and walked away. Walking towards the forge where RaThor worked, the temperature rose to beyond what was natural in Equestria, even with the powerful heat wave that had covered the surrounding area. Stepping through the door, she was welcomed with a blast of heat. She looked around the room and called out.
“RaThor!”
“What is it?” the black and gold unicorn seemingly stepped out of nowhere. “Oh Princess Celestia. It’s been a while, how have you been? ”
“Just fine RaThor.” The princess said hastily. “I need some help however…”
The Unicorn’s smile faded from his face. “More nightmares?” he thought for a moment. He gestured to a nearby table. “Take a seat, I think this will take a while…” The princess slowly walked toward a workbench with a few seats around it, and the table was cluttered with scrap metal. “sorry bout’ the mess, I was in the middle of crafting.” The stallion sat down at the table. “I’m assuming it doesn’t have anything to do with Discord or Nightmare Moon.” The princess raised an eyebrow at his statement. “The look in your eyes says it all… it’s nothing you’ve seen before. And stop looking at me like I’m reading your mind, it’s annoying.” The stallion snapped.
“it’s true that neither of them were in my dream. I don’t know how to describe it… whenever it shows up in my dreams, it’s surrounded by flames…” the princess paused.
“And?”
“And I can’t do anything to stop it.”
“Ya say you just found him out there?”
“Eeyup.”
“And he was stuck headfirst in the ground?”
“Eeyup.”
Applejack looked over the unconscious being in front of them. It was most dark grey with spots of orange, and it had a silver head with some rather uncomfortable looking armor upon its shoulders and what appeared to be a cannon in one hand, and some strange device mounted on its back. The figure was about a hundred yards away from the barn, and Big Macintosh had only found him minutes ago.
“Common Big Mac, let’s get him in the cart and bring him back to the barn.”
Big Macintosh nodded and began to roll the huge metal figure into the cart. Big Macintosh stopped when he saw something. The figures chest plate armor was decorated with a golden machine-like decal that resembled gears in a clock, and in the center of it, a glowing white and cyan circle object with the letter H was attached to the armor. Big Mac looked over at Applejack, who was just as confused as he was.
“What do ya reckon it’s supposed to be?” the orange earth pony questioned, and began reaching for the strange object. Before she could react, the figure’s hands shot up and grabbed her hoof before she could touch the glowing insignia. “Whoa nelly!”
“Don’t touch.”
Applejack looked up. The figure was still unconscious, but she could tell that he said it. She wriggled her hoof free and looked back at Big Macintosh.
“Let’s get him back to the barn; I’ll get twilight to look at soon. She’ll probably make heads or tails of this thing.”
“Eeyup”
*Ring!*
Fluttershy got up out of bed and shut off the alarm clock by her bed. She went about her morning routine, fixing breakfast for herself and Angel, brushing her teeth and feeding the animals she took care of. She liked the peace and quiet in the morning.
*HOWL*
The same peace and quiet that had been interrupted by a very angry wolf. “Eep!” Fluttershy froze and turned to the source of the sound in the Everfree forest, while various animals ran, flew, and scuttled back to their homes in fluttershy’s yard. Something Fluttershy would have done as well, had something not caught her eye; a flash of yellow and grey moving into the forest. “Wait! Stop!” she called, but it wouldn’t listen. As the mysterious figure retreated into the forest, she thought to herself. “He might get hurt if he comes across a wolf.” Though she didn’t like the idea; she had made up her mind.
“Angel, watch the house while I’m gone, I mean if you would please…”
The rabbit gave a quick salute, and she flew, slowly into the Everfree forest. As she faded from view, angel strolled back into the house. Making sure no one else was around, he snuck over to the closet, pulled out a small white fedora, and stood in the middle of the room, starting to monologue to himself.
“You are one of the top Problem Sleuths in the city. Solicitations for your service are numerous in quantity. Compensation, adequate. It is a balmy summer morning. You are feeling particularly hard boiled today.”
What will you do?
Spike woke up groggily from bed. He yawned, and slowly made his way downstairs for breakfast.
“Spike! Are you up yet?” Twilight called from downstairs.
“Yeah Twilight” he said, still half asleep as he slowly made his way to the kitchen, and hopped on his chair at the breakfast table. A plate of waffles slid across the table to his spot. “thanks” he muttered.
“No problem, mate”
Spike stopped and thought for a moment. That wasn’t Twlight’s voice. He looked up and saw, working at the countertop stove an orange and white robot. Of course, this early in the morning, spike couldn’t muster up a proper reaction. “Twilight, why is a robot making us breakfast?” he asked in a very tired voice.
Twilight looked up from her plate. “This is Julius Nex. He’s apparently a police robot, or something similar.”
“The proper term is a Hero, really.” The robot called over his shoulder. “And, as for breakfast, it’s a thank you for Twilight helping me out when I had a nasty fall.” Spike just shrugged and went back to eating his plate of waffles while Nex turned off the stove. A knock on the library door was heard. Twilight walked to the door.
“I’m coming” she called. She opened the door and Applejack walked in.
“Mornin’ sugarcube.” The orange mare greeted Twilight. “ah didn’t interrupt anything did I?”
“Hello applejack, no we were just finishing breakfast.”
“Listen, I found something weird down at the farm, and I think you should go… check it…… out.” Applejack’s voice trailed off as her gaze rested upon Nex, who had just walked into the room.
“er… hello.”
“GRRRAUGH!!” Thunder threw the broken bits of furniture and machinery of off him. “Note to self. NEVER AGAIN.” He the grumpily started wandering around, not particularly familiar with how he wound up so far in the tower. “step one, teach the door guard a lesson, step two, suck up to the locals so they’ll let me off easy, step three, go home.” He wandered around before picking up a large source off energy moving near him.
“Well, thank you for visiting us Celestia, It’s not often we get company here.”
“Thank you for helping me with your insight about these nightmares RaThor.”
“I’m a psychologist, that’s my job, even you remember that after so long right?”
Thunder hid behind a large crate, waiting for them to pass by. Two of them, a black and gold horse, and the one that tried to use him as a battering ram. He stayed quiet until they passed by.
“Perfectly fine now, but she’s got quite a penchant for those video games.”
“I know, Sidways plays online multiplayer with her. Woe betide any player who come across those two.”
The princess chuckled “I’m assuming they play the game… what was it called? Team... Fabulous 2? "
The stallion burst into laughter. “Remind me to tell you the difference between video games and internet videos again sometime.”
Soon, they were out of sight. Thunder followed them before noticing a door to his right. “Datacore access? I guess that would tell me where the heck I am." He walked over and put his hand on the door. At once, and alarm bell started ringing. “Scrap.”
No one was prepared for what happened next.
Author's Note
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
chapter 5 - planning and problems
Vapour and Corroder looked at the scene ahead of them. A small gathering of villains had gathered in the ruins of an old castle in the forest several of them had landed in.
“-and the worst part is…” Corroder continued his lament about the current situation, pointing toward the black and red villain, whom everyone in maximum security had called ‘the untouchable bruiser’, “IS APPARENTLY OUR CURRENT LEADER!” The blue sniper villain looked over at Core Hunter, who was currently admiring a ‘revision’ of one of the old columns, which was holding up nothing.
“That’s just beautiful pinchy, it’s a completely different side of me.”
“He’s still acting like that claw is freaking alive.” Vapour droned.
Core hunter turned back towards the troupe of villains who had gathered there. “Now, anyone has any ideas where the others are!?!”
Vapour stood up “Von nebula is being coy about his plans, the fire villains we have no idea, Xplode, Splitface, Thunder, Rotor, and the Fangz that Witch Doctor brought have their signals jammed, Thornraxx told me explicitly to tell everyone to go scrap your hindquarters and weld your head in its place, Jawblade got lost, and Voltix, Speeda, and XT4 say they are busy. The former, however are trying to establish radio contact.”
“How long will that take?” Core Hunter snapped.
“Right now.” The voice of Voltix rang through the hologram communicator that had been set up. The image of XT4 and Speeda demon.
Core hunter wasted no time ridiculing them for not being here in person. “You’re all late!” he boomed.
Speeda snapped back. “Even I get lost sometimes Core Hunter”
Core Hunter made a double take at the hologram. “Got your voice synthesizer fixed I see.”
“Of course you would find the voice amusing, considering you’re a complete idiot.”
Core hunter fired a round at the hologram, only for it to pass through harmlessly and hit Toxic Reapa and send him flying across the room. Speeda just kept smiling. “Shut up” the brutish villain muttered under his breath. He turned to Voltix. “Well, what your excuse?”
“Obviously, I don’t need one, as I have been attending to a matter you have overlooked. In this world, we have no way to recharge ourselves after long periods of time. I have been constructing a makeshift energy collection net for our need while we stay here, I will send you the coordinates shortly.”
Core hunter nodded, a rather annoyed look on his face he turned to XT4. “As for you?”
The yellow multi tool robot stood at full attention. “Conducting surveillance on nearby village; populated by Equus ferus caballus. Unable to regroup.”
Core hunter blinked. “Um, in English?”
XT4 began again “Conducting surveillance on nearby village; populated by Equus ferus caballus. Unable to regroup.”
“No, the middle part” core Hunter said, narrowing his gaze on the android.
“Populated by Equus ferus caballus.”
“He means the non-scientific name!” Corroder shouted “IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?”
“Thank you, for clarifying.” Vapour droned sarcastically.
XT4 turned back to core hunter “Populated by ponies.”
“What”
The room fell silent. The only sound that could be heard was the distant chirping of birds and the light hum of the hologram generator. The silence lasted at least a full minute before a crackle of a radio transmission broke the silence.
“Can anyone hear this? I can hear you. NOT YOU, SOMEONE ELSE. Like who? Drilldozer? I don’t care; it could even be Thornraxx for all I care!Don’t call him; he would be a good person to chat up anyway.Well that’s one thing we can agree on. ALL RIGHT! If anyone who isn’t Thornraxx can hear us, respond before I have to tear my ears off from listening to this guy!”
Core Hunter snapped back into reality, he quickly turned to Meltdown. “Boost the signal! Now!”
“What is it you fools want?” Core Hunter snapped. “If it’s a rescue party, forget it.”
The Organic side turned towards the burly villain.“No, It’s worse, the heroes are already here!”
“WHAT!?”
“We were attacking this nightclub, and Stringer showed up! He was with this white unicorn and-”
“Wait, so not only is this place populated by ponies, there UNICORNS TOO!?!” Core Hunter roared, before turning to Voltix. “What’s a Unicorn?”
Voltix slapped a hand to his helmet. “They’re a figment of mythology, a kind of horse with a horn which are said to be magical, though I severely doubt-”
“You mean they’re magical now!?” Core hunter shouted; his attention turned back to Splitface.
“Well yes, there were unicorns and pegasi, and regular ponies too, and they were all different colors and- GET TO THE POINT!I WAS! Now that white unicorn hooked up this huge speaker to Stringers guitar gun thing and before we know it we found ourselves in the middle of some weird garden with statues everywhere.”
“So, the heroes are already here…” Core Hunter turned to XT4 “Find and scrap any hero you find, it’s more than likely that they landed nearby!”
XT4 nodded “And, if they have made contact with other ponies?”
Core hunter wasted no time with his response. “Terminate them. Leave no evidence.”
XT4 nodded and his hologram faded out. Core hunter turned to the rest of the crowd, who were murmuring to each other. “Now… back to business. Speeda demon, search for a suitable base of operations in case we are discovered here. Voltix! I want you to re-establish communications with the other villains who are still missing, as well as Black Phantom! The rest of you I will leave to your own devices, cause crime, mayhem, whatever! Just report how many of the heroes are here, and be ready for when we go home!”
A tremendous amount of cheering rose from the other villains.
Core hunter hid his smile behind the helmet that covered his face. As the other villains split off, he turned back to Voltix. “So, I assume Von nebula hasn’t told you anything either?”
“Predictably. Though I do assume you would learn to be secretive if your powers could tear open time and space itself. Any more orders? Or are you just trying to improve your intellect via conversing with me?”
Core hunter scowled. “Just prepare that energy net, and prepare several superchargers, and tend to your guests as well.” With that, Core hunter deactivated the hologram generator, and turned back to admire the sculpture of him made by Pinchy.
“What?”
Voltix whirled around. He knew about the three organics watching him, and in an instant he had all three in his sights, one tangled in his electro whip, the second he had his volt blaster trained on, and the third one was targeted by the electrical nodes on the sides of his helmet. The figures froze instantly. Voltix looked them over; they were Pitch black in color, similar in shape to equines, however with insectoid features. The figures were frozen in fear, and Voltix could only smirk.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise”
ALERT! ALERT! UNAUTHORIZED ACESS IN ARCHIVE TERMINALS!
“Now of all times?” the visibly annoyed unicorn grabbed the nearby microphone with his magic.
“Inferno! Sparker! Overdrive! Lock down the archives!” as the unicorn looked over the monitor he looked over the three ponies racing to their destination. A thought popped into his mind, regarding an earlier occurrence.
“Pony feathers! I forgot to fix the door!”
Thunder looked back and forth through the halls, the sound of hooves thundering across the tiled floors becoming greater and harder to ignore. Realizing that it was his only other option; he wound up repeating the same action he swore to never do again only moments before.
He posed as a statue for the second time today. “This was a horrible idea” he thought as a fiery Pegasus and a small red filly with a red construction helmet rounded the corner. He let off a mental sigh as the pair passed him without so much as a glance, and listened in on the conversation.
“Horse apples, the door’s locked!”
“Don’t you remember the pass code?” the small red filly asked.
“… No”
“Break the door down?”
“Break the door down”
Thunder seized up for a moment what happened the last time he posed as a statue, but he was more surprised when the red filly charged the door at full speed and busted it open in a single charge. He was about to start attempting to sneak away when a yellow stallion rounded the corner and shouted at the two mares.
“YOU KNOCKED THE DOOR DOWN!?!”
“Oh don’t get your saddle in a knot Sparky, I forgot the password again”
“I did most of the work!” the cheerful filly piped up, oblivious to the stallion’s anger and dismay.
“DON’T YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO REPLACE THOSE THINGS?”
“You reinstall them every time someone breaks in lightning rod.”
“JUST... let me check to see if the sever is still secure…” the stallion gave into the rather insane logic behind the Pegasus’s actions and walked into the room. “And make sure that whatever snuck in here doesn’t sneak away!”
As the three filed into the room, Thunder began to sneak away, still listening to the conversation.
“Doesn’t look like it’s been touched.” The stallion drawled, still aggravated at the destruction of the door. “No viruses either.”
“So you think it didn’t get inside?”
“It couldn’t have!” the red filly piped up “the door was still intact, and if it sat off the alarm, it couldn’t have known the code.”
Thunder started moving faster, knowing that a single glace out the door would give him away.
“Well if nothing got in, then it should have been outside hiding in the halls?”
“There’s nowhere to hide.” The stallion snapped. “These halls are so clear; you could run a wonder bolts race through here”
“What about that statue outside?”
Scrap.
Thunder slowly turned his head back to the room the ponies were in, and set his sight upon three sets of eyes, all staring back at him. Without waiting for a reaction, he turned and bolted.
“IT WAS THE STATUE THE WHOLE TIME?” Inferno shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Raise the alarm! We don’t know what it took, but we can’t let it get away!” the stallion barked. The young filly pressed the alarm button, and charged out the door alongside Inferno, leaving only the stallion in the room. He looked all around the room before turning back to the console. Walking towards it, the stallion gave of a brief glow of green flame before change into his true appearance. He pulled a small device from under his insect like wings and stuck it into the computer, as the device did its dirty work; he pulled the microphone on his headset.
“This is Mirage” the changeling spoke. “I’m in.”
A voice crackled to life on the receiver. “Sooner than expected. I assume that the place was unguarded”
“Nope, I just took advantage of an opportunity”
Fluttershy knew that this was a terrible idea. Going into the Everfree forest was a bad idea, going in while the sun is barely up wasn’t an improvement. She hadn’t seen a trace of the person who went into the forest since the glimpse she caught of somepony yellow entering the forest. And now she was lost. The scariest part of all this was the only wildlife she had seen or heard since she entered the forest was a single crow that screeched at her before running away. This was even more terrifying than the time the Crusaders ran into the forest to look for Elizabeak.
“Is anypony out there?” she called out, hoping that she would be answered.
“AROOOOOOOOOO!”
“EEP!” Fluttershy whirled around in fright. Her usual irrational fear was justified as a Timberwolf flew over her head and shattered against a tree behind her. She shivered as she looked over the limp body of the wolf.
“Grrr…”
Fluttershy turned around to face the source of the noise. Through the bushes was a pair of glowing orange eyes. Fluttershy began to back away. The eyes started to move closer. Two large metal claws came out of the bushes along with a very angry wolf. It was smaller than the wolf it had thrown through the bushes, but it was twice as fearsome in appearance. It had three large glowing spikes jutting out of its back, and two steel spikes on either side of its mouth. It crouched down, slowly prowling toward her. Fluttershy began to panic, she tried to use the stare, but the wolf kept prowling toward her as she kept backing away. Finally, she decided to do the one thing anypony would do in this situation. Scream.
“HELP ME!”
The wolf lunged at her, and Fluttershy closed her eyes, fearing the worst.
*CLANG*
The sound of metal impacting against metal was heard. Fluttershy opened her eyes in a flash; the scene above her seemed like it was frozen in time. A yellow and grey bipedal figure with one large arm had kicked the wolf. Time began flowing normally, the wolf flew back and impacted against a tree, and her savior had landed just a few feet in front of her. The wolf slowly got to its feet, snarling at the being that had interrupted its hunt. The figure moved slowly. Fluttershy recognized it as a form of martial arts that rainbow dash practiced. The wolf wasted no time in trying to attack again. It lunged at the figure, who calmly responded with a swift kick aimed precisely at the metal wolfs throat. The wolf fell unceremoniously to the ground, and the figure bowed before turning to Fluttershy.
“Are you all right, Miss?” he asked, his voice calm and friendly. Fluttershy relaxed
“Oh yes, thank you so much…?”
“My name is Nathan Evo” the figure responded.
Rainbow dash woke up feeling cold and tired. While regular clouds are great and comfortable to sleep on, the storm clouds were damp and stiff. She stretched out her wings, both of which felt much better considering how she crashed the day before, though the small pangs of pain told her that she wouldn’t be able to pull off her stunts anytime soon. She looked around and saw Frostbite waking up.
“Morning.” Dash grumbled, rather cranky about the lack of sleep from last night. “Can you see yet?”
“Not quite, can you fly yet?” the stallion retorted, just as annoyed as he always sounded.
In response, the rainbow Pegasus took flight, hovering a few yards above the clouds. “In case you can’t see me, the answer is yes.”
“Well, do you have any idea where we are?”
She looked around. She swore there were not this many clouds when she fell asleep. Clouds covered the view of the land below. She looked towards the horizon and saw a tiny glimmer of color. She focused on it. She couldn’t make out a lot of details but her mind clicked and a flash of a familiar place filled her mind.
It was Cloudsdale.
“I can see Cloudsdale from here!” she shouted excitedly, all traces of her terrible night’s sleep forgotten. She flew back down to the storm clouds and started pushing the large mass of thunderclouds. “It’s about four miles away! It shouldn’t take more than an hour for us to get back!”
“Than what are we waiting for? Let’s move!”
“Uh… we kinda already are.”
“Oh.” Frostbite hung his head, feeling quite foolish. Several minutes passed before he picked his head up again. “What’s that buzzing noise?”
Rainbow dash perked an eyebrow. She didn’t hear anything. She glanced around and gave up after a moment. “Eh it’s probably just a fly.” Frostbite shrugged and tried to get some sleep. Rainbow dash was irked at the fact that she was saddled with all the work and he got to lounge around. It wasn’t long though before he woke up however. “It’s getting louder.”
“What?”
“The buzzing noise is getting louder.”
Rainbow dash looked around again. Still nothing other than Cloudsdale, still at least three miles away. “Dude, there’s nothing around for miles, you’re probably just hearing things.” Frostbite frowned and tried to get back to sleep. In less than a minute he bolted up and was looking… no listening all around.
“Dude! Seriously calm down-”
“You never looked up.”
“What-”
“This sort of situation happens all the time. Whenever this sort of thing happens, whoever is checking to make sure the coast is clear. Never. Looks. Up.”
“What are you even talking abou-”
“JUST LOOK UP FOR CELESTIA SAKE!”
Rainbow dash looked up right as a huge black hornet tore through the clump of storm clouds. She was flung into a nearby cloud only for the huge black hornet to disintegrate it as it flew by. She started to fly back up and shouted. “WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA YOU JERK!” She ducked her head just as the hornet tried to impale her head on its stinger. As the hornet flew back around to make a pass Rainbow Dash shouted again.
“All right you overgrown bug! You wanna fight!? BRING IT ON!”
“OW!”
“Oh take it easy bulk, it’s just a cracked core casing”
“See how easy it is for you to say?”
“Well if you stopped squirming, it would be just as easy to do.”
Applejack looked at the arguing heroes in front of her. After Twilight explained the orange figure’s presence and explaining how the gray one was smack dab in the middle of the apple orchard, she, Twilight, and the orange robot (apparently named Nex) were back at sweet apple acres, with the latter tending to the grey robot (named Bulk, apparently). She turned to Twilight. “So let me get this straight. That big flash of light was that star exploding, right?”
“Yes” the lavender mare said, staring at the two heroes still.
“And accordin to what the orange one said, happened to open a portal between his world and ours. Right at the time a whole bunch of bad guys break outta jail and escape through it.”
Twilight nodded again.
“And these heroes go after them, and they both wind up landing on our doorstep. And they’re whole reason for being here is to round up every single one of these troublemakers before they make a mess out of Equestria.”
“I find it just as hard for me to believe as you.”
“But it still is the third most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
They both turned their attention back to the two heroes. It looked like Nex was finishing up, so the two walked over.
“There. Was it really so hard for you to stop squirming”
Bulk stood up. “I’ve already had a close call with one core crisis; I don’t want to wind up needing a transplant.”
Nex rolled his eyes. “well, now that you’re fixed up, why don’t you introduce yourself?”
Bulk turned to the two ponies. “all right. My name is Dunkan Bulk, but just Bulk is fine.” He said, extending a hand toward them.
“Mah names’ Applejack” the orange earth pony said, clasping his hand between her hooves and shaking vigorously. Bulk shook his hand out after the earth pony’s rather energetic greeting.
“And my name is Twilight Sparkle, student of princess Celestia, and caretaker of the books and branches library in Ponyville.” She spoke, bowing her head slightly.
Nex chuckled slightly. “I think you and Twilight are gonna get along fine, considering how much reading you did at Quatros.”
Bulk visibly flinched at Nex’s teasing comments. “Nex what did I tell you about-”
*ka-boom*
Everyone started looking around for the source of the noise. “Is there a fireworks show going on?” Nex questioned A slight hint of eagerness in his voice.
Twilight sighed. “It’s probably Pinkie Pie; it would seem like something she would do…”
Bulk sighed a bit. “resident party animal?”
Applejack, in her best impression of her brother to date, responded. “Eeyup.”
Twilight Sparkle turned her head towards the steel gray hero. “I’m assuming your group of friends would have one.”
“Two”
Twilight widened her eyes a bit. She could imagine one pinkie pie being a handful, yet alone two. “how do you stand it?”
Bulk looked turned to face the purple unicorn. “One of them has been my friend as long as I can remember. The other… well.” He jerked his head towards Nex, who was still staring at the town in the distance. “I’m still getting used to.”
“I didn’t know fireworks could be pink!” Nex exclaimed.
Twilight looked at the firework Nex was looking at. It was a very familiar shade of pink, and was arcing down in their direction- “Duck and cover!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Everyone dived away as the stray “firework” crashed down where Nex was standing moments before.
“WOO! THAT WAS SUPER DUPER INCREDIBLY AWSOME!” The pink party pony popped up from the small pit that was made upon her impact, rather oblivious from the panic her flight path produced.
“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight shouted “What in the name of Equestria were you thinking!?!”
“Oh, that wasn’t me silly filly, there was this big red porcupine-”
“Porcupine?” the two heroes repeated, before remembering the only villain in storage that could fit that description. “Xplode!”
Author's notes;
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 6 - Dogfights and Demolitions
“Hover in one place you accursed multicolor abomination!” If the thought was spoken it would be dripping with livid feelings, basted with loathing, and roasted in the fires of hatred for all eternity. Thornraxx hated a lot of things. He hated Mondays, he hated sunlight, he hated the entire universe, and everything in it. But what he hated the most, at this very moment at least, was the fact that the stupid winged horse who he intended to make a paperweight out of its’ head was a better flyer than him. However his definition of better just meant angrier than he was. He could tell because in the several attempts that he tried to takes its head off (or to his own anger, vice versa) the creature always glared at him with a look the he would only call utter contempt. The dogfight he was in the midst of was going absolutely nowhere, due to the fact that he could never land a blow on the pest, and none of its attacks could do more than give him a slow increase of rage. He probably would have exploded from it had his species not evolved for massive surges of anger.
“What’s the matter you tinfoil turkey? Too fast for ya?” the multicolored winged horse taunted.
Turkey…
Turkey…
TURKEY!?!?!
That was it… he was going to rip its’ head off. He had been called many names, and he had rended just as many sentient beings to a gruesome mess. But no one had ever shown the nerve to be an absolute ignorant about the fact that the giant insectoid abomination that was about to kill them was in fact an Imma%$#&*@%gonnakeelu wasp. If anyone tried to tell you the name of your name of the species otherwise, you’d use them as a stinger cushion.
You have to stop internally monologuing to yourself.
*thump*
Spike surprisingly woke up the moment he heard it, after Applejack, Twilight, and the robot had left, he tried to go back to sleep. Sadly however, it seemed that the day had other plans.
“I’m coming…” he groaned, trying to wake himself up before getting to the door. He hopped down the stairwell and turned to the door. Surprisingly, Owlowiscious, instead of being asleep, was wide awake and staring intently out the window by the front door. The owl turned his head toward spike and shook his head.
Spike blinked. “What’s wrong? Usually it’s rude to not answer the door if someone knocks…” Spike said, still walking towards the door. Before he could reach for the knob, the end of a large yellow spike pierced the door. The owl quickly flew away from his perch and upstairs. Spike blinked for a moment before he noticed the object wedged in the door was starting to crackle and hiss. The young dragon didn’t know why, but he had to resist the urge to yell; “duck and cover” as he dove behind the couch.
*KA-BOOM*
The door splintered into a thousand pieces, several of them getting embedded into the couch Spike hid behind, who only peeked over when the bits of the front door stop falling. His eyes rested upon the figure through the doorway. The figure stepped through the door eyes slowly examining the abode around him. It stood a head taller than Luna, and was colored red and black, with hints of yellow on the spikes.
“Knock-Knock, anyone home?”
The intruder spoke with an accent that Spike couldn’t recognize. It glanced around the room, showing obvious disregard for the books upon the shelves. It began walking into the home, prompting the little dragon to hide under the couch. Spike watched as the figure ransacked the library, looking for something. “Ah-a!” he reached into a bookshelf, still partly uncovered, and pulled out an old dirty book. The thief flipped through a few pages, only stopping once, studying a page with intent before smirking, and shutting the book. “Well, that wasn’t as profitable as I wished.” He turned to the door before stopping at the window and doing a double take. “Heroes!” he cursed.
“Heroes?” Spike thought “Didn’t Nex call himself a-” Spike’s eyes widened as the robber plucked a spike from his shoulder and threw it out the window with speed and accuracy that would make rainbow dash jealous, only for his absolute awe to be replaced with utter fear when he hear a quite audible explosion in the distance. He was about to jump at the attacker when he turned and put the book back in its position on the self.
“No need for them to know what I found” He muttered, turning back to the window and launching more of his explosives out the window. Spike slowly crawled out from under the couch, a flurry of thoughts in his head. “If he’s attacking Nex… then he could hurt Twilight.” Spike paled at the thought of his best friend getting hurt. Before he thought twice about what he was doing, he spat a wad of fire at the back of the figure.
*KA-BOOOOOOOM*
Twilight froze when she saw the library in the distance go up in smoke. “Spike!” she shouted, before rushing towards the wreckage of the library.
“Twilight! Wait!” Applejack protested, lunging for her friend before she could try anything rash. But the unicorn teleported out of her reach before she could stop her. “I’m going after her!” she shouted to the heroes, before a large grey hand grabbed her. She looked up at Bulk and struggled against his grip. “let me GO!” She yelled
“It’s too dangerous!” The Metallic hero spoke, worried, and angered at the same time. “Xplode has enough explosives to seed your farm, and you’re about to rush in and attack with no regard-”
“For what!?! My own safety!?!” she spat back.
“For the safety of your friends!” he stated. “This is your hometown, surrounded by people you know. They’ll trust you more than a bunch of robots brawling in the middle of your town. You have to get them to safety while I take down Xplode!”
“You mean us right?” Nex questioned.
Applejack stared in shock. He knew he had only known her for all of ten minutes, and could tell that she was one of the few that the town would listen to her. She nodded. “Just make sure this Xplode rat gets what’s comin’ to him.”
“I will” the gray hero replied. With that Applejack turned and ran into the town. He turned to Nex. “Nex, listen to me before you argue. Xplode has explosives that will blast you into the atmosphere, and your armor can’t handle that. Mine can. I need you to reestablish contact with the rest of the team before you join the fight. Then I want you to make sure he can’t hurt any civilians, make sure he can’t make a move.”
“but” Nex tried to interject.
“Listen R- Nex-”Bulk caught himself from calling the orange hero a rookie. “You can help in the fight, but you can’t engage him directly! You have to rally the heroes so Xplode doesn’t out gun and outrun us.”
“Alright” Nex conceded. “I promise”
With that, Bulk rushed towards the town, leaving Nex to set down his radio equipment.
“Wow, he must trust you a lot.” Pinkie spoke, breaking the silence. “he didn’t even make you pinkie promise!”
“He doesn’t need to” Nex replied, “Heroes like us trust each other that much.” He continued fiddling with the equipment before stopping. “How do you?”
“Do what?” Pinkie asked.
“Pinkie promise, you’re a pony you don’t even have fingers!” Nex sputtered, obviously stumped.
“Silly! You don’t need fingers to do a Pinkie Promise!”
Rainbow Dash rolled out of the way of another highly telegraphed attack from the giant hornet attacking her and bucked the creature in the back. The fight going on between her and it had stretched into a half hour, far too long for her tastes, and her early morning aches from sleeping on the cold, stiff storm clouds were starting to act up again. “wait a minute” she suddenly remembered the pegasus who she left on the clouds, she quickly looked down and spotted the ice blue stallion in question, who from the looks of it was getting his sight back quite quickly, and had gathered up the storm clouds quite well.
“Rainbow Dash!” Frostbite shouted. “Are you still up there?”
“Yeah, but this stupid fly won’t leave me alone!” she replied, dodging another swing of the monsters claws.
“Do you see any storm clouds, other than the ones I’m sitting on?”
“Well, yeah but…”
“keep him busy for a minute! I’ve got a plan!” the stallion then hovered off the clouds and started looking for the storm clouds in question. Several skillful dodges and amazing counterattacks later (from her own perspective, at least) she cast her gaze back towards him.
“How much longer!?!” she shouted, before reeling away from the object the Frostbite had thrown into the air, right past her snout. “Hey! Who’s side are you on!?!”
“Get Down!” He shouted, despite her initial aggravation, she quickly swooped down to the cloud he was perched on.
“What was that?”
“An improvised emergency flare, made with ice and a bit of lightning.”
“And how does that help us?”
“Shut up and watch the lightshow.” He snapped, turning the rainbow maned pegasus’s head in the general direction of the wasp, who was majorly aggravated about the loss of his quarry, and completely unaware as the ball of ice and lightning descending on his head.
“This Is Breez of hero factory, any heroes in the area please respond.” The radio only crackled in response. “dang it, no response.”
“there’s too much interference anyway” Surge spoke up. The two heroes were lost in a sea of clouds, with no sign of anything for miles. Breeze had landed on a tall rock peak, and had found surge walking on the clouds, his anti-grav boots letting him jump from cloud to cloud without worry. “some of it is coming from these clouds though” he continued, waving his scanner around. He shook his head and brought out his binoculars. “hey I see something!” he shouted pointing west.
He handed Breez the Binoculars so she could see for herself. In her sights was a city made of clouds. She could even swear she could make out the colors of a rainbow in the city’s architecture. “it’s amazing!”
“And it’s only about a mile away...”
*KRACKOW*
Surge and Breez turned towards the strange noise, spotting bright flashing lights to the north above the clouds. Breez brought up the binoculars again and spotted something unusual in the center of the flare.
“Thornrax! He’s right in the middle of that flare!” the green hero then tossed the binoculars back to surge and took off with a running start shouting to Surge as she flew off ; “Get to the city, I’m going to cuff that bug!”
Twilight didn’t stop running when she saw the smoke and flames billowing from the library, she barely acknowledged the fact that ponies were running and screaming. She teleported right up to the library. The books were fine she was certain of that; she constantly used warding spells on everything in the library. She didn’t ever think she needed to cast spells on the tree itself, the same tree that was going up in flames. Owlowiscious swooped down from the remains of the balcony, perching on the surprisingly intact mailbox. “Did Spike get out?” she spoke. Owlowiscious didn’t speak, he just swiveled his head back and forth. Twilight turned to the collapsed doorway and blasted away the smoldering wreckage away. She wasted no time charging in to find the young dragonling. “SPIKE! SPIKE!” her hair was starting to get frayed from the panic she was experiencing. “Spike!”
“Ugh…”
She turned towards the barely audible noise, spotting spike’s tail sticking out from underneath a bookcase. She wasted no time in getting the bookcase of him, throwing it into a pile of wreckage at the other end of the room. “Spike are you okay!?!” the dragons tail flicked back and forth, seemingly in response. She carefully levitated him onto her back and turned to the exit.
*fch-thunk*
Twilight turned around slowly towards the pile of rubble.
*fch-thunk*
The bookcase she had tossed aside was shuddering, its construction shaking.
*Fch-thunk Fch-thunk Fch-thunk*
As several spikes stuck through the back of the shelves
*sssssssssssssssssss*
Twilight threw up a shield just in time.
*BOOOOOOM*
The bookcase flew across the room, shattering itself and the shield as it impacted. Twilight staggered backward as her shield shattered against the near deadly projectile’s force. “What in the name of Equestria?”
To respond, a large figure burst out of the pile with shockwave like force. Twilight Sparkle, who went hoof to hoof with nightmare moon herself, saved the town from an Ursa minor without using a single offensive spell, and had saved her childhood friend princess cadence from the clutches of the changeling queen, was fearing for her life as the villain spoke.
Twilight turned towards Bulk, whose optics were glowing orange, unwavering from Xplode’s’ current position. “I’m going to get spike out of here, I’ll help as soon I as I can!” Twilight sputtered. Bulk nodded. “Go, I have a score to settle with this guy.” Bulk powered up his rocket pack as twilight dashed out of the building. He strode casually toward the red and black villain as he picked himself off the ground.
“Ah… Dunkin Bulk… It’s been to long since we last went mono y mono hasn’t it.”
“Save your breath Xplode… this time you can’t use rotor as a scapegoat, you’re on your own.”
“Hardly a deterrent… it took four of you last time to stop me, and I believe you said you always did want to go out with a bang.”
Xplode lunged forward with his meteor blaster raised and the tip of his cleaver dragged across the ground, while Bulk brought his fist back for the hardest punch in his life.
Author's Note
finnally got this one done. i had trouble on the ending. hopefully, it will have been woth the wait.
Hero factory; Equestrian Breakout
Chapter 7 - Now How do I get out of here?
The Everfree forest was very quiet as Fluttershy and Evo trekked back to her house. Fluttershy was at first worried about the metal wolf, but Evo calmly assured her that it would be all right, but Fluttershy couldn’t help but stare at the unconscious form of the beast draped over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Fluttershy usually wasn’t one for conversation, however she felt awkward staying silent, after all he did save her life. She was about to say something when Evo stopped in the middle of the path. Fluttershy watched nervously as Evo, seemingly casually glanced around.
“Does something smell… odd to you?” he asked.
The scent hit Fluttershy instantly; she nearly retched at the terrible smell, and meekly nodded. Evo carefully sent down the wolf, and walked towards a small cluster of trees near the side of the path. He reached down and picked up a broken branch and looked at it. Fluttershy looked at it from over his shoulder. One end of the stick was singed, and covered in green slime.
“Toxic Reapa” Evo murmured, barely audible.
“Who?” Fluttershy asked.
“A criminal who uses toxic slime as a weapon… we’re not safe here anymore” Evo stated, turning back to the path. His eyes widened as he saw the Fangz begin to stir. “Stay back” he spoke clearly and sternly to Fluttershy. He then locked eyes with the wolf, which had gotten to its feet at that point. “If I can break off those spikes quickly, then I won’t have to worry about anything getting damaged” he thought about how he could achieve this action without too much risk, when suddenly, a very welcome distraction sounded.
*KA-BOOM*
Thunder stormed down the hallway, with the distance between him and his pursuers growing.
“Get back here you overgrown scrapheap!”
In comparison, the rate of insults thrown by the orange winged one was growing as well.
“Don’t you ever shut up!?” he shouted back. A string of curses from behind him confirmed the negative. “Wait, how long is this hallway anyway?” Thunder thought for a moment before placing a large dent in the wall he was running by. Sure enough, a minute later he passed by the same dent in the wall.“Great, I’ve been going in circles! They’re just trying to wear me down so they can catch me.” Thunder thought for a moment.“If this hall is one big loop… then I should make my own path!” With that, he busted down the wall he was running against, startling a brown pony on the other side. Without thinking it through, Thunder grabbed the bystander as he ran past.
“Hey! Put me down!”
“Fine! But tell those two to stop chasing me!” Thunder bellowed, throwing the pony back at his pursuers. The sound of two horses colliding told him he had hit one of them at least.“Well, gonna have to add assault with an improvised weapon to my list of charges.” Thunder thought, bad enough with all the damage he caused trying to leave this place. He glanced around the hall he was running through. There were many branching hallways, but Thunder couldn’t see a single exit sign in place. “Geez, what kind of place doesn’t mark its exits?”
*Clank*
“What the?” Thunder lifted up his crusher claw to find a small red helmeted filly biting down on it, as if to try (and fail at) slowing him down. He rolled his optics and looked behind him. The hallway was vacant, and there was no sign of the orange pegasus. Thunder turned back and lifted his claw up, bringing the foal level with his sight. “Would you kindly detach yourself from my equipment?” he spoke sternly. The helmeted filly looked at the steel titan, ceasing her ineffective biting, and spoke.
“My name is Overload of the equestrian dimensional guard!” she spoke with a tone too cheerful for Thunder to take seriously. “I’m putting you under arrest for the crime of destruction of private property, breaking and entering, assault, and grievous harm with a body!”
Thunder rolled his optics. “Look kid, are you even a cop?” he snapped. The filly pondered for a moment, before shaking her head. “Then you should leave the job to someone who knows what they’re doing. So why don’t you go play with her friends?”
The filly looked a bit disappointed. “All right…” she turned and looked further up the hall. “Oh, there they are!” and started frantically waving a free hoof.
Thunder half- flinched as he looked head, expecting a blockade, but all he saw were a pair of colts further up the hall. Then his train of thought realized that the issue of the filly attached to his crusher claw had not been addressed properly. “Then here…” He started, shifting the cheerful foal into his hand, “go say hello!” he then rolled her down the hall like a bowling ball. The only warning the two colts had was the filly shouting “Hi guys!” as she collided with them, sending them all into a heap in an intersection in the hall. Thunder slowed down, pondering where the exit was. Deciding to through caution to the wind, seeing how thinking things through wound up causing more trouble, he picked a random direction and kept running.
Mirage watched intently as the terminal fed information into the device, and the device corrupted the system in return. He had spent the last few minutes checking the room to make sure there weren’t any security measures. Mirage wasn’t exactly a sterling example of changeling disguise mastery. He always wound up slipping up too often. What he could do was infiltration and evasion. Break into a place the old fashion way, take what he was ordered to, and when he found a place where he could hide, he simply shifted into another pony so he could lose his tail. Of course, with the tight knit security, and the rather close-knit staff who knew everyone, he had the odds stacked against him.
He hated having such a disadvantage, but then again, odds never always wound up against him. The fact that the hot-headed mare failed to notice any differences in her co-workers’ behavior had been a stroke of luck, and the strange golem that fled the scene practically convinced him that it was his lucky day. Of course, he knew better than to be optimistic like that. People who were optimistic in the midst of danger always wound up kicking the bucket… into a trash compactor. He turned his head back to the terminal to see the process was complete. He removed the device and double checked the terminal to see if he missed anything. The blueprints for the building and several devices were now corrupted, several reports were scrambled, and quite a few maps were now unreadable. The only things intact were a few files on the ponies who worked here.
Wait.
Mirage smirked, pulling up the file on “sparker” the pony he disguised as. If he knew everything about whom he was disguised as, then the chances of him getting out in one piece were much more acceptable for his tastes. His eyes ran through the file several times before he decided he knew enough. He closed the file, assuming his disguise and stepped back from the terminal.
After all, the virus was just about to short out the terminal.
*Bang!*
Mirage flinched as the terminal overloaded, several sparks now jumping from its frame. A voice sounded over the intercom.
“Sparker! What happened to the main terminal?” the voice called. Mirage assumed the voice belonged to the head of the facility. He stepped over and pressed a button on the intercom.
“There was a virus planted in the terminal.” He said, feigning a depressed tone. “I was too focused on saving the data to noticed that it was about to blow.” He paused “by the way I’m fine, thanks for asking.” He finished sarcastically. He hoped his bluff would work, seeing as rumors said that the head had even seen through the guises of more experienced spies.
“Don’t worry; the database was backed up an hour ago. What you need to do is make sure that the perpetrator doesn’t get away. I think he’s lost, seeing as he’s heading for the mess hall. Now get moving and get to the teleporter room!”
Mirage pondered for a moment. “Uh… you did work out the kinks, right?” he spoke cautiously, thinking that he could be walking into a trap.
“Yes of course I did, RaThor would give me hell if I got you stuck in the wall again right?”
“Whatever get moving! He’s heading towards the mess hall, so hurry! Straxus out!”
Mirage rolled his eyes as he turned towards the door and made a hasty exit.
“Ow…..” RaThor groaned as another pony finished applying bandages to him.
“O for the love of- stop whining, it will make the burn hurt more!” the other pony groaned, face lightly scrunching into a scowl.
“Doc…” RaThor grumbled. “Tell Sid that star vortex is no longer allowed to work the coffee maker. Or anywhere else in the mess hall for that matter.” The aforementioned rude pony had splashed hot coffee all over his face in front of Celestia, after he simply asked him to surprise him with how she made his coffee. “I really should have seen that coming…” he mumbled.” At least he could take the pain, but burn still stung. Celestia had wisely decided to pass on getting a snack and had decided to leave.
*kcth*
RaThors' ears perked up and he glanced over to the intercom as it crackled to life.
“RaThor! The intruder is heading towards the mess hall! Get ready to ambush him! Straxus out!”
“Of course, more problems to deal with” RaThor sighed and turned to his attendant. “Don’t you just wish it could go back to the old days, where all we had to do was just find whatever artifact fell into our world and send it back to wherever it came?”
The medic scoffed. “And back to the days when no one could get along and charging in gung-ho into the sight of some insane cult who want to use said power to take over the world and sacrifice us to it?”
“Okay I see your point… I just wish it wasn’t as hard to get other worlders to cooperate.”
At that point the ground started to shake.
“Incoming I guess…” RaThor mumbled, as he listened to the commotion on the other side of the door.
“Catch Him! He’s heading for the mess hall!”
“Nope, it’s just in my way!”
RaThor Charged up a spell to stop the renegade from escaping only to stop when he realized that it wasn’t going to be the mess hall the enemy would charge through, but the kitchen.
“Look out!”
“Oops! Scuse’ me outta my way!
“Hey watch it!”
“Sorry, got to run, this needs more sugar!”
“Get back here scrap heap!”
“Oh, there’s the exit!”
RaThor stood bewildered as a metal golem burst out of the kitchen doors wearing a chef hat and covered in flour, knocking him into the nearest table, and charging out the door. RaThor quickly got back up as Inferno dashed by in pursuit, shouting insults all the way. “Cheap shot… two can play this game!” his horn glowed gold has he prepared to cut off the runway and teleported…
… Right in front of Princess Celestia, who was holding the golem in a magical field as the golem was thrashing helplessly and shouting.
“And seriously all I did was touch a freaking door knob, and the whole place goes defcon one! I was just trying to figure out where in this scrapheap of a universe I am, and the next moment I’m being chased by the most insane security team in existence and furthermore…”
RaThor decided it best to tune out the irate robot as he turned to Celestia. “Thanks Celestia, it’s usually our job, but…”
The sun Princess gave a light smile. “Well it’s certainly more interesting this way, besides, I can’t just sit around for my subjects to solve every problem.”
“Yeah try telling that to the peanut gallery” RaThor thought, giving an aside glance to no one in particular. “Well I’m sure you made someone happy. Don’t ask who, I don’t want you looking at me like I’m crazy again”
At that moment, Inferno finally caught up, at this point out of breath, giving a quick bow to Celestia before turning to the trapped figure.“Just… give me a moment… jeez I’m outta shape…all right… you have the right to remain… silent… you have the right…”
“Yeah save it hot rod.” The robot snapped “I know the whole spiel, so save it for someone who never learns.” At that point he did the most frantic double take at Celestia and gave her a glare that could probably make a Timberwolf finch. “Hey! You’re the one who used me as a battering ram!”
What.
Several moments passed, and the ruler of Equestria was looking quite sheepish about her mistake.
“Celestia…” RaThor started, bringing his front hoof to his face. “How many times do I need to remind you… if it looks like a statue, it obviously isn’t.” RaThor glanced around. At this point about two- thirds of the towers population was gathered around, staring at the robot who had mostly worn out his pent up frustration at this point. “Where the Tartarus is Sparker! We need to disarm this guy!”
A sound of a loud pop and crackling of static electricity signified the arrival of the unicorn stallion, followed by a short string of curses as he put out the small fire that had started on the end of his tail.
“Seriously sparker, learn a teleportation spell sometime.”
“Well excuse me for not being gifted with magic as you jerk.” Sparker grumbled.
“Put a lid on it and disarm his weapons!”Inferno barked. Sparker complied, reluctantly, and sauntered over to the robot, and started looking over the menacing looking cannon mounted on his giant claw. RaThor then turned to two green mares, one of whom was still wearing a chef hat, the other wearing an apron.
“You two didn’t get hurt did you, he did charge through the kitchen while you were baking.”
“Don’t worry RaThor, nothing got damaged, and besides, it did need more sugar.”
RaThor started snickering while the other mare simply rolled her eyes. “Never change.” He could barely say between fits of laughter, before abruptly stopping.
“Wasn’t Sparker getting groceries at town?”
“Hey what do ya think you’re doing!?!” the Robot snapped, breaking RaThor out of his thoughts. Whirling around spotting Sparkers hooves getting dangerously close to what was quite obviously a trigger on the cannon. RaThor Shouted.
“CHANGELING!”
*Click*
*FOOOM*
The corridor billowed with thick, nebula like fog, blocking everyone’s vision RaThor tried to use magic to sweep it away, but his magic wouldn’t work. He heard a clang several feet in front of him, followed by a fast paced clattering.
“I can’t see!”
“That robot is escaping! I can hear it!”
“Forget the robot!” RaThor shouted “get that changeling!”
“Nighty night!”
RaThor whirled around in time to see two insectoid eyes before the changeling had knocked him out.
Thunder burst out of the nebula cloud at full sprint desperate to escape. He was so close to escaping, he couldn’t let anything stop him. He rounded another corner as he heard the intercom.
“WHOEVER IS ON DUTY SEAL THOSE DOORS!”
He looked ahead to see the same yellow unicorn that had set off his cannon staring at him like a deer in the headlights. “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” thunder bellowed as loud as his voice would let him. The pony stayed put, absolutely terrified, throwing up a pyramid shield at the last possible second. To Thunders’ point of view, however, he found himself flying through the air after he had gone off one side like a ramp.
And when you’re going at high speeds through the air, and have about a half a ton of weight behind your momentum, not a lot can stop you, not even a wall…
*Crash*
“What the-”
Or apparently gravity.
“SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP”
As Thunder flew high into the air he saw a lot of commotion both above and below him, east of him, a large cloud of smoke billowed, directly below him he could hear the howling of a Fangz, to the west, a tall mountain with a city built into its side, with a storm slowly blowing in, and directly in front of him a bright rainbow arcing across the sky.
“Nature, I get you hate my guts, but do you have to taunt me as I could be falling to my death?”
Of course, not everyone appreciates the scenery.
“Well great… usually in the movies they played on TV, you get saved at the last minute of your fall, if you’re a good guy, and with my karma, oh, wait ive survived worse falls than this without issue… well only one thing to do to pass the time…”
He then proceeded to let out the most bored sounding scream in all history.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
*Crash*
Thunder got up and brushed the splinters of wood off of his figure, only to be struck hard with what sounded like a frying pan from behind and knocked out.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie does not approve of thugs vandalizing her cart!”
Author's Note
An Update for all my followers! I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!
