The Nine

When I awoke, I saw only dim light and stone. Our chain gangs had been separated, so Twilight was nowhere to be found. V apologized for punching her in the mouth, and I just told him I was glad to not hear it from her first. Then, we got the first sight of our masters. They were almost centaur like, except they had six jointless legs. Their body was only as tall as a pony, but with the combined height of their upper body, they probably reached the height of a man. They had two arms, coming out at a point that would be deemed normal for a centaur, but they had four more arms sprouting from their back. Or at least the leader did. The arms were mechanical, but they seemed optional, since not all of them had the arms. Some had wings, some had bags. The ones with the bags all seemed to be purple, but I could not honestly see the difference between them and their red compatriots. On top of all these freaky extremities, they had a strange plating. It seemed to cover them like a turtle’s shell, only tighter, but I watched one of the purple ones draw the entire shell into itself.

Then, their leader spoke, his lower jaw slipping out of, and then back into his upper jaw. “Weak little beings, we are your new overlords. This group will obey me and my krakna alone. If you are to address either of us, you will refer to us as ahahaha” he said, pronouncing the last word as a throaty laugh. “Do any of you have questions?”

I dared to raise my paw. “Yes, the dog.”

“Well, ahahaha, what does ahahaha mean? And why not explain krakna to boot.”

“In your vulgar tongue, ahahaha would translate to a genderless term of respect, somewhere between sir and madame. And krakna would roughly translate to spouse. However, a krakna is simply a friend who chose no upgrade that you choose to procreate with. Where most of us reds get practical upgrades, it is in our culture to have the purples keep the pregnancy sacks they were born with.”

Somepony else spoke up. “Woah, woah. So, you’re saying that you have external wombs?”

One of Red’s mechanical arms shot out, and struck the outspeaking pony so hard he drew blood. “You will follow the unwritten rule of raising your foreleg. Is that understood?”

We all replied: “Yes, ahahaha.”

“Good. I have these ones functioning well. You may leave guards” when he told them to, the ones with wings flew up and out of the cave. “Now, on to business. You have been enslaved by the Tratchy” he said, rolling his r ever so slightly. “We are an intergalactic race that needs resources. So, we come to your worlds, enslave you, and force you to mine your world to a husk. All the results, none of the effort” he said with what could only be assumed as a smile. “Work, slaves!” He cried, every arm lashing a different group. Even Purple joined in, spurring us all on to the pile of picks lying by the wall.

We spread out, our chains no longer hindering us, and set to work on the walls. I had no idea what we were digging for, but I knew what I was digging for. I had taken a minor in chemistry, and a major in engineering, and had spent all my free time finding out what different elements looked like and reading The Anarchist Cookbook. I was looking for iron, salt, aluminum, and copper. I also knew ways of extracting different additives from food, so I might land some magnesium, iodine, and sugar. We were all dressed a pair of overalls, leaving me one pocket to hopefully hide some materials. Anything else I could need could be gotten around the workplace.  All of this ran through my head, a mental shopping list for destruction. I could only hope that I had my own cell. Probably not, but would I really get stuck with someone who didn’t want the aliens gone?

I worked the rock, saving what little I could, then we were called in for a meal. I had no idea what meal it was, since there were no Celestial bodies to guide the passage of time. I wound up with plenty of sugar, stowed away in my pocket. On my way back to the dig site, a pony made a half-hearted attempt to rise up. He fought bravely with a pick, but took a lethal blow before he could do too much damage.

“Get him out of here” I said with disgust to my fellows. Then, I leaned in closer and whispered: “Hide him. The chemicals produced by a decaying body make for great reactions.”

They dragged him off, and I turned to Red. “Ahahaha, it appears that your arm has been damaged.”

“So it has” he said. “Why do you bring it up?”

“I do know a bit about welding, so I might be able to fix you up.”

“Our technology is far more advanced than yours. I doubt that you could properly fix this wound.”

“Well, I come from another world, one more technologically advanced, so I may know a thing or two about that arm of yours.”

“Just look at it first. If you don’t know what you’re doing, then I will get someone else to do it.”

I took a look at his arm. It was more advanced than Equestrian technology, for sure, but about on par with Earthen.

“Oh yeah” I said. “I’ve seen this kind of wiring a million times. All you do is reconnect this wire and this wire, then repair this wire. Oh, a leak here” I continued to mutter to myself as I patched up his arm, making sure to distract him while I pocketed some SOLIDOX from the welding kit. “There” I said, finished. “Good as new.”

He tested it out a little, then said: “You know your stuff, dog. In fact, you will be my repair man from here on out.”

“Happy to, ahahaha.”

He ‘smiled’ at me, then told me to get back to work. I obliged him, smiling inwardly because I knew I had gotten on his good side. After a long while, he instructed us to bed, having us sleep on beds ransacked from the few unburned villages. The ones who had dragged the dead pony off had found this room and hidden him far in the back, on one of the worse mattresses. I went over to the body, finding it not quite rank. I would have very little time before he started rotting, and I knew that I had to capture those fluids and gasses. I didn’t know how, but I needed to get a large plastic bag of some sort. Unable to do anything with him at the moment, I walked over to where I had seen one of the cats in our party bed down.

“Psst, pussycat” I whipered right next to him.

“Call me Vic, alright. I hate pussycat. Now, what did you need?”

“Do you have to pee?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Feline piss excretes lots of ammonia, and ammonia is very useful.”

“Well, now that you mention, I do have to pee” he said, getting out of bed. He turned away, and I heard him filling the bottle I had provided. “I just have to ask, though. What are you going to do with all this?”

“That’s for me to know, and for you to ponder” I said, taking the bottle back from him.

He just rolled his eyes and went back to bed while I corked the warm bottle and hid it under my bed. I went around to every cat and did the same, collecting four bottles in total. I next took out the SOLIDOX I had nabbed and the sugar I had obtained. I ground up the SOLIDOX, making sure it was nice and fine. I had somehow managed to escape with one of the wooden bowls they served our slop in, and was using that and my finger as a mortar and pestle. I then proceeded to do the same for the sugar, since it had granulated, and mixed the two together in a one to one ratio. One bomb down, too many to go. I sighed, and made to climb back into bed. What I wound up turning to was a basset hound.

He held a finger to his lips and beckoned me. I followed him through a few tunnels, and he eventually lead me to a gas powered drill. I made quick work siphoning the gas, and clapped him on the back for his work. Another thing that interested me were the carbide lamps hanging up by the drill. I took some of the carbide, knowing that this, a little water, a glass bottle, and a flaming rag made quite a fireball. Oh, Sigma house. How you burned.

The basset hound then directed me in another direction. What he showed me was a shower room. With soap. I nabbed a bar, and clapped him on the back again. He then wound back through the maze of tunnels, leading me straight back to the bedroom. I laid down and enjoyed a peaceful night.

Each day proceeded as the first, grabbing as many supplies as I could without arousing suspicion and getting in Red’s good graces. Eventually I had a small arsenal stashed under the beds, and the reckoning was nigh. I had enough thermite to burn through a mile of solid steel, more SOLIDOX bombs than I could count, and more than enough carbide bombs. I had also made a little bit of napalm, but I had slathered that on the carbide bomb’s containers for just that much more fire.

We all went to bed that night, having made plans in the day. We all knew our parts, and knew just how to execute it. When our scout came back and told us that the two had bed down, we all rose. I pulled the thermite from beneath my bed, and we set off for their chambers. When we got there, I put a nice pile on both of their heads and inserted the magnesium we had prepared. I lit the two off and we retreated. We hid behind the wall, picks at the ready, waiting for the thermite to light off.

Eventually, our patience was rewarded. The thermite lit off and burned straight through their skulls before they could awake. The boys celebrated, but I knew it was too easy. It may have been my paranoia, but I readied two carbide bombs and told everyone to go back. I placed the bombs by the door, and took off. My paranoia paid off, and I heard the ominous ticking that always accompanied their walking. I thankfully made it back to my bed before he could see me, and I heard the small bombs go off. Red screamed, and I knew he had been caught. Even if his plating was up, I knew he would be cooking.

“Grab your picks” I called when I heard this, and the boys stared at me like I was crazy. “What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear that? He’s still alive!”

They quickly scrambled to get their picks, and followed me to where Red was. He was standing, his skull half gone and his legs charred. His plating was down, and he was literally steaming.

“I trusted you” he spat at me. “I appointed you to a position over your peers, I even gave you that shotgun. This is how you repay me?”

I point the shotgun at his defenseless muzzle. “This is not how I repay you, but how all planets you have conquered thus repay you” I pulled the trigger, and what was left of his head gained quite a few more holes. When the smoke cleared, he grinned.

“I think you’ve done me a favor” he said, bleeding from more holes than any being should ever be forced to have. “I was too old for this. Now I can sleep” he collapsed, his great weight sending up a cloud of dust. “Goodnight, sweet prince.”

The others cheered, but I quickly silenced them.

“Dude, what is your problem? We killed him!”

“Have you forgotten about Purple?”

“Yeah, I guess I had. Sorry.”

We went to their bedchambers, and found her still lying there. She looked up at us, fear in her eyes.

“End me. I was foolish enough to sleep with enemies at the gates, and I must not live.”

“Works for us” we said in unison, and broke apart her plating with our picks.

We eventually killed her, though her alien anatomy had her brain and heart hidden deep within. Her brain was beneath her pregnancy sack, and her heart beneath that. When the boys next celebrated, I even joined in. Of course, I knew that there were too many aliens for just us to handle, but I knew that each one dead was victory enough.

I quickly took control, adopting a much more efficient mining procedure. We used the drill to get a tunnel started, and cycled miners to mine the minerals out of the walls. I appointed V to glass blowing, since he was the only one to know about that, and had him construct the casings for what I would be brewing. I set about the brewing, cooking up everything in the Cookbook and more. When I was finished, we had enough weaponry to destroy a small pony army. Of course, it would hardly kill a platoon of these aliens, but we could try. The men worked much faster under my command, since they knew they were working for a better cause. In no time at all, we had reached a point no other mines had reached.

Of course, this landed us a reward. What appeared to be their leader came in backed by two guards. He landed in our mine, saw Red torn open and chained to the wall, and quickly got out of there. He left his guards to deal with us, but when they opened their mouths to scream when they tripped a landmine, I sank a mustard gas bomb down their gullets. I knew that we would soon have the army beating down our backs, though, so I proposed that we get out of there.

We packed up all our supplies, and made to leave, but were confronted by four winged aliens. We quickly retreated, hunkering down right past where the mines were planted. We used the same trick on three of them, but the fourth was much cleverer than his fellows. He flew over our mines, and killed one of the men. We retreated farther back and readied the acid bombs. These devious contraptions were the child of a container too thick and a bad case of heartburn. A small volley of these struck home on his plating, and ate right through it. With the fourth down, we made another attempt to escape. What I hadn’t expected was for the four we had just killed to have planted explosives.

My entire team, including V, were either ripped to shreds by the explosion or crushed beneath the ensuing avalanche. I managed to survive by a sheer stroke of luck, and saw more aliens outside, peering in and cackling. I cursed them and made off with what supplies I had left when they left. I left for Canterlot, knowing that even if it still wasn’t standing, the mountain it was built into would make a decent fortress.

When I finally got to Canterlot, I found the city in ruins. It hadn’t been hit by a meteor, but it was still smoldering. I made my way to the palace, and found the bodies of the two princesses. I mourned them quickly, and then burned the bodies. When the fire had licked the flesh from their bones, I placed their skulls on their respective thrones. I made my way to the royal laboratory, and found the bodies of more ponies.

Scientists who had made an attempt to stop them. One pony was in a very strange position. He had a hole almost big enough to crawl through in his back, and was reaching desperately for something. I followed his hoof and saw doom. Doom in a big red button. Doom in the button that killed my world. Doom in the button that made Celestia into the Burning Sun. Doom in the button that launched the nukes.

I contemplated just wiping out everyone on the face of this planet, but decided that it was probably not for the better. I valued life far too much to just wipe out everything. Instead, I made use of their facilities and began to amass an arsenal. As I was finishing another batch of mustard bombs, the door creaked open.

I looked up, acid bomb ready to pitch, but saw only Rainbow Dash.

“I never thought I’d see you again” I said, embracing her.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily” she said with a smirk. “There is one problem, though.”

“What’s that?”

She only looked back to her torso, where her wings were. Or where they should’ve been.

“Oh, Rainbow, I am so sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’ve lost my magic.”

“I figured they’d do as much, make us as easy to control as they could” she sighed. “You would not believe how much work it was to break free.”

“Try me.”