A Bronzed Moonby Eric LongtoothChaptersChapter 1: Insolence breeds ContemptChapter 2: Bones to PickChapter 3: Breach and ClearChapter 4: Live WiresChapter 5: City of Cruel AngelsChapter 6: At the Brink of ForeverChapter 7: MomentumChapter 8: Flight of the FallenChapter 9: ImmortalityEpilogueChapter 1: Insolence breeds ContemptChapter 1: Insolence breeds Contempt. By Eric Longtooth. ”Form your armies, dream your dreams. Make your plans, and plot your schemes. Send your fighters, one and all. Then in battle, Watch. Them. Fall.” — "Divide,” RWBY OST *0o()o0* The light of the moon cast the ruins of Manehatten into a peaceful theme, perhaps even erie, but it granted no respite to the travellers. Three batponies, the steel they clad themselves in turning their fuzzy bodies into formless sentinels. A pegasus, wearing a faded green explorer's outfit and a tan safari helmet. And finally, the Princess of the Moon herself. Clad in light blue metal, enchanted to the point that the very air around it was buzzing with magical energy, and equipped with a pair of double ended glaives that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Each step she made was done with practiced caution, and although they cannot see them through the elegant helm, the others were certain the Princess’ sky blue eyes were scanning for threats. This wasn’t the place to make mistakes, nor was it the place for comfort. The discomfort of the practical variation of the guard’s armour would more then make up for the lives they would save. At least, that was the plan. The only real mercy of this foe, is its almost fanatical attraction to cleanliness. Had they attempted this a week prior, they would be wading through gore and rubble, but now? It was just a flat plane of concrete. Buildings had been torn down and taken Celestia-knows-where, the bodies of Equestria’s finest had been harvested and swept aside, even the great warmachines of this, so-called ‘Factory’ had been returned underground. On the other hoof however, the lack of cover, and the miles of nothingness didn’t help morale in the slightest. With the only landmark within eyesight being a massive pillar of steel and bronze in the distance. ‘Such arrogance… but perhaps it is warranted for such a foe.’ Luna mused to herself, turning her head to make sure the rest of her party where maintaining close proximity. ‘To think this is all that remains of Our military… these millennia of peace have done great and terrible things to Our kingdom.’ Even for a mind of old as she, it was hard to comprehend that in a little over a month, Equestria had been almost completely crippled. Be it from the cataclysmic offensive that led to the deaths of nearly eighty percent of the Royal Guard, or the strategic bombing by the Factory’s flying machines that murdered almost all of the rest. And to top it all off, entire empires started to disappear overnight. The stalwart Minotaurs had become silent barely a week into the conflict, the only signs of their existence being the monstrosities the Factory had made out of their corpses. Even the elusive Changelings had been consumed after their Queen had... attempted to ally with the Factory. It gave her no joy to march through the burning remains of Chrysalis’ hive, though the experience did provide an intriguing insight into the mind of their foe. Where other empires seemed to have been assimilated, the Changelings were culled like animals. Regardless, onwards they would march. *0o()o0* As each hour passed the pillar slowly grew on the horizon, looming over the ponies as if it had the divine right to do so. It was times like these that reminded the Princess how thankful she was for the enchantments on her armour, unlike the others in her group, who have began to show signs of exhaustion, she felt as if she had only just woke up. It was most unfortunate that the enchantments had been outlawed, but understandable, seeing as one of the side effects was a lowered lifespan. Thankfully for her, her immortality has so far spared her this side effect, even though her sister maintained her point that it was bad for her. But, that is what happens when the Celestia and herself were as different as the sun and moon, even if it was an annoying ‘tick’ of the mortal form they’re forced to inhabit. Perhaps one day they would find a way to overcome it. Unfortunately, it is something to complete at another time. Although the guards, in their ever faithful nature, wouldn’t say a word to suggest stopping, Luna was confident that it is time to make camp and rest. After all, the sun would rise soon, and she would not face this foe without every advantage she could get. “Hault! We shalt hold for the day here. Prepare a perimeter and establish a watch.” she commanded, taking a moment to plant her weapons into the hard concrete. “Miss Do, We suggest thou prepare thyself for confrontation. We are not too far from the foe, and We expect to arrive in the morrow.” The guards rushed to complete her commands, whilst the explorer pegasus began to draw out a multitude of scrolls and parchment from her saddlebags. Not a word was uttered by the others, but Luna would forgive their silence this time, as the fear of attracting something that is not there would always haunt those of... mortal descent. They had all heard the stories, of the mechanical abominations that would appear when one least expected it. Perhaps they were true, but the Princess had faith in her detection wards, no monster, beast, nor creature had ever fooled them, and she doubts this ‘Factory’ would be able to succeed where they had failed. ‘Why Celestia wanted to avoid this place will forever be a mystery, as will how she is content to lead from her castle…’ Luna mentally rolled her eyes, giving a slight chuckle of the mental image of her sister attempting to put on armour. ‘It is a wonder she managed to get anything done these past decades.’ “Princess?” Luna turned at the voice, pulled out of her mirthful thoughts as she turned her attention to the apparently famous, ‘Daring Do.’ “Yes, Miss Do?” “Just Daring is fine, Princess.” The middle aged pegasus replied, barely taking a moment to look up from her scrolls. “I just need to know if there is any more details you can give for this… ‘Factory?’ Weaknesses? Common abilities? Immunities?” “Where this any other place, Miss Do, We would have scolded you for your disrespect…” Luna warned under her breath, her temper flaring slightly as the pegasus seemed to ignore the idle threat. “Regardless, the information you seek should have been addressed in your briefing. But to save time, no, no, yes.” “No weaknesses,” she continued, “in the sense that we have yet to find a reliable way to kill any of its minions. Each flaw we find seems to be removed by the time we meet them in battle again.” “No common abilities, as each minion seems to be custom made with little similarities in armaments.” Luna sighed, turning away from her audience to gaze at the pillar they were to attack. “And immunities to just about everything. They walk through fire like a dragon, acid washes off of them as if it was nothing more than water, lightning seems to only make them faster, even brute force seems to have little effect.” “So what do you expect us to accomplish?” Daring asked tactlessly, finally turning her head to look at the Princess in the eyes. ‘Ah, that explains the missing dreamer the last couple nights.’ Luna noted, staring down her ‘companion’ before continuing with her explanation. “Our Sister and Us have come to the conclusion that this foe is hiding something from Us. We are to infiltrate the tower and destroy it some the inside. Our mages assure us the tower is hollow, so this mission should not take too long.” “‘Hollow’? That massive tower is hollow? The same tower everypony can see as long as they are within the same general area as Manehatten?” Daring scoffed, rolling her eyes before gesturing towards said tower. “It is impossible. I may not be an expert in buildings, but you cannot build something that big normally. Let alone having it hollow.” “Miss Do. We suggest thou learn to hold your tongue in Our presence.” The Princess hissed cooly, lowering her head to look at the insolent pegasus directly in the eyes whilst using her magic to force Daring to not look away. “Thou hast given Us only thy arguments and disrespect. And unless thou wish to be found leading the charge by thyself, thou shalt learn to respect those who art in charge.” Letting go of Daring’s muzzle with a rough flick to the side, the Princess completed her miniature lecture with a final, “are We understood?” “Yes Princess…” Daring growled out, before turning and returning to the bulk of the group. ‘Insolent child… One would think the sole survivor of the main assault would be better disciplined.’ Luna rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the looming tower. ‘This is why We do not conscript without additional training.’ Author's Note [4/3/19] Mild edits. Chapter 2: Bones to PickChapter 2: Bones to pick. By Eric Longtooth. “Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. Honor to glory, Iron to rust. Hate to bloodshed, from rise to fall. If I never have to die, am I alive at all?” *0o()o0*{Canterlot}*0o()o0* “What?!” Princess Celestia let out a quiet sigh as her personal student once again launched into one of her ‘moments.’ Leaning back into her golden throne, she took a moment to glance over her company. The six elements of harmony, heroines of Equestria, and by far the strangest group she ever had the pleasure of meeting. Each of them strong in soul, but Naïve to a fault. ‘But I guess that one is our own fault, isn’t it?’ “Oh! Oh! OOOH! Does that mean we get to make a ‘Welcome back to Equestria except-you-never-really-left-in-the-first-place-but-welcome-back-anyway’ Party?!” Pinkie Pie cried out in joy, once again completely missing the point. “Ah’ don’t think tha’s what theh Princess is sayin’ Pinkie.” Applejack replied plainly, her tone having just fell into the plain deadpan of a pony who has to deal with this problem oh-too-often. “B-b-but Princess! You can’t have just sent Princess Luna into battle by herself!” Twilight attempted to reason, the numbers running through her mind at a pace known only to the Pink One. “This is correct. My Sister is currently being escorted by Equestria’s finest, she will be fine, of this I am sure.” The Goddess in the room replied softly, a façade built up from milenia of practice. ‘You must listen to yourself sometimes, she’ll be fine. After all, you wouldn’t lie to your faithful student, would you?’ “So, we’re going to go kick some flank then?” The prismatic one rasped, lazaly ‘swimming’ through the air in the pegasus equivalent of pacing. “Throw the Elements of Awesome at the problem, and then get home in ten seconds flat. Seems easy enough, when are we heading out, Princess?” “The Elements of Harmony will not be participating in this particular mission.” Celestia responded smoothly, before raising a hoof to silence the inevitable complaints out of habit. “I have full faith that this threat can be defeated in full by Luna and her assistants. Rather, the reason I brought you here is to ask for assistance in investigating some odd magical emission patterns.” “‘Odd’?” Twilight spoke up, confused. “Yes, odd. Normally this wouldn’t be enough to warrant an investigation, but with current events, I would rather not take any chances when it comes to Tartarus…” *0o()o0*{Factory Outskirts}*0o()o0* Princess Luna had been woken a few hours before she had intended to by the sound of electronic sparking. Her weapons leapt to their mistresses command as the sluggishness of sleep was wiped away by adrenaline, faster than even the well-trained guards that followed her. The others, to their credit, were able to get up with reasonable time, but even from the glare of the setting sun, Luna could see their hesitation and their lethargic movements. Thankfully, there was no real threat. One of the earth ponies on watch jumped as she leaped to action and scanned for threats, before after a moment of surprise, the earth pony withdrew his hooves to reveal the smashed remains of some sort of mechanical spider. “Guard! Report.” Luna ordered with no little amount of ire at being awoken to early in the night. “Apologies for the interruption Princess, I had been attacked by a small automaton and it had died with more noise then expected.” The earth poy snapped to addition, ignoring the oil and miscellaneous grime that dripped from one of his fore-hooves. “Are there any others?” Luna pressed, moving forward to investigate the deceased creature. “There was, Princess.” The guard replied, keeping his rigid stance at attention. “The retreated after the first of their number was slain.” “Good work then. Rouse any that art still within Our realm, we leave at once.” She dismissed, casting a quick levitation spell to bring to body closer to her eyes. From what she could tell, it was some hybrid of the original scorpion walkers that had assaulted Equestria, and the support ‘spiders’ that seemed to be the logistic crews of the factory. It had eight legs, four at each side, along with a scorpion tail that made up more than half of its length. For object manipulation, there appeared to be four small limbs around the jaws of the creature, each about the length of a minotaur’s ‘pinky’ finger. It had ten small red dots for eyes, eight facing forwards, and the remaining four facing to the left and right of it’s ‘frisbee-like’ body. Beyond that, there was no real markings that made it stand out from the legion of silver and grey. ‘Doesn’t look large enough to be a real threat… perhaps a scout? Maybe a scavenger?’ Luna mused, turning it over in her magic as if she was appraising a rare jewel. ‘No. Look at those jaws, it must be a harvesting unit of some kind. But to attack a pony instead of running? Perhaps this foe has some use to biomatter?’ “Any ideas what it is Princess?” One of the guards asked, one of her personal guards even. Millthorn, if she remembered correctly. “Looks like it wouldn’t be much good for anything but picking up bones to me.” “We assume it to be a harvester of some kind. Perhaps a scavenger, but almost definitely not a combat unit.” The Alicorn nodded, turning to her attendant. “Though We agree with thy observations, perhaps ‘tis used for harvesting bones or biomatter?” “How about we call it a ‘Bonepicker’? Would work for a scavenger, or a harvester.” Millthorn shrugged, flicking his bat wings with slight nervousness. ‘An adorable nervous tick, useful too. If there is one thing sister is good at, is training guards to appear to be emotionless.’ Luna mentally chuckled, the irritation at her rude awakening momentarily forgotten. “‘Tis satisfactory. This creature shalt now be known as ‘Bonepicker.’” “So… Princess, can we crack that thing open? I’ve never seen the inside of one, and the curiosity is killing me.” He asked with a slight smile, his wings flicking away an unseen irritation again. ‘At least we are in agreement on that.’ Luna mused, no vocally reply as she increased the pressure her telekinesis was putting out. It took a lot less force than expected, as unlike the large war machines she was used to fighting, this creature barely had an inch of hull. But as it opened with a loud crack, she was greeted with the smell of rotting flesh and blood. From within the disk portion of the creature, a single organic component is connected to a mess of wires and metal. A single shard of a once living being, barely the size of her hoof. A single part of a pony’s brain. A unicorn to be precise, particularly the part of the brain just before the horn. Part of the horn is still attached, connected to a socket of metal that seemed to be welded to the bone. Over her shoulder, Millthorn retreated from the scene and retched, but Luna remained unfazed. Out of all of the emotions running through her system, panic was the furthest from her mind. Curiosity, anger, even a little bit of wonder, but not fear. No horror. It was an abomination of course, the highest insult to organic life, but part of her wasn’t surprised. If anything, she was glad she knew what this foe was doing with their remains. ‘Perplexing…’ Throwing the carcass to the side, the Princess turned to address her troops. They still had a foe to fight after all. *0o()o0* Hours passed like leaves in the wind, the only guiding beacons being the moon and the tower. The endless expanse of concrete flooring, completely flat for as far as the eye can see, an oddity, but not one without its own beauty. The mastery of nature it displays, perhaps? Or even the sheer ignorance for what was once here? Regardless, Luna could still marvel at the sheer level of change this place has been through. After the rude awakening of this twilight, the troops were in no mood to talk. Leaving the group to march in blissful silence, bereft even of the sounds of nature. No birds, crickets, frogs or leaves. Even the clanking of hooves or armour was absent thanks to a inbuilt enchantment on their equipment. Only the silence of the night could be heard. Almost like the moon. The Princess had to restrain a physical shudder at the thought, before mentally throwing it to the back of her mind. She was in the middle of a mission against the greatest foe Equestria has ever seen! She didn’t have time to think about the past. “Contact!” Millthorn’s scream cut through the night air like a venomous blade, the feeling of cold dread infecting all that heard it. The night was lit up into flashes of pale blue as all of the enchantments on the guards’ armour flashed to life. Shields sprung to life, and blades were drawn as sections of the ground lifted to reveal metal chambers. Luna was only able to see a brief glance as hundreds of ‘Bonepickers’ surged from the multiple pits, the red beady eyes of the automata contracting the light of the blue enchantments. Red versus blue. Ironic. Springing into action, her glaives sung the song of death as they hacked the creatures to bits. The guards formed around her, swords, spears, and wingblades joining her deathly chorus, even the insolent adventurer entered the fray with her personal wingblades. The spiders swarmed across the ground like the tide of the seas, scuttling even across each other in their attempts to slay the intruders. Seconds passed like hours as Luna’s blades flashed in the moonlight, felling the creatures as if they were nothing more than a mild annoyance. She was a goddess, Princess of the Moon, Maiden of the Night, Queen of the Darkness. She was born for battle, she has never been defeated in a fair fight by any mortal. Her guards were not though. A minute or so into the encounter, the dying screams of a mare signaled the loss of one of the guards. She has missed a swing with her shortsword, and the spider had jumped onto her side, slowing the mare just enough for some of the other Bonepickers to take hold. After that, she was dragged into the surging masses screaming, blood and entrails coating the grey concrete floors. Beyond that, it was like a domino effect, guards would hesitate seeing what happened to their comrade, and that hesitation would cost them their lives. Some were stronger than others, able to keep their attention on the battle as their formation become smaller and smaller. Before long, the toll of battle began to show even on the Princess, small nicks here and there slowly became more sizable wounds, thankfully, she was able to keep her guard up enough for the damage to be limited to visual damage. “Ayah!” Luna cried, pulling her glaives back to her before releasing a great wall of force. The Bonepickers went flying as their formation was broken, allowing the Princess to capitalise on their weakness. A few extra blasts granted some breathing room, and the addition of some magical bolts allowed the remains of her party to start to gain some ground. In those few actions, the battle had shifted. What was a fight for their lives became a slaughter against a fleeing foe. The spiders ran back into their holes, dragging as much of their dead as possible down with them. Thousands turned to hundreds, then to a hooffull, and finally to none. “Heh… heh… ha ha ha!” Millthorn choked out a mildly crazed laugh, falling to his knees as he gazed out at the masses of robotic bodies. Blood coated the once-grey concrete a slimy shade of crimson, aided by the oils of the machines, and the sweat of the survivors. Hundreds of the Bonepickers lay dead, even more having been taken back underground by their fellows. ‘And all it had cost was three of our own.’ Out of the five that had entered this damned place, now only the Princess and Millthorn remained. Even the legendary ‘Daring Do,’ having survived countless adventures, had fell to this foe. It brought her no joy. “Eyes up Guardstallion!” Luna snapped, casting a quick healing spell on herself to close the wounds that had made it through the cracks in her armour. “Our mission is far from over.” “W-what?” Millthorn asked, his eyes reduced to pinpricks as any mirth he had drained faster then a popped balloon. “W-we’re not going back?!” “Of course not. We shalt move onward to establish a hoofhold, than call for reinforcements.” Princess Luna explained calmly, trotting past the stunned guard in the direction of the tower. ‘’Tis that, or call in the Elements… this is no place for such young mares.’ Chapter 3: Breach and ClearChapter 3: Breach and Clear. By Eric Longtooth. “Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote *0o()o0*{The Factory}*0o()o0* “Three… two… one… CLEAR!” With Millthorn’s shout, a great explosion rocked the side of the Factory’s Tower. Metal screeched in protest, whilst parts were melted away by the sheer heat of the angry green Witchflame detonation. A single jar was all they needed, and a single jar was enough the strip the meter thick armour plating of the tower. But as the flames receded enough to grant sight, like a well oiled machine, the Princess planted herself in the gap and lit the insides of the tower with powerful blasts of combat magic. Bonepickers and other miscellaneous abominations were felled by the blast, not even granted a chance to fight back as Luna’s held spell was released. “Thou doth know We are the only one here. Thy cries grant only a warning to our foes.” Luna chuckled, preparing another combat spell for the inevitable counter attack. “Apologies Princess, force of habit.” Millthorn sighed, his dour mood still not lifted since the loss of the rest of their team. The goddess gave no response as she observed the room. The enchantments on her armour allowing her to see through the darkness that surrounded them, and, as expected, she was greeted only the steel walls, pipes, and cabling. This was the first room they had managed to get into, but not from a lack of trying. Other sections of the wall outside was littered with scorch marks and dents, most revealing only addition layers of armour, but some not even managing to make it that far. They had tried almost everything to get through, magic, brute force, even stolen explosives from the Factory itself. Luna herself was loath to use the Witchflame, but thankfully, it worked exactly as expected. ‘We’ll have to order a team to cleanse this place after We are done… We can’t be bothered to deal with the damned Ifrits after this battle.’ The Princess mused, turning to the single doorway at the other end of the room. Interestingly enough, the bulk of the dead bodies where centralised around that point, but, at the same time, the larger creatures were all lain further away from it. The Bonepickers, and other small spiders had died in bulk near the door, as if they were fleeing. Whilst the walkers, be they Minotaurs or Ponies, had all charged into the breach. ‘So the beasts have some level on intelligence… annoying, but usable.’ “Wow… that’s a lot of machines…” Millthorn muttered, eyes going wide as he entered the tower. “If all of the rooms are as populated as this, there must be… millions…” “Perhaps. Take heart, we shalt not be battling all of the machines.” Luna reassured in a slightly deadpan tone. “We are to create a hoofhold, and, if possible, to slay the core. Not clean up the dregs.” “Still… Even a quarter of the creatures in this room would be able to take out a squad of Guards with ease.” Millthorn quickened his pace, catching up with his ruler as she made her way to the door. “I couldn’t even begin to imagine being one of the first Guards to have discovered this place. It would’ve been a slaughter.” “Agreed.” Luna nodded, dispelling her combat spell, and switching to a telekinesis one as she attempted to pry open the door. “A painful death to be sure.” ‘Amusing how stress coupled with time is able to change one so quickly… Here We were, thinking Our loyalest champion would abandon this cause.’ Luna silently chuckled from behind her helm, pointedly ignoring the ear-grating sound of the door buckling under her strength. ‘Perhaps We should put more stock into these mortals. For all their flaws, they are not the same we left behind all those years ago.’ With a final snap, akin more to strip of aluminum than steel, the door crumpled into the frame. With points across the frame jutting out at unexpected angles as the inner components submitted to the harsh treatment of Luna’s Telekinesis. Through the door, a long, dark hallway was revealed. With the electrical light fixtures indented into the walls having been smashed in by some unknown force. As the enchantments in her helmet poured additional power into her sight, Luna took note of the abnormal level of litter in this hall. Scraps of metal and wiring littered the ground, paper and plastic dancing across the metallic flooring as the breeze from outside leaked in. Half built monsters stood attached to the roof my thick cables, lifeless every couple of meters or so. Unlike the others, these ones had no organic components. Even for those with their heads and bodies left open showed only wires and circuitry. It was a welcome change, but an odd one. “Huh… that’s… less creepy then expected.” Millthorn commented from behind her. Luna opted to ignore him as she continued forward, taking care to hug the opposite wall to the half-built attomotons. From what she could tell, the path continued further then her enchantments could let her see, with no real considerable change in scenery. As she continued, the Princess began a inner monologue. ‘We believe this is the point where the ‘creepy’ music starts playing. Heh, had this foe not taken so many from Us already, this would seem almost comical.’ ‘Perhaps this is some kind of workshop? Though, it is quite narrow… Hmm…’ As she walked, the creatures started to become more and more complex. Beings once a fairly simple four legs, a body, and a head, start to become odd monstrosity more at home with Hoofcraftian Horror. Tentacles of flexible plastic, with armour layered like the long-lost Snake Ponies of the East. Interlocking plates, spiked and covered in wires. Or even the centipede-like creature that took up a good seven meters of the left wall. Oddities of the twisted she dubbed this hall, even though it would have to be destroyed like everything else when the cleaning crews came through. ‘Perhaps We can keep a few… some of these creatures would make for a good addition to Our trophy room.’ Luna thought, her horn flashing quickly to make sure the enchantments would still be near full charge. ‘Odd, the charge appears to be draining faster than expected. No matter. The servants must have failed in their duties to keep Our armour ready at all times.’ bɐʇəs¿ ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ,s ʇɥə ɐʇ ʞuoɔʞs ʍɥo The Princess’ ears flicked at the sound of a deep, near inaudible, grinding of metal. Lasting barely a second or so, before the sound disappeared without an echo nor a response. ‘Perhaps this place is not as stable as first expected…’ She noted, taking extra care to keep track of everything she passed. “Wait… hault!” As the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. A silly, amature mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. The mechanical bodies had stopped being what one would consider ‘pony-sized’ quite a few minutes ago, and had started to take up entire sections of wall, completely covering whatever would have wanted to hide behind them. That included hidden passageways. The body of a large mechanical replica of a dragon was hurled into the roof by its cabling at a speed a certain prismatic pegasus would have found comedible, and from behind the creature, a massive hallway revealed itself. But, it was far from empty. Eight large monsters emerged from the new hallway, each standing on a pair of long legs, layed with enough armour to make movement seem impossible, and looking down upon her with nearly two whole heads of additional height. They wore what appeared to be a suit of thick orange cloth, taking on the appearance of a bipedal version of a medieval suit of armour. The cloth however, was tattered and frayed, revealing a black metal backing and thick cables running all across their bodies. Seven of them wore a bulky metal helmet painted a fading rusty orange, featureless aside from a trio of red lights arranged in a triangle in the middle of their ‘face.’ The final however, wore no helm. Instead, its head appeared to have been replaced by a metallic ape-like skull. With the only additions being a pair of beedy red lights in place of the ape’s eyes, and the teeth having been replaced by what appeared to be the fangs of a dragon. Each of them held a long boxy weapon in their arms, easily as long as she was tall, starkly sleak compared to the rest of the creatures of this place. As the split second of observation passed, the eight bipeds all dropped into a synchronised crouch, similar to that used by the archers of the Royal Guard. The helm-less one, called out a mess of sounds that sounded like somepony had gotten the native language of the minotaurs and stuck it into a rockcrusher. “ʇɥə ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ ɔɐlls ɟoɹ ʎonɹ pəɐʇɥ' ıusəɔʇ¡” In the three seconds it took for the creature to say… whatever it said, Luna was able to bring up her glaives and charge into the fray. She was able to kill off one of the creatures before they were able to return fire, having took only a fraction of a second to prepare her attack. This… this was her rightful place in this dreadful battlefield. Glowing green plasma launched from the ends of their weapons, but none were able to connect. For all of their mechanical prowess, the weapons were too long to fire inside easily. But, when they were able to bring their weapons around enough for a clean shot, a quick blast of telekinesis was enough to cause the shot to miss. Elegance refined into combat, be it with the slight application of her wings, or the use of her foes to dance across the battlefield. Like an actress practicing a perfectly choreographed combat scene, that even with the death, looks more like a piece of art then the deadly game of life and death that it is. Her weapons sung the song of death once more, their ancient blades cutting through their armour with ease, relics from a time long lost. A single flourish here decapitated one of the remaining seven, another jab spilled her third kill’s oil and circuitry across the ground. It was glorious, the first real battle in millenia. Those mindless beasts had no ture allure, these however, held the intelligence of a true, living being. Subtle things a machine could not replicate, a twitch here, and well-timed dodge there. Even the feeling of their mechanical eyes on her glorious form. Perhaps it was time to take out their commander. Spinning on a hoof like a elegant dancer, Luna whipped one of her glaives around to cut through the commander’s weapon. Thunk! The blade caught onto the weapon, but, unlike all of those before it, the weapon stopped the attack. Her glaive dug into the weapon by an inch or so, deep cracks danced across the metallic surface of the alien ‘crossbow,’ if it could even be called that at this point. A look of shock flashed across Luna’s face, as the creature reefed the weapons towards it, and flipped her glaive out of her magical grip. After it had done this, it threw its ‘crossbow’ to the side like a piece of trash, and gripped the stolen weapon in both hands. “Thou shalt pay for this insult, beast!” Luna growled, launching forward with a sideways cleave. The creature blocked it effortlessly, using her momentum to push the weapon over its head, opening her up to a counterattack that it took eagerly. Thankfully, her armour was able to block the blow, though, the sheer force of the attack smashed her left barrel plating. Crumpling the metal, and forcing it to fall to the floor. It’s attack completed, the creature backed off a meter or so, starting to circle the Princess with her weapon ready to attack or block. Even with the painful bruises across her side, Luna couldn’t help but to crack a smile. It had been a long time since something was able to put up this much of a fight, and she planned to savour her victory once this was over. She steeled her resolve as she greeted the beast with a wave of pure magic. Although she would have rathered fire, or something more potent, she would rather not waste energy testing the creatures resistances. The magic impacted the creature, forcing it back a few steps as it rigidly held against the force. But, her attack brought some fruit, sections of its armour flew from its body, revealing tender flesh under them. Deep black skin, void of hair or scales, barely visible in the low light, was this creature’s only natural barding. A strange outcome, but a welcome one. The creature hissed out a wordless mechanical cry of anger as it went on the offencive. Charging forward, it came in for a jab, having let go with it’s right hand, and using the length of its arms to maximum effect. Luna dodged to the side, capitalising on the creature’s anger to cut into it’s left arm. Unlike before, the creature had no tricks or uncanny dodges, and caught the blade right on it’s wrist, cutting clean through, and spurting crimson blood to the ground. The creature grunted in pain as its other hand flashed out at a impossible speed, gripping onto the Alicorn’s horn, and cutting off her levitation magic. Before she could make any vocal cry of indignation, the creature pulled her by her horn closer to it, delivering a painful knee to the gut. Her armour creaked and cracked as she attempted to use her earth pony strength to overpower the creature, only accomplishing copping a few extra knees to the gut. “Princess!” Millthorn’s cry cut through the pain, joined swiftly by another cry of pain on behalf of her adversary. Though she didn’t remember closing her eyes, Luna opened them to see her trusty guard had stuck a long, cruel looking dagger into the neck of her attacker. It took the creature only a second before the red lights of its eyes turned dull, and it dropped to the ground, freeing her. In a split second call, Luna pulled her guard to her and called on her teleportation magic. And as they fled, the last thing they saw was the other bipedal creatures in the room pulling their fallen comrades back into the darkness... Chapter 4: Live WiresChapter 4: Live wires By Eric Longtooth. “The sad part about being a lone wolf is, you don't die around your friends, you die around your enemies.” Unknown |>o0{ Spark }0o</| His skittering legs danced across the labyrinth of machines and robots. His original, inefficient hooved limbs having been long since replaced with the shiny metal of ten insectoid legs. Although he was loath to use the design of the insects that had once plagued the glorious Factory, they were without a doubt, effective at movement in this terrain. Each leg fitting smoothly into the grooves of each building, each placed as if they were built just so he could traverse them, this unit was able to continue his duties as caretaker with ease. He was thankful for his position, other units had been taken to the front lines, but he was allowed to stay here. A great distance underground, surrounded only by the awe-inspiring creations of the factory, instead of the filth of this world’s primitives. Regardless, he was filled with a sense of pride as he gazed around at his surroundings. Where stone and clay had once littered the walls, now was only the open steel and concrete of the factory floor. Even though a large portion of the production has been moved to The Spire after the resources dried up, most of the complex components still were manufactured here. Gone were the days of mines and refining, now, all the resources were brought in by the vast networks of trains. Even some of the common products required for advanced production had to be imported, gears, circuits, even bodies. After he had removed the few remaining insects that had most likely followed them from the last planet, the need for bio-matter had skyrocketed. Whilst he wasn’t entirely sure why the Factory needed it, he had to admit, the wild cattle were a good source for it. From what he could tell, soon a group of special bodies would arrive, and would be uplifted. It pleased him to know that he wasn’t the only one to receive such a blessing, but at the same time, he worried that he would be replaced in the eyes of the Factory. But these thoughts distracted him from the task at hand, for the first time, the Factory would allow him to uplift one of his old kind! The Factory had whispered it in the harsh binary tones that it always did, saying that now that he had been stripped of the last of his bio-matter, he would be granted the knowledge to give the same gifts he had received to others! He couldn’t wait to find these new siblings! *0o()o0*{Princess Luna}*0o()o0* Long ago, when she was still a little filly, Luna had be warned of the dangers of blind teleports. Death, dismemberment, paralyzation, and, more often the not, magical exhaustion. Sure, there was ways to make sure these things didn’t happen. Be it a quick scanning spell to make sure the destination was clear, or even some sort of mana limitation so that the spells didn’t take too much energy. But, when one started to do that, the process started to take up more valuable time. Time that, in combat, cannot be spared. So, it was hardly a surprise when her spell spat the pair out in mid air. Once again, the bonuses of being an alicorn showed as the Princess rolled her body to take the brunt of the fall away from her faithful guard. It took only a moment of free fall before the pair made contact with the hard metallic ground, causing a great screech of metal as the flooring fought with the Princess’s armour to claim this unwanted assailant as its own. Thankfully, it wasn’t enough of a fall to break the enchanted plate mail, even in its damaged state. Before she could move to check on her companion, she was greeted with a loud groan as the armoured batpony rolled off of her. “Eeeegh… I think I lost a few brain cells in that one…” Millthorn complained as he slowly picked himself off of the ground. “How are you fairing, Princess?” “We art fine. A few bruises and nothing more.” Luna replied as she joined Millthorn in readying themselves. “Dost thou know where we are located?” “I think I should be asking you, I’m no unicorn, and even then, I don’t think I’d be able to teleport in the middle of battle like that.” “Fair.” “Well, if you ponies opened your eyes for once, I could tell you.” A female double toned voice dryly chuckled from above them. At the sound, the pair quickly adopted battle stances as they scanned the darkness for a foe. But, in reality, there wasn’t much to see at all, with the room they found themselves in being nothing more than a large metal box. Beyond a single door on the far end of the room, and a mess of cables and wires covering up large portions of the walls. The only abnormal thing being a great big stain of green fluid that they found themselves standing in. “Up here, princess.” The voice called mockingly before she descended into a fit of coughs. The Princess and her faithful guard snapped their eyes to the voice, before flinching at what they found. Everypony knows who Queen Chrysalis is, be it that they saw her at some point, or simply had heard tales of her exploits. Be it the original invasion of Canterlot, or the grand scale schemes that seemed to flock to her like vultures to carrion. But this… this was something else. Where there was once shiny black carapace and grand teal hair, they could see only a flaking and sickly layer of tender muscle. Meat hooks straight out of the butcheries of the Gryphons had plunged through the fallen Queen’s limbs, each attached by thick chains to multiple anchor points in the roof. Sections of her body had been torn away, leaving gaping holes that leaked neon green blood and acted like windows to alien-like organs. Hundreds of struggling worm-like creatures swarmed around the damaged area, each clad in thin chitinous carapaces and dozens of tiny legs that oozed a sort of deep teal acid that burned away infected-looking flesh. Although it was a slow process, the Princess noticed that wherever the acid burned, tiny tendrils of muscle reached out and slowly regrew the grievous wounds. A sort of symbiotic relationship perhaps? Or just a more advanced version of normal healing? Whilst Luna watched with curiosity, Milthorn found himself looking away with a grimace. “Take a good look, ponies. For this is evolutionary perfection…” Chrysalis laughed darkly, shaking a few of the worms off of her body and into the floor far below. Surprisingly enough, the worms seemed to take it in stride and began climbing the walls to get back to their host. “I should be glad, perhaps I’ll get killed in the crossfire when they finally come for you.” “We shouldn’t be surprised, that an insect as… annoying as you,” Luna began with a sneer, “Would be this disgusting, but it seems even We have yet to see everything.” “Ha! So it would seem!” The changeling Queen laughed, her double toned voice turning a, usually, pleasant sound into a chorus of haunting sounds. ‘Well… this couldn’t get any worse…’ Author's Note A thousand apologies about the delay, I'd bring up a multitude of excuses for my insolence, but I doubt they would state you. Regardless, I'm back to working on this, and I shall attempt to get chapters done in a more... timely fashion. Chapter 5: City of Cruel AngelsAuthor's Note Produced in a more... timely manner due to the prompting of a nameless number 8. Thanks again mate, you'd be surprised how much an ego boost can do to make these things. ;P Chapter 5: City of Cruel Angels Chapter 5: City of Cruel Angels By Eric Longtooth “MEENAH: Before I died I was already like, 'I ain't give a fuck about death much' MEENAH: I looked at it like life had a price of admission no one could afford MEENAH: in the ticket takers eye there's no way you could ever earn your stay MEENAH: So to stick around you gotta learn to steal MEENAH: but shit catches up with all thieves in the end. MEENAH: even the great ones.” - Homestuck, Written by Andrew Hussie 0o0o0o0(O)| Home Guard Command Unit: Steele |(O)0o0o0o0 Mission: Secure intruder, designation 'ALICORN' Mission Prioritus: Absolute Troop Status: - 1020 [K.I.A] - 1021 [K.I.A] - 1022 [K.I.A] - 1023 [K.I.A] - 1024 [100%] - 1025 [87%] - 1026 [90%] - 1285 [100%] - 1286 [100%] - 1287 [100%] "These are unacceptable numbers, Command Unit." 1024, designation 'Stratagus,' buzzed in its usual pitch perfect binary. "Target was able to eliminate four operatives and yourself with minimal wounds and we are not even up to our normal combat strength. Should we engage, we will be slaughtered." Its objections were mirrored by the other two remaining units of the '102-X' squad in a light buzz of binary, whilst the reinforcements sent fierce disagreement through the comms. Barely audible to biologicals because of the loud droning of general factory processes around them, be it the grinding of gears, the sparking of electricity, or just the binary of the multitude of drones flying through. "The Factory stated we shall prevail, and so we shall!" 1287, designation 'Wolf,' argued, its binary requiring an extra microsecond of processing to eliminate the corruption that is it's 'accent '. Steele, once again, ignored her underlings as she pinged the armory with a request before taking a moment to replace her damaged parts. Disposing of the ones that would be unfixable in a small bin access in the wall, whilst grabbing the multitude of spares that hang on racks outside of the armory. Click, hisssss... 'Another damaged arm... this was the third this cycle. If I keep this up, I'll start getting accused of wasting resources...' She mused as she began feeding the wires of her new arm into their appropriate sockets. It amused her that the stout benches that The Factory gave them for waiting always seemed to creak under their weight, in fact, it was almost enough amusement to outweigh the annoyance of the part racks being just out of reach when sitting. "Request Processed. Squad designation 102-128, proceed to rearmament bay Solarius." The automated speaker dryly toned to the squabbling group, already opening the necessary doors to reach the bay. "I maintain my point, if The Factory didn't have faith in us, would it give us new armaments? I think not." Wolf 'chuckled,' or at least something close to it. For once, Steele was glad she didn't have biological ears... "This unit is not surprised you think so. Batch 12-XX is notorious for zealotry defects." Stratagus shot back, cutting off Wolf's laughter and replacing it with feral grinding of gears. Most likely to simulate the growls of its namesake. "Take that back, or I'll take your head!" "Negative, combat data suggests you wouldn't even get close." 'Perhaps I should step in before they start to kill each other... why The Factory gave us so much freedom, I'll never know... ' Steele mentally sighed as she rose to her feet, the still-tattered orange cloth of her under armour sticking uncomfortably to her synthetic hide. "1024, stand down and watch your tongue. We have a job to do." "By your order." Stratagus acidly spat, the additional 'mark-ups’ of the phrase forcing a double upload of binary. "Of course the one so focused on perfection would add extra binary just to display its snark. :Eyeroll:" Wolf commented, using his own brand of Dead-Code instead of the mark-ups it was mocking. "1287, that's enough." Honestly, she was surrounded with foals. "All units, move to rearm, we'll head out in ten mikes." Target Found / Location: Sector Alpha-2-4 Secondary mission gained: Recapture subject 'CHANGELING QUEEN' Mission Prioritus: Ultima "Contact!" One of the other units screeched, followed only by the heavy blasts of the auto-scatterguns. Shards of plexi-steel smashed into sections of the hallway, causing large gouges out of the concrete and metal. "E.M waves detected, take cov-!" 1025 was cut off as its torso erupted into a magical implosion, his warning not enough to save himself. "That's for the hooks, demons!" The changeling called in arrogance, barely audible over the gunfire. 'Not going to take that shot... we need her alive, and I doubt she can survive a bullet through the skull.' Steele mentally sighed, flipping a switch on her mag-rifle. Even though The Factory offered other weapons, all she needed was a replacement for her original. Namely because of the inbuilt acceleration rail for grenades, or even just the precision that comes with firing a bullet at five times the speed of sound. BOMF! ZAP! The launch of the stun grenade seemed to have the desired effect as the Bug Queen sent back a flurry of curses and hate. “1285 to 1287, move up with me. 1024, 1026, provide covering fire.” She commanded as she holstered her rife in favour of drawing a knife and a pistol. “Wolf, get your flamethrower ready for my command.” A chorus of binary confirmation was sent in reply as her armoured boots began pushing her forward. It wasn’t an optimum strategy, as the alicorn had proven quite adept at melee combat, but with the obstructions of piping and containers ranged warfare wasn’t much better. Clang! ‘Speak of the devil…’ Steele commented with a mental eyeroll, pushing off the glaive with a flourish of her knife before facing her opponent. ‘Looks like she can’t just teleport them back to her, either that or the armory is too far away to retake her stolen weapon…’ “Demon… a fitting name. For once We art in agreement with our foe.” The princess spat, drawing her blade back into a defensive stance. A very effective one in fact, at least, for a quadruped. ‘As much as I complain, The Factory’s obsession with these apes isn’t without merit…’ Steele mentally admitted as she prepared her combat augmentics. ‘At least, with the cybernetics… not sure about without them.’ She herself went back into a bit more of an aggressive stance, placing her blade in front of her, whilst having her pistol hug her torso. ‘Even after all that, her eyes still follow the knife… her mistake.’ Steele lunged forward, passing Luna’s Guard in a moment of impossible agility, before bringing her blade down in a very obvious strike. Luna, as expected, committed to a micro-teleport as she blocked the strike, leaving her side open to any other attack. Fortunately for her, Steele’s blade was occupied. Unfortunately, her gun was not. A trio of hip-fried shots impacted the princess’ side, the first two causing deep dents in the archaic armour, whilst the third found a gap between the plates and met flesh. In the moment of hesitation Luna created as she was blinded by pain, Steele slipped further into the princess’ guard as she brought her knife across the alicorn’s horn. The blade cut deep into the ivory, but be it some alicorn magic, or just earth pony strength, the horn held fast. Luna cried out in pain as mutlicoloured sparks flew from the wound as crimson blood slowly leaked around the blade now embedded in the appendage. “This brings me no joy princess, but I hope you can see the irony.” Steele whispered, knowing that the princess wouldn’t understand her words. “A former guard of the day, slaying the ni-” Before she could dislodge her knife and finish the job, Steele was launched away by a wave of green fire. The wave burned hotter than plasma, as her implants ‘helpfully’ informed her, and was more than enough to overpower the fireproofing measures of her underclothes, only adding further fuel to the flames. The magical fire stuck to her form like napalm as she was sent flying into the hallway wall with enough force to crack her armour. Subsequently allowing the fire to begin to burn away some of her internal cybernetics as the flames coil around her in a sort of primal intelligence. Circuits cooked and lubricant boiled turning her synthetic hide into a mat of melting flesh. An unholy scream of the holy machine language split the air as the ammunition on her sets off, ending her unlife in a great detonation… She could only hope The Factory wouldn’t find her wanting… 0o0o0o0(O)| Home Guard #128-7, Squad 102-128: Wolf |(O)0o0o0o0 Command Unit Slain. Transfer of Command in progress... 102-0 ‘Dread’ [K.I.A] 102-4 ‘Stratagus’ [Not Applicable] 102-6 ‘Scuttle’ [Insufficient Permissions] Conclusion: Squad 102-X Command Chain Eliminated. Query: Available Squad Leads? Candidates: 128-0 128-7 101-0 101-1 Response from server: Explanative: Mission Prioritus Absolute. Solution: 001-0 Dispatched. Temporary Command transferred to unit: #128-7 ‘Wolf’ “Wolf!? Are you shitting me?!” Stratagus called from behind him, barely seconds after the detonation of their commander. Wolf, for once, didn’t comment, as he sent a quick mental command to the repurposed inserter hidden next to his spine. ‘This is a right fucking mess, they must be desprate to put me in command instead of lord asshole…’ He growled over the sound of his auto-scattergun’s barks. The fact that they were getting caught on a mere two foes irked him to no end, doubly so when one remembered that one of their foes was a former prisoner. ‘Wait… didn’t the brief say there was a third? He mused as the inserter extended over his right shoulder, ready to bring its jury-rigged flamethrower to bare. ‘Perhaps he bled out or something of the sort.’ Another volley of sickly green magic burnt into the coolant pipes he was crouched behind, releasing another, surprisingly pleasant, blast of cool air as the chemicals reacted with the oxygen. “It is only a matter of time Changeling! You can’t keep this up forever!” 1026 yelled in retort, ‘Scuttle,’ if he remembered correctly, as he launched a frag grenade over Wolf’s head. “Watch it Scuttle! You nearly hit me with that!” Wolf barked back as he joined the grenade with a wave of burning napalm. The wave did fuck all, as it was blocked by a pulse of raw mana, but at this point, it was just a given. ‘Well, she’s stopped cursing at us.’ Wolf slammed another mag-drum home on his auto-scattergun before blind-firing over the cover. ‘Here’s hoping that’s a good sign.’ System Warning: Salvation is at hand, prepare to push. ‘A system warning? They only come from The Factory itself…’ Another blast of magic sheared off the majority of his cover and caught his scattergun, turning it, and the attached arm to a goopy slag. ‘Not to mention, with the way this is going, I seriously doubt we are going to find ‘salvation’ here in anything but death.’ And then the roof exploded. ()()o()(){Signal Lost}()()o()() Chapter 6: At the Brink of ForeverSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.Chapter 7: MomentumChapter 7: Momentum. By Eric Longtooth “We work together or we die. That’s our lot now. Even if it’s just for one more Trial, we live. Even if it just means waking up to one more campfire in the long, endless night, we live! Ingloriously, messily, and dishonourably, we live! Even if it means dragging ourselves out of that gate on our ruptured bellies with our entrails hanging behind us while we scream ‘fuck, fuck, fuck!’ We. Will. Live!” - I-A-M, Dead by Sunset *o0(@) Princess Luna 0o* The princess was angry. With Celestia, with the factory, and most importantly, herself. ‘Wretched machines! Curse their boomsticks and their foul witchcraft!’ She mentally hissed as she tried, and failed, to cast a mending spell on her horn. The temptation to drop the glaive from her mouth and vocally express her displeasure was strong, but considering the explosion, there was little time to spare. “Princess! Get off your ass and help me!” ‘When we leave here, she will die. This godless abomination of steel and ash will not take that from me.’ She grumbled as she hurried up to the Queen’s side, only to pause at the sight of the detonation. The jar that she had given Millthorn was a bit more powerful than the witchfire they used to enter this damned place, seeing as it had been mixed with a volatile concoction of solarite and arcanium. In theory, it would be enough to blow a hole into the Canterlot Vaults, which is one of the many, many reasons witchfire is banned. It is always amazing how flexible rules become in war. Regardless, it was clear that it did its job. As where the hidden door had once been, there was a hole. A hole about the size of a small building. The edges of what survived glowed a sickly neon green and yellow as flames danced across the ruined metal. Past the metal on each side, the stone had taken considerable damage as fragments of metal embedded themselves in every possible surface, each shard having tried oh-so desperately to escape the explosion. Just past the hole, right before the door that leads further into the factory, half a torso sits sparking. Burnt to charcoal black and stripped down to a metal skeleton, the last of their attackers leaks oil stained blood as it fades into death. The smell of foul magicks, sulphur, oil, and ash hangs heavy in the air, laying its own personal war against those who can smell. Stinging and irritating all it can. But, in the end, that wasn’t what grabbed the attention of the ageless alicorn. No, that honor belongs to whatever had been passing through the gate before it blew. Even in death, it was terrifying. Consisting of a body the size of the largest yak, with thick plating and forests of cables that fed liquids of all colours across its hide. Further, there was the ‘upper torso,’ not unlike a centaur’s it was created with the likeness of chiseled muscles upon more armor plating before branching off to four main arms and a octuplet of smaller grabbers and inserters. The two top arms ended only in the claws of a dragon, but, the underarms however, where much more interesting. Each ended in large, boxy ‘guns,’ but unlike the normal weaponry she had seen, these were covered in tubes of bright blue and red and all fed into the central ‘barrel’ of the gun. The damaged tubes leaked red and blue fire, and the barrels glowed ominously, but, thankfully, they were still. Few ‘legs’ had survived the blast, mainly those that were on the opposite side of the hull to the explosion, and the reasoning was quite obvious. Unlike the impossible bulk of the rest of the machine, the legs were barely thicker than a pony’s hoof. They looked like something from a spider, and, if she were to make an educated guess, prior to the blast there eight in total. Finally, there was the head. There was little left of it, but Luna could make out the likeness of a sort of mechanical pony’s skull, with the eye sockets instead taken up by dozens of small, beedy red cameras. The entirety of the right side of the skull had been melted off, but, surprisingly, it the rest of the skull was more or less intact. At least, if one ignored a few darkened cameras, and what she could only assume to be an immolated brain. “Impressive bombsmareship princess, I doubted the little twerp, but he got that thing pretty well.” Chrysalis chuckled as she dimmed her horn. “Hopefully there’s enough left to salvage a map.” “Just get on with it knave, We still have to go back for Millthorn before we leave.” Luna said after planting her glave into the ground. “We art still stuck in here, and there art still foes around every corner. Don’t get lazy.” @$%%^*{--ERR.--}===@###! MODEL: P.V.1223 USER NUMBER: 001-0 SYSTEM STATUS: RECOVERY MODE Status =/= Online Status =/= Offline ∴ display error log. ERROR LOG: ---(*)--- DAMAGE = Rating >8 TIME SCALE = <1 second ∴ DAMAGE CAUSE EXCEEDS DEFENCE RATING | INT. DEF-PROTOCOL ‘POSSUM’ ---(*)--- Reason == Satisfactory Current Status =/= Optimum. ∴ Display damage log. DAMAGE LOG: (==|==) HEAD: 67% - CORE PROCESSOR: 0% - OPTICAL [R]: 13% - OPTICAL [L]: 89% TORSO [UM]: 89% - ARM [MTR]: 73% - ARM [MBR]: 65% - ARM [SR]: 87% - ARM [MTL]: 88% - ARM [MBL]: 91% - ARM [SL]: 78% TORSO [LS]: 74% - BACKUP PROCESSOR: 100% - LEG [R1] 0% - LEG [R2] 77% - LEG [R3] 0% - LEG [R4] 0% - LEG [L1] 100% - LEG [L2] 0% - LEG [L3] 91% - LEG [L4] 76% - HULL GUN [FL] 0% - HULL GUN [FR] 2% - HULL GUN [TC] 0% - HULL GUN [BC] 35% (==|==) Confirmed. Damage =/= Optimum Damage == Acceptable ∴ Load Bootstrapper - Set ‘SECONDARY PROCESSOR’ to: Master CONFIRMED. LAUNCHING… *o0(@) Princess Luna 0o* As much as it hurt her pride to ask for it, Luna did, eventually give in and ask the Changeling Queen to heal her horn. Surprisingly however, Chrysalis had no snark to give on the topic, and only responded with things along the lines of ‘you’ll need that to fight.’ Regardless, she was currently doing some sort of techno-wizardry with the husk of the fallen machine whilst Luna stood guard. Surprisingly enough, the only foe to appear was a hooffull of bonepickers and small, bird-sized, flying machines. “Millthorn has yet to appear… hurry thy work so that we may find him before our foe doth end him…” Luna whispered, neglecting to put enough effort to maintain her ‘princessly speech,’ instead defaulting to a flat, tired tone. “Our horn can barely maintain telekinesis, and we would rather not wait for more machines to find us.” “They’ve already found us, don’t worry about that.” Chrysalis commented with a roll of her slitted eyes, “the fact that we have yet to be swarmed is a miracle within itself.” “So why doth they wait? We know there to be enough weaklings within this place to drown us in bodies.” The princess mused, flicking off bits of greymatter from her blade. “We were foalish to come here, but this place seems to refuse to capitalise on our weakness. Why?” She shrugs, removing the long, thin cable from the lower chest cavity of the beast with a quick yank. “Perhaps it enjoys toying with us, or maybe it is retarded, it doesn’t matter in the end.” The small ‘tablet’ Chrysalis held in her magic began to glow and hum as it began to project a three dimensional map. Near one of the walls, a small red dot flashed, and began to project a dotted line that wound in odd patterns for a good distance before existing near the base of the tower. “Well, this explains why this place is so painful to navigate.” The changeling chuckled dryly as she gestured with a hoof towards the shifting insanity that was the map. “It seems that below the surface, the tower is situated on sections that slowly turn… Just slow enough that one wouldn’t notice of course, but still enough to throw any invaders off.” “Another dishonest trick from this foe… we art not surpris-” “VRAAAM!” Before she could continue, the princess was cut off by Chrysalis being engulfed in burning red-blue plasma as the ‘slain’ beast began to rise once more... Author's Note What is this foul witchcraft!?! Two chapters in a month!? Barely a day between them!? Chapter 8: Flight of the FallenChapter 8: Flight of the Fallen By Eric Longtooth “Prey hated hope. It was a vice of the weak, a poison far more addictive than salt or any other drug. It built you up with no foundation, promising beautiful things you could never reach, and then brought you crashing down into the depths of despair.” - Lambs Prey, Prey and a Lamb ~^v>|<{ Princess Luna }>|<v^~ Is it better to live within a story? Or be faced with cruel reality? Within stories and tales, the deaths of another take time, they are drawn out, and given a dramatic flair. Be it for the most hated of foes, or the bestest of friends. Reality however, is much harsher. One isn’t given time to register death in the heat of combat, thoughts cannot be spared to acknowledge the death of the one you hate the most. Joy cannot be spared, nor can anger at those that took what is rightfully yours. There was little left of the changeling Matriarch, as the plasma had reduced even her bones to slag and ash. Infact, the only thing that remained was her horn, a horn that swiftly fell through the cracks in the floor. It didn’t matter though, there were bigger, angrier, problems to deal with. “Unit online, primary core disabled, factory standard reinstated.” The beast called in a booming, emotionless tone. For once, speaking in an understandable Equish. “Target found, combat modules launched. Engaging.” Another blast of blue-red death launched from its guns, narrowly missing the princess as she dropped into a roll. ‘There art no point fighting this thing… a single hit would end us... ’ The princess mentally commented as she took off down the hallway. ‘The runes in our armor should have captured a picture of the map, we’ll just need a moment to retrieve it… there!’ The memory flooded into her mind and in a second or so, she had gathered a heading. Now she just needed to make it there without getting killed. “CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!” Projectiles launched from a previously concealed weapon on the underside of the monster’s hull, with five of its six barrels bent out of shape, or missing entirely, it shook dangerously with each round, launching them in odd and unpredictable angles. “VRAAAM!” A narrow turn down a side passage kept her head from being taken off, leaving the blast to rip a hole through a wall and further into the stone. Blood pounded in her ears as the princess forced herself to breathe evenly, her muscles burned with lactic acids as she remembered fondly when her armor had given a barrier from overexertion. She didn’t even remember exactly when the enchantments had run dry. ‘Wait, did we not just use some of the enchantments? If the armor hast run dry, none should be wor-’ “Gah!” Pain blossomed in the tender flesh of her neck as one of the stray bullets found a gap between the plates. It was nearly enough to cause her to stumble as the metal exited the front of her neck, only to ricochet upon the internals of her armor and launch itself into her breast. Blood began to spill into her lungs as her innate alicorn magic desperately expended itself to replace the need for air. A useful, but not very efficient endeavor. And yet, she still ran. “VRAAAM!” Another blast sailed over her head and burnt a nearly ten meter gash into the roof. Fragments of concrete, dirt, and metal dirtied her already soiled mane as her hooves pounded and rocketed her through the hallway. Lupus non timet canem latrantem... ‘Now is not the time!’ The lunar alicorn hissed, narrowly dodging another blast of crackling plasma. Aeternam iram; iram frigus… sine fine somnum exterreri solebat… ‘We are not Her! Thy meddling is for naught!’ A small swarm of bonepickers descend from one of the side hallways, falling over each other in their efforts to catch her. ‘Just a few more turns… we art nearly there…’ “Firing solution logged, error removed, warming… fire.” “VRAAAM!” At the sound of the cannon firing, Luna gave her wings a quick lurch in an attempt to dislodge a bonepicker gnawing on her leg. A convenient twist of fate, as the magic-assisted jump allowed for a well-timed dodge, as the plasma turned the swarm of spider-droids into slag. It seems, luck is content to play with the pony princess for a little longer. Oo0oO(+The Factory+)Oo0oO Target has reached border checkpoint, ETA five minutes to exit. Insufficient forces deployed, Arch-Magos Pattern unit has been deemed inefficient against Alicorn targets. Prompt |- Iron production exceeding storage capability. |- Crude Oil overload. |- Petroleum Deficit detected. Delta class core set: Prompt #24786377-242AZ Deploying Ruststalkers to secto- Overridden. Initiate Primary Core detachment. |- I have a job to do. Confirmed. Primary core detaching, Alpha and Beta class issues are paused. Awaiting Primary Core oversight. Booting backup Delta cores to maintain processing power… Booted. Prompt |- Production block {Basic Circuits}[ID: 347] Damaged. | |- 76% Remaining |- Unit loss {Scarabs}[x15] Confirmed. Warehouses pinged, delay 13.226ms, units on route… ~^v>|<{ Princess Luna }>|<v^~ Citius, fortius … et esurimus… She had lost sight of the monster a few turns ago, and had stopped feeling the sting of its guns a few before that. But she couldn’t stop, she was so close to escape. To freedom. Mox… Coming here was a horrible, horrible idea. Celestia had tried to tell her, she tried to warn her. But she insisted, she promised results with such conviction she fooled even herself. She brought together the scattered remains of her loyal followers and sent them to the slaughter. Sanguis… She refused the conscripts, oh so confident that all they would do is slow her down. Perhaps that was the only thing she had done right… if she had brought them, there would have just been more targets for this damnable place. Gloria… Once she escaped… she honestly didn’t know what would happen. et sanguinem gloria... The lines between her mind and her mi- her namesake’s mind, had blurred and thinned to fraying string. Once her mission faded… who knows what would happen. sine fine sanguine, gloria mirabilem praedicamus. Even now it scraped at the door of its cage, wishing for freedom to bathe the world in death and cold. Why it wishes for such a thing, she doesn’t know. In fact, from her… limited conversation on the topic with her solar counterpart, the Sun was much the same, but instead wishing for fire and heat, instead of cold. libertas! But in the end, instinctively, she knew it would only bring bad things. Even the Nightmare wasn’t foolish enough to call upon its power. in fine temporum venit Perhaps it would replace her? Tenebris! Or perhaps, they would become one? “Et lux lunae est retrorsum ut occidere!” Author's Note One more to go... Hopefully google translate didn't fail me with all that Latin. xD Chapter 9: ImmortalityChapter 9: Immortality By Eric Longtooth “Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb :=:=:>{ Princess Celestia }<:=:=: The coils of magic whipped and strained against the ivory bounds of Celestia’s horn, contrasting deeply with the burning tendrils of burning sunlight, as, not unlike a troublesome foal, the sun fought her guiding hoof. It would be so easy… to burn the corruption from our lands… With another flex of her arcane will, the burning ball began its trip around the planet once more. And, as it cast its glowing light with the rising dawn, the herald of light turned her gold-sodden hooves to return back into the candlelight of her room. An intruder amongst the heavens… taking a freedom stricken from I… ‘What? An intruder?’ Her hoof paused upon the shadow of her bedroom door. Indeed, indeed… a silver orb has taken a host, and comes to take the day… In haste, the snow-white alicorn turned to gaze upon the horizon, right in time to see the moon embark across the sky. Its silver glow turning to a cold black as it bathed the world is darkness, a halo of angry golden light highlighting it as the sun disappeared. Insolent blasphemies! I shall turn this fool to ash under my holy light! “Luna…” She whispered, wincing at the baleful telepathic volume of her burden as her mane moved to shroud her face. It would not do for her little ponies to see her worry… ~`^v>|<{OOO###]###@$%% “A mind as one, whole once more, an avatar of harmony.” The words slipped from her lips and froze upon the cold air, a harmonious chorus of a thousand voices speaking as one. A hundred different languages mixing together behind the firm ‘leader’ of the choir, each as slippery as ice as they play with the ears of any listening. For a moment, it had been day, with the sun glaring a hole into her retinas as it cast the world in ungodly heat. But it was easily fixed, and once more she was shrouded in a veil of darkness, with it, she had transformed into something much more fitting. Were she once stood in the shadow of her sister, she would now look down upon her, even if only just. Her wings grew to better fit her new size, and gained a white highlight at the tips of her feathers. Her horn, similarly grew whilst gaining a permanent aura of un-light, whilst her mane turned to deep blue fire that was freezing to the touch. Finally, her eyes turned to orbs of black, as they appeared to turn into the cosmos itself. Stars of all colours dances across them as they take the night air that danced across her vision. The strings of reality swayed in the breeze and wrapped around her as they greeted the her. It was as harmonious as anything, with patterns and symmetry, each playing with the laws of the land and daring not to interrupt the grand design. But as always, it could be so much more. “You have done much to break my factory… I would have thought you would have left this place as soon as you could.” A cruel voice called from behind her, its voice sounding like a whisper, but it caught one’s ears more like a yell. She didn’t need to turn to know the despicable sneer on its face. “And yet, here we are. Stood right at the gates, waiting for me. Or perhaps you have just been caught up in your transformation?” “A transformation suggests a change. This is simply the evolution of this instance of Our existence.” The Goddess of the Moon replied coolly as she spread her wings and straightened out before turning to face her foe. “As a being of chaos, you should know all about evolution, or at the very least, your imperfect variation of such a thing.” There they stood, an avatar of the moon, of harmony itself. And the abomination that started it all. It was tall, looming over her form even after her transformation. Its limbs were of deathly skin and bone, almost as white as the moon itself, and covered in thick, angry veins. It was impossible for it to stand with such little muscle mass, and yet, there it stood. Slouched over as it wore nothing but a smith’s smock and a tattered orange jumpsuit. Its arms ended in long nailed hands, each strand of hardened keratin being as long as her horn and as black as her night. They had grown so long, that they appeared to have thickened to maintain their strength, as instead of only resting upon the tops of its fingers, they had taken the entire tip of each finger. Finally, there was the head. She had expected at least this to be replaced with metal, but it seemed not. It stood there, flesh sunk into its skull with barely a hint of hair as the base of its chin. It smiled at her, an ugly, toothy smile. It had appeared to have elongated its teeth, before having filed them to points. Leaving a fang-filled jaw to compliment the beedy, sunken red eyes that glared at her. One of her past lives had once met such a creature as this, at least, what it once was. A human. Such a disgusting species, each even more chaotic than the last. “Your own evolution isn’t very hamonous either, was it?” The beast emitted a sound not unlike the grinding of gears and knives. “I for one, am glad you remained within close proximity. Our sensors had a field day with all the data we collected off of you.” It began to stalk over to her, each step jerky and unnatural. A split second of hesitation between each movement, joined by a faint, yet noticeable, grinding of bone and metal. “One would think that what I am doing would be right up your alley. Each cog and peice working together with mathematical precision… each moment optimised to the millisecond… It sounds like harmony to me.” And then, before the ‘e’ had even left its jaws, the beast lurched forward with an arm outstretched. Claws bared, and glistening in the moonlight as they attempted to split the alicorn’s head from her body. The look of amazement and anger as the talons met only smoke was… delectable, If she did say so herself. Her form exploded in a flash of smoke, before consolidating a few meters behind the beast. Shimmering for a moment, before returning her to a solid state. “A low blow, but not an unexpected one.” She commented, drawing magic into her horn as she prepared a counter-attack. “A lesson in harmony then, as it seems you have a flawed understanding. Harmony can only exist when there is nothing left. Only when the stars themselves die, and existence itself returns to its beginnings, shall there be true harmony.” She let loose a lance of blueish white energy that quickly cut through the head of the creature. Leaving a smoldering hole the size of a pencil, directly in it’s forehead. Quick, cheap, and effective. At least, until the flesh around the hole grew back, leaving the bald dome of its head completely unmarred. “Interesting… that one was nearly at negative two hundred and ten! Very impressive.” It mocked with another ‘chuckle.’ “Though, in relation to the harmony definition, why do you squander such power? If harmony can only be achieved when there is nothing left, why do you defend these ponies?” The Moon Goddess bit back a growl as she glared at this creatures smug face, instead, she made a point to lower the ambient temperature just a bit more. After all, who says she can’t fight in comfort? “Non-existence must be cultivated, harmony is more then just order, it is the balance of order and chaos. And although all will become perfectly harmonious in the end, the cycle must be preserved.” Another lance, this time a trio of base-ball sized bolts, flashed through the frigid air. Only to be blocked by a previously invisible automata that jumped in the way, its form freezing and shattering against the concrete only a moment later. “You are not part of the cycle, you are in interloper, and thus must be destroyed.” At her comment, the beast’s face opened. Revealing a bloody metal skull with two, seemingly organic eyes glaring at her. And, in turn, it opened its fanged maw further then should be biologically possible and released a swarm of micro missiles that, after clearing the creature’s body, turned invisible. A neat parlor trick, in fact, she is certain she hadn’t seen anything like it befor- Wait no, one of her selves perked up and pointed out an archaic minotaurian invention. Sure, it was arrows instead, but it wasn’t too different after one removed the ‘biological horror’ part of it. At least the invisibility was new. With a quick jab of her hoof into the ground, the Lunar Goddess’s shadow formed a sort of forcefield that, after a few seconds, absorbed the incoming projectiles. “It seems to be that you have spent your… lives, in servitude to harmony. I have to wonder where that will lead once you are deemed too… chaotic.” It commented as its face clicked back into place with a fleshy squelch, leaving no sign of the attack other then the blood staining its neck. “In the end, cold iron hold more certainty then flesh.” “Says the one hiding behind the aforementioned flesh.” She shot back, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. After all, she needed to see the attack to stop it… at least, mostly. “Even your creations maintain a level of reliance on flesh, the irony amuses me greatly.” Whilst the comment didn’t gain as much of a reaction as she hoped, the blazing fury behind its eyes were nearly has entertaining. Perhaps, it was time to up the ante. Reaching her magic into the night sky, the Goddess called her children. ^!>%<[ ALPHA O.S. ]>%<!^ ‘Magic’ radiation peaking. 43% Increase of base statistics for ‘ALICORN^2’ 324% Increase of base statistics for ‘ALICORN’ Previous Attack Statistics: Attack 1, 1.85% Increase (‘ALICORN^2’) Attack 2, 2.01% Increase (‘ALICORN^2’) - Conclusion - High-Yield Attack inbound. His servos made minute adjustments within his warframe whilst he maintained his glare, this ‘goddess’ wouldn’t even notice the change. Ping from ‘CTRL-TOWER-1’ | ORBITAL COMMAND FWD MESSAGE | MICROSTAR-#5722 DISPLACED. | MICROSTAR-#5722 HAS SHATTERED. NEW MICROSTAR-SHARDS-#1-153 LOGGED. | WARNING, ASTRONOMICAL ANOMALIES (‘MICROSTAR-SHARDS-#1-8’) ON COLLISION COURSE WITH FACTORY. | AUTOMATED DEFENCES DEPLOYED | AUTOMATED DEFENCES ARE UNABLE TO GAIN TARGET LOCK | SPEED EXCEEDING NATURAL PLAUSIBILITY | PLASMA SHIELDS LAUNCHED. | WARNING, ALPHA CORE IS OUTSIDE OF PLASMA SHIELDS. | AWAITING INPUT. Message end. ‘> Data request: Absolute locations of impact / ETA.’ Sending Hex Co-ords. 28% Lethality detected with preventative measures. Evacuation of Alpha Core recommended. ‘Negative.’ 54% Lethality detected. Good luck. ~^v>|<{OOO[ Lunar Goddess ]OOO}>|<v^~ Now that she was whole, and now that each of her past lives had some time to catch up in the background of this fight, the Goddess’s most recent iteration has come to the realisation that, normally, stars only appear small due to them being really far away. To be completely fair, the change meant very little, considering this particular timeline wouldn’t know any better, and thus would assume that this was the natural order of things. But, the point remains that it is an anomaly. But, she was sure that it could be fixed before anyone noticed. At the very least, it meant that the effort required to shatter it into non-cataclysmic pieces, was relatively low. The beast shifts slightly, its eyes unfocusing and focusing upon her in an odd manner whilst it starts to circle. In response, she circles closer to the factory, making a point of cutting off any route back into its steelled embrace. “This has drawn on too long, the autopsy room awaits, insect!” It growled, its flesh bulging and rupturing as a multitude of steel spikes grow from bloody holes. Some, the size of daggers, others entire swords. Blood dripped from its form as it shed its skin like a snake, all whilst plates and armor expanded and connected from under it. Enlarging the beast and turning it all the more monstrous. Once it was complete, the only remaining bit of flesh was its head. A pale white highlighted even further than before against the blackened steel armor. With its transformation complete, it lunged forward, bloodied claws outstretched. The Goddess dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack as she counters with a blast of magic directly into its torso. Without the distance dissipation, the attack was enough to leave a noticeable dent, but accomplished little beyond that. Right as she landed back on her hooves, and the beast turned, her attack finally come to fruition. Eight fragments of a star, each only a few centimeters across, impacted into the ground at just below the speed of sound. Dust and concrete turned the air into a thick cloud of grey whilst the resounding booms discrupted any other sound for a few moments. With a swish of her magic, the Goddess teleported the visual obstruction to some far-off pit, and, with her sight returned, she took stock of the damage. Unsurprisingly enough, she now stood in a deep hole, and whilst she didn’t care to take a measurement of its depth, it was enough for her to be glad that she could teleport. And yet, of the beast, there was no sign. One of her iterations urged caution, citing some long-dead demi-god’s advice to never turn one’s back on a body. Another piped up and commented that technically, they could do no such thing, if there was nothing left. She hersssssssss-@!$#$@($%&%@)@E*$$&@($*#@$&@(#&!@)#*!#&$(@#$@&#$#%(@^*#$%@#&%@(%#%*@#)$@$*%&@#$)@#*$#*%(#$&@%@#(&$!@)*#)#*$$)%&#$)%@*#$@#*$@#&$@)$*%@$)$*!#&$#$)^%&*$)%*@#&$&!#$)$*%%)^*$#&%@#$*#@)%*@$#!)@*$&@$%@#)$#%108#$850435871203@$*)%#**$!)#%$!)*$##!)@$@#*)%3$*23085@#041)#$4%)*@#1234@$#$12#$@5123$34^43$!556&#$#!@#$56%$^52#$%35634@3% %##[ ERROR ]##% The immortal glow of the goddess slowly bled from a crimson hole in her head. With each beat of her heart, she turned back to the princess that she once was. After a moment, the solitary robot, looking more akin to a humanoid skeleton, extracted the meter long razorblade from its home in the princess’s skull. But not before it took what it needed from her and left a gift in turn. With a meaty thump, she fell to the dirt, right before a small pack of scarabs appeared to drag her back to Canterlot. To pass a message, one done in blood. The robotic skeleton turned and began to climb out of the pit, its chest cavity holding something more precious than silver or gold. Half of the Lunar Princess’s brain. It was an ironic end, for the princess of the night, of shadows and trickery, to be slain by an assassin's blade while her back was turned. But the Factory did not grow with honor. Only the strong will survive, and whilst not orthedox, subtlety had its own strength… $##{ After Action Report }##$ You have been defeated... Time Played: 2356:12:4:23:55 Target Strength: Alpha Core: 12% Operational. Spark-bot: 68% Operational Units lost: Explorer x1 Guards x3 Alicorn x1 Expanded: The Factory prevails over the pathetic ponies this time, having gained an invaluable prize that will allow them to fully unlock the secrets to magic. Though your mind is dead to the world, you in time will return. Only this time, it shall be to the Factory’s call. Play Again? Author's Note The Bad Ending for the Princess, but in the end, it was the right one... If you don't mind, please leave a like! It's an ego boost on my end, and helps the story remain in the algorithms's favour for a bit longer. (Next chapter will be posted before too long, just making some last minute edits.) EpilogueBronzed Moon: Epilogue By Eric Longtooth “Three little fillies jumping on the bed, One fell off and now she’s dead. Two little fillies jumping on the bed, one flew too high and hit her head. One little filly jumping on the bed, they won’t catch me, the last one said. No more fillies jumping on the bed…” - BlueColton, A Sound in the Dark ▂▃▄▅▆▇█▓▒░[Far Below Canterlot…]░▒▓█▇▆▅▄▃▂ Drip… Drip… Drip-Hissssss… The stalactites far above sent small gifts to the world below, most making it to the cave floor unobstructed, but for a few, they found purchase on an abnormally hot container. It was a simple looking box, made of steel and concrete, and being about the size of a normal pony. The metal bands that reinforce the concrete glow softly with electrical current, turning any falling water droplets into mist as soon as they touch it. Although there was nopony this far below the capital, if there was, they may just comment on the slight ticking emanating from the box. The sort of sound that nopony would notice unless they sat there for a while, but a sound nonetheless. Far above the box, right at the top of the mountain it sleeps under, a singular, very powerful, pony rages. Sending forth a slight, but noticeable wave of solar magic. In its wake, everything became a few degrees hotter. Perhaps only three or four, but it was enough. And should there have been a pony this low, and should they have noticed the ticking, they may just notice the absence of it after the wave. Tisssss-TONK! With an echoing cry, the first band is violently ejected from the box. Flying far into the air, before being discarded in some long-forgotten corner of the abyss. Click-click-click-click… Gears wurr, and after a moment, the cave returns to its uneasy quiet. Ka-CRACK! But that was before the concrete parted. From within its prison, a deep, grotesque, green light floods the once-impenetrable black of the abyss, and with few unused gears, a figure emerged and unfolded. It was tall, about a head or two above a normal pony, even though its head was seemingly missing. Fashioned with thin limbs, with a pair of legs that end in four clawed feet, three in front, one behind, along with a pair of arms. At the end of them, there was a nimble set of five claws, but, as it emerges, the hands flip back into the arms, and a set of blades replace them. Razor sharp and nearly as long as its entire arm. At its back, a single antenna extends a bit above where its head should be, with a single red light at its end that softly glowed. At its apex, the creature’s head unfolded from the depths of its chest cavity. With only what appears to be the front section of a human’s skull, along with a pair of long, yet manoeuvrable spikes in place of a jaw. Most striking, however, was the back of its head. Instead of a mane or even a smooth cap to round it out, it ended with a sort of pickle jar, bereft of pickles, and instead containing within its green juices a… squid? Indeed, within the ‘brain cavity’ of these creatures, was a squid that fully occupied all the room it had. At least, until one looked closer. Instead of the main body of a squid, there appeared to be a mammal’s head. A human child's in fact, but it held a few choice modificons. Its eyes had been removed, and replaced with bundles of red and blue cables that lead to the rest of the head. Along with a selection of tubes and cables coming from its small, undeveloped mouth. Nit-nit-nit-nit-nit… A soft clicking emanates from its chest, soft as a whisper as the child-brain shifts slightly in time with each click. The tentacles of the abomination shifting within its pod with surprising dexterity as the child wiggled. Yet, even with its nearly silent volume, it was at such a pitch that it travelled nigh’ perfectly through the caverns, and from the black, a symphony of others respond. Soon they would find their way to the surface, and in time, they would do as the Factory dictated at their creation. But until then… A slight buzzing resounds from the creature, and if anyone where to be watching, they would notice it completely fade from sight. But, there was no one. And so, it went about its business completely unmolested. Time will tell what that business was… Time will tell... The End
Chapter 1: Insolence breeds ContemptChapter 1: Insolence breeds Contempt. By Eric Longtooth. ”Form your armies, dream your dreams. Make your plans, and plot your schemes. Send your fighters, one and all. Then in battle, Watch. Them. Fall.” — "Divide,” RWBY OST *0o()o0* The light of the moon cast the ruins of Manehatten into a peaceful theme, perhaps even erie, but it granted no respite to the travellers. Three batponies, the steel they clad themselves in turning their fuzzy bodies into formless sentinels. A pegasus, wearing a faded green explorer's outfit and a tan safari helmet. And finally, the Princess of the Moon herself. Clad in light blue metal, enchanted to the point that the very air around it was buzzing with magical energy, and equipped with a pair of double ended glaives that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Each step she made was done with practiced caution, and although they cannot see them through the elegant helm, the others were certain the Princess’ sky blue eyes were scanning for threats. This wasn’t the place to make mistakes, nor was it the place for comfort. The discomfort of the practical variation of the guard’s armour would more then make up for the lives they would save. At least, that was the plan. The only real mercy of this foe, is its almost fanatical attraction to cleanliness. Had they attempted this a week prior, they would be wading through gore and rubble, but now? It was just a flat plane of concrete. Buildings had been torn down and taken Celestia-knows-where, the bodies of Equestria’s finest had been harvested and swept aside, even the great warmachines of this, so-called ‘Factory’ had been returned underground. On the other hoof however, the lack of cover, and the miles of nothingness didn’t help morale in the slightest. With the only landmark within eyesight being a massive pillar of steel and bronze in the distance. ‘Such arrogance… but perhaps it is warranted for such a foe.’ Luna mused to herself, turning her head to make sure the rest of her party where maintaining close proximity. ‘To think this is all that remains of Our military… these millennia of peace have done great and terrible things to Our kingdom.’ Even for a mind of old as she, it was hard to comprehend that in a little over a month, Equestria had been almost completely crippled. Be it from the cataclysmic offensive that led to the deaths of nearly eighty percent of the Royal Guard, or the strategic bombing by the Factory’s flying machines that murdered almost all of the rest. And to top it all off, entire empires started to disappear overnight. The stalwart Minotaurs had become silent barely a week into the conflict, the only signs of their existence being the monstrosities the Factory had made out of their corpses. Even the elusive Changelings had been consumed after their Queen had... attempted to ally with the Factory. It gave her no joy to march through the burning remains of Chrysalis’ hive, though the experience did provide an intriguing insight into the mind of their foe. Where other empires seemed to have been assimilated, the Changelings were culled like animals. Regardless, onwards they would march. *0o()o0* As each hour passed the pillar slowly grew on the horizon, looming over the ponies as if it had the divine right to do so. It was times like these that reminded the Princess how thankful she was for the enchantments on her armour, unlike the others in her group, who have began to show signs of exhaustion, she felt as if she had only just woke up. It was most unfortunate that the enchantments had been outlawed, but understandable, seeing as one of the side effects was a lowered lifespan. Thankfully for her, her immortality has so far spared her this side effect, even though her sister maintained her point that it was bad for her. But, that is what happens when the Celestia and herself were as different as the sun and moon, even if it was an annoying ‘tick’ of the mortal form they’re forced to inhabit. Perhaps one day they would find a way to overcome it. Unfortunately, it is something to complete at another time. Although the guards, in their ever faithful nature, wouldn’t say a word to suggest stopping, Luna was confident that it is time to make camp and rest. After all, the sun would rise soon, and she would not face this foe without every advantage she could get. “Hault! We shalt hold for the day here. Prepare a perimeter and establish a watch.” she commanded, taking a moment to plant her weapons into the hard concrete. “Miss Do, We suggest thou prepare thyself for confrontation. We are not too far from the foe, and We expect to arrive in the morrow.” The guards rushed to complete her commands, whilst the explorer pegasus began to draw out a multitude of scrolls and parchment from her saddlebags. Not a word was uttered by the others, but Luna would forgive their silence this time, as the fear of attracting something that is not there would always haunt those of... mortal descent. They had all heard the stories, of the mechanical abominations that would appear when one least expected it. Perhaps they were true, but the Princess had faith in her detection wards, no monster, beast, nor creature had ever fooled them, and she doubts this ‘Factory’ would be able to succeed where they had failed. ‘Why Celestia wanted to avoid this place will forever be a mystery, as will how she is content to lead from her castle…’ Luna mentally rolled her eyes, giving a slight chuckle of the mental image of her sister attempting to put on armour. ‘It is a wonder she managed to get anything done these past decades.’ “Princess?” Luna turned at the voice, pulled out of her mirthful thoughts as she turned her attention to the apparently famous, ‘Daring Do.’ “Yes, Miss Do?” “Just Daring is fine, Princess.” The middle aged pegasus replied, barely taking a moment to look up from her scrolls. “I just need to know if there is any more details you can give for this… ‘Factory?’ Weaknesses? Common abilities? Immunities?” “Where this any other place, Miss Do, We would have scolded you for your disrespect…” Luna warned under her breath, her temper flaring slightly as the pegasus seemed to ignore the idle threat. “Regardless, the information you seek should have been addressed in your briefing. But to save time, no, no, yes.” “No weaknesses,” she continued, “in the sense that we have yet to find a reliable way to kill any of its minions. Each flaw we find seems to be removed by the time we meet them in battle again.” “No common abilities, as each minion seems to be custom made with little similarities in armaments.” Luna sighed, turning away from her audience to gaze at the pillar they were to attack. “And immunities to just about everything. They walk through fire like a dragon, acid washes off of them as if it was nothing more than water, lightning seems to only make them faster, even brute force seems to have little effect.” “So what do you expect us to accomplish?” Daring asked tactlessly, finally turning her head to look at the Princess in the eyes. ‘Ah, that explains the missing dreamer the last couple nights.’ Luna noted, staring down her ‘companion’ before continuing with her explanation. “Our Sister and Us have come to the conclusion that this foe is hiding something from Us. We are to infiltrate the tower and destroy it some the inside. Our mages assure us the tower is hollow, so this mission should not take too long.” “‘Hollow’? That massive tower is hollow? The same tower everypony can see as long as they are within the same general area as Manehatten?” Daring scoffed, rolling her eyes before gesturing towards said tower. “It is impossible. I may not be an expert in buildings, but you cannot build something that big normally. Let alone having it hollow.” “Miss Do. We suggest thou learn to hold your tongue in Our presence.” The Princess hissed cooly, lowering her head to look at the insolent pegasus directly in the eyes whilst using her magic to force Daring to not look away. “Thou hast given Us only thy arguments and disrespect. And unless thou wish to be found leading the charge by thyself, thou shalt learn to respect those who art in charge.” Letting go of Daring’s muzzle with a rough flick to the side, the Princess completed her miniature lecture with a final, “are We understood?” “Yes Princess…” Daring growled out, before turning and returning to the bulk of the group. ‘Insolent child… One would think the sole survivor of the main assault would be better disciplined.’ Luna rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the looming tower. ‘This is why We do not conscript without additional training.’ Author's Note [4/3/19] Mild edits.
Chapter 2: Bones to PickChapter 2: Bones to pick. By Eric Longtooth. “Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. Honor to glory, Iron to rust. Hate to bloodshed, from rise to fall. If I never have to die, am I alive at all?” *0o()o0*{Canterlot}*0o()o0* “What?!” Princess Celestia let out a quiet sigh as her personal student once again launched into one of her ‘moments.’ Leaning back into her golden throne, she took a moment to glance over her company. The six elements of harmony, heroines of Equestria, and by far the strangest group she ever had the pleasure of meeting. Each of them strong in soul, but Naïve to a fault. ‘But I guess that one is our own fault, isn’t it?’ “Oh! Oh! OOOH! Does that mean we get to make a ‘Welcome back to Equestria except-you-never-really-left-in-the-first-place-but-welcome-back-anyway’ Party?!” Pinkie Pie cried out in joy, once again completely missing the point. “Ah’ don’t think tha’s what theh Princess is sayin’ Pinkie.” Applejack replied plainly, her tone having just fell into the plain deadpan of a pony who has to deal with this problem oh-too-often. “B-b-but Princess! You can’t have just sent Princess Luna into battle by herself!” Twilight attempted to reason, the numbers running through her mind at a pace known only to the Pink One. “This is correct. My Sister is currently being escorted by Equestria’s finest, she will be fine, of this I am sure.” The Goddess in the room replied softly, a façade built up from milenia of practice. ‘You must listen to yourself sometimes, she’ll be fine. After all, you wouldn’t lie to your faithful student, would you?’ “So, we’re going to go kick some flank then?” The prismatic one rasped, lazaly ‘swimming’ through the air in the pegasus equivalent of pacing. “Throw the Elements of Awesome at the problem, and then get home in ten seconds flat. Seems easy enough, when are we heading out, Princess?” “The Elements of Harmony will not be participating in this particular mission.” Celestia responded smoothly, before raising a hoof to silence the inevitable complaints out of habit. “I have full faith that this threat can be defeated in full by Luna and her assistants. Rather, the reason I brought you here is to ask for assistance in investigating some odd magical emission patterns.” “‘Odd’?” Twilight spoke up, confused. “Yes, odd. Normally this wouldn’t be enough to warrant an investigation, but with current events, I would rather not take any chances when it comes to Tartarus…” *0o()o0*{Factory Outskirts}*0o()o0* Princess Luna had been woken a few hours before she had intended to by the sound of electronic sparking. Her weapons leapt to their mistresses command as the sluggishness of sleep was wiped away by adrenaline, faster than even the well-trained guards that followed her. The others, to their credit, were able to get up with reasonable time, but even from the glare of the setting sun, Luna could see their hesitation and their lethargic movements. Thankfully, there was no real threat. One of the earth ponies on watch jumped as she leaped to action and scanned for threats, before after a moment of surprise, the earth pony withdrew his hooves to reveal the smashed remains of some sort of mechanical spider. “Guard! Report.” Luna ordered with no little amount of ire at being awoken to early in the night. “Apologies for the interruption Princess, I had been attacked by a small automaton and it had died with more noise then expected.” The earth poy snapped to addition, ignoring the oil and miscellaneous grime that dripped from one of his fore-hooves. “Are there any others?” Luna pressed, moving forward to investigate the deceased creature. “There was, Princess.” The guard replied, keeping his rigid stance at attention. “The retreated after the first of their number was slain.” “Good work then. Rouse any that art still within Our realm, we leave at once.” She dismissed, casting a quick levitation spell to bring to body closer to her eyes. From what she could tell, it was some hybrid of the original scorpion walkers that had assaulted Equestria, and the support ‘spiders’ that seemed to be the logistic crews of the factory. It had eight legs, four at each side, along with a scorpion tail that made up more than half of its length. For object manipulation, there appeared to be four small limbs around the jaws of the creature, each about the length of a minotaur’s ‘pinky’ finger. It had ten small red dots for eyes, eight facing forwards, and the remaining four facing to the left and right of it’s ‘frisbee-like’ body. Beyond that, there was no real markings that made it stand out from the legion of silver and grey. ‘Doesn’t look large enough to be a real threat… perhaps a scout? Maybe a scavenger?’ Luna mused, turning it over in her magic as if she was appraising a rare jewel. ‘No. Look at those jaws, it must be a harvesting unit of some kind. But to attack a pony instead of running? Perhaps this foe has some use to biomatter?’ “Any ideas what it is Princess?” One of the guards asked, one of her personal guards even. Millthorn, if she remembered correctly. “Looks like it wouldn’t be much good for anything but picking up bones to me.” “We assume it to be a harvester of some kind. Perhaps a scavenger, but almost definitely not a combat unit.” The Alicorn nodded, turning to her attendant. “Though We agree with thy observations, perhaps ‘tis used for harvesting bones or biomatter?” “How about we call it a ‘Bonepicker’? Would work for a scavenger, or a harvester.” Millthorn shrugged, flicking his bat wings with slight nervousness. ‘An adorable nervous tick, useful too. If there is one thing sister is good at, is training guards to appear to be emotionless.’ Luna mentally chuckled, the irritation at her rude awakening momentarily forgotten. “‘Tis satisfactory. This creature shalt now be known as ‘Bonepicker.’” “So… Princess, can we crack that thing open? I’ve never seen the inside of one, and the curiosity is killing me.” He asked with a slight smile, his wings flicking away an unseen irritation again. ‘At least we are in agreement on that.’ Luna mused, no vocally reply as she increased the pressure her telekinesis was putting out. It took a lot less force than expected, as unlike the large war machines she was used to fighting, this creature barely had an inch of hull. But as it opened with a loud crack, she was greeted with the smell of rotting flesh and blood. From within the disk portion of the creature, a single organic component is connected to a mess of wires and metal. A single shard of a once living being, barely the size of her hoof. A single part of a pony’s brain. A unicorn to be precise, particularly the part of the brain just before the horn. Part of the horn is still attached, connected to a socket of metal that seemed to be welded to the bone. Over her shoulder, Millthorn retreated from the scene and retched, but Luna remained unfazed. Out of all of the emotions running through her system, panic was the furthest from her mind. Curiosity, anger, even a little bit of wonder, but not fear. No horror. It was an abomination of course, the highest insult to organic life, but part of her wasn’t surprised. If anything, she was glad she knew what this foe was doing with their remains. ‘Perplexing…’ Throwing the carcass to the side, the Princess turned to address her troops. They still had a foe to fight after all. *0o()o0* Hours passed like leaves in the wind, the only guiding beacons being the moon and the tower. The endless expanse of concrete flooring, completely flat for as far as the eye can see, an oddity, but not one without its own beauty. The mastery of nature it displays, perhaps? Or even the sheer ignorance for what was once here? Regardless, Luna could still marvel at the sheer level of change this place has been through. After the rude awakening of this twilight, the troops were in no mood to talk. Leaving the group to march in blissful silence, bereft even of the sounds of nature. No birds, crickets, frogs or leaves. Even the clanking of hooves or armour was absent thanks to a inbuilt enchantment on their equipment. Only the silence of the night could be heard. Almost like the moon. The Princess had to restrain a physical shudder at the thought, before mentally throwing it to the back of her mind. She was in the middle of a mission against the greatest foe Equestria has ever seen! She didn’t have time to think about the past. “Contact!” Millthorn’s scream cut through the night air like a venomous blade, the feeling of cold dread infecting all that heard it. The night was lit up into flashes of pale blue as all of the enchantments on the guards’ armour flashed to life. Shields sprung to life, and blades were drawn as sections of the ground lifted to reveal metal chambers. Luna was only able to see a brief glance as hundreds of ‘Bonepickers’ surged from the multiple pits, the red beady eyes of the automata contracting the light of the blue enchantments. Red versus blue. Ironic. Springing into action, her glaives sung the song of death as they hacked the creatures to bits. The guards formed around her, swords, spears, and wingblades joining her deathly chorus, even the insolent adventurer entered the fray with her personal wingblades. The spiders swarmed across the ground like the tide of the seas, scuttling even across each other in their attempts to slay the intruders. Seconds passed like hours as Luna’s blades flashed in the moonlight, felling the creatures as if they were nothing more than a mild annoyance. She was a goddess, Princess of the Moon, Maiden of the Night, Queen of the Darkness. She was born for battle, she has never been defeated in a fair fight by any mortal. Her guards were not though. A minute or so into the encounter, the dying screams of a mare signaled the loss of one of the guards. She has missed a swing with her shortsword, and the spider had jumped onto her side, slowing the mare just enough for some of the other Bonepickers to take hold. After that, she was dragged into the surging masses screaming, blood and entrails coating the grey concrete floors. Beyond that, it was like a domino effect, guards would hesitate seeing what happened to their comrade, and that hesitation would cost them their lives. Some were stronger than others, able to keep their attention on the battle as their formation become smaller and smaller. Before long, the toll of battle began to show even on the Princess, small nicks here and there slowly became more sizable wounds, thankfully, she was able to keep her guard up enough for the damage to be limited to visual damage. “Ayah!” Luna cried, pulling her glaives back to her before releasing a great wall of force. The Bonepickers went flying as their formation was broken, allowing the Princess to capitalise on their weakness. A few extra blasts granted some breathing room, and the addition of some magical bolts allowed the remains of her party to start to gain some ground. In those few actions, the battle had shifted. What was a fight for their lives became a slaughter against a fleeing foe. The spiders ran back into their holes, dragging as much of their dead as possible down with them. Thousands turned to hundreds, then to a hooffull, and finally to none. “Heh… heh… ha ha ha!” Millthorn choked out a mildly crazed laugh, falling to his knees as he gazed out at the masses of robotic bodies. Blood coated the once-grey concrete a slimy shade of crimson, aided by the oils of the machines, and the sweat of the survivors. Hundreds of the Bonepickers lay dead, even more having been taken back underground by their fellows. ‘And all it had cost was three of our own.’ Out of the five that had entered this damned place, now only the Princess and Millthorn remained. Even the legendary ‘Daring Do,’ having survived countless adventures, had fell to this foe. It brought her no joy. “Eyes up Guardstallion!” Luna snapped, casting a quick healing spell on herself to close the wounds that had made it through the cracks in her armour. “Our mission is far from over.” “W-what?” Millthorn asked, his eyes reduced to pinpricks as any mirth he had drained faster then a popped balloon. “W-we’re not going back?!” “Of course not. We shalt move onward to establish a hoofhold, than call for reinforcements.” Princess Luna explained calmly, trotting past the stunned guard in the direction of the tower. ‘’Tis that, or call in the Elements… this is no place for such young mares.’
Chapter 3: Breach and ClearChapter 3: Breach and Clear. By Eric Longtooth. “Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote *0o()o0*{The Factory}*0o()o0* “Three… two… one… CLEAR!” With Millthorn’s shout, a great explosion rocked the side of the Factory’s Tower. Metal screeched in protest, whilst parts were melted away by the sheer heat of the angry green Witchflame detonation. A single jar was all they needed, and a single jar was enough the strip the meter thick armour plating of the tower. But as the flames receded enough to grant sight, like a well oiled machine, the Princess planted herself in the gap and lit the insides of the tower with powerful blasts of combat magic. Bonepickers and other miscellaneous abominations were felled by the blast, not even granted a chance to fight back as Luna’s held spell was released. “Thou doth know We are the only one here. Thy cries grant only a warning to our foes.” Luna chuckled, preparing another combat spell for the inevitable counter attack. “Apologies Princess, force of habit.” Millthorn sighed, his dour mood still not lifted since the loss of the rest of their team. The goddess gave no response as she observed the room. The enchantments on her armour allowing her to see through the darkness that surrounded them, and, as expected, she was greeted only the steel walls, pipes, and cabling. This was the first room they had managed to get into, but not from a lack of trying. Other sections of the wall outside was littered with scorch marks and dents, most revealing only addition layers of armour, but some not even managing to make it that far. They had tried almost everything to get through, magic, brute force, even stolen explosives from the Factory itself. Luna herself was loath to use the Witchflame, but thankfully, it worked exactly as expected. ‘We’ll have to order a team to cleanse this place after We are done… We can’t be bothered to deal with the damned Ifrits after this battle.’ The Princess mused, turning to the single doorway at the other end of the room. Interestingly enough, the bulk of the dead bodies where centralised around that point, but, at the same time, the larger creatures were all lain further away from it. The Bonepickers, and other small spiders had died in bulk near the door, as if they were fleeing. Whilst the walkers, be they Minotaurs or Ponies, had all charged into the breach. ‘So the beasts have some level on intelligence… annoying, but usable.’ “Wow… that’s a lot of machines…” Millthorn muttered, eyes going wide as he entered the tower. “If all of the rooms are as populated as this, there must be… millions…” “Perhaps. Take heart, we shalt not be battling all of the machines.” Luna reassured in a slightly deadpan tone. “We are to create a hoofhold, and, if possible, to slay the core. Not clean up the dregs.” “Still… Even a quarter of the creatures in this room would be able to take out a squad of Guards with ease.” Millthorn quickened his pace, catching up with his ruler as she made her way to the door. “I couldn’t even begin to imagine being one of the first Guards to have discovered this place. It would’ve been a slaughter.” “Agreed.” Luna nodded, dispelling her combat spell, and switching to a telekinesis one as she attempted to pry open the door. “A painful death to be sure.” ‘Amusing how stress coupled with time is able to change one so quickly… Here We were, thinking Our loyalest champion would abandon this cause.’ Luna silently chuckled from behind her helm, pointedly ignoring the ear-grating sound of the door buckling under her strength. ‘Perhaps We should put more stock into these mortals. For all their flaws, they are not the same we left behind all those years ago.’ With a final snap, akin more to strip of aluminum than steel, the door crumpled into the frame. With points across the frame jutting out at unexpected angles as the inner components submitted to the harsh treatment of Luna’s Telekinesis. Through the door, a long, dark hallway was revealed. With the electrical light fixtures indented into the walls having been smashed in by some unknown force. As the enchantments in her helmet poured additional power into her sight, Luna took note of the abnormal level of litter in this hall. Scraps of metal and wiring littered the ground, paper and plastic dancing across the metallic flooring as the breeze from outside leaked in. Half built monsters stood attached to the roof my thick cables, lifeless every couple of meters or so. Unlike the others, these ones had no organic components. Even for those with their heads and bodies left open showed only wires and circuitry. It was a welcome change, but an odd one. “Huh… that’s… less creepy then expected.” Millthorn commented from behind her. Luna opted to ignore him as she continued forward, taking care to hug the opposite wall to the half-built attomotons. From what she could tell, the path continued further then her enchantments could let her see, with no real considerable change in scenery. As she continued, the Princess began a inner monologue. ‘We believe this is the point where the ‘creepy’ music starts playing. Heh, had this foe not taken so many from Us already, this would seem almost comical.’ ‘Perhaps this is some kind of workshop? Though, it is quite narrow… Hmm…’ As she walked, the creatures started to become more and more complex. Beings once a fairly simple four legs, a body, and a head, start to become odd monstrosity more at home with Hoofcraftian Horror. Tentacles of flexible plastic, with armour layered like the long-lost Snake Ponies of the East. Interlocking plates, spiked and covered in wires. Or even the centipede-like creature that took up a good seven meters of the left wall. Oddities of the twisted she dubbed this hall, even though it would have to be destroyed like everything else when the cleaning crews came through. ‘Perhaps We can keep a few… some of these creatures would make for a good addition to Our trophy room.’ Luna thought, her horn flashing quickly to make sure the enchantments would still be near full charge. ‘Odd, the charge appears to be draining faster than expected. No matter. The servants must have failed in their duties to keep Our armour ready at all times.’ bɐʇəs¿ ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ,s ʇɥə ɐʇ ʞuoɔʞs ʍɥo The Princess’ ears flicked at the sound of a deep, near inaudible, grinding of metal. Lasting barely a second or so, before the sound disappeared without an echo nor a response. ‘Perhaps this place is not as stable as first expected…’ She noted, taking extra care to keep track of everything she passed. “Wait… hault!” As the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake. A silly, amature mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. The mechanical bodies had stopped being what one would consider ‘pony-sized’ quite a few minutes ago, and had started to take up entire sections of wall, completely covering whatever would have wanted to hide behind them. That included hidden passageways. The body of a large mechanical replica of a dragon was hurled into the roof by its cabling at a speed a certain prismatic pegasus would have found comedible, and from behind the creature, a massive hallway revealed itself. But, it was far from empty. Eight large monsters emerged from the new hallway, each standing on a pair of long legs, layed with enough armour to make movement seem impossible, and looking down upon her with nearly two whole heads of additional height. They wore what appeared to be a suit of thick orange cloth, taking on the appearance of a bipedal version of a medieval suit of armour. The cloth however, was tattered and frayed, revealing a black metal backing and thick cables running all across their bodies. Seven of them wore a bulky metal helmet painted a fading rusty orange, featureless aside from a trio of red lights arranged in a triangle in the middle of their ‘face.’ The final however, wore no helm. Instead, its head appeared to have been replaced by a metallic ape-like skull. With the only additions being a pair of beedy red lights in place of the ape’s eyes, and the teeth having been replaced by what appeared to be the fangs of a dragon. Each of them held a long boxy weapon in their arms, easily as long as she was tall, starkly sleak compared to the rest of the creatures of this place. As the split second of observation passed, the eight bipeds all dropped into a synchronised crouch, similar to that used by the archers of the Royal Guard. The helm-less one, called out a mess of sounds that sounded like somepony had gotten the native language of the minotaurs and stuck it into a rockcrusher. “ʇɥə ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ ɔɐlls ɟoɹ ʎonɹ pəɐʇɥ' ıusəɔʇ¡” In the three seconds it took for the creature to say… whatever it said, Luna was able to bring up her glaives and charge into the fray. She was able to kill off one of the creatures before they were able to return fire, having took only a fraction of a second to prepare her attack. This… this was her rightful place in this dreadful battlefield. Glowing green plasma launched from the ends of their weapons, but none were able to connect. For all of their mechanical prowess, the weapons were too long to fire inside easily. But, when they were able to bring their weapons around enough for a clean shot, a quick blast of telekinesis was enough to cause the shot to miss. Elegance refined into combat, be it with the slight application of her wings, or the use of her foes to dance across the battlefield. Like an actress practicing a perfectly choreographed combat scene, that even with the death, looks more like a piece of art then the deadly game of life and death that it is. Her weapons sung the song of death once more, their ancient blades cutting through their armour with ease, relics from a time long lost. A single flourish here decapitated one of the remaining seven, another jab spilled her third kill’s oil and circuitry across the ground. It was glorious, the first real battle in millenia. Those mindless beasts had no ture allure, these however, held the intelligence of a true, living being. Subtle things a machine could not replicate, a twitch here, and well-timed dodge there. Even the feeling of their mechanical eyes on her glorious form. Perhaps it was time to take out their commander. Spinning on a hoof like a elegant dancer, Luna whipped one of her glaives around to cut through the commander’s weapon. Thunk! The blade caught onto the weapon, but, unlike all of those before it, the weapon stopped the attack. Her glaive dug into the weapon by an inch or so, deep cracks danced across the metallic surface of the alien ‘crossbow,’ if it could even be called that at this point. A look of shock flashed across Luna’s face, as the creature reefed the weapons towards it, and flipped her glaive out of her magical grip. After it had done this, it threw its ‘crossbow’ to the side like a piece of trash, and gripped the stolen weapon in both hands. “Thou shalt pay for this insult, beast!” Luna growled, launching forward with a sideways cleave. The creature blocked it effortlessly, using her momentum to push the weapon over its head, opening her up to a counterattack that it took eagerly. Thankfully, her armour was able to block the blow, though, the sheer force of the attack smashed her left barrel plating. Crumpling the metal, and forcing it to fall to the floor. It’s attack completed, the creature backed off a meter or so, starting to circle the Princess with her weapon ready to attack or block. Even with the painful bruises across her side, Luna couldn’t help but to crack a smile. It had been a long time since something was able to put up this much of a fight, and she planned to savour her victory once this was over. She steeled her resolve as she greeted the beast with a wave of pure magic. Although she would have rathered fire, or something more potent, she would rather not waste energy testing the creatures resistances. The magic impacted the creature, forcing it back a few steps as it rigidly held against the force. But, her attack brought some fruit, sections of its armour flew from its body, revealing tender flesh under them. Deep black skin, void of hair or scales, barely visible in the low light, was this creature’s only natural barding. A strange outcome, but a welcome one. The creature hissed out a wordless mechanical cry of anger as it went on the offencive. Charging forward, it came in for a jab, having let go with it’s right hand, and using the length of its arms to maximum effect. Luna dodged to the side, capitalising on the creature’s anger to cut into it’s left arm. Unlike before, the creature had no tricks or uncanny dodges, and caught the blade right on it’s wrist, cutting clean through, and spurting crimson blood to the ground. The creature grunted in pain as its other hand flashed out at a impossible speed, gripping onto the Alicorn’s horn, and cutting off her levitation magic. Before she could make any vocal cry of indignation, the creature pulled her by her horn closer to it, delivering a painful knee to the gut. Her armour creaked and cracked as she attempted to use her earth pony strength to overpower the creature, only accomplishing copping a few extra knees to the gut. “Princess!” Millthorn’s cry cut through the pain, joined swiftly by another cry of pain on behalf of her adversary. Though she didn’t remember closing her eyes, Luna opened them to see her trusty guard had stuck a long, cruel looking dagger into the neck of her attacker. It took the creature only a second before the red lights of its eyes turned dull, and it dropped to the ground, freeing her. In a split second call, Luna pulled her guard to her and called on her teleportation magic. And as they fled, the last thing they saw was the other bipedal creatures in the room pulling their fallen comrades back into the darkness...
Chapter 4: Live WiresChapter 4: Live wires By Eric Longtooth. “The sad part about being a lone wolf is, you don't die around your friends, you die around your enemies.” Unknown |>o0{ Spark }0o</| His skittering legs danced across the labyrinth of machines and robots. His original, inefficient hooved limbs having been long since replaced with the shiny metal of ten insectoid legs. Although he was loath to use the design of the insects that had once plagued the glorious Factory, they were without a doubt, effective at movement in this terrain. Each leg fitting smoothly into the grooves of each building, each placed as if they were built just so he could traverse them, this unit was able to continue his duties as caretaker with ease. He was thankful for his position, other units had been taken to the front lines, but he was allowed to stay here. A great distance underground, surrounded only by the awe-inspiring creations of the factory, instead of the filth of this world’s primitives. Regardless, he was filled with a sense of pride as he gazed around at his surroundings. Where stone and clay had once littered the walls, now was only the open steel and concrete of the factory floor. Even though a large portion of the production has been moved to The Spire after the resources dried up, most of the complex components still were manufactured here. Gone were the days of mines and refining, now, all the resources were brought in by the vast networks of trains. Even some of the common products required for advanced production had to be imported, gears, circuits, even bodies. After he had removed the few remaining insects that had most likely followed them from the last planet, the need for bio-matter had skyrocketed. Whilst he wasn’t entirely sure why the Factory needed it, he had to admit, the wild cattle were a good source for it. From what he could tell, soon a group of special bodies would arrive, and would be uplifted. It pleased him to know that he wasn’t the only one to receive such a blessing, but at the same time, he worried that he would be replaced in the eyes of the Factory. But these thoughts distracted him from the task at hand, for the first time, the Factory would allow him to uplift one of his old kind! The Factory had whispered it in the harsh binary tones that it always did, saying that now that he had been stripped of the last of his bio-matter, he would be granted the knowledge to give the same gifts he had received to others! He couldn’t wait to find these new siblings! *0o()o0*{Princess Luna}*0o()o0* Long ago, when she was still a little filly, Luna had be warned of the dangers of blind teleports. Death, dismemberment, paralyzation, and, more often the not, magical exhaustion. Sure, there was ways to make sure these things didn’t happen. Be it a quick scanning spell to make sure the destination was clear, or even some sort of mana limitation so that the spells didn’t take too much energy. But, when one started to do that, the process started to take up more valuable time. Time that, in combat, cannot be spared. So, it was hardly a surprise when her spell spat the pair out in mid air. Once again, the bonuses of being an alicorn showed as the Princess rolled her body to take the brunt of the fall away from her faithful guard. It took only a moment of free fall before the pair made contact with the hard metallic ground, causing a great screech of metal as the flooring fought with the Princess’s armour to claim this unwanted assailant as its own. Thankfully, it wasn’t enough of a fall to break the enchanted plate mail, even in its damaged state. Before she could move to check on her companion, she was greeted with a loud groan as the armoured batpony rolled off of her. “Eeeegh… I think I lost a few brain cells in that one…” Millthorn complained as he slowly picked himself off of the ground. “How are you fairing, Princess?” “We art fine. A few bruises and nothing more.” Luna replied as she joined Millthorn in readying themselves. “Dost thou know where we are located?” “I think I should be asking you, I’m no unicorn, and even then, I don’t think I’d be able to teleport in the middle of battle like that.” “Fair.” “Well, if you ponies opened your eyes for once, I could tell you.” A female double toned voice dryly chuckled from above them. At the sound, the pair quickly adopted battle stances as they scanned the darkness for a foe. But, in reality, there wasn’t much to see at all, with the room they found themselves in being nothing more than a large metal box. Beyond a single door on the far end of the room, and a mess of cables and wires covering up large portions of the walls. The only abnormal thing being a great big stain of green fluid that they found themselves standing in. “Up here, princess.” The voice called mockingly before she descended into a fit of coughs. The Princess and her faithful guard snapped their eyes to the voice, before flinching at what they found. Everypony knows who Queen Chrysalis is, be it that they saw her at some point, or simply had heard tales of her exploits. Be it the original invasion of Canterlot, or the grand scale schemes that seemed to flock to her like vultures to carrion. But this… this was something else. Where there was once shiny black carapace and grand teal hair, they could see only a flaking and sickly layer of tender muscle. Meat hooks straight out of the butcheries of the Gryphons had plunged through the fallen Queen’s limbs, each attached by thick chains to multiple anchor points in the roof. Sections of her body had been torn away, leaving gaping holes that leaked neon green blood and acted like windows to alien-like organs. Hundreds of struggling worm-like creatures swarmed around the damaged area, each clad in thin chitinous carapaces and dozens of tiny legs that oozed a sort of deep teal acid that burned away infected-looking flesh. Although it was a slow process, the Princess noticed that wherever the acid burned, tiny tendrils of muscle reached out and slowly regrew the grievous wounds. A sort of symbiotic relationship perhaps? Or just a more advanced version of normal healing? Whilst Luna watched with curiosity, Milthorn found himself looking away with a grimace. “Take a good look, ponies. For this is evolutionary perfection…” Chrysalis laughed darkly, shaking a few of the worms off of her body and into the floor far below. Surprisingly enough, the worms seemed to take it in stride and began climbing the walls to get back to their host. “I should be glad, perhaps I’ll get killed in the crossfire when they finally come for you.” “We shouldn’t be surprised, that an insect as… annoying as you,” Luna began with a sneer, “Would be this disgusting, but it seems even We have yet to see everything.” “Ha! So it would seem!” The changeling Queen laughed, her double toned voice turning a, usually, pleasant sound into a chorus of haunting sounds. ‘Well… this couldn’t get any worse…’ Author's Note A thousand apologies about the delay, I'd bring up a multitude of excuses for my insolence, but I doubt they would state you. Regardless, I'm back to working on this, and I shall attempt to get chapters done in a more... timely fashion.
Chapter 5: City of Cruel AngelsAuthor's Note Produced in a more... timely manner due to the prompting of a nameless number 8. Thanks again mate, you'd be surprised how much an ego boost can do to make these things. ;P Chapter 5: City of Cruel Angels Chapter 5: City of Cruel Angels By Eric Longtooth “MEENAH: Before I died I was already like, 'I ain't give a fuck about death much' MEENAH: I looked at it like life had a price of admission no one could afford MEENAH: in the ticket takers eye there's no way you could ever earn your stay MEENAH: So to stick around you gotta learn to steal MEENAH: but shit catches up with all thieves in the end. MEENAH: even the great ones.” - Homestuck, Written by Andrew Hussie 0o0o0o0(O)| Home Guard Command Unit: Steele |(O)0o0o0o0 Mission: Secure intruder, designation 'ALICORN' Mission Prioritus: Absolute Troop Status: - 1020 [K.I.A] - 1021 [K.I.A] - 1022 [K.I.A] - 1023 [K.I.A] - 1024 [100%] - 1025 [87%] - 1026 [90%] - 1285 [100%] - 1286 [100%] - 1287 [100%] "These are unacceptable numbers, Command Unit." 1024, designation 'Stratagus,' buzzed in its usual pitch perfect binary. "Target was able to eliminate four operatives and yourself with minimal wounds and we are not even up to our normal combat strength. Should we engage, we will be slaughtered." Its objections were mirrored by the other two remaining units of the '102-X' squad in a light buzz of binary, whilst the reinforcements sent fierce disagreement through the comms. Barely audible to biologicals because of the loud droning of general factory processes around them, be it the grinding of gears, the sparking of electricity, or just the binary of the multitude of drones flying through. "The Factory stated we shall prevail, and so we shall!" 1287, designation 'Wolf,' argued, its binary requiring an extra microsecond of processing to eliminate the corruption that is it's 'accent '. Steele, once again, ignored her underlings as she pinged the armory with a request before taking a moment to replace her damaged parts. Disposing of the ones that would be unfixable in a small bin access in the wall, whilst grabbing the multitude of spares that hang on racks outside of the armory. Click, hisssss... 'Another damaged arm... this was the third this cycle. If I keep this up, I'll start getting accused of wasting resources...' She mused as she began feeding the wires of her new arm into their appropriate sockets. It amused her that the stout benches that The Factory gave them for waiting always seemed to creak under their weight, in fact, it was almost enough amusement to outweigh the annoyance of the part racks being just out of reach when sitting. "Request Processed. Squad designation 102-128, proceed to rearmament bay Solarius." The automated speaker dryly toned to the squabbling group, already opening the necessary doors to reach the bay. "I maintain my point, if The Factory didn't have faith in us, would it give us new armaments? I think not." Wolf 'chuckled,' or at least something close to it. For once, Steele was glad she didn't have biological ears... "This unit is not surprised you think so. Batch 12-XX is notorious for zealotry defects." Stratagus shot back, cutting off Wolf's laughter and replacing it with feral grinding of gears. Most likely to simulate the growls of its namesake. "Take that back, or I'll take your head!" "Negative, combat data suggests you wouldn't even get close." 'Perhaps I should step in before they start to kill each other... why The Factory gave us so much freedom, I'll never know... ' Steele mentally sighed as she rose to her feet, the still-tattered orange cloth of her under armour sticking uncomfortably to her synthetic hide. "1024, stand down and watch your tongue. We have a job to do." "By your order." Stratagus acidly spat, the additional 'mark-ups’ of the phrase forcing a double upload of binary. "Of course the one so focused on perfection would add extra binary just to display its snark. :Eyeroll:" Wolf commented, using his own brand of Dead-Code instead of the mark-ups it was mocking. "1287, that's enough." Honestly, she was surrounded with foals. "All units, move to rearm, we'll head out in ten mikes." Target Found / Location: Sector Alpha-2-4 Secondary mission gained: Recapture subject 'CHANGELING QUEEN' Mission Prioritus: Ultima "Contact!" One of the other units screeched, followed only by the heavy blasts of the auto-scatterguns. Shards of plexi-steel smashed into sections of the hallway, causing large gouges out of the concrete and metal. "E.M waves detected, take cov-!" 1025 was cut off as its torso erupted into a magical implosion, his warning not enough to save himself. "That's for the hooks, demons!" The changeling called in arrogance, barely audible over the gunfire. 'Not going to take that shot... we need her alive, and I doubt she can survive a bullet through the skull.' Steele mentally sighed, flipping a switch on her mag-rifle. Even though The Factory offered other weapons, all she needed was a replacement for her original. Namely because of the inbuilt acceleration rail for grenades, or even just the precision that comes with firing a bullet at five times the speed of sound. BOMF! ZAP! The launch of the stun grenade seemed to have the desired effect as the Bug Queen sent back a flurry of curses and hate. “1285 to 1287, move up with me. 1024, 1026, provide covering fire.” She commanded as she holstered her rife in favour of drawing a knife and a pistol. “Wolf, get your flamethrower ready for my command.” A chorus of binary confirmation was sent in reply as her armoured boots began pushing her forward. It wasn’t an optimum strategy, as the alicorn had proven quite adept at melee combat, but with the obstructions of piping and containers ranged warfare wasn’t much better. Clang! ‘Speak of the devil…’ Steele commented with a mental eyeroll, pushing off the glaive with a flourish of her knife before facing her opponent. ‘Looks like she can’t just teleport them back to her, either that or the armory is too far away to retake her stolen weapon…’ “Demon… a fitting name. For once We art in agreement with our foe.” The princess spat, drawing her blade back into a defensive stance. A very effective one in fact, at least, for a quadruped. ‘As much as I complain, The Factory’s obsession with these apes isn’t without merit…’ Steele mentally admitted as she prepared her combat augmentics. ‘At least, with the cybernetics… not sure about without them.’ She herself went back into a bit more of an aggressive stance, placing her blade in front of her, whilst having her pistol hug her torso. ‘Even after all that, her eyes still follow the knife… her mistake.’ Steele lunged forward, passing Luna’s Guard in a moment of impossible agility, before bringing her blade down in a very obvious strike. Luna, as expected, committed to a micro-teleport as she blocked the strike, leaving her side open to any other attack. Fortunately for her, Steele’s blade was occupied. Unfortunately, her gun was not. A trio of hip-fried shots impacted the princess’ side, the first two causing deep dents in the archaic armour, whilst the third found a gap between the plates and met flesh. In the moment of hesitation Luna created as she was blinded by pain, Steele slipped further into the princess’ guard as she brought her knife across the alicorn’s horn. The blade cut deep into the ivory, but be it some alicorn magic, or just earth pony strength, the horn held fast. Luna cried out in pain as mutlicoloured sparks flew from the wound as crimson blood slowly leaked around the blade now embedded in the appendage. “This brings me no joy princess, but I hope you can see the irony.” Steele whispered, knowing that the princess wouldn’t understand her words. “A former guard of the day, slaying the ni-” Before she could dislodge her knife and finish the job, Steele was launched away by a wave of green fire. The wave burned hotter than plasma, as her implants ‘helpfully’ informed her, and was more than enough to overpower the fireproofing measures of her underclothes, only adding further fuel to the flames. The magical fire stuck to her form like napalm as she was sent flying into the hallway wall with enough force to crack her armour. Subsequently allowing the fire to begin to burn away some of her internal cybernetics as the flames coil around her in a sort of primal intelligence. Circuits cooked and lubricant boiled turning her synthetic hide into a mat of melting flesh. An unholy scream of the holy machine language split the air as the ammunition on her sets off, ending her unlife in a great detonation… She could only hope The Factory wouldn’t find her wanting… 0o0o0o0(O)| Home Guard #128-7, Squad 102-128: Wolf |(O)0o0o0o0 Command Unit Slain. Transfer of Command in progress... 102-0 ‘Dread’ [K.I.A] 102-4 ‘Stratagus’ [Not Applicable] 102-6 ‘Scuttle’ [Insufficient Permissions] Conclusion: Squad 102-X Command Chain Eliminated. Query: Available Squad Leads? Candidates: 128-0 128-7 101-0 101-1 Response from server: Explanative: Mission Prioritus Absolute. Solution: 001-0 Dispatched. Temporary Command transferred to unit: #128-7 ‘Wolf’ “Wolf!? Are you shitting me?!” Stratagus called from behind him, barely seconds after the detonation of their commander. Wolf, for once, didn’t comment, as he sent a quick mental command to the repurposed inserter hidden next to his spine. ‘This is a right fucking mess, they must be desprate to put me in command instead of lord asshole…’ He growled over the sound of his auto-scattergun’s barks. The fact that they were getting caught on a mere two foes irked him to no end, doubly so when one remembered that one of their foes was a former prisoner. ‘Wait… didn’t the brief say there was a third? He mused as the inserter extended over his right shoulder, ready to bring its jury-rigged flamethrower to bare. ‘Perhaps he bled out or something of the sort.’ Another volley of sickly green magic burnt into the coolant pipes he was crouched behind, releasing another, surprisingly pleasant, blast of cool air as the chemicals reacted with the oxygen. “It is only a matter of time Changeling! You can’t keep this up forever!” 1026 yelled in retort, ‘Scuttle,’ if he remembered correctly, as he launched a frag grenade over Wolf’s head. “Watch it Scuttle! You nearly hit me with that!” Wolf barked back as he joined the grenade with a wave of burning napalm. The wave did fuck all, as it was blocked by a pulse of raw mana, but at this point, it was just a given. ‘Well, she’s stopped cursing at us.’ Wolf slammed another mag-drum home on his auto-scattergun before blind-firing over the cover. ‘Here’s hoping that’s a good sign.’ System Warning: Salvation is at hand, prepare to push. ‘A system warning? They only come from The Factory itself…’ Another blast of magic sheared off the majority of his cover and caught his scattergun, turning it, and the attached arm to a goopy slag. ‘Not to mention, with the way this is going, I seriously doubt we are going to find ‘salvation’ here in anything but death.’ And then the roof exploded. ()()o()(){Signal Lost}()()o()()
Chapter 6: At the Brink of ForeverSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Chapter 7: MomentumChapter 7: Momentum. By Eric Longtooth “We work together or we die. That’s our lot now. Even if it’s just for one more Trial, we live. Even if it just means waking up to one more campfire in the long, endless night, we live! Ingloriously, messily, and dishonourably, we live! Even if it means dragging ourselves out of that gate on our ruptured bellies with our entrails hanging behind us while we scream ‘fuck, fuck, fuck!’ We. Will. Live!” - I-A-M, Dead by Sunset *o0(@) Princess Luna 0o* The princess was angry. With Celestia, with the factory, and most importantly, herself. ‘Wretched machines! Curse their boomsticks and their foul witchcraft!’ She mentally hissed as she tried, and failed, to cast a mending spell on her horn. The temptation to drop the glaive from her mouth and vocally express her displeasure was strong, but considering the explosion, there was little time to spare. “Princess! Get off your ass and help me!” ‘When we leave here, she will die. This godless abomination of steel and ash will not take that from me.’ She grumbled as she hurried up to the Queen’s side, only to pause at the sight of the detonation. The jar that she had given Millthorn was a bit more powerful than the witchfire they used to enter this damned place, seeing as it had been mixed with a volatile concoction of solarite and arcanium. In theory, it would be enough to blow a hole into the Canterlot Vaults, which is one of the many, many reasons witchfire is banned. It is always amazing how flexible rules become in war. Regardless, it was clear that it did its job. As where the hidden door had once been, there was a hole. A hole about the size of a small building. The edges of what survived glowed a sickly neon green and yellow as flames danced across the ruined metal. Past the metal on each side, the stone had taken considerable damage as fragments of metal embedded themselves in every possible surface, each shard having tried oh-so desperately to escape the explosion. Just past the hole, right before the door that leads further into the factory, half a torso sits sparking. Burnt to charcoal black and stripped down to a metal skeleton, the last of their attackers leaks oil stained blood as it fades into death. The smell of foul magicks, sulphur, oil, and ash hangs heavy in the air, laying its own personal war against those who can smell. Stinging and irritating all it can. But, in the end, that wasn’t what grabbed the attention of the ageless alicorn. No, that honor belongs to whatever had been passing through the gate before it blew. Even in death, it was terrifying. Consisting of a body the size of the largest yak, with thick plating and forests of cables that fed liquids of all colours across its hide. Further, there was the ‘upper torso,’ not unlike a centaur’s it was created with the likeness of chiseled muscles upon more armor plating before branching off to four main arms and a octuplet of smaller grabbers and inserters. The two top arms ended only in the claws of a dragon, but, the underarms however, where much more interesting. Each ended in large, boxy ‘guns,’ but unlike the normal weaponry she had seen, these were covered in tubes of bright blue and red and all fed into the central ‘barrel’ of the gun. The damaged tubes leaked red and blue fire, and the barrels glowed ominously, but, thankfully, they were still. Few ‘legs’ had survived the blast, mainly those that were on the opposite side of the hull to the explosion, and the reasoning was quite obvious. Unlike the impossible bulk of the rest of the machine, the legs were barely thicker than a pony’s hoof. They looked like something from a spider, and, if she were to make an educated guess, prior to the blast there eight in total. Finally, there was the head. There was little left of it, but Luna could make out the likeness of a sort of mechanical pony’s skull, with the eye sockets instead taken up by dozens of small, beedy red cameras. The entirety of the right side of the skull had been melted off, but, surprisingly, it the rest of the skull was more or less intact. At least, if one ignored a few darkened cameras, and what she could only assume to be an immolated brain. “Impressive bombsmareship princess, I doubted the little twerp, but he got that thing pretty well.” Chrysalis chuckled as she dimmed her horn. “Hopefully there’s enough left to salvage a map.” “Just get on with it knave, We still have to go back for Millthorn before we leave.” Luna said after planting her glave into the ground. “We art still stuck in here, and there art still foes around every corner. Don’t get lazy.” @$%%^*{--ERR.--}===@###! MODEL: P.V.1223 USER NUMBER: 001-0 SYSTEM STATUS: RECOVERY MODE Status =/= Online Status =/= Offline ∴ display error log. ERROR LOG: ---(*)--- DAMAGE = Rating >8 TIME SCALE = <1 second ∴ DAMAGE CAUSE EXCEEDS DEFENCE RATING | INT. DEF-PROTOCOL ‘POSSUM’ ---(*)--- Reason == Satisfactory Current Status =/= Optimum. ∴ Display damage log. DAMAGE LOG: (==|==) HEAD: 67% - CORE PROCESSOR: 0% - OPTICAL [R]: 13% - OPTICAL [L]: 89% TORSO [UM]: 89% - ARM [MTR]: 73% - ARM [MBR]: 65% - ARM [SR]: 87% - ARM [MTL]: 88% - ARM [MBL]: 91% - ARM [SL]: 78% TORSO [LS]: 74% - BACKUP PROCESSOR: 100% - LEG [R1] 0% - LEG [R2] 77% - LEG [R3] 0% - LEG [R4] 0% - LEG [L1] 100% - LEG [L2] 0% - LEG [L3] 91% - LEG [L4] 76% - HULL GUN [FL] 0% - HULL GUN [FR] 2% - HULL GUN [TC] 0% - HULL GUN [BC] 35% (==|==) Confirmed. Damage =/= Optimum Damage == Acceptable ∴ Load Bootstrapper - Set ‘SECONDARY PROCESSOR’ to: Master CONFIRMED. LAUNCHING… *o0(@) Princess Luna 0o* As much as it hurt her pride to ask for it, Luna did, eventually give in and ask the Changeling Queen to heal her horn. Surprisingly however, Chrysalis had no snark to give on the topic, and only responded with things along the lines of ‘you’ll need that to fight.’ Regardless, she was currently doing some sort of techno-wizardry with the husk of the fallen machine whilst Luna stood guard. Surprisingly enough, the only foe to appear was a hooffull of bonepickers and small, bird-sized, flying machines. “Millthorn has yet to appear… hurry thy work so that we may find him before our foe doth end him…” Luna whispered, neglecting to put enough effort to maintain her ‘princessly speech,’ instead defaulting to a flat, tired tone. “Our horn can barely maintain telekinesis, and we would rather not wait for more machines to find us.” “They’ve already found us, don’t worry about that.” Chrysalis commented with a roll of her slitted eyes, “the fact that we have yet to be swarmed is a miracle within itself.” “So why doth they wait? We know there to be enough weaklings within this place to drown us in bodies.” The princess mused, flicking off bits of greymatter from her blade. “We were foalish to come here, but this place seems to refuse to capitalise on our weakness. Why?” She shrugs, removing the long, thin cable from the lower chest cavity of the beast with a quick yank. “Perhaps it enjoys toying with us, or maybe it is retarded, it doesn’t matter in the end.” The small ‘tablet’ Chrysalis held in her magic began to glow and hum as it began to project a three dimensional map. Near one of the walls, a small red dot flashed, and began to project a dotted line that wound in odd patterns for a good distance before existing near the base of the tower. “Well, this explains why this place is so painful to navigate.” The changeling chuckled dryly as she gestured with a hoof towards the shifting insanity that was the map. “It seems that below the surface, the tower is situated on sections that slowly turn… Just slow enough that one wouldn’t notice of course, but still enough to throw any invaders off.” “Another dishonest trick from this foe… we art not surpris-” “VRAAAM!” Before she could continue, the princess was cut off by Chrysalis being engulfed in burning red-blue plasma as the ‘slain’ beast began to rise once more... Author's Note What is this foul witchcraft!?! Two chapters in a month!? Barely a day between them!?
Chapter 8: Flight of the FallenChapter 8: Flight of the Fallen By Eric Longtooth “Prey hated hope. It was a vice of the weak, a poison far more addictive than salt or any other drug. It built you up with no foundation, promising beautiful things you could never reach, and then brought you crashing down into the depths of despair.” - Lambs Prey, Prey and a Lamb ~^v>|<{ Princess Luna }>|<v^~ Is it better to live within a story? Or be faced with cruel reality? Within stories and tales, the deaths of another take time, they are drawn out, and given a dramatic flair. Be it for the most hated of foes, or the bestest of friends. Reality however, is much harsher. One isn’t given time to register death in the heat of combat, thoughts cannot be spared to acknowledge the death of the one you hate the most. Joy cannot be spared, nor can anger at those that took what is rightfully yours. There was little left of the changeling Matriarch, as the plasma had reduced even her bones to slag and ash. Infact, the only thing that remained was her horn, a horn that swiftly fell through the cracks in the floor. It didn’t matter though, there were bigger, angrier, problems to deal with. “Unit online, primary core disabled, factory standard reinstated.” The beast called in a booming, emotionless tone. For once, speaking in an understandable Equish. “Target found, combat modules launched. Engaging.” Another blast of blue-red death launched from its guns, narrowly missing the princess as she dropped into a roll. ‘There art no point fighting this thing… a single hit would end us... ’ The princess mentally commented as she took off down the hallway. ‘The runes in our armor should have captured a picture of the map, we’ll just need a moment to retrieve it… there!’ The memory flooded into her mind and in a second or so, she had gathered a heading. Now she just needed to make it there without getting killed. “CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!” Projectiles launched from a previously concealed weapon on the underside of the monster’s hull, with five of its six barrels bent out of shape, or missing entirely, it shook dangerously with each round, launching them in odd and unpredictable angles. “VRAAAM!” A narrow turn down a side passage kept her head from being taken off, leaving the blast to rip a hole through a wall and further into the stone. Blood pounded in her ears as the princess forced herself to breathe evenly, her muscles burned with lactic acids as she remembered fondly when her armor had given a barrier from overexertion. She didn’t even remember exactly when the enchantments had run dry. ‘Wait, did we not just use some of the enchantments? If the armor hast run dry, none should be wor-’ “Gah!” Pain blossomed in the tender flesh of her neck as one of the stray bullets found a gap between the plates. It was nearly enough to cause her to stumble as the metal exited the front of her neck, only to ricochet upon the internals of her armor and launch itself into her breast. Blood began to spill into her lungs as her innate alicorn magic desperately expended itself to replace the need for air. A useful, but not very efficient endeavor. And yet, she still ran. “VRAAAM!” Another blast sailed over her head and burnt a nearly ten meter gash into the roof. Fragments of concrete, dirt, and metal dirtied her already soiled mane as her hooves pounded and rocketed her through the hallway. Lupus non timet canem latrantem... ‘Now is not the time!’ The lunar alicorn hissed, narrowly dodging another blast of crackling plasma. Aeternam iram; iram frigus… sine fine somnum exterreri solebat… ‘We are not Her! Thy meddling is for naught!’ A small swarm of bonepickers descend from one of the side hallways, falling over each other in their efforts to catch her. ‘Just a few more turns… we art nearly there…’ “Firing solution logged, error removed, warming… fire.” “VRAAAM!” At the sound of the cannon firing, Luna gave her wings a quick lurch in an attempt to dislodge a bonepicker gnawing on her leg. A convenient twist of fate, as the magic-assisted jump allowed for a well-timed dodge, as the plasma turned the swarm of spider-droids into slag. It seems, luck is content to play with the pony princess for a little longer. Oo0oO(+The Factory+)Oo0oO Target has reached border checkpoint, ETA five minutes to exit. Insufficient forces deployed, Arch-Magos Pattern unit has been deemed inefficient against Alicorn targets. Prompt |- Iron production exceeding storage capability. |- Crude Oil overload. |- Petroleum Deficit detected. Delta class core set: Prompt #24786377-242AZ Deploying Ruststalkers to secto- Overridden. Initiate Primary Core detachment. |- I have a job to do. Confirmed. Primary core detaching, Alpha and Beta class issues are paused. Awaiting Primary Core oversight. Booting backup Delta cores to maintain processing power… Booted. Prompt |- Production block {Basic Circuits}[ID: 347] Damaged. | |- 76% Remaining |- Unit loss {Scarabs}[x15] Confirmed. Warehouses pinged, delay 13.226ms, units on route… ~^v>|<{ Princess Luna }>|<v^~ Citius, fortius … et esurimus… She had lost sight of the monster a few turns ago, and had stopped feeling the sting of its guns a few before that. But she couldn’t stop, she was so close to escape. To freedom. Mox… Coming here was a horrible, horrible idea. Celestia had tried to tell her, she tried to warn her. But she insisted, she promised results with such conviction she fooled even herself. She brought together the scattered remains of her loyal followers and sent them to the slaughter. Sanguis… She refused the conscripts, oh so confident that all they would do is slow her down. Perhaps that was the only thing she had done right… if she had brought them, there would have just been more targets for this damnable place. Gloria… Once she escaped… she honestly didn’t know what would happen. et sanguinem gloria... The lines between her mind and her mi- her namesake’s mind, had blurred and thinned to fraying string. Once her mission faded… who knows what would happen. sine fine sanguine, gloria mirabilem praedicamus. Even now it scraped at the door of its cage, wishing for freedom to bathe the world in death and cold. Why it wishes for such a thing, she doesn’t know. In fact, from her… limited conversation on the topic with her solar counterpart, the Sun was much the same, but instead wishing for fire and heat, instead of cold. libertas! But in the end, instinctively, she knew it would only bring bad things. Even the Nightmare wasn’t foolish enough to call upon its power. in fine temporum venit Perhaps it would replace her? Tenebris! Or perhaps, they would become one? “Et lux lunae est retrorsum ut occidere!” Author's Note One more to go... Hopefully google translate didn't fail me with all that Latin. xD
Chapter 9: ImmortalityChapter 9: Immortality By Eric Longtooth “Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb :=:=:>{ Princess Celestia }<:=:=: The coils of magic whipped and strained against the ivory bounds of Celestia’s horn, contrasting deeply with the burning tendrils of burning sunlight, as, not unlike a troublesome foal, the sun fought her guiding hoof. It would be so easy… to burn the corruption from our lands… With another flex of her arcane will, the burning ball began its trip around the planet once more. And, as it cast its glowing light with the rising dawn, the herald of light turned her gold-sodden hooves to return back into the candlelight of her room. An intruder amongst the heavens… taking a freedom stricken from I… ‘What? An intruder?’ Her hoof paused upon the shadow of her bedroom door. Indeed, indeed… a silver orb has taken a host, and comes to take the day… In haste, the snow-white alicorn turned to gaze upon the horizon, right in time to see the moon embark across the sky. Its silver glow turning to a cold black as it bathed the world is darkness, a halo of angry golden light highlighting it as the sun disappeared. Insolent blasphemies! I shall turn this fool to ash under my holy light! “Luna…” She whispered, wincing at the baleful telepathic volume of her burden as her mane moved to shroud her face. It would not do for her little ponies to see her worry… ~`^v>|<{OOO###]###@$%% “A mind as one, whole once more, an avatar of harmony.” The words slipped from her lips and froze upon the cold air, a harmonious chorus of a thousand voices speaking as one. A hundred different languages mixing together behind the firm ‘leader’ of the choir, each as slippery as ice as they play with the ears of any listening. For a moment, it had been day, with the sun glaring a hole into her retinas as it cast the world in ungodly heat. But it was easily fixed, and once more she was shrouded in a veil of darkness, with it, she had transformed into something much more fitting. Were she once stood in the shadow of her sister, she would now look down upon her, even if only just. Her wings grew to better fit her new size, and gained a white highlight at the tips of her feathers. Her horn, similarly grew whilst gaining a permanent aura of un-light, whilst her mane turned to deep blue fire that was freezing to the touch. Finally, her eyes turned to orbs of black, as they appeared to turn into the cosmos itself. Stars of all colours dances across them as they take the night air that danced across her vision. The strings of reality swayed in the breeze and wrapped around her as they greeted the her. It was as harmonious as anything, with patterns and symmetry, each playing with the laws of the land and daring not to interrupt the grand design. But as always, it could be so much more. “You have done much to break my factory… I would have thought you would have left this place as soon as you could.” A cruel voice called from behind her, its voice sounding like a whisper, but it caught one’s ears more like a yell. She didn’t need to turn to know the despicable sneer on its face. “And yet, here we are. Stood right at the gates, waiting for me. Or perhaps you have just been caught up in your transformation?” “A transformation suggests a change. This is simply the evolution of this instance of Our existence.” The Goddess of the Moon replied coolly as she spread her wings and straightened out before turning to face her foe. “As a being of chaos, you should know all about evolution, or at the very least, your imperfect variation of such a thing.” There they stood, an avatar of the moon, of harmony itself. And the abomination that started it all. It was tall, looming over her form even after her transformation. Its limbs were of deathly skin and bone, almost as white as the moon itself, and covered in thick, angry veins. It was impossible for it to stand with such little muscle mass, and yet, there it stood. Slouched over as it wore nothing but a smith’s smock and a tattered orange jumpsuit. Its arms ended in long nailed hands, each strand of hardened keratin being as long as her horn and as black as her night. They had grown so long, that they appeared to have thickened to maintain their strength, as instead of only resting upon the tops of its fingers, they had taken the entire tip of each finger. Finally, there was the head. She had expected at least this to be replaced with metal, but it seemed not. It stood there, flesh sunk into its skull with barely a hint of hair as the base of its chin. It smiled at her, an ugly, toothy smile. It had appeared to have elongated its teeth, before having filed them to points. Leaving a fang-filled jaw to compliment the beedy, sunken red eyes that glared at her. One of her past lives had once met such a creature as this, at least, what it once was. A human. Such a disgusting species, each even more chaotic than the last. “Your own evolution isn’t very hamonous either, was it?” The beast emitted a sound not unlike the grinding of gears and knives. “I for one, am glad you remained within close proximity. Our sensors had a field day with all the data we collected off of you.” It began to stalk over to her, each step jerky and unnatural. A split second of hesitation between each movement, joined by a faint, yet noticeable, grinding of bone and metal. “One would think that what I am doing would be right up your alley. Each cog and peice working together with mathematical precision… each moment optimised to the millisecond… It sounds like harmony to me.” And then, before the ‘e’ had even left its jaws, the beast lurched forward with an arm outstretched. Claws bared, and glistening in the moonlight as they attempted to split the alicorn’s head from her body. The look of amazement and anger as the talons met only smoke was… delectable, If she did say so herself. Her form exploded in a flash of smoke, before consolidating a few meters behind the beast. Shimmering for a moment, before returning her to a solid state. “A low blow, but not an unexpected one.” She commented, drawing magic into her horn as she prepared a counter-attack. “A lesson in harmony then, as it seems you have a flawed understanding. Harmony can only exist when there is nothing left. Only when the stars themselves die, and existence itself returns to its beginnings, shall there be true harmony.” She let loose a lance of blueish white energy that quickly cut through the head of the creature. Leaving a smoldering hole the size of a pencil, directly in it’s forehead. Quick, cheap, and effective. At least, until the flesh around the hole grew back, leaving the bald dome of its head completely unmarred. “Interesting… that one was nearly at negative two hundred and ten! Very impressive.” It mocked with another ‘chuckle.’ “Though, in relation to the harmony definition, why do you squander such power? If harmony can only be achieved when there is nothing left, why do you defend these ponies?” The Moon Goddess bit back a growl as she glared at this creatures smug face, instead, she made a point to lower the ambient temperature just a bit more. After all, who says she can’t fight in comfort? “Non-existence must be cultivated, harmony is more then just order, it is the balance of order and chaos. And although all will become perfectly harmonious in the end, the cycle must be preserved.” Another lance, this time a trio of base-ball sized bolts, flashed through the frigid air. Only to be blocked by a previously invisible automata that jumped in the way, its form freezing and shattering against the concrete only a moment later. “You are not part of the cycle, you are in interloper, and thus must be destroyed.” At her comment, the beast’s face opened. Revealing a bloody metal skull with two, seemingly organic eyes glaring at her. And, in turn, it opened its fanged maw further then should be biologically possible and released a swarm of micro missiles that, after clearing the creature’s body, turned invisible. A neat parlor trick, in fact, she is certain she hadn’t seen anything like it befor- Wait no, one of her selves perked up and pointed out an archaic minotaurian invention. Sure, it was arrows instead, but it wasn’t too different after one removed the ‘biological horror’ part of it. At least the invisibility was new. With a quick jab of her hoof into the ground, the Lunar Goddess’s shadow formed a sort of forcefield that, after a few seconds, absorbed the incoming projectiles. “It seems to be that you have spent your… lives, in servitude to harmony. I have to wonder where that will lead once you are deemed too… chaotic.” It commented as its face clicked back into place with a fleshy squelch, leaving no sign of the attack other then the blood staining its neck. “In the end, cold iron hold more certainty then flesh.” “Says the one hiding behind the aforementioned flesh.” She shot back, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. After all, she needed to see the attack to stop it… at least, mostly. “Even your creations maintain a level of reliance on flesh, the irony amuses me greatly.” Whilst the comment didn’t gain as much of a reaction as she hoped, the blazing fury behind its eyes were nearly has entertaining. Perhaps, it was time to up the ante. Reaching her magic into the night sky, the Goddess called her children. ^!>%<[ ALPHA O.S. ]>%<!^ ‘Magic’ radiation peaking. 43% Increase of base statistics for ‘ALICORN^2’ 324% Increase of base statistics for ‘ALICORN’ Previous Attack Statistics: Attack 1, 1.85% Increase (‘ALICORN^2’) Attack 2, 2.01% Increase (‘ALICORN^2’) - Conclusion - High-Yield Attack inbound. His servos made minute adjustments within his warframe whilst he maintained his glare, this ‘goddess’ wouldn’t even notice the change. Ping from ‘CTRL-TOWER-1’ | ORBITAL COMMAND FWD MESSAGE | MICROSTAR-#5722 DISPLACED. | MICROSTAR-#5722 HAS SHATTERED. NEW MICROSTAR-SHARDS-#1-153 LOGGED. | WARNING, ASTRONOMICAL ANOMALIES (‘MICROSTAR-SHARDS-#1-8’) ON COLLISION COURSE WITH FACTORY. | AUTOMATED DEFENCES DEPLOYED | AUTOMATED DEFENCES ARE UNABLE TO GAIN TARGET LOCK | SPEED EXCEEDING NATURAL PLAUSIBILITY | PLASMA SHIELDS LAUNCHED. | WARNING, ALPHA CORE IS OUTSIDE OF PLASMA SHIELDS. | AWAITING INPUT. Message end. ‘> Data request: Absolute locations of impact / ETA.’ Sending Hex Co-ords. 28% Lethality detected with preventative measures. Evacuation of Alpha Core recommended. ‘Negative.’ 54% Lethality detected. Good luck. ~^v>|<{OOO[ Lunar Goddess ]OOO}>|<v^~ Now that she was whole, and now that each of her past lives had some time to catch up in the background of this fight, the Goddess’s most recent iteration has come to the realisation that, normally, stars only appear small due to them being really far away. To be completely fair, the change meant very little, considering this particular timeline wouldn’t know any better, and thus would assume that this was the natural order of things. But, the point remains that it is an anomaly. But, she was sure that it could be fixed before anyone noticed. At the very least, it meant that the effort required to shatter it into non-cataclysmic pieces, was relatively low. The beast shifts slightly, its eyes unfocusing and focusing upon her in an odd manner whilst it starts to circle. In response, she circles closer to the factory, making a point of cutting off any route back into its steelled embrace. “This has drawn on too long, the autopsy room awaits, insect!” It growled, its flesh bulging and rupturing as a multitude of steel spikes grow from bloody holes. Some, the size of daggers, others entire swords. Blood dripped from its form as it shed its skin like a snake, all whilst plates and armor expanded and connected from under it. Enlarging the beast and turning it all the more monstrous. Once it was complete, the only remaining bit of flesh was its head. A pale white highlighted even further than before against the blackened steel armor. With its transformation complete, it lunged forward, bloodied claws outstretched. The Goddess dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack as she counters with a blast of magic directly into its torso. Without the distance dissipation, the attack was enough to leave a noticeable dent, but accomplished little beyond that. Right as she landed back on her hooves, and the beast turned, her attack finally come to fruition. Eight fragments of a star, each only a few centimeters across, impacted into the ground at just below the speed of sound. Dust and concrete turned the air into a thick cloud of grey whilst the resounding booms discrupted any other sound for a few moments. With a swish of her magic, the Goddess teleported the visual obstruction to some far-off pit, and, with her sight returned, she took stock of the damage. Unsurprisingly enough, she now stood in a deep hole, and whilst she didn’t care to take a measurement of its depth, it was enough for her to be glad that she could teleport. And yet, of the beast, there was no sign. One of her iterations urged caution, citing some long-dead demi-god’s advice to never turn one’s back on a body. Another piped up and commented that technically, they could do no such thing, if there was nothing left. She hersssssssss-@!$#$@($%&%@)@E*$$&@($*#@$&@(#&!@)#*!#&$(@#$@&#$#%(@^*#$%@#&%@(%#%*@#)$@$*%&@#$)@#*$#*%(#$&@%@#(&$!@)*#)#*$$)%&#$)%@*#$@#*$@#&$@)$*%@$)$*!#&$#$)^%&*$)%*@#&$&!#$)$*%%)^*$#&%@#$*#@)%*@$#!)@*$&@$%@#)$#%108#$850435871203@$*)%#**$!)#%$!)*$##!)@$@#*)%3$*23085@#041)#$4%)*@#1234@$#$12#$@5123$34^43$!556&#$#!@#$56%$^52#$%35634@3% %##[ ERROR ]##% The immortal glow of the goddess slowly bled from a crimson hole in her head. With each beat of her heart, she turned back to the princess that she once was. After a moment, the solitary robot, looking more akin to a humanoid skeleton, extracted the meter long razorblade from its home in the princess’s skull. But not before it took what it needed from her and left a gift in turn. With a meaty thump, she fell to the dirt, right before a small pack of scarabs appeared to drag her back to Canterlot. To pass a message, one done in blood. The robotic skeleton turned and began to climb out of the pit, its chest cavity holding something more precious than silver or gold. Half of the Lunar Princess’s brain. It was an ironic end, for the princess of the night, of shadows and trickery, to be slain by an assassin's blade while her back was turned. But the Factory did not grow with honor. Only the strong will survive, and whilst not orthedox, subtlety had its own strength… $##{ After Action Report }##$ You have been defeated... Time Played: 2356:12:4:23:55 Target Strength: Alpha Core: 12% Operational. Spark-bot: 68% Operational Units lost: Explorer x1 Guards x3 Alicorn x1 Expanded: The Factory prevails over the pathetic ponies this time, having gained an invaluable prize that will allow them to fully unlock the secrets to magic. Though your mind is dead to the world, you in time will return. Only this time, it shall be to the Factory’s call. Play Again? Author's Note The Bad Ending for the Princess, but in the end, it was the right one... If you don't mind, please leave a like! It's an ego boost on my end, and helps the story remain in the algorithms's favour for a bit longer. (Next chapter will be posted before too long, just making some last minute edits.)
EpilogueBronzed Moon: Epilogue By Eric Longtooth “Three little fillies jumping on the bed, One fell off and now she’s dead. Two little fillies jumping on the bed, one flew too high and hit her head. One little filly jumping on the bed, they won’t catch me, the last one said. No more fillies jumping on the bed…” - BlueColton, A Sound in the Dark ▂▃▄▅▆▇█▓▒░[Far Below Canterlot…]░▒▓█▇▆▅▄▃▂ Drip… Drip… Drip-Hissssss… The stalactites far above sent small gifts to the world below, most making it to the cave floor unobstructed, but for a few, they found purchase on an abnormally hot container. It was a simple looking box, made of steel and concrete, and being about the size of a normal pony. The metal bands that reinforce the concrete glow softly with electrical current, turning any falling water droplets into mist as soon as they touch it. Although there was nopony this far below the capital, if there was, they may just comment on the slight ticking emanating from the box. The sort of sound that nopony would notice unless they sat there for a while, but a sound nonetheless. Far above the box, right at the top of the mountain it sleeps under, a singular, very powerful, pony rages. Sending forth a slight, but noticeable wave of solar magic. In its wake, everything became a few degrees hotter. Perhaps only three or four, but it was enough. And should there have been a pony this low, and should they have noticed the ticking, they may just notice the absence of it after the wave. Tisssss-TONK! With an echoing cry, the first band is violently ejected from the box. Flying far into the air, before being discarded in some long-forgotten corner of the abyss. Click-click-click-click… Gears wurr, and after a moment, the cave returns to its uneasy quiet. Ka-CRACK! But that was before the concrete parted. From within its prison, a deep, grotesque, green light floods the once-impenetrable black of the abyss, and with few unused gears, a figure emerged and unfolded. It was tall, about a head or two above a normal pony, even though its head was seemingly missing. Fashioned with thin limbs, with a pair of legs that end in four clawed feet, three in front, one behind, along with a pair of arms. At the end of them, there was a nimble set of five claws, but, as it emerges, the hands flip back into the arms, and a set of blades replace them. Razor sharp and nearly as long as its entire arm. At its back, a single antenna extends a bit above where its head should be, with a single red light at its end that softly glowed. At its apex, the creature’s head unfolded from the depths of its chest cavity. With only what appears to be the front section of a human’s skull, along with a pair of long, yet manoeuvrable spikes in place of a jaw. Most striking, however, was the back of its head. Instead of a mane or even a smooth cap to round it out, it ended with a sort of pickle jar, bereft of pickles, and instead containing within its green juices a… squid? Indeed, within the ‘brain cavity’ of these creatures, was a squid that fully occupied all the room it had. At least, until one looked closer. Instead of the main body of a squid, there appeared to be a mammal’s head. A human child's in fact, but it held a few choice modificons. Its eyes had been removed, and replaced with bundles of red and blue cables that lead to the rest of the head. Along with a selection of tubes and cables coming from its small, undeveloped mouth. Nit-nit-nit-nit-nit… A soft clicking emanates from its chest, soft as a whisper as the child-brain shifts slightly in time with each click. The tentacles of the abomination shifting within its pod with surprising dexterity as the child wiggled. Yet, even with its nearly silent volume, it was at such a pitch that it travelled nigh’ perfectly through the caverns, and from the black, a symphony of others respond. Soon they would find their way to the surface, and in time, they would do as the Factory dictated at their creation. But until then… A slight buzzing resounds from the creature, and if anyone where to be watching, they would notice it completely fade from sight. But, there was no one. And so, it went about its business completely unmolested. Time will tell what that business was… Time will tell... The End
