Author's Note
This is basically the design of the robot. I tried to find a way of working in a description of the thing, but my pov character for the scene was inside it. So... yeah. Let me know what you think of this more goal oriented HiE fic, and whether or not i should continue with this.
Ch 1. Awake in fire.
Deep in the dark knotted woods of the Everfree far below a familiar castle ruin, evil sleeps. As a duel between the forces of harmony and darkness wage above, the most dangerous of Equestria’s criminals lie. Encased in stone to never again scar the world with their crimes. It is a cruel fate, one not sentenced lightly by the nation’s rulers, though it was their best alternative to the executioner’s block.
Zargothrax the necromancer, Crackhorn the terrible, Bloodhoof the defiler, Unknown the master thief, Cindy the rapist, Cruknarak master of the slime, and so many others sentenced to eternal limbo. Only the few who Celestia herself deemed possibly redeemable were moved with her to Canterlot. The rest… well.
Moisture dripped in an unbreaking constant rhythm. It had started about five hundred years ago, a single drop of water condensed on the top of the cave wall. After crawling across several hundreds of meters beneath the earth across sheer dungeon ceiling before finally coming to a stop at the chambers lowest point. He had sat there motionless for five hundred years watching this process as the water made its way from the inky depths of the cavern to its dropping point, slowly bringing to form a stalactite in the cavern. Its rhythmic dripping unbroken for centuries upon the once metallic outline of the massive rotund machine of destruction.
A wave of rainbow tinted energy cascaded through the air, signalling the end of the comically short reign of Nightmare Moon once and for all. The energies of the elements, however, were still an unpredictable force held by new inexperienced bearers and given non-specific commands. In this use the elements were told to neutralize its enemy in only the vaguest of senses, which it interpreted as to remove the dark spirit possessing the lunar princess. To split her from her unnatural bondage, and once the energies reached the old palace dungeons… it did as instructed.
***
Slowly he awoke. His limbs felt like iron bars rusted together from centuries of immobility. His arms felt longer now, the legs spindlier, ludicrously so. If gravity worked as intended here, they should have never sufficed to hold his almost perfectly spherical body.
“ugh…” he grunted, “god damn it… one thousand years really gives you such a crick in the neck.” Muttering to himself the rotund human scientist braced himself against the console and adjusted his glasses. Slowly lowering his new body into the big red control chair with a creak and a groan. As he settled in his foot bumped against something rigid and sharp, sounding a musical ding as it did so. After some fumbling in the dark he retrieved the gem. An emerald. The master component, each of its vacant slots holding naught but the indentations of their absent occupants. Missing, the others were missing. These were no simple jewelry bobbles; they were energy sources. Powerful artifacts capable of powering the most heinous of devices from the minds of terrible dictators, a single gem could serve to power a whole army of machines for the lucky conquer who found them, or for a skilled enough magician a well of inexhaustible might.
The most dangerous sources of mystical energy in the universe, in god only knew who’s hands.
As his mind danced in terror with visions of Armageddon the building chorus of cracking rock drew his ear. The others were breaking free.
“And low! After centuries of frozen slumber, I am free once more! Cosmic infinity courses through my veins! My body is ablaze with astral power! Equestria shall once again tremble before the might of Zargothrax!” declared the vengeful necromancer. His echoing voice barely heard above the cacophony of similar rants for retribution that filled the cavern from the mouths of the newly freed prisoners. The minotaur Crackhorn swearing to rebuild his carnivorous warband, Bloodhoof the goat bleated out curses for his damned cult and their failure that landed him here, while Cindy the rapist merely cackled manically. Unknown was, as always, eerily silent as he stretched his unnaturally long and oddly bent limbs. These were only among those closest to the human that he could discern, the many dozens of less prominent criminals merely faded into the crowd of villainy.
“You know…” a deep echoing voice rang through out the cave, demanding all their attention, “A though occurs.” The spherical scientist spoke into the microphone on the control board, projecting his voice into the crowded dark around him.
“I know I am here unjustly, yet I cannot say the same for you. So, I apologize in advance for the inconvenience,” the drills on the great Death-Egg-Robot retracting into its mechanical mass as it spoke. “but I cannot afford to allow you to interfere with my plans.” A flamethrower quickly burst from the vacant appendage and proceeded to ignite the cavern and all its fleshy occupants. Some acted just quickly enough to escape, Zargothrax bursting away in a jolt of magic, Unknown the faceless slipping through the cracks in the wall, Medusa used her tentacle-like hair to hurriedly drill herself beneath the soft dirt of the cavern floor for protection, but others were not so quick. While Crackhorn was able to activate his warhammer’s mystical ability to turn its users’ skin to pure iron it did not save him from the pure heat of the weapon welding his form solid. His lips now unable to reverse the incantation and dooming him to a slow suffocating end. Most simply burned.
Content with the results of his work the pilot maneuvered his machine forward over the smoldering still warm ashes of once thinking creatures to the caves furthest edge. Returning the drilling appendage to its rightful slot the great machine tilted downward to begin tunneling out of its former prison. Its pilot sitting back to leave the automated systems to their work and contemplate the immeasurably powerful artifact he now held.
***
Applejack sighed in relief. The cider hung heavy on her breath as her sturdy earth pony frame leaned on the barrel from where it was poured. Her muscles relaxed by the flow of salt in her belly and tingled with the memory of pulling that barrel from her families farm just two nights ago, or was it yesterday?
It had been a VERY long night for ponyville, and equestria as a whole after all. So the inebriated farmer worked her orange furred head as hard as she could to calculate the answer to this question. Thinking it had to be important she subconsciously checked the feeling of wear on her muscles to try and figure how many days it felt like had passed. Since the passing of the heavens were obviously not going to work here, and in fact their lack of motion being the whole point of this exercise, she was forced to use this unusual method.
‘That sparkly filly would have a fit fer the unscientificality of it all’ she thought to herself. A small smirk gracing her lips as she did so.
Her mind swirled like the liquor in her cup as she remembered the hubbub of family and preparation for the big celebration. A celebration that ended far more exciting than any had planned. The return of nightmare moon, the boogie-mare herself, locking the moon in its place and their immortal leader in her former prison. Then they traveled for awhile through the Everfree aaaalllll the way to some old castle. Where the purple organizer found the magical artifacts of friendship that could beat the apocalyptic bedtime menace once and for all. Who, as it turned out, wasn’t actually evil. The farmer stopped to take an extra swig of her drink upon reaching that point, as the rest was something of a real mind-buck. Not that the flowing limitless power of social bonds wasn’t already a weird thing in itself mind you, this was weird even by that standard. After all the hoity toity unicorns had an entire academy of magical study in Canterlot to research ancient mystical artifacts that random adventurers would dig up from time to time.
No, what was weird was that old Princess Celestia had a bucking sister and nopony knew about it! That right grinded her cider, immortal moon goddesses ain’t exactly something most ponies forget easily, so what happened? She had to know, so who better to ask than the little hamlets newest sexy librarian?
Wobbling over to her quarry she found her next to an overturned confectionary table. Blue cupcake icing leaked down her mane as she drunkenly cradled what must have been her only drink of the night.
‘Mare that pony can’t hold her liqour’ Applejack thought to herself just before she spoke.
“Hey uh… Twi?” the farmer slurred in her inexplicably southern drawl. “How come nopony never heard of luna before tonight?”
“uh… wha do you mean Applej~URP~jack?” The purple unicorn barely replied. Her head tilted inquisitively sending the last of the icing coated treat from her head. The whole thing made her look just plain adorable and instantly huggable to the cider stuffed applemare, but she restrained herself. For science.
“Like shouldn’t there be tons of paintings and treaties and stuff that records how our entire country used to be a freaken diarchy, yet nopony fer a thousand bucking years ever thought to mention it? I mean that’s weird right?” she finished, sounding like she had almost convinced herself she was crazy.
Twilight instantly brightened at the prospect of sharing her vast knowledge, her smile seeming to beam pure joy as she answered, “Actually there’s a very simple answer to that Applejack.” She chirped. “While I’m pretty sure the crown will release a more official timeline tomorrow, the answer is-”
She was left unable to finish, or if she did the inquisitive earth-pony simply didn’t hear her over the minor earthquake that rumbled through Ponyville. Like a wave through the sea, whole houses seemed to be lifted several hooves into the air with their surrounding land, only to come crashing back to Equis with the sound of a thousand smashed dining plates.
Eventually the rumbling ceased, with many of the crowd non-the-wiser that it had ever happened at all being too inebriated to be stirred by even the shaking of the earth itself. Applejack herself was forced from her slouchy uncertain hooves to land on her plot with a mighty thump.
“Uh… hey Twi should we check that out?” The purple pony leaned against her big strong orange pillow and hummed pleasantly.
“Mmmmm… Probably. YAWN! Bpppvbp I’m too tired to go fer any mur advENTures tonight.” She nuzzled deep into the other mares sweat laden coat drifting her tired mind off into the pleasant seas of slumber aboard the luxury cruise of the SS Alcohol.
Applejack was momentarily uncertain of what to do. That earthquake was certainly not good news, but she was sleepy too. ‘meh’ she thought, ‘I’ll leave that to tomorrow’s Applejack, and tomorrow AJ don’t have a cute pony in her lap so buck her.’ She too nuzzled into her companion and soon joined her in adrenaline drained slumber.
***
The machine emerged in the middle of an old quarry. Ghastly Gorge. Long abandoned by greed driven miners who dug first and encouraged safety never. At this moment however he knew nothing of this, he saw only a dilapidated mine. Stepping out to survey the region, his strategic mind noted each geographic feature for defence or potential sites of rare mineral deposits. Even now, in the dead of night and so soon after his awakening, his mind was already constructing his plans.
Returning into his great mechanical giant, he found all the things he would need to begin. He chuckled at the absurd over-preparedness of his namesake, elemental separators, metallic alloy weavers, pre-made robotic blueprints. Each ready to play its part in mass producing an army of endlessly loyal, unfeeling, merciless killing machines to his side at a moment’s notice. Yet that would not be their purpose this night. Not yet.
A flick of the switch, a quick draft of the schematics, and the work had begun. The rotund human returned to his command chair to watch his creations march to their unspoken orders. They would dig, they would build, and when they were done, he would have his unchallenged dominion of this place set in concrete and steel.
So there he sat the whole night, light from the welding tools flashed in the rims of his blue glasses, the endless hum of the mechanism droning in his ear, the soft glow of its apparatus sparking in the periphery of his gaze. For now, all his attention was on his hand, and the thing it contained. A single palm sized emerald, the light of the distant moon and machines of industry dancing across its surface, and the places of its missing parts. The greatest, most dangerous power this world would ever know, and he planned to make it whole. He schemed through the whole night, the first night of his freedom, to retrieve all its missing pieces. He dreamt of unlocking its limitless power; to enact vengeance upon his hated enemy and finally at the end of this long, perhaps impossible road, return home.
To settle what was owed.
