Cogs Of Timeby DmitriTheWriterChaptersChapter 1: Stuff Starts To HappenChapter 2: The ChapteringChapter 3: You Think I Know What's Going On?Chapter 4: Seriously, What Is Going On?Chapter 5: The Ending of The EndingChapter 1: Stuff Starts To HappenIn a palace in the fairly large town of Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Six sat around their big, round table, with a map of Equestria painted in light upon its surface. Pinkie Pie was munching on a box of cupcakes, Rarity was nervously tapping her hooves on the rim of the map, as was Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were fiercely debating with Twilight. The Council of Friendship had only been established a week ago, and already it was dealing with emergencies on a nationwide scale, and ones that didn’t involve Pinkie Pie trying to cook to boot. “What do you mean Trottingham’s been invaded?!” Twilight asked. “I mean exactly what I said. That’s what I heard from General Thunderbolt,” Rainbow Dash said. "General Thunderbolt?” Twilight said. “I just talked with him this morning, and he said it was all quiet on all fronts.” “Well, I just got this letter from him five minutes ago. So there.” Rainbow slid a piece of parchment face-up onto the table. Twilight lit her horn up, and a large rotating projection of the letter emanated from the table. She frowned. “Rainbow Dash, do you know what General Thunderbolt’s mouthwriting looks like?” Twilight asked. “No, why?” “Because this does not look anything like it!” Twilight examined the writing further. “Oh, for Celestia’s sake, he signed it as ‘Jnrel Tundrblt’! Did none of this set off any red flags for you?!” “Okay, how exactly was I supposed to read all of the words?! I mean, look at this! Applejack’s chickens could have written better than this! No offense.” “No, I agree with you, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “I’m thinkin’ we go to meet with the General himself and find out what exactly is goin’ on here. All in favor?” The Mane Six simultaneously raised their hooves and shouted, “Aye!” “Motion carried.” The six good friends flew through the many labyrinthine twists and turns of Canterlot Palace until they eventually reached the War Room. The War Room was a vast, perfectly circular room with a long oblong table in the center of it. Gigantic maps of Equestria and all of the countries it bordered were plastered all across the walls. Two stallions, one an earth pony of gunmetal gray and the other a silver-coated pegasus, were lounging at the table on the side opposite of where the Mane Six had just come in. “Good evening Princess Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the others,” the gunmetal gray stallion said. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, Trottingham’s been captured by an invading force.” “Wait a minute, who are you?” Twilight asked. “I’m sorry?” the gray pony tilted his head. “I’ve literally never met you two before in my life. I was expecting to speak with General Thunderbolt about this,” Twilight said. “Oh, well yes. He’s...unavailable at the moment, and he sent us to talk to you for him.” The dull gray pony leaned across the table to shake Twilight’s hoof. “Hello, my name is Silicate, and this other stallion here is my brother Autonomos. Nice to meet you!” “Um, nice to meet you too.” Twilight hesitantly accepted Silicate’s hoofshake. “Alright, so let’s get down to brass tacks here, Princess,” Silicate said, “The city of Trottingham has been invaded and occupied by hostile forces. Bassed on the amount of devastation suffered by the town’s buildings, we’re thinking it might be the yaks.” “Wait, I thought we agreed it was the griffons,” Autonomos said. Silicate turned and glared at his brother. “How about we get our stories straight beforehand, you line of junk code!” "I didn't know! I'm sorry!" Autonomos said. “We don’t know who did it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the yaks or the griffons," Rainbow said, "We just had a diplomatic meeting with Prince Rutherford, and it went great! And Grandpa Gruff is on good terms with Equestria too!” Suddenly, a turret rose up behind Silicate and shot the ground with a laser just in front of Rainbow’s hooves. Rainbow Dash backed up from the scorched spot on the floor, her eyes widened. “I don’t remember asking you anything,” Silicate said calmly. “This is a private conversation between us two and the Princess. So get out of here!” “Hold up! Y’all think you can just force us to leave Twilight alone with you?!” Applejack asked. Another five turrets rose behind Silicate, shooting five clean, smoking holes in Applejack’s favorite hat. “Yes,” he said. Rainbow Dash and the other Element bearers promptly fled the scene, not even bothering to close the door behind them. Twilight tried to flee too, but her hoof was held in place by a metallic contraption on the floor. “Hey, what all this about?!” Twilight stamped one of her free hooves on the ground. In response to this, the faces of Silicate and Autonomos began to peel away, revealing a shifting chrome interior filled to the brim with gears and moving parts. When they finished their transformation sequence, their faces were now completely mechanical, with glowing red eyes that dug deep into their heads and wicked sharp mandibles, like those of some horrible insect, that moved in place of mouths. “...Surprise!” Silicate shook his hooves in the air in front of him, as if he were revealing a secret party he had planned for the princess. Silicate and Autonomos swaggered cooly through the halls of Canterlot Palace, carrying the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle splayed out on their backs as they walked. Neither of them even bothered to change back into their pony disguises, so they looked more like pony-shaped hardware appliances than anything else. As they trotted near the front gate, they passed by a single old unicorn guard, spear at his side as he sat cross-legged on the floor and read a book. The guard didn’t even notice them until it clicked in his mind that ponies had muzzles, not mandibles, and he rose to see what was up with these outliers. “Whoa, hold it right there, friends,” he said in his thick Whinnyapolis accent, gears turning in his head determining what to address first. “What do you think you’re doing with the princess there?” Silicate scrambled to find an answer in his CPU. “I-um, uh...we’re dry-cleaning her!” he eventually settled on. “Yes, that is indeed what we’re doing. Orders of the Crown, you know,” Autonomos said. “Really?” the old unicorn furrowed his eyebrows for a moment, then sat back down and picked up his book. “Alright, I guess that’s acceptable. Carry on.” “Have a good day, sir!” Silicate and Autonomos continued on their way outside, the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle still draped between them like a sack of potatoes. Twilight Sparkle awoke on a metal floor as cold as ice, surrounded on all sides by a forest of metal bars. Outside of the bars she could see only inky clouds of darkness. The only details she could make out of her surroundings were the elaborate regal designs on the floor, letting her deduce that she was either in a palace or the home of some art aficionado with too much time and money on his hooves. Suddenly, Twilight saw the shadowy outline of a pony on the edge of the darkness. “It’s so nice to finally get to see you.” The figure spoke with a tinge of smugness, as if proud of herself for what she had accomplished.. “How have you been, Auntie Twilight?” The walking shadow stepped into the light where Twilight could see. She was a very young alicorn mare, with a light pink coat and a mane coloured purple with light blue highlights. Her cutie mark consisted of three mechanical gears, intertwined, as well as a wrench. She chuckled sinisterly. “F-F-Flurry Heart?!” Twilight sputtered in disbelief. Flurry’s horn lit up, and rows of braziers on the walls were set ablaze, letting Twilight see the grand throne room of the palace of the Crystal Empire. At the foot of the Empire’s throne, she saw her brother Shining Armor and his wife Cadence, tied together and completely unconscious. “Ah, figured it out, have you?” Flurry asked mockingly. “But, but why?! How?! You’re so...old! The last time I saw you, you were barely one year old!” "Well, as you can probably figure out, I’m not the Flurry Heart from this point in time. Exactly fifteen years into the future as of today, the world was, or rather will be invaded by an army of giant space ants. The governments of most nations on the planet will be decapitated within hours, and the world will lay in ruins. Not long afterwards, I will have joined the underground resistance movement, along with what will remain of the world’s leadership. They will have sent me back fifteen years into the past to conquer the world and prepare it for the invasion to come. And now here we are in the present day.” “Giant space ants?” Twilight scratched her ears with her hoof to see if they were working properly, which to her surprise they were. “So you traveled back to the past to fix the future. But if you were sent back in time to alter the circumstances of the invasion, then wouldn’t you thereby likely prevent the reason that you were sent back from having ever occurred, and thus never get sent back to the past in the first place, creating a massive time paradox?” “I, uh...shut up!” Flurry said. As Flurry Heart was distracted by the nonsense that is time travel, Twilight lit up her horn and tried to teleport out of her cage, and with a puff of sparkly smoke ended up in exactly the same position she was in before. She tried again, to no avail. "Anti-magic field on the cage," Flurry said. "What, do you think I'm stupid?" Suddenly, two ponies, or rather two pony-shaped objects walked into Twilight’s field of view, emitting mechanical whirrs with every movement of their hooves. Silicate and Autonomos had such fluid and graceful gaits for ponies made out of the same material as washing machines. “Greetings, my liege lady,” Silicate said. “Autonomos and I-” “What are you two doing here? Why aren’t you patrolling the Crystal Empire citadel like I asked you to?” Flurry grew more irritated with every word. “Well, construction isn’t going as well as we were hoping, and-” “Why are you doing construction?! The Star is all finished, all it needs is a power source! You know, something like the Crystal Heart you were also supposed to be searching for?!” Flurry shouted. “Wait, hold on. What star?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion. Flurry just waved her hoof. “You don’t need to know right now. The point is-” The room fell silent as Twilight, Flurry, and the two automatons could hear the sound of a wailing infant begin to echo through the far corridors of the palace. “Was that...me?” Flurry asked. Twilight smirked. “I think it was.” As if to answer Flurry’s question, the infant Flurry Heart flew into the throne room. As she screamed up a storm, she fluttered around erratically like a foal-sized moth searching for a light source and fired off a maelstrom of magic bolts, which bounced off the walls and flew through the air like bouncy balls. One bolt hit the older Flurry square in her torse, and she fell to the ground with a yelp. “I’ll get her for you, my liege lady!” Silicate turned his forehoof into a massive gatling gun and began to fire a hail of laser bolts at the infant. Flurry Heart forcefully shoved Silicate’s hoof-gun to the ground. “Don’t shoot her, you moron! That’s me!” Flurry lit up her horn and the infant Flurry smacked herself against an invisible wall, like a bird flying into a window. The small bundle of magical power flew around some more and found that she was completely surrounded by these walls of force. “This is precisely why I needed to help you, my liege lady. You nearly got defeated by a toddler version of yourself,” Silicate said. Flurry grit her teeth, “I’ll thank you to never bring this up again,” she said. “Duly noted.” Suddenly, a young page, no older than a colt, walked up to Flurry bearing a mouthful of letters and dropped them at her hooves. “Mail for you, oh Crystal Princess of the World and the Entire Universe Also!” Soon afterwards, the colt scurried away. Try as she might’ve, Twilight couldn’t contain her giggle. “Seriously? That’s your title?” “It’s better than yours by a wide margin.” Flurry levitated the letters in front of her with a disinterested look and groaned in disgust. “Same old stuff. ‘The Kairos Organization has a warrant out for your arrest.’, ‘The Kairos Organization has sent agents to apprehend you.’, ‘The Kairos Organization urgently requests that you turn yourself in.’, ‘Please turn yourself in, we’re tired of writing letters to you.’, blah blah blah blah blah.” She lit the letters ablaze, discarded the ashes, and sighed. “Want to play Battleship?” Author's Note I've finally managed to finish a project I've been working on for months! Yay! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you stick around for more. Trust me, there's plenty more. Chapter 2: The Chaptering“Alright, so you know why I’ve called you all back here, right?” Rainbow Dash asked the four other Element bearers sitting at the big round table. “Mmhmm!” Pinkie Pie was munching on a box of cupcakes. “Twilight’s been captured by a duo of evil robots, and Equestria is about to be invaded under the direction of evil genius Flurry Heart!” “Yep, that’s the gist of what I could figure out. What we need to do now is we need to gather everypony we can for an assault on the Crystal Empire! I'll make some calls, you all go to Ponyville and gather up everyone who can fight. We can’t let those machines get away with this!” Rainbow bared her teeth and shook her hoof at the air in a comical fashion. “These robots have a leader, right?” Fluttershy asked meekly. “Couldn’t we just negotiate with whoever they are?” “Yeah, I’m actually with Fluttershy on this one. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to talk to somepony rather than to fight an army?” Applejack added. “Negotiation? Talking? Were you even listening to a word I said?!” Rainbow said. “We don’t need negotiation, we need decisive action! And this is about as decisive an action as we can get!” “Darling, in all honesty, what you’re suggesting sounds like a terrible plan,” Rarity said. “I don't care! They've taken Twilight, and I will make them pay her weight in robot blood!” Former princesses Celestia and Luna lay on their beds in a small hotel room in one of the fanciest hotels in Manehattan, completely bored out of their skulls. They had tried everything from traveling around the world to building a rocketship to travel to other planets to running a carrot dog stand in the middle of the city, all of which ended with something large being set on fire. Celestia sighed. “Luna, do you feel like we made a mistake when we abdicated our thrones?” she asked. “What do you mean, Sister?” “I know that there is a lot to do in this realm, but it still feels like there’s just nothing for us here,” Celestia said. “Whenever we were on our thrones, there was always something to do, even if it was boring, annoying, or unpleasant. But nowadays…” Luna sighed. “Perhaps you are right.” Suddenly, the phone on Celestia’s bedside table began to ring. She immediately picked up the receiver. “Hello?” “...Twilight’s been what now?!” Celestia groaned in exasperation, “She’s only been in power for seven days! How did this-” “...Alright, where do you want me to go?” “...I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Celestia hung up the phone. “Who was that on the phone, sister?” Luna asked. “It was Rainbow Dash, apparently Twilight’s been-” Celestia was interrupted when suddenly, the phone next to Luna began to ring. “Pardon me, sister.” Luna picked up the receiver. “Ahoy-hoy?” “...Twilight has been what now?” “...But she has only been in power for seven days! How-” “...I will be there with Celestia as soon as I can.” Luna hung up her phone. “It was-” “I think I can guess who it was. Come on Luna, we have a world to save!” Celestia spread her wings and took off, ignoring the fact that there was a roof above her which now had an alicorn-shaped hole in it. Luna soon followed after her, leaving two alicorn-shaped holes in the ceiling. Meanwhile, back in the now fully lit throne room of the Crystal Empire, Twilight Sparkle, now free from her cage, and Flurry Heart were playing Battleship. “G5!” Twilight said confidently. “Miss,” Flurry replied. “What? How? Every position I’ve called out has been a miss!” “Just bad luck I guess.” On her side of the board, Flurry moved her ships around as discreetly as she could, turning the position G5 from a hit into a miss. She had moved her ships a lot over the course of the game. Suddenly, a swirling portal opened up in the middle of the room, pouring out at least twenty alicorns, all with coats as black as coal, manes as red as fire, and hourglasses for their cutie marks. In front of them was another, more senior looking alicorn, sky blue and dressed in full mail armor engraved with an hourglass symbol about where his cutie mark would be. “Oh horsefeathers, it’s the time cops!” Flurry said. “The who now?” “Halt, Flurry Heart!” the alicorn in front said, brandishing his glowing teal sword as he flipped his purple mane, “I am Commander Spatium of the Kairos Organization! In the name of the stability of the space-time continuum, I order you to stand down immediately and allow us to take you into custody!” Flurry smirked arrogantly. “Make me.” Spatium’s line of warriors stepped back, and waves of hexagons settled into fixed spaces in front of them, becoming platforms standing still in the air. They sprinted forth, leaping onto the platforms and gaining every single possible vantage point above Flurry. Whenever she blasted one warrior and sent them crashing to the ground on their backs, another one swiftly took their place. Within seconds, a contingent of alicorn soldiers dropped down to the ground around Flurry, surrounding her at swordpoint. In response, she simply conjured a wind storm centered around herself, sending them and their swords flying around the room like ragdolls. Some of them were impaled by their own weapons as they collided with the walls. As the wind dissipated, and most of Spatium's legion neglected to get up, she stole one of the fallen warriors' blades and met Spatium, sword held out in front of her. “Not bad,” he said. “But this will not be that easy.” Time began to slow down as Spatium charged up a swing of his weapon. Flurry was prepared for that, however, and lit up her horn and parried the attack as fast as if she were in real time. Spatium just stared blankly at her, not knowing what to do next. “Did you think you were the only one here able to manipulate time?” Flurry asked condescendingly. “That’s almost cute. En garde!” Sparks flew in the air as the two combatants clashed their swords fiercely, Flurry Heart briefly gaining the upper hand in the duel. Just as Spatium was about to swing for Flurry’s neck, she teleported behind him and slashed him across his side, slicing right through his armor and leaving a gaping wound. Spatium howled in agony and crumpled to the floor, defeated. “Well well well, look what we have here.” Flurry laughed like a madmare at her victory, at least until Spatium began to fall up in reverse, his wound closing before her eyes as he moonwalked behind her, sword now pointed at her back. Spatium chuckled. “You were saying?” His victory was short lived, however, as Flurry lit up her horn and Spatium began to walk forwards and fall to the ground again, wound reappearing on his side as he screamed in pain anew. “Okay, okay, you win!” He, along with his contingent of soldiers, shakily rose to their feet, only half of them still with their swords, and filed back into the portal from where they came. “But mark my words, Flurry Heart, this will not be the last time we meet.” “Yeah yeah, whatever.” Flurry flew back to the Battleship board and pensively stroked her chin as Twilight looked on in horror. Author's Note Yes, Spatium's soldiers are red-and-black alicorns. Why, you may ask? Because I thought it'd be funny. Chapter 3: You Think I Know What's Going On?“Step One: Assemble the avengers. Done!” Rainbow made a tick mark on the notepad she held in her wing as she looked out into the crowd she had gathered. A massive herd consisting of the Element bearers sans Twilight and Rainbow herself, Spike, Gilda, Trixie, Discord, and many others from Ponyville and beyond stood idly on the field just outside of Ponyville, conversing with themselves as they waited for Rainbow Dash to speak. “Step Two: March them all the way up north to the Crystal Empire!” Rainbow Dash got the crowd’s attention by blowing on the whistle around her neck. “Alright, everyone, listen up! Twilight Sparkle is being held hostage at the Crystal Empire, so that’s where we all need to go! Now march!” “Whoa whoa whoa, hold on just a minute,” Gilda said. “You expect all of us to walk all the way up to the Crystal Empire?! With no food, no warm clothing, no supplies at all?!” “Well yes.” Rainbow Dash replied as if that fact was painfully obvious. Gilda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we’re not doing that.” “Wouldn’t it be much more expedient to just take a train?” Applejack asked. “Or, better yet, I could just teleport everyone there like this.” Discord snapped his fingers and suddenly, Rainbow Dash and the rest of the crowd found themselves standing in a plaza in the middle of the Crystal Empire. "Ah, there we go." Suddenly, everyone heard a volley of laser shots being fired relatively close to them, so they panicked and stampeded into the nearest house they could find. The house, small as it was, was carved entirely from crystal, shining radiantly in an array of pinks and blues. In the corner of the living room, there was a small walk-in kitchen. Off to the far side of the room, a small staircase led up to the second floor. "Alright, nobody panic," Rainbow Dash assured the crowd. "No one knows we're here. We're safe." When she said that, Sunburst yawned as he went down the stairs. When he got halfway down the staircase, he paused, looked at the crowd, cleaned the lenses of his glasses with a handkerchief, and looked at the crowd again. "Um...happy birthday?" Discord said awkwardly. "How did you guys get in my house?!" Twilight was back in her cage, glaring at Flurry Heart as she tended to the patches of scorched fur on her light purple coat. “You’ll never get away with this!” she said. “Hey, you lost that game fair and square. You know the rules,” Flurry said with a smirk. One of Flurry’s robotic servants rolled into the throne room from the front gates. It was a cruder model, with only a single wheel taking the place of its legs, two long, stick-like arms holding a heart made of crystal, and a glowing glassy orb in lieu of a face. It spoke with a cold, yet oddly charming metallic voice, "Crystal Heart delivery for Princess Flurry Heart." "Took you long enough!" She plucked the Heart from the robot’s arms with her magic and levitated it in front of her and walked to the front of the throne room towards the exit. As she did so, she also lifted Twilight's cage through the air behind her. “Come with me. I think you’ll like what I have to show you.” As Flurry set Twilight’s cage down on the central square of the Crystal Empire, the perfect place for Twilight to see what robotic hooves created. It was a sphere of steel gray with a radius that rivaled that of the main square itself, dwarfing any and all buildings it sat next to. Across its otherwise smooth surface were etched a complex web of lines and circles. A crew of Flurry’s robots, one holding the Crystal Heart, worked on this monstrosity as they climbed its sheer curved surface. As the Crystal Heart was inserted into the device, the lines and circles began to glow a bright lime green, and the whole thing hummed with a frightening power. “Behold, the strongest weapon in all of existence, the Metal Star!” Flurry announced bombastically. “It’s made of some of the strongest minerals in the known universe, and armed to the teeth with weapons even star-spanning empires would fear! Once the Crystal Empire is fully under my control, I will be able to use the unlimited power of the Metal Star to subjugate all of space and time! No force in Equestria, nay, all of existence will be able to stop me!” “You’re insane!” Twilight shouted out. Flurry Heart laughed. “I’m a mare who gets things done! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a universe to conquer!" At that moment, another portal opened up in front of the Metal Star, and Commander Spatium came out once more, glowing teal sword floating by his side and twenty new alicorn soldiers in formation behind him. “Hah! Did you think you could keep me away forever, Flurry Heart?” Spatium boasted. Flurry guffawed uproariously, puzzling Spatium. “You really came back? After all that? You get everything that’s coming to you.” She shut her eyes tight as her horn began to glow a light blue. “Come to life, my engine of ruin!” The lines etched on the Metal Star began to glow brighter as it levitated into the air with a low hum of power. Spatium and his army of alicorns turned around and looked at the ultimate weapon in horror. The Star opened a small hole barely the size of a coin on the front of its shell and vaporized one of Spatium's warriors with a ray of blazing death, leaving him a pile of ash on the ground. "...Huh, did not see that coming,” Spatium said. In the distance, former Princesses Celestia and Luna flew towards the war-torn city. They saw an entire company of alicorn warriors being completely annihilated by a sphere of annihilation while it sustained no damage itself. "Erm, do you think we are in over our heads with this, sister?" Luna asked. "Nonsense! We've defeated every threat to Equestria for over a millennium, and this shall be no exception!" Celestia charged up a mighty beam of magic and fired it directly at the Metal Star. The beam bounced off its metal surface and into the sky, and the Star was left completely unharmed. "Okay, we may need to step back and rethink our strategy a bit." Celestia hovered idly in the air, thinking on her next move. After a while, a light bulb came to life in her mind “I’ve got the perfect idea! Come along, sister!” Laser shots still rang out in the Crystal Empire, mostly at Sunburst’s house, leaving a few chips and dents in its crystal walls. In the house, Rainbow’s army huddled together, shivering in fear. “Never you fear, for the Great and Powerful Trixie shall get us out of here!” Trixie opened the door and stuck her head outside, only to lose her nerve and duck back in when she heard more blasts from outside. “The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to rescind her last statement!” “Hold on for one second, people.” Discord rose above the crowd more than he usually did. “I have an idea! Applejack, come here for a second.” Applejack groaned as Discord beckoned her forward. “Okay, this better be good.” The tricksy draconequus whispered into Applejack’s ear. Her ears perked up and her eyes widened in shock. “That’s a terrible idea, and you know it!” “Wait, I’m not finished yet!” Discord went and whispered the rest of his plan into Rainbow Dash’s ear, to the same effect as it had on Applejack. “Now hold on there! That’s...actually not a bad plan, now that I think about it,” Rainbow Dash said. “What?!” Applejack said. “Don’t you remember the last time Discord had a plan?!” “You got any better ideas?” Trixie asked. Applejack sighed and hung her hat in shame. “No...I guess I don’t.” “Then let’s go! Time’s a-wastin'!” Discord proudly strutted out the door of Sunburst’s house, Applejack and Rainbow Dash not too far behind. Silicate, Autonomos, and their horde of robotic horses roamed the streets of the Crystal Empire, looking for innocent ponies to brutalize with their weapons. They didn’t find any at all, since most of the Crystal Ponies had the good sense to hide inside their houses and lock their doors. Autonomos suddenly turned one of his hooves into a high-powered laser gun and opened fire on the side of one of the houses. “Why do you keep doing that?!” Silicate asked annoyedly. “Target practice,” Autonomos said. “Don’t you know that wastes ammunition?” Silicate said. “Oh, I’m not too worried about it,” Autonomos said. “After all, I know you’ll always have my back if we ever get into trouble, brother. You’ve always been there for me, and I’ll never forget it.” "Yeah, about that." Silicate transformed one of his hooves into the glowing muzzle of a massive laser cannon, which he held right up against Autonomos' muzzle. "Have you ever heard of the saying 'there can be only one'?" "What?!" Autonomos backed up, his optic sensors widened to their maximum capacity. "But, I'm your friend, your brother!” “You also have telepathic control of half of the Metal Army. You think I’m just going to take that lying down?” Silicate said. “But, we've done everything together since the day Princess Flurry Heart installed our programming! Does that mean nothing to you?!" Silicate chuckled lowly as he charged up his gun. "Long live the king." Author's Note Fratricide. It's what just happened. Yeah... Anyways, things are coming together now that everyone's at the battlefield. Chapter 4: Seriously, What Is Going On?Applejack and Discord walked slowly through the deserted streets of the Crystal Empire, pausing only slightly to gaze at the piles of rubble and half-destroyed houses produced by the incessant conflict. “This isn’t gonna work, you know,” Applejack said through gritted teeth. “Oh, come on, Applejack, when have any of my plans ever been terrible?” Discord asked. Applejack simply rolled her eyes before catching sight of a pile of mechanical parts strewn about the road in front of them. One of the parts looked strikingly like the severed head of a pony, with wires coming out of his neck. “Yeah, we definitely shouldn’t be out here,” Applejack said. “Heh, looks like he got ahead of himself here,” Discord said with a chuckle. “Eh? Eh?” “Discord…” Applejack glared at the wisecracking draconequus disapprovingly. “What, I was just making a joke!” Discord said indignantly. “Oh look, there’s an army of robots over there.” Applejack turned where Discord pointed to see that there was indeed an entire battalion of robots right behind them, staring right past them with their soulless red eyes. At its front, the formation was headed by a handsome stallion with a coat of gunmetal gray. “Uhh...howdy there,” Applejack said nervously. “Oh...my...circuits! It’s Apple Chord!” Silicate squealed with delight. “You’ve been my favourite country artist since I was a protoform! I still have all of your albums on vinyl!” “Really?” Applejack said, “Uhh...that’s great, sugarcube! Tell you what, hows about I play something for you and your little group?” She pulled out a guitar and began to tune it to just the way she liked it. “Let’s go with…’Take Me Home, Country Roads’.” Meanwhile, back at the center square, Commander Spatium’s new company of soldiers was wiped out to a pony, and in return the Metal Star wasn’t even scratched. The dust of fallen warriors flew across the battlefield as Flurry Heart picked up the glowing teal sword of somepony since passed and locked blades with Spatium himself. “You will never prevail against us!” Spatium declared, struggling to hold Flurry Heart at bay. “The Kairos Organization has limitless resources and personnel at its disposal! You are nothing to us but a nuisance, a fly on the wall for us to swat with the flyswatter of justice!” “Yeah? And how’s that been working out for you recently?” Flurry Heart asked with a smug grin. “W-well-” “What’s this, two times I’ve handed you your flank now compared to zero times you’ve handed me mine?” Flurry asked. “Oh, I’m sure they’re going to love that back at HQ.” “Uh, um, well mark my words, villain!” Spatium said. “I shall return, and never shall I stop until you are defeated! And your defeat shall be certain!” A swirling portal opened behind the disgraced commander, and he leapt into its embrace as it closed up again. Flurry laughed maniacally as she tossed her sword aside. “Is there anyone who I cannot defeat?!” Almost as soon as she finished her sentence, the ponies formerly known as Princesses Celestia and Luna landed at the center square behind her. Flurry glanced behind her and sharply inhaled, just barely stopping short of a full gasp. “Halt on your path of destruction, evildoer!” Celestia bellowed in the royal Canterlot voice. “For these transgressions against Equestria and its royalty cannot go ignored! Surrender to us now, or face the retribution!” She turned to Luna with a giddy smile on her face. “What do you think, do I sound intimidating enough?” “You sound like you are trying too hard to sound intimidating, sister,” Luna replied. Flurry tried to quickly come up with something before she was blasted into a thin layer of burnt paste on the ground, or worse, brought into custody. “Uh, um…I say it is you who should halt on your...path of destruction. For the Metal Star can destroy you both in an instant!” Meanwhile, the Metal Star was spinning rapidly and flying haphazardly throughout the sky, its circuitry going haywire because it had nothing to blast for fifteen seconds and it forgot what to do with itself. “Alright, I guess you’ve got me. I don’t have anything earth-shattering at my disposal at the moment.” Flurry spread her legs into a battle stance and dragged her hoof across the ground. “But I’m still not going down without a fight!” “Then, as sure as mine name is Celestia, thou shalt suffer our rebuke!” Celestia’s eyes began to glow as she ascended into the air and charged up a mighty blast of magic. Flurry teleported out of the beam’s path at the last possible second, appearing right behind Luna. Before the princess of the night could even turn around, Flurry smacked her in the back of the head, sending her to the ground in a heap. Celestia turned around, but Flurry had already vanished in a puff of sparkly pink smoke. When she appeared again, Flurry was already lighting up her horn in preparation for another spell. Originating from her horn, a thunderous boom of sound rushed the two sisters by, and they felt all of the muscles in their bodies tense up. As Celestia's wings locked up, she fell to the ground like a stone. The two sisters grit through their pain and tried to move their legs anyways. No dice. Their muscles were too stiff. “See? I can do this all day!” Flurry cried out, hoping that her pained gasps for breath, her haggard face, and her disheveled mane wouldn’t cause them to call her bluff. Silicate clapped his hooves like a seal hopped up on sugar. “Bravo! Bravissimo! That was the best thing I've heard in years!” Suddenly, one of his hooves transformed into a laser cannon. The gun hummed with power as it’s muzzle shone with a bright golden ball of energy. “It’s a real shame I have to kill you two now.” “What?!” Applejack turned to glare at Discord in sheer, unbridled fury. “See, I told you this plan wouldn’t work!” “Wait, hold on for just a second, can’t we talk this ou-” Before Discord could even finish his sentence, Silicate fired the swirling ball of instant death at him and his body instantly dematerialized, leaving nothing behind of the spirit of chaos but a wisp of smoke. “And that was for giving the giant space ants the idea to invade Equestria, you random fiasco generator!” Silicate pointed his gun at Applejack. “And now for you.” Before he could pull the trigger, however, a streak of blue came from the sky like a thunderbolt and pounded Silicate into one of the houses, leaving an impact crater about the size of a pony in the crystalline wall. “Yeah, not on my watch, buddy!” Rainbow Dash said. “Rainbow Dash!” Applejack sighed in relief. “Thank Celestia you’re here!” Silicate shook off the shards of crystal from his body and rose to his hooves again. “Metal Army, heed my command! Destroy her!” The Metal Army did not heed Silicate's command, as it was too busy being hacked to pieces itself by Rainbow's army. Many of the robots who weren’t forcefully dismantled by an angry mob decided to scatter, with some fleeing closer to the center of the Crystal Empire. “Fine!” Silicate shouted. “I’ll do it myself!” The muzzle of Silicate’s laser cannon began to pool up with energy. He launched another golden ball of scorching death at Rainbow Dash. She took off like a rocket, narrowly avoiding the shot as half of the house behind her was disintegrated. “Stop moving! I want to demolecularize you!” Silicate fired a few more blobs of disintegration at the rainbow-maned speedster, but her aerial acrobatics were too quick for him.When Silicate went to charge up another shot, he heard nothing but the click of a trigger, and saw nothing but a tiny puff of smoke come out from his gun. The automaton’s optical sensors expanded to their maximum width. “You want to what now?” Rainbow Dash planted her hooves on the ground, with various ponies on either side of her. “Uhh…” Silicate considered his options for a millisecond, and promptly turned tail and ran away. “Yeah, that’s right, you better run away!” Rainbow Dash shook her hoof at the fleeing machine in a comical fashion. On the vast, grassy fields at the edge of the Crystal Empire’s urban core, another swirling rift in dimensions tore itself open. Commander Spatium emerged from the portal, with yet another company of twenty alicorn warriors in formation behind him. He was confident that this time would be the time he succeeded in apprehending the rogue known as Flurry Heart. “Soldiers! Comrades! Lend me your hearts and souls on this day!” Spatium said to his warriors, “For today, we shall fight, and we shall attain glory by triumphing over our most hated adversaries! And ballads will be written of our deeds, for they will be so great and mighty! For we are the Kairos Organization! Oorah!” Spatium’s soldiers looked at him with a mix of boredom and utter disdain for Spatium as a commander and as a person. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I am an amazing commander!” Spatium lied. Suddenly, another portal tore itself open in the air in front of Spatium. Out from the gateway trot an alicorn mare. Her coat was a dark purple, and she was clad in full mail armor with a blazing fire in her eyes as she glared at Spatium with seething contempt. “M-Major Authority?!” Spatium cried out, before hastily clearing his throat. “I mean, what a lovely surprise to see you here, Major. As you can see, I have everything here under control.” “Spatium, do you think I’m an idiot?” Major Authority said. “What?! No, no no no!" Spatium hastily said. "Why would you say that, Major?" "Well, for one, you have the nerve to tell me to my face that everything is fine and that you have everything here under control, when the entire Crystal Empire is metaphorically and literally on fire!" Major Authority's voice rose to a shout. "Well, Major, you have to understand-" "Understand what, exactly?" Authority interrupted. "That you're a half-wit glory hound who only cares about his personal satisfaction rather than the successful execution of our mission? That you're in no way fit to lead any contingent of soldiers based on your inability to pull your head out of your own flank? Because make no mistake, I understand that perfectly well!" "Major, please…" "The mission of the Kairos Organization is to protect the timestream from rogue agents via smart and efficient application of resources and personnel, which now I am certain is a foreign concept to you! What you’ve done here on this day is a complete embarrassment to me personally and the Kairos Organization as a whole! You’re insufferable, inefficient, insubordinate, and indisputably incompetent! Platoon Commander Spatium, you are hereby dismissed!” “Wait, you’re firing me?!” Spatium said. “You can’t fire me!" He turned back towards what was formerly his company. "Guys, she can't fire me, right? Let's go get that rapscallion Flurry Heart, yeah?" "Spatium, I've dismissed you. This is mutiny!" "So it's mutiny, then! What do you say, soldiers? I'm still in charge, right?" Every single one of his former troops unsheathed their glowing teal swords and pointed them threateningly at Spatium. "Well, forget you guys anyways! I'll apprehend her myself!" Spatium took off like a rocket towards the sky. "After him!" she commanded. The company rose to the skies like a row of fireworks in hot pursuit. "I'll see you court-martialed for this, Spatium!" Major Authority shook her hoof at the sky in a comical fashion. Author's Note In which we finally see Commander Spatium get reprimanded for his incompetence. Also, Apple Chord is totally a John Denver cover artist, and anyone who disagrees with me on that can fight me. Chapter 5: The Ending of The EndingSilicate scrambled his way to the center square, leaving the gears and screws of his fallen comrades in his wake. Twilight Sparkle sat cross-legged in her cage, playing a game of solitaire and completely disregarding the world around her. The princess Flurry Heart had her horn lit up and was conjuring up a shield of rose-tinted energy around herself, which kept the Royal Sisters’ blasts of magic at bay, at least for now. “Silicate! Thank the stars you’re here! Where’s Autonomos?!” Flurry Heart said frantically. “Autonomos? Uhh, he...tripped and fell on a…” Silicate looked around and saw the Metal Star flying to and fro across the battlefield, trying and failing to locate a target. “...Sphere. It was very tragic. Held a funeral and everything.” "Well, whatever,” Flurry Heart said. “I've been fixing the bugs in the Star's operating system remotely as I've been fighting here. Give it ten seconds, and this battle should be ours!” Nine seconds later, a chunk of metal shaped oddly like the head of a pony streaked rapidly through the air, embedding itself onto the upper part of the Metal Star. The sphere of annihilation stopped dead in its tracks, hovering in place just above the ground, and the glowing green lines on it blinked erratically as if it was recalibrating something. “What just happened? Why’d it stop?!” Flurry cried out angrily. The pony head embedded on top of the Star opened its glowing blue eyes wide and emitted an ear-piercing scream "You betrayed me!" the head on the Star cried out in anguish. "You were a brother to me, Silicate! I loved you!” "Is that...Autonomos?!" Flurry said in disbelief. "What did you do to him?!" "Uhh...I did what I had to do!" Silicate said. Flurry flared daggers at him and growled. "Neutralize the Metal Star immediately, or I'll have you made into scrap!" "Sorry, I can't hear you! I’m too busy leaving!” Silicate fled towards the palace gates at a full gallop. “Silicate!” The Star's ear-splitting screams only grew louder with time, until even the Royal Sisters were trying to cover their ears with their hooves. All of a sudden, the Star began to make a noise like grinding rusty nails on a chalkboard as it tore itself to pieces. Massive hunks of metal rained down to Earth, and the whirrs of the Star's machinery fell silent. The Royal Sisters fell silent. Flurry fell silent. Is there any possible way, by any possible measure, that things could get even worse? Flurry thought. Suddenly, she saw another pony trot down the street, wearing full plate armor with an hourglass symbol engraved on the side of it. Behind her was a company of alicorn soldiers, with coats as black as coal, and manes as red as fire. This was all Flurry Heart needed to see. She tried to teleport away, but all that did was create a cloud of sparkly pink smoke around herself. She tried again, to the same effect. Major Authority drew her glowing teal sword as she trotted onto the scene, a soldier on either side of her. “We have this situation under control, Princesses Celestia and Luna. Let us handle the rogue agent.” "Excuse me, I must object to this overstepping of your authority!" Celestia stamped her hoof on the ground. "Flurry Heart is an Equestrian citizen according to jus soli and the Crystal Act of 1001. Therefore, she is under our jurisdiction." "Are you challenging the authority of the Kairos Organization?" Major Authority glared at Celestia. The princess of the sun promptly backed down, smiling and laughing nervously. Authority lit up her horn, and in an instant two glowing rings poofed into existence. One placed itself on Flurry’s horn, and the other bound her wings to her side. She said nothing, and only hung her head low in defeat. “Princess Flurry Heart, under the authorization given to me by the Kairos Organization, I hereby place you under arrest!” Major Authority said. Suddenly, Commander Spatium flew in from the other side of the city and landed on the center square. He had a confident look about him as he drew his glowing teal sword. "It is time to meet your doom, rapscallious rogue known to the world as Flurry Heart! For I, Commander Spatium, am here to...bring...you...to justice." As he kept talking, Spatium slowly realized that he was completely surrounded by Kairos personnel and right in front of Major Authority herself. Authority produced another set of two binding rings in the air in front of her, and Spatium hung his own head in defeat as the rings wrapped themselves around his wings and horn. "Wow, two for one. Now there's only one major rogue agent left to capture." Major Authority turned to the stallion to her left. “Sergeant Surge, use the Persons Locator to decipher Silicate’s location.” “Yes, ma’am!” Sergeant Surge floated a large tablet device in front of his face from his saddlebag. He clacked a few keys on his Locator and it pulsed with power, emitting a ring of light in all directions. “Where is he?” Major Authority asked. Sergeant Surge looked at the map on the Locator, puzzled. “He’s...not here,” he said. “What?!” Major Authority glanced over Surge’s shoulder. “What do you mean he’s not here?” “I’m guessing Silicate isn’t in this dimension anymore, because he has left the building.” Major Authority sighed with irritation. “Send search teams throughout all dimensions in this sector, all timestreams, everywhere. Do not let him escape, I repeat, do not let him escape!” “Yes ma’am!” Like trained commandos, all of the Kairos soldiers vanished into the shadows as Spatium and Flurry Heart were beamed away to who-knows-where. Immediately afterwards, Rainbow Dash and her ragtag army rushed in from the street like a stampede of bunnies. The angry mob looked around in confusion, as they had been expecting a fight. "Um...what'd I miss?" Rainbow asked. "Nothing. You missed nothing," Major Authority said sternly. "Nothing happened here today. Everybody go home now. Show's over." With a pop and a flash of light, Major Authority disappeared too. Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, guess I can’t argue with that.” As Celestia and Luna were arguing with each other over Celestia-and-Luna-know-what, the other five Element bearers walked over to Twilight’s cage. Twilight looked up from her game of solitaire, thoroughly done with everything and everyone around her. “Oh, you’re finished. Brilliant.” Her words dripped with sarcasm like a good grilled cheese sandwich dripped with melted cheddar. Applejack put her hoof behind her head. “Look, sugarcube, we’re sorry for abandoning you like that back there this mornin’. We didn’t know it would grow into this huge...thing.” “Just get me out of this cage, please,” Twilight said in a deadpan tone. “Of course.” Applejack got into position and, with one good buck, kicked the roof of the cage clean off. Twilight flew above the bars and touched down on the ground beside her friends. “I suppose we should be getting back to Canterlot now,” Twilight said. “But how? Discord brought us here, and now he’s...gone.” Applejack looked wistfully behind her. Suddenly, with a pop and a brief distortion of the air, Discord rematerialized in front of the Mane Six. He rubbed his forehead as he groaned in pain. “Wow, being blown to atoms was not fun,” he said. "I'll certainly be feeling that in the morning." Discord looked down to see the Mane Six looking expectantly at him. He frowned. “Oh, let me guess, you forgot to account for transportation going home from this whole shindig, and now you want me to teleport you guys back to Canterlot for free?” The Mane Six all nodded in unison. “I mean, if you even can,” Fluttershy said with a smirk. “Being torn apart must have taken its toll on your powers.” “What the-are you doubting my abilities?!” Discord said incredulously. “I just don’t want you to overexert yourself. Teleporting so many ponies over such a long distance can’t be easy, especially in your condition.” Fluttershy’s smirk grew even wider. “Overexert myself? It’s literally a snap. Watch this!” Discord snapped his claws and he and the Mane Six were back in Canterlot. It was when he saw that he was in Canterlot that Discord realized what had just happened. “You know, I really don’t like you sometimes, Fluttershy.” Twilight Sparkle opened up the doors to her bedroom in Canterlot Palace. They always seemed to creak for some odd reason. The bedroom was exactly the way Twilight had left it when she got up that morning. The bedsheets were disheveled, the pillows were uneven, and the candle she had lit when she woke up was still burning. You gotta love Infinity Candles™. Twilight crawled into her palatial bed and curled up underneath the sheets. “First thing in the morning, I’m establishing a parliament. I can’t keep dealing with this nonsense anymore.” “Fair enough.” Spike did the same with his own bed and blew out the candle lighting up the room. From the depths of outer space, a disc-shaped spacecraft parked itself in orbit around the planet. Piloting the disc were an entire crew of giant space ants, plotting to invade and turn this pristine planet into their newest colony world. The captain of the ship and his first mate looked on the glistening blue orb from the helm of the ship, listening in on the recent occurrences on its surface. “So whaddya dink, boss?” the first mate asked. “Eh, on second thought, let’s not invade Equestria. It is a silly place.” Author's Note And so ends this odd and baffling saga. With Flurry Heart getting arrested and Discord recovering from getting (figuratively) punched in the gut. At least I managed to write something.
Chapter 1: Stuff Starts To HappenIn a palace in the fairly large town of Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Six sat around their big, round table, with a map of Equestria painted in light upon its surface. Pinkie Pie was munching on a box of cupcakes, Rarity was nervously tapping her hooves on the rim of the map, as was Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were fiercely debating with Twilight. The Council of Friendship had only been established a week ago, and already it was dealing with emergencies on a nationwide scale, and ones that didn’t involve Pinkie Pie trying to cook to boot. “What do you mean Trottingham’s been invaded?!” Twilight asked. “I mean exactly what I said. That’s what I heard from General Thunderbolt,” Rainbow Dash said. "General Thunderbolt?” Twilight said. “I just talked with him this morning, and he said it was all quiet on all fronts.” “Well, I just got this letter from him five minutes ago. So there.” Rainbow slid a piece of parchment face-up onto the table. Twilight lit her horn up, and a large rotating projection of the letter emanated from the table. She frowned. “Rainbow Dash, do you know what General Thunderbolt’s mouthwriting looks like?” Twilight asked. “No, why?” “Because this does not look anything like it!” Twilight examined the writing further. “Oh, for Celestia’s sake, he signed it as ‘Jnrel Tundrblt’! Did none of this set off any red flags for you?!” “Okay, how exactly was I supposed to read all of the words?! I mean, look at this! Applejack’s chickens could have written better than this! No offense.” “No, I agree with you, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “I’m thinkin’ we go to meet with the General himself and find out what exactly is goin’ on here. All in favor?” The Mane Six simultaneously raised their hooves and shouted, “Aye!” “Motion carried.” The six good friends flew through the many labyrinthine twists and turns of Canterlot Palace until they eventually reached the War Room. The War Room was a vast, perfectly circular room with a long oblong table in the center of it. Gigantic maps of Equestria and all of the countries it bordered were plastered all across the walls. Two stallions, one an earth pony of gunmetal gray and the other a silver-coated pegasus, were lounging at the table on the side opposite of where the Mane Six had just come in. “Good evening Princess Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the others,” the gunmetal gray stallion said. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, Trottingham’s been captured by an invading force.” “Wait a minute, who are you?” Twilight asked. “I’m sorry?” the gray pony tilted his head. “I’ve literally never met you two before in my life. I was expecting to speak with General Thunderbolt about this,” Twilight said. “Oh, well yes. He’s...unavailable at the moment, and he sent us to talk to you for him.” The dull gray pony leaned across the table to shake Twilight’s hoof. “Hello, my name is Silicate, and this other stallion here is my brother Autonomos. Nice to meet you!” “Um, nice to meet you too.” Twilight hesitantly accepted Silicate’s hoofshake. “Alright, so let’s get down to brass tacks here, Princess,” Silicate said, “The city of Trottingham has been invaded and occupied by hostile forces. Bassed on the amount of devastation suffered by the town’s buildings, we’re thinking it might be the yaks.” “Wait, I thought we agreed it was the griffons,” Autonomos said. Silicate turned and glared at his brother. “How about we get our stories straight beforehand, you line of junk code!” "I didn't know! I'm sorry!" Autonomos said. “We don’t know who did it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the yaks or the griffons," Rainbow said, "We just had a diplomatic meeting with Prince Rutherford, and it went great! And Grandpa Gruff is on good terms with Equestria too!” Suddenly, a turret rose up behind Silicate and shot the ground with a laser just in front of Rainbow’s hooves. Rainbow Dash backed up from the scorched spot on the floor, her eyes widened. “I don’t remember asking you anything,” Silicate said calmly. “This is a private conversation between us two and the Princess. So get out of here!” “Hold up! Y’all think you can just force us to leave Twilight alone with you?!” Applejack asked. Another five turrets rose behind Silicate, shooting five clean, smoking holes in Applejack’s favorite hat. “Yes,” he said. Rainbow Dash and the other Element bearers promptly fled the scene, not even bothering to close the door behind them. Twilight tried to flee too, but her hoof was held in place by a metallic contraption on the floor. “Hey, what all this about?!” Twilight stamped one of her free hooves on the ground. In response to this, the faces of Silicate and Autonomos began to peel away, revealing a shifting chrome interior filled to the brim with gears and moving parts. When they finished their transformation sequence, their faces were now completely mechanical, with glowing red eyes that dug deep into their heads and wicked sharp mandibles, like those of some horrible insect, that moved in place of mouths. “...Surprise!” Silicate shook his hooves in the air in front of him, as if he were revealing a secret party he had planned for the princess. Silicate and Autonomos swaggered cooly through the halls of Canterlot Palace, carrying the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle splayed out on their backs as they walked. Neither of them even bothered to change back into their pony disguises, so they looked more like pony-shaped hardware appliances than anything else. As they trotted near the front gate, they passed by a single old unicorn guard, spear at his side as he sat cross-legged on the floor and read a book. The guard didn’t even notice them until it clicked in his mind that ponies had muzzles, not mandibles, and he rose to see what was up with these outliers. “Whoa, hold it right there, friends,” he said in his thick Whinnyapolis accent, gears turning in his head determining what to address first. “What do you think you’re doing with the princess there?” Silicate scrambled to find an answer in his CPU. “I-um, uh...we’re dry-cleaning her!” he eventually settled on. “Yes, that is indeed what we’re doing. Orders of the Crown, you know,” Autonomos said. “Really?” the old unicorn furrowed his eyebrows for a moment, then sat back down and picked up his book. “Alright, I guess that’s acceptable. Carry on.” “Have a good day, sir!” Silicate and Autonomos continued on their way outside, the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle still draped between them like a sack of potatoes. Twilight Sparkle awoke on a metal floor as cold as ice, surrounded on all sides by a forest of metal bars. Outside of the bars she could see only inky clouds of darkness. The only details she could make out of her surroundings were the elaborate regal designs on the floor, letting her deduce that she was either in a palace or the home of some art aficionado with too much time and money on his hooves. Suddenly, Twilight saw the shadowy outline of a pony on the edge of the darkness. “It’s so nice to finally get to see you.” The figure spoke with a tinge of smugness, as if proud of herself for what she had accomplished.. “How have you been, Auntie Twilight?” The walking shadow stepped into the light where Twilight could see. She was a very young alicorn mare, with a light pink coat and a mane coloured purple with light blue highlights. Her cutie mark consisted of three mechanical gears, intertwined, as well as a wrench. She chuckled sinisterly. “F-F-Flurry Heart?!” Twilight sputtered in disbelief. Flurry’s horn lit up, and rows of braziers on the walls were set ablaze, letting Twilight see the grand throne room of the palace of the Crystal Empire. At the foot of the Empire’s throne, she saw her brother Shining Armor and his wife Cadence, tied together and completely unconscious. “Ah, figured it out, have you?” Flurry asked mockingly. “But, but why?! How?! You’re so...old! The last time I saw you, you were barely one year old!” "Well, as you can probably figure out, I’m not the Flurry Heart from this point in time. Exactly fifteen years into the future as of today, the world was, or rather will be invaded by an army of giant space ants. The governments of most nations on the planet will be decapitated within hours, and the world will lay in ruins. Not long afterwards, I will have joined the underground resistance movement, along with what will remain of the world’s leadership. They will have sent me back fifteen years into the past to conquer the world and prepare it for the invasion to come. And now here we are in the present day.” “Giant space ants?” Twilight scratched her ears with her hoof to see if they were working properly, which to her surprise they were. “So you traveled back to the past to fix the future. But if you were sent back in time to alter the circumstances of the invasion, then wouldn’t you thereby likely prevent the reason that you were sent back from having ever occurred, and thus never get sent back to the past in the first place, creating a massive time paradox?” “I, uh...shut up!” Flurry said. As Flurry Heart was distracted by the nonsense that is time travel, Twilight lit up her horn and tried to teleport out of her cage, and with a puff of sparkly smoke ended up in exactly the same position she was in before. She tried again, to no avail. "Anti-magic field on the cage," Flurry said. "What, do you think I'm stupid?" Suddenly, two ponies, or rather two pony-shaped objects walked into Twilight’s field of view, emitting mechanical whirrs with every movement of their hooves. Silicate and Autonomos had such fluid and graceful gaits for ponies made out of the same material as washing machines. “Greetings, my liege lady,” Silicate said. “Autonomos and I-” “What are you two doing here? Why aren’t you patrolling the Crystal Empire citadel like I asked you to?” Flurry grew more irritated with every word. “Well, construction isn’t going as well as we were hoping, and-” “Why are you doing construction?! The Star is all finished, all it needs is a power source! You know, something like the Crystal Heart you were also supposed to be searching for?!” Flurry shouted. “Wait, hold on. What star?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion. Flurry just waved her hoof. “You don’t need to know right now. The point is-” The room fell silent as Twilight, Flurry, and the two automatons could hear the sound of a wailing infant begin to echo through the far corridors of the palace. “Was that...me?” Flurry asked. Twilight smirked. “I think it was.” As if to answer Flurry’s question, the infant Flurry Heart flew into the throne room. As she screamed up a storm, she fluttered around erratically like a foal-sized moth searching for a light source and fired off a maelstrom of magic bolts, which bounced off the walls and flew through the air like bouncy balls. One bolt hit the older Flurry square in her torse, and she fell to the ground with a yelp. “I’ll get her for you, my liege lady!” Silicate turned his forehoof into a massive gatling gun and began to fire a hail of laser bolts at the infant. Flurry Heart forcefully shoved Silicate’s hoof-gun to the ground. “Don’t shoot her, you moron! That’s me!” Flurry lit up her horn and the infant Flurry smacked herself against an invisible wall, like a bird flying into a window. The small bundle of magical power flew around some more and found that she was completely surrounded by these walls of force. “This is precisely why I needed to help you, my liege lady. You nearly got defeated by a toddler version of yourself,” Silicate said. Flurry grit her teeth, “I’ll thank you to never bring this up again,” she said. “Duly noted.” Suddenly, a young page, no older than a colt, walked up to Flurry bearing a mouthful of letters and dropped them at her hooves. “Mail for you, oh Crystal Princess of the World and the Entire Universe Also!” Soon afterwards, the colt scurried away. Try as she might’ve, Twilight couldn’t contain her giggle. “Seriously? That’s your title?” “It’s better than yours by a wide margin.” Flurry levitated the letters in front of her with a disinterested look and groaned in disgust. “Same old stuff. ‘The Kairos Organization has a warrant out for your arrest.’, ‘The Kairos Organization has sent agents to apprehend you.’, ‘The Kairos Organization urgently requests that you turn yourself in.’, ‘Please turn yourself in, we’re tired of writing letters to you.’, blah blah blah blah blah.” She lit the letters ablaze, discarded the ashes, and sighed. “Want to play Battleship?” Author's Note I've finally managed to finish a project I've been working on for months! Yay! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you stick around for more. Trust me, there's plenty more.
Chapter 2: The Chaptering“Alright, so you know why I’ve called you all back here, right?” Rainbow Dash asked the four other Element bearers sitting at the big round table. “Mmhmm!” Pinkie Pie was munching on a box of cupcakes. “Twilight’s been captured by a duo of evil robots, and Equestria is about to be invaded under the direction of evil genius Flurry Heart!” “Yep, that’s the gist of what I could figure out. What we need to do now is we need to gather everypony we can for an assault on the Crystal Empire! I'll make some calls, you all go to Ponyville and gather up everyone who can fight. We can’t let those machines get away with this!” Rainbow bared her teeth and shook her hoof at the air in a comical fashion. “These robots have a leader, right?” Fluttershy asked meekly. “Couldn’t we just negotiate with whoever they are?” “Yeah, I’m actually with Fluttershy on this one. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to talk to somepony rather than to fight an army?” Applejack added. “Negotiation? Talking? Were you even listening to a word I said?!” Rainbow said. “We don’t need negotiation, we need decisive action! And this is about as decisive an action as we can get!” “Darling, in all honesty, what you’re suggesting sounds like a terrible plan,” Rarity said. “I don't care! They've taken Twilight, and I will make them pay her weight in robot blood!” Former princesses Celestia and Luna lay on their beds in a small hotel room in one of the fanciest hotels in Manehattan, completely bored out of their skulls. They had tried everything from traveling around the world to building a rocketship to travel to other planets to running a carrot dog stand in the middle of the city, all of which ended with something large being set on fire. Celestia sighed. “Luna, do you feel like we made a mistake when we abdicated our thrones?” she asked. “What do you mean, Sister?” “I know that there is a lot to do in this realm, but it still feels like there’s just nothing for us here,” Celestia said. “Whenever we were on our thrones, there was always something to do, even if it was boring, annoying, or unpleasant. But nowadays…” Luna sighed. “Perhaps you are right.” Suddenly, the phone on Celestia’s bedside table began to ring. She immediately picked up the receiver. “Hello?” “...Twilight’s been what now?!” Celestia groaned in exasperation, “She’s only been in power for seven days! How did this-” “...Alright, where do you want me to go?” “...I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Celestia hung up the phone. “Who was that on the phone, sister?” Luna asked. “It was Rainbow Dash, apparently Twilight’s been-” Celestia was interrupted when suddenly, the phone next to Luna began to ring. “Pardon me, sister.” Luna picked up the receiver. “Ahoy-hoy?” “...Twilight has been what now?” “...But she has only been in power for seven days! How-” “...I will be there with Celestia as soon as I can.” Luna hung up her phone. “It was-” “I think I can guess who it was. Come on Luna, we have a world to save!” Celestia spread her wings and took off, ignoring the fact that there was a roof above her which now had an alicorn-shaped hole in it. Luna soon followed after her, leaving two alicorn-shaped holes in the ceiling. Meanwhile, back in the now fully lit throne room of the Crystal Empire, Twilight Sparkle, now free from her cage, and Flurry Heart were playing Battleship. “G5!” Twilight said confidently. “Miss,” Flurry replied. “What? How? Every position I’ve called out has been a miss!” “Just bad luck I guess.” On her side of the board, Flurry moved her ships around as discreetly as she could, turning the position G5 from a hit into a miss. She had moved her ships a lot over the course of the game. Suddenly, a swirling portal opened up in the middle of the room, pouring out at least twenty alicorns, all with coats as black as coal, manes as red as fire, and hourglasses for their cutie marks. In front of them was another, more senior looking alicorn, sky blue and dressed in full mail armor engraved with an hourglass symbol about where his cutie mark would be. “Oh horsefeathers, it’s the time cops!” Flurry said. “The who now?” “Halt, Flurry Heart!” the alicorn in front said, brandishing his glowing teal sword as he flipped his purple mane, “I am Commander Spatium of the Kairos Organization! In the name of the stability of the space-time continuum, I order you to stand down immediately and allow us to take you into custody!” Flurry smirked arrogantly. “Make me.” Spatium’s line of warriors stepped back, and waves of hexagons settled into fixed spaces in front of them, becoming platforms standing still in the air. They sprinted forth, leaping onto the platforms and gaining every single possible vantage point above Flurry. Whenever she blasted one warrior and sent them crashing to the ground on their backs, another one swiftly took their place. Within seconds, a contingent of alicorn soldiers dropped down to the ground around Flurry, surrounding her at swordpoint. In response, she simply conjured a wind storm centered around herself, sending them and their swords flying around the room like ragdolls. Some of them were impaled by their own weapons as they collided with the walls. As the wind dissipated, and most of Spatium's legion neglected to get up, she stole one of the fallen warriors' blades and met Spatium, sword held out in front of her. “Not bad,” he said. “But this will not be that easy.” Time began to slow down as Spatium charged up a swing of his weapon. Flurry was prepared for that, however, and lit up her horn and parried the attack as fast as if she were in real time. Spatium just stared blankly at her, not knowing what to do next. “Did you think you were the only one here able to manipulate time?” Flurry asked condescendingly. “That’s almost cute. En garde!” Sparks flew in the air as the two combatants clashed their swords fiercely, Flurry Heart briefly gaining the upper hand in the duel. Just as Spatium was about to swing for Flurry’s neck, she teleported behind him and slashed him across his side, slicing right through his armor and leaving a gaping wound. Spatium howled in agony and crumpled to the floor, defeated. “Well well well, look what we have here.” Flurry laughed like a madmare at her victory, at least until Spatium began to fall up in reverse, his wound closing before her eyes as he moonwalked behind her, sword now pointed at her back. Spatium chuckled. “You were saying?” His victory was short lived, however, as Flurry lit up her horn and Spatium began to walk forwards and fall to the ground again, wound reappearing on his side as he screamed in pain anew. “Okay, okay, you win!” He, along with his contingent of soldiers, shakily rose to their feet, only half of them still with their swords, and filed back into the portal from where they came. “But mark my words, Flurry Heart, this will not be the last time we meet.” “Yeah yeah, whatever.” Flurry flew back to the Battleship board and pensively stroked her chin as Twilight looked on in horror. Author's Note Yes, Spatium's soldiers are red-and-black alicorns. Why, you may ask? Because I thought it'd be funny.
Chapter 3: You Think I Know What's Going On?“Step One: Assemble the avengers. Done!” Rainbow made a tick mark on the notepad she held in her wing as she looked out into the crowd she had gathered. A massive herd consisting of the Element bearers sans Twilight and Rainbow herself, Spike, Gilda, Trixie, Discord, and many others from Ponyville and beyond stood idly on the field just outside of Ponyville, conversing with themselves as they waited for Rainbow Dash to speak. “Step Two: March them all the way up north to the Crystal Empire!” Rainbow Dash got the crowd’s attention by blowing on the whistle around her neck. “Alright, everyone, listen up! Twilight Sparkle is being held hostage at the Crystal Empire, so that’s where we all need to go! Now march!” “Whoa whoa whoa, hold on just a minute,” Gilda said. “You expect all of us to walk all the way up to the Crystal Empire?! With no food, no warm clothing, no supplies at all?!” “Well yes.” Rainbow Dash replied as if that fact was painfully obvious. Gilda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we’re not doing that.” “Wouldn’t it be much more expedient to just take a train?” Applejack asked. “Or, better yet, I could just teleport everyone there like this.” Discord snapped his fingers and suddenly, Rainbow Dash and the rest of the crowd found themselves standing in a plaza in the middle of the Crystal Empire. "Ah, there we go." Suddenly, everyone heard a volley of laser shots being fired relatively close to them, so they panicked and stampeded into the nearest house they could find. The house, small as it was, was carved entirely from crystal, shining radiantly in an array of pinks and blues. In the corner of the living room, there was a small walk-in kitchen. Off to the far side of the room, a small staircase led up to the second floor. "Alright, nobody panic," Rainbow Dash assured the crowd. "No one knows we're here. We're safe." When she said that, Sunburst yawned as he went down the stairs. When he got halfway down the staircase, he paused, looked at the crowd, cleaned the lenses of his glasses with a handkerchief, and looked at the crowd again. "Um...happy birthday?" Discord said awkwardly. "How did you guys get in my house?!" Twilight was back in her cage, glaring at Flurry Heart as she tended to the patches of scorched fur on her light purple coat. “You’ll never get away with this!” she said. “Hey, you lost that game fair and square. You know the rules,” Flurry said with a smirk. One of Flurry’s robotic servants rolled into the throne room from the front gates. It was a cruder model, with only a single wheel taking the place of its legs, two long, stick-like arms holding a heart made of crystal, and a glowing glassy orb in lieu of a face. It spoke with a cold, yet oddly charming metallic voice, "Crystal Heart delivery for Princess Flurry Heart." "Took you long enough!" She plucked the Heart from the robot’s arms with her magic and levitated it in front of her and walked to the front of the throne room towards the exit. As she did so, she also lifted Twilight's cage through the air behind her. “Come with me. I think you’ll like what I have to show you.” As Flurry set Twilight’s cage down on the central square of the Crystal Empire, the perfect place for Twilight to see what robotic hooves created. It was a sphere of steel gray with a radius that rivaled that of the main square itself, dwarfing any and all buildings it sat next to. Across its otherwise smooth surface were etched a complex web of lines and circles. A crew of Flurry’s robots, one holding the Crystal Heart, worked on this monstrosity as they climbed its sheer curved surface. As the Crystal Heart was inserted into the device, the lines and circles began to glow a bright lime green, and the whole thing hummed with a frightening power. “Behold, the strongest weapon in all of existence, the Metal Star!” Flurry announced bombastically. “It’s made of some of the strongest minerals in the known universe, and armed to the teeth with weapons even star-spanning empires would fear! Once the Crystal Empire is fully under my control, I will be able to use the unlimited power of the Metal Star to subjugate all of space and time! No force in Equestria, nay, all of existence will be able to stop me!” “You’re insane!” Twilight shouted out. Flurry Heart laughed. “I’m a mare who gets things done! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a universe to conquer!" At that moment, another portal opened up in front of the Metal Star, and Commander Spatium came out once more, glowing teal sword floating by his side and twenty new alicorn soldiers in formation behind him. “Hah! Did you think you could keep me away forever, Flurry Heart?” Spatium boasted. Flurry guffawed uproariously, puzzling Spatium. “You really came back? After all that? You get everything that’s coming to you.” She shut her eyes tight as her horn began to glow a light blue. “Come to life, my engine of ruin!” The lines etched on the Metal Star began to glow brighter as it levitated into the air with a low hum of power. Spatium and his army of alicorns turned around and looked at the ultimate weapon in horror. The Star opened a small hole barely the size of a coin on the front of its shell and vaporized one of Spatium's warriors with a ray of blazing death, leaving him a pile of ash on the ground. "...Huh, did not see that coming,” Spatium said. In the distance, former Princesses Celestia and Luna flew towards the war-torn city. They saw an entire company of alicorn warriors being completely annihilated by a sphere of annihilation while it sustained no damage itself. "Erm, do you think we are in over our heads with this, sister?" Luna asked. "Nonsense! We've defeated every threat to Equestria for over a millennium, and this shall be no exception!" Celestia charged up a mighty beam of magic and fired it directly at the Metal Star. The beam bounced off its metal surface and into the sky, and the Star was left completely unharmed. "Okay, we may need to step back and rethink our strategy a bit." Celestia hovered idly in the air, thinking on her next move. After a while, a light bulb came to life in her mind “I’ve got the perfect idea! Come along, sister!” Laser shots still rang out in the Crystal Empire, mostly at Sunburst’s house, leaving a few chips and dents in its crystal walls. In the house, Rainbow’s army huddled together, shivering in fear. “Never you fear, for the Great and Powerful Trixie shall get us out of here!” Trixie opened the door and stuck her head outside, only to lose her nerve and duck back in when she heard more blasts from outside. “The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to rescind her last statement!” “Hold on for one second, people.” Discord rose above the crowd more than he usually did. “I have an idea! Applejack, come here for a second.” Applejack groaned as Discord beckoned her forward. “Okay, this better be good.” The tricksy draconequus whispered into Applejack’s ear. Her ears perked up and her eyes widened in shock. “That’s a terrible idea, and you know it!” “Wait, I’m not finished yet!” Discord went and whispered the rest of his plan into Rainbow Dash’s ear, to the same effect as it had on Applejack. “Now hold on there! That’s...actually not a bad plan, now that I think about it,” Rainbow Dash said. “What?!” Applejack said. “Don’t you remember the last time Discord had a plan?!” “You got any better ideas?” Trixie asked. Applejack sighed and hung her hat in shame. “No...I guess I don’t.” “Then let’s go! Time’s a-wastin'!” Discord proudly strutted out the door of Sunburst’s house, Applejack and Rainbow Dash not too far behind. Silicate, Autonomos, and their horde of robotic horses roamed the streets of the Crystal Empire, looking for innocent ponies to brutalize with their weapons. They didn’t find any at all, since most of the Crystal Ponies had the good sense to hide inside their houses and lock their doors. Autonomos suddenly turned one of his hooves into a high-powered laser gun and opened fire on the side of one of the houses. “Why do you keep doing that?!” Silicate asked annoyedly. “Target practice,” Autonomos said. “Don’t you know that wastes ammunition?” Silicate said. “Oh, I’m not too worried about it,” Autonomos said. “After all, I know you’ll always have my back if we ever get into trouble, brother. You’ve always been there for me, and I’ll never forget it.” "Yeah, about that." Silicate transformed one of his hooves into the glowing muzzle of a massive laser cannon, which he held right up against Autonomos' muzzle. "Have you ever heard of the saying 'there can be only one'?" "What?!" Autonomos backed up, his optic sensors widened to their maximum capacity. "But, I'm your friend, your brother!” “You also have telepathic control of half of the Metal Army. You think I’m just going to take that lying down?” Silicate said. “But, we've done everything together since the day Princess Flurry Heart installed our programming! Does that mean nothing to you?!" Silicate chuckled lowly as he charged up his gun. "Long live the king." Author's Note Fratricide. It's what just happened. Yeah... Anyways, things are coming together now that everyone's at the battlefield.
Chapter 4: Seriously, What Is Going On?Applejack and Discord walked slowly through the deserted streets of the Crystal Empire, pausing only slightly to gaze at the piles of rubble and half-destroyed houses produced by the incessant conflict. “This isn’t gonna work, you know,” Applejack said through gritted teeth. “Oh, come on, Applejack, when have any of my plans ever been terrible?” Discord asked. Applejack simply rolled her eyes before catching sight of a pile of mechanical parts strewn about the road in front of them. One of the parts looked strikingly like the severed head of a pony, with wires coming out of his neck. “Yeah, we definitely shouldn’t be out here,” Applejack said. “Heh, looks like he got ahead of himself here,” Discord said with a chuckle. “Eh? Eh?” “Discord…” Applejack glared at the wisecracking draconequus disapprovingly. “What, I was just making a joke!” Discord said indignantly. “Oh look, there’s an army of robots over there.” Applejack turned where Discord pointed to see that there was indeed an entire battalion of robots right behind them, staring right past them with their soulless red eyes. At its front, the formation was headed by a handsome stallion with a coat of gunmetal gray. “Uhh...howdy there,” Applejack said nervously. “Oh...my...circuits! It’s Apple Chord!” Silicate squealed with delight. “You’ve been my favourite country artist since I was a protoform! I still have all of your albums on vinyl!” “Really?” Applejack said, “Uhh...that’s great, sugarcube! Tell you what, hows about I play something for you and your little group?” She pulled out a guitar and began to tune it to just the way she liked it. “Let’s go with…’Take Me Home, Country Roads’.” Meanwhile, back at the center square, Commander Spatium’s new company of soldiers was wiped out to a pony, and in return the Metal Star wasn’t even scratched. The dust of fallen warriors flew across the battlefield as Flurry Heart picked up the glowing teal sword of somepony since passed and locked blades with Spatium himself. “You will never prevail against us!” Spatium declared, struggling to hold Flurry Heart at bay. “The Kairos Organization has limitless resources and personnel at its disposal! You are nothing to us but a nuisance, a fly on the wall for us to swat with the flyswatter of justice!” “Yeah? And how’s that been working out for you recently?” Flurry Heart asked with a smug grin. “W-well-” “What’s this, two times I’ve handed you your flank now compared to zero times you’ve handed me mine?” Flurry asked. “Oh, I’m sure they’re going to love that back at HQ.” “Uh, um, well mark my words, villain!” Spatium said. “I shall return, and never shall I stop until you are defeated! And your defeat shall be certain!” A swirling portal opened behind the disgraced commander, and he leapt into its embrace as it closed up again. Flurry laughed maniacally as she tossed her sword aside. “Is there anyone who I cannot defeat?!” Almost as soon as she finished her sentence, the ponies formerly known as Princesses Celestia and Luna landed at the center square behind her. Flurry glanced behind her and sharply inhaled, just barely stopping short of a full gasp. “Halt on your path of destruction, evildoer!” Celestia bellowed in the royal Canterlot voice. “For these transgressions against Equestria and its royalty cannot go ignored! Surrender to us now, or face the retribution!” She turned to Luna with a giddy smile on her face. “What do you think, do I sound intimidating enough?” “You sound like you are trying too hard to sound intimidating, sister,” Luna replied. Flurry tried to quickly come up with something before she was blasted into a thin layer of burnt paste on the ground, or worse, brought into custody. “Uh, um…I say it is you who should halt on your...path of destruction. For the Metal Star can destroy you both in an instant!” Meanwhile, the Metal Star was spinning rapidly and flying haphazardly throughout the sky, its circuitry going haywire because it had nothing to blast for fifteen seconds and it forgot what to do with itself. “Alright, I guess you’ve got me. I don’t have anything earth-shattering at my disposal at the moment.” Flurry spread her legs into a battle stance and dragged her hoof across the ground. “But I’m still not going down without a fight!” “Then, as sure as mine name is Celestia, thou shalt suffer our rebuke!” Celestia’s eyes began to glow as she ascended into the air and charged up a mighty blast of magic. Flurry teleported out of the beam’s path at the last possible second, appearing right behind Luna. Before the princess of the night could even turn around, Flurry smacked her in the back of the head, sending her to the ground in a heap. Celestia turned around, but Flurry had already vanished in a puff of sparkly pink smoke. When she appeared again, Flurry was already lighting up her horn in preparation for another spell. Originating from her horn, a thunderous boom of sound rushed the two sisters by, and they felt all of the muscles in their bodies tense up. As Celestia's wings locked up, she fell to the ground like a stone. The two sisters grit through their pain and tried to move their legs anyways. No dice. Their muscles were too stiff. “See? I can do this all day!” Flurry cried out, hoping that her pained gasps for breath, her haggard face, and her disheveled mane wouldn’t cause them to call her bluff. Silicate clapped his hooves like a seal hopped up on sugar. “Bravo! Bravissimo! That was the best thing I've heard in years!” Suddenly, one of his hooves transformed into a laser cannon. The gun hummed with power as it’s muzzle shone with a bright golden ball of energy. “It’s a real shame I have to kill you two now.” “What?!” Applejack turned to glare at Discord in sheer, unbridled fury. “See, I told you this plan wouldn’t work!” “Wait, hold on for just a second, can’t we talk this ou-” Before Discord could even finish his sentence, Silicate fired the swirling ball of instant death at him and his body instantly dematerialized, leaving nothing behind of the spirit of chaos but a wisp of smoke. “And that was for giving the giant space ants the idea to invade Equestria, you random fiasco generator!” Silicate pointed his gun at Applejack. “And now for you.” Before he could pull the trigger, however, a streak of blue came from the sky like a thunderbolt and pounded Silicate into one of the houses, leaving an impact crater about the size of a pony in the crystalline wall. “Yeah, not on my watch, buddy!” Rainbow Dash said. “Rainbow Dash!” Applejack sighed in relief. “Thank Celestia you’re here!” Silicate shook off the shards of crystal from his body and rose to his hooves again. “Metal Army, heed my command! Destroy her!” The Metal Army did not heed Silicate's command, as it was too busy being hacked to pieces itself by Rainbow's army. Many of the robots who weren’t forcefully dismantled by an angry mob decided to scatter, with some fleeing closer to the center of the Crystal Empire. “Fine!” Silicate shouted. “I’ll do it myself!” The muzzle of Silicate’s laser cannon began to pool up with energy. He launched another golden ball of scorching death at Rainbow Dash. She took off like a rocket, narrowly avoiding the shot as half of the house behind her was disintegrated. “Stop moving! I want to demolecularize you!” Silicate fired a few more blobs of disintegration at the rainbow-maned speedster, but her aerial acrobatics were too quick for him.When Silicate went to charge up another shot, he heard nothing but the click of a trigger, and saw nothing but a tiny puff of smoke come out from his gun. The automaton’s optical sensors expanded to their maximum width. “You want to what now?” Rainbow Dash planted her hooves on the ground, with various ponies on either side of her. “Uhh…” Silicate considered his options for a millisecond, and promptly turned tail and ran away. “Yeah, that’s right, you better run away!” Rainbow Dash shook her hoof at the fleeing machine in a comical fashion. On the vast, grassy fields at the edge of the Crystal Empire’s urban core, another swirling rift in dimensions tore itself open. Commander Spatium emerged from the portal, with yet another company of twenty alicorn warriors in formation behind him. He was confident that this time would be the time he succeeded in apprehending the rogue known as Flurry Heart. “Soldiers! Comrades! Lend me your hearts and souls on this day!” Spatium said to his warriors, “For today, we shall fight, and we shall attain glory by triumphing over our most hated adversaries! And ballads will be written of our deeds, for they will be so great and mighty! For we are the Kairos Organization! Oorah!” Spatium’s soldiers looked at him with a mix of boredom and utter disdain for Spatium as a commander and as a person. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I am an amazing commander!” Spatium lied. Suddenly, another portal tore itself open in the air in front of Spatium. Out from the gateway trot an alicorn mare. Her coat was a dark purple, and she was clad in full mail armor with a blazing fire in her eyes as she glared at Spatium with seething contempt. “M-Major Authority?!” Spatium cried out, before hastily clearing his throat. “I mean, what a lovely surprise to see you here, Major. As you can see, I have everything here under control.” “Spatium, do you think I’m an idiot?” Major Authority said. “What?! No, no no no!" Spatium hastily said. "Why would you say that, Major?" "Well, for one, you have the nerve to tell me to my face that everything is fine and that you have everything here under control, when the entire Crystal Empire is metaphorically and literally on fire!" Major Authority's voice rose to a shout. "Well, Major, you have to understand-" "Understand what, exactly?" Authority interrupted. "That you're a half-wit glory hound who only cares about his personal satisfaction rather than the successful execution of our mission? That you're in no way fit to lead any contingent of soldiers based on your inability to pull your head out of your own flank? Because make no mistake, I understand that perfectly well!" "Major, please…" "The mission of the Kairos Organization is to protect the timestream from rogue agents via smart and efficient application of resources and personnel, which now I am certain is a foreign concept to you! What you’ve done here on this day is a complete embarrassment to me personally and the Kairos Organization as a whole! You’re insufferable, inefficient, insubordinate, and indisputably incompetent! Platoon Commander Spatium, you are hereby dismissed!” “Wait, you’re firing me?!” Spatium said. “You can’t fire me!" He turned back towards what was formerly his company. "Guys, she can't fire me, right? Let's go get that rapscallion Flurry Heart, yeah?" "Spatium, I've dismissed you. This is mutiny!" "So it's mutiny, then! What do you say, soldiers? I'm still in charge, right?" Every single one of his former troops unsheathed their glowing teal swords and pointed them threateningly at Spatium. "Well, forget you guys anyways! I'll apprehend her myself!" Spatium took off like a rocket towards the sky. "After him!" she commanded. The company rose to the skies like a row of fireworks in hot pursuit. "I'll see you court-martialed for this, Spatium!" Major Authority shook her hoof at the sky in a comical fashion. Author's Note In which we finally see Commander Spatium get reprimanded for his incompetence. Also, Apple Chord is totally a John Denver cover artist, and anyone who disagrees with me on that can fight me.
Chapter 5: The Ending of The EndingSilicate scrambled his way to the center square, leaving the gears and screws of his fallen comrades in his wake. Twilight Sparkle sat cross-legged in her cage, playing a game of solitaire and completely disregarding the world around her. The princess Flurry Heart had her horn lit up and was conjuring up a shield of rose-tinted energy around herself, which kept the Royal Sisters’ blasts of magic at bay, at least for now. “Silicate! Thank the stars you’re here! Where’s Autonomos?!” Flurry Heart said frantically. “Autonomos? Uhh, he...tripped and fell on a…” Silicate looked around and saw the Metal Star flying to and fro across the battlefield, trying and failing to locate a target. “...Sphere. It was very tragic. Held a funeral and everything.” "Well, whatever,” Flurry Heart said. “I've been fixing the bugs in the Star's operating system remotely as I've been fighting here. Give it ten seconds, and this battle should be ours!” Nine seconds later, a chunk of metal shaped oddly like the head of a pony streaked rapidly through the air, embedding itself onto the upper part of the Metal Star. The sphere of annihilation stopped dead in its tracks, hovering in place just above the ground, and the glowing green lines on it blinked erratically as if it was recalibrating something. “What just happened? Why’d it stop?!” Flurry cried out angrily. The pony head embedded on top of the Star opened its glowing blue eyes wide and emitted an ear-piercing scream "You betrayed me!" the head on the Star cried out in anguish. "You were a brother to me, Silicate! I loved you!” "Is that...Autonomos?!" Flurry said in disbelief. "What did you do to him?!" "Uhh...I did what I had to do!" Silicate said. Flurry flared daggers at him and growled. "Neutralize the Metal Star immediately, or I'll have you made into scrap!" "Sorry, I can't hear you! I’m too busy leaving!” Silicate fled towards the palace gates at a full gallop. “Silicate!” The Star's ear-splitting screams only grew louder with time, until even the Royal Sisters were trying to cover their ears with their hooves. All of a sudden, the Star began to make a noise like grinding rusty nails on a chalkboard as it tore itself to pieces. Massive hunks of metal rained down to Earth, and the whirrs of the Star's machinery fell silent. The Royal Sisters fell silent. Flurry fell silent. Is there any possible way, by any possible measure, that things could get even worse? Flurry thought. Suddenly, she saw another pony trot down the street, wearing full plate armor with an hourglass symbol engraved on the side of it. Behind her was a company of alicorn soldiers, with coats as black as coal, and manes as red as fire. This was all Flurry Heart needed to see. She tried to teleport away, but all that did was create a cloud of sparkly pink smoke around herself. She tried again, to the same effect. Major Authority drew her glowing teal sword as she trotted onto the scene, a soldier on either side of her. “We have this situation under control, Princesses Celestia and Luna. Let us handle the rogue agent.” "Excuse me, I must object to this overstepping of your authority!" Celestia stamped her hoof on the ground. "Flurry Heart is an Equestrian citizen according to jus soli and the Crystal Act of 1001. Therefore, she is under our jurisdiction." "Are you challenging the authority of the Kairos Organization?" Major Authority glared at Celestia. The princess of the sun promptly backed down, smiling and laughing nervously. Authority lit up her horn, and in an instant two glowing rings poofed into existence. One placed itself on Flurry’s horn, and the other bound her wings to her side. She said nothing, and only hung her head low in defeat. “Princess Flurry Heart, under the authorization given to me by the Kairos Organization, I hereby place you under arrest!” Major Authority said. Suddenly, Commander Spatium flew in from the other side of the city and landed on the center square. He had a confident look about him as he drew his glowing teal sword. "It is time to meet your doom, rapscallious rogue known to the world as Flurry Heart! For I, Commander Spatium, am here to...bring...you...to justice." As he kept talking, Spatium slowly realized that he was completely surrounded by Kairos personnel and right in front of Major Authority herself. Authority produced another set of two binding rings in the air in front of her, and Spatium hung his own head in defeat as the rings wrapped themselves around his wings and horn. "Wow, two for one. Now there's only one major rogue agent left to capture." Major Authority turned to the stallion to her left. “Sergeant Surge, use the Persons Locator to decipher Silicate’s location.” “Yes, ma’am!” Sergeant Surge floated a large tablet device in front of his face from his saddlebag. He clacked a few keys on his Locator and it pulsed with power, emitting a ring of light in all directions. “Where is he?” Major Authority asked. Sergeant Surge looked at the map on the Locator, puzzled. “He’s...not here,” he said. “What?!” Major Authority glanced over Surge’s shoulder. “What do you mean he’s not here?” “I’m guessing Silicate isn’t in this dimension anymore, because he has left the building.” Major Authority sighed with irritation. “Send search teams throughout all dimensions in this sector, all timestreams, everywhere. Do not let him escape, I repeat, do not let him escape!” “Yes ma’am!” Like trained commandos, all of the Kairos soldiers vanished into the shadows as Spatium and Flurry Heart were beamed away to who-knows-where. Immediately afterwards, Rainbow Dash and her ragtag army rushed in from the street like a stampede of bunnies. The angry mob looked around in confusion, as they had been expecting a fight. "Um...what'd I miss?" Rainbow asked. "Nothing. You missed nothing," Major Authority said sternly. "Nothing happened here today. Everybody go home now. Show's over." With a pop and a flash of light, Major Authority disappeared too. Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, guess I can’t argue with that.” As Celestia and Luna were arguing with each other over Celestia-and-Luna-know-what, the other five Element bearers walked over to Twilight’s cage. Twilight looked up from her game of solitaire, thoroughly done with everything and everyone around her. “Oh, you’re finished. Brilliant.” Her words dripped with sarcasm like a good grilled cheese sandwich dripped with melted cheddar. Applejack put her hoof behind her head. “Look, sugarcube, we’re sorry for abandoning you like that back there this mornin’. We didn’t know it would grow into this huge...thing.” “Just get me out of this cage, please,” Twilight said in a deadpan tone. “Of course.” Applejack got into position and, with one good buck, kicked the roof of the cage clean off. Twilight flew above the bars and touched down on the ground beside her friends. “I suppose we should be getting back to Canterlot now,” Twilight said. “But how? Discord brought us here, and now he’s...gone.” Applejack looked wistfully behind her. Suddenly, with a pop and a brief distortion of the air, Discord rematerialized in front of the Mane Six. He rubbed his forehead as he groaned in pain. “Wow, being blown to atoms was not fun,” he said. "I'll certainly be feeling that in the morning." Discord looked down to see the Mane Six looking expectantly at him. He frowned. “Oh, let me guess, you forgot to account for transportation going home from this whole shindig, and now you want me to teleport you guys back to Canterlot for free?” The Mane Six all nodded in unison. “I mean, if you even can,” Fluttershy said with a smirk. “Being torn apart must have taken its toll on your powers.” “What the-are you doubting my abilities?!” Discord said incredulously. “I just don’t want you to overexert yourself. Teleporting so many ponies over such a long distance can’t be easy, especially in your condition.” Fluttershy’s smirk grew even wider. “Overexert myself? It’s literally a snap. Watch this!” Discord snapped his claws and he and the Mane Six were back in Canterlot. It was when he saw that he was in Canterlot that Discord realized what had just happened. “You know, I really don’t like you sometimes, Fluttershy.” Twilight Sparkle opened up the doors to her bedroom in Canterlot Palace. They always seemed to creak for some odd reason. The bedroom was exactly the way Twilight had left it when she got up that morning. The bedsheets were disheveled, the pillows were uneven, and the candle she had lit when she woke up was still burning. You gotta love Infinity Candles™. Twilight crawled into her palatial bed and curled up underneath the sheets. “First thing in the morning, I’m establishing a parliament. I can’t keep dealing with this nonsense anymore.” “Fair enough.” Spike did the same with his own bed and blew out the candle lighting up the room. From the depths of outer space, a disc-shaped spacecraft parked itself in orbit around the planet. Piloting the disc were an entire crew of giant space ants, plotting to invade and turn this pristine planet into their newest colony world. The captain of the ship and his first mate looked on the glistening blue orb from the helm of the ship, listening in on the recent occurrences on its surface. “So whaddya dink, boss?” the first mate asked. “Eh, on second thought, let’s not invade Equestria. It is a silly place.” Author's Note And so ends this odd and baffling saga. With Flurry Heart getting arrested and Discord recovering from getting (figuratively) punched in the gut. At least I managed to write something.
