Of Pony and Machine

The planet of Ultimatum IV was a place of vast and titan-sized industry, evident by its yellow skies and toxic air.
There, many buildings of absurd scale and never ending factories worked. Guns, bullets, parts of various things, armors, and much else were produced to feed the never ending fires of war of their Imperium.

Men that were more machine than human, wearing red robes and carrying weapons branded with a half-machine half-white skull were going about their usual tasks and routines. Some were surveying the fabrication of molten metal, its heat doing next to nothing to them. Others were chanting while maintaining their precious machines.

And yet, none noticed the one sitting in the corner, slumped against a wall.

She has been there for a while now. How long, she didn't know. Maybe days, months, or just a few minutes? She didn't bother to keep track at this point.

As soon as the device recharged, she would be out of here, and in another place that most likely wouldn't be her home.

Discreetly, silently, she turned her head to her arm and looked at the boxy thing. She noted that it has almost refilled its energy, if the symbols on it didn't lie, she understanding them already. She also noted that her arm, outrora silvery and with a coat of blue, now looked like something you would see in a scrapyard.

She put her gaze back to the equally rusty ground, attempting to ignore her own state of body.

She still remembered who she was, atleast. XJ-9, or Jenny Wakeman as she liked to be called.

It's...Hard to forget when you have a mind of metal.

And she remembered every single thing she did since she found the thing that put her in this misery.

She would gladly break it to bits, mash it and melt it down, but...Without it, she wouldn't be able to travel worlds.
And she needed that to find her world again. Return to her family and friends.
Try to at least.

Saying that, she had barely survived her last encounter from the last world. She had suffered a bad bullet hit to her chest. It was far too close to the thing that kept her hidden at that moment.

Then, she looked up to see if there was something aside from rust to look at, and far too many times now, felt that familiar feeling.

Fear.

One of the men, this one in a red robe, metal mixed with skin for a face, and many lenses was observing her with them, reaching into his robe.
Doing a lightning-fast system analysis, she found that her worst fear came true. The Stealth Module has finally gone offline.

She should have shot. Should have.

As she bolted up, she slammed the man with her arm, which meanwhile has transformed into a shield. The weird gun he had as well as himself went flying into the wall opposed to her with a robotic grunt. As they crashed, she did a mad dash down the many halls of the place.

Soon, as sounds of alarm echoed through the giant forge world, her metallic legs sped up.
She was almost out of that place, she couldn’t stop now.

As she ran, she turned a corner, then another, then another. Then she ducked under two large metal pincers. She didn’t manage to see who they belonged to, before suddenly, she found a worn down dead end.

Spinning around, she saw the pale man who had been made into an aberration of a machine, to which belonged the weapon she just dodged. Then, behind him, a squad of red-robed men were catching up to her.

She had to fight.

The next moments passed in a blur.
She remembered dispatching the robot. She remembered striking down the red-robes. She remembered blocking and taking blasts from their weapons. She remembered the noises they made as she fought them, them not staying down, and having to be put down for good.

She hated every moment of it. She wasn’t made for this purpose.

Then, finally, the device recharged with a beep. Wasting no time, Jenny activated it.
The device immediately shot out a laser that cut a square portal in the air. It was her escape to the next world, but then she heard deafening thunder in quick succession. Next thing she knew, one of her arms went missing. Shrapnel plunged into her head like hot needles into butter. Yet, she gathered her last forces, and threw herself into said portal.

Next thing she knew, she was sailing through the air, falling down.
Then, slowly but surely, darkness started creeping in, until it was all that remained.

***

Twilight Sparkle was sitting at her writing desk, a cup of tea by her side, reading a book about multiverse theory.
It was yet another one of her late at night reading sessions, that would usually happen when she found a good book, this being one of such occasions.

As she took a sip from her tea, she looked out of her castle’s windows, the dim light of Luna’s moon being one of the only things illuminating the room...Aside from her humble candle.

Then, she heard a loud crash, and the entirety of the crystal building shook slightly, ripples forming in her drink.

“What was that?” She thought, and so it all began...