Sweetie Bot X: Cutie Mark Crusaders Maverick Hunters!

Chapters

Homeland Lost
A Spirit Thing
Highway to Hell, Part One
Highway to Hell, Part Two
Highway to Hell, Part Three

Homeland Lost

Homeland Lost

Everypony usually heard about Twilight Sparkle’s magical experiments within mere seconds of their occurrences. She was usually the one to try and learn as many new spells as she could. In fact, over her life, the violet unicorn likely forgot more spells than any three unicorns could ever hope to remember together. She was the Element of Magic, after all, and with those astonishing reservoirs at her disposal she could learn as much as she wanted. When she decided it was time to learn something new, which was usually at least once every week, she would often cast a new spell on Spike, her small, young dragon assistant, herself or another willing, or sometimes unwilling, participant, and usually would end up with wildly mixed results. The spell would occasionally succeed, and there would be much rejoicing. However, for every one spell that came out a success the first time, there were about five that did not, and these often resulted in not only humorous, but a tiny bit creepy results. Sometimes, interventions by the pastel-decorated, pearl-white Princess Celestia herself would be required, and occasionally the midnight-blue Princess Luna or the other Elements of Harmony would help. Even Discord had to stop her once.

These experiences made her a very good teacher of her craft.

On this particularly fine late afternoon, she was in a park, teaching a friend the joys of the teleportation spell she had so often utilized during her adventures, extolling the virtues of getting from A to B in the blink of an eye to her fellow unicorn. This unicorn had tried her hardest to learn how to complete even a short-distance instantaneous leap, but over the past week had failed time and time again to execute the spell. Her occasional successes would be cause for celebration, but the fashionista was growing increasingly impatient with her expedience of learning. She was nowhere near as proficient as her friend Twilight Sparkle, and until this point had never deigned to learn the spell that had saved their lives so many times before. However, now that she had set upon that path, there would be no stopping her until she had succeeded in that goal.

So, it was with a completely unladylike ferocity in the form of a loud half-groan half-scream that she failed her four-hundred thirty-seventh attempt at the spell that month, followed with an incredibly dramatized…

“This Celestia-forsaken spell is going to be mine to use even if I have to die doing it!”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Rarity,” Twilight Sparkle said, trying to cool her friend down from a level of rage matched only when she was interrupted doing some highly detailed lace work. “No need to get all bent out of shape over a little teleport spell.”

“Ha!” Rarity snapped. “This, coming from a unicorn who can teleport between Canterlot and back without so little as a… flick of the fetlock…” she said, with the accompanying twitch to match. “Of course it would be a snap for you!”

Twilight flinched. Upon seeing that look, Rarity realized her anger was getting the better of her and sighed, attempting to calm herself down.

“I am sorry, Twilight, but I must retire before I embarrass myself further.” The fury was still present in her semi-regal voice as she turned tail and headed for Carousel Boutique. “I doubt I will try to use that magic spell again, but if I do wind up possessed by some spawn of Tartarus–” the last three words were punctured with razor-sharp undertones “–and wish to try once more, I shall let you know.”

“Okay,” Twilight said. “See you later!”

Rarity walked home, grumbling to herself as Twilight closed up her library for the night. She had been at it all day and, coupled with the mental exhaustion of failing, she was in no mood to host the promised gathering of the Cutie Mark Crusaders that evening.

I am sorry, Sweetie Belle, she thought, planning an apology. We will have to schedule some other time. I have had a very stressful day and–

WHOMP

Out of nowhere, her forward motion ceased to be. Her orientation spun a full three-hundred seventy-two point oh-five-hundred degrees, and she found herself staring very closely at an orange hoof.

“What in tarnation…? Rarity! Watch where you’re goin’!”

Rarity pulled back, startled, to see her palomino farmer pony friend Applejack giving her an annoyed glare.
“Oh, I’m… sorry, Applejack, I… I was just lost in thought…”

Applejack’s face twisted into a look of curiosity. “Wanna talk about it?”

Rarity brightened at the thought. “Well, I was over at Twilight’s library practicing a new spell I thought would help boost my production efficiency, and, well… things did not quite go as planned. I did not learn the spell as I would have liked, and now I’m so… so agitated I don’t think I could take the Cutie Mark Crusaders at my place tonight.”

Everypony in Ponyville knew those three rascals. Individually, they were Applejack’s butter-yellow, ruby-haired little sister Apple Bloom, Rarity’s sister, the pink and purple mane and tail alabaster-coated Sweetie Belle, and Rainbow Dash’s spunky little ochre-and-purple follower Scootaloo.

“Oh. Well, you could always send them over to the farm,” Applejack suggested. “Celestia knows how much they love spendin’ time at their clubhouse. I don’t know how many sleepovers’ve happened there since I gave ‘em the ol’ shack.”

“Oh would you mind, dear?” Rarity asked. “I would be ever so grateful.”

“Think nothin’ of it, sugar cube,” Applejack replied.

So after a few hours of arduous and further-frustrating searching, Applejack and Rarity found the girls just outside of town; they were waist-deep in tree sap, pine needles, unmentionable pig leavings, paperclips, chunks of wood, and tangled up in Princess Luna’s mane. After getting them untangled from the Royal Mane with some help from Luna’s sister Celestia, who happened to be taking a stroll through that particular part of Equestria that day with her sister, they endured a fairly lengthy explanation. It involved a trireme of catapult-firing catapults and something about lemon juice and melted peppercorn chocolate Twizzlers that no pony there fully understood, even the storytellers themselves, though at that instant Rarity, Applejack, Celestia and Luna knew that a certain two-toned pink party pony was to blame for the whole ordeal, they made it back to Ponyville just in time to head to bed. Rarity and Applejack retired to their respective homes, and the Crusaders to their tree fort deep in Sweet Apple Acres.

That night would mark the last night the Cutie Mark Crusaders would see Ponyville for a very long time.

That night would be the first time Rarity would use the teleport spell correctly.

That night would see a group of ponies transported to a world of steel… and another, singular mare wake up with her face in the mud.

And it would all start with a nightmare.

Rarity awoke in a black void, which slowly revealed its contents as her eyes opened. She looked left. She looked right. Rows and rows of mannequins stood at attention, perfectly still, waiting to be dolled up in reams upon reams of glorious fabric. For this was the day Rarity had dreamed of – the day when she would begin assembling the latest line for her biggest, most prominent guest. She would make these dresses stunning! Spectacular! Without comparison in any way, shape, or form! She would surely make her name here, in the Royal Dressmakers’ room. She would be a goddess of design! Royalty among dressmakers! Oh, the thought of her success was sending shivers up and down her spine! She shivered wildly in anticipation and burst into a loud foalish squeal at the thought.

Without a second synapse snap in her fashion-conscious mind, she floated excitedly between the rows to a set of double doors at the end of the stream of mannequins, where instinct told her she would find the materials with which she would craft her eternal legacy. She cracked it open. Her jaw hit the floor, and her heart, mind, and dreams exploded within her body when she saw the utter fashion atrocity committed within.

Every last roll of fabric was a horrendous, gaudy, and completely obscene shade of green! Every last one!

She didn’t understand how this was possible! She should’ve been able to find complementing colours, shades that would’ve fit the Princesses perfectly. Instead, she had been greeted with this swath of pure fashion disaster, enwoven in the worst possible fabric to grace Equestria! How could Princess Celestia gift her such an amazing opportunity without also granting her the resources she needed to complete her vision? She had no less than twelve different carefully planned designs for the Royal Form, each with stunning shades of blue, pink, yellow, and even one especially daring blood-red ensemble that was sure to floor Her Royal Highness… but no. She had been given green. Only green. Ugly, disgusting, pinch-your-muzzle-and-run green.

“What is the meaning of this!?” she exclaimed in absolute fury. “Nopony can make that shade of green appealing! It is just impossible!”

A gentle laugh echoed throughout the hall. “If anypony can do it, you can, Rarity.”

Rarity pulled an instant one-hundred-eighty degree turn and stared, bug-eyed, at the glorious Princess Celestia… backed by the hundreds of mannequins that had once stood at attention. She noted a slight red glow in the eyes of the still figures, and swallowed nervously.

“O-oh! Princess, I’m-I’m so sorry… It’s lovely! I-if this is what you… you want me t-to work with…” Rarity stuttered. With a nervous chuckle, she pulled a roll of the fabric out and began working.

When she touched it, she couldn’t believe her own hooves – the Princess actually wanted her to work with fake turf! She recognized the feel from under her hooves when her friends would go mini-golfing… the rough, uneven cut of the plastic-y grass, the checked rubber backing, the unbelievable heaviness… it began wearing her down as she manufactured a dress that resembled one of her designs. However, before she got through with even the basic underlay of the dress, the mannequin she was working on promptly turned its head and ate the creation!

“Wh-wha!?” Rarity asked herself. “Did it just…?”

Celestia glared at her. “Work.”

Rarity cowered and set to work. Every time she completed a piece here, a stitch there, or even in a couple cases just cleaving the “cloth” from its brethren using wildly oversized gardening shears, the mannequins ate the work. Repeatedly this happened over and over again until finally Rarity snapped.

“Princess Celestia, could you please control these mannequins?” she shouted. “I cannot even get an ounce of work done while they’re so ravenously hungry!”

Of course, being in a dream, Rarity’s mind had briefly suspended logic for its own twisted purposes, so the sleeping white unicorn paid no mind to the fact that mannequins were living. Nor did she notice the ball and chain that had unceremoniously strapped itself to her ankle, and then to the table where she was working, which was built seamlessly into the wall.

Celestia was not amused. “Work, slave. Make a dress fitting for… a changeling!”

Rarity screamed in horror as every pony in the dreamscape suddenly acquired a vicious, fang-filled smile and transformed into an army of changelings. Red as rich as blood oozed down her vision as her sudden benefactors-turned-assailants closed in for the kill. Closer they got, and slowly she backed away, ignoring the fact she backed right through the spot where her desk was supposed to be. Now, there was only void, only empty space populated by herself and thousands, no – millions of changelings! The wall they formed was impossibly tall, easily clearing ten thousand hooves in height, without space between like they had suddenly become gelatin and fused together. Trillions of beady, compound eyes stared at her with nothing but malice and hatred.

She was going to die.

A cold sweat enveloped the helpless unicorn. Rarity quickly found herself pushed into a corner of her mind. Frantically, she dug into the recesses of her thought space and found a spell to get her out of any situation fast.

Little did she know! She was casting the spell in the real world as well. Her horn radiated luminescent blue, set to go off in whichever way she decided it should go. At that instant, when she completed its ritual, she disappeared from her room and simultaneously fired a beam of the magic towards a mirror.

As if by some cruel fate directed only by Discord himself, every single one of the seven hundred ninety-four mirrors in Ponyville happened to point to a perfect yet wildly Rube Goldbergian path that led the beam right into the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ base, to the place where they now lay, sleeping and completely unaware of the danger flying at them at over three thousand hooves a minute. So, as the beam ricocheted haphazardly throughout the town, bouncing around from house to house, through windows and against weathervanes, around a windmill and in and out of the ear of a midnight-blue Ursa Minor bear that had made a wrong turn and stumbled across the sleeping village before leaving, it seemed that the Crusaders were going to share the same fate as Sweetie Belle’s sister – that of waking up in the morning caked in mud and filth just outside Fluttershy’s house in one of the many streams that wound its way around her property on the edge of the Everfree… in other words, par for the course for trying to get their sleepwalking cutie marks, which they had planned that night to attempt.

But, as Fate would have it, they did not.

In fact, they weren’t even going to wake up in the same world.

Just before the beam entered their window, they were whisked away by a triple teleport from sources unknown. Just a fifth of a second after they shot off into space on the wings of electricity and light, Rarity’s beam connected with the floor where they lay, dissolving into nothing.

Scootaloo’s ear twitched as the sound of wind ruffled her mane and a mechanical roar whizzed past. She yawned and turned over. “Five more minutes, Auntie…” she mumbled before slipping back into a coma.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were both in similar catatonic states. However, since Apple Bloom was used to waking up at dawn with her sister, as soon as the dank, purple skylight and bright street lamps hit her eyes she stirred and opened her eyes.

Just in time to see two cars fly past them!

“Sweet Horlestiapples!” she screeched, mixing her curses up in her shock.

This startled her two friends awake.

“Geez, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo said, groggy from the sudden jolt. “You didn’t have to scare us like that!”

Apple Bloom was near to hyperventilation, eyes darting left and right as she took in the scene around her. Beneath and around her was a city on a scale she had only read of, never having been to Manehattan herself. Above her, the sky was purple and thick with pollution. A large pathway of some kind cleaved the air space into two halves. Below her, the roadway was green and gray, clearly made of some kind of metal and stretching for miles into the distance. A couple of odd-looking creations were floating lazily back and forth in the distance – a globular, green, shiny thing with a dangerous, steel spiked ball beneath it. Underneath it, a tall blue robot shot electric charges along the ground and missiles in a straight line. When the farm pony looked back, the highway seemed to stretch into the same forever the road in front of her – and its accompanying city – extended to. The whole scale of where she and her friends were hit her. It utterly terrified the farm pony. Her friends were slowly coming to the same realization she did. Slowly, they wrapped their forelegs around each other, squeezing tightly to try and hold onto the last shreds of familiarity they recognized. A couple more cars flew off behind them as the Crusaders whimpered in absolute fear.

“G-guys…”

After a brief swallow of nervousness, Sweetie Belle put into words what they were all thinking.

“I-I don’t think we’re in Equestria anymuh-more…”

With that, they dissolved into whimpering in fear once again. What they would’ve given in that instant, to wind up as Rarity had, was immeasurable.

A Spirit Thing

A Spirit Thing

It’s alright… don’t worry… you’ll be okay…

The Cutie Mark Crusaders trembled as they cuddled together out of extreme fear on a highway in a world none of them understood. Sweetie Belle’s ear perked. She swore she had just heard someone.

Come on, girls. We don’t have time for you to fear this world like this! We gotta go go go!

Scootaloo’s ears shot up and her eyes blew open in a snarling, furious rage. “Who’s there? Answer me! You won’t hurt me!”

Come on. Stand tall. You can’t ride on fear forever.

Apple Bloom joined her friends in relaxing her grip. “What the hay?”

Three faces materialized in front of them – three apelike beings with concerned looks on their faces. Scootaloo gripped her friends tighter and glared. Sweetie Belle looked back and tried to bury her head deeper into Scootaloo’s chest. Apple Bloom was unsure whether to be scared or curious, so her face was alight in a mixture of both emotions as their hallucinogenic visitors addressed them as the rest of their bodies materialized.

The trio of impossibly tall beings showed no threat whatsoever in their actions. One was enrobed in blue armor, with gentle curves, a segmented chest plate, a body suit, angled markings and a red jewel on his helmet and gray-green, kind and sympathetic eyes. Another was dressed in deeper blue armor with red stripes along the front, white spikes protruding from his shoulders, and brown hair exploding out in all directions from a hole at the bottom of his pointed red and blue helmet. His eyes spelled cocky, youthful and anxious. The last one was downright intimidating. He was a robot with angular red armor broken with gems of green and plates of white. He had long, flowing blonde hair, and a large yellow Z painted on one shoulder. His entire facial look was pure ferocity embodied, the pinnacle of the perfect warrior.

“Just who in the hay are you,” Scootaloo demanded, “and why are we here?”

The red one looked at her and shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t know what happened, either. As for who I am, I’m Zero, leader of Special Unit Zero and one of the Maverick Hunters.”

“The only way we’re going to know what happened is to battle through these mechaniloids and find out if Sigma’s still at the end of it all, or if something else is,” the one garbed in lighter blue said. “I remember this area – it was one of my first missions as a Maverick Hunter, if not my first.”

“I’m dreamin’…” Apple Bloom said, holding her head in her hooves. “I’m dreamin’… I’m in bed on Sweet Apple Acres and this is all a nightmare…” She turned and buried her face in Scootaloo’s chest with Sweetie Belle, who was sobbing hysterically.

The light sapphire being and Zero looked at each other, then nodded. “If it would help you, we could guide you on your journey,” the one with the blonde head of hair said.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Scootaloo demanded. Her eyes showed grim determination, but inside… well, she honestly wouldn’t have minded buckling to the other thing in her eye as well, the liquid one, like her friends had.

“Well, for starters, we’re the only ones who can lend you the ability to live in this world,” the darker oceanic one said. “Call me Axl.”

The lighter blue one tentatively squatted and smiled kindly, looking at the alabaster pony in her friends’ protective grip. “Come on, little one,” he said. “What’s your name? I’m X.”

“She doesn’t have to talk to the likes of you!” Scootaloo shouted. “You don’t look very trustworthy, with your armor and… whatever those tubes are on your flanks. Besides, you look like ghosts! We-”

Scootaloo stopped when she felt a shuffle against her form. Shyly, Sweetie Belle turned to the thing in blue addressing her. She opened up her scared, sad eyes and gazed deep into his.

“Sweetie Belle, what are you doing?” Apple Bloom asked, having turned to look at her friend herself. “Ya don’t know what these things are capable of!”

Sweetie Belle sniffled. “If they wanted to kill us, they would’ve done it by now,” she observed. “I don’t think this one would kill us.”

“I’m X, and no, I wouldn’t,” the being identified as X stated plainly. “My mission is to defend the sanctity of true life from those that wish to defile it. I hope for peace, but sometimes…” hearing something move behind him, he cupped his hand into the shape of a cylinder, and he turned around. Taking aim at a mech shaped like a wheel that was rolling its’ way towards them, he shot three energy blasts and blew it up. “Sometimes one must… declare war to achieve peace.” A sad look crossed his eyes. “This way was not what my creator wanted.”

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom leapt back and screeched at the explosion.

“Sweetie Belle! He’s dangerous! Get back! NOW!” the Apple family’s youngest ordered.

Instead of obeying, Sweetie Belle looked at the deep blue robot with a measure of concern. The one named X looked on the verge of tears.

He muttered, “Damn you, Sigma… Why won’t you stop harassing innocent lives?”

She placed a hoof against his leg with a firm clink. He looked down at her. Immediately, their souls connected. Each recognized a soft heart in the other, and they immediately knew what they had to do.

“I’m going to lend you my power to help you through this,” X said.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom shrieked, “WHAT?!”

Sweetie Belle looked back at them, a dead-serious look in her eye. This was probably the most serious she had ever been seen by her friends, and it was a look that told them she had made up her mind.

“If we want to survive here, we don’t have a choice,” she said morbidly. “Everyone we know isn’t here anymore, girls. It’s just us. If X, Zero and Axl know how to live in this world, then we need to trust them. We don’t have anyone else to look to right now.”

She looked into X’s eyes. “We came from a peaceful land called Equestria. Our families and friends are there. It was peaceful. Serene, even. We don’t know how to fight at all. I’m Sweetie Belle, a unicorn and sister to Rarity. Scootaloo is the orange one. The pony with the bow in h-her hair is Apple Bloom.” A tear began forming in her eye, and she began shaking in fear. “I d-don’t know about them, but I-I’m willing to accept your h-help.” A short sob escaped her lips. “If you c-c-can help us…” she dropped onto her knees and sobbed again, desperation retching every word from her tiny body “…please help us get home. I'm so scared… I ju-just want t-to go home…”

A pang of compassion flooded the sapphire robot. X knelt down beside the sobbing unicorn and put a hand on her shoulder. Instantly, the ground around them lit up. The wind kicked up. All hair in the vicinity was blown around like a tornado had suddenly hit the area. Suddenly, white beams of light shot into the sky and began spiraling around the two in the middle. Soon, these beams were joined by rays of pink, purple and blue, firing off into the sky with a sound similar to X’s charging buster. The rays coalesced into a rapidly spinning spiral and dispersed in a flash of light and the sound of the robot’s released, upgraded charge shot from his first mission, leaving a singular, glowing pony on the earth below. She pulsed with white light, fading between alabaster and sapphire with every pulse.

When the pulsing finally slowed and stopped, it was Scootaloo who gasped first.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes were closed, but this time devoid of tears. Her body was enveloped in the exact same blue armor the being she had just conversed with was wearing, with holes in her helmet for her horn and ears. The twin appendages flicked away the last of the magical residue tickling their tips, leaving shards of ether to fade to obsolescence. The armor glimmered and glinted, shimmering in the evening sky. Her eyes slowly opened, and she looked ahead, emotionless and cold, pondering her new, completely unsafe role. Rarity would not approve. Rarity would deem it ‘uncouth’ or ‘savage’… but she was safe in Ponyville, not in this new, very obviously hostile land. She continued to stare ahead, silently analyzing, thinking, wishing, hoping, and even praying she would see home once more.

Scootaloo swallowed. She did not think, at any point in her life, that her friend would look more awesome than she herself did, but this time it had happened. Sweetie Belle had gained a sweet new look, and she was jealous of her.

“Darn it! Why does she get a cool new suit of armor?” she seethed.

The one who identified himself as Axl laughed. “Why? Because she wanted to survive! You don’t survive in this world without a weapon. Trust me. If the mechaniloids don’t getcha, the Sigma virus will.”

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo separated and looked into each other’s eyes. Both read indecision and fear, but both also understood that Sweetie Belle’s conclusion was accurate. Their families were still in Equestria, so they couldn’t rely on them. Since they were alone, they would not make it out of this world alive without some kind of weaponry. The only ones who had and knew how to use said weaponry stood before them, awaiting their decisions. Finally, they knew nothing of what to expect, so to receive some kind of forewarning or advice would be supremely beneficial and improve their chances of survival greatly. So it was with great admonishment that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo turned to Zero and Axl and swallowed, ready to give their responses. Scootaloo, of course, went first.

“I don’t know you guys. I’ve made that perfectly clear,” she started. “But Sweetie Belle’s right. We won’t make it out of here alive without some help. Besides…” she said, turning an apprehensively admiration-filled eye to Axl “…you kinda remind me of Rainbow Dash.”

Axl smirked with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, really? What’s that pony like?”

With that, Scootaloo’s eyes lit up, and she and Axl walked off on their own little tangent, leaving Sweetie Belle to simply stare into the distance at nothing as she began an intense, private conversation with X about what her form now allowed her to do, like copy an enemy’s weapon, charge up an energy blast, and even receive some pretty sweet upgrades, and Apple Bloom and Zero to talk. The young farm pony shuffled hooves awkwardly.

“So…” she began. “Nice weather we’re havin’, huh?”

Zero simply nodded. “Yup.”

That’s who he reminds me of… he’s jus’ like my big brother Big Macintosh… she thought with a smile.

“So, what do you do for a livin’?” she asked.

He looked over at the robot in the distance. “See that thing on the hill?” he asked.

Looking over at the same, she nodded.

“I blow those up,” he said flatly. “X, Axl and I… we’re Maverick hunters. We have a long history with Sigma, so we know exactly how to fight his men. We’ve beaten him at least ten times, maybe more.”

“Ten times!?” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “What’s this evil virus thingy got agains’ your world, anyway?”

“He claims to want to set up his own utopia, one where he rules over everything and no humans exist. ‘For the good of the Reploid race’, he keeps saying,” Zero informed. “Don’t believe a word he says. He’s just blowing smoke.”

“Sounds like Night Mare Moon,” she said. “She wanted to make a world where the sun would never rise. Eternal night’s what she called it. My friends and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Did you want to?” Zero asked.

Apple Bloom nodded furiously. “We did, but we didn’t know what to do.” She froze. Her mouth curled up on itself as she remembered a slightly different detail from that night. “Well… I did. I didn’t know Sweetie Belle or Scootaloo back then, but now that I think about it we may have hid under the same table together. I wanted to help, for sure!”

“Who took care of it?” Zero asked.

“My sister Applejack and her friends Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash!” the red-and-yellow pony declared proudly.

“What do they look like?”

Apple Bloom thought a moment, puzzling over why he would ask that question. It occurred to the redhead that Zero had never even heard of Equestria until today, so she had to fill him in on everything about her sister and her friends. So she obliged. She told him about her sister Applejack, the orange-and-blonde palomino workhorse and main manager of Sweet Apple Acres. She told him of Fluttershy, the meek and mild butter-coloured pegasus with a pink mane and tail whose love of animals and others transcended her love for herself. She told him, like Scootaloo told Axl, about their pan-coloured daredevil stunt pony Rainbow Dash. She mentioned the purple unicorn librarian Twilight Sparkle and the two-tone pink party pony Pinkie Pie, and finally she talked of Rarity, Sweetie Belle’s sister and the chief fashion expert in Ponyville.

Zero was astonished at how well-connected this filly was. “So, how do you know everyone?” he asked.

“I’m the youngest member of the larges’ apple farmer family in Equestria,” she stated in a matter-of-fact way. “I think it jus’ happens when your sister’s jus’ about as well known as the Princesses.”

The reploid smiled. “You seem to have the most level head in this team,” he commented. “Sweetie Belle’s a little emotional. Scootaloo seems a little impulsive.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that,” the pony replied. “I think we all have our moments.”

The robot smiled. Very true.

“So,” Apple Bloom said, turning to her new friend. “What kinda moves do you got?”

Zero looked back and pulled his sabre out from his back holster. He held it at length and performed a couple swings with it. “I wield a beam sabre. I used to have a gun, but it got blown off at the start of Sigma’s fourth invasion. Now I pretty much use a sword exclusively.”

Apple Bloom stared nervously at the weapon, unsure of whether to run or be amazed.

Zero simply chuckled. “I’ll give you the basic tutorial if we decide to join together.”

Apple Bloom nodded. She sighed, then looked determinedly at Zero. “I’m ready.”

So, copying X, Zero knelt down and placed the palm of his hand on Apple Bloom’s head at the precise time Axl did the same with Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle looked back at her friends and smiled with a mixture of glee, softened with a sprinkle of regret. Both X and Sweetie Belle thought the same thing together.

Another group of innocents going to war… when will it end?

As her friends completed their transformations, all duplicating what Sweetie Belle had gone through before, save for some slight variations in colour of the non-white beams, they each bore a new armor that matched the reploid they had paired with. Apple Bloom’s Zero armor was only missing one thing – the helmet. That was replaced by her bow. Also, where Zero had a yellow Z on his shoulder, Apple Bloom’s bore a Golden Delicious apple. Scootaloo’s outfit was without the back white spikes. Her wings took the place of those decorations. The trio walked solemnly up to each other. Looking their partners over, a small dollop of confidence began to bubble up. Each of them slowly pulled out their weaponry, and they looked them over. They felt so dirty, holding these weapons of war, but they knew, even in their young minds, that they could not survive without them.

A smirk formed on Scootaloo’s face. It slowly spread to Apple Bloom’s. Then, it passed over to Sweetie Belle. Immediately, they knew what their common thoughts were, and the smiles grew ever larger. Suddenly, three hooves clapped together, and a three-fold sound exploded in unison at a volume that could shake the dead.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Maverick Hunters! YAY!”

Highway to Hell, Part One

Highway to Hell, Part One

Ready…

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had just acquired their powerful new weapons in a world that originally had scared them beyond belief. They took a brief second to examine their new toys, each foal giggling like ones their age would every Hearth’s Warming Eve. Apple Bloom withdrew her sabre using her mouth, but soon realized it would be difficult to use as it was without giving her major whiplash. Scootaloo pulled a gun out with her forehoof, but again it proved to be a daunting task for her to balance properly. Only Sweetie Belle seemed to have little trouble with her weapon because the fusion had allowed X’s weapon to translate from her foreleg to her horn, granting her weapon-based magic. She could now blast things with large magic yellow corn bullets, as she called them. She spent time practicing what X was teaching her, like how to aim her gun and how to charge and release energy. This changed her blast from yellow pellets to a green lazer and finally to a large blue ball. He even taught her how to make use of the solar energy cells running along her back to keep her reserves charged, Zero and Axl were busy trying to piece together how to get Apple Bloom and Scootaloo’s weapons to work…

No, Apple Bloom… not like… ooh, that’s gonna leave a mark…

Scootaloo! Hold onto them like… well, your hooves can’t hold on like my hands can. Drat!

Maybe it would be best if… oh, damn it.

Shoot! No! Not there!!

The last comment was made in response to Scootaloo nearly loading Apple Bloom with eleven fully-automatic blue energy bullets, and the farm filly barely dodging eight of them while deflecting three away from herself and her friends. Finally Scootaloo just lost it.

“Horse apples!” she screeched, throwing a pistol to the pavement. “These guns are useless!”

Immediately, the gun set off four bullets, one of which connected with Scootaloo’s fetlock and just dissolved.

Apple Bloom simply collapsed. She dropped her blade to the ground. “This is hopeless,” she whined. “Looks like Sweetie Belle’s gonna have to save us on her own.”

Look, girls, just give us a sec. We’re trying to come up with a solution! Zero said, slightly irritated that what had been expected to be an easy transition was not.

Axl agreed. Yeah. We’ll get this right. You’ll see!

X sighed. This was a lot harder for you two than I thought… Well, for now, until we can think of something better, let’s try and get through this area.

Sweetie Belle smiled at her friends. “We’ll get it. Just give our friends some time.”

The orange pegasus groaned. “I hate not being the leader…”

“Well, we ain’t got much choice if’n we can’t get our weapons goin’,” the youngest Apple said. “‘Sides, it’ll give us some good strategies for when we get to fightin’ ourselves.”

“Oh, thanks,” Sweetie Belle deadpanned. "Now I'm your guinea pig."

All six had a good chuckle as they advanced on their first enemy – one tall, blue, bipedal turret. Sweetie Belle dispatched this one with a charge blast and a couple corn balls, plus a couple simple jumps between his well-spaced blasts. Shortly after him, they encountered a gap in the road, followed by a platform a couple feet higher than the one they were on. They surmounted this with ease, but Apple Bloom stopped and looked down into the hole. She gasped as she realized the depth of the hole stretched far down into the city’s lower streets.

“Uh, Zero, sir… how high up are we, ‘zactly?” she asked.

Her traveling compatriot replied, About five hundred feet.

The Earth pony swallowed and took a couple steps back as she heard a second explosion behind her. She turned her attention to the field and saw Sweetie Belle firing her horn at an airborne road-crushing machine, the green bubbles carrying large spiked balls beneath them. A shower of shrapnel falling around her friend told Apple Bloom the explosion from before was her friend destroying another of them earlier. A spiked ball dropped from this second one and destroyed a part of the road.

Scootaloo grimaced. “So, we don’t let those spikes hit the ground.”

Axl replied, Nope. Enough of them hit, the road breaks, and you’ll fall to your death. The road can only take between one and three of those types of blows. Your wings don’t look large enough to fly, so you won’t be able to rely on them to carry you if you do fall.

“Gee, thanks…” Scootaloo retorted, hurt that Axl would point out her very obvious flaw. “Like I didn’t know that.”

Oh, sorry… Axl weakly apologized, then chuckled.

A few more of these turrets, a couple pits, and a whole lot of spiked balls later, two of which actually managed to hit their party before Sweetie Belle was able to deal with them, Scootaloo stopped them at the next turret.

“I bet I can use those cannons to fire my weapons!” she declared. “Cutie Mark Crusaders and Maverick Hunters huddle!”

As they huddled, though, a couple missiles popped Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

“Ouch!” they exclaimed. Apple Bloom rubbed her side. “Okay, Scoots, before we keep goin’, let’s move a little further from that bot.”

So, when they had cleared a large area they had just been from enemies once again, they stopped to discuss their plan.

“Okay, so what’s your big idea, Scoots?” Apple Bloom asked.

Yeah. I’d like to see how she thinks she can take those cannons from that robot. Zero skeptically replied.

Scootaloo smirked. “Okay, here’s what we do. We’ll need to act fast so we don’t get popped by that jerk again…”

After a few minutes of hashing out a plan, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle returned their attention to the pathway ahead. They lined up in a wall formation and stared their opponent down. As the Crusaders prepared for battle, Zero was genuinely impressed by the orange filly’s plan. He truly hoped it would succeed. X, of course, was nervous about his charge and her place in the plot. Axl, on the other hand, was giving hoots, hollers and cheers, hoping to spur them on to victory, fully-supportive of this techno-thievery. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom looked at each other and gave an affirmative nod. The trio of fillies snorted simultaneously as they turned their attention to their stationary victim.

The blue turret waited silently.

The fillies eyed it down.

The girls crouched, pawing at the steel beneath them.

Their guardians held their words…

Until the battle command came.

“CHARGE!!” Scootaloo cried as she reared up.

Sweetie Belle flooded the turret with bullets. Scootaloo slowed a little to allow Apple Bloom time to get into position. She knelt down and “cupped” her hooves together. Scootaloo ran partway bipedal, stepping squarely on Apple Bloom’s hooves, whereupon the butter-toned filly promptly thrust her friend up into the air with a loud grunt. Scootaloo, high enough to do a small stunt, calmly directed herself into a slow-rotating backflip. Apple Bloom quickly leapt out of the way as the turret dropped on its haunches and fired two small, fast-moving electrical bursts. Sweetie Belle was struck by the rolling pink balls, slightly dazed but not very fazed. Scootaloo landed atop the turret and began tearing at its’ circuitry with her bare hooves.

“Give me your cannons, you overgrown hunk of scrap!” she screeched as she tore at the turret’s outer casing with the ravenous fury of a hundred feeding coyotes.

The turret didn’t understand what was going on. It kept on firing missiles and energy balls at its’ normal intervals, continuing even as Scootaloo successfully removed one of its’ missile silos from its body with a forceful, howling grunt. An internal error caused the turret to cease firing missiles lest it damage itself, so it squatted down and began firing pink balls at twice the rate it had before. As Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle began playing jump-rope with electricity, Scootaloo tore out the other cannon and tossed it with the first, towards a long, unbroken expanse of roadway.

“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouted. “Finish the sucker off!”

Her alabaster friend leapt in the air over a wave of rose-coloured energy and fired a large, blue blast. Just before it connected, Scootaloo leapt off to an expanse behind the robot, once again high enough to perform a quick backflip. As the ball connected with the robot, however, the turret exploded, sending a shockwave that threw Scootaloo backwards a few feet. She landed awkwardly on a single hoof, yet still maintained her balance enough to catch the two cannons she had just stolen, if just barely.

The little horse did it, X said, his eyes wide. Colour me impressed.

Zero hummed an agreement as Axl cheered, leapt and jumped around in his ecstasy, complimenting Scootaloo endlessly. Scootaloo stood slowly, her head appearing beyond the wreckage of the obliterated robot and her friends darting towards her, relief mixed with surprise and peppered with astonishment at their success. After a brief leap over the dead mech, they embraced joyously and revelled in their well-coordinated victory, the first time in their eyes that their plans had worked so well to an end goal.

Zero thought for a second, then asked, So, what’re you going to do with the cannons?

Scootaloo frowned, the mood killed by the one question. She hadn’t really thought that far. She knew she needed the guns, but what for? It was Apple Bloom that provided the answer to that question.

“Well, I think what she was goin’ to try to do was attach these here barrels to the top of her wings and runnin’ these rods” indicating the long rods at the base of the missile barrels “to her energy packs in her armor so she can fire Axl’s guns from her wings instead of her hooves.”

Scootaloo’s eyes brightened. “Y-yeah! That’s what I needed them for! That was exactly the plan.”

Zero smirked sarcastically and thought to himself, Sure, my little mini-Axl pony… He connected eyes with the youngest member of the squad, who returned his look with a questioning one of his own.

What? Axl asked his compatriot quizzically.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom were busy trying to figure out a way to attach the cannons to her wings. A sound of whirling blades joined the cacophony of Crusader conversation as Scootaloo's wings were mercilessly manipulated by her friends. Tossed-around ideas and pleas for help peppered the chat. Steadily, the wind kicked up.

X gasped. Girls!

The fillies paid no mind. They were still wrestling Scootaloo into her new wing cannons, protests from the young pegasus ringing loud and clear over the helicopter blades a short distance away.

Axl began panicking. Girls! Watch out!

Three bullets were fired. The danger the girls were in would soon mark an early end to their journey.

Zero commandingly shouted, Crusaders! Roll over! Now!

Without a second thought, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo rolled one way and Sweetie Belle rolled the other as three bullets created pock marks on the earth below. Quickly, the girls looked up.

“Is that… a honey bee?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Apple Bloom gasped.

Scootaloo bit her lip. “Buck me…”

There, hovering thirty feet in front of them was a giant mechaniloid. Greatly reminiscent of the insect the unicorn had mentioned previously, its eyes were replaced with a giant green screen. Above the screen, two tiny tubes with matching green bulbs projected from its face. The bee-bot’s mandibles concealed a high-calibre rapid fire machine gun, and on the sides of its cheeks there were tubes with launch holes for decent-sized blast missiles. Its body was striped blue and yellow. It had no wings, nor legs. Instead, it had a single large, rotating helicopter blade quartet attached to the upper portion of the thorax. The lower part of its abdomen held a door that could open up and drop a large object down upon its enemies. The size… well, the beast was such that it could easily hold nearly two dozen Crusaders.

Sweetie Belle began pelting it with blasts. “Come on, girls! You can use your weapons as they are for now! We’ll have to find a better way after!”

Apple Bloom was quick to evade three shots before pulling out her sword and leaping into the air at the eyes of her opponent. She tore into the buzzard with all the strength her form could muster, quietly taking rapid-fire instruction from her guardian. Scootaloo pulled out a single automatic energy pistol, aimed using the ground, and bit hard on the trigger with a loud grunt. A spray of nearly fifteen bullets strong erupted from the gun before the first connected with the bee. Her instructor leapt and taunted the insect mercilessly.

Sweetie Belle noticed a presence appear at the back of the mech – a large, round ball. After rolling for a second, it stood on two highly curved legs and began approaching them. Sweetie Belle began charging a shot while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom worked on the giant one. Slowly, the ball stepped forward as its’ mother unloaded two more of the orbs. Sweetie Belle dodged another hail of bullets as the walking sphere nearest to Scootaloo dropped back into a ball and began rolling towards her at high speed. Catching her hoof on a loose pebble, Sweetie Belle used that tiny speck of leverage to swing herself around and unleash hell upon that which dared to get close to her friend; the giant blue energy ball easily obliterated the metal one charging straight for Scootaloo.

The long hail of bullets still stopped, however, as Scootaloo came into contact with a series of shots and finally another metal ball in quick succession. These blasts knocked her back quite a ways, and caused her to lose grip on one of her guns. It clattered against the side of the highway.

“Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom shrieked.

She leapt from her high point, blade held to her left. She bore down hard on the ball with a strong growl, slicing it clean in half. She whirled around, throwing her blade at the other one approaching Sweetie Belle at high speed. The unicorn leapt into the air and released a second blast of energy straight down. Sword and energy blast connected at the same time, causing an explosion that launched Sweetie Belle several hooves into the air and flung the sword off to one side, impaling itself two feet deep in the roadway, blade at a steep angle.

Quickly now, spin and fire!

Subconsciously, she took the opportunity to charge another blast and managed to aim for the connection between the helicopter blade and the body of the beast with a really awkward twist. Upon release, she was immediately impacted by two missiles fired from the creature’s face. She was knocked back and nearly cleared the side of the highway. All that stopped her were two barricades that were designed to prevent something much faster than a small, pony-sized projectile. The blades were cleaved clean from the creature’s back, which sent the bot crashing hard into the roadway in a burst of multiple explosions seconds after Sweetie Belle herself slid back down to the surface with a grunt of pain.

The Crusaders, breathing heavily, slowly came to a standing position one at a time and looked at the downed mech. Slowly smiles crept onto their faces as they realized they had survived what had been their greatest challenge in this world to this point. They had taken something down that was easily a dozen times their size.

They felt safe.

They felt invincible.

They felt they could actually survive.

And then the highway gave way, sending the trio of victorious ponies and the flying bee they just eliminated plummeting to the city below, screaming as they fell to their inevitable end.

Highway to Hell, Part Two

Highway to Hell, Part Two

Ready…

“There is no way we should be alive right now.”

Scootaloo, armor pocked with nicks, cuts and dents, sat atop the bee they had just blown up not five minutes ago. She looked up at two columns of steel rising over five hundred hooves higher than where they were. Her friends Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, no worse for wear than her from the end of the fight save for a beautiful shiner where Apple Bloom had been hit with a laser bullet, were examining their surroundings as she looked up at the highway.

In addition to the purple sky above, the obliterated green and gray roadway beneath, and several steel pillars rising to their former adversary’s fore and aft, the fallen section of roadway was surrounded with a pulsing, golden mile-high force field. As they looked to the bee’s left and right, they realized they had landed on a second highway, meandering underneath the one they had first traveled on. It seemed closed that day, but the reason could not be discerned due to lack of signage. There was no traffic headed in either direction. They soon realized that if they hadn’t fallen in this exact place, they would’ve dropped down to the city’s streets. Those were far enough below the Crusaders couldn’t even see them. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, exploring the edges of their platform, shrunk back when they realized this. They had, once again, come within a hair’s breadth of dying.

Scootaloo swallowed and replayed the fall in her mind. She flinched as they landed, Sweetie Belle directly on her spine, Apple Bloom on her front hooves, then on her chin, and finally she herself daintily and squarely on all four hooves. Yet, the fall didn’t seem to damage them in the least. She counted them lucky – she didn’t know how far this armor could cushion their fall from, but she was certain it wasn’t completely impervious.
The adrenaline began to subside as the Crusaders communed near the bug’s head to try to formulate a plan to get out of the valley of metal. A few ideas were thrown around, but nothing was clearly outlined. Eventually, the Crusaders slinked down, backs to the large mech, and sighed a collective resignation to death by decomposition.

That is, until X broke in.

You guys can scale walls, you know.

The Crusaders traded looks of disbelief before Sweetie Belle voiced it: “Huh? How?”

“Excuse me for a second, my little pony…” X materialized again and lifted up one of Sweetie’s hind hooves. “See this switch?”

Sweetie Belle nodded. Her friends crowded around the young pony to learn themselves. The filly quickly found herself uncomfortable with so many living beings around her back end and blushed slightly, ears half-flattening.

X continued, “You kick this switch as you run. That turns on a special antigravity unit in your body that allows you to kick up walls. Every time you kick away from a wall, the unit ‘drags’ you back to the wall, allowing you to kick your way up or slide your way down.”

The trio looked at their hooves and noted the switches were all in the same place – the inside of their back pair. Scootaloo, ever the one to try new, daring moves first, smirked and bolted to the wall. She kicked the earth, bringing her flank high in the air, and clicked her rear hooves against each other, tripping the switch and activating her antigravity unit. Without a second’s hesitation and losing zero speed, she leapt upward and placed a hoof on the vertical plain. With the same sprint, she quickly carried herself up the wall and up to the surface. From her height, she shouted back down something indiscernible, though her friends were certain it had something to do with the climb being really cool. Shortly after, Axl and Scootaloo busied themselves with a minor celebration.

The other two fillies, however, looked at each other, scared to attempt the climb. Apple Bloom looked back up at the towering wall and kicked her back hoof. Sweetie Belle followed suit.

Don’t worry, fillies, X encouraged. If you get scared, just let yourselves slide back down slowly. The unit also catches that, too.

“S-so it ain’t gonna jus’ quit on us?” Apple Bloom asked.

Zero replied, Hasn’t for us yet, and we’ve only got two legs. You should be able to hold your own very well with four.

Sweetie Belle swallowed nervously. Every logical fibre of her being was saying this could not happen. Yet, she had managed to somehow go to a place she had never been, acquire the armor of a robot and subsequently obliterate a sea of other mechs without so much as a quick breather just before this giant bug, and then she had unloaded hundreds of rounds’ worth of ammo into the insect without flinching.

So what was the harm in trying something else that should’ve been impossible? Besides, didn’t Scootaloo just climb out mere seconds ago?

“Apple Bloom, let’s try this together,” she said, looking at her red-tailed compatriot.

They shared a nod before eyeing their next opponent – a solid steel wall. They recalled what Scootaloo did, leaping just before she got to the vertical surface, and landing at a dead run as she clamored up the post to eventual victory. Running through her leap several times, the remaining pit-bound Crusaders mentally practiced the jump for a few minutes before finally deciding it was time for a real-world attempt. It was with snorts of determination and focus they charged. Apple Bloom was quick to surmount the wall, but Sweetie Belle… well, she wound up with a face full of metal as she ran her head straight into the pole after leaping far too shallow for her hooves to grab the steel. She slid down to ground level and glared at her opponent. She pulled away and shook her head, then noticed she was the only one by the bug.

“Oh, COME ON!!!” she screeched, flailing her forelegs in the air.

She backed up and growled, eyeing her opponent once again. She couldn’t believe she had miscalculated like that, but it happened, and she was now royally pissed off. “It. Is. On!”

She charged with a loud battle cry, then leapt at the wall. This time, she successfully landed on the wall. She gave a harder-than-normal buck, leaving two small hoof dents on the surface as she rappelled up to her friends. When she met them at the top, there was a loud, rambunctious cheer, followed by and angry raspberry meant for the pit they had just come from courtesy of Sweetie Belle. After they had cleared that hole, they began proceeding forward in the hopes of finding some answers. They surmounted a small hole in the walkway and walked on.

Unfortunately, karma cruelly felt like playing the role of bitch, and it decided to have a field day with these fillies.

A couple minor robots after this, they reached a second open space. The Crusaders had a feeling of foreboding, coupled with annoyance at the sight, which just so happened to be exactly the same as the space where they fought the first bee.

“Oh no…” Scootaloo said exasperatedly.

Apple Bloom applied hoof to forehead as Sweetie Belle groaned.

Oh, did we forget to mention there were two? Axl jeered, chuckling.

“Yes!” the Crusaders shouted.

Less than ten seconds later, another helicopter sound obliterated the silence of the air, and they were quickly engaged in another round of battle with the bug’s brother… sister… whatever. This one they dispatched with relative ease, taking all they had learned from the previous bug – the weak point being its’ helicopter blade and the fact that Apple Bloom could deflect its bullets with her sword – and forming a strategy that allowed them to utterly tear this one to pieces with minimal damage. They surmounted the resulting pit, Sweetie Belle in a mistake-less fashion, and continued onwards.

The terrain had progressively shown further signs of decay and destruction as the progressed. Now the road itself began proving unstable. After a slight incline, a rolling bot surrounded by spikes, and two small pests easily dispatched with a single charge beam, they stepped on a part of the road and leapt off. Apple Bloom was the last in the line, and felt the earth give way just as she left. She looked towards where the platform was and grimaced.

“Girls, stop,” she said.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were about to ask her why when suddenly the roadway beneath Sweetie shuddered. She shrieked and leapt back, landing near her pegasus friend on a pillar a little ways away from Apple Bloom, one of only three stable structures in the roadway ahead. The space Sweetie had just stopped standing on fell down into the city, cracking to pieces on some unseen object far below.

“The road’s unstable,” Scootaloo solemnly observed. “Apple Bloom! Try jumping across!”

“The distance’s too great!” she shouted. “Go on without me!”

Scootaloo smirked. “We’re not going anywhere without you, Apple Bloom!”

“Scale the wall on the other side if you have to!” Sweetie Belle offered.

Apple Bloom decided to go for it. She backed up until she felt a slight crumble from the roadway behind her. She looked back and swallowed, eyeing the pit behind her as it extended deeper into non-existence than some of the ones before. Certain she couldn’t back up any more if she tried, she ran for it. She leapt and nearly cleared it, but her hooves didn’t quite catch on the edge of the platform where her friends were. As she began her descent, she remembered Sweetie’s suggestion and hugged the wall. Her antigravity unit caught onto what was happening and switched on automatically. It slowed her descent, which allowed her to recover and prance up the wall to join her friends. After Sweetie Belle cleared the sky of two tiny insect-like bugs, they looked ahead.

The road immediately in front of them appeared stable at only four points. The rest of the surface was covered in tiny nicks and scratches, ready to collapse under their weight at any time. A few points had already crumbled away from damage. Beyond that, though, it didn’t look like there was too much treacherous territory. In fact, most of the holes and high points had already been passed. The edge of the city was in fact in view. A slow descent was all that remained for them to conquer.

“Well, that’s okay, I guess…” Sweetie Belle commented.

With that, they made their way across the chasms, not stopping for anything on the broken sections and safely crossing to the first stable road form they saw. The Crusaders made it to another pit, but before they could do anything about it, they were accosted by two flying mechs. They were triangular in shape, striped with purple and blue. The two points on the bottom were spiked, and the point on top was where the little helicopter blade rested. They weren’t terribly difficult, so the Crusaders dispatched them with relative ease. Shortly after the fifth one and another particularly wide chasm that Scootaloo had to help Sweetie Belle cross, a red and blue car-bot with a monolith cannon mounted to the hood hit Apple Bloom head-on, knocking her nearly back into the pit.

“Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo shouted. She set herself up and unloaded countless rounds into the car, causing the engine and the driver to blow up.

The little farmer pony grunted and got up. “Anyone get the model number of that bot?” She rubbed her head where a wheel had rolled over it.

That confirms it – your entire biology is now robotic. Zero said.

“What?” Scootaloo asked.

X continued explaining, Normally, when a biological creature like yourselves gets hit with a car or something, you simply splatter.

Scootaloo shouted “Gross!” as Apple Bloom gagged and Sweetie Belle gasped.

But since you survived that hit, we may have supplied you with more than just armor, Axl stated. It seems you guys have a bit of our reploid bodies in you as well, reinforcing your natural structure.

“Equestrian, please.” Scootaloo looked annoyed at all the big words.

Zero sighed. Our fusion made your bones and skin metal. You are now robots.

Apple Bloom gasped. “I’m… artificial now?” she asked.

Sweetie Belle looked at the ground. “And after all this time trying to stop those stupid Sweetie Bot rumours…”

“I’m a robot…” Scootaloo looked at the next car ahead of them and grinned wildly. “Come and get me, you motherbucker!!”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle gasped. The farm pony looked at her friend angrily. “Y’know ya shouldn’t use that language, Scoots! It ain’t polite!”

“Come on, A.B.! Loosen up!” Scootaloo said with a bit of an evil grin. “There aren’t any parents here. We can say anything we feathering want!” She bolted at the next robot.

“That don’t mean we should start…” the cherry-haired apple filly muttered.

“So, what should we call ourselves?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I guess for a while Sweetie Bot’s good enough for me. I’m still not letting the bullies at school get away with it when we get back, though.”

Scootaloo came charging back in a frightened fury. “Worry later, run now!”

The girls quickly looked back to see a car chasing their friend. They grew panicky, frantic and worried and turned tail to run after her, but they soon saw her returning… and firing a train of bullets from the top of a ruined car!

Sweetie Belle’s face contorted into a mass of confusion. “Huh?!”

“I stole this from a robot! Jump on and start shooting!” Scootaloo shouted as she passed by.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle snapped to attention and ran after the car. As soon as they landed, the unicorn began firing at whatever moved in front of them, like Scootaloo did. They destroyed another car, rode theirs to safety over a particularly long jump, and on the final straightaway obliterated another couple cars before their car’s engine simply blew out.

Scootaloo wasn’t done with forward motion, however. She fired up her wings, planted her hooves deeper into the car, and began trying to push the vehicle along with her wing power. However, that didn’t work. The car exploded and flung the three Crusaders forward. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo crashed into an invisible barrier while Sweetie Belle sailed right through it to land on the other side.

Apple Bloom stood up and looked around. Scootaloo was lying unconscious on the pavement, and Sweetie Belle was slowly getting up from the other side of the barrier. There were no other threats they could see, so after a short examination Scootaloo was confirmed to be still breathing and all points were secured. Apple Bloom then turned her attention to her friend behind the barrier.

“Sweetie Belle!” she shouted.

Her friend heard the shout and came back to them, but this time she didn’t pass through the barrier. She was blocked.

“What in tarnation?” Apple Bloom muttered. She tapped a couple times on the barrier.

Sweetie Belle swallowed. “What’s going on here?” she asked nervously. “I don’t like this…”

X spoke up. Sweetie Belle.

“What?” the unicorn asked, terror dripping from the word.

This battle you have to face alone. he said. I remember now – this was where I had my first confrontation with Vile.

“So we don’t get to help her?” Apple Bloom asked. “Why not?”

Axl shrugged as X replied, This battle is hers alone. She must fight Vile without help.

Sweetie Belle began tearing up. “But I’m scared…”

X materialized again. “It’s okay, Sweetie. I’ll tell you what to do. The faster you do as I say, the quicker it’ll be over.”

“What are you saying?” the farmer asked.

Just then, a monolith ship flew overhead. It slowed over the highway. The Crusaders swallowed nervously as the bay door opened. A platform descended, carrying a massive robot. This robot was a super-sized, navy blue bipedal monster, with fists and feet as large as Sweetie Belle herself. The robot was rolled off its platform and laid to rest about fifty feet away.

Rarity’s sister turned around fully and began charging a nervous blast. Apple Bloom stood behind the barrier, staring at her friend, wanting to protect her, yet knowing she had no choice but to let her do this alone. X and Zero looked on, wondering about the little pony and if her body would take what was coming to her. They knew what had happened. They knew what she was about to go through.

They knew she could very easily die.

Sweetie Belle spoke up as a second, smaller robot of purple descended into the larger one. “X?”

He looked at her and hummed an acknowledgement.

“What happened to you all those years ago?”

He fell silent as the purple robot with the giant cannon made himself comfortable. The robot awoke to the movements of the reploid within. The bipedal second armor stood, and the large ship slowly flew away. Slowly Vile began taking steps towards the tiny unicorn, who joined her Earth pony farmer friend in shuddering in fear.

“That bot’s huge…” Apple Bloom said, her words shaking like leaves in an autumn breeze.

Zero nodded at the robot, glaring at him with the ferocity of many battles of varying success rates in his memory. He growled and mumbled something that shot Sweetie Belle’s heart to her throat. No two words would scare her more ever again as these two did. They would nearly send her into a blind panic on the spot.

She realized what X’s silence meant.

She realized she was going to be hurt – and badly.

Before Zero spoke, she sobbed in absolute fear.

“That’s Vile.”

As if on cue, instinct kicked in and she lost all emotion as she prepared to fight for her life.

Three steps left.

Two.

One.

And the rout was on.

Highway to Hell, Part Three

Highway to Hell, Part Three

WARNING

The first hit is always the most painful one. It is the introduction to levels of pain one can only hope to forget a few moments later. It is the merciful one – the one that tells a person or pony if one has any hope in hell of winning a fight. It is the most vengeful one, where the body decides it didn’t like what happened and is going to tell the brain to tell its host to stop as loud as it can. Finally, it is the relaxing one. The only way it can possibly get any worse is for one to die. In a way, that first hit is morbidly assuring – that is the worst pain one is ever going to receive in a fight. After that, the body numbs, the mind quiets, and the brain shuts down ninety percent of its pain receptors.

Sweetie Belle quickly found some small comfort in these facts.

A fist easily the size of her tiny body effortlessly sent her flying into the force field separating her from her friends hard enough to ricochet clear across the battlefield. She landed hard, viciously somersaulted five or six times and skidded to a painful stop fifty feet away from a cackling, insane robot without any remorse or care for her safety. Slowly she began standing again only to hear a rocket booster fire up and rapidly increase in volume. In a flash, the pain returned and her world was once again flip-flopped left side right. This time, she landed square atop her horn, impaling herself into the roadway.

“Ouch… What do I do, X?” she asked, wrenching her horn free from the path with a grunt.

As X replied, she deftly dodged another reckless charge and fired two quick corn balls at her opponent.

Let him hit you.

Sweetie Belle groaned. “What?! You said you fought him and beat him. What’s the problem?”

She ran off to one side, barely avoiding repeated abuse at fists constantly crushing the road behind her. She screamed as she was chased around the highway by the psychotic mount-bound robot.

I beat him the second time and every time after that, X said. This first time I lost, and badly.

Sweetie Belle uttered the first non-Equestrian curse spoken by the entire country’s populace since Nightmare Moon’s banishment as she dropped to the earth and rolled.

“Dammit.”

She barely dodged the freight train intent on creating a pancake with her body as the main ingredient. The news of X’s initial defeat killed all her bravery, eliminated what zeroes were left, shredded the negatives, nuked all the shredded bits, and wiped out whatever radiation fell behind. In her panic, her anger flared at X for this predicament.

“So you led me to my death, you backwater feathered flank wart!” she shouted as she ran. “Sweet Celestia, this is the worst! Possible! Thing! Why?”

I’m sorry, but listen, please… X began. He knew in her voice he had lost some of her trust.

“Shut up! Take me home!” she shrieked. “Do something! Save me!”

She screeched in pain and agony as the robot chasing her bore right through her, running over her poor form. She was sent rolling for a good ten feet, grunting and groaning and grimacing through the whole ordeal. Quickly getting to her feet, she rolled again, but just as he passed her, Vile stopped, twisted, and ploughed her two feet into the highway with his fist.

That was that. Her energy reserves were sapped, her body was bruised and broken, and her will was torched. Sweetie Belle, in a world of pain she had never experienced before this moment, swallowed and mentally apologized to the world before she squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the final impact, the one that would send her to her death.

Vile approached her, slowly and sadistically, savoring every last step of his inevitable victory. He let out a chuckle as he raised his left foot. With half the amount of pressure used to fuse steel together, he pinned her down under the lowest-most appendage and began applying increasing amounts of pressure very, very slowly, steadily and sardonically crushing the young pony. He let loose a loud cackle, howling over his victory.

“You worthless piece of scrap metal!” Vile crowed. “Did you really think you could defeat me?”

Sweetie Belle screamed as Vile proceeded to continue to crush the life from her helpless and heavily damaged body.

On the other side of the field, Scootaloo had been knocked out cold at the start of the fight and remained that way, though she was still breathing. However, Apple Bloom had begun flailing her hooves, her sword and her body on the barrier about halfway through the fight, trying to eviscerate the not-thing that had isolated her from Sweetie Belle. She was screaming at Vile for things like child abuse, being a bad pony, and ordering him to stop through a mixture of anger and fear. Occasionally she would call out Sweetie Belle’s name, hoping to help in some way, shape or form. However, until this point it had proved worthless. The battle was progressing without her, and her friend was getting indefensibly obliterated as a result.

At that point, Apple Bloom had taken out her sword, trying to destroy the barrier with her assault. As she prepared her final furious frustrated throw, the barrier suddenly and inexplicably dropped. Her sword flew through the air, a long light bullet that was on a trajectory aimed right at the shoulder joint of the robot who was about to kill her friend. The young swordspony noticed this and cheered loudly, celebrating what she thought was her barrier-breaking success and the unplanned bonus of the elimination of a foe’s limb.

At the last second, hearing the cries and cheers of his victim’s friend for the first time, Vile turned to look at the new sound source, shuffling his monolith vehicle slightly to accommodate his desired vantage point. Just as he looked over, the sabre pierced an even weaker part of his battle armor’s arm than what was originally targeted before. This severed the limb instantly, sending it crashing to the ground and Vile atop the ride armor reeling at the shockwave. The robot, responding to the surprise of its rider, stumbled back a couple steps and relieved the two tonnes of pressure bearing down upon the poor filly beneath. The sword impaled into the highway behind the wounded. The angered robot’s eyes, hidden by the shadows of his helmet, shone red as Apple Bloom charged toward him, fully intending on tearing this robot limb from limb. Her trademark bow’s outer leaves rotated until they faced her opponent and launched two half-charged green blasts. She stopped, screaming all manner of vitriol at the purple antagonist as Vile leapt into the sky, then disappeared. The airship swept down from clear across the city, catching the evil robot in its cargo hold and flying away at a high rate of speed. Her bullets flew past, unhindered by any obstacles, and eventually simply disintegrated about three hundred yards away.

Apple Bloom groaned. She looked at her friend and sighed.

“Well, I guess he’s gone for now,” she said, smiling.

Sweetie Belle frowned. “I guess I’m not powerful enough to defeat him…”

Apple Bloom returned the frown and sighed. “Sweetie Belle, I don’t think we shoulda ‘spected to beat him. He looked like he was built for war. ‘Sides, we ain’t been here long, and he’s bound to have had more a-spear-ience than us at this kinda thing.” Her frown turned into a kind smile. “I’m jus’ glad yer okay.”

“That’s right,” Axl said. “Besides, you just got that form. You can’t be expected to learn all its abilities in a single day.”

Zero nodded. “When you realize all the abilities X was designed with, you should become stronger.”

X chuckled. “You may even become as powerful as I am. The next time you fight him, you’ll be able to beat him. I’m sure of it.”

“We’ve got you guys to help us, too,” Apple Bloom replied with a smile, indicating their recently rematerialized guardians. “I’m sure we’ll get through this.”

Apple Bloom placed a comforting hoof on her friend’s shoulder. Sweetie Belle smiled at her compatriot in hopeful gratefulness just as Scootaloo woke up with a pained groan. Noticing this, they gasped in happy shock and glee and ran over to her, tackling her in a rolling wheel of metallic pony love fest. After a brief moment of joy, they separated and simply looked at each other. Slowly a common thought passed between them and their faces lost their shine.

Oh boy… Zero said to X and Axl, a wilting feeling forming in his heart. Here it comes…

As predicted, the girls whirled around to the figures behind them and began screaming thousands of different complaints, questions, insults, and general berating statements at them all at once.

“Did you know that would happen?”

“How dare you keep secrets from us!”

“I wanna go home!”

“You’re all morons!”

After two minutes of this scream-fest, Axl sighed and turned to Zero. “Remind me never to build kids of my own.”

Zero and X seconded and approved the motion unanimously before Zero managed to quiet everyone down with some difficulty.

“Listen, I know you all have questions. We’ll be glad to answer them all when we get to Maverick Hunter Headquarters and get you all debriefed with Signas,” the ruby robot replied. “It’s not safe to stay here. They probably have crews coming to fix the highway as we speak.”

Sweetie Belle sighed in exasperation. “Fine…” she grumbled. “But as soon as we get to Hindquarters, we’re getting some answers.”