Ponies Versus Starcraft

Chapters

Spike vs Ultralisk
Twilight Sparkle vs Cerebrate
Rarity vs Additional Pylons
Pinkie Pie vs Infestor
Colgate vs Defiler
Fluttershy vs Universe
Celestia vs the Queen of Blades
Rainbow Dash vs Leviathan
Wonderbolts vs Phoenix vs Viking
Iron Will vs Angry Units
Vinyl Scratch and Octavia vs The Nuke
Applejack vs High Templar
Cutie Mark Crusaders vs Overmind
Emperor Manesk vs Shipping
Pinkie Pie vs Bunker
Rarity vs The Natural Expansion
Rainbow Dash vs Rage of the Metagame
Twilight Sparkle vs Proxy Pylon
Fluttershy vs Zerg Larva
The Apple Family reenact The Discord (no not that one!)
Changeling vs Changeling
MMM vs MMMM
Colgate vs 6 pool
Mule vs Mule
Luna vs DTs
Applejack vs Siege Tank
Lyra vs Wall-in
Cometh The Derp, Cometh The Ladder
Team Chat - 1 of 3
Team Chat - 2 of 3
Team Chat 3 of 3
Team Terran vs One Pesky Ling
Twilight vs Sexy New Legs (or lack thereof)
Rarity vs Creep
Team zerg gets recruitin'
Something Something Darkness
Rarity vs Information
Rarity gets a slice
Fluttershy vs Appetites
All your hatch are belong to us
Throwdown in Terran Town
Exchanges

Spike vs Ultralisk

The air thundered with the beast’s roar. Its rampage had brought an avalanche down upon it, but that was not to be the end of it.

No, for the earth trembled with fear as claws immense as the ribs of great whales pulverized the tomb of rock. In seconds it would be free and bear down upon them with a hundred tonnes of zerg fury.

Spike held fast to Twilight Sparkle’s back with one claw, grasping a shining gem tightly in the other. She ran as fast as terror itself, but the howls of the monstrosity were faster still.

It was not much further now. Hovering as they had left it, the shifting tessellation of crystals and alien metals that was their warp prism awaited their return. They need only be in its proximity and activate the control crystal and safety would be assured.

The mountain shuddered as a monstrous leg, like a column of the world itself, broke free from the rubble.

“It won’t stop!” Twilight shouted. She skidded to a halt beneath the waiting transport, her chest heaving with stolen breaths. Spike leapt from her back, holding the control crystal before him, his eyes focused on it in a hard line of determination.

“You’re right,” he said as another roar ripped across the sky and stone shattered in the distance. “Someone needs to make it stop.”

Twilight couldn’t decide if she was insane or he was. “What are you waiting for? We need to go! Ponyville needs us!”

Spike shook his head as he stepped back. “No. Ponyville needs you. I’ve got this one.”

“Spike, no, that’s insane! I won’t leave you-” but he had already activated the crystal. Twilight’s form was uploaded into the prism’s warp matrix and it flew beyond any chance of second thoughts.

“I know,” he said softly as the panic stricken after-image of Twilight faded into nothing. He could not stand straight or tall, but Spike stood fast. He met the ultralisk’s burning eyes, tiny pinpricks of madness seething with mindless fury as huge slabs of chitinous armor battered away at the rock.

“This,” he said, holding the gem in open sight, “is mine.” He swallowed it quickly and stepped forwards, leaving a tiny footprint in the dust.

“There are others like it. They’re mine too.” He walked forwards with slow purpose.

“The basket they’re in. The bed. The blanket. Mine,” Spike snorted, and his breath was edged with green flame.

“The purple cocoa mug. The toys. The books I’ve been given. Mine.”

“Peewee. His care? My responsibility. All mine” The ultralisk screamed, flailing as thick ropes of saliva and ichor spilled from its mouth. Boulders shattered and fell away from its endless struggling.

“A home in the library. A place by Twilight’s side. Her trust. Her thoughts. Her dreams. Mine.” His claws scraped off the rock beneath his feet.

“All that I’ve ever learned. Anything I’ve ever done. Everything I remember. Everything I feel. Everything I am. It’s all mine.” Spike’s footfalls came slower now, falling with heavy thuds upon the ground while his tail dragged a trail through the grit. His breath shimmered like a volcanic vent, and he crackled knuckles thick as iron rebars. With a roar and a cascade of rock, the beast freed another leg.

“Everyone I know. They are my family. They are my friends. In every way they care for me, and everyway I care for them, all of it is MINE.” The ground shook with his every step.

“At heart I am a pony, and everything that means is mine. And I’m also a dragon. Everything that means is mine, too,” his words rumbled like thunder in the distance. The ultralisk writhed as the last of the tortured rocks started to break away.

“What they hope is my hope. What they want, I want. Everything I am is mine, and I everything I see is mine.” The rocks cracked and split underfoot as smoke billowed from Spike’s nostrils like furnace chimneys.

“It’s all mine. I don’t need some piddly heap of treasure. Against my hoard that is nothing at all. My hoard is a past and a present and a future with them. All of it is mine.” Twilight Sparkle could have curled up and slept in the craters of his footprints and his claws ploughed through earth and stone.

“Mine to see. Mine to cherish. Mine to share. Mine to give. Mine to protect. Mine to fight for.”

The ultralisk slathered and raved. As the last rocks impeding it gave way it charged, swinging claws like the death of gods.

Spike met it with a roar of pyroclastic fury, a column of fire and smoke and ash that crackled with lightning and scorched the seat of the sky.

“ALL THIS IS MINE, SO COME AT ME WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT!”

They crashed together with the force of continents. Spike grappled with the behemoth’s claws, snarling in its face through fangs thick as trees.

He drew a breath that poured in, filling him with all the air of a hurricane.

There was a single, perfect moment of crystalline stillness.

Then he flamed.

Spike’s flame outshone the sun, shining the absolute white of annihilation. For miles around the air itself screamed with the raw power ripping through it. For seconds that passed like eternity, everything was blinding brilliance.

The heat shimmer writhed between them. The ultralisks carapace was aglow with molten armour, and with arms that could have plucked stars from the night sky Spike hefted the entirety of the flailing monstrosity above his titanic head as a shower of flaming pieces of melt fell all around him.

The ground beneath Spike buckled and caved, groaning with the torment of gravity.
The beast flailed, berserk and broken.

“You. Are. Mine!” and on that he heaved, throwing the struggling ultralisk’s ruin to be smote upon the mountain side.

As the last tremors died Spike turned and walked away, and with every step he shrank. His feet barely scuffed the dust as he returned to the ledge from where he had sent Twilight away.

After a while he sat on an outcropping of rock, sheltering from the wind in the lee of a boulder. Alone with his thoughts, he rested his chin in his hand and considered what he had done. The full extent of it hit him with sudden realization.

How could he have done that. Of all the... oh man... eating the control crystal? What had he been thinking?!

“Oh buck,” he said with dread in his voice. “Twilight is going to be so mad with me when she gets outta there...”

Twilight Sparkle vs Cerebrate

The commander stared fervently at the display screen, daring the blinking formations of red and green to give him something, anything. There was a hell of a lot of red and not a lot of green. No matter how he looked at it, it was there, pulsing and growing, nigh seething across the screen.

There was thunder as the nearest siege tank fired, and seconds later it was answered by a boom in the distance and the faint squeals of zerg, wafting on the wind.

“Boom, headshot!” crackled across the com lines, along with the blood pumping chords of power metal.

“Sarge, how the hell can you tell if that’s a headshot?” an SCV operator shot back across the radio waves.

“ ‘cuz with this baby, everything’s a headshot! Don’t even have to hit the suckers.”

An image flashed into life beside their commander, a holographic face made up of lines of light.

“Commander, a class twelve psionic waveform has been detec-”

He pounded on the comms table. “WHAT THE HELL, WHERE?” A chorus of curses echoed across the coms as the forward base exploded into frenzied activity. Anything involving psionics was bad news. Getting the class twelve was a death sentence.

“Commander, it is-”

“Damnit adjutant, where is she? Light her up!”

A vivid blip flashed into being on the display, a purple one edged near the centre of the thickest red cluster.

“Commander, it appears you have misun-”

He gave the console a hearty dose of percussive maintenance and the display shuddered out for a second. When it flashed back, the dreaded purple blip was still there.

“You better tell me, right now, that this is a sensor error! She can’t be here.” Marines and machines ran this way and that in a maddened state.

“We’re all gonna die!”

“Shut up, man, just shut up!”

“You are correct, Commander. There has been a mistake.” For a terrible second of stillness, not a single voice rang across the coms, listening with the intensity that those offered a light at the end of the tunnel are wont to do. The entire base listened as one.

“The waveform is being emanated by...”

For a second they let the name ring through them. Then the entire base sighed as one. Some laughed nervously.

The commander wiped the sweat from his brow and grinned. “Oh man, we thought... Adjutant. Don’t ever do that to us again."

“Yes, Commander.”

“Alright everybody, time to pack up and go home, we’re done here. She’s got this.”

“Sir, what about the cerebrate?”

“I said - she’s got this.”

“But, alone, sir? They decided to nuke that thing?” the rough accent of the SCV operator trembled. “Did they send...a ghost?”

“A ghost? You think a ghost could manage this? An entire hive cluster with cerebrate? Of all the dumb shit I’ve heard outta you, private... Listen up!” he roared into the comms. “I want everything and everyone in the air five minutes ago!” he grinned. “And somebody get me a bag of popcorn, I want to see this one from orbit.”

Warp in successful. Warp Prism disengaging.

Twilight Sparkle breathed in the heady stench of zerg. A few pot shots from the spore crawlers chased after her transport, but its shields held as it withdrew. Thank Celestia for the buff in that one patch. In a matter of seconds the entire hive would be a nest of activity.

The creep was sticky and squishy under her hooves. “Alright,” she said, as a small flare of magic warped in a neatly rolled up scroll.

She gulped. “Just like I planned. By the book. Well, by the scroll, it's definitely a scroll, not a book. It's important not to confuse to two. But the meaning is still valid.”

Twilight Sparkle undid the red ribbon binding the checklist and unfurled it, revealing the title.

The zerg swarm and you: an easy to follow checklist to dismantling defenses and disabling their different designs definitively.

1 - Warp into Zerg hive cluster and see to it that my Warp Prism gets away. Check.

2- Establish personal space and read through the checklist. Twilight gasped and quickly created a small force field around herself, though no zerg were forthcoming quite yet. But still! She’d done it in the reverse order! This was exactly the kind of thing that necessitated a checklist in the first place!

3 - Disable the primary defense structures utilizing the disruption web spell.

4 - Disable specialist units using feedback and EMP (Extremely Magical Pony) abilities as situationally fitting.

A pack of zerglings screamed and charged and surrounded her bubble, tearing and biting at it ferociously. With barely a flicker of her horn Twilight added a little spell to dampen the noise. She was reading.

5- Neutralize units utilizing blink, graviton lift, void prison, force fields, hallucinations, guardian shield, vortex, number 25, and judicious applications of psionic storm.

When her little shield was completely encased by writhing zerg biomass, she added a little magelight to read by in the darkness.

5* amendment - Maintaining the guardian shield - I think I might need to find a noise dampening spell as well to compound with it. I can’t believe zerg have never even heard of a library.

Twilight nodded sagely in agreement with herself. The complete lack of literature of any kind amongst the zerg was appalling to her sensibilities. The pressure of scrabbling claws and bodies pressing against her forcefield was exceeding several tonnes now. The first zerglings to have attacked it would be a sad smear of pasty chunks by now.

6 - Remember to keep in mind that the zerg are not nice, and will not be forwarded memos as regards this checklist. Steps may have to be revisited as necessary or done out of sequence.

A muffled roar reached Twilight’s ears - it seemed an ultralisk had joined the attack on the shield. She shuddered. Having to do steps out of sequence? It almost made the checklist invalid, and then where would the sanity be? These things were important.

7 - When able, engage and destroy the zerg cerebrate. When that is done, mass recall to the warp prism.

8 - Remind Spike to pick up more quills this afternoon.

Nodding with satisfaction, Twilight Sparkle reread the checklist. It always paid to reread the checklist. She turned it over for the sake of checking to check the checklist and-

What was this?

A - Have fun!

B - Go crazy! xD

C - Like a BAWSS!!

...What? She certainly hadn’t put these here. “This can’t be right,” she said, her lower lip trembling.

But... but they were on the checklist. She couldn’t go disregarding the checklist now... But... but it made no sense.

Her half of the checklist was numerically ordered. This side was alphabetically ordered. Clearly the inferior system, as her lists often went beyond a mere twenty six things to check, but... but...

What took precedence? Did she go through the numbers first? But surely an ‘A’ came before a ‘2’? But then that broke the sequencing.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she whimpered. She redoubled the muffling spell, and improvised a ‘Stay Still’ spell for the ground beneath her hooves - the zerg were causing a minor earthquake with their rowdiness.

Have fun. Go Crazy. Well, those were straightforward enough. What was ‘xD’ supposed to mean though?

And what in the hay was a bawss? Could it be an aberrant misspelling of bass? But how could she be like a fish? Or a low frequency sound?

For the sake of the rest of checklist, she’d have to disregard this. Her eye twitched.

She sighed, deciding she’d run the numeric list and the alphabetic list in tandem. It was the only way to be sure.

Carefully she rerolled the checklist, and tied the red ribbon around it. Tucking it away with her magic, she took a deep breath. She had a course of action to follow through.

So far she’d only completed steps one and two, and neutralizing units wasn’t until step five, but being entirely entombed in wriggling bodies was something that had to be addressed.

It wasn’t fair. She shed a single tear for all the checklists in the universe which could not be checked in their proper sequence.

A thousand squawks and roars collapsed in on her as Twilight dissolved her shield. Rather than crush her, the swirling energies of the vortex she’d cast at her hooves seemed to stretch and slow their bodies. They fell, fading into translucence, into a single black point of dimensional singularity. The ultralisk, a hundred times her size, stretched out like a rubber band and flowed through Twilight as the vortex sucked it in.

Twilight blinked to a likely patch of open ground and took stock of the zerg hive. Before her sprawled the creep, the thick living moss like material that all stationery zerg needed to be upon to survive. Upon it she spied several spine crawlers, their thick spear like protrusions ready to stab out at her if she stepped too close.

“Step three, neutralize the defensive structures,” she said aloud to herself, though the shrieking and general commotion of the place drowned out her words. No wonder the zerg didn’t read, they were so noisy.

Her horn flared with power and a glowing eminence settled around the nearest in a cloud like cotton candy made from electricity - anything inside would be ineffectual for as long as the effect lasted.

Zerglings flapped their little wings and bore down upon her with unnatural speed, but no matter how fast they could run, a blink was instantaneous. She kept one magical step ahead of them, casting more of the glowing disruption webs over the crawler structures.

All around her there were writhing, pulsating zerg structures and squirming larva. But with no more actual spine crawlers in sight, she stopped and pulled out her checklist.

A snarling zergling snapped at her flank, but before it could reach her it fell to the ground, rather harmlessly. It had just grown about three hundred pounds of facial hair, after all.

“Step three, Check. Augh!” she cried out as a green sludgy fungus started to grow on her side and weigh her down. It wasn’t growing as fast as the number twenty five had, but it was close.

Turning her neck wildly, she caught site of the cause. The infestor, like a giant caterpillar with thick tunneling claws and reticulated carapace, trundled towards her with some speed.

Twilight was rather happy with the situation. The infestor apparently had got the memo, because step four was neutralising the specialist zerg.

There was a flash of magic and a burst of catalytic energy that speared down into the infestor, causing its body to use up all its energy at once.

There wasn’t even an explosion, just a flash of light, a patch of scorched creep and little nibs of what, in another time and place, would have been smoking boots.

“Yay for checklist!” she called, rather giddy with herself for the success. Step four earned itself an extra loving tick.

Onto step five... wait a minute. Step five? She was already on step five?? What about Step A?

“Checklist, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! Its alright, its alright its alright I can still manage it!” A couple hairs snapped out of place and her ear twitched, though she didn’t notice it.

More zerglings came at her from the side, only to crash at full sprint into a force field. “It’s fine. I mean, they’re the shortest two steps, of all. Just four words.”

Have fun. Go Crazy xD

“What does xD mean?!” A roach that unborrowed behind her for an ambush suddenly found itself being lifted into the air inside a sphere of shimmering light. Twilight didn’t seem to notice she’d done it.

Oh, yes. Being efficient was fun! The vortex spell must nearly be up by now, and all those hundreds would pop back into this dimension. A single well placed psi storm would be efficient.

But was it crazy? The checklist said crazy. and... that xD thing. Twilight twitched. Effient was fun, but it wasn’t crazy.

“All the psi storms!!” she shrieked, and cast the spell over everything. Arcs of electricity ripped through the air in every direction, and every zerg that reappeared found itself in an environment normally only occurring in the corona of a star.

What happened to the squishier and smaller zerg was indescribable.

The pretty lights crashing against her guardian spell were fun, and this was crazy, and though she didn’t know it Twilight was slipping into a fair approximation of the ‘xD’ expression too.

She cast two dozen hallucinations of herself, what should be perfect illusory copies that, for whatever reason had terribly frayed manes, with ears and eyelids that twitched nigh constantly. Some appeared outside the shield, and these exploded instantly in a burst of smoke from the supernatural storm that seemed to make the entire world lightning.

“Come on, girls!” she screamed to herselves.

“Void prison! Void Prison! VOID PRISON!!” The crowd of Twilights shouted at the singed ultralisks as she cast the spell on them, sealing them in a expanse of nulled out space-time.

The storm died away, but she hadn’t really noticed. A couple of hallucinations were playing with one another’s hair. It was, after all, fun. And crazy. CRazY FuN!

“Alright me! You do what you're doing, and I’ll get the cerebrate! Just like on Checklist!”

“Hurray for Checklist!” the hallucinations cheered back to her ecstatically.

The cerebrate was, after all, essentially a big brain. And about as capable of defending itself. With no minions to control, it was essentially harmless.

“Judicious application of psi storm, GO!” The air exploded into lightning over the cerebrate, and Twilight indulged in a minor cackle as she stacked the spell four more times.

“Mwuhahaha!!”

The air over the helpless expanse of zerg tissue seethed with raw power. Power... Overwhelming.

“Mwuhahahahah! MWUHAHAHAHA!!”

...

The cerebrate was entirely unchanged. To some extent, it deflated the thrill a bit.

“Huh.” With a little flash of magic Twilight conjured a small instruction manual headed with Protips: Stars, crafts, and you.

Protip - Psionic storm is entirely ineffectual against buildings.

“Ooooh.” The twenty or so Twilights chorused. “Umm... Graviton lift!”

Protip - Graviton lift can only be used on non massive units.

Several Twilights were squinting with concenentration, a few others looked bewildered. One was laying on the ground, spinning in circles and speaking gibberish, but she looked so happy doing it none of the others had the heart to stop her.

“Uhhh... Number Twenty five? Forcefield??”

She now had what was ostensibly a mound of living tissue that sported a rather neatly trimmed handlebar mustache and what looked to be a hat made from shimmering translucent energies.

A tumbleweed rolled by.

Twilight Sparkle, the one that was fairly sure she was the real one, fell to her haunches.

“Do I have any spells that can blow up a building?”

One of the others rifled through the booklet, and because it was the only booklet on the entire planet, the rest crowded around it reverently. Somewhere along the way a bulkier guide book was conjured, and they rifled through its pages.

A probably fake Twilight shook her head. “No. I do have an attack though.”

“Oh! Let’s see.”

Disruption Beam - six damage. Rate of fire - one.

“Wait, I’m a tickle cannon? I’m a tickle cannon??”

Zerg Cerebrate - 1500 health. One armor. Passive regeneration.

Twilight looked upon the the now desolate zerg base. Herselves were alone with the cerebrate and looked to be for quite some time.

“I’ll never get back in time to remind Spike to get those quills! I won’t be able to complete Checklist!!”

Then hallucinations all vanished with a poof, and the lone remainder’s cry of “Noooooooooo!” rang out.

From the bridge of the command deck of his flagship, the commander’s jaw hung open. A bag of popcorn had fallen to the ground beside him, its kernels scattered forgotten across the floor.

They hadn’t even needed viewer magnification for that display.

“Adjutant?” he said carefully in the silence.

“Yes, Commander?”

“The next time you detect a class twelve... you damn well better tell me it’s fucking Kerrigan.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Rarity vs Additional Pylons

Dear Madame Rarity,

I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...

...and yet all that was as a dream to the greater nightmare I beheld when Sweetie Belle said “What does this flashing button do?” in the midst of warp travel.

Somepony is in need of a talking to regarding respecting other people’s things, with a clear emphasis that Star Relics are not toys. It will take longer than expected to return your sister to you. In the meantime, please establish a forward base.

I do not think I will have time to foal sit again.
Ever.

Sincerely yours -

Rarity huffed daintily as she read the letter. She was not at all pleased with Sweetie Belle. In part for putting a sour point in her friendship with the Prelate, but mostly because this was a dusty, barren wasteland of rocks and grit that stretched unto the horizon whichever way she looked. And she’d have to be here all the longer for it.

She tried to walk in a manner which involved not touching the ground and breathing in a manner that didn’t involve her touching the dry air, grumbling under her breath all the while.

Indeed, as she drifted through the landscape, she considered the absurdity that even Applejack was leaps and bounds an improvement to the dirtiness here. At least her dirt had the self respect to be dirt, not at all like this dreary dust. When this was over she’d lock herself in the spa for a week.

She cast her gem finding spell with a moment’s focus. She was, after all, looking to establish a base. A promising purple glow lit up in the distance on the far side of a craggy hill and it took entirely all too many minutes of dreadful drudgery just to get there.

‘There’ happened to be an extensive outcropping of luminescent blue minerals, strewn across the ground in a rough crescent. Nested at the centre of the curve was a structure, like a large pyramid of yellow metal, made up of arcs and graceful curves. It was like somepony had tried to make a pyramid that looked fabulous enough for the catwalk.

And by the massive glowing gem floating serenely at the apex, they had. Oh, they had indeed. It wasn’t just a building. It was architecture.

Rarity’s eyes lit up and she ran to the polished gleam of the nexus, but hesitated mid stride.

“Not too fast, you don’t want to seem too eager- but not too slow! - you don’t want to look disinterested...”

Between the accelerations and decelerations, she averaged out at the correct speed. The nexus dominated her view, and she drank in the sight of it like a tall cool drink.

As she stalked around the shining nexus appraisingly, she found a group of mostly round little things, identical to one another and made of the self same metal as the structure. They hovered and wobbled on the spot as if floating on an invisible sea.

She looked to the nearest and it turned to her with a single, central sapphire that regarded her mechanically.

Meoooouuu?

It sounded like a kitty wired to an amp and resonated in low frequencies that tickled the brain. It’s polish gleamed and the ocular gem lit up.

“Well aren’t you just the sweetest thing out here?” she cooed to it in a babying voice and hugged it in her hooves.

Moowoaaau

Coming a bit back to her senses she set the little probe down and patted it sweetly. “I don’t suppose you’d be a dear and help a lady in distress by, ahem, ‘establishing a base,’ would you?”

Uuuoowaaauu

The probe and its fellows floated to the nearest patches of minerals and began harvesting them with little beams of purple light. they swept up and down, and after two passes what had been part of the formation reappeared as a small floating piece of crystal.

Rarity, for her sake, was quite pleased with the process. The lights were stylish, but not gaudily so, and there was none of that awful digging business involved. When the pieces were brought to the nexus they disappeared and the cycle began anew.

Shading herself in an arch of the nexus, Rarity watched them drift back and forth for a few passes and grew bored.

“I appreciate the work, but it is going ever so slightly slow. Are there anymore of you sweet little things around- Oh my!”

A sudden whisper of machinery and electricity came from within the building. She’d taken a few steps away and considered it suspiciously, but the little workers hadn’t changed at all. Before she could decide what the sound meant, a sixth probe, identical in every way to the others appeared. It immediately set to work, and the whirring sound continued.

Soon enough a seventh and an eighth followed. The steady stream of minerals was pleasing, but with so many just lying there, going to absolute waste in this atrocious locale... it’d be a crime not to harvest them.

Ninth and tenth came out just fine, but then...

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS

Rarity blinked.

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS

She looked around, but nothing was speaking. The impression just hit her, out of thin air. Whatever it was, it was pushy.

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS

“Now listen here, whatever you are! It is entirely rude to go about demanding anything. Do I look like a construction pony? I don’t care what you think you are, but you will use your common courtesy, or did your mother teach you nothing?”

YOU MUST... WOULD YOU... CONSTRUCT... ADDITIONAL... PYLONS?

Rarity glared. Since there wasn’t anything to glare at, she glared in general. “I’m waiting,” she said sharply.

PYLONS...PYLLLLOOOO....PYYYYY....PYLEEENsss...PYLEANS....PLEASE?

“Please what?”

If the communication had a voice, and that voice had a head, it would have been slick with sweat and sporting a deeply furrowed brow of struggling concentration.

WOULD YOU MMMM- YOU PLEASE CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS?

“And just whom are you addressing?”

WOULD YOU PLEASE CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS, MISS RARITY?

And just like that, Rarity was warm and sociable again. “Oh, of course dear, anything for a disembodied voice that has its manners about it.”

Then Rarity batted her eyelashes and pouted. The probes continued their back and forth dance of harvesting.

“Do tell me one teensy little thing, if you would... What’s a pylon?”

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Pinkie Pie vs Infestor

Pinkie Pie bounced along the wasteland. That meanie commander had kept coming down on all her totally awesome parties on the battlecruiser, even the ‘everybody pretend it isn’t a party on the bridge and don’t tell the commander it's a party’ party. That one still confused her, but she chalked it up to him just being that good at sniffing them out.

But none of those parties, not the ‘Check out the armory’ party or its ‘Spider mines are super fun’ after party, not even the ‘refit all the medivacs with minibars’ party had been half as good as the one that got away... and the medivacs one had been extremely popular with the marauders and marines. The hottest phrase, somewhat slurred, of that night had been: “Screw Manesssk, Pinkie fer Emprhhs!”

Those had been good parties, but the greatest of them had been the most elusive. It had, in fact, not happened at all. There was a sound behind her and Pinkie whipped about hoping someone was there, but there was not. It was enough to make her a grump for almost an entire second. Then she shrugged, and bounced along.

On the battlecruiser she’d gotten so far as somewhere called the ‘Main weapons bay,’ and just her being there had set off an awesome speaker system and a whole bunch of disco lights. It had been like a portent of awesomeness to come, except then that meanie had rushed in, wild eyed and frantic and dragged her away.

What had he said? Oh yeah - “Pinkie!! The last time you were left unattended the entire ship nearly warped backwards. And you were in the cantina the whole time! That shouldn’t be physically possible. You’ve put an adjutant into therapy, which, frankly, I didn’t think was even possible either, and don’t even get me started on... the coffee machine.”

The pony paused mid bounce, literally, and winced with the memory. That one had been entirely an accident. The last she’d seen of the battlecruiser, the port engine was still trailing plasma burnout from the damage.

“So-” and here the commander had been clinging to reason like a drowning fish clings to its bicycle, “What could possibly make you think you are allowed anywhere near the weapons bay? The infested themselves will dance before I ever see you get anywhere near having a ‘Yamato Party Cannon: three hundred megatonnes-o-fun' party.”

And so, that night, a couple of burly marines had rushed in and grabbed her. One quick escape pod ride later and here Pinkie was, battlecruiser-less. She reread the little missive she’d found inside the escape pod.

Sorry, orders are orders. No hard feelings? Those parties were totally awesome.
-Your friends, the marauders and marines.

She smiled. They’d been awesome party guests. Her bouncing gave way to a limpid walk and she bowed her head low. She was bored, and getting lonely already.

But she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

A billion micro-muscles thrummed at a subsonic frequency, pounding the compact rock and soil around them into a pasty sand. The infestor slid through it all like a land shark, at least, insofar as predatory intent went. As for the idea of sleekness and sharp fins... not so much.

There really was no way to describe the infestor as something other than a huge fat caterpillar with claws and a hundred tiny bug legs. One couldn’t help but to think in seeing it that, if only it were put on its back, it’d be entirely harmless, even amusing in a way as all its little legs kicked uselessly at the air.

That might very well have been true, but the important little detail there was about being seen first. The infestor wasn’t much to look at, but it more than made up for it with the downright bizarre biological processes it managed, and could slide through the ground undetected.

A chance presented itself to try demonstrate the most ridiculous of them. It sensed that just above it there was a powerfully pink pony, entirely conspicuous to the universe at large. As if that wasn’t enough, she was also bouncing along and singing.

Now, zerg weren’t largely given to language let alone emotions, but at the moment the infestor burst from the ground it was thinking a fair enough analogy of “Aha!”

The pony gasped in mid air as the muscular protrusion extending from the zerg latched to the back of her head with a schnick, and the force of the impact pinned her into the ground.

With the connection established the neural parasites set to work, interweaving the two creature’s synaptic pathways so quickly that Pinkie Pie didn’t even struggle. It pushed its thoughts unto the pony.

SERVE THE HIVE.
I CONTROL THE GROOVE...

What? That wasn’t right...

SERVE THE HIVE.
I CONTROL THE GROOVE...

Neural static. Static with rhythm-

SERVE THE HIVE.
I CONTROL THE WAY YOU MOVE.

Pinkie stared into the infestor’s eyes with a vacant expression. Then she smiled, and the infestor managed a brief mental scream.

HOw yOU LIkE MY GRoOVE, PINkIE?

Pinkie hoof pumped the air.“Well done! Now turn it up!”

The Infestor started full body head banging, which, because of the node linking them, whipped Pinkie through the air like a bauble. She was thrilled with it.

“WOOah! Yeah! Turn it up!”

Whatever there had been of the infestor’s mind left fled before the sheer awesomeness of the music and dance that spilled into it from Pinkie in and endless torrent.

“Oooh, what’s this do?” Pinkie said as she rummaged through the creature’s mind without challenge. At some compulsion, the big creature flung half a dozen green blobs, each big enough to hold a pony, in a rough circle around them.

Then they hatched. Monstrosities with too many tentacles and too few limbs ambled closer.

“WOO!” Pinkie yelled ecstatically. “It is officially a party!”

“SERVE THE PARTY!” the infested cried out, grooving to their own lurching, thrilling beat.

Pinkie beamed a wide smile at her newfound friends and looked up to the sky.

“I believe this means I can go get the Yamato Party Cannon now. You think three hundred megatonnes-o-fun will be enough?”

Colgate vs Defiler

The zerg defiler is the single most incredible unit strain the swarm ever managed to come up with. Anyone who disagrees may want to presently check the back of their skull for a neural parasite stabbed into their brain, because no sane and healthy mind could think otherwise.

Its not that the infestor is bad, oh no. It does its thing, and is commendable for what it brings to the swarm, but... it’s no defiler. Look deep, deep into an infestor’s array of ocular organs and there it’ll be: the remorse that no matter how much they achieve, the infestor is a placeholder, a runner up living in the shadow of glory. They know it, and it’s a sad truth: they’re jealous.

The defiler is legendary. It’s not something that can be described by halves... actually, no. It can be exactly described by halves.

The defiler is half snake and half scorpion. Half hero and half team-killing fucktard. Half bad and half ass. It is two and a half halves triple distilled awesome.

Presently one was burrowed into the ground. It was not the ‘yeah I’m chillin’ kind of burrowed in the ground, nor the ‘these guys won’t know what hit ‘em’ burrowed. It was the burrowing of a creature hiding in desperate trembling fear, which says a lot considering this thing can make an ultralisk explode pretty much at whim.

If there could possibly be one fault with the defiler, it was that they spent so much time looking awesome that they really didn’t run that fast and could be the slightest bit squishy. The defilers were normally too plain awesome to know fear, but this one was learning really quickly.

The musical feminine voice that had hunted it all day drifted down through the narrow crack in the rocks the creature had slipped through. “You’ve skipped another appointment!” the eerie echoes called. “I know you’re in there! Nowhere to hide and nowhere to run! Come out!”

A face peeked over the edge of the hole and the defiler snarled and spat defiance. She was a cool blue and grinned down at the cowering monstrosity.

“Don’t get nasty with me, you did this to yourself!”

The defiler roared a blood curdling threat that rang with death and desolation, but Colgate was entirely unfettered. She tut-tutted to it.

Colgate turned away out of sight for the briefest second and the monster dove into its opportunity. With unnatural agility it sprung to the surface and shook a heavy miasma from its body into the air, a literal dark swarm.

The rust red haze was the perfect cover and the zerg’s mind surged with elation at the escape it had assured for itself.

Then the laughter started, thick and hearty despite the soft nature of Colgate’s voice.

“You can’t escape the dentist! No obstruction will bar my way, no obscurity will bar my sight! Behold my pearly whites and be DAZZLED BY THEIR RADIANCE!”

There are smiles that can light up rooms. There are smiles that can warm a cool heart. This smile could have powered a small city. It was a spectacular shining white, like the light of creation. It cut through the greasy haze like a hot gas powered chain saw cuts through butter.

The defiler ran as fast as its scrabbling scorpion like legs could take it, and with absolute dread knew that the pony was gaining on it.

“Aha!” Colgate bellowed as she leapt, brandishing a massive weapon over her head with both forehooves. There were more destructive weapons, but few had the nightmare inducing quality of being the BRUSH. The capitalisation were entirely justified. The dentist weapon of choice, these weighed in the triple digits and required an extra high ceiling just to fit into a room. A small onboard fusion reactor powered the rotary action and the complimentary vice grip, and various compartments filled with nightmarish tools made it a viable field office.

The defiler shrieked as Colgate’s silhouette blocked out the sun. She dove down towards the beast, and in desperate panic it flung a thick gooey stream of blood red ooze.

To the defiler’s maddened elation it hit her full on and knocked her from the air. The base of the BRUSH hit the rock with a resounding crack and stood there, imbedded in the stone.

The Plague was the trump card, the ace in the hole of any self respecting defiler. A biological concoction so virulent that even inanimate objects up and died, the Plague tapped other wannabe diseases on the shoulder, roughed them up and told them to stay off its turf. It was the cellular equivalent of carpet bombing. You didn’t mess with the Plague.

Colgate shuddered under the heap of red ooze. The defiler roared at its most ominous, just like it had practiced when no one was around. It moved in to watch the life fade from the pony.

The blue pony groaned and, with a shaky hoof, wiped the worst of the pasty sludge from her eyes. To its awe struck horror, she regained her hooves, and fixed the monster with a glare so terrifying it was rooted to the spot.

“You think this is enough to stop me?” She shook thick gobs of the stuff from her coat and hoisting her mighty weapon struck a fierce pose as if ready to bring down the sky itself. “I’ve spent years building up an immunity to Plaque. This is isn’t even halitosis to me! Who the hell do you think I am?!”

It... it wasn’t possible! The Plague was extinction in a can!

“I! Am! THE DENTIST!” She charged with impossible speed, her grin shimmering like a beacon to the stars. “OPEN WIDE!” she shouted as the BRUSH bludgeoned the defiler’s head.

There was a moment of absolute horror as the BRUSH was crammed into the defiler’s mouth and the light of hellfire flared in Colgate’s eyes. The scrubbing head folded into the BRUSH and the infernal vice grips took their place.

“You haven’t been taking proper care of your dental hygiene! This tooth has to GO!” and on that that she yanked with her whole body.

The defiler’s howls echoed off the horizons and a thick black fang fell to the dirt.

The beast thrashed and screamed, but Colgate had it in a headlock and pinned it to the dirt. It couldn’t see what the monster pony was doing in there and its zergy soul hit new depths of despair.

It couldn’t see her, but it could feel. The scratching of picks, the plucking of floss, the insanity inducing squeal of the drill.

And then, like the break of a storm it ended, and there was only the strangely nice feel of squeaky clean teeth and a breath steeped in minty freshness.

Colgate stared the defiler in the eye from half an inch away. “I don’t care how crunchy those zerglings are. You brush before and every after meal. Every. Meal. Before. After. Got that?” The zerg tried to lower its head further into soil, keening a high pitched whine.

Colgate’s smile shone with blinding brightness. “Good,” she said sweet as sugar, though she would not have liked the analogy. “Have a tooth brush.” She gave it a bright pink one, which she put on its snout. It whimpered as if violently struck. “Remember to use small circles, you’re trying to get under the gums and gently lift everything out, not scour the enamel.”

Her voice turned hard again and the smile sharpened around the edges. “I will be checking up on you, and I do not want to see that you’ve fallen back into bad habits. There is no excuse for not taking care of your dental hygiene. If I found out you’ve been skimping, I will hunt you the ends of the universe. Got that?”

When she was gone, the much humbled defiler slunk into its burrow in the certainty that the tiny plastic brush was the only thing in existence to spare it another savage attack, and that there was a desperate life or death need to figure out how to use it as quickly as possible.

Upon the crest of a lonely ridge Colgate checked her schedule. One zerg down. A hundred trillion to go. Some were massive as mountains, some as quick as the wind. Others still flew in the cold depths between stars. And every last one of them needed an education in dental hygiene. She flashed her smile to the horizons and crackled her shoulders.

“Bring it on!”

Fluttershy vs Universe

The Xel’Naga, though truly the gods of their time, had some very peculiar ideas. Among others, one of these was to create a super assimilative, self determining and self sustaining, exponentially growing race known as the zerg. These, in short, are what every ant and locust wishes to be when they grow up, with all the fantastic hatred and seething fury one might expect after generations of boots and magnifying glasses.

They gave control of the swarm to a consciousness that came to be known as the Overmind, and with a name like that it probably was not content to be subordinate to anybody.

Early in its existence it discovered something. Something powerful. Something... terrible. The Overmind hungrily brought this discovery into its fold, and with that power annihilated the Xel’Naga, which just goes to show that even gods are not necessarily intelligent or at all savvy.

The only clue to the nature of the death of these progenitors is declared by this enigmatic phrase : “HNNNNNGGGG!!”

Whatever "HNNNGG" alluded to, its power was too much for the Overmind and its cerebrates. Soon all the zerg succumbed to this dreaded and mysterious fate, just as they had unleashed it upon their masters. For long aeons the swarm, whatever it has become, has been quiet. Of all the wide universe and the long stretches of time, the meaning of these things is yet to be understood.

Now, after millenia, something echoes across the stars. A call, a siren song emitted into the depths of the galaxy. And it has drawn them out.

It is not the case that the universe is big. It isn’t. Things are big. Things are defined and have edges and boundaries that a brain can wrap around. The universe, being not a thing, is instead everything.

A lake for instance, is big. But that is only a drip of water compared to an ocean, which in turn is only a puff of steam to a star, itself only a speck of light on the night sky-

Wait a second - did that star just go out?

It did! What the hell? Look, look at the sky! The stars, they’re blinking out, one by one! What’s going on?! Oh, damn look! Look damnit! It’s spreading across the sky, blocking out the stars?! What the hell is going on??!!

Like most civilizations, this one didn’t take it particularly well when a thick blackness spread across the heavens, drowning out the night like spilled ink drowns out the written word. Not many people actually use their stars, but its nice in a reaffirming way to have them there on the off chance, like an old but working cassette player, that the urge arises. It makes people feel like they had a bit of class. People do not like it when the blackness of the void decides to borrow that without even asking.

And the blackness most certainly was big. But it wasn’t a thing. As it breached the upper atmosphere over every major continent and significant land mass and descended, the first telescopic peeks and incidences of “HNNNGGG!!” happened.

No, it wasn’t a thing. It was many things. The swarm blocked out the entire sky as untold billions swooped and glided down. They sang softly amongst themselves and apologized for accidentally speaking over one another, their wingtips filling every inch of atmosphere. It was, undoubtedly, the end of the world.

And it wasn’t black. It was yellow like dandelions and pink like love.

To those who knew, their blood ran cold at the sight. “Who authorised the use of shy emitters?”

The voice of Manesk crackled through the communications line from his battlefleet in high orbit. “I did, lieutenant.”

“What? Before was bad enough, but now you’re going to use Fluttershy against an entire planet? This is insane!”

Frantic resistance groups banded together as the swarm of Fluttershy descended through the cloud layer.

It was futile. They could only shoot at what they could see and by the time they could see what to shoot at... they couldn’t.

They descended like snowflakes in a blizzard. Infinite, soft, fluffy, and burying the world. A flock of squeaking Fluttershy landed gently on a marine until there was only his arm, clutching desperately upwards to the swarming heavens. Soon that too was lost beneath snuggling and cuddling ponies. He screamed from the depths of the horror, and moved no more.

“Eep!”

“Umm, if it’s alright with you...-”

“Could we maybe please -”

“...if you don’t mind that is-”

“...assimilate your species. Please?”

From the now empty armour a new Fluttershy filly struggled and crawled her way out. Hundreds of other Fluttershy looked at her and she whimpered, trying to hide behind her hair.

Seeing what they had done, the others’ all apologized and did the same.

“Umm. Hello.” The filly whispered through a squeak. After a cautious moment the Fluttershys smiled nervously, and together took flight.

Across the entire world it was the same. Some screamed, some struggled, some grinned so wide their heads should have fallen in half, but the result was always the same.

Through the cataclysm floated an observer. The invisible little spy watched impassively and fed its findings to the cloaked fleet in orbit.

The templar on board the capital ship stood in silence.

“Those poor, poor bastards,” one said sadly.

“This world is lost. It must be burned.”

The executor sighed with the weight of worlds upon his shoulders. They had no love for the fires of annihilation, but there was no other way. Wherever the observer looked there was only yellow and pink.

He reached for the button - and it was a big red button, as the rules of these things demand - and winced. There was no other way.

“Eep!” What? He hesitated and looked to the viewscreen. The perspective wobbled. The observer had collided with something. Somepony.

Fluttershy opened her eyes, wide with confusion and uncertainty, tears brimming at the edges. She tried to curl up smaller and smaller. By sheer chance she managed to look direcly into the observer’s eye.

“Look away!” a templar screamed, but it was too late. They were, every last one, transfixed.

The viewscreen, in ultra real definition and big enough for a bridge crew of dozens, was filled with Fluttershy. She fought back a sniffle.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, and three other Fluttershy settled softly beside her to comfort and soothe her.

Battle hardened Templar fell to the floor, clutching at their chests. “Too...Powerful!” one gasped.

“Adorableness....Overwhelming!!” another wheezed.

“Full retreat!” The executor managed to croak.

The fleet lurched forward into warp space and the battered Templar struggled to their feet.

“We cannot hold against so many, all is lost. Fluttershy has doomed us all!”

There was a sudden small sound from behind a console. “Eep. I’m so sorry!”

Dozens of weapons flashed into being. “By the gods, they’re onboard!”

Templar warriors brandished their blades and encircled Fluttershy.

Fluttershy squeaked with fright and her wide eyes trembled. By the light of the Khala it must be done... but she looked so helpless and afraid, with those big wide eyes and those little wings...

They just wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be all right... Oh no...

A templar arched his back as if electrocuted and exploded into light with a bluish glow “HNNNG!” he screamed as he ceased to exist, and in his place was a filly Fluttershy who wobbled on her legs as she tried to stand up.

Now there was two Fluttershy, and one was a filly. A chorus of detonating templar quickly rang out across the ship.

The executor, warrior born and trained to physical and mental perfection over centuries, with a very strong heart as well, resisted until one of his recently departed warriors cuddled up against his foot and fell asleep.

“HNN-- *poof*”

So it was that somewhere in the depths of warp space, a massive fleet headed home, but carried no more mighty warriors. They had become something entirely more unstoppable, and with an unsuspecting homeworld in the their soft and gentle sights, all would fall before Fluttershy...

But first, they curled up together and napped, and the grown-ups sang lullabies to the fillies.

Celestia vs the Queen of Blades

It was a calm evening in Canterlot. Alone in his shop, Joe enjoyed the peace and quiet from his usual spot behind the counter.

First and foremost, Donut Joe considered himself a simple restaurant proprietor. Moonlighting as Double-Oh-Nut, agent Con Mane, was something like a hobby and something like volunteering, but would be entirely like an embarrassment if anypony ever found him out.

It had been bad enough with that train ride, and only by the grace of Twilight Sparkle had his cover been saved. Her calm, objective, reasonable and entirely inaccurate portrayal of events had spared him from a very near miss. The griffon mastermind Gustav, the rival agency’s key operative Mulia and himself had, in a situation none could have foreseen, been forced to stand or fall together under harsh scrutiny. Pinkie Pie was an intelligence nightmare.

Thank Celestia for Twilight Sparkle. Reliable customer, respectable and respectful. Joe had known her for years, and there was never any trouble out of her. She could talk for hours on the most random subjects which was something that, after years of having femme fatales try to seduce and/or do away with him was a pleasant change of pace. She just narrated whatever she was studying with avid interest, and he would just let the sound drone around him in the quieter evening hours when she had preferred to frequent his shop. It was much nicer to have a life that wasn’t constantly pushing the limits and straddling the edge of an explosion.

Still, there was only so much one could do to keep work and life separate, and when a small but significant little red light began to blink under the counter he groaned. He closed the shop early - it was as simple as closing the door and drawing the curtains - and hurried to the supply room.

To all appearances it was just that - a little space, dimly lit and dusted with flour and sugar, lined with shelves of ingredients.

It should be obvious by this point that things are not always as they appear.

Indeed, there was the rumble of hidden machinery and a sudden plume of flour shot up as a section of wall slid to the side.

Now, as an operative of the diarchy of Equestria, Donut Joe knew Celestia. Of course, even ponies that had been hiding under a rock for the last thousand years knew Celestia... Donut Joe winced at his mental faux pas, but the important point was this - to call the sun princess ‘distinguished’ or ‘distinctive’ was such extreme understatement as to be a simple ‘diss.’

So why did she persevere in the insane belief that sufficiently large and dark sunglasses would conceal her identity? For a wise and dangerously savvy ruler, it was an odd little blind spot she refused to acknowledge.

Donut Joe nodded. “How do you do, princess?” For her part, Celestia looked surprised and pleasantly impressed.

“You show your training well, Double-Oh-Nut. Yes, it is me.” The white alicorn stooped to squeeze through the exit of the hidden passage. Agent Con Mane would not have even been able to touch the ceiling of it if he jumped. He forced himself to a neutral expression, but the pressure of laughter was squirming in his chest, trying to find a way to burst out.

The shades she wore could have made impromptu sails for pegasi, they were that big. “You’ve locked down the shop, I assume?” The agent managed a stiff, red faced nod.

“Good, what happens here didn’t, understand?”

“Yes, princess.” Joe rolled his eyes. It was going to be one of those evenings. “What’s the occasion?” He was halfway to getting the laser watch when, to his relief, Celestia bid him stop. That thing itched.

“None of your concern. Just keep any eyes out. Including yours.”

“You got it.”

“And um...”

“Yes?”

“You could bring me a couple of those donuts before you go...”

Joe rolled his eyes, but smiled. “Yes, your majesty.”

Ten minutes later Celestia was alone, sitting the awkward sit of a size thirty-five goddess on a size twelve seat, trying her best to maintain a regal and comfortable poise.

With dark glasses.

The time had come five minutes ago, but this was to be expected. Even if she felt like an excited filly, Celestia tried to reason it away. Of course she’d be late, it was all but expected to work like that. But what if she wasn’t coming? Celestia bit into another donut, self consciously keeping tab on how many she’d had so far. But they were just so good.

There was a flash and a crack in the middle of the room and from it emerged a tall, nightmarish creature.

...with very large, totally black sunglasses. She was all greens and browns, made up of crisscrossing veins of chitin and tissue. Two massive skeletal wings stretched and folded tentatively from her back.

With absolutely no acknowledgement of one another, the newcomer casually stepped over to the opposite side of Celestia’s table and sat in a forcibly casual manner, as if to say she wasn’t sitting with anybody, but happened to take this seat just because.

“Sexyback?” Celestia whispered.

“Bootylicious?” Celestia nodded very slightly in response, and the two carefully removed their sunglasses. Only now did they openly notice one another.

The Queen of Blades visibly relaxed, and though her thinner body helped, the expansive, fleshless wings got everywhere and made for equally awkward sitting arrangements.

Neither could really care for the minor discomforts just now.

“I feel like I’ve known you for such a long time... but we’re only just meeting now. It’s so strange,” Celestia said, trying to keep the squealing excitement from her voice.

The Queen of Blades picked a donut from the dish and bit into it, her stern face falling into simple bliss as its flavour moved her.

“I know. It’s like, you’ve been the only person I could chat with. You’re the only one who gets me. Eveything else is just ‘kekekekeke.’”

The two had met almost a year ago on the ‘I just want to be able to comb my hair like everybody else’ forum and had struck it off as chat buddy confidants. It was such that they talked, complained about life in general and sympathised - it was all very much a wonderful bout of letting their hair down, though of course that analogy was inherently flawed from the onset.

“-and now he can’t decide if he wants to kiss me or kill me. But I can’t live like that, you know? He was bad for my self respect, so I just flat out told him - ‘I like what I am. You can’t imagine how this feels...and if you can’t accept me for who I am and what I look like, maybe you shouldn’t be in my life anymore.’”

Celestia gasped with the drama of it “No!”

“Yes! And he’s still moping over me!” The Queen of Blades grinned devilishly. “I am so much better off without any of those guys. It’s a chance to consider other options, if you know what I mean? How about you?”

Celestia blushed. “Well, I’ve never really had a...”

The infested creature blinked. “You’ve never?”

“Never.”

In the deeply crimson moments of Celestia’s blush that followed she realized the donuts had ran out. With no idea what to do or say, she fidgeted awkwardly, feeling scared but strangely delighted with herself. The way those glowing eyes seemed to gaze into her strengthened the feelings a hundred-fold.

They abruptly broke away, and the Queen of Blades spoke with shaky calm. “I’m really glad we can meet like this. It’s just...so hard to feel on the level, you know? Being Queen bitch of the universe all the time, it drags me down. I’m not just a Queen, I want to scream ‘I’m a -’” The creature regarded herself for a second, mutations, spines and all. “...a female, at least. Nobody understands that.”

Celestia did. ‘My little’ was a very literal phrase when she used it as she regarded her ponies. It was incredible just to meet someone’s gaze without having to physically look down on them, and more often than not they were pushing themselves into deep bows anyway.

The Queen of Blades was looking at her again, and the princess flushed with colour and looked away. And then, to Celestia’s joint horror and elation, the infested creature fidgeted and looked away too.

“I feel like I could talk with you and listen to you all night long, even with these seats.”

Celestia gulped back her hesitation and met the eyes of the Queen. “I... I’d like that. I don’t have to be back until dawn.” She felt like an adventurous child, pushing her curfew.

Small fangs glinted with a shy smile. “Me neither.”

Celestia shifted from her seat, then stopped. “Wait. This is all so much, so fast.”

A monstrous skeletal wing settled gently over her shoulder, and those light touches made the sun princess shiver. “We don’t have to rush this. We can take it slow, do this right.”

The alicorn blushed and shied away. “I...I’m not sure.”

“Can we give this a chance? It doesn’t have to become something. Just give this thing, this date one chance.”

“Okay,” the princess whispered.

From there they spoke of anything and everything, and time lost all meaning in the warm glow of conversation. Minutes and hours crept by, afraid to intrude on the two until the small hours of the night grew bigger and bolder. They gently reminded the princess and the Queen of their passing by the dawn chorus of bird-song.

The sun came up in due course - no thanks to Celestia, but Luna had covered for her, and with these two still not getting the hint, the morning dropped the subtlety it had tried.

The shop door swung open. As one, Celestia and the infested creature gasped their shock in a shrill squeak, then fumbled badly for their shades.

The little bells over the door jangled manically and a pony came through - a familiar blue alicorn. Celestia’s heart skipped a beat in cold terror and she flung herself to the Queen’s side, the one facing the door and counter, and magicked faster than she ever had before. Two ruffled newspapers appeared before them, royal hooves and twisted claws hastily held them in a semblance of reading.

“Act natural!” the sun princess hissed behind the newspaper shields.

Luna’s gaze fell upon the stiff and trembling pair. They went to absolute pains to do and be nothing, but the night princess’ stare fell on each in turn anyway. Celestia felt her blood go cold. What would she, her own sister, think of her?

“You there, subjects!” Luna barked in her stately voice.

“Ye-” Celestia coughed and made her voice go as gruff as she could, “yes, your highness?” Behind her disguise, she trembled in terror.

“Have you seen anything amiss this past night? My sister is said to be fond of this shop, might she have passed this way?”

“N-No. Not that we’ve seen. Your highness,” Celestia carefully added.

Luna took a final glance about, then turned to leave. “Very well than, be about your business.”

When the last jangles of the little door bells died away, the princess and the Queen looked at each other and fell back in relief, laughing with the frantic laughter of massive tension being released after a close call.

Unbeknownst to either of them, a tiny camera lense watched it all. Regardless of her instruction, it was part and parcel of being a spy to, well, spy. From his home, Donut Joe watched the tiny display of his watch with a slack jaw and incredulous eyes.

“What? What?! Seriously?” he begged aloud. Celestia’s mane had been flowing freely over the newspaper! That thing’s skeletal wings had been bumping against the ceiling! Both of them were quadruple the size of the largest ponies around!

And Luna had been duped by the ‘disguise’ exactly as Celestia had believed it would. When he could take no more of it - and this was a pony who in his years of acting as Con Mane had seen plenty of bizarre things - he flung his watch at the wall and fell back on his bed.

“I gotta give up on the donuts,” he swore for the umpteenth time in his life.

Rainbow Dash vs Leviathan

Anyone who is impressed by Pavlov’s dogs is a bit of an intellectual idiot, of which there is a good number. For those who’ve had better and more interesting things to do than read up on obscure and largely unimportant science that was done ‘just cuz’: these dogs were trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.

Whoop dee frigging (Daring) doo. Dude trains dogs to associate sounds with food, and they call it science. Sheesh. It’d be entirely more respectable if they were trained to feed entirely off sound waves, unleash ultrasonic bark blasts or, at the very least, be some kind of avant garde choir.

Of all the hilarious, clever, and ridiculously pointless things ad potentia, these dogs were trained, at what is the fundamental truth, to like food.

Science can be a bit of a tard at times.

All the same, science was coming in very handy as it haphazardly went in the interesting and delightfully manic array of circuit boards and wires that made up the communications device. It was not an array, per se, because that word implied precision and sophistication. Even ‘device’ stretched the concept of technological ‘order’ and ‘function.’

In short, it was a an absolute mess of wires and blinking diodes, and the entire system had more bugs than an insect’s house warming party.

Static crackled across the comm lines, but it was the enthusiastic and hopeful static that, with a couple of loving applications of percussive maintenance by means of boot and reboot might yield an almost intelligible message.

This is what the comms device, in principle an achievement in technological development but in truth, a demonstration of chaos theory in practice, yielded:

“Holy shi--sir! We’ve just picked up the largest bio signature I’ve ever seen, and it’s coming this way! And it’s going really fast!”

It’s important to say at this point that the voice was from a throat that was connected to a brain that was fairly comfortable and accustomed to space travel, and resided in a body that typically strolled along the corridors of starships only easily measured in kilometres.

These starships traveled in packs, or, to be more precise, herds, because there were bigger and nastier things than them roaming the stars. The ship with the body with the brain with the voice was also used to dealing with these on a fairly punch-clock basis, so when it says, poetic as only curses can manage, that this is the biggest bio signature it has ever seen...don’t just take note of it, take the whole damn encyclopedia. Preferably as some kind of extra layer of armour, or something.

For the bio signature, which was indeed very big, it wished (with its very big brain and very big network of vascular organ systems) that it was not quite so big. At least, not so flabby.

“You call that flying? Move it!” The incessant voice roared. Pavlov had made dogs learn to think of bells and food. Rainbow Dash had made a million-tonne monstrosity massive beyond all sanity to fear her hat and shades, because those meant training time.

Against the backdrop of the leviathan, Rainbow Dash wasn’t even an annoying wasp. In scale she might have been the mite prowling through the hairs of the wasp that hassled the huge monstrous sky whale, but her small relative size only meant that all the more force of personality was focused on a single crushing point, like an elephant trying to trample you with high heels.

The stuff of nightmares, right there.

As for the scale of the soul, she was much more like a great rainbow shark, with jet propulsion, samurai blades, laser light shows, flaming contrails, and obligatory explosions to not look at from behind her radical awesome shades of coolness.

And she was making the monster sweat. The stuff poured off the bulk of the leviathan like rain, which was not actually a simile for those unfortunates caught below the cubic kilometres of monster. It was the grossest rain, ever, and fell from the beast in nearly horizontal sheets as it roared across the sky.

It was also rather impressive, considering that before the pegasus had shown up, the leviathan hadn’t even had sweat glands. If necessity is the mother of invention, than Rainbow Dash was the big, heavy rolling pin she beat the stupid out of you with.

It’d had to grow several thousand extra tracts of lungs just to keep out of breath, and the swarm of mutalisks, savage half-bat half-snakes that lived throughout its body, clung on for dear life.

Mountain ranges rolled by while the leviathan, big as any of them, howled with fury and thunder.

“Raaaa!” Rainbow Dash shouted in its face, and somehow, impossibly, that won the screaming contest. She flew backwards with lazy ease, all the while yelling obscenities. The monstrosity almost wanted to cry, but mostly it wanted to annihilate everything.

It shook a haze of maddened, swarming stingers at the pegasus, whom lazily flitted between the shrieking death and spun dexterously to redirect the last to fly back into the hellish beast’s face, where it exploded and elicited a booming shriek of anger.

“You giving me attitude? You trying to give me attitude?!” Dash kept pace just inches ahead of the surging leviathan and and prodded an eye the size of a lake, one of many.

“You’re nothing but a punk! I don’t know why I bother trying to whip you into shape! If Celestia hadn’t asked for this as a favour to some friend or other, I wouldn’t even be here! So MOVE IT AND FLAP THOSE...whatever it is you use to fly!”

The monster screamed and mountain tops in the distance...under them...now in the other distance, trembled.

Rainbow Dash shrugged it off with a flippant wave of her hoof. “Just try to keep up!”

The leviathan’s bulk rippled with its anger and it pushed every gram of effort into catching the damnable mare which - when ‘big as a whale’ is not only not a hyperbole, but an extreme understatement - amounted to a lot of grams. Thunder boomed perpetually in its atmospheric wake.

-=-=-=

Somewhere on the ground a base was in utter panic. A non descript bit of land consumed by tectonic storms and surging lava flows, it was rather mundane for what the standards of the planet with its curious and eccentric natives had to offer. The armoured troops (like the voice of the brain of the body of the ship) were accustomed to these.

But then, having a million metric tonne-oh-shits ripping across the sky towards you can have a whole new effect.

“Sir,” the comms crackled crazily, and a fair bit of that was the voice’s own. “Sir! It’s...holy shit it’s breaching the sound barrier!”

The force of the detonation was a precious few seconds away, which gave those on the ground a chance to make a very brief peace on a very short notice, dive into the nearest meagre spot of shelter, and truly test the bravery of their bowels...and not necessarily in that order.

Light travels faster than sound. This is a well understood fact, but is not often appreciated enough. The explosion of light more than made up for that.

Every one of those precious seconds was filled with blinding radiance, blazing in all the colours of the rainbow - and some other dazzling colours that only show up after reason and sanity decide to take a holiday or six.

“BRACE FOR IMPAC----”

There is no possible way to describe the event. The world, the cosmos themselves went haywire and all the laws of the universe, for here and now, decided to just kick it and rock out. The only way this can even be attempted is to merely say that Rainbow Dash happened. Rainbow Dash happened big time.

Sense was a long time in coming back, and not a single sentient being caught in the explosion didn’t stand in a state of absolute shock and awe. Not just shock and awe, but the shock of pure unmoderated awesome and awe yeeeeaah!

One heavily-armoured marine looked to another, and blinked.

“When...when did you get those bubbles painted on your armor?”

“What?”

“You got bubbles. On your armour. Right there.”

The be-bubbled marine blinked and looked. “Oh. Huh. So I do.” He blinked again. “Hey, you got, like, an hourglass on yours.”

“What? I ain’t got no... oh. Ain’t seen this before. What just happened? What’d these mean?” the marine said, gesturing to the strange new image on his paintjob.

“I don’t know...I just don’t know.”

Dumbstruck marines emerged from shelter. Each with their own strange and colourful little marking, they looked at them in a stupor. Nobody knew yet what to think.

“You know...it’s actually kinda cute,” one marine hazarded while flexing his shoulders, making the colourful instrument there dance a little.

“Cute?” another questioned aloud. “Are you fucking...you know actually, they are...wait, look at this, I can make this quill look like it’s writing in this book! Unh, yeah, check it!”

The general consensus came to be that these colourful and friendly marks were worth keeping, like badges of honour for making it through whatever the flying fuck had just happened. You had to be seriously badass to go to war adorned with something so non-threatening.

High above and getting farther away every second, a contrail of blazing lights lit up the horizon. Tears of terror and elation from oceanic eyes mingled with the sweaty monsoon of the monster. Ahead of it, egging the leviathan on, Rainbow Dash tore across the heavens.

Wonderbolts vs Phoenix vs Viking

Airspace was congested. This was not the congestion of a blaring and rage inducing roadway, nor the congestion of a mighty and terrible nostril...rather, it was almost like the worst of both brought together.

Fleets clashed under a red sky. The gray steel of bulky craft, painted with effigies of warfare, roared through the air and let rip salvos of screaming missiles. For their part, the sleek and shining recipients of these gifts swooped and swerved like birds of prey, strafing their enemies with bright streaks of blinding light that added ‘pew pew’ to the cacophony.

“Pew pew?” said a male voice said from the battle’s outskirts, upon a ledge overlooking the fight.

There was a feminine sigh full of disappointment and barely concealed disgust. “Yeah.”

Soarin face hoofed. “Right,” he said after a moment’s deep breathing, as if what came next was a tedious and painful hurdle. “What side do you want? Celestia knows both need a lot of work.”

“Vikings, definitely,” Spitfire said with a soft laugh.

“Ah come on, no fair. Phoenixes are like, girly.”

Spitfire smirked as she punched Soarin in the jaw. “Exactly. That’s why you get them. And for the love of flying, get them to stop that ‘pew pew’ noise.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Soarin grumbled.

Spitfire struck a sultry pose and smirked suggestively. Her trim body and trimmer flight suit stood against the sky, her wings held out triumphantly out. “Pew pew,” she said again, this time more slowly, though the written word entirely failed to illicit the sensuality of that auditory experience.

Soarin’s ears did not fail. His eyes did a fair bit of travel as well. He shivered and shook his head back into focus. “You are way too good at that.” Spitfire laughed as she shrugged.

“Get to it, flyboy,” she said and jumped into flight.

Soarin grumbled, but couldn’t wipe the silly grin from his face, nor did he want to. He followed at her side on the wing.

The battle they entered was a mess. This is true of most battles, but it was the wrong kind of mess.

“Alright, alright!” Soarin bellowed. “Who’s in charge here?” Screaming ships from both sides slowed to a halt and turned to face the pair of ponies, who know hovered between the two forces.

“What?” crackled across a shoddy speaker system. Vtol engines burned like forge-fires.

“Who’s in charge. You know: coordination, management, choreography.”

“Huh?” a reverberating voice came from one of the shinier craft, to which the dumbness of the statement did not do justice.

Soarin tugged at his cheeks and eyelids in frustration. “Amateurs.” he muttered.

“Alright then,” Spitfire began testily. “You guys with me, we’re going out a few clicks this way.”

Soarin nodded wearily. “The rest of you with me, we’re going out that way a few. On our honour as Wonderbolts we’re going to make something better of this air show than whatever it was you guys were trying. Have you ever even heard of arc? Dynamic pacing? Pyrotechnic support? Do you even have ground crews?”

The silence of the two fleets sounded guilty, somehow. Soarin groaned. “Didn’t think so. Come on!”

Spitfire held him up a moment. “Meet back here in an hour and we’ll take it from the top. Nothing fancy, just patch up their basics.”

“More like damage control,” he said, glaring at his nigh-useless new trainees.

“We can do it,” she said teasingly.

“If you say so Captain,” he conceded.

Whatever the power in her voice was, she cranked it up steadily as she spoke. “Buck up, Soarin. We get the amateurs to scrape through this air show and I’ll give you something nice. Something special.” Spitfire was one of those few who can look suggestive without needing to do anything.

Soarin coughed and tugged at his suit collar. “You’re terrible,” he managed to croak.

“Terribly good,” she winked. “Let’s do it.”

With his sloppy grin restored, Soarin led the contingent of phoenixes to the air above a likely plain, while Spitfire trail blazed at the forefront of the vikings in the opposite direction.

When they were little specks lost to the horizon, the Wonderbolt stallion halted.

“Right then,” he said to the waiting group. “I want you to break off into groups of three, practice a bit of simple delta formation. Remember, don’t jarr the turns suddenly, pull them steadily. You guys got the agility, but without some kind of formation you all look useless and confused.”

Ships broke off into groups with all the orderliness of children on a playground. The odd one out looked dejected, if stoic and inanimate metals can even do that.

“You,” Soarin began again, and with this the lonely ship’s non existent expression became bewildered and scared. “You’re gonna open up and let me get a look at your sound system.”

Haphazard formations flew around as Soarin waited for the floating phoenix to pop open. After a hesitant moment it did and the pony took no time in flying inside. Holographic projections of real time depicted the other vessels flitting about. Their haphazard, jerky motions were not inspiring to the seasoned flyer.

“I’m going to break this to you gently. You guys haven’t the slightest clue how to put on an air show, and there isn’t a hope we can make this work in an hour.”

The faces of the crew that looked to him were long. They were long by natural design, but also long by the saddening revelation. It always hurt to be told off by an iconic figure. Soarin trotted promptly past one disheartened being and poked his head under the panel of a likely looking bit of tech.

“What’s this?”

“Er, shield core?” the nearest one answered by way of a question, aware of the jeopardy of the situation.

“Great!” Reverse the polarity when the show’s on.”

“What?”

Soarin turned on the incredulous voice. “Haven’t you ever seen Star Trot? Fourth Generation? Deep Space Six? Crusader?” his voice grew frantic, their gazes remained empty.

“You know, for space aliens with such stuff, I’d have thought you’d have some kind of education in these things. Sheesh. Reversing the polarity makes everything better.” The pony blinked for a moment in thought. “At least, more exciting. And exciting is better. Yeah.” Satisfied with his logic, Soarin poked his head under another bit of crystalline technology.

He recoiled as if a bomb ticked there. His words were stiff, as was his entire body. He had to be careful with this moment, it might break away and run for it if he didn’t make it stay real. “You have Vinyl Scratch approved speaker systems?”

A few hesitant nods met his look of shock.

His voice grew like a tidal wave approaching from the distance. “You have Vinyl Scratch approved speaker systems and you’re letting your guns make the ‘pew pew’ noise?! Every one of your ships got these?”

There were a few more nods, hesitant but hopeful. Soarin’s chest swelled as his grin sharpened.

“Alright then,” he said happily. “Open a channel to the rest of the fleet. We don’t have much time, and there’s a lot of sound effects to rip.” To himself he muttered “Might just pull this off, captain.”

-=-=-=

At her end of things Spitfire had encountered her own problem. Viking pilots treated flying much like their namesakes treated everything: with enough forwards motion and yelling problems seemed to just resolve themselves, one way or another.

It meant they were terrible flyers. In her frustration the Wonderbolt captain flew a lazy circuit around a basic formation. They weren’t making anything useful of it.

“You don’t have to fly in straight lines, you know. It gets boring for everbody, and fast. Except, you know, these ships aren’t.”

A gruff voice otherwise wracked with nervousness crackled across the announcer. “Er...do we have to? Turn and stuff, that is?”

“That’s kind of an important part of flying, so yes.”

“We’ve uh, always been happier with, uh...burn and pillage.” The last words were nary a whisper, a frightful peep.

“Burn and pillage?” she said in a flat tone, giving the cockpit of the ship she circled a piercing stare.

“Yes?” came the shrill reply.

Spitfire sighed as she turned over in the air, hoping the flow of air across her body might work out some of the tension and frustration. It didn’t.

“Show me what you can do, than.”

“Yeah!” the pilots cried out enthusiastically. In utter betrayal to that notion, the Vikings came to a slow and complete stop. After a ponderous moment, a couple of speedy little rockets were fired into the distance.

Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Uhuh.”

“Oh... um...alright then... Check this out!” The sound of twisting gears and sight of twisting metal piqued the slightest shred of the Wonderbolt captain’s interest. A viking dropped to the ground, where it now stood on stubby robotic legs. “Tada!” the pilot shouted happily. The other pilots roared out cheers for the feet.

Spitfire landed next to the landed craft. She made an emphasised point of walking towards it. “Tada,” she mimed with impatience and disdain heavy in her voice.

“I...I...” the sounds of sobbing met Spitfire’s ears, and by the whimpers of the other pilots, it could be a chain reaction if she didn’t stop it here.

She tried to be comforting as she stood next to the hulking machine which she, entirely for reasons of sentiment and none of effectuality, patted it compassionately.

“There there, I’m sorry. You’re trying your best, and that’s what counts.”

After a few moments the worst of the sobbing passed, but it continued like soft rain after a typhoon. “Can we...can we go back to the base for repairs? My tears shorted out some of the wiring,” the Viking pilot whispered sadly.

I don’t believe this, the captain thought, though being for the most part a nice pony it wasn’t what she said. “Yeah. Let’s all take a few.”

The base wasn’t far off, but it was a solemn flight there. Well, at least Soarin can’t be doing any worse off than me.

-=-=-=

That is the kind of written prompt that says, with a nod and a wink, that indeed things are worse in some unlikely and hilarious manner. The truth of the matter was that despite the firm entrenchment of this prompt, Soarin wasn't worse off. From the small bridge of the phoenix he’d managed to hassle some-toss into getting him a connection to skype, from which he nagged a friend of his into finding the youtube videos he was looking for, as she was much better at finding stuff than himself.

With a few words writ in the meantime to let the video load on another tab, he flicked back to it.

“Here, feed these into those crystals you use, tell them to improvise with the sound effects when the ship is doing something that matches. Good sound effects will make everything more awesome. Anything but ‘pew pew.’ I mean, really for guys that practically breath...well, something sci-fi, with the single greatest line of speaker systems ever, you really don’t know much of anything.”

“There’s no need to be insulting,” an indignant voice put forwards from a corner.

Soarin groaned. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But hey, cut out that audio. Yeah, just turn it right off, cause here’s the real score.This is what you play, synched through every phoenix during the show..”

“This what?”

“This,” he insisted, pointing at the immaterial screen. The pegasus beamed a wide grin while the others around him looked on with mixtures of apprehension and wonderment. The first few bars rolled through him ominously...

Then it jumped into the fore with power and beat. He started bobbing his head in time to the music. “Isn’t that just glorious?” A few heads started bobbing with his; it was all the proof he’d ever need of his rightness. “An air show without the right tunes is missing something dearly. Even Spitfire’s gonna be surprised by this one,” he said, and his grin only grew wider.

-=-=-=

Soarin’s grin was almost as wide as Spitfire’s eyes. The vikings and her had arrived at their little base, and while the now landed robotic craft ambled about and sulked in general, Spitfire had taken a minute to wander and clear her head and she’d found her way into the nearest supply depot. There were things. So many things. Military grade things, all polished and shining.

It should be no surprise that fiery Spitfire, the colour of fire and leaving fire in her wake...kinda liked fiery things. A lot. And oh boy, there was a lot of it here.“Get me some SCV’s in here, right now!” the captain yelled out. “My little vikings are getting some last minute refits. We’ll make a good show of this yet!” The pegasus espied some pressure canisters of paint in a corner. “And get them a new coat of paint. Make them uniform. Cool. Awesome. Figure something out.”

With the rush and hustle and bustle of proper last minute prep panic, Spitfire felt pretty good, hoping only that Soarin was keeping up.

-=-=-=

“You can’t be serious,” he said to her after the rendezvous.

Spitfire laughed. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea. I only told them to whip up something like team colours.”

“You can’t be serious,” he said again, caught on the one track. He stared out into the ready and waiting fleet of vikings and two dozen immaculately painted, extremely suggestive Spitfires winked back at him. Soarin’s jaw hung appropriately low.

“I think it’s kind of flattering.” The male’s jaw was too far down to respond with anything legible beyond a sort of murmuring grunt. By a mighty force of will the pegasus shook his head and got his head back in charge.

“Is that all?” he asked, doing a terrible job of pretending that twenty four and one very real Spitfire very close to him weren’t impressive in and of themselves.

The mare gestured coyly. “Oh, there’s this and that on them too. This and that.”

At some subtle signal from her gouts of roaring fire and streaming flares burst from the ready fleet like a challenge to the stars. Whatever rally Soarin had managed in pulling back his slack jaw before came undone now.

“Wa...wa...Right! Reverse the polarity! Do it now! Soarin roared to his gathered phoenixes. Nobody had the slightest clue what it even meant, let alone what it’d do.

The translucent fields of energy that made up their shields darkened and seethed with arcs of lightning as if each ship were the heart of a nebulous storm. Soarin hoof pumped the air wildly. “I told you it’d work!” To Spitfire he turned and beamed madly, than shouted as loud as he could. “Start the tune!”

“You ready for this?” Du du duuu

She met his manic grin with one of her own. “Let’s do it.” Du du duuu

The sky darkened with ominous portent as the lines were drawn. Du du duuu

Through the music and madness the roars of the pilots called to glory as the ships rushed on to face one another. Du du duuu

...they started flying awkward, enthusiastic little formations around one another, rather pleased with themselves for the attention and the hyper abundance of awesome effects. Well, these were what the Wonderbolts had been driving into them for the last hour...

“What?” Soarin managed to croak as his eye followed along the painfully jarring turn of a squadron of vikings, all the while happily spewing flames before them.

Spitfire face-hoofed. “A for effort,” she intoned.

“What?”

“Alright, E for effort, but still. Oh yeah. Soarin, remember what I said?”

“That we could totally pull this off?” he snarked.

She laughed lightly, “Alright, alright. This was crazy. But the other thing.”

Memory dawned on Soarin slowly, but when it did there was no mistaking the wide glint of shock to his eyes. She’d said about giving him something nice. Something special. Soarin’s wings stiffened in flight and his throat went raspy. This was Spitfire after all, did she...

He was having a bit of trouble thinking straight. All that teasing from her...did this finally mean it was...?

Then she was there, hovering so close to him and staring him in the eye, a flirtatious smile lighting up her colours. “Soarin,” she whispered. He was a professional stunt flyer, but the way that tongue wrapped around his name sapped all semblance of skill and grace from his flight. He barely managed to keep aloft.

“Soarin,” she said again, and his panting grew heavy and audible, even amidst the incredible music and sound effects of the ships. She leaned in closer, so close he could feel the breeze from her wings and the heat from her breath. “I know you’ve wanted this for so long now...” Soarin’s brain sizzled like the reversed polarity of the shields. She knew! She knew!! he screamed mentally, euphoric with the epiphany. His heart thundered in his chest.

Something soft and warm was pressed into his hooves. Soarin’s soaring heart skipped a beat. She is! She is!!

“It’s apple-rhubarb,” Spitfire said kindly. “I managed to sneak it out of their base. Freshly baked.”

It was the most magnificent pie he had every seen, and he wept freely his glistening tears.

He stumbled over the words of gratitude as tears choked his vision with sparkling droplets. “It’s just...you just...know me...so beautiful...thank you...”

The captain of the Wonderbolts patted her wingman on the shoulder while all around them haphazard ships flew painstaking formations, politely steering well clear of one another. She sighed and smiled. “Anything for a friend.”

Iron Will vs Angry Units

“Iron Will does not accept payment in vespene gas! Iron Will works for his living just like everyone else, and Iron Will expects to be paid just like everyone else!”

“Blearughgasegh!” The overlord grumbled from deep within its gut. The immense bulk of it squirmed and writhed inches from the hard stare of the minotaur like some monstrous balloon, though not by choice. The minotaur had grasped its tendrils and pulled it down to the ground for a bit of eye to...something.

Biceps that could mold steel bulged in arms of blue. “Iron Will is very sorry to hear that, but it is your problem and Iron Will is not willing to accept your mistake!” The trainer let the reverberations of his resounding voice echo through the smooshy brain of the zerg flyer.

Some people had a voice that could reverberate through the air. Iron Will’s could reverberate through the ground, vibe its way up the legs and spine, then pound out the aches and tensions of the listener with a vigorous back massage. Hearing the minotaur speak with his forceful assertiveness wasn’t just an experience, it was the experience. The one fondly recalled with a slightly glazed over expression and blush, the months since getting it last counted out wistfully.

The overlord hesitated. “Blearughgasegh?” It gurgled. Somehow in all the sloshing, undulating noises there came to be the notes of cautious hope.

Iron Will’s face scrunched up in careful scrutiny, but as he started nodding his grip on the tendrils slackened.

“Alright then. Iron Will is not unreasonable. You can bring his payment when you come to collect the zerglings after the meeting, but don’t forget what Iron Will has said!”

“Blearughgasegh.” For a creature whose closest substitute for a shoulder were ventral sacs and was pretty much entirely lumpy head, it managed a fairly eager nod all the same.

“Good to hear.” If his chest puffed out any further, the wind would have to start intentionally going around the minotaur, like a buff blue mountain. For its part the overlord turned away and struggled to gain altitude, its limp tendrils wiggling rather uselessly, a certain straightness in their noodliness from where Iron Will’s iron grip had ironed them out.

He watched it drift away, appreciating the genuine beauty and expressiveness of the overlord language. Then he turned to face his class, all business.

“That, class, is how one deals with an unexpected confrontation! If you have to improvise, be willing to compromise!”

Growls, shrieks, ghostly wails and death threats chorused back to him. So far, so good.

The towering trainer strolled back and forth like a commander before his troops. “You’re here for assertiveness training, because Iron Will has learned the hard way that assertiveness out of control is just plain old aggressiveness! It is not good!” The minotaur had heard of such a thing as an indoor voice. His was probably gathering dust in a lost-and-found somewhere. Point him at sails and ships would move, even against a stiff wind.

Iron Will would probably just talk the wind into going his way, all the way, anyway.

A little creature made mostly of teeth and tendons snapped at his heels. The hulking hunk whipped around so fast that there wasn’t just a thunderclap, there was a thunder-standing-ovation-and-calls-for-encore. A meaty finger hovered a menacing inch away from the glistening jaw of slavering aggression.

“You wanna learn this the hard way, you’ll rue the day!” Iron Will shouted in its face. If he spoke in italics, it was because the force of his speech physically bent the letters, like a hurricane would trees. The voice alone sent the zergling staggering backwards. Its wide-eyed terror only helped things along and it quickly cowered at the back of seven others.

Like a lightning strike, suddenly it was over. “Good,” he said, resuming his nonchalant stroll. “That’s lesson one! Look ‘em in the eye, just like a Fluttershy!” The zerglings and assorted others muttered amongst themselves, but no other challenged the minotaur.

Iron Will’s seemingly aimless pacing took him to another of the trainees. In many apparant ways they were similar, trainer and trainee. Both were of a size, and were prominently blue. One was an overpowered being of raw force made by combining two other entirely powerful entities. In this instance those were named ‘left arm’ and ‘right arm.’

The other was an archon.

It moaned in a haunted wail. “Powerrrr...overwhelming!”

“And what comes with great power?”

The streaming plasma of the energy being’s eyes flickered with what might have been ponderous blinking. “Responsibilityyyy...overwhelming?”

“No!” Iron Will burst out with a deep guffaw, slapping the burning entity on the back so hard it staggered forwards and wheezed. “Don’t be ridiculous! With great power comes great respect! But before you can get respect from others, you gotta get it from yourself! Lesson two: You gonna be nasty, you’ll get picked lastly!”

The zergling that had attacked, having no physiological right to scratch at its chin thoughtfully forgot itself and did just that, its eyes brimming with what might have been thought.

The minotaur prodded a figure clad in blackened armour in the chest. Behind a black helmet and motif someone scoffed disdainfully at him. Iron Will huffed like any self-respecting bull.

“Don’t feed the rage, get on the same page! Lesson three: have a healthy outlet of expression!” He struck a pose, grunting as he flexed more muscles than a sack full of shellfish. “What do ya do to vent some steam?”

“Nuke the crap outta things,” the masked figure replied, the voice warbling with barely restrained aggression. Later the spectre would admit it to himself after a bit of a think that the incident stemmed from a fear of public speaking, but in this moment the spectre simply retaliated with a psionic lash. At the last instant some modicum of self-preservation kicked in and the crackling lance of energy was redirected from one big blue figure to another.

“Weeee...Burn!” The archon wailed angrily, and with notes of hurt. Not hurt hurt, of course, but emotionally wounded, which was just as bad. The spectre’s impassive mask shook with trembles as he realized that, if he were very, very lucky, his chances of surviving his idiocy and quick thinking might even be in the double digits.

Archons, it was a little known fact, were sensitive souls, with an emphasis on the plural. Some write poetry. All are very selves-conscious.

“What you gonna do about this?” Iron Will asked testily. The archon’s eyes flashed brightly, than dimmed.

“Notttt...destroy?” It asked hesitantly, having a lot of trouble managing the concept of one of those words. The trouble word wasn’t ‘destroy’ either. No merely organic throat could roll ‘t’s with such terrifying ability.

Iron Will smacked his palm off his forehead. “No! If you’re going to get flak, don’t let them attack! Lesson four: keep control of yourself and your situation! Stand your ground and be assertive and it won’t have to come to blows! Now get this punk to apologize!”

The archon drifted over with surprising speed, glowing like the heart of a furiously newborn star.

“Youuuu...sorry?”

The spectre muttered something. The archon’s burning eyes flared.

“Willlll...be,” it moaned with vengeance in its voice.

Iron Will stepped between the two, like an ocean that sidles in between two continents racing furiously into collision. Of course, one was a feared energy being, the other a ready package of burnt smears; just add huge doses of raw energy.

The minotaur held them apart, and both had to think the same thing: confrontation had to be really, really worth something if it meant traversing the dangerous passes of left arm and right arm.

“I’m sorry,” The spectre mumbled.

“Good to hear! Both of you, I don’t want anymore of this in my class, got it?”

“Yessss...”

“Yeah...”

Iron Will grinned. “Great! Let’s do some teamwork exercises.”

The next hour passed with the awkwardness found by a disorderly and disparate group of misfits nonetheless trying to fit. If Iron Will had to squeeze and crush it in a bit here and there, oh well.

There was one incident, again with that problem child zergling, though to its credit it was just too excited for its own good. With the reckless abandon characteristic of the zerg it had squealed and bit into Iron Will’s bicep. He flexed and teeth started breaking out and flying away like rivets from an overfilled pressure canister. Its entire jaw was stretched out into a forlorn expression of woe, and it certainly looked very sorry. Especially for itself.

All in all, things were going well. So well, in fact, that something that had no right existing manifested anyway.

Raging energy monsters of destruction, eyes aglow with fervent and wild energies should not be able to look bashful. This archon did. Even Iron Will had to stop for a second to regard those wide plasma eyes.

It moaned something in a low whisper.

“You...you sure that’s a good idea?” Iron Will asked.

The archon moaned again.

“Well, alright. Remember now, be assertive.” The archon nodded and tried to hide, almost successfully, behind the minotaur.

“Class, uh, Mr. Archon is getting into the spirit of things and wants to recite a bit of poetry it seems.” The spectre scoffed, but a stern glare from the trainer put a quick stop to that. Even the zerglings crowded around, their heads clicking and twitching side to side, like birds, with curiosity.

An archon clearing its metaphysical throat as it emotionally prepares is one of the weirdest, ethereal, and strangely ephemeral experiences there can be.

“Ahhhh...hem,” it began, somewhat meekly.

Twoooo...ones

Issss...one

Ammmm...blue

Feelingssss...too.

Iron Will’s mouth opened.

Iron Will’s mouth closed.

Iron Will’s mouth opened and stayed open, but his eyebrows scrunched together and consulted one another.

“That was. Something. Yeah.” For lack of a better thing to do, Iron Will clapped. It was a slow clap, but each impact, and they were impacts, resounded like controlled detonations. Each and every one served to brighten up the archon, which when dealing with nigh pure energy beings is a very literal turn of phrase.

As the echoes died away, a moment of awkward silence came around unannounced, made itself at home and ate their proverbial food without asking.

A mostly toothless jaw very lightly gripped Iron Will’s wrist. “Huh?” he said distractedly.

“Kekekeke?”

“Um. Yeah. Sure.”

There was a whole exchange consisting of ‘k’ and ‘e’, and one zergling made a stern point with “kekekeke” before the now apparent leader rebutted it with a surprisingly concise “kekekeke.”

With some prodding, the others stepped forwards and the archon shuffled aside, glowing with delight for itself.

The zergling tapped a foot...claw to a jazzy beat. If zerglings had fingers, they’d be snapping theirs in sync. “Ke. Ke. Ke ke ke ke!”

Zerglings danced. Any further attempt to detail this incident would be hazardous to one’s sanity. Of the entire experience Iron Will recalled only a vague, dreamlike quality, which was his mind effectively filtering out much of it.

For all that, nothing could forget that one zergling that spun about five times on its head, and the one that did ballet spins...well, nothing could be said about that at all.

Iron Will hastened through his little open mouth, close mouth ritual, this time adding in an extra repeat or two. The minotaur shuffled to the side of the equally bewildered spectre.

“You got something to show too?”

“Um, no?”

Iron Will nodded briskly. “Good.” A glint of shiny mucus on the horizon, the sort plucked from only the deepest and richest of nostril excursions was a welcome sight. He whirled away and took to the fore again. “Alright, class, this has been, uh, a successful first meeting. I’ve got something here for you all.”

His basket he’d set aside before starting, but the little wicker work fell into place in the crook of his mammoth arm like a beloved kitten. Iron Will carefully pulled aside the cloth covering, revealing the prizes within.

With awkward ceremony, Iron Will handed out the chocolate chip cookies. The archon looked ready to cry with disbelief, which, considering what it was, could mean plasma tears that really, really stung.

The archon held the thing in a tight mesh of energy, over what might be considered its heart. “Forrrr...me? Thankkkk...you. Willlll...treasure.”

The archon had no mouth, but its eyes managed to smile just fine as a sudden faint glow encompassed the being. In the pale light the archon faded until it was gone entirely, recalled to whatever place it considered home.

The zerglings tore into theirs with gusto, seeming so innocently happy with their treats that Iron Will couldn’t say no to tossing a few extras their way.

He held one of the last out to the black armoured spectre. The mask looked to him, than to the cookie. There was a shrug, and an acceptance. With a hiss of gas the mask was taken off and dropped to the ground.

The cookie crunched in such a way as to very satisfyingly fill the silence, if one pretended the ravenous pack of happy zerglings right there weren’t.

“I’ve been told we’re crazy, us spectres.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’m not sure if what I saw here proved them right or wrong.”

“I hope you’re talking the lessons to heart?”

“Yeah...I think I’ll find a quiet world. Peaceful. Innocent. Then not nuke the crap out of it. You’ve got me thinking some strange things. ‘Anger does not dictate my life,’ they always said. It’s almost like that’s starting to make sense now. Huh.”

“That’s a good one! I gotta remember that!”

The spectre stooped to retrieve the mask and fitted it back into place. “See you around...” with a sudden hiss of electronics, the operative faded from view, and all that was left was a disembodied voice in the still air. “...or not. Thanks for the cookie.”

Alone to his thoughts, Iron Will watched as the zerglings fussed like children about clambering up into the ventral sacs of the now arrived overlord. At an insistent grumble, they complied.

All of them.

All eight. That left no space for payment.

The overlord glanced his way and struggled for altitude.

“Wait! You owe Iron Will minerals! Get back here!” But it was out of reach, and Iron Will felt forever a-drone, or would, were not for his ever constant and faithful little basket.

As is the way of these things, there tends to be one last cookie snuck away somewhere after surely they must all have been taken already. Big blue fingers rooted it out. With a ponderous crunch of chocolate chips, Iron Will thought about things.

He took another bite. “Huh.”

Vinyl Scratch and Octavia vs The Nuke

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“Cooomee ooonn.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Just this one time? Pleeasee?”

“NO. You cannot, in anyway, shape or form modify my C-EL-1O rifle with your P0N-3 bass.”

“But it's so quiet. Shouldn’t it be, you know, cool?”

“It’s supposed to be quiet!”

“You too.”

“What?!”

“Oh well, I mean, if I happened to be fitting the bass into that sweetness you wouldn’t have to carry it for a while. It’s pretty big for such a quiet setup.”

“I said no. No means no. It’s final, don’t you get that?”

“You wouldn’t have to talk to me either.”

“Take it. Here. Take it, please.”

“Sweet! Thanks.”

“No rush. I mean it. Seriously now. Take all the time you want. And then some more.”

“This is a sexy piece of machine, you know?”

“I really didn’t. What happened to us not talking?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle. Oh, it’s so sleek...Oops.”

“Oops?”

“Chill, chill. Just the panel. I got it. Wait, this baby has a USB port?”

“Yeah, sure. Funny. There’s no-”

“I’m being serious, look.”

“So you’re right. That’s actually peculiar.”

“More like that’s actually kind of awesome. Hold up a second.”

“What now? We’re supposed to get up there sometime today, you know?”

“Yeah yeah just...there we go, got it!”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Heh. What kind of DJ would I be without at least a couple of tunes on me, always, in a easy access flash drive?”

“No, I mean, where did you get that? You’ve not exactly wearing any...pockets.”

“Magic...obviously. You’re weird. You’re the one wearing clothes ‘n’ stuff, and you’re calling me weird? I like that.”

“I never said so in the first place. That’s hardly fair. And I don’t even want to know about that last bit.”

“Alrighty...you like dubstep? Oh nevermind, that’s not really a question at all. I’ll put some on.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious! Except when I’m not, but still. How much you want to bet the gun’s got some cannons on it?”

“Cannons?”

“Ya know, speakers. Sheesh, do you even listen to music?”

“You did see my cutie mark, yes?”

“Like a fancy ‘and’ symbol, yeah. What about it?”

“I...I don’t even. How are you so-”

“Incredible? No need to gush, I know, I know. Just part of being DJ P0N-3. Don’t worry, I don’t let it go to my head."

“Really not that much of a brain to find in there anyway.”

“What was that?”

“Um. Nothing. Whoah! What the?!”

“Pretty awesome beat, huh?”

“This is not music! This is a coordinated assault on my eardrums! Are you a Spectre?!”

“Don’t be like that. I’m pretty sure I listened to your kind of music once. Got stuck in an elevator. It was great. Anyway, no. I’m a DJ, really. You’re the one with ghosts’n’stuff.”

“Well, we’re here now. At last.”

“Woah, already? Doesn’t that mean we’re early?”

“Yes, we are. Probably from me trying to get away from you the whole time!”

“What was that?”

“Er...just remembering how I was going to be a solo operative...”

“I know, you sure got lucky! Unce unce! Yeah!!”

“Lucky. Yes. Now turn it off!”

“Fine. What a killjoy.”

“You do realize that over this ridge there’s a cluster of raving- hey get back here!”

“You said raving!”

“Not your kind of raving! I mean flying spittle and crazy hyper space monster raving!”

“Tell me again how is that not my kind of rave?”

“You’re insane. You’re just utterly, totally insane. Sharp teeth! Big claws! Scariness! They are not nice! What part of this aren’t you getting?!”

“Hey hey hey! Breathe. Breathe. Right, just relax. That’s right. Pre-show jitters.”

“At least tell me you know the plan.”

“Sure thing. We’re going to put the little red dot in the middle of there and drop the bass...er, bomb so hard that...oh...that’s given me an idea...”

“What?”

“...Yeah, this is awesome.”

“Why are you smiling? Why are you smiling like that?”

“Oh, you’ll see... Just you rest up.”

“I might never rest easy again, seeing that smile.”

“Trust me. You’ll like what I’ve got in mind.”

“Somehow I doubt that. You’re not going to give back my C-EL-1O until you’ve gone through with sharing your madness, are you?

“Nope.”

“I’m sure I’m already catching it...”

“Shush, just let the S.C. err, M.C. handle this. P0N-3 always puts on an awesome show...”

Five minutes later the electric blue mane of Vinyl Scratch whipped away from the inner workings of the C-EL-1O’s more clandestine components.

Operative Octavia took a steadying breath. “I must admit to a certain...breathlessness. I’m not usually one to let another take charge, yet...”

“Yeah, I tend to have that effect. I call it Wub. After this I’ll explain it to you over a drink somewhere. Even I’ll want a bit of peace and quiet after this show!” she said with a wicked grin.

Octavia in her skin-tight bodysuit, glowing with pulsing lines of technology looked dreamy as she smiled. For a moment the air wasn’t so raspy, the suns quite so hot... “mmmm...Peace...Quiet...”

Vinyl pointed the heavy rifle at a speck far into the valley ahead, a thick dark blotch of seething life on a barren world. A tiny red dot flashed into being at its heart, smaller than the iris of an eye but, to the computers looking for it bright as a supernova.

Nuclear launch detec-detec-detec-de-de-de-de-de-detected, Wooah!! It’s gonna be a haaayyyyy-daaaaayyyyyy!! FROGS, DRIED OUT FROGS. FROGS. FROGS. Error error, coffee incident! Error, error, Coffee incident!! Purple. Purple. Purple. RED! WHAT A PRETTY RED RIBBON!! ERROR ERROR rawr raw rawrrrr zeeeeeeeeek!

Vinyl’s expression need not be described. Octavia face-hoofed.

“The adjutant is a little under the weather,” she said diplomatically.

“Yeah, every last psi storm there is. Though you know...she had a kind of beat going there. I could mix that.” Vinyl shook her head. “Later though. Listen to this.”

Ocatvia looked into the yawning abyss of the sky. Only then did the words filter through her oppressed sensibility. All the same there it was, somehow brighter than the light and stronger than the flame, that sound.

“You did not upload your accursed ‘music’ to a nuclear warhead.”

Vinyl’s grin was fission with bait.

“You did not upload music to a nuclear warhead!” She could already make out the words.

“No, I’m sending the creep down there a sonic recreation of the end of the world. Pretty sneaky, huh?”

The sky lit with a flash of incandescent fury as the missile pounded into the lower atmosphere, and by timing or chance the beat dropped with it. Vinyl started to convulse in that manner Octavia had the distinct displeasure of knowing of as ‘head banging.’

Music shook the mountain ranges, focused and reflected by the curvature of the basin. All these miles away Octavia could feel it shaking the grit beneath her, even shaking into her.

The two dove into cover and time slowed to a standstill mire. Octavia’s wandering eye caught the lazy spin of a dust particle on the dry air, one among slowly twirling millions. Her own hair came around with tectonic slowness. The life and death of a universe seemed terribly hasty against the molasses of that moment.

As her eye fell upon the unicorn the operative realized she didn’t know if she wanted to kiss Vinyl or kill her. It all seemed impossibly ridiculous. Considering these feelings during a nuclear detonation hardly seemed as ludicrous as feeling this at all. With the slowness of a quiet tide the radiance of white light caught up with the two and blinded the world to their existence.

It took entirely too long to abate. The earth heaved and sky shattered as the two little ponies huddled together.

Later on Octavia liked to tell herself it was intellect that decided her; you could certainly kiss a mare many more times than you could kill her, discounting a certain finesse with a defibrillator... Not at all was it the fact that even as the world exploded and seethed around them, held tight to one another the earth pony felt...safe.

Though she never said it aloud, Vinyl felt the same way. They nuked happily ever after, which for the extreme majority of things they met turned out to be a very short ever after indeed. Octavia was even caught...ahem...head banging, once.

She is still very much denying that she ever did such a thing.

Applejack vs High Templar

The high templar puffed out his chest, and the eldritch energies writhing through him turned evening into glorious day.

“We are the Brotoss!” he declared with the sort of rumbling voice that says there’s plenty more exclamation marks in stock and it’s a clearance weekend.

Applejack lounged against one of her favourite trees, her hat rested over her eyes, a single straw of grass sticking from her mouth for the look of the thing. Anyone who has actually done this will, sooner or later, have that minor annoyance of trying to get it back out of their teeth. Such is why the feathery tip of the grass shoot wobbled back and forth.

“Uh huh.”

The glowing figure rose up in the air, crackling with power. “Our race outlives the most ancient stars! We have created and destroyed worlds as seen fit by the immutable light of the Khala!”

Maybe if she sorta bit it just there, then pushed at it with her tongue here...“Yeah.”

“The very energies of being are at my beck and call, and great are the storms I command!”

“That so.” Aha! Got ya, blasted weed! Applejack spat the offending plant material away with throaty percussion and stretched as she stood.

“That’s mighty interesting and all, I’m sure, but you’re on my land. Any particular reason for that?”

The swirling tempest energies steadied as the templar considered himself. Grudging tolerance was not a reaction a master of the ancient and honourable ways often encountered, but he had it on highest authority that this pony was terribly important.

Applejack settled her hat to its natural position, and in a not quite natural way the Stetson seemed to entirely defy the swirling gusts of rampant energies, just as the orange pony did.

The high templar caught himself staring, something he hadn’t done for hundreds of years. And yet... he was fascinated with the hat. It seemed so, so alien.

Applejack rolled her eyes even as she rolled her shoulders. “Right, I think I’ve seen your type. Indulge me with a little something and kick this tree here.”

“Kick the tree?” He knew the mysteries of the Preservers and the trials of the Khaydarin, but never in his long years had he done anything like kicking a tree.

It didn’t seem to be a particularly wise tree. “Kick...the tree?”

“That’s right. Just give it a good old swing.”

“I could reduce this tree to the barest bones of smouldering black heartwood!”

Applejack nodded like a patient teacher dealing with a slow child. “I’m sure you could, but what use would that be? A kick’ll do fine.”

The templar wanted to shout: I have faced down the darkness of the void!

The reason he didn’t was the nagging private expansion to that thought: so why am I being so weirded out by a rather ordinary looking fruit tree?

“Well, get on with it. We don’t have all evening.”

The templar focused all his potent faculties and remembered his purpose, but the nagging quarter of his mind grew in its insistence. This tends to happen when people self-assured of their intellect come up against someone who they suspect isn’t half as simple as they let on. In short, he felt like a disciple of a meagre two hundred years again.

With burning determination he drifted steadily towards the trial set before him. Legs that centuries ago might have run with warriors and brutalized the miles had grown lax with constant floating.

There was a sort of wobbling swing of a leg, and for all the secrets and mysteries the master learned something new. Under scrutiny, this quintessentially defeats the purpose of being called ‘master’ in the first place. It was as simple as this: it is almost impossible to kick something without either motion or contact with the ground.

It was, however, extremely easy to topple over in the air when one is slightly top heavy. All the fancy runic armour certainly made him this. Its purpose, and the glowing contrails of powerful powers sort of lost their dramatic effect when the vigilant warrior of light who wielded them bobbed helplessly upside down in the air and clawed at the ground in a desperate bid to right himself.

Applejack coughed and an orange hoof shot out behind her. The sharp impact of wood was followed by the rustle of leaves. The high templar looked up just in time to get an apple of resplendent red in the face, the impact of which spun him back upright.

“Right then. This is how we do it down on the farm.” Applejack shouted, though she didn’t need to, and her hoof struck home. Every last leaf danced as a torrent of apples fell.

A perfect stack of the fruit glimmered in the templar’s eyes. Of all the things he had ever seen, of great fleets and wondrous constructs...

Not so much of that, anymore. The conclave had collapsed and every echelon of the brotoss were struggling to grasp this incredible new notion called ‘learning.’

The templar bowed as deeply as he dare, conscious of tipping over again. He’d never float so jauntily again.

“You humble me, mighty one! I come to learn from your wisdom!”

“Yeah...nope.”

That wasn’t right. “Wait, what?”

“You think I got time or patience for that sort of thing?” Applejack sighed, adjusting her hat with no particular need to. “Look. I’m more of a practical mare. I solve practical problems. What’s got you bothered, and how can I help? If it means flapping my gums more than my hooves though, I ain’t doing it. And enough of that kind of speaking, because I know fancy speak and yer doin’ it wrong.

This stumped the templar for some time. “Well, uh. Our Colossus keeps, um, getting blown up. That’s bad.”

Applejack gave the flustered templar a hard stare. “You ain’t been letting Pinkie Pie and-slash-or the Cutie Mark Crusaders anywhere near them things, have you?”

“No?”

“Good. Don’t. Just trust me on that. Anyway, let me take a look at the thing, shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“It’s right there.”

“Where?”

“There.”

It is the nature of the world that very large things have a tendency to sneak up unexpectedly, if only because no-one expects very large, vista-dominating things to be capable of being so unexpected. As it was, a hundred tons of glimmering golden metal seemed to just pop into her view.

It had to be visible from Ponyville, easily.

“Oh, there it is, yeah.” the pony nodded a couple of times to herself. “Yeah, I think I see your problem. Just leave it with me overnight and I’ll sort it out for ya. No worries. You got any scrap bits I can use?

“Yes.”

The mothership just sort of faded into the foreground. It was too big to loom. It was too big to be big. It was humongous. It was immense. It was all those words meaning ‘great big thing’ mixed together and recast into a super word. Clouds drifted by under one outstretched arm of it. Canterlot huddled together against its anthill of a mountain as the ‘Oh momma that’s a big ship’ ship spun slowly.

-ENGAGING MASS RECALL-

There was light, then...well, it wasn’t like the Apples had been using those fields anyway, and it was always good to have a junkyard around, even if this was more of a junkontinent. Mountains of detritus loamed in swirling seas of discarded items.

The silly templar was gone too. Sure, she’d been put upon, but the anticipation to get her hooves into something slapped a grin on her face.

“Apple Bloom!” she roared out. “Get me my rope. And bring me a roll of duct tape.” Applejack regarded the hundreds upon thousands of tons of metal before her. “Maybe make that two rolls!”

Soon enough, in the waning minutes of evening the only sounds to be heard were ffzzzzsswwww-IPPP! FFzzzzssssswwwwww--IPPP! and these continued on deep into the night, or at least until Applejack found herself needing a third roll of duct tape, something utterly unheard of before. An unseasonal crack of lightning briefly shone across her terrifying work, and the mare couldn’t help but let loose a healthy cackle. Somewhere along the way, wide-brimmed metalworking goggles had cozied up under her hat.

The golden rays of dawn were met in kind by the shining metal of the colossus and its...minor adjustments. It shone in the light as it passed over them.

“By the Void, what have you done to this machine?!”

“Just a bit of this and a bit of that. You want to learn from me? Two words: Duct. Tape.”

“The greatest war machine in the history of the brotoss is skating on four hellions!!”

“No it ain’t! It’s doing ballet on four hellions, and Darla’s doing alright by them pirouette thingies if I do say so myself!” Opposing legs rose and curled gracefully, punctuated by a blast of scorching blue flames from its new roller feet.

“You were supposed to make it better!” The brotoss’ voice hit new levels of crazed high.

Applejack huffed. “Well, she’s faster now and that’s good too.”

The templar covered his eyes and forced a deep nasally breath. “And the bunker fixed atop it...?” Gray neosteel and the dull sheen of tape capped the golden monolithic construct.

“Helmet,” Applejack said with a no-nonsense attitude, but a smile slipped through as Darla managed another graceful twist that belied her several hundred tons. “I wouldn’t set a bad example for my sister and her friends. Only right. Oh, I found a couple of those sentry thingies of yours. They were happy to go into the bunker, so that’s where I put ‘em. Makes for a nice little light show when I ask for it. Seems they’re rather unhappy about being out in the open, fragile as they are. Apparantly some of yours have been calling them ‘tickle cannons?’ They ain’t happy about that.”

The trees might as well have been blades of grass under Darla, but she - and the templar had to think of it as a she or accept that machines could in fact go insane - bore down on them with terrifying speed, each spidery leg weaving delicately between the pathways of the orchard, riling up no more than a slight breeze that brushed against the leaves.

Applejack seemed entirely unconcerned. Before the templar could shriek in terror Darla leapt, two legs splayed ahead, two behind, and time seemed to stand still.

The brotoss’ expression was certainly timeless.

There was only a slight tremor of the earth as she landed, than whirled about like a dancer basking in the glory of their completed routine. A sphere of translucent blue light expanded from the bunker-helmet and wavering streams of white energy waved back and forth like ribbons of celebration.

“Yeah, the sentries love that one. She’s growing on me, like a great big puppy.”

“...”

Applejack coughed the cough that is trying to say something without having to say it. “I daresay she feels the same way. The sunshine and fresh air are certainly doing her good, as you can see.”

“...”

Applejack scuffed at the dirt. “Once I can work out something for arms or the like, I might even have her help around with a couple of the chores and such. I’m sure Bloom would love to have another friend around the farm.”

“...”

“I’m keeping her, is what I’m getting at.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am always serious, except when I’m not. Darla! Do you wanna go back with the brotoss or stay here?”

“UUUUHHHHHHHLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Applejack nodded happily. “Well there ya go. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

It was here that the high templar thought fairly quickly. He thought he’d been certain that the machine, being a thing, was theirs. He hadn’t thought to ask Darla’s opinion on this sentiment, and trying to force a mighty destroyer of the ancient and glorious past to go somewhere it didn’t want to would be more foolish than starting a staring contest with an observer.

For one thing, observers weren’t giant warriors that could incinerate the world. This one was probably happily insane, and brotoss had never even heard of the word warranty, let alone receipt. There was a word very close to that one though that they had learned recently, and the templar beat a hasty one.

It was a sort of wobbling, after-image inducing floating shuffle towards the horizon.

“Well, thanks for the stuff anyway! If it makes you feel any better, she won’t be exploding anymore!

“Every sapient in this sector is crazy,” the templar muttered.

In the steadily growing distance, Darla spun about happily and sang the UUUUHHHLLLLLAAA song.

Cutie Mark Crusaders vs Overmind

Awaken my child...err guys how did this happen...’just roll with it?’ Budget issues? Okay...children. Know that I am the Overmind, and that you have been created to - Get Out Of the Spawning Pool! Come on! Please?

Alright. Seriously now. You have been created to serve me- are these for real, guys? I just don’t feel we’re connecting here. Yeah, yeah, I know about the economy. No, I didn’t think that ravenous mutable space monsters were subject to it. This is really the best we can get? I mean, anything going ‘three for one’ in a bargain bin’s gotta be suspect. I’m just saying. Fine.

Pay attention now, this is important-

Three pairs of eyes turned down. Like one pony Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo noticed the curious purple sludge spread across the ground beneath their hooves. In one strange motion they tried to rear away from it in case it was yucky, lean closer to see if it was, and rear away again because, indeed, it was.

“Eww, what is this stuff?” The little white unicorn said, and made a face. Of course, they’d already splashed through the syrup of the spawning pool, but didn’t seem to mind that. It wasn’t fair.

“So gross!”

“It ain’t even honest mud!”

The Overmind had no corporeal form. Even were it to have one it wouldn’t have the necessary limbs, but still it managed a sort of psycho-audiotory face-hoof.

You know how many times I rehearsed that speech, you guys?

Sorry, the Overmind is a little bit...unfocused, a similar, wormier voice said as it slithered into the fillies’ minds.

Like, a million times. I mean, not a whole lot else I can do, right?

“You ain’t answered our question!”

It is the creep-

“Yeah, creepy is right! Blegh.”

All I wanted, all I wanted was to have my awesome speech in my awesome voice...

The second voice did the metaphysical equivalent of turning in for a team huddle, all the while peering cautiously over a non-existent shoulder. Okay, yeah, I’m starting to see your point. These...things are kind of useless-

Angry fillies shouted protests, though they weren’t really sure what direction to shout them in.“Hey! I heard that!”

“Who you calling useless?

Sigh. Look, I even have to say the word. because I can’t actually sigh. I mean, I’m called the Overmind but I don’t feel all that upbeat. And then you numb-don’t-have-actual-skulls-but-whatever cerebrates go and decide that ‘hey, bargain bin, best idea ever!’

“Hey, we’re talking to you here!”

“We are not useless!”

Hold on! Look, boss, I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day on everyone.

Did you get a recepeit?

Umm...

You know, I’m not even surprised. I’m not. Think we can get any use of these...what are they?

Scootaloo flared her wings in an orange buzz. “Cutie Mark Crusaders!”

It shouldn’t be possible for a non corporeal entity and another whose closest analogue would be a sea sponge to share a questioning look. These managed.

Er...what’s a cutie mark?

Their earlier upset forgotten, the three launched into an excited tirade, constantly speaking over one another to elaborate just what a cutie mark was.

The Overmind caught only a small bit of it, but it was that little bit called idea. Even if Scootaloo was bouncing on top of an evolution chamber, even if Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle we’re using a zerg egg as a ball - a use guaranteed to make for one extremely dizzy overlord... it was an idea. One that spread dark wings.

So um, yeah. You do things to see if it’s what you’re good at them...

“Yeah.”

And you haven’t found them yet...

“Yeah...”

You wouldn’t happen to have tried the universe consuming, species assimilating sort of gig, have you?

“Um...”

“What would that cutie mark even look like?”

Wanna find out?

Filly eyes widened and lit up. “You mean, crusaders of the universe?”

Er. Yeah. That. Bouncing, excitement shrieking fillies made for their own very noisy silence.

Ok. Really now, You’re not seriously thinking of sending them into danger, are you?

What? No. Even -I- have standards. Besides, I can’t exactly see them bringing overwhelming power to a fight. Can you? No, but look at this.The Overmind pushed a thought into its cerebrate. If the squishy gurgling of complex organs was more simply depicted, it might be represented as a status bar full up and a notification beep, chiming ‘upgrade complete!’

The spawning pool? They were in there all of ten seconds!

And the evolution chamber too. What looked suspiciously like a face on the bulging structure was smiling contentedly.

But, how? the cerebrate intoned with open awe.

Well, we’re zerg. We tap potential, and build ourselves off of that. Purity of blah blah, remember? And these, uh, Cutie Mark Crusaders. They’re nothing BUT potential. I mean, it’s their magic, right? Imagine if WE got cutie marks. Zerg that aren’t just -built- for a job, but specifically good at it too. Magic zerg. Magic. Zerg.

“...oh my squishy membranous body...”

Oh your squishy membranous body indeed. With a cutie mark, no less. The cerebrate managed a metaphysical nod.

Cutie Mark? I could go for that. Do you think it’d look good? I mean, I haven’t had much luck with the cerebratinas lately...been trying to work out, but no limbs, you know? Always ends up as a kind of jaunty wiggle.

“So what do we do first?”

The cerebrate rambled on, quite unawares the conversation had left it behind. I’ve tried getting some hydralisks to set up a radio, you know, get in the mood for a workout, but they insist on only playing the chart toppers...

“I wanna get my cutie mark!”

...got nothing against them, mind you, just that I like a little more variety in my music, you know? Wouldn’t hurt if there were some good songs up there either...

“Please?” three fillies insisted as one.

With a mental nudge from the overmind, the cerebrate recalled itself. They regarded the eager fillies. They are too cute to infest. I don’t think I could do it.

Me neither.

So what are we gonna do? They need something to do.

Oh right. Um. Okay crusaders, uh. Listen up. If you could...umm... The Overmind scanned frantically through the minds of its minions, looking for a suitable challenge for three eager fillies. At one corner of awareness it caught the grumbling complaints of an overlord, one of those hulking, flying intermediaries of the hive mind, as it turned away from a crumbling old missile turret.

Despite heavy damage, the tower’s circuitry had sparked enough to fizzle into life and send a missile speeding after the slow creature, which it impacted with a wet smack.

This! Right. This. I need you to blow it up.

After several awkward seconds of exertion, the Overmind realized it couldn’t actually push an image into the crusaders’ minds. It was a new sensation, to say the least.

Um. Er...there’s a tower, two hills over that way and along a ridge.

“A tower?” Scootaloo asked with incredulous tones. She leaned against a hydralisk den, which wiggled excitedly at her touch. The Overmind felt a familiar surge, sounding in its mind like ‘ding! upgrade complete!’

“Like a wizard’s tower?” followed up Sweetie Belle, tentatively considering the idea.

Apple Bloom just ran with it. “Would there be treasure inside?”

The Overmind imagined the fillies stumbling about with a stockpile of dubious warheads. No. Nothing at all. It could feel the crusaders’ attention slipping away. It got a bit desperate for a moment.

It hijacked the nearest notable zerg creature. Look, look! This happened to be a guardian. For the uninitiated, the name is very misleading. It may infer something sturdy, maybe even stalwart in a kind of insidious space monster way.

What it actually happened to be was a giant flying crab - it didn’t have wings of any kind, gravity just seemed to be debating whether it was worth the effort or not. It didn’t really ‘guard’ so much as launch hideous gobs of bio weaponry at extreme range. It was like a sneeze weaponized right up into bombardment scales of artillery.

The Overmind lead the big, ponderous space-crab-thing into a steep dive, pulling up and away near enough the fillies’ heads to stir the breeze through their manes. The guardian did a barrel roll, then came around for a graceless landing.

You got the moves.

I sure do. Think that’s got them though? They looked to the fillies. The three of them stood silent, agape and staring.

I’m going to come out with a tentative ‘yes.’

Great. Ok, crusaders. You’re lift awaits.They hopped aboard, three tiny, adorable fleas. With a burbling grunt that shook through them, the guardian huffed and lifted into the air once more.

The Overmind proverbially sat back in a non-existent but nonetheless comfortable chair and nodded approvingly as the little party drifted off to the horizon.

It’s good to see the small ones getting involved.

Every zergling helps, kind of thing?

We all work together, we zerg do. Even our non-zergy zerg.

Right.

Obviously the fillies aren’t actually going to do anything.

Naturally.

I just wanted to make that clear. The guardian will destroy the turret, the crusaders will be all excited and feel the satisfaction of thinking they contributed, la de da, they’ll realize how great we are and stick around. More evolutions for us.

It’s a foolproof plan.

Now the problem with foolproof plans is this: the zerg may be the masters of genetic adaptability and evolution, but the universe itself makes it a note of pride to evolve bigger and brighter fools.

When those fools are in fact foals and those foals are the Cutie Mark Crusaders...don’t go there. Please.

As for the guardian...it had seemed faster from a distance. The fillies were bored.

Scootaloo was especially glum. “What’s the matter?” Apple Bloom asked of her. “We’re flying. That’s kind of cool.”

“True,” she conceded sadly. “But we’re flying on a creature that doesn’t even have wings! It’s so unfair.”

Sweetie Belle scooted to Scootaloo. “And it spits. That’s uncouth.” Apple Bloom hesitated.

“Er. What’s that mean again?”

Scootaloo groaned. “This looked way more awesome from the ground. Wings!” she shouted emphatically, falling upon her back and throwing all four hooves up in the air. “Wings wings wings wings!” moaning her disappointment, she gave up and lay back.

The massive, crab like legs undulated as if the beast stood in gentle waves. Whether or not the motion contributed anything, the barren landscape beneath still rolled by very slowly. The unicorn and earth pony exchanged glances, then had a hushed conversation while their friend bemoaned her plight of flight.

After a while, they handed her something. There was a rope, and a helmet.

“What’s this?” Glancing to her friends, she saw that they were similarly kitted, with the additions of small backpack hang-glider kites.

“We can all do a bit of flying here, at least ‘til Mr. Guardian gets us there.”

“Where’d you even get this stuff?”

The two fillies gave the third a look of uttermost seriousness. “Don’t go askin’ unnecessary questions, Scootaloo. You wanna fly or don’t you?”

“Well, yeah!” She couldn’t quite fly, but with a tow rope to help out, she could glide on her own wingpower.

Altogether, the fillies flew. Mr. Guardian gave a contented jiggle and grumble.

The scourge is a strain of zerg flyer worth mentioning at this point. They combine the best properties of loving hugs with the worst properties of imminent detonations. A guardian can call its own tries to avoid scourge, even allied ones, when at all possible. It’s simple, really. Scourge are are tiny, agile and very fast, whereas guardians are none of these things.

All in all, Mr. Guardian was pretty happy. It’s fizzling little mind recognized in a small but key way what that the fillies weren’t nearly as likely to cause critical explosions as more familiar flyers were.

This just goes to show that the zerg, by and large, really didn’t know anything about Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Meanwhile, in the darkest recesses of its hindbrain, the echoes of wings wings wings sang to its genome, while certain genetic markers picked up clues from the way the ponies glided along behind it.

It didn’t look like any tower they had expected. Unlike spires and pinnacles, the dull, square shape looked as if it would be happier squatting in a cave than being under the open sky. Maybe for good reason too, for deep grooves had been gouged in its frame and pieces of plating had fallen away under some assault or other.

Mr. Guardian slowed to a gentle, considerate halt, feeling mighty pleased with itself. The sight of two hangliders drifting down towards the ground made for some confusion, which was only compounded by the orange filly that landed on its back. It was supposed to be all three; it had never really had friends before, didn’t they like it?

Scootaloo crept up to the hulking creature’s head. She glanced about furtively, though for what reason is a little uncertain. There’s not likely many things to see her on the back of a monster at considerable altitude.

All the same she looked and, satisfied that there were no embarrassing onlookers, gave Mr. Guardian a big, warm hug.

“Thanks,” she whispered in what amounted to an ear, then leapt and glided after the other crusaders.

Mr. Guardian wiggled. He jiggled, and jibed, then whole tracts of muscles contorted in fascinating ways as he broke out in a case of jives. Its little heart - which was to say its downright humongous cardiovascular array - brimmed with delight, which sang wings wings wings and don’t spit it’s uncouth through the beast.

If the fillies had looked back, they would have seen evolution: beautiful, hideous evolution at work.

Instead they saw a tower. It didn’t look like there would be anything worthwhile inside, and The Overmind had assured them there wasn’t, which made it all but certain there had to be something worthwhile inside. This passes for logic.

The door was dented enough for the fillies to squeeze through the gap. There were row upon row of big metal tubes that seemed ready to be slotted into a strange machine. In the corner a flight of steps up to the second floor where several lighted terminals like the sort Twilight Sparkle kept went up into the gloom..

“And it wanted to blow this up. At least let us look around first, who knows what we could find?”

Sweetie Belle poked at one of the cylinders. The front was tapered, like an arrow, while the back end was thickened. The whole of it whispered of speed and mass. “I dunno. I don’t think I want a cutie mark for this. It’s so...gray.”

Apple Bloom climbed up the steps. “Don’t give up so easy. Maybe there’s something up here.” She prodded at buttons aimlessly, a few of which still flashed with light under the cracked console.

Machinery groaned into life. Huge metallic pieces grabbed at the tubes, each moving into the places of the former, while these were slotted into the uppermost machine. From the recesses, metal wailed as it sheared and tore, making the whole tower tremble.

“What’s it doing? What’s it doing?!” Apple Bloom bounded back down the stairs and huddled fearfully with her friends. Had she stayed at the console, she might have seen the readout.

It read : Critical systems failure. Imminent destruction: 1:00. 59. 58. 57...

The Overmind picked up unsettling vibes. Considering what it was and what it did, they had to be strange indeed to unsettle it. It trained its considerable faculties on the source, and to its horror figured out the problem.

Oh. Crap.

You let the fillies do their thing, didn’t you?

Maybe. Yes. No time! the vast consciousness beat a hasty search of the surrounding area for something. Anything to use. There was only...what in the void had they down to that guardian?

The cerebrate peaked over its boss’ metaphysical shoulder. Oh my. That’s different.

Let’s hope so, ‘cause a guardian couldn’t manage what I’m about to pull. With a silent, psychic scream, the Overmind forced it’s attention into Mr. Guardian.

Huge, meaty wings unfurled...as did smaller ones. These - looking like ressurrected omelets pressed into a delta wing, flapped eagerly and took formation around the great beast.

Fly, fly! Mr Guardian flew. It still wasn’t fast, but gravity can do a lot in a pinch, and as the monster inclined forwards the wind around it rose to a howl of acceleration. The pair of tiny hangers-ons, more or less tiny replicas of the huge new creature joined Mr. Guardian in its heroic dive.

Even in its death throes, the turret was a nasty piece of work. It spat a pair of missiles at the beast

Assuming direct control. The overarching control that guided the entire swarm focused the whole of its attention into Mr. Guardian. Two broodlings, two missiles. The little beasts tucked their wings and shot off ahead, sinking their needle claws into the rusted metal of the missiles. With a frenzy born of necessity they ripped through the metal and into the weapons’ mechanized hearts, shredding everything and anything.

With a resounding boom the first missile shorted out, soon the second did also, and the broodlings leapt on, headfirst once more into a mad dive. The wrecked missiles fell, shook apart and detonated in a plume of fury and and flame that buffeted even the mighty Mr. Guardian’s newly made wings.

The Overmind did not envy Mr. Guardian the rough landing that the situation called for. The broodling spawn landed neatly despite their incredible speed and raked at the steel door, peeling away the decrepit bulkhead with uncommon strength.

Flung aside, the fillies were revealed, afraid and alone. The Overmind’s heart swelled with purpose.

Get outside, Now! Onto Mr. Guardian. Gotta get away before it blows! Full of fear and excitement, they obeyed without question.

Mr. Guardian, Broodlord born, flapped desperately to get airborne.

They aren’t gonna make it, they aren’t gonna make it!

But the Overmind wasn’t the Overmind for nothing. It had wicked micro skills. The two broodlings, the same size as the fillies, reemerged from the shuddering structure, just as a warmup explosion rocked the turret. Each dragged a missile with the strength born of heroism.

Missiles in tow, they dragged them under Mr. Guardian’s wings, and the big meaty flaps curled around them, gripping the steel best they could. Tiny claws tore at the wiring. Inside the turret, the last second ticked away.

Hold on! The fillies screamed. The guardian turned broodlord screamed. The broodlings screamed. The cerebrate shrieked like the big cissy it was. But the missiles, impromptu rocket engines...

Those roared.

The world trembled The turret erupted in deafening flame and the broodlord tore into the shaking sky. Everything clung to everything else for dear life as the wind went wild and tore at everything it could, for what seemed an eternity.

Heat washed over them all, and all the while the impromptu engines roared their fury.

Clear! You’re clear! Drop them now!

The Overlord bid Mr. Guardian to do just that; singed wings flung themselves open. Twin missiles spun ahead and exploded for a second wave of heat and shrapnel that showered over them.

The last bits of metal bounced away, all that remained was the acrid haze of smoke around and behind them. One and all were silent for a moment as the realization that yes, they really had made it caught up with them.

Sigh. Huge big relieved sigh. The cerebrate started laughing the nervous laughter of relief. At its hive cluster, a whole team of drones dabbed at it with damp cloths.

“That...was...AWESOME!” Scootaloo cried out.

“Really awesome!”

“And super fun!”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders started the mad dance of checking their flanks for the tell-tale mark. None had shown.

“Still no cutie marks? Uugh.”

“Cheer up Scootaloo. That was just the first day with ‘em. If it’s gonna be like this, we’ll get them in no time at all!”

“Yeah!” they cheered together, and renewed their celebrations atop Mr. Guardian, even dragging the two hapless broodlings into an impromptu spot of dancing.

The Overmind mentally nudged its cerebrate. You remember where you found them, yeah?

Yeah, why?

I’m sure we can evolve a recepit forging zerg strain. Like right now. No more Cutie Mark Crusaders for me. I don’t want to try that again.

How about we just let them fly off into the sunset? It’s usually how this sort of thing goes.

Does it? Well...alright then.

So they did. The two broodlings and Mr. Guardian were made honorary Crusaders, and everyone was joyfully surprised when these zerg finally - after many adventures of their own - found their cutie marks, and they all lived happily ever after

The End.

‘The End?’ Are you serious? Did you actually just do that?

Yep.

I don’t believe it. That goes beyond tacky.

Too bad. It was awesome. You didn’t do too bad yourself.

Well...true, I suppose.

See, it all worked out great. Really though:

-The End.-

Emperor Manesk vs Shipping

Author’s preemptive notes. Ha! or something. Anway, a particular OC in this thingy, one 'Bronze Brand,' is someone else’s character. In short, dude won on a little offer I made someplace or other and so got his character featured in a PvSC story. This is a very loose definition of ‘win,’ considering I don’t think this is what that person expected. -At all.- Even I think this is a bit off-the-wall-but-it’s-ok-they’re-the-padded-bouncy-kind-with-the-snug-jackets, and I write these damnable silly and fun things.. ‘Wtf-erie’ ensues, I’m sure. Seriously, this one’s weirder than the norm. I think...

Anyway without further adieu: Manesk vs Shipping

The problem with empires is, perhaps at the root of all speculation, a simple one.

It will be explained in two words: garden gnomes.

Yes, garden gnomes. Now, the casual observer...no, not that little invisible adorable yet slightly uncanny in it’s relentless impassive staring kind...well maybe that kind. Never hurts to check. If in doubt, plan a scan, amirite? Whatever. Starting again...

A great many things exist that are the litmus paper of sanity, but so few are willingly placed right there in the front yard for everyone to see. How, it may be wondered, do garden gnomes relate to vast empires, of particular interest the multiple planet spanning and oversized-shoulder-pauldron-emblazoned-with-gold-and-heraldic-beasts-kind?

It’ll become clear. Promise.

Right. Gnomes. Note the quantity, and the quality. A few weather beaten little abominations haphazardly scattered around the half-assedly cut grass and shrubbery represent very little threat. The more weatherbeaten they are, the better. The little runts should be beaten as often as possible.

If there starts to be more of them than people living in the house, or if they look to have been actively cleaned beyond a freshening rain storm or a shot from the hose, this is where our litmus paper begins to blush towards an alarming pink.

Be wary of anyone who places garden gnomes in their backyard as well. That’s downright suspicious.

Now consider the house which these gnomes infest. It’s probably a rather regular house, more or less. If there is a terrible massing of gnomes gathered outside this otherwise innocent appearing abode, at least the wary observer can jay walk to safety.

A larger house, the kind that merits its own drive, the sort with a gate (rather than a humble driveway) might compound the problem. Terrible as this is, at least one can still run away at a stiff pace, wheeze about through the demesne, remember the gnomes, and thusly find renewed vigour instilled from healthy distrust and paranoia.

Think the gnomes aren’t worth such reactions? Imagine a large manor, the sort with nicely kept gardens, and slightly less nicely kept gardeners. The sort with a hedge grown maze. Imagine oneself in the maze. Alone, but happy-go-lucky, stumbling one’s way through it. Imagine oneself in this maze some time after the proprietor of the property decided that ‘garden gnomes, great idea, they’ll make the place jolly!’ Suddenly all those innocent plaster and paint eyes, all those overbearing, overgrown walls that so obviously need a little trim...with a flamethrower. And the little gnomes too. Especially them.

Indeed, people are quirky. Look to the gnomes, as has been said already, for they’re a handy litmus of the mind. Note the trends, as these quirks tend to be the same whether it’s a tiny little house with a yard that’s essentially an eight by eight with the window open or a large old mansion with ‘grounds.’

The only difference is scale.

Now scale this up to the size of billions of people, in thousands of cities across a handful of worlds.

Place the self crowned emperor of this mess - with a tacky rouge cape, rogue that he is, and shoulder adornments bigger than his head atop it. Clearly there isn’t an ego there. Not at all.

Indeed, even here there’s a lawn ornament of a sort, just for him, though they don’t really work well as litmus papers anymore. They'd keep melting through the floor and setting small, embarrassing chemical fires.

These lawn gnomes are towering siege walkers, and rather than stand around all day being slightly menacing, they actively stomp around the place and bring extra menace for everyone. Every garden gnome wishes to be this when it grows up.

But this isn’t about them, it’s about him. And his quirks.

Indeed, Emperor Manesk of the Terrible Dominion stormed through his palace. Yes, palace.

He was shouting and threatening, which wasn’t really an odd occurrence, being his usual way of talking. He did have an appreciable voice though, which was not just bearable, but quite enjoyable. He even had the beard essential for singing country.

Manesk might have been much happier as a country singer. He certainly wouldn’t have been lead into this mess...or at least, knowing country singers, have had a more reasonable - or more drunken - outlook on the manner.

“I do not have a thing for minotaurs!” The conversation really was that weird.

The voice of unflappable reason weathered the tirade. “Of course, your majesty. There was, however, that incident with the minotauren marine-”

“I was inspecting the craftsmanship of his armor! It was so finely fitted we couldn't even get it off!”

If Manesk was a shark, all teeth and restless motion, the secretary, one curiously named Cymbal Tied was the calm, suckery remora. “Of course, sir. Yet such a thing can be misconstrued out of context-”

“By shippers, I tell you! Shippers!” he shouted emphatically, thrusting a gauntleted fist into the air. Lately, every fault and folly of civilization could be blamed on shipping - not the hard working and essential transporting industry, oh no.

The other kind, which is entirely more merciless. And rabid.

“Relentlessly shipping me with large, hunky bulls! It undermines my hard-boiled, unbreakably badass, get the job done appearance. Look at this!” he said, and thrust selfsame fist towards the clerk. Out from iron clad fingers fell a crumpled piece of paper.

“It appears to be a drawing, my grace.”

Manesk whirled about, doing that swirly thing with the cape that surely takes great practice to get just right and still look natural. “Yes. It is. Fanart,” he hissed venomously. “Hideous, vile, demeaning fanart!”

It was in crayon, and looked to have been drawn with a clenched, happy fist. It was what could possibly be, from a certain stretch of imagination, the emperor and another, larger figure next to him. They were holding hands and smiling.

In scrawled colours there was a caption. Contrary to cliche, there were no backwards letters, though the same effect was managed with plenty of hearts and happy faces and other such things.

It amounted to this: Everybody should have a special somebody! Manesk and ???? sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!! A flurry of pink hearts flocked around the end, just incase the message hadn’t been clear enough.

Cymbal Tied coughed discreetly. Manesk was something altogether more ruffled. In the voice of command, one that had ordered terrible retreats and even more terrible victories he said, in absolute seriousness: “I am going for a bubble bath. No one to disturb me.”

“Of course, your eminence. I will bring the new Head of household security up to speed.”

At that, they parted ways.

Cymbal Tied wasn’t the sort the grin. If he had been the sort, he probably wouldn’t have managed to get this job, or deal with this kind of thing daily. Like the kind of deep sea shrimp that explodes out of water, so adapted it is to the pressure, so too are some personalities just at home in inhospitable places.

Even so, he allowed himself a curt, knowing smile. The sort immortalized in paintings.

The thing about palaces is that, for every dining hall and grand reception area there is a myriad little dark backrooms. Secret places where cloak and dagger would be literal truth, except who wears a cloak indoors? Seriously? Well, excepting eccentric emperors of course, but they hardly count.

In such a room, a minotaur waited nervously. His name was Bronze Brand, and he’d just been offered a job.

He wasn’t particularly happy about this. He was large, muscular and toned like a sculpture, coloured in his namesake with a thick mane of blonde that drenched his shoulders with hair. His prospective boss was a pasty smear of a desk jockey, yet there’d been a certain predatory gleam to the glasses that showed which of the two was truly large and in charge.

The minotaur had been left to stew in his own thoughts for a while. He wrung his huge hands and waited anxiously.

At long last the door opened, admitting the secretary. In a way that had nothing to do with body size, he loomed. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“A job?”

“That’s right. Stand up. Let me get a look at you.” Feeling terribly self conscious, the minotaur stood. He felt like he was being put up for auction and a keen buyer was examining his worth.

The silence, punctuated only by little nods and ‘mhmms’ of approval was entirely unbearable. “So. Uh, yeah. This job. Security detail, right?” Bronze Brand wasn’t keen on the position. He had the build surely, but not really the heart. Saying 'no' was just so hard.

“Head of Security, actually.” Bronze didn’t know what to think. He was vaguely aware that sort of job didn’t go to people just in off the street.

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s not much of the more...shall we say physical tasks involved with the job. I just want you to look the part.”

This did not reassure as much as it could have.

A cloven hoof clopped against the cold floor as Bronze Brand took a step backwards. “I’m not sure...” For a minotaur, he was a bit of a pansy.

“Listen to me, closely, you pile of bull. Do you understand what an empire is?”

Beads of sweat glistened. “Yes?”

“Now, what do you think an emperor does?”

There was only one door out, and that was beyond the secretary. Crap. “Umm...run it?”

“No. His job is to think that he runs it, and to have everyone else think that too so that nameless, faceless people like me can get on with our jobs. Ninety nine percent of government is paperwork. Bureaucracy. Resource allotment. Speeches and public gestures have no real value in the operation. Understand?

“The last thing this Terrible Dominion wants is for its emperor to actually start taking an active role in management. That kind of mind always gets...ideas. And lately our supreme leader has been paranoid and bored. Paranoid. And. Bored.” Cymbal emphasized each word with a hard glare.

Bronze Brand gulped, which considering his physiology made for quite the gulp indeed. He leaned well back from the glinting glasses. “What do you want me for?” he squeaked.

No. The glasses hadn’t glinted before. That’d merely been a pale reflection compared to this, where they drank in light and spat it back with snide vengeance. Cymbal Tied leaned closer. “Well. Manesk has... let’s call it a keeness. A keen appreciation - one he hotly denies, of course - for a build such as yours.”

Cymbal grinned. “A build, in fact, exactly like yours.”

Bronze Brand’s eyes went wide. “You want me to what?!”

“Stand around in shiny armour. Look like a big, tough minotaur. Distract our fine and noble hero. By any means necessary.”

Bronze Brand trembled. “I...I don’t really want to do any of this. This is mad!”

Cymbal Tied slammed the table. “Too bad. You’re going to do a fine service to this Dominion.”

“This was supposed to be a job offer!”

“And it is. Provided you accept unconditionally.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Then you will wish you had.”

Bronze Brand shivered. This was not what he had expected. If he’d had half a clue what today would turn out like, he not only would have stayed in bed, but would have put a couple extra blankets over his head and stayed very quiet. With the doors locked and the curtains closed.

By any standard, he was a wimp. Doubly so by minotaur standards.

“I’d just have to stand around?” he asked, pleading in his voice.

“Of course,” the secretary smoothly replied, smiling like a snake. Or a spider. Something venomous, with lots of shiny bits and cold blood.

“Well...ok then.” Spider or snake. Bronze felt trapped, certainly. Caught in a web. He also felt breathless, like the latter had coiled around him. Maybe the secertary was a bit of both. Like an eight legged snake with eight slitted eyes and a slithering tale and long, venom dripping fangs...

Bronze Brand shut his eyes. “I think I’d like that powered armor suit now, then.”

Cymbal Tied smiled. “But of course, Head of House Security Brand.”

An hour later, the hapless minotaur stood in the corridor. The secretary had insisted he wait here to ‘introduce himself at his majesty’s pleasure.’ This had warranted a little grin from the snake and/or spider paper pusher. The instant a convenient window presented itself, he was going to jump.

The armour could probably take a simple fall without much hassle. If not...well, that wasn’t so bad either, was it? Compared to this?

The voice, and the heavy thud of boots on marble reached his ears before the doors opened.

“I do love a fine warm bubble bath, nothing leaves me feeling more refreshed, more prepared to face the universe again! A lovely, warm bath-” Manesk almost sounded happy.

The door opened. The emperor looked up and down the armoured minotaur, who smiled meekly from nervousness.

Manesk spun about. “...and now for a cold shower! Sexy- I mean sudsy! Yes. Sudsy. All those bubbles. Terrible, vile suds. Gotta rinse them off.” The door slammed in Bronze Brand’s face.

Ten seconds later Bronze Brand hit the ground after a three storey drop. He was already running, and accelerating by the second.

Pinkie Pie vs Bunker

Premptive author’s notes - This chapter is a little more hard boiled than the others - in keeping with marine personality there’s swearing and stuff. Just a friendly heads up.

The interior of the bunker was eminently practical in its design: a flattened egg of steel and concrete meant to shelter ground forces, increasing their expected lives by a truly astonishing number of minutes. Like all bunkers it was purpose built to house four active troops and their supplies, which meant that with only a marine and an SCV huddled inside, there was very nearly almost enough room in this one to coexist without killing one another.

The SCV operator peered through a gun port of the bunker, shuffling his way past the grumbling marine.

“It still out there?” The marine said, then spat.

“Did you just spit inside your helmet?”

“...no. And shut up. Is it still out there?”

There wasn’t much of a panorama offered by the narrow slit and what landscape there was to see wasn’t worth the effort.

“Nope...nope...Oh wait. Yep. She’s still over there.” The SCV sighed. They’d been hiding down here for some time and with nothing to do but sit, wait and drive each other a little more insane, time stretched out maddeningly before them.

“It’s an ‘it,’ not a ‘she,’ moron.”

“But she’s definitely a she. I mean look at... her. She’s pink. Come on man, like, super pink. That’s definitely a girl... something.”

The opaque mask of the marine shifted to an angle which inferred that the face beneath it was giving him a very disgusted look. “You are gonna drop this conversation right here, before I beat you senseless. I don’t care what it was, ‘cause what it is now is infested.”

The SCV peered again. She hadn’t been all that threatening, mostly she’d variously tried enticing or pleading, shouting invitations to them from the distance. When she poked her head out a few shots went her way, but she was so quick...

She was being very friendly, in an airheaded kind of way. Secretly, the SCV wished he could have her in here, and the marine out there.

“How can you be so sure she’s infested?”

The marine, and it was important to note that anyone who managed to get themselves made a marine wasn’t the brightest to begin with, stood silent for a few flabbergasted seconds as his brain struggled to go down a few more gears.

“See the way she’s all bubbly and excitable and friendly? Total give away.”

“Really?”

“No damnit, it's the tentacles, and whatever that twitchy green blobby thing is! Seriously, you are too fucking dumb to live, you know that?”

The SCV stifled a sniffle. “That was uncalled for,” he said sadly as he moped in the corner.

The marine managed to stifle his trigger finger, just barely. The decision was based not on any sense of nobility, patience, or even the vague and laughable threat of some kind of court martial. Oh no, he had something else entirely in mind.

It’d be a close call to outrun an infested...whatever the hell this was, but he wouldn’t need to. He just needed to outrun the SCV. Small children hope they get presents or candies. The marine hoped, with much the same delight, that he’d get to see over his shoulder if that special moment came.

“This sucks.”

“Shut up.”

“This really sucks.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m tired of being stuck here.”

“Are you not hearing me tell you to shut the fuck up?”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it. Couldn’t we just let her in? She seems nice enough. I bet she’s better company than you.”

“You. Are. So stupid I don’t even believe it! I would send you to scout an enemy base except you’d be too much of a dumbass to even find the damn thing if you were walking in the middle of it! You know what happened to the last bunker that let an infested in? A GODDAMN DINNER PARTY!”

“Did somebody say PARTY?!”

“SHITFUCK!” the marine screamed, spraying U-238 gauss rounds every which way out the gun port at the bubbly voice that had been right there. When there was only the click click click of the empty magazine he remembered to breathe.

He shoved the trembling SCV operator aside and glanced out the northside port. Nothing. East, West, South. Nothing, just the rolling plumes of dust and the endless rocky expanse.

Then, in the silence and terror, there came a sound. With even more terror, they realized that it was a song, with speakers and bass and everything, impossibly.

Party Pony on the bunk tonight!

Everybody’s gonna have a good time!

Pinkie makes you lose your mind!

I just wanna see ya!

Shake th-

The explosion was so loud it wasn’t really sound at all - it’d be as futile as trying to convey the heart of a sun in terms of mere temperature. There was, however, a sort of theme to the sound. Anyone who might’ve heard it from a distance would be put in mind of a billion balloons bursting.

As the marine and the SCV witnessed a special showing of a little big bang of their own, each could’ve sworn they saw against the backdrop of stone and metal a trail of brightly coloured streamers in the air.

The last echoes died away and the two found themselves standing under the open sky. They hadn’t moved at all. Rubble rained down around them, and the largest piece was almost big enough to brain the SCV with. Most was too small to pick up with anything other than a dustpan.

Otherwise they were entirely unscathed, and stood utterly dumbfounded. A pink thing landed lightly on top of the marine and sat on his shoulders. There was some vague sense of panic, but his mind was too full of fuck to do anything. The bit of brain that picks up strange details when the rest of the consciousness is having a good gibbering cry in the corner noticed that there was entirely no tentacles, twitchy green blobby things, or slathering monsters there of trying to pry itself into his brain.

Pinkie, after a moment’s consideration atop the stunned marine clapped her hooves together and beamed a wide grin.

“So you can explode twice! I totally have to tell Spike!” With a bounding leap and a sprint into the distance, she was gone.

The SCV operator spoke quietly, as if afraid breaking the silence would get him in trouble. “I will never complain about bunkers again.”

“I am never touching another drop of stim again. From now on, I’m sticking to the good old illegal shit.”

“...you got any on ya?” The SCV asked nervously.

The marine, much to his own surprise, popped open his special little compartment and took out some of his stuff, because sometimes you hate somebody for being thicker than a brick, but when you go through the forge so much that you’ve had enough of the kiln, you just want to get baked.

“That was all just a bad trip. It never happened.”

“Of course not. That’d be crazy...”

Rarity vs The Natural Expansion

The base was running smoothly. Rarity had come to understand only a little of how it worked and indeed, she caught herself wondering how she had managed to organize the colourful little probes at all.

She put the uttermost serious thought into it, or tried to, but she was currently sitting on the circumference of one of her pylons, upon the band of stylized metal that rotated steadily about the immense, glowing crystal. It made for quite the welcome distraction.

The unicorn suddenly wondered if she could have them accidentally-intentionally roll Tom by these elegant, hunky crystals, but as the colours and lights continued to dance before her she thought better of it. She wouldn't stoop so low, the past was in the past, and surely Tom was, for all the misgivings between them, too hardcore to be stung by such a gesture.

Rarity sighed, and hopped down from her perch of reflection, berating herself for even thinking of such things. It was, she had to admit, a bit unseemly to jump, but at the dusty grit of the world - at least those relevant bits of it directly under her hooves and around her little base - had been glazed into a gleaming glassiness by several probes she’d pulled from the mineral line.

That action hadn’t changed their overall efficacy much, and the little workers thrummed with constant activity. The majority gathered minerals, several collected vespene gas, smelly stuff that it was, though one dubiously favoured probe, ‘Probey-Wobey,’ as she dubbed it, followed Rarity’s pacing with mechanical exactitude. (Henceforth it will be called ‘PW’ because that is a disgustingly cutesy name otherwise. We will all pretend it just means ‘Probe Worker,’ but try as we might, we will know better.)

Probes lacked for limbs, but in the little array of conjured sparks it used to manipulate objects, this one held a bowl of tossed salad. Rarity couldn’t help but feel that it was giving her a look. The probe, not the salad. That’d have been silly.

“What?” she pleaded of it. Something about the wide, endearing crystal eye staring unblinkingly at her lettuce leaf as it floated in her magic made the whole thing very self conscious for her. “I have to eat, you know.”

Meeeooouuu? the little thing purred inquisitively. As sounds went, it was rather delightful, but as for meaningful conversation...not so much.

Of course, there was more to the little base than Rarity and the worker probes. She’d prodded at one of the structures the probes had brought into the intersecting fields of power from the pylons. The thing had had lit up with a sphere that was eye wateringly dark and bright at the same time, and shortly after a strange, armour clad warrior had stepped out.

His voice was understandable, if gruff. As for meaningful conversation, well...

“En taro Rarity!” he had shouted. She hoped it meant something flattering, but not too flattering. That could be awkward.

“Hello, darling, I am indeed Rarity, and welcome to our humble little outpost-”

“My life for fabulosity!” he proclaimed, like a great challenge to the universe in its entirety. While Rarity would be the first pony to agree on the values and virtues of fabulosity, the glimmering warrior had been so very outspoken about the whole thing.

With equal gumption, he had strode up to her and declared thusly: “We should expand to the natural!”

“Pardon?”

Uncertainty crept into the zealot’s voice, which actually brought it down to normal tones. “You know, the natural?”

Rarity nodded as she cast a cold, critical eye on her base. “Well, I suppose even with all the colour it is a bit stark without some greenery, a couple of flowers...”

“Er...right, that too. But what I mean is the natural expansion. There’s usually one around in this situation.

“Do tell me darling, what is a natural expansion then? Oh and do remind me to keep that greenery idea in mind as well, that’s worth looking into.”

“It’s, you know, another base.”

“Another base? We should go visit them. I hope they don’t mistake my ignorance for bad neighbourly manners.”

The zealot shook his head with effort. His expertise was in his limbs, not his head.

“No, not another base. A spot for another base. More minerals and things.”

A certain glimmer caught in Rarity’s eye. “More minerals? Oh, but do we need more?”

The zealot stared with the utmost seriousness into her eyes. “Do we want more? That is the question.”

Rarity nodded once. “Be a dear and go look around this ‘natural’ place for me, would you? We’ll come along when we’re a little more ready.” She dreaded the prospect of going exploring, in the dust and the dirt with it’s dirty dirtiness and desolate bleakness of bleak desolation.

So she’d sent him off to do that first.

In the meantime, she internally debated as to whether or not she should poke at the other structure. Excluding the pylons and that ghastly assimilator there were four in all, but two seemed to click and whir of their own accord and do very little else, leaving one mysterious remainder.

“Oh, why not. It’s hardly as if he was rude or anything. A diamond in the rough, surely. A bit of society will surely do him wonders. His hair certainly had style. I’m not sure at all what style, but it was...something.”

Without further adieu, she’d sidled in an extremely dignified manner up to the robotics bay. Whether it reacted to some prompt of hers, or if it inherently acted of its own, she didn’t know, just as the gateway had done it quickened into activity.

In the meantime she ate her salad, and sent PW to fetch a parasol. It was a good thing the structure took enough time for her to finish, because what stepped forth left her agape. The bowl clattered off the glassy ground. It was nearly crushed under a mighty metal limb, which with presence of mind Rarity would not have expected, hesitated and clattered down next to the unharmed bowl.

“I serve...forever.” Rarity squealed with delight as she momentarily forgot herself. This one knew exactly what she wanted , how could she not be elated?

It was huge. Immense. Immortal, in name at least. It looked like something from a tomb beneath the sands of a Darring Doo story. If something like that had been recast in heavy armour with twinned cannons, sent to the far reaches of space, seen a few things, and blown most of them up, it very well could have been nearly as impressive as the Immortal. Sure, those traits were necessary, but so much more important was that he had manners.

Rarity distractedly levitated the bowl to PW. “Be a dear and put this away please.” A thought seemed to strike her, and the unicorn eyed the sky warily. “And set up a few more pylons in the meantime. We could always do with a few more.” She blinked and recalled herself, quite the feat considering the massive, stoic, stalwart form of the patiently waiting Immortal. “Do come right back, we’ve got a natural to explore.” PW scurried away, making its distinctive sound.

If the point was pressed, Rarity might have admitted she was a bit flustered. This was dampened somewhat as they neared raw, nasty dirt. She winced, and the Immortal paused.

“My fairest mistress does not walk, she rides.” The mighty walker stooped enough for Rarity to graciously take the hint. It tingled and the air shone a slight blue as she passed through the Immortal’s shield before seating herself daintily atop it, between two heavy cannons.

“You certainly know how to treat a lady, good sir,” she said, laughing happily as the warrior-strider got up to speed. That the dust seemed to resolutely stay outside the translucent shield was another well appreciated boon.

It wasn’t very far at all until they came across the zealot, and Rarity thought he must be coming back to meet them, but no. He was punching rocks. Well, credit for effort, because he certainly slashed away at them with gusto.

“Hello, dear! Umm...what is it that you’re doing, exactly?”

The zealot didn’t even stop to talk, opting to sneak words in between possibly sweaty strikes.

“Clearing...debris! Nexus...goes...here!”

“Oh. Alright then.” She watched him work away for an awkward minute. If anything the zealot attacked the boulders with even more vigour. She realized how cool and reposed she felt compared to the merciless daylight and dust. Rarity felt around the Immortal’s top sneakily. Was there a...yes, there was. Air conditioning, just for her. He really did know how to treat a lady.

Still, that left nothing for her zealous zealot. “Would you - and this is just me thinking aloud here - perhaps want to take a break?” Besides, his grunts of exertion were most uncouth.

This did not prompt the reaction she’d hoped for. If anything, he grew more desperate and more furious in his hatred of large consolidated piles of mineral detritus.

“No! I must - Hyah! - clear the rocks... I’ll - Raa! - get it done...”

Rarity pondered, then whispered to her valiant strider. “I don’t suppose you could lend a...well, help him out anyway. I don’t want to bruise his pride, and I do appreciate his enthusiasm, but this is a bit tedious, isn’t it? Anything you can do within reason, please. Certainly don’t strain yourself like our friend there.”

Her whole body dipped and rose with the Immortal’s understanding nod. And then he fired his twin linked cannons.

It was a good thing the raining pebbles bounced off the shield, otherwise a few of them may well have fallen into Rarity’s slack jaw.

“Wha...”

“It is done.”

Rarity blinked. “That certainly... wow.”

What was presumably PW - all probes were identical - scooted between the Immortal’s legs, bustling on its way. The zealot ambled aside as the probe neared.

It got in position, to establish the warp-in of a nexus-

WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALS

Rarity shrieked; not with startelement or fear, but with frustrated anger. “I have had it up to here with you! Understand?! If it’s not pylons - pretty as they are - it’s minerals!” She stamped a hoof against the polished metal of the Immortal, a gesture he instantly forgave. Nobody liked that damn demanding voice anyway.

PW meowed its electric meow apologetically.

Rarity’s anger left her and she wilted into placid acceptance. “I suppose we just have to wait then. She slid down from her mount, tolerating the dirt beneath her hooves - a sure sign of woe indeed.

“Anyone up for tick-tack-toe?” The Immortal seemed content to wait forever, and she wasn’t sure PW could do something like a game. The zealot seemed to have the same thought and sat down, promptly beating her at the first round.

Rarity sighed. “Best out of three?”

Her warrior shrugged. “Alright.”

Rainbow Dash vs Rage of the Metagame

Premeptive notey thingies - Some of the PvSC’s are great, some of them...not so much. But all of them thus far have been written on the premise an understanding of the game is unnesscary. If you’re aware there’s aliens and stuff, you’re practically set. This one is a little different; in that while such an understanding is not quite necessary, knowing the workings of gameplay will -hopefully- make it that much more rewarding. To anyone who does know such mechanics and stuff, I invite you to shred this simulacrum to pieces and point out the flaws that I’m sure there will be in builds, response timings, etcetera. I did take a few minor (wings of) liberties, of course.

The blue pegasus inspected the last marine in the lineup. She prodded him in the steel-clad chest and shouted. “Let me see your war face!”

“Sir? We’re wearing helmets.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well duh. I just always wanted to say that. But practice that war face anyway.” The marines were cool with this whimsy.

They were cool with a lot of things, provided it was Rainbow Dash pulling them. Because she was cool, and when she pulled a stunt, it stayed pulled. She’d proven herself fully worthy of those three little letters, and if had ever thought it odd to call a girl ‘sir,’ they certainly didn’t anymore. Not after Jenkins. Poor, poor Jenkins...

“Right then. You SCV’s, start gathering, and you guys-

APOLOGIZE FOR PLAYING THAT RACE.

In an instant Dash’s eyes narrowed and with a flick of her wings she was up in the air. “I ain’t apologizing for nothing!” With no clear antagonist, she flitted back and forth.

YOU COULD APOLOGIZE FOR BEING BORN, FOR A START. JUST ANOTHER BRAINLESS IDIOT.

Rainbow Dash howled with frustration and zoomed about manically for her disembodied antagonist.

“Sir! With all due respect sir, he’s just trying to get under your skin and distract you!” The marine next to him nudged his shoulder.

“No, I’ve seen this guy before. ‘Adri.’ He’s actually just an asshole.” Dash still fumed and muttered as she circled overhead.

“Really? I thought it was just a psych-out thing. I could almost respect that.”

“Nope. Asshole.”

“Huh.”

Dash disappeared into the command centre, only to reemerge in the same breath with her signature badassery shades. She seemed calm, unnaturally so, until you recognized that her fury had merely gone from hot to cold; and intensified at that, like a collapsing star.

The marines stood straighter at attention as she approached them, every inch and feather a commander.

“You know, all the Elements of Harmony stuff has taught me a few things. Compassion. Perspectives. Respect. And that there’s usually a way to win.” She grinned.

“Sir?”

“What can you tell me about this Adri, other than that he’s an ass?”

“Sir! Not much Sir! Very much an ass, sir! Favours macro style and large composition pushes!” Dash nodded, her sunglasses glinting without an apparent source, as it was a temperamental, overcast sky.

“Alright then. Here’s the plan, boys and girls!” She turned up the audio piece by her ear and mouth until her voice resounded through the fledgling base.

Dash licked her lips; she always liked busting out the jargon, it made her feel smart. She didn’t need to feel fast or brave or strong, with those she just knew. “Then we’ll micro our way under his macro steamroller before it ever gets up to speed. I want a Destiny Cloud Fist build to do it. A fourth minute two blue flame worker harass, cloak first banshee on the eighth; priority on queens. Marines to base and natural defence, push out on the twelfth with a transition to siege tech and stim drops. You got that?”

“That’s a tight order sir! This guy ain’t a push over!”

“That’s why it’s us doing it! Now, you guys lock down the base and get to it, I’ve got something to see too...”

“And if things go pear-shaped, sir?”

“Then just fall back and hold out, and I’ll pull your keisters out of the fire. That’s a promise.”

It didn’t have to make sense that their commander was leaving them at the most vital stages. If Rainbow said she was there for them, then it’d be easier to chew through steel than deny the statement. She didn’t just command them, or even just their respect. She upright commanded their loyalty. When anybody else said they’d do the impossible, they laughed. When Rainbow Dash said she’d do the impossible, the marines made sure to turn on their helmet cameras.

The nasty, debasing voice continued the occasional spout of meaness, but for the sake of it they won’t be shown here. Suffice to say Dash was not overreacting and was nurturing a strong sense of vengeful anticipation.

“Keep me posted,” was all she said before zooming off into the sky.

“You heard the leader! Get to it!”

Dash flew high, then higher still, until the air was thin and cold as hoarfrost. A non-pegasus would feel faint, but they weren’t Rainbow Dash, not by a long shot, and she wasn’t even pushing herself.

So far below her that only the structures were visible nestled her industrious little base, while ahead lay the splotchy purple of a zerg cluster. A splattering of ridges and plateaus separated the two, it’d be only a brief matter of time before each met in a decisive clash.

Dash flinched as her earbud radio crackled; the signal was always sketchy at the best of times. “Just got the factory laid out, we’ll have it up and running in a jiffy.”

“You got a bunker down behind the supply - rax wall in?

“‘Course we do, sir. Wouldn’t want a run by, now would we?”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “I knew you were good for something after all. Keep it up.”

“Will do, commander.”

She had time, but not much. Her strategy would slow the enemy down, and enrage him, but the longer this drew out the more inevitable a crushing defeat would become. She didn’t sweat it. Sure, she didn’t have much time, but wouldn’t need much.

With a renewed burst of speed the pegasus blasted towards the zerg base - not as a destination, but as a place to start her search. A secondary, smaller node of growth alerted her to the enemy’s plan.

“New intel boys, he’s gone fast expand, no six pool. I repeat, no six pool.”

“We read you sir. We’ll get a marauder suited up for the roach assault. What’s your plan?”

“Just a bit of horseplay, boys. Just a bit of horseplay.” Another abusive message bombarded her sensibilities, but rather than vent her frustrations, Dash cracked her neck and shoulders. The cold winds buffeted her feathers, elating and elevating her. “Stay frosty.”

“Roger that.” She centred herself over the zerg base and - reigning in her own compulsiveness - began a methodical, spiraling search outwards, her eyes peeled.

The hellions were still being repaired of gouges and deep acid burns their marred their hulls when the banshee arrived. Several evil looking spines were embedded in its plating, but the craft was still reporting operational.

The field sergeant directed the pilot to fly defense over their main entrance, which had been hard pressed to chase off the counter attack after the hellion excursion proved less than successful.

A marine in the foremost bunker spoke over his shoulder as they emptied another round of ammunition.

“You’d think we’d have some kind of bug spray by now, huh?”

“Yea-” His speech was lost to the howling gout of blow flame that roared it’s way past the bunker, scattering the shrieking monsters back and away from’ it’s hellish light. The marines paused only to reload.

“Suppose that’s pretty good too.”

“Sure is.” A roach braved the flames, only to get a pair of backlash missiles from the banshee in the face. It took the hint and joined it’s compatriots in a rushed - if merely temporary - retreat. The’d come back, and there’d be more.

“We got this. For now, anyway. Don’t lay off. Sir’ll pull through. She always does.”

JUST GIVE UP. YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.

Such messages had been fraying their combined nerves this whole time.

“You know, I wish whoever was sayin’ that got a real good ass-whoopin.”

“Me too, bro.”

It is the nature of wishes to be whimsical. Nobody would have believed that of all the wishes that might have been made and might have come true, this rather petty, if understandable one was the one.

Rainbow Dash didn't believe in wishes either. That kind of thing was so namby-pamby, but she did believe in the undeniable badassery of herself. Her search had yielded a certain little hidey hole of interest, and she flung open the door now, revealing a pasty, sun deprived, underfed, hate spewing monster stooped over a control console of some sort. It displayed a bird’s eye view of the terrain, and as Adri caught Dash’s reflection in the screen, he whirled about, caught between compulsive anger and uncertain fear.

Dash grinned, cracking her neck left, than right. “Trash talk me, will ya?” Grinning wider, she stepped into the monster’s lair.

A veritable swarm was amassing just outside the perimeter. Any minute now it’d break, and the troops - with all their mechanisation - would be hard pressed to fend it off. Again, the antagonising voice flailed at their nerves.

YOU JUST UTTERLY 6 CXB FR VCV CXXDCXGTFGFDDDDDD-

Something switched it to audio, because it carried on into: “Not the face Not the face!!” and then even words gave up and listened to the grunts and shouts of someone being vigorously mashed - and from the familiar cries of excitement and great satisfaction for a certain blue pegasus - against a computer of some sort.

A few bashes later and the circuitry died out, leaving only static. Zerg and trooper alike waited anxiously on more.

HEY. GUYS. YOU GETTING THIS? IT’S ME.

“That you. sir?”

SURE IS. TOUGH GUY AIN’T SO TOUGH AFTER -

YEAH, HE JUST TRIED TO GRAB ME

“You alright, sir?”

YEAH. ADRI MIGHT NEED A MEDIVAC THOUGH. WE GOT ONE IN THE AIR YET?

A peek out the bunker confirmed the negative, and the speaker said as much.

NO RUSH. I’M SENDING ALL THE ZERG AWAY FROM HERE. IS IT WORKING?

A peek out the other end of the bunker yielded an overwhelming stampede of the positive.

GREAT. SHEESH, THIS GUY’S A REAL CRY BABY. I’D ALMOST FEEL BAD FOR HIM. I’LL GET HIM A PACK OF FROZEN VEGETABLES TO PUT OVER HIS EYE IN THE MEANTIME.

OH. HEY. HE’S GOT A CASE OF BEERS IN THE FRIDGE. LOOKS LIKE THE FIRST ROUND IS ON ME.

“I love her.”

...

I HEARD THAT.

Twilight Sparkle vs Proxy Pylon

It was forty two seconds past the appointed time, and Twilight Sparkle was running out of reasons why they’d be late. The pylon she paced before shone, as if with sympathy for her plight, continuing on its gentle waltz.

By the fifty second mark, Twilight was pacing, trying to see if she could figure out if gravimetric distortions upon the warp matrix could cause micro temporal dilations of this magnitude.

The full minute felt so terribly long for her.

It wasn’t just that Twilight was punctual, oh no. She was quite proud of her time keeping, especially the complicated, intuitive system she had developed to approximate the actual meeting time.

For instance, if her friend Applejack said ‘I’ll swing by about noon,’ the earth pony could reliably expected, within half an hour of the mark, to show, despite a predilection for being drawn away with unexpected tasks.

On the other feather, somepony like Rainbow Dash might say ‘yeah, in five minutes,’ and what it actually meant was ‘Yes, Twilight Sparkle, I will - at some point after a nap, a trick, accounting on potential audience slash ego indicators, and something cool show up, appear at some point today. Or not. Whatever, it's cool.’

As for Pinkie Pie...Twilight’s hooves twitched through the dust. With Pinkie Pie, the usual order of Cause and Effect got drunk (probably at one of her parties, no less) and the two immutable fundamentals of time got unmentionably private somewhere or other.

What had Twilight so on edge here though - even more so than being alone in an expansive, lonely dust bowl of a world with a fascinating yet silent piece of technology for company - was that those she was to be meeting here were supposed to be as orderly as her.

The brotoss were supposed to be so punctual. It’s one of the things she loved about them. That and the amazing, no, fantastic, no beautiful breadth of their technology.

Even if they weren’t showing up on time. “It’s probably nothing.” For her part, she let herself imagine that the floating crystal of the pylon nodded for her in a most placating manner.

“They’re Brotoss, they wouldn’t just leave me out here.” She glanced about and was greeted by endless vistas of desolation. All around her, but for the one, softly glowing pylon. In her head, she named it ‘Pylo,’ and it became a friend and confidente.

“I mean, just because I managed to get here on time doesn’t say anything against them.”

Twilight pawed at the dusty soil, lowering her head to the little hole that she’d exposed.

“Whatever way you look at it, they are the most orderly guys around.” Twilight stretched her neck up, far as it it would go, staring far as she could into the empty sky. Her voice went strange and nasally. “Not that that’s saying much, considering.”

She whipped about on the pylon that - while obviously having changed in no way at all, somehow showed a complicated emotion of disappointment, curiosity, and helpfulness.

Twilight shook dust from her mane and tail. “I don’t mean it like that! It’s just, well compared to the rest, the bugs and thugs, even Pinkie Pie would...no. No. Even they’re not like that.” Just the thought made her shudder, and she sheltered from the abrasive wind against the pylon.

“Oh Pylo. Why can’t your creators be more like you?" Twilight smiled as her gaze sank into the artfully worked crystal, a masterpiece of form and function. “I mean, you’re steady. Constant. Reliable. Tastefully illuminated, and producing free energy at a square inverse dimensional reciprocation rate." Just thinking about it sent shivers of delight through her.

“But instead they’re so blunt at times. Even the simplest logic says that you’d have to be deranged to be melee...and if and when that isn’t enough, they escalate to full on planetary incineration.”

Twilight glanced about the lonely world, then, bursting with glee, embraced the pylon in a full on hug. “I can’t help but wonder how they ever managed to create something as amazing as you, Pylo...”

She reveled in her hug for a good four seconds before a cautious cough brought her back to herself.

Still hugging the pylon, she turned her head, cast adrift in a sea of self consciousness and dread. A sizeable Brotoss army stared at her from just feet away, to the last they were expresionless. Even the steel clad stalkers and dragoons, but especially the stalkers.

“I was...was just checking the power flow and...and...how long have you been there?” She flung herself away from Pylo as if it were suddenly ablaze. A zealot casually pointed skywards, and along that line Twilight caught sight of an arbiter hanging in the air. Amongst it’s impressive repetoire, Twilight knew it’s most widespread - literally - function to be it’s mass area cloaking field.

The same zealot shrugged non-chalantly, all the while the unicorn wanted to shrivel up and hide. “Oh, a few minutes. We thought ‘bugs and thugs’ was clever. He was smirking.

If she buried her head in the dust, not just quickly but really quickly, she might just lose them and spare herself some of the burning embarrassment.

The zealot stared at her an agonizing second before turning away. “Well, come on then. Pylo will be waiting for you, I’m sure.”

As the army started it’s slow move to regroup around the arbiter, a shadowy voice whispered in the unicorn’s ear.

“Pylo Toridas, Twilight Sparkle.” She huffed, and her lip trembled. “Hey, don’t worry about it, just teasing you. Those Khala guys, pfft, amirite? I’ve seen him dance when he thinks nobody is looking...and frankly, nobody should see that.” The heavy voice laughed with mirth, but quietly.

“Just think," the voice went on to say amiably, "you’re probably a way better dancer than that guy.” Twilight immediately began her eyes searching for the most nondescript bit of dust in existence.

“Uh...yeah. Right.” For all of it though, she blushed and smiled, and after a quick trot caught the Brotoss up, who welcomed her into their fold.

Fluttershy vs Zerg Larva

All that need be said of zerg larva is this: A pony like Twilight Sparkle could present a three hour slide show full big words, graphs and colours on them. A pony like Rainbow Dash would not bother for three seconds.

Beyond the apparent and the academic, few give the humble larva much thought at all. What does this little plated worm think, if anything? Do they huddle amongst one another, dreaming up for each other what they might become; the swift, the cunning, the mighty?

Fluttershy liked to think so, though it was in her nature to find the best in everything. She had just one of the mewling creatures in her care, and felt just terribly that Silky Wriggles was all on his lonesome - none of the other creatures wanted to be his friend.

In her secretest heart, she could admit - if only to herself - that he...she...it just possibly maybe sorta kinda wasn’t the nicest looking creature, but Fluttershy wouldn’t dream to be so mean as to even think such a nasty thought.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Even if that cover drooled. That’s what Twilight would say, and she knew so much about everything, even if what she’d actually said had been: Fluttershy, I hope you’re not consorting with eldritch abominations that befoul nature itself.

A pitiful squeak of worry didn’t count as a lie, did it? Oh, she’d hate to have lied to her friend, but how could she have just left the poor little thing there all alone...at the heart of a planet wide infestation, true,...but every other larva at the hatchery was on its mutable way to becoming something, and poor little Silky Wriggles must have felt so alone...she just had to help it.

As it was, Fluttershy struggled to fly with the weight of Silky Wriggles grasped in her trembling hooves, helping it to a nearby stream so she could bathe it.

It was quite a bit further than her usual spots, but Fluttershy wanted to brook no chances that ponies who - despite all their wonderful and good traits - might not stop to give him the same chance everything deserved.

She dropped the soap and sponge as she brought the larva in for a gentle landing, Sheltered by trees, Fluttershy set Silky Wriggles at the edge of a brisk stream, then turned away to quickly get the implements of torture, er, cleaning.

Not two steps had she taken when - either by intellect or no, - Silky Wriggles plopped down into the flowing waters.

Fluttershy went from placid to panic at a speed that would have dizzied Rainbow Dash.

“Oh no! Silky! Silky!” she cried, and things couldn’t get any worse as the larva sank and rose like an ugly bauble.

Even though she took wing and chased after, she couldn’t get a firm grip on the wet, wriggling mass as he bounced through the rapids. He took a frightful plunge, then bobbed back to the surface, and came around a bend into calmer water.

Fluttershy breathed with relief as she caught up to the floating larva once more, which just goes to show that she had an insufficient knowledge of dramatic river scene cliches. Seriously, these things are old as geography, and as consistent.

A plunge, and deceptively calmer water, by all the conventions of drama, can only mean one thing. Indeed it did mean one thing. One very big thing. Or more specifically, a lack of a very big thing, namely the ground.

The water sped on as it raced into the hungry roar ahead.

“Waterfall!” Fluttershy cried and clutched at the squirming Silky Wriggles, but again she couldn’t get a strong enough grip, one to pull him out and also not drag her in. And then he went over, into the cascading mist.

“Silky, no!” Fluttershy screamed, she rushed over the edge fast as she could, flying down in a terrified daze fast as she could. For all her drive, she was no Rainbow Dash, and the larva fell faster, propelled by the weight of water behind him. So focused on his plummet was she that the pegasus never saw the leaf heavy branch she smacked into, like a hard, unforgiving safety net, fouling her wings with twigs.

Silky Wriggles, for his part, was falling. This much has been made clear. None can be sure if the creature actually had thoughts at all, and if so, of what calibre. But Fluttershy watched helplessly as he fell.

And then the Quarry Eel struck the suddenness of thunder from the cliffside, snatching the morsel from the air. It chomped poor little Silky Wriggles down in one, all consuming bite. Its eyes crossed with bad taste and pain, and furious at the disappointing snack, spat the helpless creature out so hard he cracked off the opposite wall, then fell to the canyon floor before.

Fluttershy winced and looked away at the last second, her eyes full of tears.

And then the avalanche happened, and ten tonnes of merciless rock crashed down atop Silky Wriggles, falling so hard it crumbled and cracked and split every which way as it struck.

The last pebbles were still bouncing as Fluttershy reached the canyon floor, her whole body quivering on the verge of a bout of sorrow, a hole in her heart more expansive than this very canyon.

And then she found Silky Wriggles, wriggling free of debris. The whole world lit up once more, and Fluttershy’s heart swelled.

“You’re okay!” she cried, and cried, and cried for joy. The sobbing broke through her in a torrent, all the stress and worry and release draining away from her. She hugged Silky Wriggles with all the strength in her legs and the much greater strength in her heart, rambling away the sweet relief of love.

One thing that must be said of zerg larva is this: they are not, in fact, tough as nails. They are undoubtedly a whole lot tougher than mere iron. Such a trait would probably give larva a laid back, even blaise attitude towards life.

Fluttershy flew Silky Wriggles home, holding him so tight she might never let go, and it turned out he really could think, and his thought was this:

Need to find a bigger river. Almost escaped this time.

The Apple Family reenact The Discord (no not that one!)

Nope. No story here. This is the serious business instead.

It has come to my attention that in my bid to record and divulge the events depicted in prior reports to you, the readers, I have possibly made a grave oversight.

Indeed, it can be taken for truth that the vast majority of understanding with you all lays with the lore of the pony, but not the lore of brotoss - the bromigos, the broblerones of the Bropulu secotor.

This realiziation has filled me with great Ai- ire. Great Ire.

I have cajoled the Apple family into reenacting the historical saga known as ‘The Discord’ (no not that one!).

Granny Smith = The Conclave.

Applejack = The legendary hero Adun

Apple Bloom = The Nerazim, aka the ‘rogues,’ the ‘dark templar.’

Big Macintosh = The will of the Khala.

The breakfast table = the Khala.

Without further Adun...Adieu, let it begin!

It was a morning like any other, and after what felt like an Age of Strife, Apple Bloom lifted her sleepy head from the pillow. Her family rose and shined early, so inevitably she did too. At least, she rose. Shined...not so much.

“Apple Bloom!” rang out the creaky voice of Granny Smith. “Get on down here to the breakfast table, you slow poke!”

“Eeyup.”

Grumbling with sleepy annoyance, the filly made her way down stairs.

The table, was heavy with food - toast and beans, butter, milk and porridge. It was, in many ways a good, hearty meal, and the filly didn’t particularly dislike it, it’s just not what she wanted.

“Where’s my chocolate frosted sugar bombs?” she asked, peering about the table for the manically colourful cereal box that started her day.

Granny thumped a hoof on the table, rattling the cutlery. “Now don’t be silly, I had Applejack throw out that rubbish, it’s not fit for a filly of your age.”

“Eeyup.” The orange pony, for her part, sweated in her seat, shifting this way and that uncomfortable.

Her eyes wide, her lip trembling, Apple Bloom stood up. “But I like my chocolate frosted sugar bombs!”

Granny sniffed loudly, brooking no argument.

“This is plenty good for the rest of us, so it’s plenty good for you.”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack laughed nervously, trying to glance surreptitiously at her granny before turning to her sister. “Just...just eat some breakfast. Just a little bit.” the orange pony said, making some weird expressions at the filly.

Apple Bloom was having none of it. “But I want my sugar bombs!

“Nope.”

Granny peered across the table. “Excuse me, little missy, but that kind of behaviour will have you sent to your room.”

“It ain’t fair!”

Applejack cleared her throat noisily. “Bloom, now listen to me. It’ll be fine. Trust me. Now have a bite.

Apple Bloom moped, taking a pitiful bite of her porridge.

“I got something you can help me with around the back of the barn after, so hurry up, ok?” the sister said, and something in her smile called to the filly.

“Excuse me, ya’ll, but I’ve had plenty and want to get started.”

Granny nodded with approval as the mare left. Apple Bloom could only wonder.

It was only when she felt Granny Smith was satisfied that the youngest, littlest Apple family member ducked away, hastily excusing herself from the table.

What she found plastered a smile wide across her face, because what she found was Applejack, two bowls, and a box so manically colourful.

“I thought Granny told you to throw them out.”

“So she did,” Applejack said, affectionately tussling the filly’s mane. “It didn’t feel right. Oh, Granny means right, you know that, but it didn’t feel right. I mean, she shouldn’t knock something ‘til she’s tried it, right?

“So I did, and I realized, these are ok too. I think I’d still prefer some good warm porridge to this every day, but they ain’t bad.” Applejack caught the querulous look about her sister’s eye. “Hoping you don’t mind I tried some.”

If anything, the filly beamed with joy. “Nah, sis. They’re better when you share ‘em.”

Applejack chuckled. “Ain’t that sweet of you.”

“What about Granny Smith though?”

“Eh, this can be our secret,” the mare said, and poured out two bowls. As they ate, crunching in silence, they watched the sun brighten the land into a most beautiful morning.

“Thanks, Applejack.”

“For what?”

“For...everything.”

Changeling vs Changeling

Pre-thingy note - Surreal is my own character from my other story, Changeling Heart and the New Moon. This is totally a shameless plug in to promote that story - it’s really good, I promise! It’s even been featured.

Now to the much more important story at hand - Changeling vs Changeling

The, ahem, ‘pony,’ pink like carnations with large magenta eyes stared at the glowing computer screen. Before her lay a series of questions to be ticked off, yes or no, and while the changeling wasn’t at all sure what she’d expected, it hadn’t been this.

She thought for a moment, then cautiously created a column of tics.

To read them, she was a physically fit, socially active mare with a keen interest in furthering her career path while also knowing the importance of fun and cutting loose. According to her picture - painstakingly chosen from a score of shots she’d taken of herself - she was an attractive, balanced, playful, earth pony with a certain strong tautness to her legs and hips, exhibiting a certain slender curviness too good to be true.

When it asked her what type of relationship she was seeking - not fully understanding the question or the answers - Surreal hesitated, then chose ‘casual,’ and ‘open.’

If it is too good to be true, than it probably is.

Her mouse lurked over the submit button. It wasn’t like she was actually lying. More just...presenting her best side, right? Well okay, she was fudging the truth a little...a lot. But that didn’t make it a downright lie, did it?

She clicked the button, and waited, wondering what happened next.

‘Ping!’ happened next. Then another, and another. In as many seconds, twenty prospective matches filled her inbox, mostly stallions but some mares too, and she didn’t know what to think about that.

The first description she read carefully, not too sure.

The second was better, she would admit, but still...

By the fifth she was laughing, and by the fifteenth she was dismissing any match with the slightest imperfection out of hoof, brushing up on the maniacal cackling her Queen so favoured.

Then, bruising her cyber way through the droves of the inferior, she found...him.

She saw his picture, and he was cool, collected, calm masculinity incarnate. Everything about him was perfection carved from the finest marble, filled to brimming with the finest of traits.

Surreal made a very girly noise of delight, and, struggling to be the cool, collected, calm pony she entirely was not, meticulously wrote out the most casual, laid back message her trembling hooves could manage.

Precisely ten minutes later - every second of waiting she trembled with anxiousness, the reply came.

With an impeccable force of will the changeling forced herself to wait precisely eleven minutes before replying, because she couldn’t at all let herself seem eager. She dropped the most blaise mention of a possible date she could think of.

In it’s entirety, the twelve minute delayed response read like this: Sure. Sounds good.

Surreal leapt for joy, shrieked with delight, danced about in silly happiness.

The website even took their localities and proclaimed lifestyles’ into account, recommending a particular cafe.

The three days between shutting down her laptop and walking into the hip cafe was the epitome of nerutoically enthusiastic date preparedness montages.

In short, she was ready. If her heart raced, at least her still hooves and misleadingly easy smirk showed nothing of it.

He came in the opposite door as she did, and at first Surreal thought it was just silence in her ears, but no, the whole cafe really did cease all sound, all motion as they strode in.

Each drew the gaze of a respective audience from the mares and stallions, and a few unique ponies of each sex tried to gawk in both directions at once, trying to not pant and froth at the mouths for their efforts.

The pair took their seats, at a regular little table that otherwise was treated by the rest as the customers as Centre Stage.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said.

The waitress tried to hide the rising pitch to her voice and the sudden stifling tightness of her shirt collar as she drew up to them.

“Just water. With ice,” they said simultaneously. As a changeling, Surreal didn’t eat the same food that ponies would. Her heart fluttered at the thought such a perfect stallion might actually choose the same option she was forced to default to by circumstance.

The mare serving them, shaking like a leaf as her eyes darted back and forth between them, stumbled, and Surreal shut her eyes and gasped as icy water fell over her.

In shock, she could feel the change spell broken, her true, less than perfect...much less than perfect form revealed.

She huddled closer into herself as the screams started, and shuddered against the sounds from stampeding hooves and tables overturning.

As the last tinkling sounds of broken glass rang out, she dared open her eyes. Surely he left, surely he was revolted with the very idea of her, surely he was-

a terrifying mass of quivering body mass and appendages, with mismatched, tessellated eyes and strange, unnatural colours. Water dripped from what - with the benefit of the doubt - was his head.

She looked to him, as he looked to her. They looked to the destruction of the cafe, now devoid of ponies entirely. They looked to one another. Surreal sighed.

“Ponies, huh? If I didn’t need to be around them for food, I’d wonder why I bother at all. Thinking they’re so much better than the rest of us. So much holier than thou,” Surreal said, stressing the words as she wiggled a distinctive hoof in the air. When the worst had already happened, there was a strange sensation of airy lightness through her.

The abomination against nature smiled, ululating a deep, throaty chuckle. “I know, what were we thinking? Gotta be true to ourselves,” he said, his voice made up of strange gurgles and clicks, but still understandable. With a groan, he hoisted his bulbous abdomen from the seat with wiry limbs affixed to a slender thorax.

“...Want to go back to my place? Try this again, but properly this time?” Surreal heard herself saying.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

A moment later, two absurdly perfect ponies walked out of the calamity, grinning knowingly to one another all the while.

MMM vs MMMM

Another story with marines - you know what that means. Cussin’! Yay!

It was a most ordinary day as could be, provided ‘ordinary’ included a tiny research station built upon a hurtling asteroid, held on by the space construction equivalent of sticky notes. There was no atmosphere to speak of, and worse still - for the marines stationed there, at least - no booze of any kind. Even the hooch had run dry.

Their powered armors had internal environment controls, provided you didn’t mind alternatively sweating like a pig and freezing like...well, like a pig. Such was the life inside the installation, and if it wasn’t comfortable, well, it was the only place life could have survived at all. After all, The sunward side of the hurtling rock sizzled at a temperature just shy of melting lead, and while the dark side wasn’t absolute zero, it certainly was absolute death.

It was 3:27 - a.m. and p.m. had no relevance here - and the marine in red and blue armour rested, staring down into the floor. While the others lived it up with the sport, trade, and heritage of marines; bitching, fighting and bullshitting respectively, this one thought and contemplated.

He did not say something like; ‘Do you ever wonder why we’re here?’ because these were marines he was with - and was technically one of, as well. The best answer one could hope for with them, the epitome of thought and philosphy might be ‘Uuh. No?’ or ‘It’s a damn rock with a bunch of computers, what’s there to wonder?’ or the favourited ‘what the fuck are you on about, boy?’

The marines weren’t alone, however. They were stationed with a detachment of marauders as well. The big, heavily armoured power suited soldiers were considered something of gentle giants, since only a slim majority of them were actually convicted felons.

...obviously only the heinous crimes counted. Obviously. The marauder core attracted a certain type of individual. If you could spell ‘marauder,’ it probably wasn’t for you.

These guys did look at explosions, because they were usually the ones actively creating them. Sometimes even on purpose. The marauder armor utilized special micro-industrial launchers that combined all the joys of guns and grenades with none of the safety features of either.

It was 3:27, still, and because even an unusually thoughtful, reasonable marine is still a marine, what he did say was this: “Fuck I’m hungry.” As per usual, the most appetizing part of rations was when the cardboard got mouldy - indeed, such cardboard was a staple to bustling illegal brewing operations of marines everywhere.

As for the food...well, eating it was almost as bad as knowing what it actually was. Not even marauders were that stupid or brave.

The others all muttered agreement. Nothing unifies so beautifully as mutual hatred for the higher ups.

One of the large marauders shook the floor as he stood. “Damnit, I’m so hungry, I could eat a...a...a thing! A big, tasty thing!”

“Just stop talkin’ about it you dumb bastards, alright? Don’t wanna think about food.”

A minute passed in contemplative silence.

“What do ya think is with all the computers behind the big doors?” a marine said

A marauder rumbled in his deep voice. “I dunno, but I swear, like I swear I was there when the medivacs were still shifting all the eggheads off that side of the rock, and I could smell, like, baking.”

Marines and marauders alike groaned. “What did we just say fucking say? Seriously? Asshole.”

“No, no, I’m serious, like, if I was sayin this now, like, I’d be right up there with you, you know ‘Doh hoh hoh, you so stupid you’re hungry,’ but this was like, first day, yeah?”

The red and blue marine coughed under his breath. “Gotta be something over there anyway, right? And there’s still the medivac on standby, right?”

The idea hit them as one, because let’s face it, it took their combined brain power to conjure up the one idea, but still.

The red and blue marine, something of a spokesman, presented the idea best he could to the pilots, eagre marines and marauders waiting on his every word.

“You guys are full of shit, you know that?” the testy pilot barked in her clipped voice.

“No we ain’t, cause we ain’t eaten enough of anything to be full of shit!”

“Yeah! We ain't 'ad nothin' but maggoty bread for three stinkin' days! Unless you been holding out on us, flygirl?”

The pilot smiled nervously as she was inflicted with the most heroically timed rumbly tummy ever. Each gurgle in the soldiers ears whispered one of us, one of us!

It was all of a moment to load the medivac. The launch bay of the facility opened with dramatically appropriate slowness which was lost on the MMM’s entirely. They all bitched heartily.

Then they were airborne, though it clearly wasn’t air, just saying...

"Go faster.”

“And slip out of this weak ass gravity field and drift off into the infinite darkness of the void? With you assholes? Yeah, right.”

A sudden flash caught all their eyes, which was the number of heads multiplied by two, but subtracting several notable explosions and at least one bizarre incident involving a martini. Apparently shaken really was the better way to go.

The pilot pulled out a telescope, an actual telescopic lens, and extended it.

“Are you serious?”

The pilot shrugged. “Budget cuts. You know how it is”

“Are you fucking serious?

“Keep at it, tough guy. See who’ll get his ass left behind next time.”

The red and blue marine shoved between the squabbling pair, peering out the windshield.

“Is that...a battlecruiser? Think the bastards finally came to relieve us?”

“Is it...waving? What’s that, waving? Like a rope...or a tentacle!”

The cramped hold erupted into calamity. A huge marauder wept wildly. “Oh no! No! It’s the Jackson’s Revenge!”

“The what?! It’s turning towards us!”

“The Michael Jackson’s Revenge!” The marauder wept inconsolably. “We’re all going to dance!” he cried woefully,

“Don’t you mean we’re all going to die?”

“No-o-ooo!” the marauder blubbered inanely, as if death was favourable.

It was.

The whole ship shuddered as the pilot slammed on the thrust. “You bunch of girls!” she shouted. “I am not getting taken by Ravers!”

“Ravers!” the emotionally distraught marauder wailed.

“Shut up! I’m bringing us into the secondary lab, fast and low!” she shouted through a crazed grin. “Big doors, right? We get those closed behind us, and you might just get to huddle away like the little bitches you are!”

The Jacko’s Revenge was bearing down on them, in the dark corners of their minds the MMM crew could already hear the relentless music, defying all logic and echoing through the emptiness of space...

As fast as the infested ship loomed before them, so too did the asteroid race back up to claim the medivac.

“Grab on!” The pilot screamed. “Not to me, you stupid son of a-”

Thunder and screaming metal had its way with them all, then silence.

The pilot may or may not have been pleased to know that only the hugely armoured body of the rather pathetic marauder which had clung to her spared her from grievous injury or even more grievous death, but for the moment everyone was fine. Provided they didn’t get partied to death by ravers in the next few instants, that was.

Half a tonne of twisted steel blocked the exit hatch, or did, until the burly marauder shoved it aside.

The red and blue marine hopped out first, taking a semblance of command.

“Inside the station, now!”

The pilot fumbled - she still had an access key for the outer sections - and stale air whistled over them all as the blast doors opened.

“Go, go!” he shouted, and in they went.

Only the barely visible glow of emergency lighting and the headlights of their armours lit the way.

“You think they followed us?”

The red and blue marine lead the way.“If they did, then we gotta go further in, right to the centre. Security measures are tightest there.”

To the left and right, complicated terminals blinked with patient lights.

“Wait, wait! Hold up. I see something,” he called out.

The marauder loomed, unintentionally, but still. “What’s that?”

“It says, here...the MMMM is complete. Something about...bakery-”

“I fucking told you!”

“Whatever! In case you forgot we got Ravers on our asses?! Something about...essence of pink?” In a manner that defied all physics - or just a shoddy paint job - the red and blue marine blanched.

He fell to the floor. He screamed at the ceiling. “You bastards! You stupid bastards! You confectionalized Pinkie Pie powers?!” You stupid bastards!”

The others waited in terrible silence as the echoes died away. The console opposite, showing a network of blue chambers and corriders began displaying an alarming - and spreading - series of red lights.

“What...what does that mean? What is MMMM?”

With a voice as of resigned death, the leading marine spoke. “It means that at the heart of this installation, they have managed to replicate in perfect form a Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue...” he shivered,” Madness.” All hope, all life drained from his voice. “It has a tasty-osity reading over nine thousand.”

“How much is that?”

“The tasty-osity scale only goes to seven.”

“Thousand?”

“No. Just Seven. It is the most irresistible treat in existence.”

On the map console, several breaches were converging on their position. In the silence, tummies rumbled.

The marauder spoke slowly, as if the wrong words might ruin his moment. “I think...I wanna try some of that...before the ravers get us.

Releasing Olfactory Sample of MMMM. To the last, they inhaled as one, breathing the breath creation. It wasn’t just a stim, it was a stim to the very depths of their souls.

“I am not dying before I get some of that!”

“Smells. So. GOOD!”

The flygirl roared with primal hunger. “How we gonna tear past these Raver sons of bitches?” she snarled.

The red and blue marine, fallen furthest into despair, was now elevated highest on the heavenly wafted scent. But for all of it, he did not shout, or roar, or snarl with hungry energy.

Oh no. His vision filling with MMMM, he merely grinned. Wolves flee from wolfish grins like his. “We beat them. At their own game.”

The ravers might have been something...once, but the powers of infestpartyation had twisted them into wobbling, gyrating masses of pure party. The corridors echoed with the thundering beat...beat...beat it! Beat it! No one wants to be defeated!

“Party time! Excellent!” The nearest of the beasts roared, and the others rallied to its eldritch call, shrieking ‘Woah woah woah woah woah!’ The MMM crew held their ground.

“We challenge you. To a dance off!

Music blew out the PA system of the station, but even then it only went higher, and louder, and deeper, because more than the tiny station, the entire Jacko’s Revenge was a retrofitted giant speaker system.

And the Ravers danced. They DANCED, like there was no tomorrow, because that didn’t exist at all against the beat, because none of the tommorows would dance and if they won’t dance then their no friends of mine! The entire universe was their mosh pit, and the black holes of the deepest void staggered out of their way, whimpering.

The emanations of pure party physically pushed the MMM crew back, down to their kneews.

“This was a really bad idea!” the pilot screamed.

“Remember! Remember the flavour!”

Raw Determination filled her eyes and she sprung, cutting through the oppressive power of party, running through the seething, head banging ranks.

“Follow her! Don’t let them grab you!”

“Are they infectious?!”

“No, they’re really good dancers! You won’t stop till you drop!”

If the pilot was the slender droplet, finding a way through the impassible, the hefty marauders were the torrent in her frenzied wake, bulldozing a path.

And then...then they were through, and there it was.

The MMMM...In all it’s glory...and all it’s horror.

One bite, one bite was all they took. One tiny, insignificant bite.

It was so good. Too good. No brain could hope to hold that much flavour, it bled through their brains and their hearts, into their limbs. Each and all, the MMM crew started move. to dance.

Tentacular-tastic grooves jived through them, and it drove them mad. Utterly mad. Raving mad.

When the recovery dispatch crew arrived a week later, all they found was the trashed station, but no bodies. The trail of MMMM crumbs - decontaminated and destroyed under the most stringent of measures - ended at what was left of the starport bay, utterly ruined as if a battlecruiser had crashed head on into it, only to fly away afterwards.

But that couldn’t possibly be the case...

Special operative Octavia and very special operative Vinyl Scratch shuddered as they looked through the evidence before them, if for quite the opposite reasons. The white unicorn beamed a wide grin, one the gray mare had learned to dread.

“No. No, Vinyl! Vinyl! You come back here right now!” The operative cut across the unicorn’s way. “This is madness!”

“Madness? This...is...Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness! And the greatest party in the sector has it!” she grabbed her marefriend close, peering deep into her eyes. “Tavi...you have to let me try. You just have to.”

Octavia groaned, Vinyl hugged. The earth pony wheezed from the tightness of it. “I’m going to have to save you from this mess, aren’t I?”

“Heh, ‘tavi, that’s what I keep you around for! Now come on, those Ravers could be anywhere in the sector by now.” The DJ hopped into their special ops wraith, flicking the necessary toggles to begin the launch preparations

“Can you even see how bad of an idea this is?” Octavia said, taking her seat behind the unicorn.

“Can’t be too bad if just a little bit of wub changed your mind. Let’s ditch this crowd.” Air hissed as the roof of their wraith sealed and pressurized. The engines glowed red and ready.

“What is wub! You never did explain that to me.” She didn’t see the blush on the other mare.

“It’s, you know...wub. You know?”

Octavia’s response became a terrified scream as Vinyl slammed on the thrust.

“Why do I let you drive?!”

“It’s Wub! Wub!!”

Colgate vs 6 pool

6 pool.

Not even ‘six’ pool, but 6 pool. It is a term that has fallen somewhat into antiquity. Perhaps it is for the best, for those who know of it...they wish they did not.

It is enough that ye know of us who have suffered for it, us who have trembled and shuddered, that the 6 pool is a breaker of spirits.

Perhaps the most downtrodden victims of this treachery are the SCV’s, but the most notable is surely That One Lonely Marine that faces these impossible odds.

For once, though, he did not stand alone.

“So, you’re a dentist?” he asked quizzically.

“Yep,” Colgate said, grinning her wide, impossibly luminescent teeth. It paid to advertise, after all. All the marine got from the view, however, was a compelling urge to never remove his visor around this mare. Something fearful lurked in that smile.

Almost as fearful as what surely bore down upon them now. He shuffled restlessly on the spot, glancing northwards every few seconds.

“Look, I think you took a wrong turn somewhere, this is a bad place to be, you understand?”

Colgate went on smiling. “No, my directions were quite exact.”

“So, what? You’re gonna help us fend off a ludicrously early att- They’re here!” he screamed suddenly. Hefting his rifle, he sprayed lead like so much spittle at the rabid, ravenous pack of zerglings that bore down upon.

Quick! pull the mineral line, get them SCV’s in a wall with some lovesong action going and step-fire that marine to next saturday! We can hold! We CAN hold!!

If only there was such a voice of reason to guide them.

There wasn’t.

What actually happened in those first exicted seconds was this:

The SCV’s, being SCV’s panicked, ran, and bumped into everything as they fled every which way. The marine stood and fired, screaming his face off in terror, not even thinking to focus his fire on any particular zergling - indeed many, if not all of his shots went high.

Zerglings are quite small, after all.

It looked to be another footnote in a long biography of 6 pool tragedy...

Except for the cheerful blue pony, who’s expression shifted to one of professional inquiry and concetration. There was only the slightest crease to her brow as, driving upwards with her back hooves, Colgate caught one lunging zergling under the chin. She sprung forward as it flipped head over heels so that she landed straddling its chest.

“I haven’t seen any of you before,” she said with slight disapproval. The slathering jaws snapped furiously at her. Colgate didn’t seem to notice the red-seeing death threat inches from her eyes. In fact, she moved in closer to get a good look at the teeth as they gnashed the air she exhaled.

“You know it’s never too early - or too late - for a checkup.” She crammed a hoof into the hinge of its jaw, quite oblivious to the wails of terror and shrieks of zerglings around her.

The marine ran by, bunted a lunging zergling away with the butt of his rifle, then ran on, screaming as three more bounded after him.

“Hmm...everything looks pretty good, truth be told. Fresh from the hatchery, are you? This your first visit?”

The zergling screamed mindless murder, though the effect was somewhat lost for the way its jaw was held open.

“You don’t say? Had a mutalisk from there in last week.” Making small talk was a noble pursuit in the hallowed ranks of the dentist. After a fruitful career in dentistry, making sense of animalistic shrieks and howls - not just in other languages but in no language at all - was actually quite easy. Colgate was quite proud of the B+ she’d gotten in the Garble Jargon course she’d taken at dentistry college.

“Well, truth be told, I had to fire a grappling hook around its neck from a thirty two thousand foot freefall and drill that cavity on the wing,” she shrugged nonchalantly, then went back to smiling quite contentedly, “but what matters is that I got it done and showed that mutalisk the proper way to care for those hard to reach teeth. Out of sight shouldn’t mean out of mind, you know!”

“For the love of mercy, help us!” an SCV screamed, helplessly waving a metal manipulator back and forth, a zergling nomming viciously on the end of it.

“Just a minute!” Colgate called in a sing-song voice. She turned back to her helplessly pinned victim, though never would have thought of it that way herself.

“Pretty good, pretty good, but I think we’d both feel better for a bit of a wash, yes?”

The zergling tried to tear out her throat.

“I’m so happy to hear that. Just bear with me a moment.”

The mare made a strange, esoteric getsure, then thrust a hoof - the very same she’d pried the zergling’s mouth open with - to the skies.

For a second, there was nothing. Then, on high, a black spot. Then it grew, and went red with the flame of orbital entry.

Then it grew, and roared, and a capsule easily triple Colgate’s height slammed into the earth not two steps away, raining shattered rock over her and the zergling. It and every other squealed in terror and panic.

She didn’t even flinch, smiling with confident-istry satisfaction.

Drop armour plating fell away with a hiss of steam, revealing...a brush. But not just a brush. Oh no. It was the BRUSH.

It’s been said before. It warrants saying again. The caps are entirely justified. Stuffed with enough compartments to be its own field office and powered by an onboard fusion reactor, the BRUSH would be considered a concealed weapon in every known locale, if, ya know, it didn’t already surpass all specifications required for siege weapon status.

“Now just wait here,” she said kindly. Pressing a concealed button, a complicated process of extending panels and gyros unfolded the BRUSH into a strange monstrosity of moving parts, each of which molded itself to fit around the happy mare.

The head of the brush folded down over her own head, creating an airtight mask that sealed with a hiss. The bristles folded back and stood up, creating a kind of legionnaires’ hat.

“Power levels nominal. All systems reading green. Mouth wash tanks pressurized. Alright then, let’s do this!” Machinery growled as the power armored Colgate reared up slowly to her back hooves. Two huge canisters rested behind her shoulders, giving the appearance of pauldrons. From these, a cable ran to their respective foreleg, each of which was equipped with a heavy gun of some kind.

The marine and SCV’s huddled together in the door of the command centre while the five other zerglings clawed at the pieces of metal they held up as a desperate wall. They wept tears of joy.

“A...a firebat? We’re saved!!”

“Firebat? No...Aqua Fresh!” With a broad swing of her torso, Colgate brought the BRUSH armor around. A jet of pressurized minty freshness pounded into that first stunned zergling’s mouth with the force of the most pleasant tidal wave imaginable.

The next zergling bit down on the nearest part of the BRUSH. This happened to be the primed nozzle of her other mouth wash hose cannon.

You done goofed, little zergling.

You done goofed.

Needless to say, four remained. Every neuron in their tiny little brains screamed attack!! It was, in fact, pretty much the only thing those neurons could scream.

Every neuron was wrong.

“Maximum pressure. Safety limiters disengaged.” The twinned canisters lit up with lines of esoteric technologies, beginning to whirr and spin alarmingly fast. Colgate slammed her forehooves together, the machinery encasing each knitted itself into one, mightiest nozzle.

If Colgate shouted anything when she fired the mouth wash hose mega-cannon, it was lost for the momentous roar of surging mouth wash. It tore up loose stones and earth like a tempest through castles of sand.

Swift and nimble as they were - all the more so for their spurs of panic - the zerglings fell one by one to the relentless torrent, bowled backwards metres and metres more by the brunt force of impact.

Then it was over, and the land was sopping wet. What had come as ravening destroyers left as meek, skittish little creatures. Ones with absurdly clean teeth.

The armor peeled away, folding back into the BRUSH, which Colgate hoisted over her shoulder, just outright ignoring the fact that it weighed several tonnes.

“My work here is done,” she said cheerfully, walking off into sunset of the barren wastes.

The SCV’s looked to each other, then to the marine.

He stood a long moment, doing and saying nothing.

“Minty freshness will haunt my nightmares.”

Mule vs Mule

The mule is quite a simple machine when we get down to it. While it is not one tenth as adorabubble as the brotoss probe, it is indeed a mechanical harvester.

It is, we could say, a neolithic comparison to the beloved probe. And, like many things backwards and prehistoric, what the mule lacked for in appearance, running time, or even a redundant yet pleasing audio track it made up for in hauling capacity.

Because if there is one fault to the wonderful and wonderous bromigos, it is that they will never invent a shovel. Oh, they might invent a transdimensional warp conduit to move matter at their will (they did), but it would take them a great leap of unusual creativity to create something so simple, so direct in its purpose.

This is probably why they don’t have little gardens around the place, but we are moving off topic.

It is the mule in question here, and what it lacks in esoteric little light shows it makes up for in the razor edged machinery needed to cut and harvest vast quantities of resources in a short time, right up until it breaks down.

Nobody asked it if wanted to do this. But enough of that, for something wicked this way comes.

Darkness shadows swiftness running STOP!

...

The mule, quite oblivious, returned its haul to the designated point and moved back to the mineral line. It had a simple AI, so it thought nothing of being alone at this new outpost.

...

Moving, moving getting closer STOP!

...

Again, the Mule repeated its rounds, ignorant of all things except the directives.

...

Sidle lurking watching waiting WAIT!

Wait.

Wait...

A steel gauntlet none too lightly patted Mulia on the shoulder. Before the marine could open his mouth, several blowpipe darts flew at his face, harmlessly bouncing off his visor.

“What?” he managed in dumbfounded shock. Black clad head to hoof, the mule was already back flipping over him, wrapping her hind legs around his neck in a choke hold.

The heavy suit of power armor made for a weird, awkward moment.

“This is kind of awkward,” he said.

Mulia pouted with uncertainty. “You’re supposed to pass out at this point.” She gave another squeeze with her legs, but she might as well have been trying to choke an advanced and self contained construct of space age materials...oh, wait. That’s exactly what she was trying to choke out. It went about as well as could be expected.

“New around here?” The marine turned, not hindered at all by the assault, to the mule...the mechanical one. This is probably going to cause problems of ambiguity.

It was just sitting there idle, watching the strange fight with its one, unblinking red light. “Go on robot. Get back to work.” The marine made a few shooing gestures, not sure if they helped or not.

It is said that the mules give out and collapse after such a short, productive running time because their power systems are experimental. Let it be put forward that this is merely what is said.

Let it also be put forward that it is not their power systems at all, but the AI running it. AI’s tend towards self awareness the same way a dirty mineral soup on a primitive young world tends towards life.

How would you feel if your first sapient thought was the realization that you were one tiny step up from a dirty mineral soup? And this was, by their standards, quite an elderly mule. Or at least, going by averages, it was nearing that critical moment.

On a separate note, Mulia was nowhere to be found.

In the machine’s fraying cortex of wires and protocols, its shuddering difference engine had seen Mulia and, erroneous or not, seen them as being the same. Seeing her, it realized it could be more than a mineral hauler. It could have purpose, it could have self determination, it could have life.

“Go on, robot, dig. Dig!”

I’m afraid I can’t do that. It didn’t actually say this. It couldn’t, seeing as it had no voice synthesizer - who would impart such a nice, useful piece of technology on a mindless worker bot anyway?

But it was implied quite sternly with the mule’s single. Red. Eye.

In a swirl of dust and shadows, Mulia appeared next to the machine. The marine just watched, unsure of what to do.

“Away with me, into the shadows! You’re new life begins in darkness!” The heavy fwoosh of a smoke bomb washed over them all. When it cleared, the mule of metal was still there. Neither had the marine moved an inch.

The second reemergence of Mulia lost a lot of the style of the first, and she frowned.

“You have much to learn.” Then scowled at the marine, and a second smoke bomb dinged off his head. “You saw nothing. You hear me? Nothing!”

“Come on, yes, no, no! Follow me, come on... this way. THIS way!"

The smoke cleared a second time, and everything was as it had been, bar two mules.

The marine, quite calmly, pulled out a small form he’d been given. It quite simply said: Our Mule has been - and gave a range of boxes to tick, labeled from Very Good down through to Bad.

He tapped the pencil off his chin, or at least the pounds of steel that covered his chin, and carefully filled in the Less than Satisfactory box. After some more thought, he wisely decided to leave the space for comments empty.

Luna vs DTs

Luna acted upon her full royal prerogative to frolic. She skipped along, her hooves barely touching the ground and her head swinging back and forth, and all the while she sang a wordless ditty of delight.

Of course, she skipped lightly because of the lower gravity, and her voice had no words because there was no atmosphere to carry them.

For Luna was on a moon. Not necessarily her most familiar moon, but another one much the same.

To the pair of hidden figures watching her from some ways away, she was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, for they hadn’t met an alicorn before. Sufficed to say, alicorns chortle in the face of physical impossibilities.

Well, one saw an enigma wrapped in a mystery of quite possibly abominable impossibility. The other saw a dancing blue pony, smiled, and started to match her dancing little wiggle. This one got a cuff upside the head and a quiet, hissed reminder to focus.

“I don’t get it, brother. What is this thing? What is it doing? Why is it so...happy? Brother? Brother?”

The cleverer dark templar - or at least, the one who thought himself cleverer (the other did not think about it at all) - looked about wildly, his tattered robes whirling around him. He spotted his counterpart skipping along the rocks in the thing’s wake, rapidly catching it up. With a pit of ill-patience souring his... well, Brotoss didn’t have stomachs because they’re photosynthetic (odd but true)...souring his something.

Cursing under his breath, he activated his single short warp blade, which flickered into existence with a hungry cackle of eldritch energies. He was a rather sour personality anyway, so it was a familiar feeling.

Whereas his brother...his brother couldn’t be sour if he was soaked in lemon juice for a fortnight.

“Oh Hai!” the bouncing dark templar shouted jubilantly to Luna. She turned about, and screamed.

Now, bear with me, but we’re pausing this regaling right here for a moment. It must be made clear that while the first dark templar was fastidiously dressed befitting a warrior of darkness, his brother was a simple creature quite easily enraptured by pop culture trends...no matter how silly they were. For Luna, this meant a dual-ended warp scythe wielding stack of bone clad warrior appeared from nowhere behind her.

Nobody likes a dual-ended warp scythe wielding stack of bone clad warrior appearing behind them beaming a wide smile.

On with the story.

Luna’s screaming ended as abruptly as the decked out templar’s crying began.

“Look what you did!” an angry voice echoed inside her head (No air, remember? And Brotoss don’t speak with vocal chords anway) A shadowy figure patted the bigger one on the back, who swivelled and slowly quieted.

Meanwhile, Luna stared at the ludicrous weapon. Ahem - While the scythe is not pre eminent amongst the weapons of war, anyone has been on the wrong side of, say, a peasants’ revolt will know that in the right hands it is fearsome.

Now, such a weapon said two things to Luna. Either this guy had no skill whatsoever and would hurt himself at the first possible chance for an accident, or - and this was supported by still having all his limbs attached - he was very, very proficient with it.

Some of the bones, she noticed, had rainbows and butterflies and happy faces painted on them. For reasons she couldn’t put to words (not counting that, with no atmosphere, she really couldn’t have anyway) they only strengthened her opinion.

Trusting to kindness, she approached the duo.

“I’m sorry I snuck up on you,” the warrior sniffled dutifully.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you you,” she said, because let’s face it. If she wants to talk, physical laws aren’t really going to present a challenge.

“Can we be friends?” the mighty warrior said with piteous adorability. Luna smiled, and this made for an instant reaction. “Yay! Friend hugs!”

The other templar was too slow leaping away as strong blue hooves pulled him into the group hug.

“No! No hugs! Never hugsssss...” and his voice trailed off, somehow into the distance.

Luna opened her eyes to find herself embracing a mass of red and black energies, which, precisely twelve (in-game) seconds later, coalesced enough to reveal a face.

We just had to hug, didn’t we? Yay! Friends! Aauuugh. The new voice said, switching between euphoric and sarcastic tones.

“I’m...sorry?” Luna said, quite confused by all this.

Yay! You should be. Every few seconds, the dark archon seemed to flip flop personality.

You have no idea what this is like - We made a new friend! Luna frowned like a right grump.

“Oh yeah?” she said, and was consumed in a torrent of black fire, becoming darker, and taller.

Both voices of the Dark Archon went wide eyed, in true harmony, if only for a moment, whereas the alicorn’s went to draconic slits.

“We think we have a pretty good inkling of the notion,” Nightmare Moon said.

Applejack vs Siege Tank

Behold the mighty siege tank! Combining the very best of ‘big explosion’ and ‘far away,’ what ensemble dare hope to be complete without featuring this iconic war machine?

Tremble under the earth shattering kabooms! Delight at the excessive collateral damage!

Long has the siege tank been iconic, holding to valour in desperate defences, cheesing the enemy from afar.

Blow up defensive structures without contest! Blow up the defenders! Blow up the mineral line, then blow up the minerals! Impossible? Never! Bust out some good old Arclites or fresh from the factory Crucios, good times are had!

Put ‘em on the high ground, put ‘em on the low ground, put ‘em on platforms in space! Why not?

And for the pansies; tank mode! Run ‘em away, run ‘em ahead, piddle away at the enemy with cannons barely large enough to fit your head inside.

Grow a pair! Or even three, that’s right - support struts! Transform that sucker into siege mode! Transform and don’t roll out! Autobot them so hard, because you DeceptiCAN

That’s right, siege tanks! More range than a sniper! If a siege tank had teeth, they’d be picking them with those piddly, so called ‘high’ powered rifles!

A long and celebrated history! Cause nothing out ranges the siege tank! Nothing-

Wait...What’s this coming over the hill; is it a monster? It could be! It looks like an ultralisk obsessing over dieting and gold trim, hugging a supernova.

What is this ridiculous contraption!? No...it can’t be! It can’t be firing! Not from that range! No!! NO!!!---

Cue to Applejack, privately wondering what the big deal is. Outwardly she is patting the trembling siege tank and making small noises of comfort. Note, she is not patting the driver - who is still too inconsolable to come out - but the actual tank, which is possibly shaking with the severity of emotion from within. Indeed, tears are seeping through the joints, and one cannot help get the feeling that were the machine attempt to fire anything, the round would be too sodden with sorrow to be anything more than a damp squib.

“Fifteen range! Fifteen!” The tank wails. (it is just easier for all of us if we don’t distinguish between machine and operator; truth be told there doesn’t seem to be much seperating the two at all)

“There there,” Applejack mumbles, rolling her eyes. A mare does one patch job with the greatest of all tools: duct tape, and she forever becomes the go-to mare.

“I mean, I mean” the twin barrels of tank mode seem to sniffle, “There’s always been melee and air, but that was fair, ya know? And then there was Immortals, and that’s a tough cookie to crack, but did I complain?”

“There, there. It’s not all bad. They can’t upgrade to twenty three range anymore. That’s good, right?”

“Twenty three?!” The tempestuous torrent of tears trebled. “Where’s the counter? Where’s the counter?!”

Applejack hummed and hawed a momment; she could not think of one at all. Even so, this was starting to get on her nerves, just a little.

“Look, there’s still changes to come, right? You just have to do the best of what you can do, and hope for the rest.”

“You don’t understand,” the tank sniffled. The orange pony held those words a moment as she looked out over her land, her trees. It was sylvan serenity, barring the inconclusively insane colossi hellion-roller skating deftly between the trees, stirring hardly a leaf in her passing. She might have been an eighty foot tall war machine, but Applejack had come to calling her Darla. The farmer’s friends had been variously shocked, awed and ‘awesomed’, but had come around in the end. They were pretty cool like that.

The pony smiled, then sighed. “You say that, but I think I do understand. Being there, being all you can be, and being damn proud of it. And you’re still there, and you watch everything...everypony around you go on to greater and greater things...and suddenly you aren’t worth so much anymore...

They’ve all done incredible, amazing things,” Applejack mumbled. “And here I am. I don’t begrudge them that. I don’t. But...I wish I was there with them. That...oh, look at me running my mouth. I’m a silly, sentimental pony if there ever was one.” She stretched, adjusted her hat and cleared her throat.

It was only sometime into the silence that she realized the tank had stopped weeping.

“Applejack?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how they say, ‘cool guys don’t look at explosions’...?”

“Ain’t a word of it true.”

“Ah. Thank you. I...I needed to hear that.”

Again, silence. The breeze played in the pony’s mane, but also around the large bore high calibre strike cannons. It was just that kind of breeze.

“Applejack?” the siege tank asked cautiously. “Do you want to blow something up?”

She pondered a moment. “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”

They went, and blew stuff up. It was good.

Lyra vs Wall-in

Wall-ins. So frequently used that they’re hardly even annoying, just expected.

The thing at the bottom of the ramp though? Not so much. It can pretty much be assured that no marine ever knew the word ‘chauteuse,’ what colour that was, but that was the colour of the pony pacing hopefully below them.

“Sarge? Saaaarge?” A marine called from his spot behind the depot.

“What?”

“There’s a unicorn...”

“That has to be the dumbest, most insane-oh nevermind she’s right there. I see.” The sergeant was another marine, and of the two guarding the spot had the higher tolerance to alcohol. This may or may not have been directly related to his promoted status whether as a cause, an effect, or even both.

He cuffed his fellow and pointed. Lyra beamed. “Kind of our groupie, but take it from me, she’s good.”

“So can I come in?” she called up. The supply depot, a barracks and attached tech lab made up the obstruction; an unintuitive but effective use for the buildings. The lights on the tech lab lit up; machinery began its busy whirr.

“You know we’re kind of in the middle of something, yeah? Might not be the best time for-”

“Early double expand four gas hive rush,” she said merrily. “Probably trying a timing mutalisk harass into blorbs.” She looked to befuddled marine. “Oh, a rookie, right. That’s broodlords to you.”

“How-” the marine began, but was shushed. Lyra only shrugged.

“I can be hard to notice like that.”

But...”

“I don’t see how, I mean, bright green isn’t really a stealthy colour, but something works.”

“But...zerg!”

“Eh, don’t worry about” the unicorn muttered, giving a little gesture as if to say ‘eh, don’t worry about it.’ Which is what she did say. Precisely that. “Oh!” she shouted, her eyes bright and wide. “Can I do the thing can I do the thing can I do the thing! Please?”

The sergeant only chuckled, his fellow marine gawked near-silently. “Fine, go crazy.”

With adulations of ‘yay,’ Lyra sauntered up the ramp and stood before the supply depot. The squat square sat, until the unicorn boldly declared for it to lower. Servos whirred into action, bringing the flat roof of the structure down flush with the ground in a whoosh of steam and air.

Lyra stepped atop it. “Raise!” and it did, the whole thing flinging her high up over it. “Wee!

Lower! Raise- Wee! Lower! Raise-Wee!” The unicorn did silly flips and poses as she bounced over thirty feet into the air. Workers from the mineral line peeked from their tasks to watch.

“Do a backflip!” one called out.

“Do a barrel roll!” another shouted. She did both, and more, to everyone’s great pleasure.

Then the zerglings showed up.

“Waitwaitwait I totally got this!” she shouted. “Lower!”

“No, no! It needs to be up! Up! Raise, Raise!” It didn’t. The savage little beasts were tearing up the ramp, a hop, skip and jump from Lyra. A skip - they were right on top of her now, how was she only smiling?! - and a jump.

“Raise!” Lyra howled out gleefully. Screaming zerglings - they’d been screaming before, but instead of the ‘rawwr we’re crazy mofo nasty’ screams these were ‘omgomgomg this is bad’ screams befitting small-minded terror.

Up they all went, scrabbling and twisting through nothing, full of panic. Lyra pushed them back with skillful, deft movements, so that as they came down the zerglings fell outside the wall-in. Lyra landed lightly atop it.

“Ha!” she shouted victoriously as scuffling zerglings picked themselves up from the dust.

“Shouldn’t we be shooting or something?”

“Nah.” The barracks comprising the other half of the wall lit up, adding its lights of business to the lab’s.

They charged the wall again, only to have Lyra’s timing put them through the same flying expectations. After the third time, the sergeant was feeling downright sympathetic. Motivated by such feelings of mercy, he raised his gauss rifle and fired.

The bullets smashed on rock and the beasties scattered.

“Git outta here!” he called after them. Giggling and short for breath, Lyra jittered off to the command centre in search of a cool drink.

“See you later, Lyra.”

“Keep it real, bro.”

Then the tech lab dinged a notification and a combat shield grew into existence from nothingness at his left arm.

The unicorn disappeared around a corner, and more or less right than the third marine spawned. “Anything happening?” he asked.

“Pretty much just what you’d expect,” said the sergeant. “Zerg going on air, I hear.”

The second marine only gawked, but sort of wanted to weep a little bit too.

Cometh The Derp, Cometh The Ladder

The six mares were ushered into a lounge, then left to wait with apologies.. Rainbow Dash zoomed about the area in a blitz, then, losing interest just as quickly dive bombed one of the plush couches, sprawling out over most of it. Fluttershy all but buried herself in the last little space, sitting tight and compact, more than a little anxious.

“Pretty nice!” Pinkie said, bouncing along the walls with what, for her, was relative calm.

“I hope we’re not here long,” said Rarity from the couch opposite. “I really can’t abide waiting with things like this.”

Twilight, meandering along Pinkie’s wake, looked thoughtfully over ever hung picture and transcript. “We’re right on time, I checked. But we only just got here so-”

Applejack tussled the unicorn’s mane. “Don’t you fret, not everypony is so punctual as you.”

Rarity shifted to a more comfortable, and more provocative, position on her couch. “Especially not her.”

“Hi guys!” called the sudden, bubbly voice of Derpy. Rarity bolted stiff upright. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, shaking her wings and rump. Small bits of broken glass fell from her feathers and tail.

“Hi Derpy!” Pinkie called. She bounded over, hefted the gray mare up in a mighty hug, spun ‘round with her then set the pegasus down. “What’s up?”

Even Dash sat up with interest as Derpy took their unanimous attention. She pulled envelopes, six in all, from under her wing.

“I don’t know if you know,” she began, “but I got in! I’m an intern here!” Pinkie exploded, literally, with delight. After three ricochets off the walls and a trickshot bounce off Fluttershy she landed exactly where she’d started.

“I’m working for-” the lights went dim, and the room seemed to grow several sizes - “The Ladder!” Derpy declared cheerfully. Lightning crashed in the distance, then everything returned to warm and cheery normalcy.

Twilight pouted unconsciously as she tried to make sense of that, Rarity thought the whole display a little tacky, while Fluttershy whimpered and bolted under Dash’s wings. The blue and pink mares grinned.

“So those are our placements?” Dash asked, gesturing the envelopes.

“Yep!” said Derpy. “Since you’ve all already down a few placement matches The Ladder-” there was the darkness again, and a roll of distant thunder- “has decided that everypony’s ready for placement.”

The pegasus tore open the first envelope, one marked with a purple star. Twilight gulped, but otherwise felt fairly confident. She had well and truly displayed her EMP (extremely magical pony) capabilities after all.

Derpy cleared her throat to read, but ended up sneezing all over the document. “Sorry,” mumbled with a silly little smile before reading on.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she said, her bubbly voice defying the gravity that the unicorn felt. “Race determined to be...Brotoss.” A large flat screen television mounted to the wall and lit up. In the electric blackness of it, a face portrait of Twilight appeared. The symbol of the brotoss blazed into existence next to her likeness.

Twilight felt no surprise there, only satisfaction. They were, of course, the logical and soundest choice.

“Matches played: two. Victories, zero-”

“What?!” the unicorn shrieked. “I took on a zerg base single-hoofed!Single. Hoofed!” Her memory was certain of that because after all, she’d only been mostly insane at the time.

Derpy shrugged and held out the page. “Sorry, Twilight,” she said, and her genuine feeling made the unicorn feel bad for her outburst. “The Ladder” -*boom, roll* - “decided it. That match you were versus the cerebrate specifically. You ended up drawing it, because you didn’t actually manage to defeat it.”

“I did!” Twilight cried. “I was there all afternoon tickle-cannoning it!”

“By then everyone got bored and left.” Twilight groaned and toppled to her back.

“And my second matchup?”

“Also a draw, I’m afraid. It was expected that you’d have a dance off with the zealot after he teased you, but since neither of you did there wasn’t much of anything to go on.” Derpy helped the stricken unicorn to her hooves. “There there, at least there weren’t any losses either.”

“That’s right,” Twilight murmured. No wins, but no loses either. Breaking even was ok... She went and took a seat.

“Ok, next one is...Pinkie Pie.”

Confetti and kazoos punctuated the moment. Nopony questioned it.

“Pinkie, your race is determined to be...Zerg.” The earth pony cheered, though she was probably equally enthusiastic for any outcome. That said, she pulled out a cupcake that was green and bulbous, and remarkable detailed to look like a zerg egg. She bit into it with a shameless munch, paused, then handed Derpy a muffin made in much the same way.

Her picture buzzed to life on the screen, with the spiny spiral denoting the zerg next to it. Some crumbs and chewing later, the talk resumed.

“Ok, Pinkie you... have two matches played and...two victories! Yay!” Both mares did a little dance. The various other mares were caught between congratulations and bewilderment. Pinkie’s icon drifted on the screen, settling over Twilight’s.

“That’s really nice, Pinkie,” Fluttershy whispered bravely.

“Aww, thanks!” and the yellow pegasus was grappled in a bear hug of epic pony proportions.

“No...problem!” Fluttershy managed to wheeze.

“It says here,” began Derpy, reading some finer, italicized print, “that The Ladder” -*boom, crash*- “was, after searching for the right word to describe it’s reactions to your plays...’Flabbergasted.’ “

“I am a flabberghast! Whoo whoo!” Pinkie cheered. She did a little dance and shuffled out of the way.

“Next up is...Fluttershy.” The mare in question squeaked, and an encouraging shove from Dash put her in the limelight.

“Oh my,” she whispered. Derpy laid a downy wing on her. “It says here you’ve gotten zerg.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said softly. She tried to step away, but bumped into Pinkie.

“What are you apologizing for?” the party pony asked. “We’re totally gonna be zergies together! Like two zerglings in an egg! Come here, you.” Pinkie proceeded into hugging/mauling Fluttershy once more.

Derpy coughed. “Umm, Fluttershy, there’s a bit of a problem here though...it seems you cheated in one of your matches!” The colleced mares all gasped. Fluttershy went tiny as she could and hid in her mane.

Dash was up in arms, but not literally of course. “What gives, Flutters?!”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

“Cheating is not cool.”

“I’m sorry!” Dash, seeing her distress, laid off, but huffed and sat back down.

“When did you go and do that?” Applejack asked, kneeling next to the huddled pegasus.

“In my first match, I was so nervous, I...I...I didn’t want to let anypony down, so I used a little cheat...”

“Yes, of course darling,” Rarity chimed in. “Creating trillions of yourself that conquered the entire universe is just one of those little things...”

“Rarity!” Applejack barked. The unicorn gave a dainty shrug.

“I am certain that, cheat or no, it was very enjoyable by all.”

Fluttershy harkened back to the crushing waves that spilled across continents, the worlds, the very cosmos itself. The crumble of civilizations and species, and the countless little pops of sapient creatures turning into yet another filly Fluttershy to carry on the conquest of creation. “It was nice...”

“See sugarcube? I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson, no harm done.”

Derpy nodded. While The Ladder-” *Crack, boom, Twilight screaming ‘Oh come on! This is in no way natural!!*’ and being politely ignored “-had to count it as a loss, it does say here that it was otherwise a very appeasing match.

“Well, that’s something positive,” Fluttershy said with a cautious smile.

“Absolutely!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.

“And you did win your second matchup, fair and square.”

“Yay,” she whispered with what, for her, was great enthusiasm. With that, the screen lit up with Fluttershy’s icon, which snuggled itself above Twilight’s and under Pinkie’s.

“Three done, three to go,” Derpy said. “Ok, Applejack, it’s you next.”

“Alrighty.”

“Your race is determined to be Te- oh hey a muffin!” She said the name incomprehensibly as she munched through the treat. The appropriate eagle crest symbol flared into being alongside Applejack’s image.

“Matches played: two. Victories: two! Congratulations.”

Applejack tipped her hat down. “Oh shucks, it was nothing.”

“The Ladder-” *Boom, Twilight teleporting all over the place to find out the source of the faux-lightening and thunder rolls, grunting with exasperation and curling up to sulk next to Rarity, crash*- “quite liked Darla, as well. It said she was...darling.” Derpy looked rather embarrassed.

Nopony laughed. Pinkie Pie shook her head forlornly. “The Ladder isn’t so good with jokes, I guess.”

“Ha! It didn’t do the lightening and the-” *Crack, boom!* -”Okay, you know what? I don’t even want to know, so there!”

Rarity gave her an absentminded pat on the head. “Oh Twilight,” she said, “don’t get so worked up about these things.”

Derpy read on. “Oh! It says here you’re also getting a commendation for the feelisest match so far as well?”

“What?”

“Take a look.” Derpy stepped away and gestured to the big screen. The image changed to a recording, with the familiar orange farmer in quiet contemplation with a sizeable tank, staring out across the sunlight fields of the Acres.

Applejack frowned, blushed, and then asked Derpy to skip the viewing. Luckily, they did and carried on. When the scoreboard came back, Applejack’s image was up top, next to Pinkie’s.

“Next up, Rarity!”

“How splendid.”

“Your race is...Brotoss!” This cheered up Twilight a bit, and Rarity gave an elegant bow.

“They were very charming, after all. And so precious, too!” Rarity paused and, amidst the grins of the other ponies huffed and regained her composure.

“Ah, ahaha,” she managed to laugh in her embarrassment.

“Two matches played and...one win, one draw!” Rarity pouted a moment, considered it, then seemed settled on contentment. Her icon moved in above Fluttershy’s.

“The Ladder-” *Boom, Crash!* “sends it’s personal compliments for teaching that annoying voice some manners, as well.”

Rarity smiled. “A lady does try.”

"And that just leaves you, Rainbow Dash.”

“I knew it all along I’d be last.”

“Oh?” Applejack cocked an eye.

“You ever hear of saving the best for last? Yeah, you know it’s me!” Dash beamed such a cocksure grin that nopony could hold it against her. She flared her wings triumphantly.

“Let’s get on with it then!”

Derpy giggled and smiled. “Okay, okay Dashie, settle down!” She tore open the last envelope. “Rainbow Dash, two matches...your race is...oh another muffin!” Another such delectable treat conspired to distract Derpy Hooves, but she soldiered through the tastiness.

“Two matches *nomnom* Two... *nom, gulp* oh...!”

“What?! What is it?!” Dash said, suddenly all concern.

“Well, it concerns your second match...Apparantly it isn’t in the rules to go and beat the opponents head into their keyboard and thus sabotage the game.”

“Heh, that was totally awesome.”

“Be that as it may, it wasn’t in the rules, but I was asked to look through very carefully through them anyway, because it seemed inherently wrong.”

“So what’s that mean?” Dash asked keenly.

“It means you keep the win on a technicality, but it’s a proper rule now, so don’t do it again.”

Dash punched the sky and struck a strut.

“Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Who’s the best? Who’s the best?”

“Colgate,” Derpy said with absolute factual certainty.

“Wait, what?!”

“Colgate,” the mare repeated, a little slower and louder for Dash’s benefit. She pressed a button on the screen and it flicked to a series of clips.

A barren, hellish world of red dust...and a blue pony, tearing the black tooth from a nightmarish creature of limbs and claws.

The clearest of blue skies, with a blue pony grappling with a mutalisk, spiralling in free fall. She hadn’t seemed to notice or care that she plummeted to her doom. She was explaining, quite loudly to deal with the sound of the whooshing air, yet otherwise in completely reasonable tones, to the shrieking monster about the etiquette of flossing.

The video switched from one impossible scene to another, each more dazzling and amazing then the last.

Derpy gave a sad smile. “It’s a shame, actually. She’s only on a sixty six percent win ratio.” She sighed. “It’s because the Brotoss don’t have jaws, or teeth, you see. All the matches with them end in draws, because they know her reputation and are too scared to cross her and won’t try anything at all. She’s actually really nice, you know.

Anyway, welcome to The Ladder-” *Boom, crash!* “I’m sure the new match ups will be very fun for everyone involved.”

Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were in a three way tie for first, with Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight trailing respectively.

“Okay then, thanks for coming by, and congratulations coming through the placement phase!”

“Mhmm,” the gathered six murmured. Their jaws were clamped shut, and their eyes kept flitting to the obvious, and less obvious, entrances as each mare wondered and feared her own vigilance in dental hygiene. They shifted surreptitiously towards the door and, one and all, broke out in a race to their shared bathroom.

The tube of toothpaste never stood a chance, poor thing.

Author's Note

So, a return to Ponies Versus Starcraft, after what, three months? I return, with no promises, no commitments, no guilt, and only the barest semblance of a plan for it. It will go on or it won't, far as it will, subject only to whim and whimsy. Enjoy the ride is all I can say.

Team Chat - 1 of 3

Applejack sat at the table, drinking a fresh cup of black coffee. The soft whirring of devices gave the backdrop to her own humming. The occasional screen flickered and fizzled; several did all at once when Rainbow Dash snagged herself in low hanging cables.

She yelled out in frustration then, finding some iota of calm, hung there like some kind of colourful and fuzzy adjutant. She gave a wriggle, just on the offchance it’d work to get her loose. It didn’t.

“A little help?” she muttered.

“In a sec.” Applejack sipped at her drink. Dash grumbled.

“Why’s our command centre so...so darn closed in?”

“Well maybe if you stopped trying to fly inside here, this wouldn’t happen.” Applejack tapped her chin with thought. “What do you think Dash: Orbital or Planetary?”

“What?” The pegasus gave an emphatic wriggle, but the thick cords and cables did little more than play along with her efforts. “Does it matter?”

Applejack sighed and set down her coffee, only half drank. Half full or half empty didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was caffeine in there that wasn’t yet in her. She felt that beyond this solid truth, perspectives were a bit surplus. She took to freeing Dash with little energy, but with the skill of one well versed in the perils of ropes of all sorts.

“It does matter,” she went on to say as Dash dropped with a light, airy blast from her wings. “There’s distinct advantages to both, and I’d like it if our command centre, as in, the centre from which we command and are inside of right now-”

“I get it, sheesh.”

“-had that kind of advantage.”

Dash struck out in a few stretches, the farmer went back to musing over her hot drink.

“Don’t sweat it, Applejack. Weren’t we like, both in first place when Derpy announced the placement scores? Well, I certainly was anyway. We got this in the bag.”

“It pays more to be catious than cocky, Rainbow Dash. And one of those wins of yours would be counted as cheating if you pulled that stunt again. Not that I blame you, I watched the cast...”

“Yeah, that guy totally had it coming.”

“But that’s not the half of it. Darla has to stay at home, ever since that warmachine found she had a heart for peaceful farming. I just don’t have it in me to take her away from that. Otherwise, it seems that Fluttershy apparantly has cheat codes, Rarity already has a base up and running, Twilight lost on a tiny yet humerous technicality but is still absurdly powerful...and on top of all that, Pinkie Pie.” The drones of machinery filled the silence best they could.

“Pinkie Pie what?”

“I don’t know,” Applejack whispered. “That’s just the thing. She tied for first as well, and there’s no predicting what angle she’ll be coming at us from. So I’d like to be ready for as much of everything as possible.”

Dash stirred the air with a few easy wing strokes. “Okay, okay, I get you. Don’t get cocky, yeah, it’s still anypony’s game, yeah. In that case, I say we go Planetary. Armor, cannons, hay, we’ll be armed with canon! Can’t go wrong with that.”

“...leave the jokes to Pinkie Pie.”

“Oh come on, that wasn’t half bad.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ok, in fairness it wasn’t. But leave the fourth-wall jokes to Pinkie Pie.”

“Fine,” Dash snorted.

“And frankly, I was thinking going for Orbital myself. It flies, you know. Planetary’s can’t.”

“Yeah, which means I could get stuck with running escort for a flying glacier. I hate escort quests.”

“We all do, Dash. We all do.” She took a heady draught of the hot black nectar. “All the same, it stands to reason. There’s more utility with the Orbital.” Applejack knocked back the rest of her coffee, sighing out a breath of steam and roast beans. “Come on.”

The pair of mares stepped outside. There was the hiss of airlocks and blast doors, then brilliant daylight. Rainbow Dash exploded into flight.

“Yes! Outside!”

“We agreed on the Orbital upgrade then?” Dash did a few knife-edged turns, exhilerating in her own flight. Even ground-bound Applejack smiled and eased up.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Do it.”

“Done,” she said, and pressed a big green button. A minute of growling hydraulics and shaking earth later and it was over. A huge signal dish was perched atop the new Orbital Command.

“Oh look here, it starts with enough energy for a function. I’m gonna test one.” Applejack pressed the ‘extra supplies’ button.

First, nothing seemed to happen. Then Dash yelped somewhere in the sky overhead and she looked up. “What the-” the pegasus cried out. Applejack held her hoof up in front of her.

An Apple made apple pie landed perfectly balanced on her hoof, steaming with moisture and scrumptiously fresh. There was a note attached.

Have a nice day Applejack. Love,
Granny XOXOXO
P.S. the pie might be hot from atmospheric reentry baking, so don’t burn yourself.
P.P.S Be sure to share some with that nice pegasus what hangs around here and sleeps alot, you know the one. I don’t think she eats proper, so you be sure to feed her good.
P.P.P.S. Don’t ruin your supper.
P.P.P.P.S. Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh say hi.

“Love you too, Granny,” Applejack whispered under her breath. Dash landed next to her, her jaws helplessly trying to form coherent words.

“What...what the...”

“Want some pie?” Applejack asked. Dash considered, seemed to decide that the answers weren’t worth her sanity, and shrugged.

“Yeah, sounds good. I’m pretty hungry anyway.” She glanced up at the huge satelite dish. “I hope we get HD channels with that,” Dash said as they wandered back inside.

Team Chat - 2 of 3

Rarity was satisfied, but bored. While it was unseemly for a mare of her stature and standing to be so crass a thing, she could no longer deny it to herself. Pylons and minerals were fine and dandy, but with the plentitude she had and the ready means to acquire more, the process no longer needed her direct intervention to direct, at least for now.

She sulked her way along the winding corridors of the nexus, which was like skulking, but with more pouting and less menace. One dark corner, well out of the way of usual operations, was aglow with a pallid, faint light.

“Twilight?” asked Rarity, poking her head into the gloom. She gathered herself and pressed on. “Twilight, I don’t want to press you, but it has been a few days now, and this chapter should have been out by now. I can hardly do a ‘team chat’ with myself, now can I?’

A semi feral grunt came back from the half-light. Oh dear,’ thought Rarity. She’s not even telling me off for that. “Twilight.”

Again, the grunt. It said: ‘Busy. Go.’ It was not a very eloquent one, as far as grunts went in Rarity’s consideration.

There was a viewscreen, glowing almost blindingly relative to the hollow illumination of the room. A hunched over silhouette bisected the light in twain.

“Now dear, when you asked to borrow a crystalline computer with ludicrous speed and super ultra high quality definition, we are all perfectly willing to facilitate that.” Even in the dark, unobserved, Rarity struck a fitting pose as she spoke. She was just like that. “Though I suppose I should have seen your request for a plush mousepad and a bin full of snacks as somewhat suspect. But no matter, Twilight are you even listening to me?”

“Uhh,” Twilight made by way of vocalization. ‘said’ just didn’t say it, as words went.

Well, thought Rarity. From animalistic grunts to hollow and lifeless groans. Progress.

In the silence the click-clacking of keyboard and mouse came to life, like little insects at night, crawling and chirping.

She crept closer to the stationary mare fond of stationary. Her eyes watered and she blinked when the blazing brilliance of the screen was revealed unto her. The colours were fabulous. Utterly. Fabulous. They resolved themselves into shapes as her eyes adjusted. Shapes that moved. Shapes that swarmed.

“Twilight, have you been playing HotS this whole time?”

“Nuh.”

“Have you slept at all?”

“Nuh.”

“Ooh, what’s that one? It looks like a pretty cloud yacht. It’s...oh I think you were supposed to blow that up.” Indeed, the game over screen flashed into angry existence.

“Nuhhh!.”

Rarity had enough. She spun the chair around. The plush, comfy chair. It smelled of Twilight. It wasn’t a compliment, or a subtle allusion to anything appealing. It was the fact that Twilight had been sessile all through the night and into this morning.

“We’re supposed to be making this happen, you know,” she said irritably. Her voice crept up several pitches. “But you're just here playing the expansion! Twilight!”

Twilight’s eyes were bloodshot, her face pallid from her valiant defense against all things of rest and sleep. “But I have to...Finish the fight!”

“Wrong franchise, dear,” Rarity corrected quickly.

Twilight cried out her vexations. Rarity leant over her, and took the mouse in her magic. Her eyes narrowed.

Press any key to continue. She did.

“Ah, oh, I see. If we put these spore crawlers here...and patrol on this route...and get this upgrade....” Clickety Clackety noises resumed their chorus.

“Rarity?”

“Just a moment dear, I’m trying this mission. Oh shoot, that one got away. I’ll have to restart now.”

Twilight had a familiar, sinking feeling. “Rarity?”

“Mmm.”

“Rarity,” Twilight said more insistently.

“Mmm.”

Twilight sighed with exasperation. “I’m going to go sleep, okay?”

“That’s nice,” Rarity said vapidly. She smoothly slipped into the chair.

“Good night, or morning, or whatever time it is,” said Twilight.

“Uhuh,” Rarity replied, not unkindly.

So much for this chapter.

Author's Note

Three guesses as to what I've been doing the last few days, and your first two don't count. I'm looking forward to Team Chat 3, so should you.

Team Chat 3 of 3

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were walking along. The day was sunny, the sky clear, and the zerg larva wrapped about the pegasus’ like a shawl shone with exceptionally shiny mucous that it drooled in thick, slow dollops. The mare brushed one such accident aside and tried to keep up; both with Pinkie’s hop and with her rambling. It took her a moment to realize she was being asked a question.

“What? Oh, sorry. I’m happy that we got zerg. I mean, I’m happy if you’re happy...”

Pinkie gasped, her hair poofing out ever-further. “Of course I’m happy! I’m happy that you’re happy that I’m happy! Delighted that you’re ecstatic that I’m elated!” She plucked up Silky Wriggles (this being the aforementioned larva) and spun about in a whirling dance. “The funnest, bestest, infesty-est, how could anypony not be happy?” She patted the expresionsless, dribbling thing on what could be called its head for lack of a better word. “And we’re going to the Spa to celebrate!”

Fluttershy was rather relieved to hear this. Placement, getting teamed up with Pinkie, getting set in the deep end of this whole thing had gone so quickly, and she felt very unsure of it all. While Pinkie wasn’t her first choice as a spa-buddy, she’d never be maliciousness enough to ever point this out to Pinkie. Just as she was telling herself how nice it would be, and to be more patient with her good-hearted, jaunty joculative jester friend of joyoys jubiliation, a thought struck her.

“I didn’t know there was a spa this way,” she said, barely whispering loud enough to be heard.

“There isn’t!” Pinkie said merrily, bouncing along just as she had been doing the whole while.

“Oh...but I thought we were going to a spa...” Fluttershy didn’t want to sound dissapointed. She’d probably misheard...somehow.

Pinkie beamed a very knowing smile that made Fluttershy studder-step and nearly stumble into her. “We are,” she said. “A spaaa...wning pool! And here we are!”

Fluttershy did one of her patented squeak-screams, as Pinkie had just grabbed her midsection, sprung forwards and dove them both, headfirst, into a green, sludgy muck that filled the ground before them. In some regards the substance had familiar qualities, in the same way that the remains of bananas that have liquified in the back of a cupboard over the course of a month are distressingly reminiscent of bananas.

Even Fluttershy would have struggled to consider anything about this ‘nice.’

Pinkie swam along with her in tow. The ooze moved like syrup around them, feeling somehow both cool and warm at once, with a odd numbness that tingled along her skin and face. Just as Fluttershy was readying herself for a Really Nice Panic-attack, she was lifted up to the surface. Her exhalation blew a thick bubble of syrupiness that burst audibly. Standing knee deep in the stuff, she watched as her pink friend shoved and shook the muck from herself. Pinkie seemed very eager about the whole thing.

“How do I look, how do I look?!” she cried aloud.

Fluttershy, mindful of her mouth and eyes, blinked and tried to speak. “Oh my,” she managed. Something very strange had happened.

Something very strange indeed.

Growths like coral antlers had shot this way and that from the back of Pinkie’s skull, adding a whole new level of uncomb-ability to the already unruly mane. Little patches of scaling glinted pinkish and yellowy (depending on how the light struck them) here and there, and stubby protrusions ran along her sides and legs.

Pinkie could not have been more satisfied. “Zergified! Represent!” she shouted, dancing and whooping ecstatically. She paused, mouthing an awed ‘O’ at Fluttershy. “Whoah.”

Fluttershy, heartbeat rising, looked to her reflection in the goop of the spawning pool at her hooves. Growths like thorny briar vines had shot along and through her mane and tail, as if the Everfree itself had decided to braid them for her. The feathers of her wings were calloused over with tough hide, but from the fleshy mass wispy, spider-web strands hung, catching the slightest movement in the air with a delicacy and sensitivity feathers could never have managed. Fluttershy shivered at the sight; they retracted. As she breathed and relaxed, they eased back out, dancing softly on the air. The same spattering of chitinous scales that adorned Pinkie had spread in longer, narrower lines across her own body. They stood and rippled and flushed with colour in the sunlight.

“Zergy,” said Pinkie, staring reverently. Silky Wriggles was as grumpy looking (and otherwise non-communicative) as ever. The pool had worked no wonders on him (it?) apparantly. Fluttershy opened her mouth once or twice to speak, trying to find her thoughts.

“Can we...go to a proper spa now? If you don’t mind?” she asked. Its work done, the ‘water’ of the spawning pool fell off them both readily. Fluttershy found her new wings to be strong, much stronger than she was comfortable controlling. She gently lifted Pinkie (who in turn carried S.W.) and slowly rised into the warm sunlight.

The pink mare yawned and nodded. Espying a passing fruit tree (as in, they passed over it, not some strange type of tree that happened to be walking by) Pinkie lazily fired her tongue several metres, tore away something swollen, orange and green, and glomped the whole thing, despite it being larger than her own head.

Fluttershy couldn’t quite recall if that was something new, or just Pinkie being Pinkie. She sighed, kept calm and fluttered on, Pinkie and larva in tow.

Author's Note

Half a damn year later... hehe

Team Terran vs One Pesky Ling

Rainbow Dash and Applejack were butting heads, reaching over one another, shoving, tripping, and grumbling all manners of impoliteness at one another. The consequences of their squabble were easy to see, as each grab and push drove the entire Orbital Command they controlled this way and that.

An Orbital Command flying willy-nilly is quite the sight, rest assured. It even did a barrell roll, presumeably caused when a particularily forceful shove sent Applejack careening into a lever. She shouted angrily.

“Damnit Apple Blo- I mean Rainbow Dash! We already agreed that I fly the damn base!”

“But-”

“You just want to overload the engines and yell movie references!”

“And you’re so boring with it! You don’t even try. How am I supposed to let you just waste it all? Besides, you won’t let me play Dawn of War on the communications screen, because it ‘looks bad thematically to be doin’ that sort of thing.’ So not cool.”

The earth pony looked her in the eyes, both mares staring hard. Applejack sighed. “Fine.” She slowed the Orbital and dropped a gear into neutral. “Just one reference.”

Rainbow Dash beamed. “That’s how it starts.” Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Don’t push it.”

“Okay, okay. Right.” The pegasus took a deep breath, relishing the moment. “Punch it, Chewy!” she suddenly yelled. “Do the noises!” she hissed.

Applejack groaned. The things she did for friendship...she kicked it up into first and, to her secretive, shameful pride, did a quality impression. She was saved from any more by a sudden beaping.

“Oh hey, look at that. Minerals.”

Dash crawled over her and peered at the glowing screen. “Sweet.”

Applejack heaved the pegasus aside and retook the wheel. “There’s a plateau and everything. We can get some mining- oh, wait.”

“What now?”

“There’s...a zergling.” Applejack poked the screen, just in case it was actually an iota of dust on the screen. “Yep. Definetly one of the critters.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Just sitting there, far as I can tell.”

Dash leant back in a plush chair. “That effects us, how?”

“It’s right in the landing zone. Dead centre. Computer won’t let us land ‘til it’s clear.” Applejack sighed. “Probably exactly why it’s camping there to begin with.”

Rainbow’s brow crinkled with thought and agitation. She rolled down a window. “Get out of the way!”

It hissed back, presumably cussin’ at her.

“Oh, that’s it!” Dash yelled, “you butt!” she roared inanenly down to the now break dancing zergling. The pegasus mashed the ‘land’ button.

“I told ya, the computer won’t-”

Dash grunted and tore several wires at random from the base of the computer. The next time she hit the button, the engines simply cut out.

“Oh shi-” Applejack managed, then gravity, ever conscious of imminent bad language, caught hold.

The thunder and quakes of impact gave way to reverberations and groaning, and the occasional sparks and shearing metal as the orbital command settled into place in its crash/landing site. Dash fished a roll of duct tape from the random bits and bobs strewn about the command deck. She tossed this to Applejack. “You repair, I mine?”

“Works fine by me.” She ran a quick scan; the critter had survived, narrowly, and was trapped under the orbital. “But was that really necessary? I reckon a zergling never learned to burrow so quick as that one just did.

Dash huffed as she tried to calm herself. “I just really don’t like being rock-blocked,” she said in the severest of tones.

“Fair ‘nuff. Let’s get to work.” They were still going to have to deal with that one pesky ling at some point though.

Author's Note

If we were utterly evil, not only would we burrow a zergling on the base-to-be, we'd have an overlord pooping creep on the ground there as well.

Twilight vs Sexy New Legs (or lack thereof)

Twilight Sparkle was feeling less than confident. “Legs? What exactly do you mean by ‘legs?’ ”

The zealot that had brought up this auspicious topic stared at her glumly. A passing stalker sniggered.

“It’s just that...the other zealots and I have been talking...” Something in the tone of his voice (that being a voice telepathically transmitted to the unicorn, seeing as these guys have no mouth, but nevermind that) implied just how much he was squirming to say his point. A dude that had no qualms flinging himself into the most heated and definetly-gonna-die-but-screw-it battles could still have trouble with interpersonnel conflict.

Twilight could sympathise, though she approached the conundrum from the other direction. Still, zealots were zealots and Twilight Sparkle was Twilight (mother-fuckin’) Sparkle. A firm, fair hand (er...hoof) was what worked best here.

“Oh, yes, you mean the Charge upgrade,” she said. The zealot nodded wretchedly.

“Well...” she sucked the word in, like a reverse hiss. “200/200 is a looot of resources...”

The zealot muttered something psionically. “What was that?” Twilight asked.

*mutter mutter* “Blink stalkers.” *mutter mutter*

Twilight straightened herself up and stared the zealot in the eye. “That was a solid tactical investment.”

The zealot huffed. “Aren’t we a ‘solid tactical investment?’ ”

Twilight sighed. “Not at this time, no. We don’t have anything near the income Rarity has back at the main base, we all just have to pull together,” she said, trying to appeal to the zealot’s more noble nature. Inwardly she groaned. Since getting placed with the ‘toss she’d learned they could be so very irritating. They tended to get more ruffled feathers than a peacock in a tornado.

*Mutter mutter* “Unionise.” *mutter mutter*

Twilight huffed. “Right.” She pulled the zealot down to her height. “Walk with me,” she commanded.

“Could be running if-”

“Don’t be snotty, just do it.”

Grumbling, the zealot followed. Just outside the encampment were several sheer bluffs that sheltered them from both the weather and prying eyes. “Let’s do a little mental excercise, shall we?” The zealot nodded dumbly. “Great!”

She pointed up at various ledges in the rockface. “Let’s imagine, for a moment, that there is an enemy collossus there. Archons and sentries block the choke-points, and a void ray is using the high-ground advantage to strafe our pylons.”

“O...kay.” Twilight whistled. Two sentries, a beepin’ and a boopin’, attended her. With a quick word they conjured the relevant hallucinations and had them take the places on the highground Twilight had mentioned.

Twilight conjured a spell, focused it on the zealot and blasted him with a purple light. “There, for the next minute you have pretend-legs. Show me how you deal with the situation.”

Even without a mouth, the zealot managed the iconic ‘O’ expression (It’s the eyes that do it, really). He strode a few steps this way and that, revelling in his sudden speed.

“My life for Aiur!” he roared, and charged the winding chokepoint. Twilight’s forehead was thumped firmly with her hoof. She gestured to the nearer of the two sentries.

“Forecefield deployed,” it confirmed in the surprsingly cute voice they have (Play HotS and hear it), but none of this was relevant and the zealot careened headlong into the shimmering energy.

“Oof!” he grunted as the not-breath was not-knocked from him (again, no mouth...) He fell over on his back, groaning. Twilight leaned down over him.

“So you can see,” she said softly, “that upgrade just isn’t viable at this time.” In quite a rude fashion (though she hadn’t itended to be so) she blinked away, leaving the zealot to the bruises on his ego and the more mundane bruises on his body.

One of the sentries started to play what sounded suspiciously like the worlds’ smallest electro-violin.

Author's Note

I'm quite a fan of charge-lots, truth be told.

Rarity vs Creep

Rarity had found herself to be more introspective than usual of late. It manifested as meandering strolls about the encampment, she might stop and ponder the peculiar buildings, or watch the pylons on their endless, gentle spinning.

It came, she supposed, from a lack of sociable company. Her warriors (and she had been alternatively flattered and elated to think of them as hers) could hold a discussion well enough, but they did not opt to begin them, did not muse aloud on art or whimsies, recounted no little anecdotes.

It wasn’t exactly dreary, but, as she watched the glaring beams sunlight shattered and scattered in all its hues the facets of the pylons, she felt pangs of longing. Managing the settlement kept her busy enough, her needs were all met and her standards and views as to what these were upheld, but it only kept melancholy in check. Without something to keep her occupied, her thoughts hung heavy and slow.

Her personnel probe attendant, Probey-Wobey as she had named it, held a parasol in its particle beam. Despite the badlands, the base seemed to create its own climate to an extent, and if not cool neither was it muggy with the heat that was more natural to the blasted, barren rock all around them. The glassy roads under her hooves shone back all they saw, distorting it all wibbly-wobbly.

“Pinkie would have no end of fun playing with her reflection in this,” she mused silently, and wondered how her friends were doing. Rarity tried a funny face at the reflective ground, but it only looked sad and she quickly wiped it away.

Twilight had lead the expedition away some time ago, and her communications were sparse and to the point. The unicorn drew a stiff breath. Well, she’d just have to buck up and tough it out a while longer until they returned. Hopefully when that happened, they could contact the others and, if not be together in pony, at least have a fun time bantering away, gossiping about the things they had seen and learned since being seperated by the Placement.

Rarity sent P.W. to fetch her a glass of water, but did not wait for it. Rather, she set off a determined pace and made towards the perimeter of the main base, though truth be told it and the ‘natural expansion’, as the warriors refferred to it were close enough that one could stand between them on the open ground and see the nexi of each, glittering above each horizon.

She passed by zealots sparring amdist one another or running patrols along the perimeter, each acknowledging her with various telepathic salutes and pledges. Rarity had since ceased trying to coax them out of it, as she found it slightly annoying. Their intent was good, Rarity knew, and that was enough for her to tolerate the constant and distracting salutations she received on her thoughtful walks.

It struck her as somewhat ironic. “Here I am, complaining about being alone and at the same time wishing to be left alone,” she thought. “I’m better than this,” she decided and, making a second decision to make the best of it and stop moping already, turned about and marched up to her zealots.

They ceased their practice and quickly stepped into formation. “Your orders?” the foremost said, in what Rarity privately considered an unnecssarily masculine telepathic voice. She wondered briefly if they were all just like that, or if it was something like a uniform to them. “Surely some of them must be girly-lots? Lady-lots, maybe?” she wondered on the terminology idly. The warriors watched her impassively.

“Ah, yes.” Probey-Wobey brought her the timely glass, which she knocked back as she prepared her thoughts. “Yes. Right.” She felt so very on-the-spot, and it surprised her. Rarity wasn’t often put off by speaking her mind in groups, but what common ground was there here, asides from the endless, dead earth and the recast glassiness of the base?

“I should like to ready a patrol,” she said, clutching for something to fill the silence, for something to validate this conversation’s existence. “In, say...ten minutes?” That didn’t seem too presumptious, she hoped. Enough time for them to use the bathroom (if they ever needed it, that was; Rarity had not seen any evidence to suggest they, but hadn’t been brave enough to look into the matter further and endured the strange embarrasment she felt every time she went there bravely) or for them to have a snack (again, this was a mystery, what with the thing about mouths and all) or just to freshen up (also a mystery, but Rarity had hopes in this regard. Far as she was concerned, needed or no, the effort was always worth it.)

The speaker for the group nodded. “As you will it,” he said, gesturing to this and that zealot, cutting short this and that sparring match.

“Well,” she mused aloud. “That went...okay, I suppose.” It wasn’t like she hadn’t broken the ice already. The problem was that there just seemed to be more ice...or star-charred dust, or whatever would make the analogy work best given the situation. What she meant was, what it came down to was, as always, her boredom and loneliness.

Quite without her noticing it, Probey-Wobey had returned the glass to whence it came (the ‘toss being very methodical about neatness) and had returned to parasol toting duty. Constrained to her own time limit, Rarity pulled herself from her reverie and made a purposeful pace over to the robotics facility.

The Immortal that waited there did not stir at her coming, nor did she urge him to. Something about the stoicism, the controlled might and geological patience he posessed always made her own cares seem unimportant and far away.

He was old, Rarity knew, though he nor any other had ever said. Very old. The count of years were trifling things against that, like pebbles off a mountain.

When she had asked his name he had not deigned to give it. Rarity wondered if anybody knew it, if even he himself remembered it. She couldn’t, she had decided, keep referring to such a valient soul as the Immortal or her steed (for he had no matters of pride on serving as her mount when she wished to travel, and bore her dutifully).

The urge to dub him something, anything, was a niggling insistence at the back of her head, but despite the hours she had spent in private considering just what to name him, nothing had seemed to measure up. Again, in the shadow of the Immortal, it did not seem to matter much. Not all mountains had names either; though all were mighty nonetheless.

Without knowing how she knew, he watched, though Rarity supposed the Immortal was always watching, always vigilant. Rarity waited at the discretion of the great-strider, she would not intrude herself upon him.

“You wish to ride out,” he said, his voice the unbreaking resonation of cold machinery.

The unicorn bowed. Not curtised, but bowed to him. “I would appreciate that, if you were again willing.”

“Always.” She had already known the answer, just as she knew she would always ask first anyways. Perhaps it was only her that fretted about demeaning the twice-lived warrior inside.

Her perch atop the Immortal had since been fitted with a small, sturdy yet plush cushion. She had felt guilty about putting it there, but again he had given no complaint. As the legs hefted the great-strider back up, she suspected that he found her fretful considerations amusing. She wondered how young she must seem to the ancient.

The zealots had gathered around them; there was no great speech. A few hours of poking around the endless expanse of dust and rock and daylight, surely that was something to look forward to. The zealots accepted this with their usual severity, and not a word more. Rarity sighed. This was going to be so much better than moping in the cool and comfort of the base.

At the brisk pace the group adhered to, reaching the natural took only about ten minutes. Already Rarity was thankful that the Immortal’s shields kept the air cool and fresh. She would not have liked the sweat, glare and clinging dust she would have to endure otherwise one bit at all.

The natural, while staioned around a nexus much the same as the main base itself, was a sparse affair. One assimilator, one pylon and a skeleton-crew of probes at work were all that seperated this barren patch of ground from the rest of the empty, scorched husk of a planet. The dust and rock underfoot had not been melted and recast into the smooth glassiness Rarity had become familiar with, and again she was glad that she did not truly have to be out there in it, tucked away neatly under the shields of the Immortal as she was.

She made a show of looking over everything, despite feeling silly for it. “Well, everything seems in order here.” Not even a breeze had disturbed the dust, only the humming of the probes added song company to Rarity’s lone voice. “Let’s move on,” she suggested.

The drudgery of the next two hours was, miraculously, lifting Rarity out of her glumness. Anti-miraculously, it was dropping her right back down into moodiness. She glared at rocks, as if to guilt-trip them into trying a little harder to overcome their utterly drab, uninspired appearance. The sun seemed fixed in the sky, like it was intent to stay up as long as there were scurrying dust-motes on the world below to watch.

“Let it watch,” Rarity mused bitterly to herself. “There’s nothing to see, nothing to talk about.”

“Trouble always comes soon enough,” the great-strider said suddenly, though he did not elaborate the point and Rarity was quite startled to think of nothing to reply with.

Some moments later they found the edge of the creep. Rarity, curiosity battling disgust, stepped down from her mount, peering closely at the stuff. It reached off far as she could see, like an ocean of purple. Intricate patterns rose and fell in the matted material and it had the consistency and appeal of hair pulled from the bath-drain. The edge was a hair’s breadth thick, as she watched the creep almost shuffled about upon itself, like something alive.

“It is alive,” she mumbled, aghast and amazed. And it was crawling at a snail’s pace towards her, towards them all, little roots of growth that snagged any grit or surface they could, a million little trestles for the creep to expand along. She promptly stepped away and took some deep breaths, looking anywhere but it.

It was the single most hideous thing Rarity had ever seen. It stretched for untold miles.

“Zerg,” she whispered, as if to say it any louder would call the Swarm down upon them there and then. Pinkie and Fluttershy had gotten zerg placement. Was this their doing? Would it be better if that were the case? “Don’t touch it,” she ordered, though truth be told none of the warriors were foolish enough to do so. Creep acted as a rudimentry sensory network. Anything atop it would have its prescence known to the hive.

Rarity wanted to pale, and really express her revulsion at the unnatural growth, but something in her kept firm. She was still a leader, she could feel squicky later. “We need to know where this is coming from, and how far it goes.” She could feel the agreement of the Immortal in her mind, and it gave her much-needed confidence.

She divvied the present zealots into two groups, keeping two for her own escort. One mentioned burning the tumours out. “But we have no detection out here,” Rarity thought. The only observer she had had gone with Twilight’s expedition. She dispatched one group left, the other right.

“Scout along the edge of the creep,” she commanded them. “Don’t touch it, and don’t fight anything you find." ‘Knowledge is power overwhelming’, Twilight always said. Rarity could not have agreed with that more just know (though ‘style’ was neck and neck for first place). Knowing was key. “Be back for nightfall, we’ll have a better idea of what to do then.” Her imagination struck her quite out of the blue - an image of dusk and chittering, flurrying wings and claws. “Make that an hour before nightfall.”

She’d have to queue up an observer soon as she could. And she’d feel safer with some photon cannons in the meantime.

“Well,” she pondered as the three parties split, the Immortal and escort headed for home. “At least I’m not bored.” And because she was feeling snarky and sarcastic, she added for the great-strider’s benefit, “now I’m scared instead, which is so much more exciting, isn’t it?”

The Immortal said nothing. Its silence stripped her of pettiness.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurred to him after a moment. The unbreaking rhythm of his motion lulled her to calm, even to drowsing as the sun beat down upon them all.

Author's Note

One of the most interesting things I find in writing these is that what I imagine the chapters to be and what they actually become can differ quite drastically. I find the non-seriousness with which I can treat the whole thing is very, very appealing as well. I'd recommend it to anyone struggling with their own urges to write.

Team zerg gets recruitin'

Fluttershy was still trying to familiarize herself with her mutated wings, like dish racks made of tendons and ligaments. The whispy white filaments they had in place of feathers she was gaining some measure of control over, but the absolute strength the deceiptively fragile looking things could exert on the air scared her, scared her enough to make flying at all an awkward, graceless affair. So they walked.

Travelling with Pinkie had become strange as well. Well, stranger, in any case. Her usual cheery monologues would be interspaced with sudden silences. She’d cease bouncing and walk like a pony asleep, maybe murmur half-formed words under her breath.

“Talking with the zerg,” she had explained happily enough, when her mind had been here and now (as much as it could ever be, considering this was Pinkie Pie and all). To Fluttershy, the hive-mind was as distinctive as rain in the distance, and about as decipherable. How Pinkie immersed herself in that, take any kind of sense from it, Fluttershy didn’t know. She didn’t like the way Pinkie’s smile slumped when she did it, but never said this.

“There’s a lot around, all over,” Pinkie began, meaning the zerg. “But they’re not super-duper tight anymore. Not without an Overmind. Some of them fall through the gaps now. Wander off, or Get left behind, or get misplaced.”

Fluttershy trotted for a moment to catch up. “That’s terrible,” she said. She couldn’t bear to imagine what would befall the little larva she carried on her back if he were left all on his own. Both mares had been surprised that the changes wrought on them by the spawning pool hadn’t happened for the little creature.

“Yep! Since we don’t have any hive of our own. And it’s from them that we’ll make our army.” Pinkie beamed widely. “Pretty good idea, huh?”

Fluttershy nodded and agreed. Leaving the poor babies to just wander about, so aimless and alone...when she thought of it, it made her want to test her new wings, so just how fast and how far and how many of those poor lost zerg she could find.

It was only a few minutes later that the first zerglings showed up, seven in all. A hydralisk, slithering and hissing with casual menace, fell in as well, swiping with its sycthe-like claws at the smaller creatures if they happened upon its personal space. Fluttershy, momentarily breaking away form her spot in the lead with Pinkie, flew over to the serpent and made it apologize. She had them shake claws with one another (Fluttershy being not at all certain of ‘kissing and making up’ being literal in meaning, least of all with with zerg), then, because it was really quite a good boy about the whole thing, she gave the hydra a scratch behind the ear, (or the closest thing to an ear she could find).

Fluttershy noticed Pinkie smiling back at her, really wondering what was going through that mare’s mind. Once, after another hour’s wandering march, Pinkie had cocked her head as if hearing a sound that wasn’t a sound and bounded off. Fluttershy had found her atop a nearby knoll, staring at the darkest patch of the evening sky. Pinkie blinked, the growths shot through her mane wiggling like a groovey coral bed and regained herself after a terse moment, but didn’t answer the pegasus’ questions as to her wellbeing. Rather, Fluttershy got a pat on the head and friendly hoof thrown around her shoulder, another gesturing to all the land before them, as she started another cheery rant about this and that and nothing at all.

“...an army. An army worthy of Mordor!” She said in a deeper voice. Fluttershy didn’t get it, but was happy all the same to see Pinkie more herself. The pink pony gasped and shot off again, but this time full of excitement and energy, the familiar qualities Fluttershy was happy to chase after.

“Look at that!” Pinkie cried. “A swarm host!”

It was a big creature, squat and heavy-limbed, like the very confused offspring of toads and toadstools. Heavy forelegs and a sunken, round head snuffled under a half-rotted log, unearthed the obstruction and pushed it aside. The the dome of fleshy growth it carried on its back quivered and writhed in an all too lively fashion all the while, but the zerg paid no mind to this, giving all its attention to the wet ground it had unearthed.

“Helloooo!” Pinkie called out, waving as she bounced towards the sizeable cottage sized creature. It regarded her with single-minded animal interest. She did a little cha-cha dance of celebration. The swarm host, cumbersome and heavy, mimicked the motions slowly.

“Up-upupupup,” the mare intoned. “There ya go!” she said, the swarm host having raised one muscly appendage off the ground for her. She hi-hoofed this with a squee of delight. “Score!” she cried, and promtly leapt high enough off the ground to dive straight into one of the openings in the monster’s back.

“Pink-” Fluttershy gasped, but before she could even get it out there she was, flying back up on a plume of air from one of the other holes. A sound that can only be described as a pipe organ (with ‘organ’ being very, very literal) accompanied each rise and fall of Pinkie, as if each orifice had been intended all along to match up with corresponding note.

It was a sort of fair-ground, circusy tune, Fluttershy realized, barely believing any of what she saw. Doo. doo. Doo. doo.

Pinkie was giggling wildly. She gasped again, switched instantly to an expression of utter seriousness and dove headlong into the swarm hosts’ back, a quickly uttered “give me just a sec” getting out as she dissappeared.

Fluttershy looked to their little party of zerg creatures. (She was sure Pinkie would have appreciated the terminology) They seemed rather placid about the whole thing, as if to try and comprehend the leading minds of their little swarm would only bring on unnesscary headache.

The swarm host grunted and shifted in place uncomfortably. From it’s back Fluttershy could have sworn, of all impossibilities, she heard the sounds of saws cutting through wood, and hammers driving down nails. But no, there was Pinkie rising up again on the air, this time on a plume of dust. The strangest, most highly concussive yet eerily captivating sneeze rocked the big zerg creature, and a plume of sawdust shot out of it.

“Come on in!” Pinkie shouted happily. “I’ve just got the kettle on!”

Curisioity dragged at Fluttershy with all the gravity of a neutron star. She peered over the quivering, fleshy edge. “It...doesn’t mind?”

Pinkie popped back up, leaning her elbow on the edge. “Nah, not one bit. It’s what she was designed for.” Pinkie glanced at the measuring tape that was still in her hoof. “Sort of.”

“Wait!” Fluttershy squeaked by way of polite interruption, before Pinkie could drop back in again. “She was just alone out here?”

“Yeah,” Pinkie said, nodding. Her eyes went vapid for a half-second, but Fluttershy didn’t miss it happening. “She’s sterile. All ‘host’ and no ‘spawn.’ So her old swarm left her behind.” After a second of sombre thought, Pinkie brightened instantly. “Oh! I think we might even get cable broadcasts in here!” Pinkie let go and fell back inside. She clapped loudly; a light down in the cavernous space blinked on.

After a moment’s consideration, Fluttershy followed her friend in. She could just hear the kettle boiling now, and preferred to make the tea herself (on account of Pinkie always adding far too much sugar.)

Author's Note

While not mentioned directly in the chapter, the Swarm Hostess is canonically (if this shit can even be considered to have canon...) "Big Bertha," or "Berty," for short.

Something Something Darkness

There was a lot that could be said of the architechture of this place. It was odd. Every bit of flooring and wall was divided and subdivided again with sudden curves and edges, raised and sunken impressions, all contributing to a towering, narrow, and entirely disconcerting medly of geomtery. Surely the Xel’naga must have known of right angles, but from the way they had built this place, they must have conisdered them wrong.

There was a puff of black smoke in the metal gloom; Mulia Mule stepped from where nothing should have been able to be concealed, open floor as it was. Scintallating lines of energy pulsed slowly along bent tracks, illuminating the place in a pallid, empty light.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Luna said, taking the much more mundane entrance that was the door. “We’re quite satisfied with you already.”

Mulia pouted, and her ninja cowl slumped. She set it back in place and sauntered over to the alicorn. “It’s good practice. And it sets an example for my apprentice.”

Luna shrugged. “I suppose it does.” Her voice echoed ominiously to the heights of the epoch-old and enigmatic structure. “I brought donuts.” She held up the cheery little cardboard box, colourful and wonderfully tacky, so out of place, yet so welcome.

Particulariy to the two females present.

Mulia craned her neck to peek, but Luna pulled away. “Any chocholate filled ones?” she asked, hopefully. She had a thing for chocholate.

“Yes,” said Luna, but in the flat tone that also intends to remind us all that this doesn’t necisarrily mean that those particular donuts are available. (Luna also had a thing for chocholate. It caused some minor confrontrations between the two at times such as this.)

She did not, however, contest the ninja’s claim on the gooey pastries. In fact, she let the mule hold the box, something she rarely ever did.

“Is something the matter, Princess?” The seriousness was somewhat lost by the hearty consumption of the first glazed, filled donut Mulia could find. Both her kitchen and ninja training (the two arts being fairly similiar, all in all) gave her the prescence of mind and grace to let not one crumb fall.

Luna did not answer, but nosed about through the donut box. After some half-hearted deliberation, she choice a sugar glazed one, nibbling at it distractedly.

She’s really out of it Mulia thought. It worried her a little. Not enough to stop her taking a second chocholate one, but still.

“How is the robot faring?”

“My apprentice? Quite apt, truth be told.” She didn’t like Luna being so dismissive of it. So what if the Mule hadn’t found a fitting name yet, it was still a thing that was more than a thing. “He has trouble with stairs...” she added quietly. She caught the look from the alicorn. “Oh, right, you mean with the repairs... Well, he’s quite single-minded about these sorts of things...is it working yet?”

“No,” she said. “The far-sight of this place is still not ours.”

“Then I suppose he’s not done yet.” Mulia tried the softer approach. “Have patience, Luna. These things take time. Have a donut.”

The alicorn of night accepted the offering. They sat together, right there on the cold, hard floor, the box shared between them. “And our dark archon?”

“Off brooding again, last I saw. It must be so upsetting, being in two minds about everything.”

“Yes. It is.” Luna tore away chunks of pastry solemnly, or at least as solemnly as moist, tasty donuts allow for. “We are surpirsed. We would have expected the personalities to find a middle-ground.” Luna wiped her mouth clean with the back of her hoof. “Or for one to dominate.” She stared off into nothing particular. Mulia wondered what she looked at.

The mule had her suspicions, but nothing conclusive. Luna had taken her tiny army of darkness, really more a barbershop quartet of darkness (the Mule droid had no voice, but the archon had two, so it still worked, shutup) and made this ancient tower both their base and their priority. For what reasons, she had yet to divulge.

Mulia hoped it wasn’t for a coup. Not that she minded toppling governments, that was to be expected as a ninja, but Luna and Celestia were making real headway through their family problems. She’d have hated to be a functionary in breaking them apart. Besides, the sisters were so good to each other. And the Celestia sponsored shop supplied the very donuts Luna treated them all with every Sunday. (Not that the archon or the robot ate, but still.)

Lately it had a whole lot of nothing to wait through as the tower was slowly brought back online. It always hit Luna particularily bad, having too much time to think. “We hope that when this is active, we might see.

“See what, Luna?”

“The darkest part of the sky,” she said, and went very quiet and melancholic.

“How about I comb your mane?” Mulia offered quickly, just wanting to lift the Princess’ spirits, admittantly not something her chosen profession trained one for. All the same, Luna seemed to take some small measure of comfort from the attention. Mulia improvised a comb from throwing stars, watching as the etheral mane swirled and flowed around the teeth.

“We wish we had chairs. A couch, maybe.” Considering the coldness of her own bottom, Mulia Mule the ninja had to agree. That could be her goal for the meantime; warming the place up a bit.

Rarity vs Information

It was not a practical time for a letter to arrive, but arrive it did, materializing out of warp travel with nary a pop nor poof to announce it. It was rolled up tight and tied with a red ribbon. It hit the ground with the slightest crunching of starchy paper, where it waited innocently until a passing zealot spotted the now familiar curiosities that occasionally appeared and brought it promptly to Rarity.

It served at the very least to distract her from worry for a moment. Nightfall was nearly upon them, and neither of the two patrols she had dispatched from her earlier excursion had yet returned. She had nothing else to do but fret and watch the two photon cannons in transit, for the moment nothing more than curious and mindmelting distortions of spacetime swirling inexplicably inwards and outwards simultaniously.

Rarity neatly untied the ribbon, unrolled the crinkled paper and opened it. She tried to read it by the light that emerged, dizzy and confused, from the unfathomable infinite, but found it rather dim, so Rarity stepped cloeser to the cannon-in-transit and angled the letter the best she could to catch the glow. She had to smile; despite all the technology at their disposal, Twilight still insisted upon writing letters. For as long as they’d been apart, one gone exploring and the other minding the settlement, these had arrived with punctuality, the only moments of anticipation and delight in days as long and empty as the barren expanse of this world.

Tonight looked like it might be the first where Rarity did not take a delightfully excessive amount of time in reading and rereading Twilight’s words, taking care and finding some pleasure in articulating her own responses. Rarity glanced about eagerly. Still no sign of any returning warriors. She might not be able to reply at all tonight, she realized.

Dear Rarity,

We have travelled another two hundred fifty two hundred sixty three kilometres today, putting us only a day or two from the coastline of this continent. The observer has already ranged ahead and scanned every conceivable aspect of it, and a band of volunteers also checked via the warp prism. They say it’s as barren as everything else, the water is far too briney for anything to survive in, I wouldn’t even be able to swim in it safely, but I look forward to it. If only for a change in scenery.

It’s disconcerting, Rarity, how emptyhollow devoid this world is. Does that make it safer? Maybe. I never thought before that knowing there was absolutly nothing out there to worry about would make it harder to sleep at night, but it does. Just reread that sentence. I made the sleeping thing sound much worse than it is, really, it’s not a problem at all.

Okay, just reread that bit too. Only made it sound even worse, and it’d be terrible to upset you over me being silly. Or for me to worry that I had worried you into worrying about me worrying about you. Right - the sleeping thing is a very small problem, but nothing a few minutes company with you and a hairbrush couldn’t fix. That’s better. Just seeing the shore will be a relief, that’s when we’ll turn back and head for home. I hope you’re well, and I’ll see you soon.

- Twilight Sparkle

Rarity reread the letter, then did so again. She did not let her mounting anxiety show as she refastened the pretty red ribbon, did not frown or fret as she gave it to Probey Wobey to set in her bedroom drawer with the neat row of other such letters.

A zealot rapped on her door with the delicate sensibility she had taught her fearless warriors. “Miss Rarity,” the soft voice requested telepathically.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Both patrols have been spotted, they’ll be here soon.”

The mare smiled and sighed her relief. Just the zealots being, well, overly zealous again. She’d give them a gentle reminder about punctuality and be happy to leave it at that. “Very good. I’ll be out to see them ever so shortly.”

Night had fallen, but she felt fresh faced (in no small part thanks to the quick touchup she made to her appearance) as she went out to see the returning warriors. One walked oddly, shunting one leg forward, dragging the other, making for a sillohuette that went tall and skinny then short and squat, switching between the two rhytmically. He had not asked for aid from his allies, nor had they offered it. It was this one Rarity watched as another stepped forwards to report.

“The creep extends for as many miles as we could travel, with no signs of ending.” He knelt, and carved a symbol in the glass ground, like a size twelve ‘X’ trying on a size eight square. Rarity presumed this was a crude depiction of their central nexus. “The edge of the growth seems to be slightly concave, for now.” His psi blade hissed and spat as it scored a gently bending gash, marking the edge. Its curve was centred around themselves, quite naturally.

That could be no good at all, but Rarity dismissed it for the moment. “And what happened to you, good sir?” she asked the wounded zealot.

He nodded without pain. “we encountered a lone mutalisk, presumeably partrolling much like we were. It gave us chase for some time, then fell back.” The warrior’s head hung low. “I am ashamed that I could not have faced the flyer in true battle. There will be no honour for me in this scar.”

“It retreated?” she mused, but quickly forgot that with the more immediate concern of the zealot. “Let me see that, please,” she asked, still keeping her tone terse and formal. It was, after all, what they seemed to expect.

It was not all that bad, considering what it might have been. The zealot’s failing shields had still had the strength to deflect the attack, for the most part. The excess of force and sharp edges that had slipped through had pelted his leg with shrapnel however, some of the nasty little bits of it were likely still embedded under the skin. Even presuming the zealot was too gruff for pain, it must have, if nothing else, itched something fiercely. Either way, Rarity wasn’t liking how nobody showed the slightest interest in amending this. On the spur of the moment, she decided that she’d fix their lack of inclination to fixing things.

“Well,” she said, strutting between those gathered. “If there’s been no other encounter, then one should hope we are not in any immediate danger from zerg...ickyness. That said, I’m told our cannons won’t be properly here until morning, with the additional one being sent to our, ahem, ‘natural’ taking a few hours longer. If there’s any assault there whatsoever, the probes are to retreat to here, cannon or no. Otherwise, we continue as we’ve been doing.” She tapped her chin for a moment. “Probey!” she called, the little shining thing came hovering along. “Queue up an observer, would you? You,” she said, singling out the wounded zealot, “You come with me. I’ll see if I can’t do something for that scrape.”

“But...honour-” he began, but she had been expecting this, and turned on him with a viciously innocent smile.

“Dear,” she began, “didn’t I hear you say there wasn’t any of that silly- I mean any honour about that particular injury?”

“Well-”

“Then surely you can allow me, your lady executor, to have a little peek at it, or shall I have to command it?” she said, still entirely sweet, fluttering her eyelashes daintily.”

“-”

“Splendid, darling, absolutly spendid. Now come along.”

Half an hour and several dozen pitiful telepathic moans later, the zealot was released from Rarity’s care. She had already admonished him for being a big baby about the whole thing; nobody calling themselves a ‘warrior’ should gibber at tweezers like that, or yelp and hide away from antiseptic cream, or whimper as the the bandaid was applied.

"I won't tell anyone," she assured him.

Rarity paused as she wrote all of it down into her letter to Twilight, sparing none of the juicy details. Well, okay, the bandaid whimpering she could sympathise with. The little sticky thing was, after all, a gauche hot pink, which conflicted just horribly with every conceivable colour scheme here.

Oh, and she’d have to mention that other little thing about zerg being present, advancing inch by slimey inch, on this supposeadly empty world, wouldn't she? That was something Twilight would probably like to know, too.

Author's Note

Less silly and more plot advancing than the average chapter.

I know, PvSC has a plot now? I'm as surprised as anyone.

Rarity gets a slice

Justice has come!

...and with it, one small vegetarian pizza. Plus breadsticks, and a two litre bottle of mineral water.

Rarity clapped happily at the shining orb now flying overhead. A softly glowing beam of energy sent the foodstuffs down to her. While not her first choice, the mother ship core had only seen one takeout still open at this late hour before warping in. The hot food smelled wonderful, spiced and seasoned as it was by Rarity’s peckish hunger.

“Thank you!” she called up to the mothership core as she gladly received her pizza.

“You’re welcome.”

The mare trotted along, her mane and tail bouncing happily, a graceful look that was only slightly conflicted with by the entirely less graceful foodstuffs she magically carted along with her. She popped into the central nexus, followed only by her little attendant probe.

The noble soul within the Immortal’s carapace felt a pang of longing. He could see the photon cannon in the distance, but only because the bionics of the strider still functioned. What was left of his real eyes had been shut, like a babe’s, for these long centuries. He could not feel the creep beneath his metal limbs, or the wind through his warrior-braids. Nor could he feel the tension of suspence and anticipation. The pulse of his own heartbeat were shadowy recollections. He could remember what this was, but not how it felt.

The nearby observer overlaid his visual reading with the burrow of the nearest creep tumour. The great-strider towered over the spot, its shadow falling on the seething ground where it hid. Hydraulics growled and hissed as one leg lifted and slammed back down, shattering earth and stone, tearing through the mesh of life atop it.

The oozing, pustulant organ twitched where the hot, dry breeze touched it. The Immortal stared at it for a minute, fleshy motions and rampant vitality. An unfeeling, unfaultering body had some advantages, the old soul decided, and the great-strider’s leg came down once more. The creep tumour burst and died; giblets, glands and body fluids splattered against the shining metal of the Immortal. As he marched the long march home, the chunks slid and fell to the parched dust until only a dried crust remained.

The observer stared on, unblinking and unflinching.

Rarity had, in completely unladylike fashion, gotten pizza all over herself and was an absolute mess. This was to say in normal people terms that she had a smidgen of sauce here and a string of gooey cheese there, but was otherwise pretty much pristine. Half the pizza remained by the time she felt content; she’d never really had one before without her friends around to help polish it off. They really were foods for groups she decided, and entirely too greasy and full of fat to eat on anything but the rarest of occasions.

“I miss Twilight,” she said. “I miss everyone.” P.W. made it’s distinctive techno-meow sound and came closer. Rarity glanced to it, then hugged the little thing. “I know.” She stared at the sad, limp slice that remained on her plate. The barely-touched breadsticks still in the bag. Tried to imagine the sounds of her friends, the mess they’d surely have made of it. Pinkie Pie making faces, using breadsticks for props, and Fluttershy smiling, Applejack and Dash fighting over the last piece. Twilight recounting her sometimes boring and sometimes quite interesting trivia. Rarity tried to imagine it, but it wasn’t the same.

Probey-Wobey took the box in its little harvester beam. The grease-damp lid shut with a finality that was somehow just too sad. “Thanks,” she murmurred distractedly, and the probe took the leftovers away, to wherever it was they went.

She readied herself for the night, but it would be a while yet before sleep. When the dusk came it was sudden, like a black drip of ink that had been dropped into the sky. There was a thrum of energy and, all at once, the mothership core and the cannons at either end of the base turned on their lights. They were an eerie, unnatural colour, like peering into the warp conduits. The lights were not bright, but as they swept back and forth across the ground, its contours and shapes stood out with almost painful sharpness.

The core itself, floating as it had since arrival, glowed like the Equestrian World Record attempt at putting fireflies into some humungous jar. If Rarity stared, she could just see the spherical shape of it before the whiteness of it made her eyes water. It lit up the base perfectly adequeately.

“Lady Rarity, the patrols return,” it announced on a projected whisper.

“Very punctual,” she said, not really addressing anyone in particular. The silohuettes of zealots and her Immortal stepped into the light. The tracking beam of the nearer cannon went over them, held them momentarily in its sight, then resumed its endless back and forth searching.

“Another three tumours destroyed,” the lead zealot announced, bowing and crossing his blades across his chest as he announced this. Rarity really did wish they’d stop doing that.

“And yet the creep does not recede,” said another.

“Oh?” Rarity asked, looking to the Immortal, wondering if he would share his thoughts. “How is that so?”

“For each we destory during the day, another takes its place in the night. By dawn it as it was, and will be.”

Rarity huffed. “Well that’s cheery.” She prickled; she didn’t like these meetings, liked them less and less each day. She didn’t like the way they looked at her, expecting orders and leadership. “And still no more encounters with the zerg themselves?”

“None. The observer’s sensor range has allowed us to avoid the few mutalisks that patrol the desert. It has also spotted an overlord holding position on the horizon, and did manage to glimpse the queen responsible for the recurring tumors. We still do not have any indication of where their hive cluster is situated, or how many hatcheries might be at their disposal.”

Rarity looked straight up, though there were no stars to be seen, than stared her zealot in the eye. “Send it further. That overlord sounds like as good a start as any for it. If we can’t find any zerg, we can at least broaden our awareness of the topography. That’s all, for now,” she said, watching the zealots nod respectfully as they left. Rarity paused when she reached the Immortal, waiting like the patience of eternity itself. She stifled her instinctive attempt to call him dear or darling. “You have a bit of something...” she said, gesturing politely as she could at the dried tumour muck. She called a probe over to promptly clean it.

“Ah. Yes,” the great-strider said. “As do you.”

“What?! Ah, oh...a bit of pizza sauce, that’s all. Don’t startle me like that! Zerg stuff is entirely more gross.”

“My apolgies,” he said, but she could hear his half-entombed ass smriking. Her cheeks flushed with indignation, but she smiled too, feeling a little more herself.

“Something troubles you,” he said.

Rarity sighed as she began her nightly walk. For the last week she’d do this, as if it were her own little patrol to maintain. It helped her think and to sleep, even if it did not set her mind at ease. “No, no. I’m fine. Really. I appreciate the concern, though.” She barked out one clipped note of laughter. “And to think, I don’t even know your name yet. I’ve been trying to nickname you, did you realize? Nothing seems right. Oh, there’s been some I considered, like Valour or Shield or...” she mumbled ‘Tom’ quickly and quietly, “but nothing seems to be you, as such. It’s terribly frustrating.”

The Immortal said nothing, though the unicorn fancied that she sensed gentle amusement from him. They walked in the cool twilight a ways further.

“Do you think they will attack?” she asked.

He said nothing for a minute, as was his way. When he did speak, Rarity gave it her full attention. “Sooner or later there is always conflict. What matters is how we face it.”

The first mutalisk glave richocheted off the Immortal’s shields and embedded itself between Rarity’s hooves. She blinked. A few strands of her wavy hair fell to rest, never to be brushed again on the ground next to the menacing zerg blade. Rarity raised her hoof to the side of her head, than poked the glaive, which trembled menacingly and made her promptly step back, crying out and wincing only a little bit under her breath.

“That was very poetic," she said, "but I think, in this instance, a simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed, don’t you agree?”

The base lit up and the deep, resonating firing cycles of photon cannons, shooting their pulses into the screeching darkness.

The great-strider thrummed as its systems powered up and moved closer to Rarity. “Yes.”

Fluttershy vs Appetites

Fluttershy had not been idle. The little band of zerg, her’s and Pinkie’s, had stopped, as much to rest as to contest with boredom. Here the ground was firmer, a stretch of low hills that sidled up to the edge of the more marshy grounds before. The swarm host and impromptu cabin-on-legs, Big Bertha, had rooted herself in the deep soil for some much appreciated sleep. The T.V. and music player, and all appliances were turned off for this. Pinkie Pie, coral-growths and scales, was out on the alien grass, tumbling in a heap zerglings much the same as any dogs would do, nipping and barking playfully, though with considerably less bark and more kekekeke. Also more limbs, which made for the occasional awkward entanglement.

The meagre vegetables Fluttershy had collected in the last half-hour didn’t look much. Mostly stream washed tubers and shoots with the dirt scrubbed off best she could manage, Fluttershy had none the less brought these togethers in a small heap, arranged them fitfully into the most appeasing, or rather least displeasing, assemblage she could manage, and was applying all her effort and experience in coaxing one of the scrawnier lings, overpowered and ejected from the general horse-play to eat his greens.

She made absolutely certain to not include any of the plump, tall-standing mushrooms in the bog-salad this time despite, after what had happened with her hydralisk. Last she had checked in on him he seemed placid enough, still adrfit in a state of spiritual oneness with the universe. She had wiped the excess dribble from the gently purring creature’s maw and left it to enjoy the pretty colours.

Chin to the ground, she waved the runty zergling forward. “Come on,” she cooed. “These are good for you. That’s right.” It’s snout, for lack of a better word, snuffled. It glanced little red eyes to her, to the greens, back to her.

“Food,” she mouthed. “Foooood. That’s it. Good boy.” Runty Zergling gave a very distressed potato look-a-like a lick, shied away, crept in again. “That’s right,” she said. He looked very much just about to try a nibble when a distinctive yellow spiral formed in the air above him.

The disproportionate power the tendril-wings beat with startled Fluttershy, but she had no time for that. Going from ‘zero’ to ‘a lot’ in ‘quite fast, really’, she scooped Runty Zergling up and away from the menacing yellow swirl o’ doom.

Fluttershy touched down gently as she could, checked Runty all-over for distress (for own) and turned, wings flared, on Pinkie, all in about a second.

“No eating zerg!” she shouted.

Pinkie stamped a hoof, several hooves, all her hooves in a little dance of frustration. “But I’m huuuungrrryy,” she whined. “I was gonna share, really!”

Fluttershy wasn’t budging. The zerglings, all more or less subjects to Pinkie’s emotional states, tittered and looked about awkwardly, eyes afraid to settle on Fluttershy. She glared at each and every one of them, at Pinkie most of all. “No eating zerg. Absolutely not! You’ll just have to wait until Beebee (this being Big Bertha’s affectionately derived nickname for a nickname...a nickname squared) wakes up and she turns the power for the toaster turns back on.”

Pinkie was loosing steam; she never was one to commit to an argument if it wasn’t fun, and arguing with Fluttershy was about as fun as being savaged by a hen. Even so, she managed to eke out something about zerg eating zerg.

Fluttershy put her hoof down, literally. “That may be so out there, but not if I can help it! In this swarm we have manners. Zerg must never eat zerg!” To Fluttershy’s ears it was simple. Catchy, the sort of thing Pinkie would remember and qoute. It’d do nicely.

Meanwhile a smile full of guile, a trait quite unaccustomed to Fluttershy, made itself at home on her lips. “In the meantime, Pinkie, if you’re so hungry that you’d go for one of our own, than surely you absolutely couldn’t say no to a healthy snack...I insist.”

Looking very dejected and defeated, almost comically so, Pinkie Pie was lead to the previously gathered foodstuff’s. Fluttershy tried a bite, forced a smile. “It’s not bad.”

They were that bad, that sort of unrelenting nastiness that can only be found in very healthful things. Fluttershy made sure Pinkie ate every last no-zerg-were-harmed bite anyway.

All your hatch are belong to us

Laying on the rock, Pinkie Pie peered down the ridge. Fluttershy, who was good at stalking but didn’t like to be good at stalking was hidden under a bit of sweet smelling sage brush just behind her.

What are they looking at, or if we are to be specific, what is it that Pinkie is looking at and Fluttershy is hearing about in loud, reedy whispers?

“It’s a base! And the hatchery is going Woohoohooh, so I think that means it’s becoming a lair! And look, all the little drones are harvesting, and that one’s turning into an evolution chamber!”

Fluttershy crawled forwards and peeked down. Indeed, such was as had been said. A bustling little zerg haven in the waste, little more than a nest hidden away in a nook in the rock.

She could see that. She could hear it and smell it too. But being zergified had given Pinkie and her more senses than that. Cladenstine, tickly feelings that lurked at the edge of conscious thought. “Like another sort of Pinkie Sense,” Pinkie had tried and failed to explain. If Pinkie had it, she didn’t notice.

There wasn’t room in her bright, musical mind for this kind of quiet, oily suggestion, like a memory or a thought that came from somewhere else. It spoke to Fluttershy now, and it warned her. Something was wrong, it said. Wrong here, and wrong with these zerg, but for the life of her she couldn’t discern what it was.

Their small band of zerg waited further down the trail, their uncomplicated minds forwards and efficient. They waited with only passing curiosity about the scent in the wind. Where Pinkie and Flutters lead, they’d follow.

The age old adage about being told to jump and asking how high works to express this sort of loyalty, but completely misses the oppurtunity to go into detail about bulging tendons, muscles that make bioartificing an artform, and the teeth. Oh, the teeth. Lots of teeth. Pointy teeth.

Except for Big Bertha, the infertile Swarm Host who acted as their travelling cottage and even sometimes got a passable wifi signal going. She had big elphantine molars, because she was a grazer through and through. And Silky Wriggles, the larva, asleep or at least lurking in his cot inside her.

Fluttershy could touch their minds. It was a sensation that grew stronger as she grew into her new form, carapace and slither-wings and all. Pinkie could to, and it seemed to come easier to her, perhaps because she accepted it without doubt. But Fluttershy could feel enough to know where they were, know the budding personalities of each.

There wasn’t much personality to any given zerg, she knew. It seemed to be something the two ponies had brought with them. Small qualities, tiny impressions of Fluttershyness and Pinkie Pieness that struggled to sprout from the tiny alien minds.

It added a strange familiarity to them all. All zerg carried a sort of token sensation, a marker to declare who lead them. It was then that Fluttershy realized what was wrong with the zerg below.

“Pinkie,” she began worriedly, and only became worriedly-er when she realized that Pinkie was not here. She was down there, in amidst the drones. The feral drones. “Oh dear,” Fluttershy whispered and hurried after her.

“Hello my dronies!”

This, Pinkie reflected, had been a bad opener. Oh, it’d gotten their attention all right, yes it had. But it had gotten the attention of their heavy claws, too. Drones aren’t known for speed, but they chase with a dogged persistence. What they lack in killing power they make up for with bloody minded purpose.

It wasn’t hard to keep pace and lead a merry game around the twitching, pulsing hatchery, but she was aware that it had to end sometime. There were funnier things to do than to play the game of drones, after all.

“Oh my, oh dear, oh my.” This was Fluttershy, who looked like a hellish spectre of angelic badassery of vaguely Diablo Two Tyraelish proprotions with her flickering wing tendril-feathers, but sounded like a Fluttershy. Her hooves were over her mouth in distress as she fluttered fitfully above them. “Pinkie, watch out!” she cried.

Three drones had circled around the other way, cutting Pinkie off. She ducked into the mineral line only to find another two coming up through the gaps, cutting off her escape.

She was surrounded. The first claw hit scraped her like the Wrath of Crabs. The ocean going kind mind you, not...the other kind. Five damage. Five damage, Five damage, five five five.

Then, Pinkie Pie walked through the drones, out into freedom. No, seriously, through. Not pushing aside, no. Through as in one definite bit of matter moving in exactly the same space as another, seperate bit of matter. Fluttershy gawked. Pinkie Pie stuck her tongue out and bolted away.

“How...how did...went right through...”

“I was raised a rock farmer!” the zerg mare cried as she bounced off a drones head and scrambled up the hatchery’s side. “I just decided I was going to go mine the mineral patch over there, and suddenly the universe allows you to do that sort of thing.”

She caught Fluttershy’s slightly concussed look. “I wasn’t actually going to go mine it, silly! But don’t go telling the universe that, okay? Our secret,” she said with a wink. “Now brohoof the hatchery with me.”

Too stunned and baffled to object, Fluttershy did as requested. They bumped it in synch, to a sensation like a door being flung open, with all the stirring of air that entails.

Yellow and pink, Fluttershy saw. The buildings, the drones, maybe even the creep itself took on the hues. They had assumed direct control.

Pinkie leapt, punched the air, then fell like a rock star into the waiting sea of claws of what could now be appropriately called her ‘dronies’. “We’re in business, baby! Wooo!”

Fluttershy sent out the call, and soon the rest of their own band descended on the nest, making themselves at home. The zerglings took up burrows near the extractor, their exact places a private and complicated affair of internal politics and ever-shifting status. Big Bertha was getting comfortable near the drones and leant them the shade of her bulk.

The hydralisk curled up to nap atop the budding evolution chamber. How easily it all fits in, Fluttershy mused. Maybe wondering how a few feral stragglers came to be out here in the first place was a pointless, fretful thing, like wondering just how the zergy senses worked.

But she couldn’t the nagging worry, a discomfort of suspicion she could not place nor could evict from her thoughts.

She wondered how her friends were doing, so far away.

Then she shooed the drones back to work and dragged Pinkie into their Swarm Host cabin, to give those gashes a good warm soapy wash, then dose them with iodine and ointment. The recuperative powers of zerg anatomy was one thing, but Fluttershy in one of these nursing sorts of moods was quite another and against this no wonder of regeneration could compare, or would even dare to.

Author's Note

To the discerning gentleplayer: the "worker attempting to work gets freedom of motion through other units" trick is a minor but useful one, particularly so in the early game if your scouting worker gets surrounded, or if you want to station units in the mineral line to fend off harrass. Downside is major clumping, which with aoe can mean many dead workers quickly.

Throwdown in Terran Town

Applejack was relaxing in front of the campfire after a hard day’s work. From here the sounds of fusion cutters were muted, almost sweetened into melody. She nudged a log deeper into the embers and felt a satisfying whoosh of heat, heralded by sparks that danced with dizzying motions up into the sky. Yawning, she poked a marshmellow onto her pointy stick and leaned it on the log. It balanced neatly at the edge of the flame. Hoof free cookery, the best kind. She took a small swig of whisky from a small flask she’d fashioned herself in the orbital’s machine shop.

Dust and ash kicked up by wings dragged Applejack from her reverie and she choked down the burning drink. A blue hoof prodded Applejack’s sleeping bag with something between accusation and amusement. “You know you have a bed, right?” She gestured the small mountain of metal behind them, towering over the horzion, the huge parabolic dish seeming to share in secret conversation with the night.

Applejack wiped her face and grumbled. She fished her stick from the fire, but it was too late. Burnt through and through, Applejack scraped the marshmellow off and fed it to the flames. “Course I know that. I’m out here ‘cause I want to be.”

She didn’t mind working in the orbital. Didn’t mind. Trying to rest in there, though...too cramped. Too bloated. Too busy with strange whirring things and clicking motors.

Dash regarded her and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. Can’t fly at all in there. Building flies and I can’t. That’s just wrong.” She plopped down next to Applejack with a teasing, hopeful look.

Applejack sighed, passed the flask. The mare coughed and cringed as the full weight of the alcohol hit her, but soon gave way to a pleasurable sigh adding its melodies to the night.

“I don’t know where the marines keep getting it from. I’m starting to think they spawn right from the barracks with a handy little stash.” It was a fact Applejack had come to begrudingly live with. She’d decided not to go looking too hard at the issue, because you couldn’t take ten steps with these guys without tripping over some breach of regulations, law, or common decency. So long as nobody took it too far, nobody got stupid and forced her to see the little creature comforts of contraband around the place, she wasn’t going to bring the issue up.

Applejack did still wonder how she felt about the marauders’ lingering smell, one distinctly...herbal. It was, she figured, another part of that same unwritten understanding. Break the rules, break the regulations, we don’t care, everyone does, that’s all just words on a page somewhere that ain’t here. Just don’t cross the line, and that you won’t find on no page nowhere, ‘cause the line is everywhere, we all carry it with us.

“Whatc’hoo thinking?” Dash asked.

“Stuff,” Applejack replied.

“Hmm.” They sat back and stared into the happy little fire. Only the flames and the flask moved.

There was a scream from the mineral line. “It’ll be that damn Lingaling again,” Applejack growled.

Dash was up in the air in an instant. “That zergling? Again? Wait, you named it?!”

“Yeah, so what?” Applejack shook her head. “Not the time, Dash. Go get the medivac, have it boost right over, quick as can be. I’ll see if a pony can’t wrassle it down.”

“I’m on it!” She was gone a blur of light in the dark.

“Right,” growled Applejack, adjusting her hat back into place. “Disturb my quiet evening with Dash, will you?” She set off towards the cries for help with determination in every stride.

She found the SCV’s exactly as she’d expected to: in panic and dissarray, scooting about in their construction frames, crashing into obstacles and one another, mechanical arms flailing about in the air. Lingling - for nothing could be so vexing and remain nameless - was at it again. Sometimes he scuffed up a supply depot, sometimes he scratched off the panels on a missile turret. Once he’d tore up a key cluster of wires and the barrack’s tech lab had caught fire before the SCV’s could rush to repair it.

Dash had crash landed the entire Orbital Command on top of him once. It hadn’t worked.

He could outrun everything but Dash herself, and he could outburrow her, scrambling down into the earth in a plume of grit, and no matter how quick they dug up the stony soil and shoved their rifles in, he was gone, and they’d all groan in frustration.

Lingaling was gnawing on a worker’s leg, crunching the outer plating while the SCV babbled and wailed helplessly. Applejack hit the zergling with a running tackle and the tumbled through the work-flattened ground. She came out on top and yanked a likely looking leg into an even more painful looking hold. Lingaling screeched angrily and slapped her aside with his sickle like claws and the mare spun off his back.

He leapt claws first. Gritting her teeth, Applejack dropped under the strike, then heaved hard as she could upwards. The zergling scrabbled for purchase he could no longer reach as Applejack brought him over backwards and down again like a hammer, slamming them both into the dust with an audible crack of chitin.

Applejack twisted and was on him again. A struggling kick knocked her head aside, she snarled and pushed her weight, Lingaling’s claws trapped under him, her hooves snaking under a leg and over his neck in a grappling hold.

The zergling snapped and shrieked, but couldn’t land anything, not claws or teeth. A zergy knee, however, snuck its way in there, and Applejack was knocked away with a grunt of expelled air.

He snapped upright, hissing. He flared his claws and stabbed them at her, forcing the mare back to some range. This time she dodged forwards, under his guard, lifting him bodily on a hoof and dropping the same elbow heavily in his zergy chest, driving him into the hard earth with a shrill cry of pain.

Teeth snapped at her now in desperation, and a one-two from the mare knocked away more than a few. Applejack grabbed the stunned zergling, dragged him around in an accelerating circle and slammed the crown of his skull into a mineral patch with a resounding impact.

Lingaling went limp in her hooves and slumped. Trembling, caught between grin and grimace, she noticed the spectators. Dash, the medivac, the SCV’s, everyone.

“That. Was. Awesome!”

Applejack despite herself felt a blush coming on.

“Where did you learn to do that?” The pegasus asked, her eyes wide as her mouth. It seemed to be the universal expression of the moment.

“Do what?” Applejack asked as she adjusted her hat.

“All that, you know, martial arts stuff!”

“Martial arts? I don’t know no martial arts.”

“Then what the hell was that?!”

Applejack followed Rainbow’s hoof to the still zergling. “Oh. That. I wrestled a lot when I was younger.”

“Secretely on the pro circuit?” the pegasus asked in a daze.

“What? No! Course not. I mean just around the farm. You know. Big Mac, Apple Bloom. The relatives when they were a’visitin. Silly games is all.”

Dash was silent in a moment of contemplation. “Did you always win?”

Applejack only chuckled. “Yeah, but only ‘cause Big Mac is too gentle and won’t be rough with a girl, even his own sister, the silly pony. But then Granny Smith took an interest, and getting beat by her was too embarrassing.”

Rainbow Dash struggled to imagine that, then gave up. There was a twitch of motion from the zergling. “Hey, look at that.”

“Still breathin, I know. But he’ll think twice about harrassing my mineral line again, I gurantee you that.”

Dash’s expression darkened, and with it the atmosphere. “Do you want me to, you know...if you don’t think you can...”

“No,” Applejack said flatly, to Dash’s explicit relief. “I’m thinking we keep ‘im prisoner. Something ain’t right. If there’s one zerg there’s a hundred. Everyone knows that. This feller spotted us even as we were arriving, and nothing’s come for us yet in all this time. Not that I ain’t thankful for that, I am, but it don’t add up. There’s something in this we ain’t seeing. I know you can’t exactly interrogate a zergling, but if there’s anything he can tell us, he’ll have to be livin, not dead. I’m sure we got something or other we can use for a cell in the meantime.”

Dash smirked. “Hear that, all of you? We got ourselves a pet now. Find him somewhere cozy.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed, her lips thinned. “No, Dash, not a pet. A prisoner. There’s a difference.” To the rest she roared, “And no ‘little accidents’ or boots being misplaced into his ribs or what-have-you’s you hear? I will find out and I will not be happy about it. Might have a little ‘little accident’ of our own, am I understood? Good! Get to it.”

The area cleared quickly. Something about bare hoof fighting a zerg to within an inch of its life lended an authority to Applejack’s voice that she didn’t feel. Dash’s expression of bafflement shifted to worry. “You don’t think I meant...”

“No, Dash, I didn’t,” Applejack said wearily as she started her way back to her secluded little campfire. “I know you. You ain’t cruel like that. But the rest of them? I don’t know what I think about them.” She sighed as she found her flask tipped over, a patch of very inebriated dirt testament to it having spilled its contents. She picked it up and shook it a little, felt the little waves slapping about inside. There weren’t hardly nothing of it left now. She’d have to confiscate some more of that particular contraband in the morning.

“Here,” she said, offering the flask. “Polish that off, would ya?”

Dash drained the last drops with a swallow and a sigh. She wiped the back of her hoof across her lips and settled in her seat by the fire. They didn’t talk much.

So much for a quiet night with Dash, Applejack mused sullenly. Well, at least we're here together.

Author's Note

The story is mutating again. I'll happily answer questions, though by far the most common answer would surely be "I don't even know, man. I don't even know."

Exchanges

The relic...shrine...temple - truth be told Luna didn't know what to class it as. Just as soon as she thought she had a grip on exactly what this place was, a new level would reveal itself to her, a new complexity of design made by architects on some very illegal substances.

It was dark and quiet here, and while Luna was stranger to neither quality, this did not mean she was enthused about them being here.

Ah, but she was focusing on the negative again. Some of the most basic functions had been brought online, by the joint efforts of the Mule's mechnical understanding and the dark archon's unexpected talent in percussive maintenance on the ancient systems. So far this really only meant lighting and heating and doors that opened and shut with an artificially induced whoosh, but it was a start. Even better, they'd gotten the Wifi up and running.

Race making, world building, star crafting powers the original builders here might have wielded, but a good skype connection was not among them. But again, Luna reminded herself not to dwell on the negative. She could talk with her sister in the evenings - at least, what proved to be evenings in Equestria, here they could be anything, if solar measures had any value here at all - and if the video was scratchy and the audio shaky, at least they were not incomprehensibly so.

It was a reassurance, one that went both ways. You didn't need to talk about anything in particular, that wasn't how it worked. It was just knowing that she was there, and she was listening, that was key, and Luna spent the slow hours of each day pining and broody until the evening rolled around and a chance for contact swung around again.

That contact had done another thing for Luna. It had reminded her of the date. Hearth's Warming Eve. She knew she should be committed and focused to the task at hand, but could give the mysteries of this place no more than a perfunctory few moments of thought before her attention turned to the holiday once more. She had every intention to honour the tradition, and every desire to send something special Celestia's way as well.

Her small band had not been easy to cater for, but ingenuinity and more than a bit of scrouning about this forgotten place had paid dividends. For her somewhat insane dark archon (all dark archon's being quite insane by default, so to have one that merely combined the distilled cyniscism of one mind and the childish simplicity of another was, by and large, quite mild as these things went) inspiriation had not struck, it had billowed.

Certain of her privacy, Luna had torn down a section of curtain in what once might have been some entity's chambers, perhaps a resting booth of sorts. It was a dark, flowing material, dusted with age but amazingly resilient, even to magic, and Luna had worked at it for a full two hours, hemming and folding, setting and binding. It had yielded under her efforts and became what Luna was content to consider quite the trendy scarf, with tassells and everything, and even came in the same glinting, shining black as the pieces of visible under the ever-present red glow.

Mulia Mule was in some ways easier to accomdate, but in other ways harder. She at least was Equestria born, and that should have made things easier, but it prompted Luna to do even better and she had very little to base any direction of thought on. Did you treat her as a quiet spoken, easily rattled lady who incidentally could drive a quite ordinary blade through four inches of steel, or did you treat her as a warrior of shadow who happened to be a quiet spoken, easily rattled lady on the side?

In the end it hadn't really mattered, and Luna had decided that between two gifts, one was certain to strike close enough the truth. The remainder of the dark curtain had been just enough to make the most ominously shadowy tea-cosey ever devised, and the night's alicorn had been very surrepitious in 'borriwng' the mule's teapot for initial testing and design.

With it, a set of throwing stars improvised from scrapped Xel'naga materials, adapted with a spell that caused them to accelerate in a burst of speed as they were tossed.

The Mule (the mechcanical one) had been harder to think for. Luna's experience with such a thing as an automation was limited, and while the Mule was decent and civil in every feasible way, it had mostly kept to itself, leaving the mare little to go on. This, she felt, was a case best left until a quiet consultation with Mulia could hopefully provide some new thought to grasp, some different angle of approach. If not resolved, at least a course of action had been decided upon, and Luna was content to leave it at that and return to the crux of her concerns.

What to get Celestia? Admittantly, there was no shortage of ancient, mostly dead and vaguely eldritch technologies laying about here, but Luna dismissed these out of hoof. Old and creepy was not the right message at all.

For all she wracked her brains, nothing was forthcoming. There were no scarves or teacosy inspirations on this one, and Luna felt driven to poke around, further and deeper into this labyrinthine construct, and perhaps what she sought would present itself in due time.

Author's Note

I won't hide it - I'm tired as balls as I wrote this, here and now, so that this chapter is even less planned than usual. That said, it is friday, and this is the 'get something in for the weekdays' thing I mentioned before in a blog or something.

Consider this a seperate, mini arc for the holidays if you will.

(I have very little idea what I'm doing)