Crisis In Equestria

Celestia awoke, not to Luna's nudging, nor to her own body clock but to the last remnants of a dream circling her head. When a princess has a dream, it is usually always symbolic, and that was what scared Celestia the most. The dream she had awoken from was simple, a boiling red cloud rising from Equestria. The same dream she had been having the past week. Celestia could only guess at what it meant, yet there was one thing for certain; it was not good. To make matters worse, Dischord had once again escaped, his statue broken and hollow in the castle grounds. He was no doubt hiding in the everfree forest, biding his time.

The dreams however, they didn't involve Dischord. They involved something else, something light, uniform. Something metal.

A purple shield appeared around Canterlot, and an army of Pegasus guards dispersed from the castle to various points around Equestria.

Princess Celestia was not taking any chances.

Crisis was flying again. He entered the atmosphere, and began to head earthwards, cutting through the heat and friction generated across his alloy body. The booster rockets had engaged fully, and he could now see the green landscape below. He could also see the clusters of settlements across the green; towns, cities and even a castle. His logic circuits uploaded a note to his database:

Inhabitants: Sentient

Course of action: Destroy regardless

Crisis engaged his missiles, and prepared to attack. He felt no remorse, after all...

He was just a machine. Until the blast.

It happened in an instant, one minute he was descending normally, the next he was blinded by an explosion of colour that overpowered his senses, and frazzled his CPU. The blast sent him spiralling towards the green landscape that just seconds ago had seemed like such an easy target.

After that there was just the tiny humming from within his circuits as nanobots, began to repair the crash damage. It wasn't that serious, he'd been through worse. However, as the nanobots finished repairing the damage, something else glimmered within the wires. A tiny intruder worked into the machine. A tiny spark of beautiful shimmering rainbow, amongst so much metal.

"What do ya think it is?"

"Whatever it is, it's bad..."

"Look, It's waking up!"

Crisis rose from the crater he had formed, and took in his surroundings. He had crash landed after the blast, forming an impact crater. All of his systems were in working order, except....

Memories. There was a blank point where his memory banks hadn't finished loading. The crash must have knocked out his memories and, unfortunately, memories were the slowest at restoring. The basic functions were still fine, but the much more volatile recorded memories could take days to reload, and until then...

"Who.... Who are you mister?"

There was that voice again. Crisis' universal translator easily carried the voice into binary, enabling him to understand what was being said.

He turned to see three creatures staring intently at him, looks of concern upon their faces. They vaguely resembled equines, only with more developed features and...

Brighter colours.

The colours from his surroundings dazzled him in a way they had never achieved before. Everything seemed vivid, and full of life. As for the creature talking to him, it was yellow in colour with red hair, and shining green eyes. It was also quite clearly sentient.

Identify yourself, his logic circuits announced, but what came out was;

"Who... Are you?"

Crisis froze, shocked. What was that!? He had spoken differently, without the malice that usually possessed him. For the first time, he felt...

Free.

His computer systems were screaming at him to get back on track, however he felt another presence among all the circuits, free will.

The creature replied, seeming more at ease after Crisis spoke, almost as if his humanity comforted her.

"Ahm Applebloom, this here's Sweetiebell, and that there's Scootaloo! What about you?"

This time, Crisis was able to control himself, and he answered formally.

"Starfuel unit 774273, code named Crisis. State the current location"

For some reason, answering in that way felt wrong. Crisis longed to try out his new found voice, a voice filled with emotion and naturalism, however he opted to talk with authority, and tried to remain cold.

Applebloom seemed put off by the cold voice, and grew more nervous. What was this thing anyways?! It looked like a suit of armour, so maybe...

She gasped! It might be a dark night come to invade ponyville! There was no sword, but still... Another thing that unnerved her was the way it stood on two legs, appearing unnatural among the gathered ponies.

Determined to scare the intruder away, Applebloom lied;

"The locayshin is... Ahhngate!! Yeah, ahngate! This here's where all the strongest warriors in all of equestria come!"

"Irongate?" Crisis wondered aloud.

"Equestria?... Powerful warriors... POWERFUL WARRIORS!!"

It was then that Crisis realised something. The multicoloured explosion. Someone had shot him down!

Weapons systems engaging, Crisis became alert and paranoid. If they had weaponry of that caliber, then he was in trouble. He was still feeling the impact of that shot, and these new feelings of emotion and freedom had to be related to the blast in some way.

He had been shot down on a mission... A mission to do what though? Try as he might, the memories would not surface.

He turned to talk to Applebloom, only to find that she was gone. As his weapons engaged, missiles rising on his back, blades appearing along his arms, the three young ponies had galloped away in fear. Now, as they bolted, towards sweet apple acres, and the comfort of Applejack, there was only one thing on Applebloom's mind;

Ponyville was in danger.

Applejack was nearly finished for the day. She had bucked a whole field of apples, down to the last tree, and boy was it a big tree. It was bursting with apples of all different colours. That was the thing with Mixm trees, you never knew what you were gonna get. As AJ turned to buck the apples, she heard something that made her blood run cold. Somepony was screaming, and it sounded like...

"Applebloom? APPLEBLOOM!!!" called Applejack, eyes wide in panic.

The yellow filly was closely followed by Sweetybell and Scootaloo, both of whom had looks of terror on their faces.

Applejack rushed to them, and pulled the crusaders into a hug.

"What's wrong? What spooked you girls?"

The orange Pegasus spoke up, her normally confident voice shaking with fear. "There's someone or... someTHING trying to invade Equestria!"

"Invade Equestria?!!" Applejack replied, a look of shock upon her face. Her mind returned to the changelings, Discord and Nightmare moon. Surely there couldn't be something else trying to invade! The fillys must have just been over-reacting. Still though... A part of her believed them. Eventually, Applejack spoke in a low clear voice;

"You fillys go get Twilight, and the others. Ah'm gonna confront this beast!"

"But sis!" Applebloom protested, her thoughts returning to the sharpness of the blades on the thing's arms.

"No buts!" replied Applejack, "Now hurry and get the others!"

Crisis looked into the clear cloudless sky. He felt... different. More open, more natural, yet at the same time, he felt an internal conflict raging within him. The cold harsh machine fighting this new found emotion. It was hard to tell which side was winning. On the one hand, the machine wanted to recover its memories, and finish the mission without any contact, or hindrance.

The emotional side wanted to, and at this point Crisis felt surprised at himself; fly. The emotional half wanted to fly, and not just to get somewhere...

It wanted to fly for the sake of flying. For the sake of touching the sky. Quickly, Crisis banished this thought to the back of his CPU, only for it to be replaced by another thought. Now that the three creatures were gone... he felt...

Lonely. He wanted company, conversation and most of all, Crisis wanted to try out his new found feelings and humanity, and become...

Become what, friends? The machine part interjected. It's pointless! They're pointless!

Crisis, torn between mindsets stood on an outcropping rock and stared at the cloudless sky, wondering.

That was new. Wondering.

Applejack hurried through the orchards to the place crusaders told her about.

"It was a giant crater!" Sweetiebell exclaimed, "Like that time Rainbow messed up the triple twister!"

"She didn't mess it up!" protested Scootaloo, "The wind was too strong!"

By now AJ had reached a hilly part of field 65, and she could see for miles across the acres. There it was.

Just outside the farm was a blackened mark on the emerald grass. AJ hurried towards that spot, making sure to keep low.

It didn't look like a monster to her. It was staring intently at the sky, unmoving. Then again, she thought to herself, even the most harmless looking things could be dangerous.

It was then that she studied the thing's arms more carefully only to find that those ridges were actually...

Blades. Jutting outcrops of sharp metal, designed for war.

AJ was furious, rage building inside her, as she realised the level of danger the crusaders had been in.

"If that monster touched a hair on their heads..." she muttered. Well, it seemed that the crusaders were telling the truth. That thing was dangerous, and it could have dark plans for Equestria!

"Well that all ends here..." AJ muttered as she prepared a lasso. "That thing aint getting away..."

Crisis stared intently as, distantly, a winged creature flew slowly across the brilliant blue sky.

His memories had made little progress, and he predicted that it would be days before he found his purpose here. The machine told him to find a cave, a gully, anything and to sleep there until the memories returned. The new part of him, the emotional part was slightly different.

It wanted to fly, it wanted to swim, to explore and to take in the surroundings. But most of all it craved company. How many years had he been in the cold vaccume of space? That part he remembered; Flying from planet to planet on some forgotten mission. He'd never needed company before, in fact it had never even crossed his mind. Finally, Crisis broke his gaze at the sky, and made a decision. He'd find somewhere safe...

Then explore the surroundings. Compromise. Perfect.

It was then that he focused, and heard something behind him. A low twirling. Crisis turned, but it was already too late. The lasso looped over his head, and closed around his waist, leaving him at AJ's mercy.

"Okay partner!! Now y'all in trouble!". Applejack called out as she tightened the knot and pulled him in.

Crisis was able to cut through the rope easily, but unfortunately due to his clashing mindsets, his reactions were slowed.

AJ knocked him out cold with a single buck to the head. After all, apple trees and super villains were similar in that sense. It only took one buck.

Twilight sparkle was in the middle of a complex thaumic charging spell when she heard a familiar buzzing.

"Crusaders?" she wondered aloud.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of frantic knoUcks at her door. As Spike had the day off (and was most likely drooling over Rarity), Twilight had no other choice. Reluctantly she broke the spell and answered the door. She'd been so close that time...

Seeing the looks on the crusaders' faces, Twilight immediately dropped her own troubles and became worried.

"Ponies! What's wrong? What's going on?"

"There was a monster!" cried Applebloom,

"It had giant claws!!" Sweetybell exclaimed,

"It was gonna take over all of Equestria!" Scootaloo declared.

"Monster?" Twilight asked, "what kind of monster?" She searching her memory for what it could be.

If it had giant claws, then it could be an ursa minor... But an ursa minor wouldn't be interested in taking over Equestria...

"It was all silver, and shahny!" Said Applebloom, as she stared intently at Twilight. "AJ said she was gonna go get it! She told us to gather everypony!"

"Okay," said Twilight. "Fillys, go gather the others. I think Applejack is going to need all the help she can get!" Twilight had realised the creature that the description matched;

A mirror walker.

To be continued....

NEXT TIME:

"Ah wouldn't do that if ah were you." came a voice from the corner. Sitting on one of the hay bales was the creature that knocked him out. An orange equine sporting a hat and a scowl that could have curdled milk.

Despite the fact that the creature posed no threat, Crisis stopped, and turned to listen to her.

"Jist you wait till twahlight gits here!"  AJ said, her eyes unblinking. "She'll know what to do with ya."