Crisis In Equestria

"He what!?!" Twilight exclaimed in horror, as Rainbow told her where Spike was.

"That 'Crisis' guy took him!" Rainbow  explained again. She herself was shocked at seeing Spike leave, after all, he was part of the family!

Tears welled in Twilight's eyes. "Why would Spike want to leave?" she wept.

It seemed that the details of Spike's trip had been lost in translation, Rainbow had been quite far away when the conversation happened between Spike and his new friend. Now everypony thought Spike was leaving permanently!

All of Twilight's friends were gathered in the library. They had dropped their various tasks the moment they heard about Spike leaving.

"If he was planning on leaving, then why didn't he tell me??" cried Twilight as Rarity comforted her.

"Because he was persuaded to leave!" Rainbow Dash said bitterly. "Crisis must have tricked him into going!"

"Well one things for shure!" Applejack said, glaring at the other ponies. "We've gotta get Spahk back!"

"I agree!" Rarity whined. "Oh I do hope he hasn't hurt my poor little spikey-wikey!"

"I was such a fool," said Twilight, staring into space. "I should never have let Crisis go... Spike would never leave on his own... Crisis must have done something!"

"Well what're we all waitin here for?" called AJ, pushing the front door open. "Let's go!"

"Oki doki loki!" shouted Pinkie Pie. Being Pinkie Pie, she hadn't really realised the full gravity of the situation.

The others however had.

Spike was feeling nervous and guilty. Maybe he should have told someone before he left... He looked behind him at the empty blue sky. Crisis hadn't reached Whitewing yet, and they were still cruising miles above the ground.

He hadn't realised how far Whitewing was from Ponyville... At this rate he'd have barely any time to spend there before he would have to return!

"Umm Crisis?" he asked, "Are you sure we'll have time to fly back?

"Fly back where?" Crisis replied, feeling confused.

"To... to Ponyville..."

"Why would we need to return there?" Crisis enquired.

"Wha!!!" Spike gasped. "That was the plan wasn't it?!!"

"Negative," Crisis replied. "I thought you wanted to find more dragons."

"Not permanently!!!!" Exclaimed Spike.

Crisis flew to a halt, hovering high above the ground. He felt concerned  for his new friend. He was a dragon, why would he want to be among ponies?

This idea of family confused Crisis, but then again, after spending years alone in the emptiness of space, he wasn't exactly used to company.

 "I apologise Spike. Do you want to return to Ponyville?"

"Yes... Please," Spike gasped. He could now see the stupidity of this situation. What was he thinking?! Twilight and the others would be searching all over for him!!

Crisis turned and sped off in the opposite direction. He felt slightly envious of Spike's family, and connection with Ponyville. Spike had a home. A purpose.

The two friends were both silent. Eventually Spike spoke up.

"You know, you're pretty clueless for a super advanced warrior aren't you?"

Crisis laughed along with Spike until he realised he was laughing alone.Something had caught Spike's eye. There was something ahead, flying towards them.

"Rainbow...?" he began but before he could finish, the pegasus swooped in, snatching him off Crisis' back.

She then carried Spike to a group of ponies on the ground.

Puzzled, Crisis turned to follow, only to be tackled out of the air by a rainbow blur. He wasn't expecting the tackle, and so he didn't have time to stabilise himself crashing unceremoniously to the ground.

Rainbow flew down to join the other ponies.

"Crisis!" Twilight shouted. "I trusted you! Why did you kidnap Spike?!!"

Kidnap? Crisis thought. Why did they think he'd kidnapped Spike. He felt envious again, as the other ponies fussed over Spike.

The only pony not riled up was Fluttershy. She just kicked at the ground, hoping desperately that there wouldn't be any fighting.

Unfortunately for her, there was.

"Wait Twilight..." Spike tried to say.

The other ponies didn't hear him, as they moved into battle formation.

The machine attempted to engage Crisis' high tech weaponry, but it was cut short by the emotion.

This battle would have to be fought without weapons.

Crisis couldn't bring himself to hurt the ponies, even as they prepared to capture him. There were however other options available...

"Listen girls, I think we should take him to Celestia. He's alone! He needs friends... Even if he doesnt realise it." Twilight said to the assembled group.

The other ponies agreed, Rainbow Dash reluctantly, as the group got into formation.

Unicorns up front, the earth ponies either side, Rainbow Dash above and...

Fluttershy? Behind the others.

Spike panicked. What had he done!!! He'd gotten Crisis into trouble, that's what...

Crisis himself prepared to fight. This battle would be difficult without weaponry, but he couldn't bring himself to harm the ponies. Besides, he thought to himself, I can still use some attacks...

What about after the battle though, he thought to himself. Where would he go afterwards? To Ponyville with them? To another city in this country? Or more likely...

Away. Alone. The curse of being a machine.

His thoughts were interrupted by two beams of light. He looked up to see the figureheads, (Twilight and another pony he did not know) charging some kind of attack. The two had glowing horns that were emitting an aura of light.

The next thing he knew, the unicorns fired parallel beams of light that overpowered his armour, and blasted him backwards.

His energometer responded to the attack by analysing. GR energy, and in large amounts too. The ponies had the upper hand, or rather...

Hoof.

His thought processes went into overdrive; GR energy was an exceptionally powerful high concentrate energy. How were these organic lifeforms using it?!

The machine urged him to fight back properly, guns blazing and lazers burning. The stronger, emotion urged him to stand his ground, after all.

He still had a secret weapon.

BLAM!! Rainbow flew into him, knocking him off balance and onto the ground where he felt something tighten around his waist.

A lasso. He was trapped.

Without blades, there was no way of escaping the rope that pinned his arms to his side.

The ponies began to congratulate themselves on a successful capture, before Twilight turned to Crisis.

"Don't worry Crisis," she said reassuringly, "We're not going to hurt you. We just want to help you out, so we're taking you to a friend of ours!"

"And don't chu even think bout trying to break out of that rope!" joked Applejack. "Apple family rope is the strongest you'll get."

The other ponies laughed.

Crisis lay, unspeaking.

Concerned, Twilight attempted to talk to him. "Listen Crisis, we think you need some help to discover who... who you truly are. Also, we can't have you running around causing chaos! We're not doing this to be mean... We just want to have a famil..."

She trailed off. Crisis was beginning to glow as heat surged through his body. His core temperature hit 400 degrees, and he burned straight through the rope.

In an instant, he was on his feet.

Crisis raised one of his arms at the stunned group, and released his charged attack.

"Glitter Freeze." he said.

Ice blue light shone around his hand, and then a steady stream of chilling sparks bombarded the group. As the grass beneath them turned to frost, and the air began to steam, Apple Jack attempted to tackle Crisis.

She was frozen where she stood, as were the other ponies.

And Spike. The baby dragon was caught in the attack. That was unfortunate but necessary, Crisis decided.

Satisfied, he turned to fly off. They would thaw in around 40 minutes, leaving him plenty of time to escape.

What Crisis was not expecting was a voice. A soft voice, turned angry.

"Don't you dare leave my friends like that!"

He looked back to see Fluttershy, standing alongside her frozen comrades. Tears were once again welling up in her eyes. She was at the back of the group, and so she hadn't been hit by his attack.

Crisis was shocked at the harshness he heard in her voice, and the emotional side of him wondered If maybe he'd gone too far.

Nevertheless, he had no purpose here. He once again turned to fly off, only...

He couldn't turn.

Crisis was locked into position staring directly into...

Fluttershy's eyes. She was staring intently at him, a frown appearing on her usually peaceful face.

Not only was Crisis frozen in place, but his logic circuits were going haywire. There was an energy transmission occurring, between Fluttershy and him, a transmission that slowly began to sap his power.

He felt weakened, and to make matters worse, it effected his visual input, causing static and pixelation.

It was something to do with her stare!

Crisis tried to avert his eyes, but couldn't. He was locked into position.

This was impossible! There was no detectable energy present, so what was happening?!

Finally, Fluttershy spoke, unblinking, and still staring like mad;

"I want you to help my friends."

The machine objected at first... then began to realise Crisis' predicament. If this went on any longer, then there could be some very negative side effects.

Who knew what kind of radiation might be coming from her eyes!

These ponies were still surprising him, first the GR beams, and now this!

Crisis finally realised that there was. No other option.

He emitted a cure-all pulse.

 A transparent orange ring radiated from him, thawing the ice in an instant and reviving Fluttershy's friends. As the newly thawed ponies began to look around, disorientated, Fluttershy finally relinquished the stare.

Crisis fell to the ground, feeling the effects of the stare begin to disappear.

"Thank you." Fluttershy replied in her normal voice. She smiled happily at the metal warrior, as he kneeled.

"I'm sorry I had to use the stare on you Crisis, but I really wanted to help my friends! Please don't be mad..."

Crisis did not reply, nor respond as the other 5 ponies began to tie him up with Apple family rope.

For the first time in his life, Crisis had been defeated by something without galactic weaponry.

And he did not feel good about it.

The cutie mark crusaders were carefully examining a small rock.

"I'm telling you!" Sweetiebell exclaimed, "It's a fossil!"

The others were not convinced.

"Maybe an archelology cutie mark isn't for me..." said Applebloom. She couldn't even say archeology, much less do it.

The three fillies sighed. Then one of them noticed something.

"Hey," Scootaloo began. "Arent those your sisters?"

The orange pegasus gestured to a group of ponies getting closer.

"Y'all right Scootaloo!" Applebloom exclaimed. "It's mah sis!"

The crusaders ran to join the older ponies, when they noticed something.

The older group were walking with someone.

Or something.

"The evil knaaht!" Applebloom shouted with joy. "Mah sis captured the evil knaaht!"

Crisis was being led by the ponies, arms firmly secured by rope.

The machine was furious. Use weaponry! It shouted, trying to engage guns, knives missiles or anything to escape this humiliation.

The emotion blocked it's attempts easily. Emotion had been winning these battles a lot more, recently.

Still though, despite the passiveness of emotion, Crisis wanted to be free. It was taking ever ounce of his strength not to extend his blades, cut the rope and jet out of there.

Maybe he would have, if it wasn't for something Twilight had said earlier, as the group walked.

"We're going to take you to a friend of mine, Princess Celestia. She can help you to fit in, and become one of us."

One of us. Friendship, family. These were things that the emotional side craved, yet they weren't the reason he was staying.

Princess Celestia. That name resonated within him. He'd heard that name before. It had something to do with those blank "childhood" memories.

And Crisis wanted to know why.

The crusaders were worried at first, keeping their distance from Crisis, but they soon warmed to him as Twilight explained the past events.

"Ahm sorry Crahsis.." said Applebloom, kicking at the ground. "Ah just thought you were a baddie..."

The other crusaders also apologised, and so the group kept walking. Walking to the train station.

Heading to Canterlot.

Spike had tried his hardest to persuade his friends to release Crisis from the rope, but they weren't taking any chances.

"Sorry Spahk, but Ahm just afraid he might fly off."

"Well why not ask him then?" muttered Spike.

"Crisis," Rarity asked "Honestly darling, if we let you go... Would you fly away?"

Lie, the machine told him.

Truth, the emotion told him.

Crisis told the truth.

"Yes. If released, I would leave."

"Does that answer your question Spahk?" AJ asked, pulling the rope tighter.

The ponies boarded the train to Canterlot, leaving the crusaders at the station.

"Why can't we come with you?" Sweetiebell asked Rarity.

"I'm sorry dear," she replied, "but Canterlot is no place for fillys! We'll be back soon, I promise!"

The group boarded one of the train carriages. There were no other passengers on board, so the ponies could talk freely.

"So Crisis, what's your favourite, favourite, favourite best ever party game?!!"

Crisis did not respond, so Pinkie Pie continued;

"Mine's pin the tail on the pony! It's superiffic!"

Again Crisis did not respond.

Applejack sighed.

"What's up Crahsis?"

He acknowledged her, by turning his head, but did not respond.

Nervousness. That was new. This wasn't how he expected it to be... What if he said something wrong, and they all hated him? He felt like saying something, but what?

Instead the machine took over, and said nothing.

Twilight had an idea. "A soulgaze."

The other ponies looked up at her.

"A soul gaze might allow me to find out a lot more about Crisis." she turned to look at Crisis directly.

"For all we know, that thing might not even have a soul!" Rainbow Dash protested.

"Rainbow!" gasped AJ, "That's a terrible thing to say!"

"I didn't mean it as an insult.." pouted Ranbow. "I was just stating a fact!"

"Well, we'll know for sure now," muttered Twilight as she looked deep into Crisis.

As it turns out, Crisis did have a soul.

Who would have known.

Twilight looked deep into him, and felt  dizzy as she entered his soul.

There was a room with two sides, both contrasting.

On the right side, there was a grassy floor, littered with flowers. That side of the room shone with light, for in it stood an Alicorn.

It was formed from pure rainbow, and it's body swam as it moved gracefully.

The other side of the room was different.

It was cold, emotionless and dark. There were no decorations and only one distinctive feature.

On that side of the room stood a figure, not unlike Crisis. The figure however, had skin instead of metal, and he was hidden behind dark glasses.

Contrasting mindsets. One cold and empty, the other bright and joyful...

Twilight wondered how anypony could live with this kind of conflict within them, but then again.

Crisis wasn't anypony. In fact...

He wasn't even a pony.

Twilight pulled out of the soulgaze, but continued to stare at Crisis.

The sooner they got him to Celestia the better.

As the train raced down the track, Crisis slowly began to get more and more involved in the group's conversation.

It stared with single words, but had progressed to full answers by the time they neared the station.

He listened to Rainbow describing her latest trick, Rarity describing a new dress and Pinkie describing...

Well to be honest, nopony really knew what Pinkie was describing.

Gradually, the conversation began to centre around Crisis, and he tried to answer the ponies' questions as well as he could.

"So..." asked Fluttershy, "What is your home like?"

"I've never had one. I was most likely built on some planet, but I have no memory of being there. I most likely hadn't been activated yet."

"Activated?" AJ asked, a look of confusion on her face. "Built?"

"I was created." Crisis looked out of the window at the rolling countryside as he spoke. "That much I remember."

"So, who created you? Do you have any family?" Twilight questioned.

"I have an owner, and a number of group-mates." the metal warrior replied, "but no actual family."

"So who taught you? Where did you learn all of those flying tricks? And the attacks! Who taught you those?" Rainbow exclaimed, swooping in the cramped space of the carriage.

"They were built into my coding. I have known them throughout my existence."

The ponies looked sadly at him. Eventually, Rarity spoke up;

"So what have you been doing all these years? Who was with you?"

"I travelled space alone, seeking planets." Crisis answered.

Suddenly, an announcement came through:

"Attention everypony! The train is now arriving in Canterlot!"

The ponies cheered, but Spike was not so joyous.

"Umm, Twilight," he said nervously, "Why is your brother testing his defence skills?"

"What?" Twilight replied, not understanding what Spike meant.

The baby dragon pointed at Canterlot. The city was surrounded by a purple shield.

"What the..." Twilight wondered aloud, "Why is there a..."

"Somethin must be up Twalight..." said AJ, pushing her signature hat back across her head.

The train passed through the shield, and everything within passed through as well.

Except one thing.

Crisis felt the raw power of the shield, as it prevented him from passing. The impenetrable purple wall pushed him back against the carriage wall...

And then straight through.

Crisis burst from the back of the train, leaving behind ruined carriages, and a trainfull of shocked equines.

The train continued into the  safety of the bubble, leaving crisis alone on an empty track.

He pressed one metal hand to the shield, but he may as well have been pushing against a wall of steel.

It blocked his path and it blocked the ponies' mission.

But most of all, it blocked his feelings, and pushed the emotion back a notch.

He was not wanted here.

TO BE CONTINUED

Next time:

The silver alien ran through a list of attacks, before settling on something. "Watch and learn Spike," he said, trying to imitate the cockiness of Spikes voice.

Crisis raised both arms, and fired two missiles into the clear air, before flying up to join them. He directed the missiles to target him, then dodged and ducked to avoid them, his evasiveness systems easily avoiding them.

If the machine side could face palm, then it probably would have. Here he was a superadvanced machine, playing games to entertain someone.

The emotion applauded.