Chapter 1: On the Wings of Terra (Edited)
Jumpship/Dropship Chart
Inner Sphere Map
*****Chapter 1: On the Wings of Terra*****
Alex Stewart breathed in the recycled air on the Monolith class jumpship, Sacrifice of the Few.
The jumpship was making final preparations to jump, and Alex wanted to make it to his dropship before the ship locked down for transit. Jumpships were by far the most remarkable feat of engineering ever developed by the human race, possibly second only to the Hyperpulse Generator network. The Kearny-Fuchida drive would basically tether itself to two distant stars, warping their gravitational fields to slingshot the massive 750 meter spacecraft between the two to a point about thirty light years away. There would be several jumps on this journey. Or at least that's how the Mechwarrior understood it, beginning at Bremond and continuing through several more jumps to reach Northwind, and finally Terra. As Alex understood it, about two months ago Northwind had fallen to Clan Steel Wolf in a massive betrayal by Paladin Ezekiel Crow. With the gateway to Terra open, the Steel Wolves had wasted no time in jumping to the planet. They did not destroy Northwind's military though, and the Highlanders had followed them inside a week, meeting them on the early spring plains of Terra, and somehow beating them sideways despite being outnumbered in both Mechs and troop strength.
Battlemechs: tools of war that were both feared and marveled at by every member of the Inner Sphere. They were rare now, after the Sphere had passed laws that severely limited civilian ownership. Before those laws, miniature kingdoms had sprouted all across the galaxy. Wealthy individuals who possessed the millions of C-Bills to purchase one of the beasts tended to view any opposition as a nail, and when your hammer is a 100 ton, 15 meter tall assault mech, the nails don't tend to last very long.
Most battlemechs were now in the hands of private military contractors or the clans. Planetary defense forces had grown complacent in the past, relying on their allies and Inner Sphere peacekeeping forces to defend them against any would-be invaders. Complacent, that is, until the HPG network fell.
The Hyperpulse Generators were each more marvelous than any jumpship could hope to be. Messages that would take weeks or months to reach their destination by jumpship could be transmitted instantaneously using them, and they were made to last. Major components had a shelf life measured in the tens of thousands of years, and so the manufacturers of the major HPG parts had been disbanded several years after the network went live. Nobody expected the network to fail, and so it was even more devastating when a coordinated assault took place across the entire galaxy on the HPG uplinks.
Within a week, there were only five or six remaining operational HPG stations in the entire Inner Sphere, and the entire galaxy was thrown into a sort of dark age. With no factories to produce replacement parts for the network, entire solar systems were forced to adapt until the extremely rare parts could either be found, or jerry rigged using tech from the planet. In most cases, planetary governments simply abandoned the stations; preferring to shore up their own defenses and buy more Mechs and armor to fend off any attack.
Northwind had been one of those planets, being the gateway to Terra, the importance of defense was not lost to their governing body. Their failing had been in sending out detachments to other planets. Over 75% of the Northwind Highlanders had been engaged in combat operations outside of the system when Anastasia Kerensky's Steel Wolves landed, and any call for help would take two weeks minimum to reach their outside forces, and another two weeks to a month for them to mobilize for the trip home.
It was a miracle that Paladin Crow had been there in the first place to hire mercenaries on behalf of the Inner Sphere. The mercs had proven themselves invaluable in the defense effort of the planet, but were ordered to trap the Highlanders in their capital city in one of the most pitched battles the planet had ever seen. Crow made his escape on a civilian dropship in a failed attempt to cover his own ass as charges of treason were laid upon him by the mechload for his betrayal at Liao under a different name.
All of that was in the past though. Now, Alex and the rest of the Widow Makers' forces were tasked with aiding the defense of Terra so that the Highlanders could rebuild their home world. The message had come only a week ago, and even though they were mercs, the Widow Makers could recognize the importance of maintaining a stable government. The three Overlord class dropships that were docked with the Sacrifice of the Few were full to capacity with Mechs, tanks, battle armor, and aerospace fighters. Alex's lance, the Roughnecks, was a support/brawler lance. His own mech was a Hunchback, a 50t mech that sported a single PPC in the right shoulder, and an array of four medium pulse lasers, two in each arm. The left shoulder had been customized to be heavily armored, and when looking from the front, it appeared that the PPC was mounted on the left side. It was a dirty trick, one that Alex had thought up all on his own.
Alex was proud of his mech, he was a brawler to the core. His armor plate was a ballistic resistant variant of the standard Ferro-steel plating on most Mechs, and was about twice as expensive, but that didn't matter much when an Atlas stepped out with its massive AC-20 and fired a round into the faux cannon on his left shoulder.
Alex chuckled at that memory, if only he could've seen the pilot's face when instead of mangling the heaviest mech-carried energy weapon, the lowly 50 ton Hunchback shrugged off the round and sent a massive ball of blue plasma into the missile racks in the Atlas' left torso. He grimaced as he remembered the missile ammo lighting off from the heat and electricity as the massive 100 ton Mech was tossed on its ass from the explosion. He had opened a direct comm. link to the other pilot, planting a foot in the chest of the Atlas and giving the Cap Con pilot a few choice swear words before firing all four pulse lasers into the cockpit of the enemy Mech.
If memory served right, the salvage on that mech alone had been roughly eight million C-Bills, and he had gotten to keep half for himself as a reward for sparing most of the mech's mechanical components. Even if the enemy pilot had to be scraped out of his command couch with a putty knife.
Reaching his dropship, Alex smiled slightly as he floated into his room. The military jumpship had some artificial gravity, about half of what one could expect on Terra, but that didn't extend to the dropships that docked with it.
Alex felt a sudden sense of vertigo as the KF drives began to charge. A klaxon sounded within the jumpship as the docking doors and major passageways locked down for transit. Alex looked out his window, and was met with the sight of the entire ship glowing a dull blue before the stars around the ship seemed to dart away as the ship lurched forward.
----//DisengageDropshipClamp2-----Confirmed
----//ERROR- KF TRANSIT DETECTED - CAPTAIN OVERRIDE REQUIRED
----//Override 10533956-30AIN935K recognized
----//Dropship 1943-A Released
----//Recording Override Event - - - ERROR: NETWORK CABLE DETACHED
----//Local Backup Created - - - Please Refer Maintenance Personnel At Your Convenience
Alex was thrown across his room, the sudden deceleration of the dropship was not planned. Normally, the KF drive of the jumpship would compensate for the inertia of a jump exit. Alex was quick to regain his footing, grabbing his cooling vest and neurohelmet as he bolted from the room and down the hall.
He'd heard of Dropships being disconnected from Jumpships mid-transit before, and most of the stories were gruesome to say the least. Entire ships coming out of KF Transit inside a planet, or a few feet from a star. There was a way to calculate where the ship would end up, however the answer was always one of three options, depending on the Jumpship's orientation and the mass of the Dropship. For some reason, which Alex couldn't comprehend, the jump exits for such ships was always in the opposite direction that the Jumpship was headed, and almost twice the distance of a standard jump.
Needless to say, it was concerning. Most ships that were disconnected during the three to five second jumps were never heard from again, and it had to be a deliberate action.
"Wake the fuck up kids! Something just hit the fan and I'm pretty sure it wasn't rainbows!"
The other mechwarriors grabbed their gear and headed to the only place that they could really do any good from. The Mech hangar.
Alex glanced around once before ascending the access ladder into his beloved Hunchback. The lance was composed of five Mechs, two Cougar scout Mechs: piloted by the twins Zach and Kerry, one Dragon heavy mech: piloted by Vladimir, one Highlander assault mech: piloted by Lauren, and his own Hunchback. He sighed, if nothing else the lance was mobile, the Dragon could outrun a few medium Mechs if Vlad kicked the MASC gear into overdrive.
Alex grinned as he strapped himself into the command couch of his mech, he had named her Jessica after a long night of drinking. A tribute to an ex girlfriend, it seemed fitting. She too was a 50 ton rampaging bitch when she got pissed, which was roughly once every other day.
A klaxon sounded throughout the dropship, and the captain started yelling over the intercom. "Mechwarriors prepare for Hot-drop, all non-essential crew members report to upper decks, brace for impact."
Alex had about half a second to process all of that information before a metallic thud echoed inside the cockpit. Fuel lines and support structure disconnected as his Hunchback was lifted into the air over the drop door. He quickly flipped a few switches, powering up the Mech's fusion reactor.
"Reactors: Online"
"Sensors: Online"
"Weapons: Online"
"All Systems: Nominal"
"Voice Lock Command Required"
Alex grinned, this was by far the best part of the startup sequence, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." The onboard computer picked up his vocal patterns, wavelengths, and least of all, his words. The vocal startup lock was something that was standard on all military Mechs, and several civilian industrial models had the same feature. It ensured that no rogue Mechwarrior could steal a mech and go stomping around on a joyride, while also marking the mech as something truly personal.
"Voice Lock Released, Welcome Back: Mechwarrior"
At that moment, the massive Endo-Steel drop doors engaged, splitting open to reveal a nighttime planet surface far below. Each Mech was held into the air as the Mech bay doors opened beneath their feet. For an instant, everything was quiet. Alex keyed his mic over the lance tactical channel, "Roughnecks, if we're going to hell, give Satan a black eye."
A chorus of 'Hoorah!' echoed from his lance mates, and the drop cranes released their hold. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Alex was weightless in his command couch.
And then, gravity happened.
-----6:00 AM Ponyville, Equestria, Planet Equis-----
Rainbow Dash rolled over on her cloud, she had been too tired after practicing the day before to fly all the way home. What she had forgotten, however, was who exactly was on cloud duty the next day before she burrowed into the inviting white cloud.
She was falling, speeding toward the ground as she woke up. She flared her wings, swearing under her breath as she fought through her sore muscles and half-asleep mind. Leveling out, Rainbow turned to face whatever had knocked her out of bed at this hour, and came face to face with a certain golden maned - grey coated pegasus.
"Damn it Derpy! Don't you know to check clouds before you go and kick 'em!?" She shouted, sleep still clouding her judgment as she fought to stay awake in mid air.
"Sorry Rainbow Dash, But I've never seen you check a cloud in your life!" Derpy shouted back, giggling a little bit at Rainbow's ragged bed mane.
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow allowed herself to glide to the ground. Luckily, she had decided to sleep almost directly over Twilight's library. Letting herself in, she was almost surprised to see the purple unicorn up and going about her business.
"Oh hey Rainbow! You sure are up early today," she quipped cheerfully, humming slightly as she shelved, scrutinized, and re-shelved a whole section of the library.
"Yeah, wasn' exactly my choice though," Rainbow replied, still fighting sleep as she slumped over to the couch and passed out before she hit the cushions.
"What do you mea-" *SNORE* "Ah, I see," Twilight giggled to herself as she finished re-shelving the main floor of the library. She trotted up to her room, deciding to take a quick look at the stars before they were completely lost to the sunrise.
Halfway to her 9 1/4in Catadioptric telescope, which still needed recalibrating (darn it Pinkie), she noticed a flash through her window. Peeking out, she saw a shooting star fly almost directly overhead, and made a wish.
-----0613-----
Alex was panicking. Everything was going wrong. He patched his Mech's long range radio in to the dropship's command frequency, and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Captain! The reactors are flaring! We need to freeze the engines NOW before they blow!"
"Sir, Coolant pumps are all overheated, there's no way we can vent anything!"
"Fuck man, what're we supposed to do!?"
Alex turned off his receiver and watched the dropship shoot across the sky, easily 20km away by now, but clearly visible from the trail of plasma it left from its entry into the atmosphere. There were a couple flickers as the reactors tried to compensate for the heat, and the ship plummeted toward the planet surface.
He was falling too slow, checking the gravitational readings, he realized that this planet had about a third less gravity than the boosters were calibrated for. What that meant was that the boosters would fire early, and all but stop his fall a good mile up off the ground. The fall after that didn't really concern him all that much, but the sudden stop at the bottom would be trouble.
As he ran a few rough calculations through his head, he noticed that the Dragon had already started its burn. The heavy mech visibly slowed as the solid rocket boosters belched flame and smoke. Keying on his mic, Alex could hear Vlad shouting something in Russian as Lauren swore at him in English about the lower gravity.
Zach and Kerry seemed to take the hint, laying low like light mech pilots often do. Lauren's Highlander kicked in its jets about a mile after Vlad's Dragon. The weight difference between the assault mech and Zach's medium meant that he had another 10 seconds of freefall before he would need to activate his own boosters. The Cougars didn't really need the rockets, they could just burn their jump jets and be fine, but that generated excess heat that they really didn't need on touchdown.
Glancing back down, Alex saw the trail of the dropship as it connected with the surface of the planet.
The sky turned white.
"NO!" Alex screamed over his headset, the engines on the dropship hadn't been able to keep up with the strain of such a sudden deceleration and demand for power to attain a safe landing. They had overloaded, and the heat generated caused the air within the ship to flash burn. Not a fun way to die.
The explosion lit up the entire sky for an instant, and then it was gone. Alex punched the retro burners on his control console and Jessica shuddered violently as the boosters began their burn.
"Ten Seconds To Impact"
The droning of the computer snapped Alex out of his daze, glancing out of his window in time to see the two Cougars fire both jump jets and boosters as they landed on the ground safely. Vlad's dragon had used up all its fuel, and the right engine had burned for just a few seconds longer. His mech was now plummeting again as it flipped sideways, smashing into the ground several kilometers into a forest. Alex swore as the Dragon's fusion reactor flared, essentially detonating a bomb in the vast expanse of trees.
He and Lauren touched down at roughly the same time, jettisoning the solid rocket boosters as they burned the last of their fuel before coming to rest.
"Alright Roughneck lance, form up on my lead. Let's figure out where we are."
-----6:18 AM Canterlot, Equestria, Planet Equis-----
Shining Armor raced through the corridors. Luna and Celestia would be in the throne room at this time, conversing about the night's events and preparing to exchange places for the daytime. Whatever those things were, they made landfall somewhere near the edge of the Everfree Forest.
Somewhere near his sister's home.
"Computer, bring up a nav marker for Roughneck 4," Alex ordered, he had to find out just what happened. A small part of him hoped that his friend had been smart enough to eject rather than go down with his mech, a larger part told him that Vlad was about as stubborn as an Atlas when it came to his Mech.
"Navigation Marker Set."
Alex keyed his mic, "Roughneck lance, turn heading 1-6-5," he sighed to himself before continuing, "We aren't leaving him out there." With that, the four surviving Mechs turned into the forest, heading South-East.
The Cougars were making good time, simply jumping over dense parts of the forest and weaving their way through. An animal thought to tangle with Zach, and found itself eating a laser as the upper half of its body turned to ash.
Several times Alex found himself roping the eager twins back to the lance. They had always been competitive, so the impromptu race was hardly surprising. Lauren simply bitched under her breath about 'fucking trees' and 'fucking mud', all while swinging an arm of her Highlander to simply knock the vegetation out of her way.
Alex was not so lucky. Traveling in line behind the Highlander was a dangerous option, it left him open from behind and he had cored enough Mechs to know that flames weren't his particular choice of death if it could be helped. He opted to take a position about 100 meters to her right, simply slipping between most trees thanks to the Hunchback's smaller form, and firing his laser AMS manually to cut trees out of his way.
He quickly grew bored, anxious to find out just what had happened to his lance mate, and began calling on the lance tactical channel. "Roughneck 4, Roughneck 4 - Come in Vlad, over."
*Static*
"Roughneck 4, Roughneck 4 - this is Roughneck Lead, come on Vlad, over."
*Static*
"Alex, if he ejected you know damn well that his tac radio wouldn't be working," Kerry piped up, Alex was impressed, he was unaware that the twins could pay attention outside of active combat.
Switching over to the survival channels, Alex broadcast once more. "Roughneck 4, Roughneck 4 - this is Roughneck Lead, please respond."
*Static*
-----Elsewhere-----
Vinyl Scratch was rocking her new music on her tour stage. The rave scene was a very specific niche in Equestria, but every day more and more ponies found out about her awesome wubs.
Spinning up the next track, she hit a button on the turntable to broadcast to the speakers. She bopped her head along with the beat, peering out from her custom glasses as she saw the entire room start jumping in sync. 'This is awesome! This is spectacular! THIS IS DJ PON-3!!!' She shouted in her head, slamming a hoof down on the pyrotechnics as her name suddenly lit up in fireworks behind the stage, timing the fireworks right along with the most intense part of the song. The crowd roared for more, this was her best show yet!
"Alright guys, you want one more?!" Vinyl shouted into the mic.
"YEAAAAAAAAH!" was the crowd's reply.
Vinyl chuckled to herself. 'Then you better hold on to something.' She pressed another button on the turntable, queuing up her next track. . . *Static* "ROUGHNECK 4, ROUGHNECK 4 - THIS IS ROUGHNECK LEAD, FUCKING ANSWER ME VLAD!!!" *Static*
-----Everfree Forest-----
Alex saw it, but he couldn't believe it. Right there in the clearing where Vlad had crashed. . . stood his Mech! It was changed though, much of the torso had been overgrown with vines. It looked like it had been there for decades, not minutes. Scorch marks were all over the armor, and more vines writhed beneath the plating. The image reminded Alex of some sort of metal zombie.
Alex keyed his external speakers, maybe the radio was totally fried. "Vlad? You out here?"
The response was instant, and far from expected. The Dragon powered up. Running lights lit up around the feet, and the whatever-that-thing-is began to run toward him.
"What the FUCK IS GOING ON - SIR!?" Lauren shouted over her headset, she was more the 'If it gets in my way, smash it' type than the rest of the lance. 'Must be why she pilots the assault mech.' Alex thought.
"ROUGHNECK 4, ROUGHNECK 4 - THIS IS ROUGHNECK LEAD, FUCKING ANSWER ME VLAD!!!" Alex screamed, bracing as the Dragon charged at him. "Oh fuck me sideways," he whispered, practically making the Hunchback dance backward as the Heavy Mech tore up mud and dirt, sprinting at roughly 90 kph toward him.
Alex began to think that he might get out unscathed, "Maybe the trees are trying to pilot that scrap heap," he joked with his lance, still dodging and evading every punch he could.
*BOOM*
Alex was rocked backward, an armor plated fist slamming into the left side of Jessica's torso. Flame rolled around the Mech as sparks ignited a potent blend of tree sap and sawdust from the journey. Alex simply went with the motion, planting his Mech's right foot, he turned a nasty fall into a rather graceful (destroy everything within 10 meters) pirouette. Jessica was still going down, but she now went down left shoulder first, burying the flaming metal in mud and dirt. Alex's ears were ringing from the impact, and he was pretty sure a couple teeth had found their way under his command couch as he struggled with the muddy forest floor.
The twins were having little luck hitting the former Dragon, its constant movement throwing their targeting computers for a loop. They kept up their fire, most of the lasers and short range missiles going directly into the tree line. They were at somewhat of a loss, the forest itself seemed to give off false targets as their targeting computers painted ghost targets for them to aim at.
Lauren scoffed at the two scouts. As Alex started evading punches, she pushed her Highlander into position right behind the poor Dragon. Her face was a mask of boredom as she trained her crosshairs over the Mech manually.
The Alpha strike is the bitch of all bitches when it comes to Mech combat. It is only wise to use when you have a resupply station nearby, or only one enemy and don't need to worry about fighting for the next hour or so as the Mech bleeds off heat.
Not that Lauren had ever been wise. Heat slammed into the Mechwarrior as she cut loose with every weapon at her disposal, overcharging the energy weapons to the point of recklessness as they could simply melt down and detonate inside her own Mech's arm. She smiled a little bit.
Twelve SRMs, three overcharged large lasers, and a Gauss round that had been fired with supercharged magnets tore into the back of the Dragon. The lasers hit first, burning away some vegetation and boiling off several hundred pounds of armor. The Gauss round hit second, punching through whatever surviving internal components there were. Last, the SRMs hit. Two or three detonated on the surface, widening the gaping hole in its back. The rest detonated inside the mech. It seemed to bulge outward, like a balloon with too much air, before flames tore through every crack and seam in the armor.
A mushroom cloud rose into the air, twisted metal falling to the ground where Vlad's mech had once stood. Lauren just sat there in her Highlander, arms crossed, staring out at the destruction with a slight pout. Her Mech had initiated an auto shutdown to prevent the fusion reactor from cooking her alive.
"I like the new look," she chimed over the radio, seeing Alex's mech come plodding around the wreckage half covered in mud.
"Yeah, well don't get used to it. I'm getting this shit off ASAP." Alex retorted over the private radio link between the two.
Lauren laughed some more, but was happy to remind everyone what had just happened. "Ya know boss, I never did get the damn beer that commie bastard owed me."
"Yeah Lauren, well I'm sure he'll be waiting for us all in Hell an-," Alex paused, glancing at his monitors to confirm what he had just seen in the Hunchback's thermal cameras. "Massive heat flare, on your left, Lauren!"
Lauren rolled her eyes, her Mech still had about three minutes before she could risk powering it back up again. "Hey! Cap'n clueless, I am currently sitting in a fancy paper-weight. Just in case you forgot," she drawled.
A ruby beam of light slashed out from the forest, nearly grazing Alex's leg as he took a step backwards. He turned his Mech to face the attacker. He instantly screamed.
"What in the sweet FUCK!?" Alex began backpedaling as he sidestepped the crimson beam. If it was another Mech, it wasn't showing itself. Keying up his mic, Alex shouted at the twins, "What are you two doing? You're supposed to keep a damn eye out!"
"Meh, sorry boss. Just don't feel like losing any more paint today," came Zach's smartass reply.
"You two lazy fucks better get in here before I can power up, 'cause once that happens, lost paint will be the least of your worries," Lauren growled through her headset.
Zach couldn't hear any reply, but seconds later the two Cougars jumped into the clearing on pillars of flame. They began scanning the trees around the clearing, searching for any sign of enemy contact.
-----15 min. before-----
Shining Armor circled over the clearing where the Mech had crashed. Torn and twisted metal lied scattered around like a colt's toys. There was something wrong with the Everfree though. Soon enough, vines began to shift and twist, grabbing metal plates and bending them back into shape. Some grabbed strange box like pieces with pipes coming out of the sides, punching through the lining of the components and making them hum and crackle with energy. Within five minutes, the forest clearing had twisted this scrap into a hulking beast.
Shining could see at least three more coming off in the distance, two jumped over the top of the forest, while a third simply smashed trees aside to reach its destination.
Motioning for the Pegasi guards to land just outside the clearing, Shining waited for the rest of the behemoths to show up. He would observe and report back to the princesses if they were needed, and take them down himself if they weren't.
Shining's eyes went wide as the first of the beasts stepped out into the clearing. This one had no vines around it, and had some strange looking symbols on the upper portion of its right leg. He could clearly see a faint glow coming from the very top of the beast, and felt a strange pressure in his head. The pressure was not unlike what he had felt when casting his protection spells over Canterlot last spring, but these. . . things. . . they couldn't be changelings. . . right?
Shining nearly bolted from the scene right then as the beast in the middle sprinted forward, clearly looking to destroy the newcomer. He could see two smaller ones off on the other side of the clearing, they were identical, their legs appeared to be reverse jointed, like a bird. They began to fire beams of light from their arms, and strange fireballs from the shoulders. The pressure in his head increased dramatically when they fired their beams, and his vision was soon growing hazy.
Just as Shining was beginning to think things couldn't get any worse, a tremor began to find him in his little hiding spot. Looking behind him, he went slack jawed. A fifth behemoth, this one taller than the rest, was passing through the forest just a few yards away from him! As he looked on in awe, it raised an arm and swept aside a tree that couldn't have been any smaller than two feet around the base.
Shining watched, stunned, as the pressure in his head started picking up again. The fifth beast trudged into the field behind the first and unleashed enough magic to level half of Canterlot. The first monster stood no chance as it bulged and warped in the flames.
Shining was woozy. The magical overpressure in his head was almost too much to take. The final beast had stopped moving after taking its shot, simply hunching over almost like it was in pain. Steam rolled off its back from vents, and out from slots in one of the arms. The second marched up to it, stopping as if to say hello.
Shining couldn't take it anymore. He began to lose consciousness as black shadows invaded his vision. He heard a faint 'Sir?' from somewhere behind him as he passed out, the excess magic lancing forward out of his horn as he fell.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
Zach and Kerry stalked around the edge of the clearing, using sensors to sweep for any motion around them after the laser that nearly bisected their lance leader's leg. Zach was the weapons specialist out of the two, preferring to strip down armor and extra systems such as the mech's anti-missile systems to place better and larger weapons. His Cougar was outfitted with two large pulse lasers, one in each arm, and two MRM-10 racks in place of the standard LRM-15s. He was a Roughneck to the core, never one to back down from a fight. It was this hard-headedness that had molded his brother into the amazing wingman that he was.
Kerry was a defensive specialist. Forgoing heavier weapons in order to keep he and his brother in one piece. Kerry's Cougar was sporting two Large lasers, but in the missile racks, there was only one Clan-based SRM 4 rack. The Clan srms flew faster, hit harder, and weighed less than their Inner Sphere counterparts. To make up for his lack of missiles, however, the entire left shoulder of the Cougar had been stuffed with defensive weaponry and electronic countermeasures. His cougar had a trio of AMS lasers on its shoulder, all three working through one processer so they were never shooting the same target. To his satisfaction, and pride, he had never been hit by a single missile.
The other electronic countermeasures were in place to lengthen missile lock times, and mess with enemy firing computers. Normally, the computer would paint a shadow-mech to assist the pilot in leading a moving target, however, thanks to the ECM in his shoulder, enemy computers would paint a shadow mech behind, above, or right next to his Mech. Nothing beat the feeling of watching a Catapult trying to Gauss snipe the silly little scout miss by about 20 meters.
When the twins were together, they were unstoppable. Combined, they had more firepower than most medium Mechs, and even a few heavies. They knew not to go stepping on an Atlas' toes, but could use their jump jets and get right behind the bastard before the poor pilot could get his 100 ton ass turned around.
If there were any two pilots that the Roughnecks owed their success to as a unit, it was the twins. Scouts couldn't usually get up close and personal with other Mechs, but the twins did it on a regular basis, and never came out with more than a blown off arm.
Lauren watched the pair through her low light optics. She couldn't see them very well, but the flicker of heat every now and then through the trees was enough to ease her fears. After her alpha strike earlier, she had needed to vent about half of her extra coolant. She wasn't looking forward to piloting Nessie when all of that was gone. She'd likely be cooked alive.
Glancing at her lance lead, she cocked a half-smile when she saw the mud and grime on the side of his Mech. He was clearly missing some armor plating, from what she had heard over the radio and the LDM (Lance Damage Monitor), he had been hit with at least three SRMs. "Poor guy," she mumbled to herself, "hope your little tumble didn't mess up that pretty face."
Glancing back at her temperature readings, she realized she was well below the safety overheat mark. Tapping a few buttons, Nessie came right back to life. The computer spouted some unnecessary information, and told her that two of her heat sinks had been all but vaporized from the extra heat. She winced at that, they were the two that she had installed to handle the Gauss rifle. Ordinarily two heat sinks wouldn't matter, but when a Gauss rifle melts itself, the magnets tend to overcharge and, well, basically explode and take the entire arm with it.
Even with the missing heat sinks, the rifle was still operable, but she could only risk firing once every ten minutes or so, and hell no on any more alpha strikes.
-----Nearby-----
Shining groaned as the Pegasus Sergeant shook his shoulder, barely regaining consciousness. The Pegasus snorted in annoyance and rolled his Captain into the chariot. The fifth beast had apparently awoken from its nap, and he didn't want to be anywhere near it if it decided to go for a walk in the forest.
Shining Armor secured, more or less, the Pegasus bolted into the air, and sped toward Canterlot. He doubted that the Princesses would be able to defeat those beasts if they could put out enough magic to knock out not just a Unicorn, but the Captain of the Royal Guard.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
Alex watched with amusement as a tiny golden VTOL sped away. 'Was that laser a man portable model?' He wondered to himself. Judging by the heat flare it had produced, it would've been more than capable of removing his leg if it had hit behind the knee.
They weren't too bad actually, the Mechs had been designed to operate for weeks in the field without needing resupply. Lauren's Gauss rifle would be the first thing to run out of ammo, and she only fired that on Mechs that were in the Heavy or Assault class. Every one of them had energy weapons of some sort, as they never needed reloading and were by far the easiest to use due to lasers being made of, well, light.
The only member of Roughneck Lance to not have any laser based weapons had been Vlad. The Dragon simply didn't have the amount of raw energy output to power the things, and he had siphoned a lot of it into extra bits such as his MASC gear.
Myomer Acceleration Signal Circuitry (MASC) is basically, in 21st century terms, V-TEC for Mechs. Extra wiring and programming within the Myomer musculature of the Dragon allowed for the reactor to overcharge the Mech's muscles, and sprint for short distances.
Alex sighed as he glanced at his clock, 1943, and keyed his mic, "Looks like we're camping here tonight kids, grab a ration and chow down. We'll move at first light." He really didn't like being stuck out here, hopefully whatever fuckery that had caused Vlad's mech to attack his own Lance had subsided for now, and wouldn't cause them any trouble.
Sighing, Alex shut down Jessica for the night. A sultry voice came over his cockpit speakers as the computer's pre-recorded farewell cooed a sweet, "Good night, Alex," as he removed his Neurohelmet and disconnected the coolant tubes from his vest.
Twisting around in the cockpit, he opened his personal locker that was stashed behind the command couch, along with a small bench and ladder. It was a lot like a 21st century truck cab, with enough room to comfortably seat one other person behind the pilot, and two people if they wanted to get a little personal.
Alex grabbed his Thunderstroke Gauss rifle and a small pouch containing all of them. . . delicious. . . grey paste nutrients a Mechwarrior needed after a day of piloting. He climbed up the ladder to an exit hatch after noticing that the exterior vents had never been shut, but had been sealed during the drop by the reentry boosters' framework.
Popping the hatch, Alex climbed out of his mech, taking a seat on his beloved PPC housing as he begrudgingly ate the nutrient paste. This planet wasn't that bad, at least, he had seen much worse.
The air was definitely clean, aside from the stench of Ozone and burnt metal that followed Mech combat. The moon was clearly visible, and must've been close enough to reach with a Cougar's jump jets if one had the will. All in all, Alex thought, we could've ended up on an acidic hell-hole with nothing in the wilderness besides flesh hungry giant bats.
He chuckled to himself, glancing around the 200 meter wide clearing before inspecting the damage that the Dragon had inflicted to his Mech's torso. Alex winced as he saw the craters. Nothing was broken through to internals, thankfully, but his armor was designed to be ballistics resistant. He estimated that the Mech's fist had chunked about half the armor off. He saw a few pockmarks where rocks had struck, and laughed a bit.
Sighing, Alex retreated into his cockpit once more. He switched his Comm. over to the Mech's internal speakers, and laid back on the seat behind the command couch. Resting his legs up on the locker, and with his Gauss rifle loaded and ready next to him, Alex drifted off to sleep staring out of the top hatch at the stars.
Alex rubbed the sleep from his eyes, hearing a faint rasping sound coming from somewhere inside his cockpit. He glanced up, noting a small vine intruding through the open roof hatch.
Jumping up to a low crouch, Alex grabbed the vine and cut it off toward the entrance, tossing out the squirming stub as he locked the hatch and threw on his neurohelmet and cooling vest. He jumped over the back of his command couch, shivering as the liquid nitrogen burst through the insulating vest, guarding his body against the often blistering heat of combat in a Mech.
What he saw shocked him. Vines were wrapped around both of the Cougars, and Lauren’s Highlander was wrapped almost to its waist in the plants. As he gaped at the scene before him, vines began to worm up the cockpit glass of his Hunchback.
“Wake the fuck up Roughnecks!” rang out over the loudspeakers of each Mech’s cockpit as Alex fired up the fusion reactor of his own, wrenching the legs free of the stubborn overgrowth.
-----Canterlot-----
10:40 PM
Princess Celestia rushed through the castle corridors, heading for the medical wing. A panicked Sergeant had burst into the throne room as she and her sister had finished their nightly visit, shouting about metal behemoths straight from the mouth of Tartarus and an unconscious Captain of the Royal Guard.
Doctors and nurses leapt aside as Celestia tore through the narrow hallways of the medical wing, her worry growing steadily as she neared Shining Armor’s hospital room. She burst through the door, scattering a few papers from the countertop and startling a sorrowful Princess Cadence.
“Auntie!” Cadence cried, throwing herself at the ivory Alicorn. Cadence herself was a bit shorter than Luna, sporting a crystal heart cutie mark that signified her role as Princess and caretaker of the Crystal Empire to the far north.
Celestia returned her niece’s embrace, smiling at Cadence’s new choice of mane style, she had kept it in a bun after the events in the north.
“How is he?” Celestia inquired, glancing over Cadence’s shoulder at the still form of Shining Armor behind the drawn curtains in his hospital room.
“He is. . . sleeping,” Cadence replied, slightly surprised that she had no other way to describe her husband’s condition.
“You know, I woke up about five minutes ago, dear,” came a groggy voice from behind the curtain. “Right about the time you started punching me in the ribs.”
Shining armor was clearly annoyed. He had not only failed to discover the origins of the beasts in the woods, but had passed out like a filly after playtime just because they had used magic in front of him.
“I would like a report, Captain,” Celestia said sternly.
“Of course ma’am,” Shining said, “Some strange beasts fell from the sky in the early morning yesterday. I took the initiative and went to investigate myself, the beasts were enormous, easily five stories in height. They could,” Shining gulped, “probably destroy a pony’s house simply by stepping on it.”
Celestia’s mind was racing, she had never seen any living being fall from the sky in her thousands of years before, let alone beings so enormous.
“They could use magic as well ma’am,” Shining continued, “One of them channeled so much magic that it completely obliterated another one. That one, though. . .” Shining trailed off, trying to find the right words for what he was about to say. It sounded crazy, even to him, and he had seen it himself! “One of the beasts appeared to crash into the forest, ma’am. The Everfree seemed to. . . absorb it. . .” Celestia raised an eyebrow at this, “The forest grew in and around the wreckage of the beast, and apparently turned it against the others in its group.”
Celestia was dumbfounded. The Everfree was a strange place, and the more magic used there, the more the forest would respond to anypony inside its borders. For the Everfree to actually control and interact with a being, though. . . the amount of magic required to start such a reaction would be astronomical.
“What caused your. . . current condition, Captain?” Celestia asked hesitantly, not quite sure she wanted to hear the reply.
“When the largest used its magic, I began to feel strange ma’am. I found myself suffering from a massive headache and passed out shortly after.” Shining replied truthfully, hanging his head in shame toward the end.
Celestia began to panic. Sure, unicorns were sensitive to magic, but in order to create enough latent magic to cause anypony physical discomfort, well, she and Luna’s responsibilities with the sun and moon went un-noticed by all but her own student most of the time.
Celestia took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts for a moment. “Captain, please remain here and rest. Luna and I will go and investigate the ‘beasts’ and if they turn out to be hostile, I will return to collect the Royal Guard.” Shining Armor raised his head to protest, but before he could get a word out of his mouth a brilliant white light engulfed the room.
Celestia teleported to the throne room, startling Luna slightly, and causing a certain Wonderbolts Lieutenant to stumble backwards before plopping down on her flank.
Celestia would’ve giggled at Spitfire’s antics were she not in such a dire situation, “Come, Luna. Something important has come up and I require your assistance.”
Luna raised an eyebrow, glancing at Spitfire before being waved off by the orange Pegasus. She nodded, bowing to Spitfire and whispering something into her ear. The Wonderbolt giggled, and took to the air, soaring out of the throne room from a pony sized window about fifty feet above the floor of the room.
Celestia raised an eyebrow at Luna, curious as to why the Lieutenant had been in the castle instead of watching over the training academy. Brushing some slightly un-princess-y thoughts aside, Luna and Celestia took to the air, soaring out of the castle and across Canterlot toward the Everfree forest.
Celestia filled in Luna during the flight, and to say that the dark blue Alicorn was shocked would be a vast understatement. At one point, Luna had actually frozen at the mention of the fact that the behemoths had used enough magic to make a Royal Guard pass out from indirect magical radiation.
The only thing that came close to that amount of power in Luna’s mind were the Elements of Harmony. Luna shivered as she thought about her experience with the Elements. Even though she was not herself at the time, she had been forced to watch the atrocities committed by Nightmare Moon.
The pair flew in silence for hours. Their speed no match for the vastness of the Everfree as they strived to view these monsters for themselves.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
0433
The other Mechwarriors were roused quickly, each firing up their Mechs as quickly as they could. Alex had to use his Laser AMS to prune the vines from the twins Mechs. The Anti-Missile beam not powerful enough to do much more than make paint bubble.
The twins immediately retreated beyond the clearing, firing the occasional laser at clusters of vegetation as they awaited the other two Mechs.
Alex began to fire his lasers on the encroaching vines, keeping some semblance of a perimeter around himself and Lauren’s Highlander. This planet was strange. It seemed that the more weaponry he poured into the plants, the more determined they became to overtake him.
The twins caught on to his plan, facing back to back, they sidled up to their lance lead and alternated weapons, firing a mixture of missiles and large lasers at any unlucky plant that dared approach the trio.
Lauren simply stomped around. Her footfalls obliterated any vegetation unfortunate enough to be caught under her 90 ton Highlander. As the heat in his cockpit rose, Alex adopted the tactic as well. Utilizing his Mech’s articulated hands to rip and tear at any plants his feet couldn’t handle.
A pattern quickly emerged. The vines near Alex and Lauren were attempting to move toward the twins, who had switched entirely to lasers and feet as their preferred methods of destruction rather than wasting missile ammo.
“Stop using lasers!” Alex shouted at the pair, both of which turning the torso of the Mechs to face their leader. Alex could imagine the incredulous looks on their faces as he commanded them to cease using their most effective weapons in favor of kicking the plants.
Alex rolled his eyes, stomping his Hunchback over to the other side of the clearing. With a sigh, he tilted the torso of his Mech back, and fired his PPC straight up into the night sky. The entire clearing lit up as the pulsing ball of blue plasma and electricity soared upward, some bolts of lightning arcing downward to singe the forest floor.
The effect was instantaneous. Vines twisted toward the source of the disturbance as Alex trudged back toward the trio of Mechs on the opposite side of the clearing. Upon reaching the spot where he had been standing, the vines curled around themselves, weaving into a twisting spire as the forest attempted to chase the plasma ball as it faded into the sky.
-----Above the Everfree-----
Luna and Celestia altered their course once more. They had spent the past three hours wandering over the forest, searching for any sign of disturbance or giant monsters from space.
Luna was excited, what appeared to be a star had just shot forth from a small clearing in the forest canopy just a couple miles from their position. She could feel the raw power behind it, and that only served to excite her more. Creatures that wished to add to her beautiful night couldn’t be all bad, right? Perhaps she would have another fellow night lover to converse with, possibly even one from beyond her own planet!
Celestia was deeply disturbed by the star flying skyward. Whatever these creatures were, they were immensely powerful. Her forehead pricked a bit when the star had appeared, telling her that even from miles away, the sheer amount of magic was either world-shatteringly powerful, or extremely unfocused.
As the two closed in on the small clearing, they paused so Celestia could raise the sun. No sense in meeting their guests at night, even if the sunrise came about an hour early. Applejack crossed Celestia’s mind at that thought, certainly the early rising farm pony would appreciate the extra daylight.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
The sun was rising. Alex and the rest of the Roughnecks had backed off enough that the vines were no longer pursuing them. They appeared to not care as long as they didn’t use energy weapons, but still crept slowly toward the active Mechs, as if they could sense the energy within the fusion reactors.
Alex ran a quick system check, realizing that a few rear mounted heat sinks would need to be cleaned before proceeding to exit the forest. The vines had apparently wound themselves in the fins of the heat dispersion units, and ran the risk of catching fire if too much heat was routed to them.
Alex sighed, putting his Mech in standby as he disconnected his cooling vest. Standing up as much as he could in the somewhat cramped cockpit, he diverted the heat conduits away from the clogged heat sinks and doused them with a rush of coolant before climbing out of the roof hatch of his Hunchback.
Facing the rear of his Mech, and the entire lance, Alex stopped cold as he faced the tree line. Something had definitely moved. Alex brought up his gauss rifle, scanning the underbrush for any sign of movement.
His heart rate sped up, inside a Mech, infantry weren’t even a concern. They could prove troublesome if they camped out with a large anti-Mech weapon, but even those were not very effective against true Battlemechs, and were mainly used to put down retrofitted civilian models. Outside his Mech, however, he was a very exposed target.
After a few minutes of staring into the somewhat unsettling forest, he decided that it had been his mind playing tricks on him. Climbing down the maintenance ladder on Jessica’s back, he yanked out the two, meter long tendrils with more than a little effort.
Climbing back up and retrieving his gauss rifle from beside the trademark hump that gave the Hunchback its name, Alex froze again. He had that feeling of being watched. He spun around on his heels and almost started laughing at his own stupidity. It was nothing but a horse! A white horse had been freaking him out this whole time! A white horse that. . . had a horn. . . and wings. . . and, *gulp*, was . . . flying. . . thirteen meters off the ground. . .
Alex summed up all of these frenzied thoughts into one eloquent phrase, “Well fuck.”
Author's Note
Better than it was, I don't think it's quite perfect, but I did what I could without ripping it apart letter by letter.
Notice the lack of magical, orbit drop surviving missiles and autocannon. That was a big gripe of mine with the story the first time.
Chapter 2: Vehicular Treeslaughter
*****Chapter 2: Vehicular Treeslaughter*****
"Well fuck."
Alex leveled his gauss rifle, taking aim at the mutant horse, It seemed to recoil a bit when his aim crossed her path. He caught this reaction, hesitating for a moment as he and the creature shared a sort of moment. Peering into each other's eyes, Alex could see years in those pink orbs. They looked old, yet so full of life.
The horse hovered there, transitioning from surprise to a sort of challenge. They stared each other down, Alex peering down the sights of his gauss rifle, the horse hovering slightly above him. Alex broke first, firing a gauss round into the air over the horse's shoulder. It recoiled away from the ionized trail of the slug.
Alex seized the opportunity, spinning and dropping into his Hunchback while the horse regained its senses. Spinning the Mech's reactor up as he plugged the coolant hoses back into his vest and slid his targeting visor down. Jessica spun on a dime, bringing every laser to bear on the spot where the demon horse had just been.
It was gone.
"Roughnecks watch motion sensors, we're not alone out here," he hissed into his mic. One by one he watched as his lance spun around in place, scanning the tree line for any movement. "Hold fire until we figure out if they're friendly or not," Alex added as an afterthought. No sense in murdering possible allies on this ass backwards planet of killer trees.
-----Everfree Tree line-----
"What was that, sister!?" Luna hissed from behind her tree. Her sister had attempted to contact the thing that had crawled out of the beast. It was much smaller, similar in body style as the beast that it had emerged from. She knew she'd seen it before, but couldn't put her hoof on where or when.
"A. . . human," Celestia was surprised, as well as immensely worried. The man had clearly fired a weapon at her, and it had been over a thousand years since she'd seen one on Equis.
It had startled Celestia more than anything, she was not truly scared, a simple shield spell could've stopped the projectile. The sound and light produced by the weapon had given the man enough time to dive back into the hole atop the beast.
As it turned around, the other three behemoths turned with it. Large cannon barrels swept the tree line, searching for her presumably.
The sisters stayed crouched behind the tree, sensing the staggering amount of raw power contained within the towering monsters. A few glowing red lights dotted the torso and legs of them, and the two bird like short ones turned and trotted around the clearing. Each of their long strides enough to travel half a city block in Canterlot.
Minutes passed. The behemoths appeared to regroup, the largest and one of the small ones turning back toward the middle of the clearing. The two facing her, the second largest and the second small one, angled their cannons upward, and the middle sized one kneeled toward the tree line. Its torso seemed to tilt forward, and Celestia could feel the raw magical power within it decrease greatly.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
Alex powered down his Hunchback, ordering his lance to appear as non-threatening as possible. He popped the rear hatch of his Mech, descending a few meters before jumping three or so to the forest floor.
"You still out there?" Alex shouted, cringing inwardly. Well shit, if they're hostile at least I have three Mechs to cover my sorry ass Alex thought. The horn on that white horse looked like it could do some serious damage.
-----Everfree Tree line-----
Luna's ears perked up, hearing a muffled thud on the forest floor.
"You still out there?"
Luna froze. That voice brought with it several memories from the last human that they'd met. She was eager to meet these new arrivals, but if her old friend's warnings had been valid, they could be quite dangerous.
Slowly, Luna crept out from behind the trees. Celestia's breath hitched as she watched her sister move forward, not knowing if the man had his weapon or what his plan was. Luna seemed almost giddy with excitement though.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
Lauren bit her nails, watching through her aft facing camera as Alex exited his Mech. She wasn't about to let her lance lead just sit out there with no cover, however, and had engaged the manual controls on her LAMS to cover the unguarded pilot as best she could.
Alex was nervous, waiting for some response with no weapons and no immediate cover. A dark blue horse stepped out in front of him. This one also had wings and a horn, but stood easily a foot or two shorter than the Mechwarrior. It seemed excited, almost eager looking as it slowly came out from behind the tree. Alex smiled awkwardly, waving his right hand a bit and flashing it the peace sign with his fingers and offering a meek, "Hi."
This thing had to be female, if the excited 'squee' that escaped her mouth was any indication. Her smile broadened as Alex offered the greeting, and began to prance in place as the white one came out from a tree a few meters away. He noticed the white horse was smaller than he'd initially thought, her eyes sat about at his chin, and her horn was just long enough to give her a couple centimeters on the Mechwarrior.
"Oh. . . hey," Alex hesitated, "Sorry for, uh, shooting at ya and stuff." Alex slapped his comm. unit as the snickering of the twins danced over the airwaves. They took the hint and promptly shut the hell up.
"It is. . . not a problem -," the white one trailed off, a searching look crossing her face as she inquired as to the Mechwarrior's name.
Alex hesitated, glancing at his lance mates' Mechs before turning back to the regal horse before him. "My name's Alex," he replied, earning a groan from Zach.
"Sir, you sure it's a good idea to let them know who we are?" he griped, Alex rolled his eyes, putting a finger to his ear to reply.
"Calm down, Zach. I'm sure if they wanted to hurt us they'd have ambushed me before we got to exchanging pleasantries." He saw the white horse nod calmly.
The white one smiled, "My name is Princess Celestia, and this is my sister, Princess Luna. I must admit, it's been over a millenium since I've welcomed a human to Equestria." Alex raised an eyebrow, about two hundred and thirty six questions flying through his mind. Before he could ask, however, Luna spoke up.
"Celly~," she whined, "I'm more than capable of introducing myself you know."
Alex could hear Lauren break into a fit of giggles upon hearing Luna call Celestia by the pet name. Simultaneously, Celestia's face erupted into a deep blush.
"I was simply making introductions, Princess Luna," Celestia growled.
Alex noticed the emphasis on the word 'princess'. It was there as a hint to the other horse to quit acting so childish. Yeah, like that would happen. Alex chuckled under his breath before nodding at the two.
"It is a pleasure to meet you both," Alex said, loosening up a little more now that he felt his life wasn't in immediate danger. He motioned to the rest of his lance, clicking his mic to let them know that it was okay for them to turn around.
Both princesses stared up in awe as the Highlander and second Cougar turned around to face the group. Their eyes darted across the various weapons that were now facing their little get together.
"If you would like, we can give you a ride out of here," Alex offered hesitantly, scratching the back of his neck as he did so. "We just had a little run in with the local flora, this place doesn't seem to like us much, and we should probably find a safe place to talk before going into more detail."
Looking behind the giants, Celestia noted the gnarled and twisted vines. They were smashed, burned, and the scene looked like any battlefield she'd ever seen.
Luna darted forward, knocking Alex flat on his ass as she approached him. "WE MAY ACCOMPANY YOU IN YOUR GIANTS!?" the princess bellowed, knocking Alex back a couple feet and causing him to grasp at the muddy ground for some stability.
Alex was surprised. That much volume out of a being that small could be considered a less-than-lethal weapon to many law enforcement agencies around the Inner Sphere. In his eyes, she had no right to run that kind of firepower, like a Jenner sporting six lasers, she just didn't seem to have the internal space. He could do nothing but nod slowly, a full minute passed by as he waited for the ringing to recede from his ears.
Lauren suddenly called from the top of Nessie, "If she's riding with you, Alex, the other should probably ride with someone that KNOWS what they're doing!" Lauren giggled and waved as Celestia looked up at the new voice, clearly surprised to find her sitting atop her Mech.
"Fine by me," Alex shrugged, motioning toward Celestia, "Sound good to you, ma'am?"
"Y- yes," Celestia stammered, breaking her mask of indifference for the first time in many months. She was definitely outside her comfort zone, but she was letting her curiosity for the magical behemoths overrule her worry, and to some degree, her professionalism.
Alex ascended his access ladder again, motioning for Luna to follow him as he entered the cockpit. Luna had a bit of trouble getting in the cockpit, having to twist awkwardly to fit through the hatch. She looked entirely too excited as she beheld the screens and controls that Alex was seated in front of. She never left his side as he powered up his Mech, and he didn't miss the slight wince as he spun Jessica's reactor up to power. Luna rattled off questions as to the nature of the Mech.
Alex couldn't understand most of the questions, preferring to tune the overzealous princess out as he merely followed the direction her hoof pointed. He glanced over at Lauren's Mech, hoping that she was having more luck with her passenger.
Celestia was about as nervous as she was when Nightmare Moon had returned. Sitting inside the beast was incredible, but the constant nag of magic energy would be enough to drive a pony insane if they spent too long near it. Even now, Celestia was fighting off a headache and slight numbness in the base of her wings.
This beast, Nessie, was the largest of the four, stomping through the Everfree and swatting ancient trees out of its way as it went along. Celestia decided to ask a few questions to the strange creature sitting in front of her, “What is your name?”
Lauren turned, she had forgotten that the ivory horse was even there. “Lauren,” she chirped, accenting her words by grasping a meter wide tree with one of Nessie’s hands and snapping the sturdy plant in half.
Lauren winced as she did so, such exertion was not good for the articulated joints of her Highlander’s hand, and she didn’t exactly have the resources available to make repairs at the moment.
“Why is Nessie destroying the trees?” Celestia asked after a moment, inching toward the Mechwarrior and nearly whispering beside her head. She wasn’t sure if Nessie could hear them speaking inside her, and was extremely frightened of the beast.
Lauren smirked, “Cause I tell her to.”
“And why does she listen to you?” Celestia was completely confused. Why would such a powerful being allow these smaller ones to reside within them, let alone command them.
Lauren lost it at that point. Finally realizing that the Princess actually thought that Nessie was a living organism capable of rational thought, or any thought beyond firing computer calculations.
“Cause ol' Nessie here is a Battlemech. A 90 ton hulking machine built with one purpose in mind: heavy combat,” Lauren smirked. War was something she was good at, as was sarcasm, snappy comebacks, and all around ball busting.
Celestia shut up instantly. The four beasts suddenly taking on a much more sinister appearance as their origins became a little less clouded.
Lauren smirked as she glanced over her shoulder to see the ‘Princess’ visibly shrink back into her seat. She flicked a couple switches on an accessory console, bringing up a music list, and keyed up an old Terran artist, Devildriver: Before The Hangman’s Noose.
Lauren had to fight back laughter as Celestia cringed at the noise, especially since the first words of the song were, "It's- a good- day- to fucking DIE!"
The old Terran artists really knew how to put anger into their songs, and the beat often lined up quite well with the heavy thudding of 90 tons of death. She wished she could’ve been alive back then, to see those artists live.
Meanwhile, Luna was overdosing on excitement, as the thrill of Mech riding was not lost on her. Her super-hyper state was clearly a danger to those around her as she tossed her head around, trying to get a good look at every single surface of the Mech cockpit.
Alex sighed, feeling a migraine coming on. He tuned her out for the most part, staring at the forest ahead, hoping for a sign of civilization. In his frustration, he accidentally kicked a large tree, causing it to burst into splinters and topple under the Mech's massive weight.
Roughneck lance marched on. Noon passed by, and soon, evening was fast approaching. Alex guessed it had to be at least a week since they had started marching, but in reality, it was the same day, and the clock over his head read 1600. He sighed, once again shrugging off another fusillade of questions from Luna, and closed his eyes for a moment.
“What is the purpose of this button?” he heard Luna’s question, and grumbled something unintelligible in response. Opening his eyes, his stomach did a few back flips. Before he could say anything, do anything, or think anything more than: ‘OH SHIT’, Luna's hoof flicked the little red switch.
A blue ball of plasma shot forward from the Hunchback’s right shoulder, carving through trees as anything unlucky enough to be caught within a meter of the projectile suddenly burst into flames.
Luna gave a pained gasp, closing her eyes against the sudden burst of magical pressure. She fought the darkness for a few moments, but proceeded to collapse, giving Alex a much needed rest from the constant questions cascading from the dark blue alicorn's mouth.
“The FUCK was that, Alex!?” Came a startled outburst from the radio. 100 meters ahead, Lauren’s Highlander had just eaten a certain ball of energy with an armored shoulder, and a certain Mechwarrior was not at all happy about the damage.
It had been a grazing hit, not entirely melting off the armor, but the liquid metal had run down the shoulder joint, effectively limiting the arm’s range of motion, and making her gauss rifle about as useful as a torso mounted weapon.
“Sorry, civilian interference,” came the reply, half annoyed, half amused that the naive little Luna had gotten the usually stone cold Lauren so rustled up.
“Yeah, well that civilian owes me a new fucking SHOULDER!” Alex recoiled from the sheer volume of the angry woman. Swearing he could hear her even without the headset on.
Celestia nearly lost it herself. She had felt the intense magic approaching, and panicked when Nessie slumped forward and heat poured into the cramped cockpit. Honestly, Lauren was worried a bit, the horse had no protection from the heat of the Mech, and she didn’t need foreign royalty dying of a heat stroke while in her care.
Celestia was hyperventilating in the corner of the cramped cockpit, sucking ‘water’ from the hose that Lauren had offered. The liquid tasted metallic and stale, nothing like the fresh streams of Equestria.
Celestia glanced out the windshield again, noticing that the magic ball had carved a clean path through the trees and they were mere moments from exiting the forest. She sighed in relief as the four ‘Mechs’ stomped through the final row of trees, looking out on a small field with a settlement on the other side. Her blood ran cold as she saw the rest of the projectile’s path.
Ponyville.
Several houses were on fire, and a neat little charred hole was carved through the center of town hall. Celestia gulped, praying silently that nopony was injured as the four Mechs came to a halt.
-----Ponyville: 5 minutes prior-----
Twilight Sparkle was strolling down the street, the last few days had passed incredibly slowly. She had not received any correspondence from Canterlot recently aside from a notification that her brother had been hospitalized, suffering from a severe case of magic overdose.
She passed by Pinkie Pie, sighing as the fluffy mare continuously opened and shut a small mailbox, excitement and then disappointment flashing across her bedraggled features with each motion. Rainbow Dash was off at the Wonderbolts academy, closer than ever before to achieving her dream of joining the legendary flight team.
Twilight was currently on her way to see Fluttershy, she was worried about Pinkie, and thought that Fluttershy might be able to get through to the distraught pony. As she walked, the events of the previous morning were still nagging at her mind, the shooting star seemed somehow unnatural to her, and her curiosity soon had her lost in thought as she retrieved Fluttershy. The pair began their walk to Sweet Apple Acres, where their friend Applejack lived.
Twilight's musings were rudely interrupted by a sudden pressure in her head, she turned in time to watch what looked like a cross between a beach ball and a lightning bolt come flying from the edge of the Everfree Forest and slam into several houses before dissipating somewhere in the third floor of town hall.
She immediately began to panic, but the magical pressure in her head urged her to remain focused. Thinking quickly, she let out a beam of energy straight into the air to rid her body of the excess energy, and galloped toward the center of town. Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be found, and the rest of her friends were too far away to even notice. Fluttershy was clearly fighting back tears, scared to pieces of whatever had made such a destructive spell.
-----Roughneck Lance-----
The four remaining Roughnecks lined up at the edge of the forest, gazing at the small town that had nearly been decimated by Luna's little mishap with the PPC firing controls. Alex pressed his palm against his forehead, or would've, if the visor of his neurohelmet hadn't been in the way.
Luna snored lightly behind him, mumbling and giggling in her sleep. Alex was sure that, if the sounds had been made into edible food, he would've had diabetes within seconds. He turned his attention forward once again, and keyed his mic.
"Roughnecks, forward. Slowly. Reassign unit numbers, Zach, Kerry, you are now Two and Three. Lauren, you're four," he said, putting emphasis on 'slowly'.
"Roughneck 2: good copy."
"Roughneck 3: wilco."
"Roughneck 4: you got it, and sir, the Princess seems to be having a mild emotional breakdown."
Alex let out a half chuckle/sigh. He could hear the white horse in Lauren's cockpit, shouting about how dangerous that was and how Alex would be sorry for endangering her subjects like this and yada - yada - yada. Apparently she hadn't received the memo that it had been Luna that hit the shiny red button.
All four Mechs stomped forward, scanning for hostiles out of habit before coming to a halt roughly 50 meters away from the outermost buildings. A pink blur caught Alex's eye, he rotated Jessica's torso to the left to get an eye on it. What he saw made him pause for a moment.
A small animal, bright pink, with a cannon that was almost bigger than it was. It was wearing a camouflaged helmet, and he could see that it was aiming the weapon at him.
Alex winced as the cannon flashed, jerking his Mech back to the right to absorb the projectile with his left shoulder. "WHAT THE FUCK!?" He shouted, what kind of infantry attacks a Mech solo!?
After a few seconds of nothing happening, Alex opened his eyes. From his mech hung streamers, balloons, and most surprisingly, plates of cake, cookies, and other food items were balanced perfectly on the flatter surfaces of the Hunchback.
Lauren lost it, laughing hysterically through her headset before yelping as a flash of white light emanated from her cockpit windows.
Alex turned back to face his attacker, knocking half a ton of party food from his Mech. He did a double take as Celestia was suddenly in front of the pink thing, which now appeared to be like her, only without wings or a horn. Celestia appeared to be scolding the pink thing, and Alex immediately felt sorry for the little one as she shrunk away from the imposing princess.
Luna stirred behind him, looking around with the most confused face ever to exist in Equestria.
"What. . . happened?" She spoke slowly, trying to regain her bearings.
"You touched a damn button that's what, and furthermore, that button happened to be the trigger for my damn PPC!" Alex shouted, immediately feeling guilty as Luna shrunk back and hid her face behind a wing. She seemed to perk up suddenly, and another brilliant flash was issued from the Mech Lance.
Alex did a triple take this time, Luna wasn't there anymore. . . she was down with Celestia and the Pink thing!
"I don't like any of this shit, sir," came a nervous voice over the Lance Comm. Kerry was definitely on edge, and if it weren't for the two larger Mechs, he probably would've run off by now.
His brother, on the other hand, was not so laid back as to watch as the two Princesses appeared out of thin air.
"Sir, something about this is fucked. They have man operated lasers that can cleave a Mech's leg off, they can fucking TELEPORT, and we are just trusting them like this? No fucking way, not today."
"Stow it, Zach," Alex growled, "We don't know what shot that laser at us earlier, and they had plenty of opportunity to burn both Lauren and myself while they were in here with us. Knock it off and stay focused."
"With all due respect, sir," Zach sneered back, "What in the fuck COULD have shot that laser earlier? If it was some other wild animal or something, I'm not fucking buying it. They are just waiting to slaughter us until we're outside our Mechs."
Zach's Cougar stomped forward a few meters, getting a clear line of sight on the Princesses.
"Get back in formation Roughneck 2. At least wait until we've talked to them. I seriously doubt that they could take a Mech lance, just wait until we can talk with them a little more, then we'll make a decision." Alex growled, putting his own Mech between the scout and the Princesses.
Kerry was stunned. He knew that his brother was a hard headed fool sometimes, but even he wasn't stupid enough to go against Alex. He already knew that Lauren would step in on Alex's side, she had always had a thing for Zach, even though she would never admit it out loud. That attraction would never get in the way of her duty to the Widowmakers and Roughneck Lance though.
Kerry opened a private comm. channel to his brother, "Zach, what the fuck are you doing?" He hissed, "Even the two of us couldn't take both Alex and Lauren on their worst day! Get your shit straight and power down now! I won't fight you, but I am not about to take a Gauss round for your dumb ass right now!"
"Fine then," Zach growled.
The comm. went dead before Kerry could reply, for a moment he tensed up, fingers hovering over the triggers of his lasers. The Cougar crouched low, entering a hot shutdown. The cockpit hatch popped open, and his brother climbed up on top of his Mech with his own Thunderstroke rifle.
Alex glanced back at the Princesses, both of whom were eyeing the new Mechwarrior cautiously. He noticed the pink pony had disappeared. Confused, he glanced around the clearing, before catching a pink blur rocket up the back of Zach's Cougar.
