And there the chrome, black spider-like tank sat in the foggy, wet sewer hallway. 3/4ths of its body under the green, goopy liquid. Its visor a dull red barely glowing from beneath the water. A can was slowly making its way down the sewer system, scraping at the tank.
(System restoration sequence enabled. Rebooting memory banks and restoring armor.)
A few minutes had passed until the machine had turned itself back on. Its visor glowing a more brighter, vermilion colour. The machine's 5 legs had fidgeted around until it regained its balance. There it was. Standing in a river of greenish yellow liquid sloshing up and down its black scythe-like legs. It turned around and began to walk against the current.
It walked down the hall until it saw a white unicorn floating atop the water. The machine had took its front two legs and wrapped them around the mare, attempting to pick her up, much to no avail. It slowly retracted the mare back into the water, afraid if it were any more rough at attempting the act, it might cut her. The machine had took its right foreleg and opened the mare's eyes, making sure to use the side of its leg to insure she didn't get cut any.
"S-Sis? Sis wake up!" The machine began to beg for her sister. It was no use. Her azure eyes were rolled into the back of her head. The machine looked around, seeing all of the other ponies' in a similar disposition. She checked one by one, all of the mares had their eyes at the back over their heads too. "Somepony please wake up!" Sweetie Belle shouted,doubting there would be a response. And just then, her sister, Rarity, had begun to levitate out of the water.
"Hello Sweetie Belle!" said her 'sister' in a falsetto. As she spoke she was shaking around like a rag doll, shifting to the left and right. Her head bobbing back and forth from side to side. "So.uhh.. What's up?" she was stammering around saying.
"You aren't my sister!" Sweetie Belle had interjected her manly voiced sister. "Who are you! Show yourself!" The top of her torso had two plates, much like a door, that had slid apart to reveal a cannon. She began to aim around looking for the creature causing this to happen.
"My, my, my. You're no fun now are you?" Said a voice coming from above Rarity's levitating body. Lo and behold. It was Discord.
"Let my sister go!" said Sweetie Belle, in angry, metallic voice attempting to not sound at all cute.
"If you insist." Discord had dropped Rarity into the water with a loud splash.
"Now leave my friends alone!"
"If only it was that simple." Discord began. "Everypony nowadays always thinks everything can be solved by talking of this and that. That and this. This and that. Ugh It makes me sick. All that 'friendship' hooha and crap, all of that 'We can find a way to agree on everything'. Its all bullcrap. Everyone knows the only true way to settle on something is by a fight."
"Well if its fight you want, its a fight you'll get!" Sweetie Belle began to charge her plasma cannon.
"Well alrighty then. Just don't expect me to play fair!" Discord waved his index claw and winked.
Sweetie Belle fired her cannon at the chimera. Just as it hit him, he disappeared a puff of gray smoke. The 5 ponies that had been passed out, floating on top of the water began to levitate in midair.
"Join us." They all said in unison, slowly floating towards the black machine. "Join us." they said again. They kept
coming closer and closer and closer.
Sweetie Belle refused to hurt her friends. She looked above them and saw faint strings attached to all of them. She took a shot of faith and fired a full force shot at the general vicinity of where the strings were.
"Agh! Good shot, kid." Discord said, becoming visible. He had a few pairs of horizontal control bars levitating around him, controlling the 5 ponies. Sweetie Belle shot every single one of them down one by one. Discord growled at her and disappeared again. Sweetie Belle now had no idea where Discord had went.
"Boo~!" Discord had teleported right behind Sweetie Belle. In shock, the machine had fired her cannon right at the wall, making her have to charge for another blast. Discord had picked her up off of the ground and threw her at the wall. The harsh landing had made her shields overload. She had had an electricity discharge right there and then. Electricity pulsating through out the entire sewer. The electricity had went through everyone in the water at the time. That being, the 5 unconcious ponies and Discord.
"No!" Sweetie Belle ran towards her friends. Discord had been holding his paw to his chest, groaning in pain. Right then
Sweetie Belle aimed her cannon right at Discord's chest, charged, and fired.
"Agh!" Discord's fur and skin began to phase out of existence, leaving a static-like frame of what his body was. There was one single, red orb where his heart should have been. It had veins connecting to where his legs, arms, head, and wings were. Sweetie Belle leaped on top of the heart and began to claw at it with all 5 dagger-like legs.
*Shhk Shhk Shhk*
Blood began to overflow from the orb heart. Discord began to phase back into existence. "Heh. I guess you won fair and
square. Well, here you go then." Discord snapped his fingers and the ponies began to regain consciousness. "Arrivederci." Discord faded out of existence in a puff of gray smoke again. Sweetie Belle had done one last look around the sewer to make sure he wasn't going to ambush her again. Sweetie Belle ran up to her friends as fast as her sharp, little legs could go.
"Are you all alright?" Sweetie Belle began to shake her sister awake gently, making sure not to cut her.
"Yeah.. I think I am." Rarity begun.
"Ugh, Where am I?" Twilight pondered aloud.
"Are you sure you're all alright?" Sweetie Belle was self conscious and worried that she had hurt one of them during her electric discharge. The ponies nodded. There was awkward silence.
"Well.. I guess we should get going, right?" Twilight begun. She had lost the map from earlier, but it barely mattered seeing as it was just one long hallway from here on out. The ponies kept silent for a long while until Applebloom broke the silence.
"So... Did anypony else have a weird dream?"
The ponies' had not said a thing back to her. Mostly due to the dreams being a bit too personal to disclose to each other.
It was a long, awkward trip the entire way.
"Well here we are.." Twilight began, looking up the ladder that led up into wherever Applejack was. She hesitated for a moment before climbing up the ladder. The other ponies' followed closely. Twilight peaked her head out of the manehole to see a large corn farm surrounded in a dome. Like most alien structures, the walls were all a dark black colour. There were no windows or any other way to see the outside world from within.The dome's interior had artificial sunlight via giant light fixtures on the ceiling to keep the crops alive. There were small, but still recognizable pipes sticking out of the ceiling, most likely to water the plants. There were plenty of Earth ponies all walking around the place, surveying the crops to make sure they were all growing properly. The ponies began to search for Applejack.
"Hello-" Twilight attempted to ask one of the Earth ponies. The white mare just stared at her as if she was frightened. "H-Have you seen an orange pony with a yellow mane around these parts? Goes by Applejack?" The pony just stared at her.
"Ma'am we aren't to disclose information to the public." She began. "He's watching us."
"Who's watching us?"
"Him."
"Who's 'Him'?"
"Ma'am please leave me alone before I report you."
Twilight and company just walked away slowly, not making eye contact to the white mare. The ponies had searched high and low for Applejack. They hid in the bushes of the crops in order to not be seen by any security cameras.
"Now, ya'll get growin' don't ya hear?" The ponies could hear Applejack far in the distance, presumably talking to the crops, since crops were known to grow better when somepony talked to them.
"Applejack!" Applebloom began to get ecstatic, and attempted to run towards her sister. But Twilight and Photo Finish grabbed her, making sure she didn't get them caught like last time.
"Psst! Applejack!" Twilight attempted to call for her loud enough for her to hear, but soft enough for nopony else to hear.
"Huh? Who's there?" Applejack began to look around for whoever called her. She looked into the nearby corn stalks and saw 6 ponies huddled together in between the corn. "Oh my." Applejack came closer to and began to speak to them. "Ya'll came to rescue me?"
"Well of course, AJ. We couldn't destroy all the fragments by ourselves." Twilight began.
"Ya'll still actually got hope for Equestria at this point?" She questioned her long lost friend.
"Well, yeah. We still have 6 days left. If we hurry we can do it. I know we can." Twilight was hopeful.
"Well, Ah guess it don't hurt to try. Where's Rainbow and Pinkie Pie at?"
"Lets just say, Pinkie is, for the most part, dead. And Rainbow Dash is a leader of a cult working for the aliens."
"Gonna take it they ain't too well. How'd ya'll know where Ah was?"
"Fluttershy told us."
"Ah."
"Now do you want to get out of here or what?" Twilight became a bit impatient.
"Wait." Applejack looked back and forth rapidly. "He's comin'!"
"Who's co-" Twilight was interrupted by Photo Finish shoving her hoof in her mouth in order to shut her up. The 6 ponies
all backed into the crops to hopefully remain undetected. Applejack went back to growing plants. There was a big, muscular alien walking down the path, making sure everypony was doing their job. He was completely black with white, glowing lines through out his body with glowing, white, flaming eyes. He looked like he could pick up an entire car with relative ease.
"Number AE323. You're doing a good job Number AE323!" He said to Applejack, in a very dumb manner. Applejack took a quick look at the 6 ponies hiding in the crops and winked. She then bucked the guard inside the area with the corn stalks that the ponies were hiding in. Out from the ground, roots came and grasped at all of his limbs, and one for his mouth making him unable to call for help.
"Now! Somepony finish him off!" yelled Applejack, but not loud enough for any other guards to hear. Photo Finish then pulled out both of her katanas and stabbed him in both of his eyes. He attempted to scream in pain, but couldn't due to the vine covering his mouth. After a moment he stopped struggling. He died.
"Woah, AJ. When'd you learn how to do that?" Twilight asked the farmer pony.
"The same way the rest of us here do it. They give us a potion. Then we're forced to grow crops for them."
"But I thought magic other than Cutie Marks didn't work anymore?"
"Nah. The aliens have a different kind of magic. All alien officials, and some servants like us, are given a special magic that surpasses anything the Fragments could do. And since Ah'm a farmer pony, they gave me, along with every other Earth pony here, the ability to use chloromancy.Ah can use plant magics."
"Applejack?" Rarity begun. "Why do they have you making corn for them? Do aliens eat corn?"
"Well why do you think crop circles happen?"