//------------------------------// // Counter-Strike // Story: Technicalities // by BionicBrony //------------------------------// “They’re doing what?!” Celestia blurted at the monitor.         The masked face displayed on it nodded once. “You heard me. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack have joined Xan in a militarized campaign against Chrysalis. He’s assembled a large vehicular convoy, and he’s also bringing one of his new fire-breathing abominations as well.”         “That’s just fantastic…” Chrysalis’ disembodied voice grumbled.         Celestia rubbed a hoof against her head in an attempt to nurse her growing headache. “This… this is getting out of control.” She dropped her hoof and shook her head. “I’m going to go stop them. I’m going to make Twilight and her friends see reason, and—”         “You will do no such thing,” the Overseer interrupted.         The princess blinked at the screen. “What…? Overseer, you can’t be serious. I can understand that you’re forcing Alexander away from Ponyville by using the Appleoosans and a threat to Equestria as an incentive, but allowing half of the bearers of the elements of harmony to go with him? This doesn’t make any sense.”         “Under normal circumstances, I’d agree with you,” the Overseer replied with a nod. “However, the circumstances have changed. Xan is traveling inside of a large, heavily armored vehicle which I believe to be a mobile assault base. If I’m correct, it looks like it possesses enough firepower to level Manehatten; something which should be a concern to you. But I digress. The changelings do not have any means to penetrate that vehicle, and my plan to rid the universe of that monster will not be successful if he remains inside it. I believe Chrysalis might be able to use the ponies as leverage to draw him out.”         “So I’m supposed to take the ponies hostage and let you execute your plan?” asked Chrysalis.         The Overseer shook his head. “No. You are to coax Xan out and eliminate him yourself by any means necessary. I don’t care how you do it so long as it’s done. Using the ponies to do that is merely a suggestion. I will intervene if and only if you should fail. This will be your final chance.” His masked face angled downward as he growled out his next sentence: “For your own sake, do not let it come to that.”         “I still fail to see why Alexander is such a threat to Equestria,” Celestia blurted. “Everything that he has done is completely understandable, given his means. I might even say his actions are heroic, in some sense. Equestria is threatened, her citizens endangered, and he is responding to it while the royal guard are forced to sit idly by. The cycles are threatened, to be sure, but perhaps it’s time they came to an end, don’t you think?”         “The cycles will end when I deem they are no longer necessary,” the Overseer retorted, raising his voice. “That time is not now. And Xan is not just a threat to Equestria; he is a threat to every living thing on this planet and beyond. He is a monster and a tyrant whose very existence threatens all life, known and unknown.         “Listen to me very carefully. He isn’t going after the changelings because he wants to save the Appleoosans. He wants a deathmatch; A bloodbath; Extermination. The Appleoosans are just a convenient excuse, and he’ll keep the ponies alive as long as it keeps his cover intact. The changelings are just the beginning. At some point, he won’t bother with excuses, and Equestria itself will be his next target.”         “You constantly throw all these accusations at him, yet I don’t see why I should believe any of them!” Celestia argued, taking a step closer to the screen. “Given what we know, either of our arguments could stand as the truth.”         “Perhaps it’s because you believe him to be the secret to ending the cycles?” the Overseer proposed, causing Celestia’s frown to evaporate on the spot. Even Chrysalis grew deathly silent on her end. The Overseer continued: “Mark my words, Princess Celestia and Queen Chrysalis. Let’s say this was the last cycle and I entertained the notion of letting him go free: there would eventually come a time where he would stare you down. He would smile at you—if he didn’t already fully turn himself into a machine by then—and even welcome you in his arms. He would whisper these exact words into your ear: ‘Flesh is a design flaw.’         “And then he would kill you.”         The swishing of fan blades and rush of Tarydium rockets of a low-flying Cicada drew Applejack’s eyes skyward just in time to see the aircraft zoom overhead to go… wherever it was supposed to go. At the back of her mind she was aware that there was some reason for each Liandri’s actions; some method to their madness. But on the front of it they all seemed disorganized and chaotic, and it was only coincidence that none of them bumped or crashed into each other—or that they even managed to accomplish anything together at all.         But as Twilight explained—on more than one occasion—it was only the appearance of chaos. Behind them was an organizational structure so complicated that randomness and chaos was the only interpretation that could make any sense to outsiders. That, in reality, the Liandri were more organized as a collective than even she could ever be on her own. Something like that coming from Twilight definitely wasn’t said lightly. But while all that seemed well and good as an idea, Applejack prefered to measure order by how many ducks were in a row.         And these ducks definitely weren’t in any rows that she could see.         The Liandri convoy drove through the night, not bothering to stop for anything; not even bathroom breaks. When that became an problem, Alex simply told them to do their business somewhere by the side of the road and run to catch up. Nopony was a fan of the idea, but when nature called, it wouldn’t be ignored, and it wasn’t like there were any toilets nearby. Thankfully, Rose remembered that ponies had to do their business, and the armor opened up in the right spots. As for the catching up part, the armor managed to pleasantly surprise everypony yet again. Applejack was aware she was able to get some decent speed on her own, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t able to run as fast as that before.         Getting some shuteye in the back of a moving Hellbender wasn’t the easiest task, either. Even with the vehicle’s suspension, her armor’s cushioning, and Evie’s willingness to block outside sound and light while she slept, the rough terrain made decent sleep a near impossibility. Not to mention the fresh memories of everything that happened to Guy earlier that day. In the end, it took one of Twilight’s spells for AJ to finally get some rest.         When she finally awoke, the sun had already been up for at least an hour and the convoy had just entered the badlands. Dead and dying vegetation surrounded them, struggling to survive in the pale, dry soil and rocky environment. Not a single weather team had brought rain here in a long time, if ever. A number of trees stood out, though each one was dead, twisted, and jet black. They didn’t seem burnt, though. It was as if they had been going just fine for a while, until they had the life forcefully sucked out of them, leaving them frozen in time. The Leviathan still led the pack of vehicles behind it, chugging along at a decent pace while crushing much of the terrain beneath its massive wheels. The convoy had widened itself out, bringing some of the vehicles from the back closer to the middle. Overhead, Raptors and Cicadas zipped around at varying altitudes in wide arcs that extended well beyond the ground-bound vehicles, covering at least ten times the area, if not more. Applejack observed them for several minutes, trying to figure out their flight pattern, though to no avail.         Off in the distance was a mountain range, with one mountain standing out among them. Not just in the sense that it was the largest, but also because she recognized it as the hologram from the drawing room. The changeling hive… Applejack thought. Despite knowing what it was she was looking at, the sight appeared oddly peaceful. For an evil changeling hive, somepony would think there would be dark, ominous clouds hovering around it, spitting lightning every time Crysalis cackled to the thoughts of her plans from deep inside her mountain fortress. And yet not a single changeling could be seen, nor were there any clouds. All things considered, it was a perfectly beautiful day.         And all Tartarus was probably gonna break loose real soon. A knot formed in Applejack’s gut. “Somepony please tell me I ain’t the only one gettin’ nervous about this?”         “You’re the only one,” Rainbow Dash’s voice snarked through her earpiece, a small picture of her cutie mark appearing along the left side of Applejack’s HUD as she spoke. The pegasus wasn’t in the truck, but rather doing her own rounds among the aircraft, and even flying beyond to satisfy her own curiosity of the region.         Twilight, who sat beside AJ and who had also heard the communication, rolled her eyes and sighed. “No, Applejack, you’re not. I’ve been feeling nervous about it since yesterday.”         “Why are you guys so nervous?” Dash asked over the radio. “They’re just changelings! Plus, we have this wicked armor that Rose gave us! There’s no way we’re not going to kick some serious flank!”         “Armor or not, they’re still going to try to kill you,” came Alex’s voice, accompanied by a small picture of a wrench overlaid atop a hexagonal grid. “Just keep your eyes open and stay focused. Hyde and I are running logistics, so we’ll tell you where to go and what to do. Follow your waypoints and complete your objectives. If a behemoth spots you, I don’t care what you’re doing, you turn your ass around and run. Let the heavy weapons deal with them. We do this right and we’ll be back home before dinner. Got it?”         “Got it,” Twilight nodded.         “Alright…” said Dash, some measure of annoyance in her voice.         Applejack let out a short huff before nodding. “Alright, Ah got it.”         “Good,” said Alex. “Just keep your cool and everything will go smoother than melted butter.”         As time went on, the convoy gradually approached the mountain. Despite all the Liandri activity around her, Applejack scanned as much of the landscape as she could in an attempt to spot any changelings hiding from view that the machines somehow didn’t see. The ride proved uneventful, until a Nova’s robotic voice came through the radio: “Enemy spotted.” A red reticle suddenly appeared on AJ’s HUD, pointing somewhere far to the right of the convoy. She only managed to turn her head in time to see a Raptor fire off several bolts of plasma at something on the ground, whereupon the floating reticle suddenly disappeared.         “Whoa, what the hay was that?” asked Dash voice.         “A Raptor spotted a drone,” Hyde’s gravelly voice replied. His picture on AJ’s HUD was that of a horned skull. “Probably a scout trying to get a closer look. They definitely know we’re here, but we’re still five minutes away from our deployment zone, so stay focused.”         The knot in AJ’s gut tightened further. She didn’t consider herself yellow-bellied—at all—but there was a big difference between putting on your hat and defending your friends and family against all odds, and going on a suicide mission to attack the big fortress home of the very things that mean you harm. Applejack hadn’t seen a single changeling since they left Ponyville, but now that that first one showed up, the idea that she was actually about to risk her own life suddenly became much, much more real.         “You alright, Pipsqueak?” Hyde’s voice rumbled into her ear. “Your heart rate’s spiking. You’re not gonna have a heart attack before we get to the fun part, are you?” Applejack’s eye twitched and she snapped her head to glare at Hyde, lounging in the Hellbender across the way while staring right back at her. “That’d be a pretty pathetic thing to tell your family when we got back: that you got so scared you died before the fighting even started.”         “Ah ain’t scared,” AJ growled, narrowing her eyes.         “Prove it to me, Pipsqueak,” Hyde’s voice growled back as he leaned towards her.         Applejack huffed and twisted her head back towards the mountain. I ain’t gonna let that bully tell my family anything like that.         Time rolled on, as did the wheels of the vehicles. The mountain drew closer and closer by the second. “Three minutes out,” Alex announced over the radio. Twilight stood up on her hind legs to look around, propping herself on the cabin of the Hellbender. “I’m not seeing any more changelings. Are you sure this is the right place?” “It’s the best information we have,” Alex responded, just as Rainbow Dash swooped around the truck and gently landed next to them, the glow around her wings evaporating as her hooves touched down. “If this isn’t the right place, I don’t know what is.” “But we’re clearly trespassing on their territory…” said Twilight, her brow creasing. “We even caught a drone trying to spy on us. Why hasn’t anything happened yet?” “Think it’s a trap?” asked Applejack. “It might be,” Alex replied. “But they did suffer massive losses yesterday. I’d be surprised if Chrysalis still had any changelings left to mount a decent defense.” Rainbow Dash snorted and crossed her forelegs. “So she’s hiding. What, she just thinks we’ll leave her alone and let her keep all those ponies if she just lays low for a little bit? Fat chance.” Applejack sneered under her helmet. “Chrysalis ain’t gonna keep her hooves on my family any longer than Ah’m gonna let her.” “Two minutes to deployment,” came Hyde’s voice. “Marking the DZ.” Far ahead of the convoy, a large, downward green arrow appeared on top of a small elevation in the terrain, catching everypony’s attention. “Whoa, how’d that get there?” asked Dash. “If you’ve got a Heads Up Display, you’ve got augmented reality,” Alex answered. “Only we can see that spot. Take the helmet off and that waypoint disappears.” The radio remained silent, and everypony counted down the seconds over the drone of the various engines and aircraft. Nothing was happening, yet their hearts increased their tempo. The convoy was reaching the end of the road, so where were all the changelings? Are they hiding? Did they pack up and leave? Are they preparing an ambush? Any one of these could have been the answer, and yet none of them had any idea which it actually was. “Sixty seconds,” Hyde announced. Twilight sucked in a breath. Less than a minute until they officially arrived, and yet it was still so quiet. Maybe there wouldn’t be any fighting after all? Maybe the changelings were just waiting for them to stop so they could peacefully bring all the Appleoosans out? Maybe— “Enemy spotted,” the voice of a Nova interrupted her thoughts. A red reticle appeared on Twilight’s HUD, followed by several dozen others all around the mountain until something made the decision that the floating red symbols obscured too much of her vision and removed them altogether. What was left behind really wasn’t much better, though. Clouds of black dots seeped from the pores and crevices of the mountain, swirling in a misty formation that suggested unreal organization. A giant shadow covered the side of the mountain as the once empty skies became filled to the brim with a massive collection of individuals. Rainbow Dash gulped. “Okay, that’s… That’s a lot of them…” “How the fuck…? Fuck it,” Alex muttered. “Looks like they’re rolling out the welcome mat. You’re up, Hyde. Light ‘em the fuck up.” “You got it, Commander,” Hyde answered. In response to wordless commands, the wild flock of aircraft overhead snapped into formation. Each and every one pointed toward the sea of changelings. Novas who had curled themselves up in the beds of the Hellbenders began to unfold, falling out of the backs of the trucks as the vehicles maintained their speed, only to launch forward and sprint ahead of their transport. As the Hellbenders cleared up their cargo, they slowed down to fall beside the centerline of the convoy, where a pair of Hellbenders were hauling a single large bed with a huge cylindrical structure tied down to it. Just behind that, another pair of trucks were hauling another large collection of equipment. Some Novas didn’t abandon their vehicles, and instead aimed rifles from where they were. Four turrets adorned the upper deck of the Leviathan, held up by large mechanical arms that folded away from the vehicle. Each one pointed itself forward at the forming cloud of changelings and unleashed Tartarus, sending lightning fast bolts of plasma into the sky at a blurring pace. The Leviathan’s main gun soon joined in, repeatedly blasting off what anypony could only perceive as some kind of glowing blue projectile. It didn’t fire as quickly as the turrets, but it definitely wasn’t slow, either. Twilight stared as the Leviathan drove steadfast towards the writhing mass of changelings, its multitude of weapons ablaze with technological fury. Even as the changelings began to disperse, every single one of her instincts screamed at her to be as far away from this mess as possible. The fact that the Leviathan, despite its gargantuan size and raw firepower, continued to charge towards almost certain doom made Twilight’s heart pound even harder. None of what she was witnessing was even remotely sane. This whole endeavor of attacking the changeling hive directly was completely ludicrous! So this finally proves it, Twilight mused. Humans. Are. Insane. “Enabling magic amplifier,” Evie’s voice suddenly announced, stealing her attention. Beside her, joints in Applejack’s armor began to house a light, violet glow. On Rainbow Dash, the edges of the armor covering her wings glowed, and a bright green, lightning charged blade formed along them. “Oh whoa ho!” Rainbow chuckled, stretching her wings out to admire the new effect. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Bring it!” Almost immediately, the pegasus rocketed straight up into the air. And Rainbow Dash too, apparently… Twilight concluded her thought. “Thirty seconds!” Alex called out. “You have a new objective,” Evie’s voice told Twilight. On her HUD, the image of a blue shield flashed in front of Twilight’s eyes before quickly zooming to the side and hovering over the large structure being hauled on the center of the convoy. “Defend the communications tower at all costs,” the VI finished. At the same time, the changeling swarm set its course directly for them. Here we go… Twilight’s throat seemed painfully dry. Years of built up instinct flowed into action, pouring magic into Twilight’s horn to cast a spell… Only for the usual tingle to somehow not follow. In fact, no feeling followed at all. She was channeling magic, right? Why couldn’t she feel it? She blinked repeatedly at her forehead as the confusion set in. Uh… what…? “Twenty seconds!” The Liandri on the ground drew their weapons and aimed skyward. Some had stopped to secure their position, and their aim was true, though most continued to sprint forward. While their accuracy wasn’t on par with the rest, all they really needed was a general direction to shoot in. Overhead, the Cicadas and some of their Raptor escorts pitched upward, allowing the air-supports’ ventral turrets to fire on the incoming swarm. The Raptors that hadn’t decided to gain altitude focused their fire forward. Ionised plasma scorched the airspace between the convoy and the mountain, making flight without getting singed a near impossibility. “Ten seconds!” Despite their efforts to spread out and flank around the convoy from the air, the gunfire followed and led into their path, forcing the airborne insectoids to the ground to take cover around the uneven, rocky terrain. As porous hooves touched ground, earth shaking roars rose up. A pair of bright red exclamation marks appeared on the ponies HUDs, one to the left, and another to the right. “Behemoths at eleven and two o’clock,” Hyde announced. To the right of the convoy, Twilight spotted movement beneath one of the exclamation marks. A large boulder in the landscape shifted and came to life. Rocky legs folded out and smashed into the ground, kicking up dust as claws dug into the dirt. The titanic, living crag raised itself from its resting place and turned its unseemly visage towards the convoy, setting its soulless eyes on its prey while unhinging its toothy maw to release a powerful roar that sent shivers running up their spines. “Uh, what are we gonna do about that?” Applejack asked, her heart rate suddenly spiking again. “Simple,” Alex answered, just as the Leviathan came upon the large marked waypoint at the top of a small hill. For the first time since they left, the Leviathan’s breaks hissed and squealed to slow the massive vehicle to a crawl before finally stopping it altogether. “We kill it.” At Alex’s words, the Leviathan’s gun ceased firing and spun to face the rear. To make more room, the gun moved down a rail and slid forward and down until it covered the front of the pilot’s compartment. At the same time, metal panels on the side of the vehicle that sported ladders were also proved to be supported by a moving mechanism, as they folded out and planted themselves into the ground, shuddering the entire vehicle. At the front, large metal shields that rested above the wheels slid forward and entrenched themselves into the dirt. As all this happened, the device that formed the spine of the vehicle popped up and pushed out. In an awesome display of mechanized power, the whole object, easily two thirds the length of the entire Leviathan, was raised up and flipped over, such that the end that was facing the back was now facing the front. The giant device folded open, separating large metal plates from each other to expose the inner workings of the super tank’s main weapon. Electric arcs cackled from within, and at the rear of the cannon, large capacitors glowed yellow with raw energy. Bestial roars sounded as the behemoths launched into their charge, tearing across the rocky terrain, drones struggling to keep up while simultaneously trying to hide behind it for cover. Picking a target, the Leviathan’s cannon whirred to face the behemoth in Twilight’s sights. A thin, red beam appeared out of the end of the gun, which gradually grew thicker over the course of several seconds. In those seconds, a brilliant corona built up within the cannon. No magic was involved, yet Twilight didn’t need to sense any to drown in the pure, raw, unbridled energy radiating from the Leviathan’s cannon. Before she could blink, the inner light spilled out, forming a static rose bud of plasma. She didn’t need to be told it blooming would bring pain and death. Alex’s words came over the radio. “Suck on this.” In an instant, all the power in the Leviathan’s cannon discharged, kicking its entire ten meter length back while sending a blinding ball of light flying over the terrain at lightning speeds. Before anypony could realize it, the projectile connected with the charging behemoth’s head, and for a brief moment, a second sun had formed. It started with a blinding flash of light, instantly followed up by a massive shockwave that tore the unsuspecting creature and the surrounding landscape to gory shreds. Its entire body flipped back while being simultaneously annihilated, resulting in only the bloodied, charred remains of its hind legs and whatever un-vaporized vertebrae that still remained sticking out. “Whoa!” Rainbow Dash shouted over the radio. “Did you guys see that!? That was awesome! That was… Oh wow, that’s… that’s nasty, that’s… ugh… I’m-I’m gonna look away now…” With one exclamation mark removed from their HUD, the Leviathan’s ion cannon whirred around again to face the other stampeding monstrosity, whose tunnel vision had not allowed it to witness the complete pulverization of its sibling. Power flowed into the weapon once more, making the air around the vehicle hum with barely restrained energy. That energy was released as suddenly as the first time, directed somewhere the ground-bound ponies could not see. All they witnessed was a flash of light from somewhere on the other side of the Leviathan, the sound of the deafening blast that followed, and the removal of the second exclamation mark from their vision. “Hot shit, that was easy,” said Alex. “Didn’t stand a fucking chance. Still, those things were a little too close for my taste. What can you tell me, Hyde?” Hyde’s voice was the next to play out over the radio. “These ones were smaller than the Ponyville Behemoth, but still big enough to be a problem. Short tusks; rock-like armor that gives them natural camouflage and probably protection. Didn’t pick up any heat signature, but if they’re like the other changelings, then they’re not cold-blooded. Air support didn’t spot them until they started moving, so that armor probably provides thermal insulation. My conclusion: keep an eye out for weird looking boulders.” That’s not bad advice… Twilight thought. It’s just a shame there’s boulders everywhere around here! Now that the convoy had finally come to a halt, Liandri bots spread out and established a perimeter. The Hellbenders hauling the large, cylindrical structure stopped behind the Leviathan, and a pair of Cicadas hovered over the end. Novas scaled the object with ease and attached cables to the underside of the aircraft, who then pulled up to raise the communications tower onto its end. Large struts folded out from the tower’s base and planted themselves into the ground, with nearby Axons already in position ensuring its stability. Further up, the cylindrical shape disappeared as the twenty meter tall tower transformed itself. Large mechanical arms extended outward in all directions, before they came apart and metal fans rotated around them to form even bigger satellite dishes that twitched and scanned the air for a signal. A handful of Raptors surrounded the deployed tower, circling the structure with their weapons poised outward. “Establishing connection to primary facility…” Evie announced. “Connection established.” Almost as soon as Evie said those words, an image of a waveform appeared before the ponies’ eyes in the corner of their HUD, moving to the sound of Rose’s voice. “Hello, girls. I trust the trip wasn’t too unpleasant?” “Can’t complain...” Applejack muttered as Twilight hopped off their truck and finally set foot on solid ground. “Although Ah do have one question… Just what the hay kind of machine is Alex drivin’?!” “Ah, so Alex used the ion cannon,” Rose replied. “It’s something we designed before our arrival in Equestria for use in a low-orbit satellite. We theorized it would be just as, if not more effective at shorter ranges, though a weapon of that size would require a large platform to use. The Leviathan is the result.” “Why would you guys even make such a thing?” asked Twilight, her eyes trailing up towards the massive weapon as it scanned the battlefield for more big targets. “Alex always said he hated humans’ violent tendencies, so why does this kind of thing even exist in the first place?” “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you,” said Rose. “You’ll have to ask him that. All I can tell you is that the Leviathan design was only partially complete when we arrived. Alex finished it a few months ago for the sake of completeness.” “Well it definitely came in handy,” said Rainbow Dash, circling high above the communications tower. “Those bigs dudes looked a little too tough for anything else.” As they conversed, the Axons busied themselves by unloading the second cargo train. Several circular platforms just large enough to comfortably host a single individual above it were carried off and placed next to the comms tower, where a sturdy power cable was then connected to each. A bright blue light appeared in the center of each platform, and mechanical arms unfolded about the periphery as an energetic hum signaled their activation. No sooner than the platforms were activated than did they begin to perform their duty. The arms began to spin around in opposing directions where, in the center, a ghost of a Nova appeared. It took only ten seconds for the image to gradually become material, and in a bright blue flash, a new Liandri had been deployed to the field. “Alright, infantry portals are up,” Alex announced. “Vehicle portals still need to be assembled, but for the time being, we’ve got reinforcements coming in. Scouting drones are ready to deploy, but we need a distraction to keep attention away from them.”         Above them, Rainbow Dash clapped her armored hooves together as she rocketed down the centerline of the Liandri foothold. “One distraction, coming right up!”         Angling her wings, Dash banked hard right, speeding past other aircraft as she then hooked around to the left in a wide arc, aiming for the center of the battlefield. Instead of slowing down, she sped up, generating a brief chromatic shockwave to proclaim her arrival. Only then did she apply the brakes, though she continued to come in with enough speed to slam into the ground at a sharp angle that dug up a small trench and a large cloud of dirt and dust.         Her momentum didn’t stop, and Rainbow Dash pirouetted sideways out of her dust cloud and landed solidly on all four hooves in the middle of a group of changelings. A grin split her face. “Aw yeah! Bring it on!”         Her wings shot out and, a heartbeat later, Dash launched forward and socked the first changeling in her path with a bone crunching right hook. As the insectoid spun away, Dash changed course and aimed for a larger group. Green plasma that formed the edge of a blade along her wings sliced effortlessly through her targets, barely slowing her down. The intense heat produced by the ionized particles instantly cauterized any wounds they made, although that did little to help the victims whose bodies were mutilated beyond any form of survival. Angling her wings in opposite directions, she spun herself into a tight corkscrew. Streams of plasma leaked from the ends of her wings, spraying outward into a searing cone with the pegasus acting as the tip. The changelings caught in onslaught shrieked and fled as their wings burned and their chitin boiled.         Dash soon righted herself and skidded to a halt. She looked over her shoulder with a grin—a grin that vanished almost as soon as she became aware of the screams. Changelings or not, their suffering screams resonated through her very being, shaking her core.         Without warning, an alert flashed across Dash’s HUD, and her mind barely had time to register it before her armor reacted for her, quickly shifting Rainbow to the side just in time to see a scythe-like claw graze her head from behind. “Whoa!”         When Dash had regained her footing, her attacker had as well, and they stared each other down. It was a changeling alright, and just as large as any other pony, but this one stood on two well pronounced digitigrade legs, and possessed what could arguably be defined as arms. However, on the ends of those arms were not hands, or even hooves, but a single large, curved, and pointed bone protrusion. The rest of its body still looked like any other unarmored drone, though its head was smaller, its muzzle longer, teeth longer and pointier, and face… angrier…         “Well you don’t seem too happy,” Dash muttered.         The changeling shrieked in response, though it came out more as a loud hiss. Without warning, the creature instantly disintegrated into an inky black cloud that vaguely resembled its original form and rushed Rainbow Dash’s position. The changeling moved with such speed that the armor reacted in her stead for a second time, swerving to the left when the creature rematerialized with its right claw thrust straight out where her head used to be.         This time, her mind acted on autopilot as her body swung to left hook the changeling in the side, sending it spinning. When she had fully regained her senses, Rainbow Dash shot into the air, intending to smash the changeling straight into the ground. However, the changeling followed by fading into darkness once more and soaring up to meet her.         The black cloud reached Rainbow in almost no time at all and the changeling blinked back into existence just in time to swipe at her with a claw. Dash dodged the first swipe, then the second, and returned with a flurry of her own which were either avoided or blocked in turn. After swinging too wide on one swing, Rainbow Dash opened herself to her opponent, who seized on the opportunity. With buzzing wings, the changeling grappled onto Dash and allowed gravity to help it in its efforts to bring them both to the ground.         In a mad struggle, Dash managed to free her hooves and repeatedly punched at the changeling, though it refused to let go in their downward spiral. Come on! I gotta reverse this! I gotta—         The changeling suddenly blinked away. A split second later, Rainbow Dash’s back slammed into the rocky ground. Despite the armor, pain arced across the pegasus’ back, coaxing out a throaty howl. Alarms sounded in Dash’s ear and flashed across her HUD, warning of the damage her armor sustained in the fall. She barely had time to wallow in her aches before the changeling instantly flashed above her once more. The changeling hissed, spraying spittle across her helmet as it brought up both of its huge, sharpened claws, poising itself for the final blow.         Rainbow Dash could only watch with wide, open eyes at what happened next. To her, the next moment passed by in slow motion, drizzled with a measure of disbelief. The fight couldn’t end this quickly and this suddenly. Was this really how it was all going to end? In pain, pinned against the ground as her opponent was beaned across the face with a rock?         Only after the changeling was flung off by the flying rock the size of a hoofball did Dash notice the ground trembling beneath her, and she looked towards the source of the thumping.         “Get yours hands off of my toys,” Hyde growled as he tossed up and caught a second rock with a massive clawed hand. He then wrenched his arm back and pitched the rock with the speed of a cannon ball. The bipedal changeling, which had landed on its back, shakily looked up just in time to catch the incoming projectile with its head, losing altogether in a green shower.         “I almost had him…” Rainbow Dash groaned as she flipped herself onto her front. “...And I’m not one of your toys…”         “I was talking to you,” Hyde replied, thundering past her as a Seraph followed up from behind him and hovered over to Dash.         “It’s okay! I’m fine!” Dash protested as she stood up, holding a hoof out to keep the Seraph at bay.         The Seraph payed the action no mind, and placed a firm hand on her back while hovering in front of her in an attempt to make eye contact. “Your armor is damaged and is in need of repair. It is my duty to fix it.”         Though every instinct told her to tell the floating Liandri off, the flashing red warnings on her HUD made for a convincing argument, and she let out a reluctant grunt of acknowledgement and allowed the Seraph to perform its task. As the technician set about taking apart the armor on Dash’s back, Hyde faced the mountain and crossed his arms.         “So, you call this a distraction, runt?” he said. “You kill a few changelings and then get side tracked by just one of them? I was expecting more out of that.”         Dash glared at him as her back armor was being pulled apart and fixed. “What? Think you can do better?”         In a long, drawn out motion, Hyde untangled his arms and rolled his shoulders and neck, stretching muscles he merely pretended to have. “Watch and learn, runt.”         Hyde widened his stance and growled.         “Skulldozers are rage.”         His claws curled into barbed fists.         “Brutal and unforgiving.”         Vents opened along his body, expelling waves of heat that warped the air around him.         “But you… you will be worse…”         His eyes blazed, and flames tickled the air beyond his razor maw.         “Rip and tear… until it is done.”         “HEY! CHRYSALIS!” Hyde boomed, his thunderous voice reaching volumes that even Princess Luna would have envied, sending jets of flame spewing from his mouth with every syllable. “REMEMBER ME?! I’M THE ONE YOU DIDN’T KILL IN CANTERLOT! I’M THE ONE WHO SLAUGHTERED YOUR PET IN PONYVILLE! I’M THE ONE WHO’S GOING TO RIP YOU IN HALF!”         As if to emphasize his promise, Hyde unleashed another earth shattering roar before launching himself forward in a flaming fury. In that moment, the winds changed, and the hive moved to respond.         A Nova continued to fire on the target stationed near the altar. Their weapons remained unable to penetrate the barrier.         Hyde lunged forward with an open claw, catching a changeling mid-air before splattering it straight into the ground. The Nova reloaded, alerting its squad members of the action. Hyde’s claws clenched around the front and rear halves of a changeling, which he then tore in half. Green beams of magic shot through the target’s shield. Hyde whipped a changeling into a black, decrepit tree, following up with a kick that pancaked the creature and completely uprooted the tree. “Unit under heavy attack.” Tree trunk in both hands, Hyde swung the object in wide arcs, swiping changelings in its gnarly branches. “Unit being overrun.” ///Temperature control protocols overridden. ///Warning: Cooling and ventilation systems disabled. ///Core temperature rising. “Unit needs repairs.” Changelings swarmed the skulldozer in droves, who alone swiped, kicked, and tore with the ferocity of a pack of rabid wolves. With each kill, his attacks became quicker and grew more vicious. With each passing second, his impenetrable armor collected more and more green viscera. “I see the blue screen.” Tremendous heat built behind Hyde’s jaws until a blast of flame exploded forth. The inferno reached far and wide, incinerating everything caught within the flaming tsunami. A broken unit was picked up and flung into the Nova’s legs with enough force to crush the limbs and send the Nova flying into the base of a column. With its primary weapon lost in the attack, the Nova reached behind itself for its sidearm when a green beam blasted its head wide open. ///Warning: core temperature critical. ///Vital systems damage imminent. “These things are dangerous…” the target muttered between breaths. “At least they’re not too difficult to destroy.” With a thunderous roar, Hyde crouched down before immediately launching himself skyward, leaping nearly four times his own height. His fists clenched above his head, a trail of flame and smoke followed him as he arched high above the clustered changelings. Situation assessed. Course of action: feint.         Situation assessed. Course of action: annihilate.         ///Cooling and ventilation systems reinitialized. ///Initiating emergency ventilation protocol.         Over ten and a half tons of metal and fire came crashing down on top of the offending changelings like a meteor. After cratering the ground, a storm of flame erupted from the epicenter, enveloping every unfortunate changeling caught within, turning them to charred piles of their former selves. Those that hadn’t been completely incinerated fled, leaving a single, gargantuan figure to slowly rise from the ashes with fists still clenched. The gore that covered his body had completely boiled away, as had most of the paint across his armor. Black, white, and red digital camouflage gave way to highly reflective shades of violet and blue, tinged with orange and yellow.         Rainbow Dash continued to stare with a dropped jaw just as the Seraph alerted her it had finished repairing her armor. Fires adorned the ground around Hyde, and waves of heat floated into the air around him, distorting Dash’s view. With Hyde’s back turned to her, all the fires, and the large boulder that sat just on the other side of him to serve as a backdrop, a small part of her wished that she could take a quick snapshot of the moment, just so that she could show somepony the photo if they ever asked her to define the word “awesome.”         And then the boulder started moving.         Dash’s heart skipped a beat in understanding a split second before the red exclamation mark appeared above the boulder that Hyde was facing. Rocky legs dug themselves up from the ground, spraying dirt in all directions as the beast they belonged to gained new footing. Hyde never moved an inch as the towering behemoth rotated its entire body to face him, raising each limb and slamming them down as it did. When it finally ceased moving, its front legs remained propped up, making it appear even bigger. Dash could still clearly see its ghostly white eyes resting within its craggy head from around Hyde’s neck, staring at the Liandri that dared stare back.         “Shit—Hyde, you’re too close to that thing!” Alex’s voice blurted through the radio. “I can’t shoot it!”         “That’s alright,” Hyde replied, rolling his shoulders. “I wanted to teach this pet a few tricks anyway.”         All at once, the behemoth let out a guttural roar, dropped its stance, pulled its head to the left, and then swung to the right, throwing the weight of its entire body into the motion. Hyde quickly widened his stance in an attempt to grapple the creature in its attack, though the behemoth swung in an uppercut, crashing into the Skulldozer’s midsection with the side of its head. Hyde’s claws found little purchase, and the impact sent the nearly eleven ton cybernetic into the air, though only just.         Landing on his backside, Hyde threw his legs up and transferred his momentum into a backward roll, kicking up a dust cloud that dissipated the second a blast of heated air escaped from the vents in his armor. Crouched, with both claws dug firmly into the dirt, Hyde sneered aloud and through the radio: “I think I’ll name it ‘Asshole.’ ”         The behemoth rumbled as its head swayed, shaking off the disorientation and concussion that came with battering its head against such a sturdy opponent. It wasn’t permitted to do so for long as a roar announced the fresh impact of a metallic fist and all the weight behind it, slamming into the side of its head and cracking the rock-like shell. The behemoth yelped as the momentum of the blow pounded its jaw into the dirt.         Hyde reached for either side of the monster’s head, clasped at its sides with his claws, and twisted. “Roll over, Asshole!” he roared.         The behemoth snarled in return. Though its head remained stuck in Hyde’s grasp, the rest of its body was free to move about. As the Liandri attempted to twist its neck one way, the creature’s formidable muscles resisted the action. While one leg worked to keep the behemoth upright, the other lunged forward, attempting to paw at the skulldozer. Unfortunately, its physique did not allow for it, and the creature repeatedly came up short. As it stood, neither one gained ground on the other.         And then a drone swooped in and kicked Hyde in the head.         Against the nigh-indestructible machine, the attack didn’t so much as cause Hyde to flinch, and in fact hurt the changeling who delivered the blow more than anything else. But where one starts, others follow. Soon, more and more changelings began swarming around the two brutes as they wrestled, kicking and punching at Hyde’s head, arms, and hands in an effort to loosen his grip.         The dozer held steadfast, though snapped his razor jaws at passing changelings. “Get off of me, you damn pests!”         Another changeling swooped in to kick Hyde in the back of the head, though was summarily swatted out of the air by a cyan blur, which then proceeded to target the others hovering around him. “I’ll keep them off you!” Dash announced. “Just kick that thing’s flank!”         “With pleasure,” Hyde growled, before swiftly twisting the behemoth’s head in the other direction. With the creature’s own muscles suddenly working against it, the abrupt torque drove its head and one of its short, jagged tusks into the ground. Seizing the opportunity, Hyde planted a foot over the tusk to keep in pinned. Gripping the behemoth’s head with one claw, he jackhammered into it with the other.         Dash zipped back and forth, making every effort to keep each changeling away from Hyde. She cursed under her breath at the endless labor. With every changeling she cleared, another one cropped up from a different direction. Their frequency made it impossible for Dash to deliver anything more than a quick kick to briefly knock them away, so long as her goal was to simply keep them off of Hyde. In one instance, a glancing blow from Dash sent a changeling spiraling onto the head of its much larger cousin, where Hyde instantly though accidentally pulverized it without a thought.         With each blow, fresh cracks formed and grew along the behemoth’s shell. Twisting its head failed to free the creature, as Hyde’s entire body weight kept its tusk firmly planted in the dirt. The tusk, however, was short and uncurled. While it could not be lifted, it could still be removed. Just as its former sibling realized in Ponyville, the behemoth learned that sometimes the best course of action was to retreat, if only a little bit.         Between punches, the behemoth pulled its entire body backwards, sliding its buried tusk out of the ground and away from the massive weight keeping it pinned. Having learned from his previous mistakes, Hyde relinquished his grip so as to not allow the behemoth to throw him off balance. With its head finally freed, the behemoth lunged forward with the entire force of its body, jaws agape. Claws connected with gnarled teeth as the skulldozer caught the creature by the mouth, driving him several meters back through the dirt until his feet managed to find a solid purchase. A hand strained against each jaw, preventing its maw from closing in.         “I think you need a little motivation,” Hyde grunted. As the two clashed, the dozer gradually forced the behemoth’s jaws apart. “Open wide, Asshole! Time for a treat.”         Far behind Hyde, a Nova sprinted in towards the fight, Link Gun in hand, leaping over and around obstacles while ignoring any changeling whose attention it might have gathered. As the Nova ran, it ejected the plasma cell from its weapon, then quickly loaded in a fresh one. Then, while firmly gripping the weapon with one hand, it tore off the top of the weapon with the other. Despite only possessing three fingers per hand, the Liandri deftly rearranged components within the weapon as it ran.         Just as it closed in on the two clashing giants, the Nova raised the modified weapon up and subsequently launched it as if it were a football. The gun soared smoothly over Hyde’s shoulder before landing squarely at the back of the creature’s mouth, between the middle of its tongue and palate.         With a roar, Hyde slammed the behemoth’s entire head against the ground, following up by delivering a swift kick to the face with the bottom of his boot. In doing so, Hyde allowed the force of the action to carry him and took several steps back from the stunned monster. In those moments, the behemoth shook its head and flexed its jaw letting out a retching noise as it did.         The Link Gun, however, was not spat out.         “Alright, Asshole.” Hyde allowed himself a deep, cruel laugh, and the red in his eyes grew slightly darker. “Now play dead.”         After shaking off the fresh concussion, the behemoth refocused itself on Hyde, and its maw shot open to release a roar that would terrify any sane individual to the bone. The roar itself, however, only lasted for half a second before it was replaced by a strangled gurgling noise. A bright green cloud of fire erupted from the behemoth’s mouth, soon followed by a torrent of green blood pouring out over its teeth. The creature’s entire body collapsed into the ground, its legs suddenly unable to support its weight. Blood continued to gush from the behemoth’s mouth in waves as it writhed on the ground, twitching and pawing at whatever it could. In a final burst of energy, the monster launched itself forward, though only just managed to throw itself at Hyde’s feet with a massive, ground-shaking flop. Hyde then raised a foot and planted it over the behemoth’s head, preventing it from opening its mouth. After a few more seconds of twitching and gurgling, the behemoth finally went still—drowned in its own fluids.         “There’s a good doggy, Asshole,” Hyde growled.         “Do you have to keep talkin’ like that?” Applejack said over the radio.         Alex laughed. “Honestly, I just think it’s hilarious what you get when you give an angry AI a complete dictionary. Nice job killing that thing, Hyde.”         “My pleasure,” Hyde replied as Rainbow Dash landed next to him. The death of a behemoth apparently had the effect of terrifying all nearby changelings, leaving their immediate air space clear for the time being.         “I don’t doubt it,” Alex continued. “Anyway, that distraction worked, but we’ve got a bit of a hang up. I don’t know how, but this mountain isn’t normal; It seems to be changing dynamically. The good news is it looks like this is only restricted to doors and tunnel-ways, so rooms stay where they are. That said, we’ve got two geographic locations that look like they might have the Appleoosans. Twilight, AJ, I’m assigning you to Nova platoons. Follow your waypoints and meet up with them. I don’t know how much time we have, so get moving. Hyde, make sure those platoons get extra shaped-charges and an impact hammer or two. The last thing I want is wasted time because a wall decided it didn’t want to cooperate.”         “What do you mean you can’t cast magic?” asked Alex. “I mean I can’t cast magic!” Twilight responded as she eyed Rainbow Dash fighting among the changelings. “I don’t know what’s going on, but every time I try to channel a spell, it just doesn’t happen! It’s like my magic is being diverted somewhere else.” “Into the amplifier?” “I don’t think so. I asked Evie to turn it off, but it’s still happening. I think it’s being caused by something nearby, maybe even something inside the hive.” “Fuck…” Alex muttered. “Alright, update me when we’re ready to move in. I still need you to handle the ponies, but if you can’t cast magic, that’s gonna be a problem.” That was the conversation Alex and Twilight shared just after she realized her magic wasn’t working. Unfortunately, the situation hadn’t changed, so Alex dispatched extra Novas to her platoon to make up for it. It was a shame, really. Twilight had looked forward to seeing how Rose’s magic amplifier would actually work. Of course, the more serious issue was that, without magic, her ability to fight back was crippled. On the bright side, she wasn’t completely defenseless, as the amplifier wasn’t the only gift Rose had given her.         Ever since Twilight tested this particular feature of the biomech armor, she wondered just how exactly it managed to do what it did. On their own, ponies were in no way the slowest of runners, yet the armor Rose had produced managed to augment Twilight’s own running speed by a surprising amount. Her only question was, of course, how? As Twilight sprinted, her legs didn’t feel like they were moving any faster than usual, or at least not much faster. In fact, as Twilight focused on the nerves in her legs, she built up the impression that if her legs were to move any faster than they were right now, she would probably get a nasty sprain at the very least.         It was only when Twilight observed the Novas sprinting alongside her that she was able to determine how she could run faster than any normal pony ever could. As a sidelined observer, the Novas’ legs looked like they moved at lightning speeds, but in reality, they weren’t moving any faster than they needed to. Their own speed wasn’t due to them taking faster steps—they were just getting more out of the steps they were already taking. It was as if they propelled themselves with a tremendous leap forward every time their feet kicked back against the ground. Twilight’s armor did the same thing. It wasn’t that it made her legs move faster; the armor just augmented the force with which her hooves kicked off the ground.         And the result was exhilarating.         The nearly three dozen Reds that Twilight had met up with were, oddly enough, not painted red. They were still clearly Novas, but had been painted with a beige camouflage. Although her own lavender colored armor still stood out of the sandy terrain like a sore hoof. Much of the battle between the Liandri and changelings were still going on around them, though their platoon was tasked to ignore it and make a beeline for one of the marked hive entrances part-way up the mountain. Another entrance on the other side was marked out as well, where Applejack and her Novas would enter to locate the second group of Appleoosans. Hopefully the changelings would stay outside the hive long enough to make getting them out easy. Vehicles or aircraft would have drawn too much attention, so the distance to the tunnel entrance had been traversed on foot, although it had been crossed relatively quickly. Twilight had only been forced to stop a couple of times when the Novas had deemed it necessary to lay low for a moment or two to make sure any nearby changelings wouldn’t draw any attention. On one such occasion, Twilight had pressed herself into the side of a natural ditch with a rocky outcrop above her. The Novas crouched underneath the natural cover as well, supposedly to hide from some unseen eyes. In that moment, the Nova directly in front of Twilight quickly reached up and pulled down a drone by the foreleg. The shocked drone yelped and flailed, though was quickly put in some kind of hold by the Liandri. The Nova spoke: “Blame the coders,” before swiftly executing the changeling by twisting its neck. This made Twilight pause. Did that Liandri really just blame Alex and Rose for that changeling’s death? In a way, perhaps they were responsible, but it didn’t explain why the Nova would say something like this—let alone anything at all—in the first place. Before she could contemplate any further on the subject, the Liandri signaled to her that it was time to move on, and she skirted around the lifeless drone. Eventually, Twilight and her platoon reached the marked hive entrance. Far from the cramped hole in the wall she expected, the entrance was actually a surprisingly roomy tunnel. Although complete darkness lay beyond whatever the sun’s light couldn’t reach. “Okay, we’re at the tunnel entrance,” said Twilight. “Good,” Alex replied. “Stick with the Novas and you’ll come out A-Okay.” Twilight peered into the tunnel as a Nova brandished its weapon and took the lead. A thoughtful worm at the back of her mind was grateful that at least she wasn’t the one going first. No flashlights were used, yet Twilight still managed to see. Through her visor, the walls of the tunnel became a faint green of various shades that extended to a remarkable distance. It clearly wasn’t a form of low-light vision, but seemed to be a visual reconstruction based on other sensors; Sonar or radar. Perhaps both. As they delved deeper, the battle outside became nothing more than muffled thumps, soon replaced by the distant echoes of chittering and buzzing. Twilight gulped. Just stay with the Novas… Stay with them and you’ll be fine… They know the way back out, right…?         Memories of the Diamond Dog caverns returned to her as they traversed the hive’s tunnels. Though just as Alex mentioned, the walls themselves opened and closed of their own accord, cordoning off or unlocking rooms and even more tunnels. A pulsating green growth stuck to the walls and ceilings, with several large, bioluminescent cysts to light the way. At least Diamond Dogs kept their caverns lit with conventional torches… and structurally consistent…         The Novas kept their weapons drawn as they marched, making efforts to reduce the amount of noise their metallic feet made. Despite the confusing nature of the environment around them, the Novas appeared to have an almost supernatural sense of where they were going while keeping a tight formation. Eventually, the platoon stopped in front of a wall, which the lead bot leaned against. The Nova placed its head near, almost as if trying to listen for something on the other side, before suddenly hitting the wall three times with the brunt of its arm. Another moment passed, and a different Nova pushed ahead of the others, wielding a large tool with a flat front; a handheld version of one of an Axon’s arm attachments. The lead bot stepped aside just as the head of the tool began to piston back and forth, quickly gaining frequency. When it seemed the oscillating head of the tool couldn’t go any faster, the Nova carrying it placed itself in front of the wall, swung it back, and thrust it forward. In an instant, the wall exploded in a shower of rocks and dust, and the Liandri wasted no time throwing themselves through. Knowing better than to stay behind, Twilight quickly followed. A large chamber greeted the rescue party, brightly lit with countless bioluminescent cocoons of various sizes that covered the walls and hung from the ceiling.         Twilight gasped at the sight, staring in awe until the Novas began walking past her towards the cocoons. Others set up a perimeter at various tunnel entrances. Twilight approached the nearest cocoon as a Liandri examined it from top to bottom. Sure enough, some poor mare lay dormant inside it, completely oblivious to the outside world as the cybernetic tried to see what would be the most effective way of freeing her. In the end, it settled on the straightforward approach. The Nova pulled out a knife, stabbed near the top of the cocoon, and pulled down to form a neat cut.         A viscous slime gushed from the open cocoon, and the pony inside slurped out in a wet, gooey pile. The Nova placed a hand over the pony’s shoulder and stared for several seconds, scanning for vitals. Satisfied, the Liandri wiped away as much of the goo as it could around the shoulder before equipping a blood tester and taking a quick sample. The sting of the needle alone managed to wake the pony from whatever sleep she was in, and she suddenly began to cough up globs of ooz until she could finally breathe.         The Nova left the mare to her coughing as it waited for the blood tester to confirm whether she was a pony or not, in which it soon returned a positive result. “Objective acquired,” the Nova announced over the radio.         “Perfect!” Alex replied, his voice somewhat distorted, though still clear enough to understand. “Hurry up and get them out of there.”         “Wha… What’s happening?!” the mare choked out, frantically waving her head all around. “Where am I?!”         Twilight quickly moved next to her and attempted to get her attention by grabbing her head and forcing eye contact. “Whoa whoa whoa! It’s okay! It’s okay! We’re here to help you! You’re safe now!”          “Where am I?!” the mare repeated, continuing to thrash around on the floor until Twilight barely managed to get her to sit still and look at her. “Who are you?!”         “My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she told the panicked mare as calmly as possible. “I’m with the Liandri to-”         “The who?!” the mare interrupted.         “The Liandri! They’re—”         “Who are they?!”         Twilight’s eye twitched, and with that single, minute movement, all of her composure evaporated. She suddenly grabbed the mare by the cheek, forced her to look to the side, pointed, and proclaimed: “Them!”         The mare instantly focused on the backside of the Nova crouching beside her, which was busying itself with another pony. Sensing her attention, however, the Liandri glanced back at her over its shoulder, presenting its singular glowing oculus. Her eyes grew wider as she took in more and more of the bipedal, mechanoid cyclops, and she reacted in the only natural way one would react when presented with their savior.         She screamed.         The Nova’s head twitched upward in curious surprise, all the while Twilight desperately waved her hooves to get the mare’s attention, ineffectively trying to shout reassurances and requests to stay calm. In the end, the only thing that truly got the mare’s attention was the next cocooned prisoner sloppily splashing on the ground next to her. Even then, she simply changed the subject of her screeching and, in fact, even seemed to scream louder.         Even with the limited experience she had, Twilight still knew when to identify a situation that spiraled out of her control. Thankfully, years of magic study and a quick review on the ride to the mountain ensured the unicorn had a handy array of spells for exactly this kind of problem. Allowing herself to rely on instinct, Twilight poured magic into her horn to form a stun spell. Nothing powerful; just something strong enough to daze her so she could be refocused. But just like before, her effort proved ineffective, and no spell channeled at all.         Adrenaline sent her brain scrambling for a solution, and it was the very first coherent idea she formed that her body decided to implement: shoving a hoof in the mare’s mouth to shut her up.         “Stop! Screaming!” Twilight hissed, bringing her face uncomfortably close to the panicked mare’s. “We’re here to rescue you! I know you’re scared and I know everything looks weird right now but I need you to calm down and stop screaming! It’s really not helpful!”         The mare stared back at Twilight with wide eyes, still trembling and frightened out of her skin, though not making any effort to escape. Satisfied that she was still keeping her attention, Twilight gave her a stern proposal: “Can you please be quiet and stay calm so we can get everypony out of here faster?”         The mare quickly nodded—as much as she could with Twilight’s hoof still in her mouth—and the unicorn breathed a sigh of relief as she ungagged her. “Thank you…”         This is going to be harder than I thought, Twilight brooded. It was then that her eyes trailed up to the body that had startled the mare the second time around, and she paused to process just what exactly she was looking at. That… That’s not a pony…         “Um… Alex?” Twilight drawled over the radio. “We might have a small problem…”