In the Ancient Times, the Gods did create all things upon this Land
And to Nature the Gods did Bind Two Such Things: The Titans and Man
But the Titans would not be Tamed, and with Their Power They Grew Wild
Rebel They Did, and Rose to Challenge Them in War of Parent and Child
In Vain it was, and the Gods did Strike Down Their Children, Their Destruction Assured
But Destroy Only the Form They Did. Of the Spirit, They Endured.
Ages Passed and Man would One Day Reach, as so many did Before
Yet the Gods would smack him down each time, just to see him Rise once more.
But Man was so Clever as he strove, and Determined to Beat the Odds
That he Rebuilt The Titans, Rode on Their Backs and Soared Beyond the Gods
And for the First time, the Gods looked Up, and in their hearts, they did know fear
For Man Found a Way to Beat Them All... Upon his Magic Gear
Flower Power pushed her way through the debris. A chunk of the wall fell on her horn but her horn shattered it. "You didn't think... I was done with you... did you?" she asked, ears twitching wildly. "I'm not letting you get away. Haha-HAHA! No no no, if you got away, you'd only go about spreading MOAR violence and MOAR destruction. Equestria, the Equestria WE have worked so hard to keep beautiful will be ruined! I WON'T HAVE IT!!!" she screamed.
"Okay, lady, you need to calm down," Dan said, motioning downward with his hands. "You need to tone it down a bit. You're at like a twelve right now, let's dial it back, alright?"
Phoenix couldn't help eying Dan over his shoulder.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing," the lawyer replied. "Just appreciating the irony, as always."
"What irony?"
"..." (Seriously?)
"Miss Flower Power," Twilight said, striding between the two humans, "Captain Dan is correct. You're not behaving rationally or acting in a civil manner. I think you should do as he suggested and calm down-"
"NO!" the hippy alicorn yelled. "You will NOT make war against the zebras or any pony else! Not Vice Grip, not the sea ponies, we will eventually convert them, too and this world will know PEACE!!"
Dan made a circular gesture toward his head at Twilight. "This chick has lost it, Twilight."
"I don't think she ever had it," Phoenix added.
"Yeah, I had to try," Twilight admitted. "You still have to try, even with the crazy ones."
"Crazy? Crazy?" Flower Power asked, stepping forward. "You and your princesses were crazy when you invited THEM here!" she said, stomping furiously. Her eyes began to glow orange again, an enormous spell-ball formed at her horn. "You right-wing fascists are all the same! If you won't embrace true equality, then you will be destroyed!!" She fired the orange ball at them, a sphere that burned like fire, sizzling through the air as it sped towards them.
*Krsssh!* Only to have it blocked before it even reached its target.
"What?!"
"YES! YES!" Dan cheered. They were all suddenly in the shadow of something far larger than any of them. And they weren't afraid; in fact, they were relieved.
"That's our girl!"
"What... the hell... is that?" FP asked. She looked up at the thing towering before her.
And Magic Gear Knight simply turned her head and looked down at her. "Warning: your actions constitute extreme hostility. Cease or I will identify you as a threat."
"What the hell is this thing?" Flower asked again. She took to the sky, flying up to its head. Knight simply stared at her, continuing to block her path with her massive metal frame.
"I am an independent mobile weapons platform tasked with defending Equestria. Designation: Magic Gear Knight."
"A robot? You have a giant robot?" Flower Power said, looking at Knight like an object. "I knew it. I KNEW IT! You've already built war machines, just like the humans have! It won't be long before an army of these things try to wipe us all off the map!!"
"HEY! I blew that thing up once already!" Dan yelled. "We didn't build crap, crazy lady!"
"Vice Grip built it-err, her," Phoenix explained. "But Dan convinced her to switch sides. Knight is her own pony now."
"Hehehe~"
Twilight, for once, used her wings of her own accord. Without thinking about it, she stretched her own wings and flew up to Flower Power to advocate for her friend. "We don't want war, Flower Power. We want peace, just like you. But we also want to be safe. We have to defend our homeland or it would be like we never had it in the first place. Please... understand us."
"She's right!" Phoenix yelled. "Look around you! What you're trying to do, is it helping anything? What will your herd think?"
"Headbutt her while she's distracted!"
"Dan, stop."
Twilight looked right into Flower Power's eyes. Through the anger and the rage, Twilight tried to speak to the mare inside of her. "Please. Just let us go."
For a moment, it looked as though she might have even considered that option. "Maybe you're not as violent as the others. But you're still conservative. So it's better just to kill you now." Her horn began to glow again.
Spike scratched his chin. "I don't get it. Why does she hate us for being conservative?"
"She hates us for being what she perceives as right-wing," Phoenix explained. "Technically speaking, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" tend to change with each new issue and the stances have historically shifted every couple decades. Generally, left-wing supporters prefer more government control and regulation while right-wing supporters prefer smaller government and more liberties, less restraint. Both have their pros and cons and too much restraint and too little regulation can both have disastrous consequences like tyranny and anarchy. We strive to find the balance in between and tend to lean different ways in different issues to maintain that balance."
"Oh," Spike nodded, pretending he understood. "What does that make us?"
"Cartoon characters," Dan answered for him. "I'm an American, he's Japanese, you're a dragon. We're fighting a bunch of crazy hippies and we have a giant robot. Don't overthink this." Specifically though, right now at least, they were conservative. Fighting to preserve their home and way of life from a radical progressive like Vice Grip, they were all very much pro-current Equestrian regime. Not only that, they were poetically sandwiched between a group of ultra-socialist hippies and an advancing army of ultranationalist zebras. So the term "moderate" might've been more appropriate but a better term for all of them was the one they wore with pride, political stance be damned. And that term was:
"Royalist jerks," Flower Power sneered. The ball on her horn was twice the size of her head and crackling with energy. "This is for the environment. Goodbye, Twilight Spark-*BOAAMM*"
"YES! YES!" Dan cheered. Just before the hippy could unleash a blast at Twilight, Knight had taken Dan's advice. The ponymech slammed her head into the alicorn in a downward swipe, smashing her into the ground. Knight removed her head and already had her left hoof raised to deliver a follow-up when the alicorn shot up again.
"You think you can blindside me like that and get away with it?!" FP was covered in sand but her horn was glowing.
"Affirmative." Knight raised her hoof to smack her down again. But Twilight stopped her.
"Woah there, hold on." And somehow, the hippy and the robot listened to her. "Hold up, hold up, hold up. Just wait a minute before you two beating each other up." The two stopped just short of the purple mare, coming just centimeters between her face, glaring at each other.
"Fine. I'm holding up," FP said.
"Weapon systems on standby."
"What is it?"
Twilight placed her hooves on their noses and pushed them apart. "Hnnnnguh! Okay, now, before you two go at it, how about we take this away from the base?" The two representatives of opposing ideologies exchanged glares. They didn't even break eyes to turn to Twilight.
"Conditions accepted."
"Agreed. Like I need any more damage to my base."
"THAT'S MY BASE!!" Dan yelled from down on the ground. He tried to climb up one of Knight's legs but slid off her sleek chrome finish. "Nicky! Throw me up there, Ima hit her!"
"Yeah, no."
"Grrrrrrr," Dan growled. "Fine. Come with me, we're gonna go do something about the hippies."
"Oh boy," Phoenix said, being dragged by the smaller human. "What are we going to do?'
"I don't know yet. But it's gonna involve the Christmas lights, a large rope, two batteries and my chariot."
"But you don't know what we're doing?"
Dan smiled sinisterly. "Because not even I want to know, Nicky. But we're gonna have fun finding out."
The massive metal mare and audaciously alternative alicorn strode towards the area behind the base, a large patch of flat land that stretched out into the desert. Half a kilometer from the base was a large mesa, just big enough to cast a shadow over the base at dusk when the sun went behind it. The two opponents stood a few dozen meters apart from each other, Twilight in between them.
"So... how are you guys gonna do this?" Twilight asked. "All-out, just keep it away from the base?"
"Affirmative. Terms and conditions set, target locked."
"Sounds good," FP said back.
"Good, good," Twilight said, nodding. She turned her head, looking at each of them one after the other. "You're sure there isn't a way to work this out? To just be... friends?"
The alicorn shook her head. "No. I'm afraid we can't."
"Negative."
Twilight sighed. "Had to try... always have to try."
"Luna was a fool to have built this... thing," Flower Power said.
Twilight looked back at her. "What?"
"She saw into the dreams of man, and her first act was to fight war with war," FP stated. She shook her head in disgust. "That's not our way, Princess Twilight. She's become corrupted and now... this. You've embraced warmongering and have forgotten what true harmony is."
Twilight shook her own head in disbelief. "Not our way? The buck are you even talking about? We can't just Elements of Harmony everything! Holding hooves and singing songs aren't going to stop the zebras!"
Flower Power braced herself. Knight did the same. "Only because we're not acting together, as one! If there were enough of us-"
"There's never enough of you! There will never be enough hippies and there's less every day!" Twilight yelled back. "The zebras are slaughtering us, and if we don't fight back-"
The alicorn burst into green-orange flames. Leaves flittered down all around here, set on fire by her magic. "Not enough of us?! FORM HIPPYTRON!!!"
The ground beneath them began to shake. Even Knight was vibrated by whatever was approaching. And it didn't take Spike and Twilight to find out what it was. The hippies swarmed out of the base like ants, a stampede of color. In a horde, they assembled into a giant mare, a green alicorn filly standing a hand taller than Knight. On the new 'giant's head was a tiara of hippies with Flower Power sitting as the center gem. The giant mare looked down at Knight, eyes narrow. "Ahahaha... you were saying?"