Knight had no time to respond. Hippytron leapt at her, grabbed her and tackled her into the sand. The huge hippy's hooves pressed Knight's head into the sand, trying to restrain her.
"Ha! Like knocking over a pile of tin cans!"
Minor subsystems damage detected.
Auto-repair functions initiated.
Warning: hull integrity stress excedes operational safety limits.
Overcharging reactor... initialized. Available power 150%. Deploying countermeasures.
Being a machine, Knight was not bound by traditional pony physiology. She spun her head and forelegs around and grabbed Hippytron's face. Before Flower Power could react, she head-butted her.
"Gah!!" Hippytron recoiled. The hippy's that made up Hippytron's muzzle had all been smashed inward. They fell to the sand, unconscious, giving Knight time to get to her hooves. "You *squee*! You're not supposed to be able to do that- it's not fair!"
"Zero logic detected. Activating auto cannons." Twin guns deployed from the sides of Knight's forehead. They immediately began firing explosive rounds at the hippy.
*Bom-bom-bom-bombombom-bombom*
"Aaaah!" Hippies were blasted off the body of Hippytron, punching holes into the mass of evil pone. Flower Power held up the hooves of Hippytron. "I will not be beaten by a giant Sweetie Bot!!"
"Outcome probability: extremely low. Advisement: surrender or be destroyed." Knight advanced, the report of her guns echoing as they continued blasting the hippy-mass.
"Ugh!!" Flower Power groaned. The Hippytron recoiled and rolled into a ball, the flattened out. The mass of hippies suddenly reformed into that of a giant snake. "You were ssssssssssaying?"
Knight's eyes widened. Only a single round exploded near the new creature before she deactivated her auto cannons. "An... analyzing new tactics?"
The snake's new glowing red eyes glared. "Wrong ansssssssswer." The snake lunged at Knight and wrapped around her midsection. It squeezed her, grinding a thick band of magically-connected hippies against her barrel. It coiled around her, a huge cobra-like hippy hood appearing over Knight's helpless head. "Nature alwayssssssss winnnsssssssssss."
Knight winced in pain, causing Winston Payne to randomly look up from his newspaper back in Dan/Phoenix's world. Straining, she searched her database for an appropriate countermeasure desperately. Her hull began buckling under the tight pressure.
Warning! Hull compromised! Structural integrity failing!
Power subsystems damaged. Attempting to compensate.
Leg drive motors unable to comply. Stress exceeding operational limitations.
Must... break free... Countermeasures?
Obstruction detected. Missile bay doors blocked.
Activate high-beams!
"AAAhhh!!" Knight's eyes flashed a bright beam of light at the hippy-snake's head, blinding her. Still, the snake gripped her tightly, bands encircling her completely.
Leg drive motors still unable to comply.
Emergency countermeasures?!!
Detecting one active: hydrazine anti-infantry.
Gnnnn, activate now!
Deploying flamethrower.
Like the Peace Walker she was based off of, Knight had been belt with retractable belly-mounted flamethrower. Twin guns deployed and spewed jets of flames at the hippies.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" The hippies were all clothed. Despite that there had been hippies of other species gathered outside the base earlier, for some reason, Hippytron/snake was made of only pony hippies, something Knight's targeting systems noticed. When the flamethrowers engaged, the hippies' clothes were ignited. And of course, they were made out of materials like hemp(pretty much just hemp) and non-animal products(again, pretty much nothing but hemp, maybe a few cotton shirts) that burned almost instantaneously(because hemp) and set the hippies on fire as well(because not shower plus hemp equals bursting into flames).
"Huh? Where am I?"
"FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!!"
The hippies suddenly reacted, separated and no longer entranced by Flower Power's magic. Panicked, the poor hippies ran around, some trying to roll in the dirt to put out the flames.
Knight targeted them all as they burned. "Activating fire suppression system." Her hooves and legs deployed sprinklers, switching out the flamethrowers to put out the flames. She walked over to the hippies, even spraying the ones that ran from her until the fires were put out. "Suppression successful."
Twilight watched the entire battle with Spike. "Spike? Did you see that?"
"Yeah... I woulda let the hippies burn."
"Spike!"
"I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Mostly..."
The purple mare rubbed her chin. "First the drums, now this. Is this some kind of new magic that lets one pony control an army or something?"
"Maybe," Spike said, mimicking Twilight's action by rubbing his claw under his own chin. "But do you really think these hippies would tell us?"
"Hmmm... good point. Maybe we could try to find one of their drum sets."
And that was when Gust Grasp landed right beside them. He carried a brown Santa Claus-esque bag over his back. "Hey."
"Gust? Weren't you with the ship?"
"Yeah," Gust said, whispering and lowering his head. "Couple things. First, I robbed everyone."
"You... you robbed everyone? EVERYONE? You mean all the hippies?"
Gust nodded and answered, "Yeah."
"Is that bag full of loot?" Spike asked.
"Yeah."
Twilight shook her head. "You just decided to rob everyone?"
"Yeah."
The purple mare rubbed her forehead. "Okay... what's the other thing?"
The white-feathered griffon sat down the bag of loots. "Right, so about half our pegasi and griffies got hit with some kind of poison joke from the zebra spears. They're all out of action so we can't fix the ships or attack the zebras again; they're stuck in the infirmary on the carriers. We're kinda screwed. I called my wife and your bro for help."
"Wow..." Twilight remarked. "That's... actually a really smart idea."
Gust nodded. "Yeah."
"So you called Shining and Cadence and then you robbed all the hippies?" Spike asked.
"Yeah."
"Did you happen to get any drum sets?"
Gust nodded. "Three drum sets, four guitars, the Mamas & The Papas Greatest Hits album, the earlier Beatles records all on vinyl, a bunch of eight-tracks and cassettes with other hippy songs and an iPod Shuffle autographed by Bob Dylan. Or possibly pony Bob Dylan."
"I'll just take one of the drum sets, thanks." She levitated one of the drum sets out of the bag. A hippy pony that oddly looked a lot like Bob Dylan walked out of the bag as well. Twilight set the drum set in front of her, examining it with the careful eye of an adorable Twilicorn study princess.
Spike got through perusing the swag bag 'o loot, dipping his head in and coming out covered in gold chains and a dragon crown. The Twilicane was even in there for no gotdamn reason at all and the idol from Raiders of The Lost Ark. He noticed there were a couple things missing. "Hey Gust?"
"Yes, Brost Rider?"
"Where are Dan and Phoenix?"
Gust looked around. "I thought they were with you."
Twilight lowered her head. "Could you go find them please before they set anything else on fire?"
"On it," he said, taking the sky.
"And don't steal anything else!"
"I can't make that promise!"
Flower Power's mane was singed on the ends. She looked up, flash-animated fury in her eyes. Her hippy followers were now dancing in the fire sprinklers, several rainbows being made by the light reflecting off the water jets. She snarled at all of them and charged. "Traitors! Traitors!"
George Washington saw her coming. "Woah, hey Flower Power. What's up, man, you gotta see what the giant robot's-"
She head-butted George and he went flying off into the distance. Just before he became a twinkle and the iconic *ding* sound, his voice saying, "Far out, man" could be heard. Flower than looked at the other hippies. "Anypony else think the war machine is cool?" In a single mob, they all got up and left. "That's what I thought."
Knight's electronically-displayed eyes narrowed at her. "We were having fun. You have caused the cessation of fun."
FP's horn glowed. "Oh, I got your fun right here."
Knight braced. "Reengaging." She deployed her auto cannons again and began shooting. The earth rose up at Flower Power's position, encircling her and protecting her from the blasts. Knight adjusted her aim and fired right at the earthen shield Flower had summoned, knocking it backward with her cannons and sending the hippy spinning. The Magic Gear then chased after it, still firing.
Knight had been built as the prototype Magic Gear, the "perfect defense" Luna envisioned for Equestria. Secretly, Vice Grip had designed them to be able to fight alicorns on equal terms, countering their powerful magic with overwhelming firepower and magic-resistant armor. Despite being beaten and subsequently allying with Dan and the gang, Knight still relished the opportunity to defeat an alicorn in combat, to support Equestria now instead of destroying it. She chased after Flower Power, intent on proving herself.
The dirt shield collapsed but underneath, Flower Power was unscathed. Now with sufficient distance between them, the alicorn summoned all of her natural power at her command. "Captain Planet ain't got *squee* on me! Here's something I learned from Bertha in the Sinnoh region!" She lifted up pillars of earth from the ground and hurled them at her opponent. "Haaaaa!"
Knight continued charging. She blasted the pillars, dodged the debris and galloped on. Flower Power lifted a final, giant ball of rock and sand and heaved it at her.
Leg drive motor fully-charged.
Analyzing descent angle. Calculating trajectory.
Counter-manuever selected. Executing.
The giant metal pony leapt up and smashed the the boulder into massive shards. An explosion of debris showered the battlefield with such amazing force and power that shockwaves reverberated through the sand. Flower Power was taken off guard by the sudden launch and only looked up in time to see the steel hoof of Knight coming out of the shattered rock to slam down upon her face. "Fu-"
*BAM!*