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// Page 6 
// Story: We Gotta Get Outta This Place 
// by Sense of Humor 
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Trixie chewed noisily on the pickle and hay sandwhich, eyes closed in etcasy of the taste she was experiencing. Starlight and Spike  rolled their eyes next to her and watched as she downed the rest in a few short bites. The tranquility and calm of the moment was interrupted by an alarmed voice blaring in their heads, causing everypony to wince.

"Hawk 5 is Down, Hawk 7 is Down! Hawks within range of Hawks 5 & 7 respond immediately!"

Trixie and Starlight exchanged glances with each other, while their pilots hesitated for only a moment before they responded to Celestia's urgent voice. "This is Hawk 4 responding! We are fine and currently flying--"

"What in Celestia's name is THAT?!" The other pilot gaped ahead, and soon the other pilot was just as panicked as his partner.

Given it's daunting size, it was easily  mistaken as a mountain of tremendous height. Perhaps it was even easier to believe that it was just a mountain--just a lifeless shape that they hadn't noticed they were flying towards. Nothing could have been that large without being a mountain, right? It just wasn't possible.

But the beast was there, living, breathing. It had to be somewhere around 200 hooves tall at its full height but it's hunched, hulking form didn't make it look any shorter or any less intimidating. It body was rippling with a grotesquely muscular, apelike body and dark brown fur that  covered such a body sparingly. It's hands were thick and huge like giant clubs and it's short legs were thickly built, like it was standing on to two Ursa majors. It's hairless chest was stuffed with years worth of exercised muscle, skind stretched over it tightly like a suit. It expanded and elated in slow, methodical movements that were audible even although the whipping winds so close to the carriages.  The night mare's head was that of a gorilla, sporting a skull with a peaking top to it and a square shaped head due to the angle of its jaw. Such a jaw was tensed shut, strongly aiding in the effort to grimace while two beady eyes narrowed. Such eyes seemed to stare deeply into the eyes of anypony who gaze at its face as if it knew they were watching.  The beast made a loud, sharp snort through its nostrils and rose to its full height with a pose of pure grace and beastly magnificence.





"What..." Trixie shook worse than a leaf, her eyes wide and filled with fear at what she was seeing. Starlight couldn't help but realize that she was in the same predicament, and that she was actually whimpering the closer the carriage got. Spike was silent, and so still that one might have called him a life sized statue. "W..."

Everypony else in the giant group of carriages seemed to gather in the air alongside them, flying straight towards the giant beast at a hesitant pace. Applejack gaped widely alongside an equally intimidated Rainbow Dash as the mares gazed unblinking at the huge beast.  They knew nothing of Twilight's shocked look of disbelief down below, or Pinkie's quaking body or Rarity and Fluttershy's combination of the two from within their carriage. The amount of talking and shouting and whimpering and confusion only rose steadily over the mental link they shared, bringing with it a universal sense of panic. Soldiers from every flying carriage were scared out of their minds seeing and panicked to new levels the closer they got with no instrucrions telling them what to do. Celestia couldn't find it within herself to close her limp jaw as her chariot rose higher and stood at the height of the befuddled creature. Luna and Cadence were just as surprised, if not scared, but were not nearly as silent.

"W-What is that?!" Luna asked fearfully, wings tightly held at her sides as if she had to keep herself from trying to fly away. "Wh-What is that?! The monsters dwarfs the very size of tartarus itself!"

"Celestia what are we going to do...?" Cadence asked, worriedly looking up to the Alicorn she spoke of. "Celestia...? Celestia!"

The flying carriages had to divide on either side of the beast because they were flying so close to it, fearful of the thing suddenly attacking. Celestia gazed at each of the carriages, counting their number and coming up with the fact that there was a good number of ponies in each. More than 90% of them soldiers or gaurds with excellent training and laser spell skills. The Alicorn mumbled something over the winds but then remembered the mental link she had with the carriages. All Hawks, form a perimeter around it! Ready attack positions!

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" Luna shrieked at her sister, her body tensing even tighter than before. "We can't kill that thing! Can't you see the size of it?!"

"We don't have to kill it, we can just scare it off!" Celestia explained and swallowed with worry as a giant ring of carriages surrounded the giant beast. The creature was at first highly confused and uncertain of why the small objects were surrounding it, but she could clearly see its features begin to harden into a deadly scowl. It was becoming frusturated from the lack of sense and the feeling of agression-- Its pupils slowly dilated; black dots at the center of black rings in a sea of blood red. Its teeth bared their yellow, rotting glory and for a moment, the princess hesitated to give the order. With a panicked shout in her voice, she  spoke telepathically. All Hawks...FIRE! AT! WILL!

"gRAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGuuul!!!"

There was a roar as great as the crackling of an earthquake, shaking the air itself with huge vibrations when it opened its mouth to bellow. It's roar was brief, given the way the red streaks zipping from the horns of the unicorn soldiers cut it off. Heavy lazer fire was concentrated at the torso of the creature, and many caused singed spots in the body of the giant ape. Almost half of the unicorn soldiers switched to fire streams, causing the same level of irritation as the lasers did. The carriage faced the issue of aiming properly, while dodging huge hairy arm swings.

"Keep  firing! We have to scare it away, at least!" Celestia yelled at random, but no one would hear, especially not the beast giving short barks of pain so briefly. It held its arms up defensively across its face to shield it and unfortunately gave the soldier many places to shoot it. It backed up slightly with a growl of indifference, turning this way and that to try and avoid the red pellets. "Yes! This is working! It's backing--"

"T-bAAAAAAAAAUW!!!"

In a sudden fit of anger, the mammoth gorilla beast lept a short distance up into the air and delivered a well aimed punch to two carriages that were firing their flames in unison. They exploded on impact, but the beast didn't feel the pain as he briefly pounded his chest--the sound of the largest tribal drums known to pony. Now it had the intention of destroying other carriages as well, and knew ways of doing so.

"Pull us out!!" Rarity urged the pilots, who only seemed intent on getting certain angles for the unicorn soldiers to fire from.  Fluttershy watched a squeak of horror as the beast squashed a carriage in the palm of its hand and swatted aside three others. "PULL US OUT!"

"This is Hawk 9, we are landing to drop out civi---AAAAAUGH!" The pilot shrieked as two mountainous fingertips grasped either side of the cockpit and squeezed both sides in on the pilots. Rarity and Fluttershy shrieked at the top of their lungs as a fountain of blood and intestine bits sprayed out almost endlessly over them. The unicorn soldiers next to them braced them to the back of the carriage as they spiraled closer and closer to the ground, the sudden stop plunging everyone into darkness.

"Rarity and Fluttershy's carriage went down!" Pinkie exclaimed loudly from her position on the ground, or more specifically next to Twilight. Her Alicorn friend had been worriedly scanning the fight, analyzing how the monster moved and how it thought to an extent. Pinkie's yell brought her out of her thoughts with a gasp. "We have to do something!"

Twilight looked from the fight to her friend. "We can't do anything, Pinkie..." With a sigh, her wings unfurled and then carried her upwards into the sky. Her intention was to search for the royal carriage, where she should find Celestia, Luna and Cadence waiting. "But maybe if I join the other princesses, we can combine our power to stop it."

"T-Twilight! Be careful!"

"You too, Pinkie, I'll come back for you!

Just half a minute prior to this, Celestia frantically looked at the multiple carriages that had fallen and the growing number of soldiers that were dying even as she looked on.  She couldn't let this go on the way it was, or else she would lose everypony who set hoof on this island. The princess flapped a short distance into the sky and turned to her fellow royals, who looked eager for instructions. "Cadence. Sister. If we can combine our might, we can stop this thing!"

"I believe the three of us could stop it, but where is Twilight Sparkle? It would be better with four of us." Luna asked worriedly.

A bellow of pain erupted from the beast, the result of its hand being lasered by somepony. With an inhuman screech of fury, it lunged forward to deliver a crushing bite to the metal insect. Celestia turned back to the other Alicorns. "There's no time to wait for her. We must act now! She'll catch on to my plan. I will get it to chase me a short distance away and then turn to give it an energy blast. You two will fly up behind and our combined blasts will be stronger than just mine."

Seeing their agreeing nods, Celestia darted up to the beast's head as it turned around to deal with pests behind it. She shot bolts of lightning out from her horn, striking annoyingly at the back of its head and making it notice her in seconds. Barking loud enough to briefly disrupt her heartbeat,  it chased her with a surprising level of speed-- it should have been impossible for a beast that was probably beyond the measure of tons to run around as fast as she flew and yet it's very existence defied logic. Once she gained enough room to turn around, she faced the creature while charging up her energy blast. The beast slowed to a halt as it noticed her rapidly glowing horn, unaware of the approaching Alicorns and their glow as well. "That's it, beast. Keep staring at me..." Celestia growled loudly. Snorting in anger, the monster ape bared it's teeth and turned just in time to notice the two other flying horses. Celestia, panicking now that it knew about their plan, fired her dangerous beam. "NOW! FIRE NOW!"

The combined blasts made it too bright to see what had haplened, but they could the roars of the beast above the noise of the beams colliding with each other. They had hit it, at least, but where exactly? The Alicorns kept up their blasting assault until Celestia gradually decreased the energy of hers. Once the light had completely died away, they gazed with expressions of horror and shock.

"Where did it go?" Cadence frantically muttered, looking all around them for an answer."Where did it go?"

A sense of mutual dread suddenly filled all three of the Alicorns and made them simultaneously look above them. Two giant fists clasped together flicked downwards upon them, along with the rest of the body of the monster. Celestia could only remember recall shielding the other Alicorns before the world turned black.

Twilight didn't try to stifle the gasp that robbed her of all her oxygen, and her eyes never left the thing when it rose back up to its full height with a howl of triumph. This just wasn't possible; the only other creature that was powerful enough to be a threat to three Alicorns was Tirek. But they all had their powers this time, and they had been defeated easily by the beast. She didnt even know if they were still alive. What could stop it now? 

"Mmmmmmrfff." It huffed through its flat nose and noticed the squad of ponies settled on the ground, watching the battle with fear. One of those ponies happened to be a familiar pink one.  It began to stop towards the group, and Twilight swooped down into action. She appeared her wings as hard as she could to gain speed and to close the distance between herself and the ponies still cowering on the ground. She urged them away with frantic flaps of her forelegs, all while the sound of literary earth shaking footsteps followed her closely.

"RUUUUUN! EVERYPONY RUUUUN!" She shouted as loudly as possible, swooping in on Pinkie while surveying the panicked running that soon occured. She grasped her frightened friend I think her legs and began to flap upwards. It wasn't easy flying while carrying a pony, but it was better than nothing. Her salmon colored friend shrieked at the sight of something to far side of Twilight. The Alicorn joined in her screaming, moving fast to dodge the colossal primate hand scooping up a handful of earth from where they'd previously been.

Trixie was the first to notice the spray of debris and metal components flying upwards to meet them. He screamed for the pilots to pull up, but they couldn't dodge the sizeable rock smashing into the back of the carriage and sending him slamming into the other passengers. Starlight joined in the chorus of terror when their carriage slammed into Applejack and Rainbow Dash's carriage, causing them to corkscrew into the distance at high speeds. The other carriage bounded off a series of sloping hills down below, bending the metal of its structure and nearly killing the passengers with the whiplash.

Princess Celestia couldn't see anything at first, given the  intense pain swimming around in her skull. Darkness surrounded her more than it had in her past nightmares or regrets in the years of banishing her sister. Her entire skull seemed to throb, especially at her forehead; as if sheveryone had actually cracked something there. She subconsciously inspected it with a hoof, traveling up the base of her horn and...no. That's not right. Her horn should be longer. And pointier, for that matter.

Her vision finally adjusted, allowing her to gaze upon the horrifying sight of the unconscious Alicorns beside her. They looked almost dead, their bodies sprawled out into uncomfortable positions and their bodies bruised by their own royal armor. It was a small relief that she could see soft breaths going in and out of them, though Luna's breaths seemed weaker. She was the first she rushed to tend to, worriedly caressing her sibling's head. "Luna? Luna, wake up."

As Luna remained unconscious, Celestia noticed that her blue horn had a large crack running down from the tip, no doubt from the imeant and her sister's panicked efforts to shield herself. Celestia's eyes stung as she stroked her sister's mane back. "P-Please. Please wake up." Her plead went unanswered, physically or mentally.

"Mmmmmurngh." She barely registered that Cadence that had awoken until several seconds later when she rushed to Luna's unmoving body. The pink alicorn also had a crack in horn, but a freshly bleeding nose added to the injuries. "...Luna? Why isn't she...?"

"...I-I don't know. She's..." Celestia gazed just a moment longer at the pained, sleeping blue face and turned away slowly. "She's alive. That's all that matters. A-Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"I turned to the side a little when I used my force field...I don't think I'll be using my wing for a while. "Cadence said with less humor and much more pain than Celestia liked. The former turned to show her bruised wing, strangely bent out of its normal place in her socket and almost hanging given her stance. Her left hind leg had a noticeable limp, but it was very minor. "And what of you? Are...Oh my!" Cadence offered her fellow princess a look of horror mixed with pure surprise. "Celestia! Your horn its...it's broken off."

That was why her horn felt so different when she first awoke; Celestia refelt the area with a hoof and winced at the nauseating pang of pain hitting her head. It must've broken off as a result of her taking the brunt force with her force field. But nothing in history, no single villain she'd ever faced, had the raw strength to not only crack through her forcefield--but her horn itself. "...I'll be fine. It will grow back within the next 24 hours. "

"Well, you have a black eye as well." Cadence anxiously looked around. "Where is the monster? Or anypony else? It couldn't have taken down all of the--"

Cadence was cut off by the sound of a metal carriage smashing into the grassy earth just seven yards off from the Alicorns. They flinched as it slowed to a bouncing halt on its side, but soon moved into action to see if anypony was alive inside after such a fall. Celestia anxiously ripped off what remained of the door with her hooves and peered into the darkness inside, finding two familiar ponies amongst a large group of soldiers. The pile shifted in groaning pain, likely the result of whiplash and the major pileup. The princess, now joined by Cadence, helped to evacuate a few of the soldiers from the carriage. Some of them shakily walked out with mumbles escaping their lips and others ran out fearfully, screaming at the top of their lungs. Eventually the princess had about five other ponies to help out; Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the first to go.

"Princess Celestia! Yer horn!" Applejack exclaimed with shock, near loosing her hoofing on the way out of the carriage. Celestia felt the softest urge to smile; Applejack was kind to worry about a simple horn break, seeing as how the orange mare's face was suffering from a forehead bruise and a gash on her cheek. 

Rainbow, her right eye swollen with a black eye and her lip bleeding, joined in with a similar look of worry. "Are you and the other princesses okay?!"

The royal Alicorn finally found it in herself to smile softly, slowly leaning up to begin helping the remaining soldiers in the carriage. "Yes, we are fine and currently--AAUGH!"

The other ponies on the ground shared their princess' yelp of shock when a set of massive fingers pinched around the carriage as if they were picking up a small toothpick. The world seemed to slow down enough for Celestia to suddenly notice all the details in the way it happened. The sound of soil and metal scraping against each other when the carriage was pulled for a short distance, the muffled screams of those still left inside the carriage and the feeling of absolute helplessness she felt when she realized that she couldn't use her magic to pull back against the giant fingers. Her gaze went upwards just as slowly as her world moved, staring at the great and dangerous monster.

The ape flicked the relatively small carriage up towards the others, causing it to strike the one Fluttershy and Rarity were in and send them barreling through several other carriages. When it began its spiralling descent down pounded it's drum-like twice and barked proudly, before noticing another carriage trying to fly past its head. Grabbing it before it could escape, the ape whipped it backwards to strike it into another flying metal pest. An explosion burst in the air before the beast, the result of a last effort fire spell while being crushed alive.

Soldiers from the other carriages rushed past the ponies on the ground with intention of reaching the treeline, but Celestia remained where she was to stare unblinking at this strange abomination of nature. She watchedas it slowly and effortlessly begin to rip a carriage in half with both hands, glaring through a tearing hole with one red eye and pulling it's lips in a snarl that looked like a smile. Was it really giving her an evil grin? Grin or not, she was beginning to understand what the animal was...why it was destroying the carriages without any remorse...

She glared at her enemy, while everypony else began to run for the cover of the trees as well. Her feathers bristled with a rising anger and a flame lit in her eyes. Her horn, damaged as it was, flickered with raw energy and wished it had a tip to be focused through. Cadence had rushed up to her side by now, trying and barely succeeding at pulling her princess back from its rampage.

The thing in question snatched the last two carriages out of the sky as their occupants screamed and fired their magic for all it was worth, gripping the small metal pebbles at the base of its fists. Within a short couple of seconds, those dangerous arms easily rimmed the fist deep into the ground and engulfed them in another harmless explosion. The shapeless fire mountains perfectly framed the head of the monster as it raised its eyes from the ground, snarling evermore. It didn't see the Alicorns just a few yards away, but Celestia felt as though it were mocking her with those eyes of hers.

She returned the glare. She would not stop until the deaths of her soldiers--the injuries of her sister-- were avenged. 

It rose back to its full height, jaws opening wide to proclaim it's bloody victory over the pony intruders and echo that pride for miles around.

"nUUUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAH!!!"