//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 (Rewritten) // Story: First Equestrian Armored: Elements of Harmony // by computerneek //------------------------------// “Huh, I wonder what happened while we were away?” Twilight asks mildly, plucking the glowing book off of the mirror stand as they walk past.  The most recent had been a very interesting friendship problem to solve- and had taken close to a month, to boot.  It’s mid-afternoon now, and they’ve only barely gotten back to her castle. She opens the book and begins reading aloud, for the benefit of her Equestrian friends, as they walk towards and enter the throne room.  She pauses after about two weeks of increasingly worried entries as everypony sits down in their thrones, setting the book aside for a second; the map has responded. “I hope this isn’t quite so big a problem,” Applejack sighs, watching all six cutie marks collect above the map and descend on Twilight’s castle. Heads tilt. “What?” Rainbow Dash asks. “So where’s the problem?” Twilight wonders aloud, glancing around. Immediately, the map does something they’ve never seen before.  It zooms in, focusing on a specific room in the castle. The six cutie marks collect- and spin- around a mirror in that room. Twilight’s book zips back in front of her.  “There? Maybe Sunset Shimmer has already noticed the issue….  Oh boy. She has, alright.” She lowers the book, glancing around at everypony.  “Some magical artefact took control of their version of Discord.” She looks back down at the book again and continues reading, now frantically, to gather any information she can before they head through themselves. The silence holds for about thirty seconds before Twilight closes the book, setting it aside again.  “A week ago, he created a giant tank- whatever that is- and dropped it on the town. There’s no entries after that.” The six abandon their thrones, galloping for the mirror.  Twilight carries her book in front of her while she reminds her friends of what they’ll be turning into when they pass through the mirror.  She also asks Spike to inform the Princesses; unfortunately, he must stay behind. One Week Ago, On The Other Side I freeze as my sensors go blank.  My turrets stop moving, my tracks lock still.  I cannot see anything- and have lost contact with my companions, as well.  In fact, the com bands are simply silent- not even static on the line, even though diagnostics suggest they’re still working.  My Commander is no longer on my command deck, though I cannot find where he has gone; internal sensors are working normally. Possibly more interesting:  Even though my counter-grav is off, and I had been driving through a forest, my tracks slow and stop as swiftly as if I were airborne.  Is this a new attack by the enemy? I do not know. I consider firing into the darkness, but if my radar cannot find anything- rather, it disappears as if it were off- I doubt my weapons would hit anything.  Only 1.31 milliseconds after my initial blinding, I shut down all active emissions and pray the enemy cannot find me until I can see again. 0.314 seconds after my sensor blackout, the world returns.  I am no longer on a battlefield, it seems. I find myself, momentarily, at a complete standstill, the bottoms of my tracks roughly 5.93 meters above the highest rooftops.  It appears I am overtop a small town or city- and my passives do not pick up any targets nearby, only civilians… though their skin and hair colors vary weirdly, for humans.  I send the activation command to my counter-grav units, and order my suspensions to raise my tracks; by this action, I still have a 49.31% chance to avoid crushing any of the 83 homes beneath my tracks, thereby saving the unknown number of civilians taking shelter inside.  As I do so, I activate some active scanners, scanning the skies… Is it just me, or have I found myself on an early-21st-century Earth with odd-colored humans? Nothing I can see possesses the ability to threaten me, even if I lower all of my defensive fields. My counter-grav has just leveled out, my lowest extent pausing in mid-air just 3.49 centimeters from the nearest structure, when I detect a concentrated energy burst.  I observe full deflection off my active battlescreens, but it penetrates my armor on the bottom of my outboard port aft track; I have uncovered these tracks to prevent any highly destructive battlescreen-versus-house events.  Part of the inbound energy stays in the track, yanking it downwards; I respond to this by throwing my counter-grav to full power and allowing that track to descend, such that my hull remains stationary; I will cause as few civilian deaths as possible, even when my hand is forced.  The other part of this energy is racing into my hull, penetrating durasteel like air. I order up all my internal defenses- and in the end, it advances too fast for me to stop it. Fun fact, energy weapons are easily traceable.  Even as my screens reconfigure to enclose my entire hull once again, save the bottom of that track system, I trace it.  This attack seems to have come from a grey human with black hair and a large, purplish jewel hanging around his neck. As I watch, he uses a blast of energy from this jewel to turn some local law enforcement personnel to stone. In immediate response, my IFF subsystems classify him as a threat to both myself (if I lower my screens) and to surrounding civilians- and I consider my alternatives.  One of my antipersonnel clusters swivels to point at him, releasing a short burst of 30mm armor piercing rounds. These rounds are powerful enough to pierce through Concordiat Marine body armor- so, out the other side of a 21st-century main battle tank.  I have considered this; after piercing his person, each of these rounds will drive into the dirt and rock behind him. It seems his necklace has an automatic defense system.  I tried shooting at him from six different antipersonnel clusters, but each was blocked by an energy barrier deployed in the nick of time- without requiring the wearer’s notice- at a distance of four meters out from his person.  My rounds shattered against this barrier; I estimate an Ion Bolt turret would stand a 13.49% chance of penetration, while the smallest weapon I have that could be guaranteed penetration is my 120cm Hellbore secondaries- too much collateral.  The initial burst is too strong for my counter-gravs to fight; that track has struck the ground, damaging 9 homes. I am lucky this particular track is over a roadway; I have detected no deaths related to its landing, if only because I rotated it slightly to avoid crushing the purple-skinned girl running towards my attacker. Local law enforcement, possibly responding to my own weapons fire, retreats and begins ordering evacuation of all of the homes underneath my hull.  My assailant directs his jewel’s energy at me a few more times, but my screens absorb and deflect it without issue. I use my grounded track to send nanites into the soil; I have operated repairs on the minor damages I sustained before being transported here, and wish to replenish the 48.39 grams of material from my war stocks that have been used in those repairs. Present Day Seven students gather around the shattered Wondercolt statue. “Well, that didn’t work,” says the blue-skinned one, hefting her stone right arm.  Judging by how long it had taken for the cops he’d hit to turn back, she’d have to live with it for just over twenty-four hours- unless they could figure out how to trigger their friendship magic. The yellow-skinned one with stone hair winces when she tries to shake her head.  “And I still don’t know what to do.” The purple-skinned one sighs.  “We did find how to stop him, though.” “We did?” “He blinked confusedly when his amulet bounced.”  Despite being the last one out, Twilight had managed to avoid all of the stony curses that had been thrown at her and her friends. Sunset Shimmer slaps a hand to her face, giving a yelp of pain when her hair makes contact with the statue.  “I knew it,” she mutters. “What?”  Rainbow asks.  “Another monster from Equestria?” Sunset drops her hand back down.  “No… it’s a fairly typical, contact-based mind control spell.”  She looks up. “If any of us touch the gem, it’ll control us as well, for as long as we’re touching it.  The band should be okay.” “It’s still providing all his power, though,” Twilight reinserts.  “My anomaly absorber wasn’t powerful enough to touch it, I know, but how can we separate it from him?” Everyone present cringes at the mention of the device that had caused so much trouble during the Friendship Games- but she’s right, even it hadn’t been able to touch the amulet’s power. “I wish Princess Twilight would respond,” Sunset scowls, poking at the aluminum sheet Discord had used to seal off the portal.  Even with the amulet’s demonstrated power, he’d been unable to close or destroy it. Everyone nods. “Yes,” Applejack begins.  “She could probably- Ahh!” The aluminum panel they’d been unable to pry out of its recess had suddenly emitted a thump and fallen over, away from the portal.  Immediately behind it comes one Twilight Sparkle, though not wearing glasses. “There you are!” Sunset exclaims. “Um,” the new Twilight hesitates slightly, scratching her hair.  “Everypony’s coming this time.” Ten minutes of helping five newly-human ponies to stand up later, it’s a party of thirteen.  After a quick discussion, they set off for the school building. The six Elements approach Discord first, intending to use their ties to the Elements of Harmony to stop him.  Unfortunately, a quick flick of his wrist- and pulse of power from his necklace- stops them in their tracks, binding them in place. “Back already?” he asks them lazily. Before anypony has a chance to respond, their non-Equestrian counterparts- and Sunset- burst from behind them, charging Discord.  Discord, while surprised, manages to blast them backwards only just before they reach him. He turns their legs to stone before they have a chance to dodge or repeat their attack.  Noone and nopony noticed the sudden snapping noise that had come from the front lawn while Discord had been busy blocking their charge. “Now you’ve done it,” Discord scowls- and, on a sudden idea, starts some fancy invocation on his jewel- and casts this spell at the six still-frozen Equestrians, who lose consciousness right away. The blaze of light is enormous, but Sunset forces herself to look when she hears the sound of six objects landing heavily on the ground.  Please don’t let them be stone… What? In place of the Elements of Harmony now stand six miniature tanks- one of which looks like a smaller version of the one outside, which has been shrinking steadily, and is now only slightly larger than these.  It takes Sunset a few precious seconds to realize that the largest one, the one most similar to the one outside, is right where Fluttershy stood- and closest to Discord. “What did you do?” she demands. But, just like the last week or so, the amulet-controlled Discord doesn’t care what any of them think or say, and begins a little tap-dance in place. Then, with an echoing crash, the front door implodes behind them- to more than one scream. “Sorry about the door, it got in my way,” a new voice speaks, alongside the rapid clicking of metal on the floor. Sunset tries to look, but her stone hair won’t let her turn far enough- so she can only cringe in pain…  Until the clicking object enters her field of view. It’s the tank from outside, its tracks carrying it steadily towards Discord- and the other tanks now littering the floor in front of him.  “Now why did you do this?” it asks, in that same, feminine voice. “What are you doing to them?” Fluttershy demands of the tank, pointing.  Sunset then realizes it’s shot some sort of claw to each of the six other tanks, a hair-thin cable dangling back to itself…  And that Discord must have turned the Elements into those six tanks. “Getting them out of danger,” the one from outside says.  “I could hardly leave any of my Brigade mates in need, could I?” Discord raises an eyebrow at the still shrinking tank.  “You’ll never get them out,” he jeers. Right- the only time the amulet had him respond to what they were saying was when they expressed hope of some sort- and he immediately spoke, or moved sometimes, to squash that hope. “Oh, I will, you just watch me.” Two seconds later, a sudden blaze of light fills the hall, momentarily blinding everyone.  When it dissipates, Sunset spies a light golden-skinned girl sitting up from where that tank had been a second before.  Her hair is dark blue, though her clothes are bright white. “What…?” she utters. “I told you,” Discord jeers again. The tank-turned-human smiles calmly.  “I’m still going to get them out,” she insists. He laughs.  “They’re completely immobile!  You’ve got nothing, and I’ve got thi- AAHHHH!”  He had held out his amulet, shaking it tauntingly on its chain…  With his fingers pinched on the top of it, presumably so it would maintain control. However, it seems he had tempted fate by doing so.  A sudden flash of blinding light, combined with a bolt of thunder, had interrupted him.  Before the flash fades from everyone’s eyes, a series of quieter flashes are heard, and silence falls once again. When Sunset blinks the last of the afterimage out of her eyes, she realizes her hair is already dissolving- and that Discord has fallen over.  He’s already sat up by now. “Wha- What happened?” he asks fearfully. “I have gotten them out of danger,” the reply comes.  She sighs. “And you, probably.” “But- but how did you destroy…?” “I didn’t.  They did.” She gestures towards the tanks still sitting haphazardly in front of her- and Sunset notices a tiny trail of smoke coming from one of tank-Fluttershy’s biggest turrets. “But they couldn’t!” Discord returns.  “They won’t wake up for a week!” She shakes her head slowly, clicking her tongue.  “There’s a reason they call me Athena, after the Goddess of Wisdom.  It’s a fitting name, I believe- and perhaps that amulet should have had you look up exactly what a Bolo can do before using them as weapons.” “You can’t have-!” “I did.  True, their personality centers won’t be functional for another week, but it’s a good thing a Bolo doesn’t need that to move…  or shoot. All it needs is the appropriate software and an order- and I provided both.” She smiles.  “Destruction of the amulet was virtually assured from the moment it didn’t have you block or sever my grappler connections.” “But…  How?” “Six seconds is all it takes to upload a Bolo with all its software- and drop it into secondary mode.”  She smiles sweetly. “And I had six seconds.” “Then…” She shakes her head.  “No, I’m not holding it against you; if these seven are correct, the amulet was mind-controlling you the entire time.” He nods. She mirrors his nod.  “Right then.” She glances out the door she’d smashed open.  “There’s a few… officials that would like a word with you.  They probably won’t be as forgiving…  But I’m sure these young ladies can help with that, right?”  She gestures towards the seven girls sitting open-mouthed on the floor. Not one of them moves. Discord rises, stepping to the side first, before walking to the doors- and raising his hands as he walks out.  The cops all raise their guns- but stop, when they see his display… and the conspicuous absence of the amulet. Athena watches him go, and sighs.  “I hope they’re gentle on him… Now then.”  She turns to the seven open-mouthed girls. “Everyone okay?” Noone moves, or says anything.