//------------------------------//
// Elements of Warfare 
// Story: Iron Mountain 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

Even as I continue to download Twilight’s update and upload my own commands to the three commsets and all five satellites, I know I am needed on the moon.  My main battlescreens flash to full power as my reactors spin up, three with their ignition sequences.  Though…  Perhaps I don’t need to move my hull.  I have detected no physical threat.  I divert the power that would have launched my hull towards the moon towards my tertiary and secondary Hellbores, to clear vast chunks of terrain from my broadside missile decks.  The stone really didn’t stand a chance.

I lose connection with my satellite.  Images from the four approaching satellites suggest it was not destroyed outright, though its com suite appears to have been gutted.  I notice one surviving com laser head swivel slightly to point towards the lunar landing site, almost four seconds before the satellite is destroyed entirely by energy fire.  A regular laser had managed to point back towards the approaching satellites just long enough to deliver a situation report before it met its end.  It also began relaying a detected signal during this moment.  It was cut off before it finished the headers- but unless I’m mistaken, that partial IFF belongs to the Dinochrome Brigade.  I MUST establish contact.

Sorry, Fluttershy- it seems your home has taken a hit from flying debris.  Oh well- your animal friends have, rather wisely I believe, evacuated the premises beforehand.  Once vacated, all of my cleared Heavy VLS hatches- hardly 29.47% of total- fly open.  Here I thought I was being fortuitous when I outfitted these missiles for remote control.  My hill disappears in the smoke of missile boosters before their internal countergravs jump to maximum velocity.  In the meantime, I order my four surviving satellites to hold below the horizon line from my target position- they will pop up behind the missiles, which will divert to local control- off Twilight’s commset- if I lose contact.  I set them for a terrain-following approach, flying just high enough to be a higher priority target than the satellites.  Hopefully.

I pray that my hull will not be needed; missile flight time is 31.41 minutes to target area, but I will require fully 19.41 hours to move my war hull the same distance.  The pressure suits have a maximum life support endurance of approximately 12.31 hours.





Twilight’s relief is short-lived as she feels the damage to and complete destruction of the satellite.  It had been in full contact with her during both events.

But, she realizes, Zeus hadn’t only been listening to her SitRep.  He’d been uploading something to her comset- and the satellite had finished, before it was destroyed.  What’s more, she’s suddenly certain he won’t be able to use it.  So, what is it?  Can she use it?

She spends a few seconds in accelerated thought, analyzing this new code- which, she realizes, has fully overwritten the old stuff.  He’s completely reprogrammed her comset.

Fully two minutes pass in contemplation before she realizes exactly what it is.  It’s not a simple update.  No- as a matter of fact, she realizes some of its normal functions have been set aside to free up processing power for something else.  What that something else is, though…

An evil smile spreads across her face as she orders it into ‘TSDS’, whatever that is.  Zeus hadn’t told her.  Hardly a microsecond later, she realizes her mind now exists also in the other two Princesses’ commsets- effectively tripling her available processing power.  Next up, she goes live.  Just her comset; the other two remain locked down for safety.

But she goes live in a big way.  She can’t sense any of her friends nearby- so she goes for broke.  She attacks one of the massive weapon mounts- the only one she can see.  In particular, it’s the one that had shot at her most recently.

It seems wholly unprepared for her nonphysical attack.  Her horn pulses and flares as she interrupts its communication- all wireless, she notices- with anything other than herself.

She is tempted, as she starts breaking in, to simply destroy it.  It would be the easy way- but, while the computer side of her mind- all three computer sides, actually- fight to gain a foothold, the organic side realizes exactly what she might gain if she can subjugate it completely.  She goes all in.


Many ponies know not to oppose the Element Bearers.

Pinkie Pie usually greets her opponents with her massive energy.  While she zips around faster than they can swing a sword, they often find themselves the star of an attack-on-Ponyville party- already blindfolded, with their sword swapped for a stick and a piñata hanging in front of them.  Even now, nopony knows how she manages such impromptu parties- especially since the entire population of Ponyville always shows up and has a blast, often embarrassing the star.

Those who oppose Rarity quickly find that textiles make great nooses.  One pony, after blaspheming her friends for one moment too long, had found out she needed no textiles.  She had strangled him with his own fur coat.

Rainbow Dash is perhaps the easiest, many ponies think.  She is the only pony in recorded history to perform the Rainboom- and has demonstrated full ability to strike and maneuver at maximum velocity, rendering her effectively invulnerable.

Applejack, so well-practiced in applebucking, hardly ever hears her opponents’ demands- over the noise of their subsonic departure, courtesy of the hind hoof delivery service.  It wasn’t lethal.  Usually.

Opponents of Fluttershy often simply turn back shortly after their first encounter with the timid mare.  Nopony ever hears about her encounters, as even the worst are defeated in an instant by her steady regard.

Then there’s Twilight.  Some ponies could write books about why not to antagonize her, with reasons scattered throughout the social and political ramifications of attacking a Princess.  Other ponies might write novels about the fates that have befallen her various foes.  Anything goes, it seems- and the most recent example they can point at involves magic from all across Equestria, deep in the Everfree.

And she hadn’t even intended to make that lake.

Thus, the target of her ire can only shudder as she smashes her way through its defenses, thanks to the attack programs Zeus had left on her com.


Six minutes later, Twilight has control of the turret- and has reprogrammed it, with a spinoff of the new programming from Zeus that she had used to break in in the first place.  There are now four members of her TSDS net- and she drops her magical signal barriers.  She has enough power left to make a small lake, she observes- right as she uses that one turret, alongside the three comms, as a launchpad against the next weapon- which she also surrounds in magical barriers.  It takes only one minute for that one.

Twelve minutes of this passes calmly, silently.  She eventually runs out of magic, but finds it unnecessary- Zeus’ attack programs are having little difficulty penetrating other, fully-networked turrets, dumping them into her own control one at a time.  Speaking of which, once she figured out how- and realized she didn’t need them any more- she dropped the Princesses’ comms out of her TSDS net.

Ten more minutes flow past.  Twilight has secured a perimeter around the massive dome her Princesses are captured inside.  She discovers she’s been expanding her control in the wrong direction- and gets the headers of a couple satellite transmissions before weapons she has conquered observe untaken weapons shooting them out of the sky.  Two seconds and a few more plasma bolts later, a forest of fast-moving, dodging metal spears whips up over the hill.  They contact her directly, requesting targeting information.

But what can she give them?  She is already penetrating the machine running them- and it’s not alive, like Zeus.

Or her friends, which she has yet to locate.

Score, one of them- without asking for targeting data- is homing in on her position.