Another touch, another sad shake. Where are their friends? Fluttershy had told Applejack about seeing Rainbow near Fort Dash earlier, before she had regained her Element. Now, neither of them can reach their loyal friend- nor anypony else, aside from each other. Eventually, Fluttershy notices Applejack’s constant gaze at her armor, and removes her helmet.
“Something wrong…?” She asks.
Applejack shakes her head. “I know it’s a gift from all these spiders, but I wonder how hard it could be to make a suit myself?”
Fluttershy blinks, looking towards the cabinets. “They did pull them from those cabinets…?”
Applejack trots over to the row of cabinets she had indicated, and tugs on a few of them.
“Maybe they’re locked?” Sergeant Stone suggests. “... Okay.”
The third one in the row had practically flown open when she tugged, revealing what looks like another full suit of armor. Fluttershy trots up too. “I’d hate to just take it,” she says.
Applejack looks back at her. “Me too- but the way it’s all just showing up, you’d think it’s provided, like the stuff the Royal Guard uses.” She reaches in, grasping the chest piece, pulling it out- and both Element Bearers stop cold when they see the pattern printed on its surface.
“Maybe it is,” Fluttershy eventually mutters, blinking slowly at the orange apple necklace printed on the metal, flawlessly duplicating the appearance of the one hanging around Applejack’s neck.
“Uhh, Princess?” Rainbow asks. They’d found the end of the trenches crushed into the ground- they grow rough and stop, on flat ground- looks like an old battlefield.
Princess Luna stares at the scene in front of her for some minutes more. “It moved.”
The bored pegasus raises an eyebrow. “What did?”
Fully 31.82 minutes have passed since the three ponies climbed aboard before Radio notices Apple’s constant gaze at her armor. After some discussion, Apple traveled to the armor lockers. After tugging on a couple locked ones, she reaches the one holding her own suit- and the latch pops open for her. It is amusing to watch their expressions when they realize it’s made for her- and she begins putting it on. Radio helps her, so I need not send in any spiders, and turn my attention to more important matters.
Firstly, Radio needs a new nickname. She hasn’t been doing her amulet thing nearly as much- Apple has taken over, for the most part; it would seem they are expecting another endpoint to appear sometime. Though…
I consider Radio’s performance during the battle. That had definitely been a protective reaction. Considering this, I am tempted to call her shield or armor- possibly even Bolo, though I do not believe that would fit. She is also normally shy, hiding herself from those she meets, it would seem. Grenade? Shy? Hmm. I spend 0.013 seconds in further analysis and finally come up with an answer, and log it.
Next, I reconsider my path once again. I have set off in a southerly direction; this is the direction, from my starting position, that the pony army was defending when I first arrived. My drone has assumed a standard sweep pattern across my path; I have encountered a forest, though the trees here are rapidly transforming into crushed chlorophyll under my tracks. I have held my speed down to 65km/h, to minimize suspension bounce and produce a gentle ride for my passengers.
Thermal camera registers what looks like an animal den under a tree in front of my inboard port tracks. I’m already only 3 meters away from impact when I see it; it is too late to redirect around it without undue disruption of my passengers. Thus, I must likely run it over. A quick scan of the logs, specifically hunting for this position, produces some datum… Reverse doppler processing on the intensifying heartbeats- and breaths- coming from this position begin to offer results. Exactly where in the den the creature is, what it might be doing, what shape it is…
I lock my tracks.
Applejack is wearing the front half of her armor. Forelegs, chest, back, and neck, all covered. It’s amusing- as long as she keeps one foreleg on the floor, it’s completely weightless. The moment she lifts both, though, it weighs a ton. Fluttershy helps her attach the right side piece- which looks a little funny. Fluttershy had mentioned a minute ago that it looks much like the sides of hers did, before her wing pieces were attached. Applejack dearly hopes she doesn’t have to deal with giant, useless metal wings on her armor that she can’t control.
Then, suddenly, gravity seems to shift, almost directly to the side- as if they had hit something. Fluttershy and Sergeant Stone remain solidly in place, though they appear somewhat flustered by the sudden deceleration. Just like herself- though, of course, she isn’t so unaffected.
One of her forehooves is flat on the floor when it happens, the other in the air, returning from that side piece to go for the other one. Her armor refuses to be moved, even when her hind legs are whipped out from under her by the force. The side piece shifts, absorbing her motion- but, she realizes, that one hoof refuses to leave the deck plating, no matter how much twisting the deceleration forces her into, until it stops- and she drops down on her side, before stumbling back upright. “What the hay…?” she mutters.
Fluttershy shrugs- before her attention is drawn to one of those metal spiders- hardworking things, it seems, always doing something yet always available as well- showing her a … Something. She’d call it a window, but she’s pretty sure those can’t be carried around without changing what you see through them. She’s also pretty sure looking at a window from a different angle results in a different view, but not with this thing. It’s showing them something… Looks to her like the view of the front of this thing, fairly close up. There’s some trees visible, simply knocked down- wow, it sure bucks hard- but the focus seems to be at the bottom of one of the trees, right where the giant metal pieces reach the ground. Splintered roots are visible, crushed between the trunk and the metal. Applejack isn’t exactly sure what she’s looking for.
Then, she sees it. Among the shattered roots, suddenly pointed out by an interesting blinking circle, is a hoof. A twitching hoof.
Fluttershy’s eyes widen, and she rushes for the door. Of course, Applejack tries to follow- for a second. This armor is so heavy… She glances back at it, and up at the cabinet- which is suddenly crawling with the spiders, collecting the pieces to help her put them on. She shrugs- the stuff is known to be very strong, and that could be useful. So, it takes just ten seconds to finish up the armor- though the spiders place the last piece, her helmet, in her hooves instead. She raises it up, peripherally noticing the long things they’ve attached to her armor- just like the ones on Fluttershy’s and the Sergeant’s- while she puts it on. Then…
She pauses, and turns to look at her side. Yep, it has wings- but the funny part is, they’re moving when she tells them to.
Fluttershy’s spider friends have armor that can give an earth pony the ability to fly like a pegasus.
Whatever- it doesn’t bother her much. She folds the enormous metallic wing once again, and follows the other two out the door. Where had they gone? Ahh, there they are- galloping across the surface. She’s faster than either of them, so she catches up before they reach the edge… And leap off.
Of course, she follows them off the edge; there’s a few trees within jumping range, and this thing should make it hard for her to hurt herself. They spread their wings to glide down towards the hoof, indicated by a weird trail they’re following; it had appeared when her helmet closed, as soon as she stepped out the door. Applejack spreads her armor’s wings- though they feel like her own- and makes the attempt as well. It goes mostly okay- she does manage to glide, in a somewhat controlled manner, to the ground. The tree was unintended, but she managed to land on all four hooves- without hurting anypony. She folds her difficult wings and gallops to the scene- where she manages to be first, by a second or so. She hears a low whimper coming from underneath the branches, and immediately knows whose purple hoof it is.
“Don’t worry, Twi-!”
She’s cut off by a frightened exclamation from inside. “Applejack!?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“W-who else?”
“It’s just me, Fluttershy, and Sergeant Stone.”
“S-sergeant…. Is he…?”
If the situation were any less serious, she might have laughed. “No, he’s a pony.” She reaches in a hoof, lifting the heavy branch effortlessly off of her friend’s leg. It turns out to be a foreleg, which is immediately withdrawn as Twilight regains her hooves underneath the tree. Fluttershy pulls aside more obstruction, rewarded by the echoing crack of the three-inch-thick roots snapping like a twig. Sergeant Stone takes the other side, converting more wood into splinters that he digs out of Twilight’s way, finally opening her an escape route. All three open their faceplates.
Twilight eventually emerges, though very slowly.
“Where’s your crown?” Applejack asks, once she’s all the way out of the little wooden prison.
At this, she shakes her head. “They took it, and used their lifeforce spell.” She hangs her head.
Fluttershy, having eep!ed at the damage she’d done to the tree, steps forwards. “They did that to me too,” she mutters. “But we’re in good hooves now.”
Right at that moment, the giant metal plates shift. Twilight’s ex-prison collapses as they rise out of the ceiling, and the ground quakes gently as it pulls backwards.
Twilight eep!s, hugging against the nearest pony. “Wh-what…?”
Applejack smiles gently. “That’s our friends,” she says. “No need to worry.”
“B-but the g-ground…”
“Their vehicle is just a little heavy.”
Twilight shudders as they watch it pull backwards, twist in place, and drive forwards again, this time passing them. About half of it passes before it stops again- this time, they got to see full-size trees disintegrating under it like matchsticks in a sawmill- and extends a ramp down to meet them.
They stand- and Fluttershy coos softly- for almost a full minute before Twilight unsticks herself from Fluttershy’s chestplate.
“So… what are you wearing?”
“Let me get this straight. Discord summoned hope and got a mountain that moved?”
The dark princess nods remarkably peaceably, having just explained that to the blue mare thrice. “We will follow it.”
“And Fluttershy’s on that mountain?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Okay.” Off she goes, a trail of fine dust rising in her wake.
“Follow her!”
This time, I hold my position. There are useful minerals here; the soil is still poor, but I can extract some. I also take aboard matter, for conversion when I get around to igniting Fusion 11.
This new passenger is purple, and has a horn, along with the wings. The mark on her flank is just as invisible as Radio’s- though, I must remind myself, Radio has been re-nicknamed Hellbore. The new passenger… Pointy? Eh, that’ll do for now, at least until I gather more data on her personality. Or language. It takes a second or so to generate a third armor pattern, to allow space for her horn, before I begin assembly. They spend… … ...A lot of time talking. It’s been 2.93 hours, and they’re still at it. Hellbore doesn’t talk much, though Apple has been responding much more frequently. Sergeant has also put in his two cents several times. As for the main event, it seems Pointy is quite the chatterbox. I’m certain I’ve gathered enough samples for lingual analysis, if I had the algorithms already set up for it. As it is, I am still on the level of understanding sentence structure- and basic words.
Every time Apple or Hellbore touches their gemstones, Pointy nervously raises a hoof to the top of her head, as if expecting to find something there. Could it be another gemstone artifact, like the other two, taken from her? I do not know.
But in any case, Fusion 11 is online. I have begun manufacturing resources. I do not begin with food; it is fast approaching mealtime, but the forest has provided plenty of the necessary elements for the assembly of several dozen suitable dishes. The first thing I manufacture is direct-fire ammunition- then a second drone… And a multitude of items to stuff into my Light Vertical Launch System. So much easier to control than mortars.
Rainbow races along the massive trails that mountain thingy had left, leaving Princess Luna’s search party long behind. She’d stayed with them on the way out to that point- but now, she’s in a bit of a hurry. Fort Dash comes into view- but she ignores it, following the path. The thing had passed through the battlefield in which she had fought so hard for Fluttershy’s Element, believing her dead. It had done what she could not, and retrieved both the Element and her friend, its bearer. She follows the sharp pivot shortly outside Fort Dash, whizzing off to the southeast. A tap to her Element comes up with no luck. How far has this thing gone? It has been over a week, she supposes. She passes another hill. And another one. And another one- Aargh!
The arrow had come out of nowhere, piercing her right wing through. She crashes rather swiftly, stumbling and recovering… To freeze at the sight of her opponent.
It would seem she’s crashed in the middle of a Centauran army.
Whelp, no time like the present, they say. Her hind hooves go to town.
But all of the sudden, she feels her strength fading away. In her peripheral vision, she sees her cutie mark fading. Blast it! She’d forgotten about their spell! One of the centaurs kicks her over, right into the grasp of a second that takes her Element.
But not before it started glowing. It stops as soon as they remove it- but a single second is enough.
Somepony knows where she is- but she’d yammered into that link as fast as she could. She doesn’t think she got more than two words out- but even half of one will be enough for anypony capable of accessing that spell to recognize her voice.
The centaurs beat on her for a minute more, before one raises his blade. “Any last words?” he demands.
Rainbow spits in his face. At least, she would have, if it were close enough. As it is, her spittle doesn’t even reach his hooves.
He laughs- moments before his blade is split in two. Half of his arm, cleanly split down the middle, also falls to the ground as the two halves of his blade fly to the sides. Rainbow recognizes Princess Luna’s blade struck into the ground moments before it leaps back into the air.
“I think he used the centaur’s lifeforce-draining spell on himself to fuel the teleport,” Twilight answers.
Sergeant Stone bows deeply. “May he rest in peace.”
Applejack nods. “Ahh. Then, Flu-” She freezes stone still for half a second; Fluttershy had just taken her turn and tapped her Element.
They both turn simultaneously in the same direction- and the room seems to twist as soon as they cry out together. “Rainbow!”