They hold their stance for two seconds. The room starts its bounce again, more pronounced than it had earlier- Fluttershy notices it’s about the same as when they were suiting up before running for Applejack.
Applejack breaks the silence, looking quickly at Fluttershy and Sergeant Stone. “You two can fly- go get her. I’ll hold down the fort.”
The two armored pegasi nod and rush out the door. A spider scurries over, popping open a nearby locker and pulling something out- to offer Twilight.
Applejack blinks. “Armor, like ours.”
Twilight takes it- even though she is alarmed by the number of the spider things that are employed in helping her put it on. It does only take twenty seconds, at least- once they’re done, the bumping increases.
Hellbore and Apple freeze upon the amulet touch. This sets me on high alert.
0.539 seconds pass before they both turn in the same direction, facial expressions showing fear, and cry out. I note it is the same word Hellbore cried out when she woke up in this passenger bay the first time- a name? Either way, I set a course, ordering my two drones to search in that direction, right at my estimate for their amulets’ maximum range, based on Apple’s recovery. They have located another pony, I will protect them. I arm my Light VLS. I should be able to eliminate any conceivable enemy force from afar, once my supersonic drones are able to identify it.
Princess Luna swings her deadly blade in blinding arcs through the enemy force that had downed Rainbow. It would seem they’d even cast their curse- Rainbow isn’t fighting like she normally would.
Her army swoops in behind her. It’s far smaller than the Centauran force, and will thence be forced to retreat soon- but at the moment, they have the advantage of surprise- and their objective isn’t to defeat the enemy. Rather, the aim is to retrieve Rainbow.
Slash here, slash there, blast over there. Her magical shield protects her from their arrows, and she slams to her hooves next to Rainbow, her weapon blazing through every centaur in sight.
“Rainbow!”
The named pegasus looks up at her. “My Element-!”
That’s all she got out before Luna teleported her to Canterlot to recover. However, her words had made the absence of her necklace conspicuous to Luna’s eyes. She scans the hostile ranks briefly.
They’ve regrouped. Further attacks from her army will only result in unnecessary casualties. She barks over to them. “Fall back to Canterlot! I’ll be right behind you!”
She then turns in the direction she’d spotted that red glint and makes her charge, even as her spell teleports her army back to Canterlot. One slash, two slash. She’s going to spend a couple days recovering from today’s magic expenditures, but she’s not out yet. If only she were as practiced with teleportation spells as Twilight- if she were, she could have teleported that necklace straight to her, then jumped herself to Canterlot with it, ending the conflict. As it is, though, she’ll have to reach it and steady herself for a second before she can teleport it with her. She’d only been able to jump her army remotely because she’d taken the time- almost thirty seconds- to prepare the spell before they left Canterlot. All she had to do was trigger it.
Another charge, another rush. She’s running dangerously low on magic now; much more, and she won’t be able to teleport. Two seconds… She downs the centaur holding the Element of Loyalty, and stops to stand on the necklace while her weapon twirls.
Too much spent. If she stops spending magic for about three seconds, she can regenerate enough for a short-range jump. Not all the way to Canterlot, no, but far enough to escape.
One final swoop of her weapon, and she catches it in her forehooves, now swinging manually. Three… Two… One- Nooo!
The centaurs had worked faster than she had expected. All of her magic had left her the instant their blasted drain spell had taken hold- but her strength hadn’t gone yet. A flick of her weapon and skilled shift of hooves places the Element of Loyalty hanging around the shaft, between her forehooves. A swift rush, and she downs the centaur draining her.
A week. It’ll only be a week before her magic returns. It’s a good thing her armor was designed with that kind of spell in mind- her grip on her weapon remains intact through spells on her armor, rather than through her innate magic. Another swing, another blow. She’s fighting a losing battle.
Another swing. Are those dive-bombing pegasi? Slash. She hopes they don’t get hurt too badly in their rescue attempt.
BOOOM!
Hellbore and Sergeant have been flying for about a minute when my drones spot the enemy up ahead. A large army. Close examination shows a blue pegasus with rainbow mane, attempting to spit in a standing centaur’s face from the ground. A valiant effort, but it would seem they’ve cast their draining spell on her as well; she isn’t even able to reach his hooves.
Visual comparison shows a 93.49% match to the pegasus I previously designated as my commander. My Light VLS hatches fly open, and I unleash a hurricane of destruction in their direction.
Targeting will be difficult- thank the heavens I thought to make missiles! The hostile army is clashing with a friendly one, for casualties on both sides. I may meet not only my commander, but a pony army. I may finally be able to join the pony forces.
A dark blue pony, bearing wings and horn, is slashing through her enemies with a magically wielded weapon. She destroys the weapon that had been about to be driven into the lighter blue pegasus- nickname ‘Rainbow’, until I can confirm her identity- and proceeds to eliminate hostiles with savage abandon. Her armor looks far fancier than any other pony’s armor I’ve seen. I also observe many gemstones embedded in its surface; perhaps this is magic armor? Nickname ‘General’, pending further information.
General lands next to Rainbow- and, two seconds later, Rainbow disappears in the flash of a teleport once again. Darn! General then reviews the situation, and sends her entire army away with another flash. It would seem I won’t be meeting a military force- though, it does make missile targeting that much easier.
General then makes a charge deeper into the army. It takes me only 1.493 seconds to identify her objective- and drop the image onto the slowing Hellbore’s HUD, producing a burst of speed such as she’s never shown before. It’s the ruby necklace my Commander bore when she led me to that fort.
I can only watch the battle for some seconds more- roughly 18.493 seconds, to be exact, before all 200 missiles go into final acquisition. I guide them into a hailstorm of destruction across the army, leaving only a few dozen around General; I expect Sergeant will use his newly-manufactured MK XVI Belt-Fed Magnetic Impulse Accelerator (Modified). The small countergrav coil I installed in this high-speed artillery weapon should allow him to use it freehand. With a 15,000 round magazine and a fire rate limit of 3018 rounds per minute, not to mention roughly 9342.19% the penetrating power of his MPR(M), he would likely be able to eliminate this entire army himself if I allowed him to. He arrives on-scene just 9.31 seconds behind Hellbore, who shows up 4.91 seconds behind the missiles.
Wow. Maybe I should have called her catapult? THAT wingless hostile made it almost 219.43 meters up!
It would seem Sergeant has discovered not only the destructive power of the BMIA(M) but also the psychological effect it tends to have on its targets. Several centaurs turned tail to run when the eight meter splashes of dirt approached them. After his arrival, General neutralized one hostile, and Hellbore hoofed out two tickets to the Wing Express. Sergeant wiped out the rest.
It takes Princess Luna several seconds to recover from what had just happened around her. An entire army, wiped out in a moment by those dive-bombing objects- she now suspects they were magically charged weapons- and two pegasi. Given the size of the impact splashes produced by whatever weapon the second one had used, she suspects he could easily have wiped them out himself, without those dive-bombing things, had she or the first one not been there.
Then, that first pegasus had, in a blur of yellow she hasn’t yet comprehended, started launching centaurs into the sky with gigantic wings. What powerful magics had they found?
Finally, comprehensibility begins to return to her thoughts, and her vision resolves to find two ponies bowing to her. Two metal ponies, both wearing several long, black objects… No, not metal ponies- armored ponies. Their helmets are open. The long objects they’re wearing are different- as are their colors. The first one’s magic armor seems to have been colored to match that of the Royal Guard, but the parts that would not be covered by the Royal Guards’ armor is colored to match his coat. She spots the emblem on his shoulder- a Sergeant. The nameplate below it- appearance duplicated flawlessly on this weird armor- identifies him as Sergeant Stone, one of Equestria’s finest. Last she’d heard, he’d been assigned to Fort Dash, and assumed dead.
The other pegasus’ armor does not bear the image of any armor, nor rank insignia. It is entirely colored like her coat, save for a band around her neck, appearing as a gold chain- and the gentle pink butterfly amulet on her chest. Her cutie mark is also printed on the flanks of her armor. These features almost instantly identify her as the target of her search- Fluttershy.
Well, it’s nice to know she’s safe- though where she’d gotten that armor, she’d still like to know. She’s also curious if those black things stuck to her armor are weapons also- Sergeant Stone has the same ones, plus the bigger two-part one he’d crushed all opposition with.
“R-Rise,” she finally stutters- and finally understands what she’d heard when everything stopped moving. They had greeted her with her title, probably as they entered their bows.
Both ponies rise from their bows.
Silence holds for some time more.
“H-How?” Princess Luna finally gets out.
Sergeant Stone answers immediately. “It was Fluttershy, ma’am. She befriended a bunch of metal spiders, which took us inside their, uh, carriage, and provided this armor and weapons. It seems they have other weapons we cannot wield; this is the second army I’ve seen get wiped out from afar.”
“You’re the only survivors?”
“No ma’am. We left Applejack and Twilight in the spiders’ carriage; it would seem the Centaurs managed to curse Twilight recently.”
Princess Luna processes this news. It’s a combination of good and bad. For the good, three of the five unaccounted for Elements have been located and are (presumably, at least) safe. For the bad, Twilight had been drained of her lifeforce- rendering the Elements of Harmony useless in Equestria’s defence for a month or two.
“Is everypony else okay?”
Fluttershy shakes her head. “They got me with the curse a week ago,” she mutters, shuddering. “That was before I met the spiders.”
Sergeant Stone shudders briefly. “Aside from that, yes.”
She finally lets out a breath. “How far away are they?”
“I don’t know,” the Sergeant answers. “We flew at full speed for a couple minutes, but it was moving in this direction as well.”
“We’ve slowed down again,” Twilight observes. Her armor is amazing- not only can they fly (She still can’t get used to an Applejack with wings, even if she knows they’re entirely artificial) but it anchored her in place while the carriage thing traveled quickly. The room had bounced quite a bit- but her hooves had stayed very firmly in place on the floor. Now, it’s back to the gentle wobble it had been before the spiders gave her the armor.
It also makes her stronger than an earth pony- well, in a sense. She still feels weak, still lacks the strength to move quickly- but her armor is more than willing to follow her motions with its massive strength.
She follows Applejack out the door, to that balcony. Applejack trots, interested to see the situation; Twilight, after a failed attempt at the same pace, walks.
It takes her a minute, but she finally arrives next to Applejack. The faceplate snapping shut was an interesting experience in and of itself- though what all the weird letters mean, she hasn’t a clue. Looking off of the balcony, in the direction they’re traveling, she sees three icons on the display, very closely clustered. More letters- she’ll have to study them at some point- are gathered at each icon, like names. She focuses on them- and suddenly, her vision zooms in, like a telescope. It’s…
It’s Sergeant Stone and Fluttershy, talking to…
“Princess Luna!” she cries out.