Feldspar grunted, feeling a spray of bullets against his back. The suit absorbed the damage, though he knew they’d leave bruises. Lifting an almost numb arm, he returned fire, catching a sentry in the eye. The sentry fell, a nasty crack visible in the visor of their black helmet.
Unfortunately for him, the other three sentries near him weren’t about to drop their weapons and run at the first casualty. All of them raised their rifles and took careful aim before unleashing a burst straight into his chest. Luckily, they had no way to assure they were all aiming for the exact same place, and even a short burst still causes some jittering in the strongest hands, but come the dawn he’d be more bruise than pony.
Feldspar strained to control his breathing as he scrambled behind cover, needing a moment before he could take aim again. He had never used the belt in a situation like this before. If something didn't happen soon, he wasn't sure how much longer he'd last. Gritting his teeth, he peered out of cover and took a shot at a sentry.
“Huffing and puffing already? And I thought older stallions had more... experience?” Trixie whirled into the fray, already armored up. She fired a few rounds into one sentry, quickly switching to sword mode and cutting a sentry’s throat.
“Ah, the showmare,” Feldspar commented, feeling brave and pushing away from his cover to shoot freely. “I'll forgive thy suggestive language this once as thou hast saved my life.”
“Oh, a prude are we?” Trixie grunted as a sentry fired at her chest, making her stagger. “Suck all the fun out of everything why don’t you?”
Feldspar's only response was to fire a shot into the side of the helmet of the yellow sentry as she tried to jump out of cover and stab Trixie in the neck.
Trixie stared as the body crumbled to the ground, the fading armor revealing a human. “Well that’s going to make looking at Wyatt a bit harder,” she muttered under her breath. She managed a smirk beneath her helmet. “And he was already hard to look at.”
“Surely thou doth not think he would hesitate to do the same thing in thine stead? Killing is unfortunate, but sometimes unavoidable.”
Trixie snickered, turning to Feldspar. “You clearly haven't been around the guy. Trixie has never met someone as idealistic as that one.” She blinked, suddenly realizing she had fallen into her habit again. “He’s only ever killed ‘monsters’.”
“Then he will have to adapt,” Feldspar stated plainly, turning on his hoof. “Come, we should regroup with my daughter. Numbers shall help bolster my flagging strength.”
“Perhaps you should give that belt to someone who can last longer?” Trixie teased, reverting her weapon to gun mode. “But by all means, lead the way.”
“This belt was only ever meant to be a prototype,” Feldspar explained. “Something for my daughter to use to create something far greater. The data she has gathered with it has been sent to the princess.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Give everything to the Princess.” Trixie rolled her eyes, beginning to move towards the farm. “You coming or what?”
Wyatt panted, feeling his prior injuries throb with new pain. He'd been forced into his Mira form, the eight blades managing to keep up with Drakkon's skill. It was clear he was at a disadvantage in a head-on fight; he needed to flex his brain more than his sword arm if he wanted to have a chance.
“You’re tiring yourself out this quickly? You truly are utterly pathetic.”
“Funny story, having a nine-headed cat monster hit you repeatedly with the door from a bank vault has lasting effects,” Wyatt retorted, jumping out of the way from a kick delivered by the older man.
More portals cracked opened around them, a few depositing rather advanced looking tanks into the world.
“My lord, you have called and I have answered,” a gruff, growling voice spoke; a winged figure stepping through the nearest portal. “Shall I slay this maggot?”
The figure was Goldar, though very much different from when he last appeared in Power Rangers. His left forearm had been replaced with that of Ninjor and his upper right arm and shoulder had been taken from the Blue Senturion. His eyes were hidden behind Ninjor’s visor, though Wyatt could still feel his glare. Across his chest, hooked up by a multitude of wires, was the Senturions stop light armor, with the middle light housing a bright red ruby. Instead of both legs being gold, one was black.
“Yikes, and I thought you were ugly before, Goldar,” Wyatt commented. “Can you even fly in that getup?”
“Mock me as you wish, fool!” Goldar hissed, bearing his fangs. “My master has seen fit to give me the powers of those who have foolishly tried to stand against him!” To punctuate his point, he drew Ninjor’s sword from a sheath on his back.
“And you’d make an excellent traffic cop as a result,” Wyatt added, bringing his sword up towards the flying monkey.
“Deal with the other riders,” Drakkon ordered, keeping his focus on Wyatt. “The boy is mine.”
“Sorry, in a committed relationship,” Wyatt joked, shifting his focus back to Drakkon. “But I'm flattered, really.” Stepping back, he kept his swords up. “I’m not looking to cheat on my lady.”
“You're as competent of a comedian as you are a fighter,” Drakkon remarked, slashing down at Wyatt's head. “Zordon’s ‘children’ fell before my power, what makes you think you’re any better?”
“I'm not dead yet,” Wyatt pointed out. Using one of the floating swords, he diverted Drakkon's slash and used the one in his hands to counter. “And you don't know my abilities like you did theirs.”
“And you don’t have any allies, only pets and animals.”
Wyatt grit his teeth, anger flaring within him. Though, the insult did remind him of something, the spider figurine. “You're wrong on so many levels, creep.” Hopping back, he used his floating swords to keep Drakkon at bay before pulling out the spider and pulling off its legs.
The sky darkened suddenly as a cloud appeared over the orchard in Wyatt's vicinity. Some kind of square hole made of stars opened up in the middle of it within moments and began emitting a red glow, followed by multiple rays of light that spun around and formed a cone with a base about six feet in diameter next to Wyatt. The cloud and hole vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and in a flash of purple light a new figure stood on the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres.
This new figure was clearly humanoid in general shape, and yet at the same time had many clearly inhuman aspects. For starters, the upper pair of arms had four long, spindly things sticking out from each bicep, and the forearms and hands were surrounded by what looked like ghostly purple eagle talons. Then there's the lower arms, and the fact that it has lower arms to begin with, that were a ghostly blue-white in stark contrast to the rest of the visible body being either black or gold. The figure appeared to be extremely feminine, but her torso seemed to have some portions that could be seen through that continued to shift and flicker in and out of solidity, capped with a metallic blue collar that seemed to stretch up a neck that was just slightly too long to look natural. Betraying the absolute fact that whoever this is they were definitely no longer human was her face being entirely gold metal with black, empty-looking eyes surrounded by a black and gold 'helmet.' Encircling the area just above her eyes was a glowing blue headband that looked like a wreath of some kind of ivy, and a ghostly wolf pelt of the same color draped down her back, hanging from an upper jaw that rested upon the top of her head.
At the sight of the now-broken figurine in Wyatt’s hands she gave him a nod and looked around quickly. “Judging by the drawn weapons there’s little time for pleasantries. I assume the forbidden love child of Lord Zedd and Dino Thunder White over there is a bad guy?”
“Yup,” Wyatt answered. “It's Tommy, but he calls himself Drakkon now. He's got an army of Ranger Sentries.”
“Must be from something that came out after my sister and I got sent to Equestria.” She strode forward confidently, her hands flexing slowly as if working to loosen a sticky joint. “So, Tommy, are you going to be a good little boy and put your toys away, or is this going to be a bit of fun after dealing with a bunch of stuffy griffon diplomats?”
“And what are you supposed to be?” Drakkon questioned, examining the newcomer.
“Elizabeth Destefanio, High Totemist of Flame Geyser Swamp and currently the most powerful living psion on my version of Equestria. Since I don’t know the particulars of fiction within the Power Rangers universe, the fact that you don’t recognize that I look like Blackarachnia could be utterly meaningless, or meaningful. Tell me, did you ever finish high school, or did Rita suck out your soul before you could flunk out?”
“High school was beneath me,” Drakkon dismissed, waving a hand at his side. “It could not have prepared me for what I do now.”
“So you went evil willingly, that is a nice tidbit of information and I thank you for sharing it. Now, what kind of army do you have and how many of them are on their way here or have already arrived?” Her tone was as polite as possible, as if conversing with an old friend rather than someone she’d just told to put their toys away. All four of her arms moved behind her back in a truly casual motion; hiding the soft purple glow of a figurine quite similar to her own appearing in one of them from Drakkon’s point of view, but not from Wyatt.
“Over a score of my Ranger Sentries,” Drakkon responded. “I’m tired of your questions.” Pointing Saba forward, he sent an arc of lightning towards Elizabeth.
Liz didn’t even flinch as the lightning struck her, but she did smile as she seemed to absorb it to no effect other than the shadows of nearby trees radiating outward. “Only a score? I’ll tell Sarah to just bring her backup singers then. By the way, that lightning isn’t going to do jack shit to me for about three hours. Maybe you should have asked what a psion was before attacking because you got bored.”
The gold sentry from before brandished his weapon. “My lord, shall I crush this interloper?”
“Feel free to attack at any time,” Drakkon relayed, squaring up against Wyatt and Elizabeth.
Liz shrugged and pulled her right hands from behind her back while keeping her left ones hidden and holding the other token. “Sarah, initiate piggyback protocol on my spacebridge trail. Bring at least Minuet and Bolero, we’re dealing with evil Power Rangers in the Apple family orchard. Platform 3 had a full stockpile of potions last time I took inventory.” The token in her hand flashed twice before vanishing in another subtle purple glow.
Wyatt blinked, staring slackjawed at the Displaced he had summoned. “What the hell did you just say? Platform 3? Just how many platforms do you need?”
“Focus on your opponent, kiddo, not on the logistics of someone you called on for help.” Liz’s voice raised a bit as she called up a glowing circle of force to deflect laser shots right as the gold sentry pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, some of the beams were not intercepted by the shield and ended up striking her shins.
While the sentry was busy with Liz, Wyatt charged him and swung his sword at the gold man's chest. Drakkon moved, Saba clashing with Wyatt’s sword.
“Did you forget, you’ve got my full attention.” Drawing the Dragon Dagger off his belt, Drakkon slashed upwards along Wyatt’s chest.
Wyatt’s eyes widened, quickly moving one of his floating swords to divert the strike. He only succeeded partially, the dagger digging into his shoulder. He held in a scream as Drakkon subjected him to a surge of green electricity. Fighting through the pain, Wyatt brought his sword down as hard as he could on Drakkon's right shoulder.
The blade strained against Drakkon’s shield, though seemed unable to pierce it.
Liz wasted no time in thought, and quickly moved just far enough away from Wyatt and Drakkon so as to not be able to be immediately struck by the evil lord. A cloud of crystals formed where she had been standing and streaked through the air to test the armor of the gold-suited sentry for vulnerabilities while the spider legs on her right arm began to fold in and reassemble as an underslung chaingun.
The golden sentry dove away from Liz, finding a boulder to protect him from the newly formed chaingun.
“Wow, your soldiers sure are courageous, Tommy boy. Look how quickly that one filled his boots with piss at the sight of a mildly threatening opponent!” Liz taunted while keeping her weapon trained on the rock, but not once firing at the obstruction. “If the rest of your troops turn tail and run this easily I think I might be wasting my sister’s time.”
Taking out another grenade, the sentry tossed it over the rock. It latched onto Liz’s body with a click, sending a mini-emp into her chassis. Seizing upon the opportunity, he peered out from behind cover, unloading several shots.
That surge of not-quite electricity did elicit a scream of pain from Liz, but the disruption only lasted a few seconds. Each laser bolt that hit left a tiny scorch mark on her body, though those that landed on black portions were practically invisible. A slight green glow tinged the air within an inch of her as she quickly brought up an extra layer of defense around her body, and the offending device was ripped off and crushed by one of her lower arms. “That hurt. Consider yourself lucky I’m not a monster.”
“Your appearance suggests otherwise,” the sentry retorted, trying another grenade.
“Judging by appearance rather than actions, the sign of a small mind most of the time.” Liz intercepted the grenade with the force screen while walking closer to the rock. “I could use one power I know to slowly turn you into an immobile blob of flesh and bone. I’m not going to do that because that would be evil. Actions make one a monster, not looks.”
Letting his gun drop, the sentry pulled out an electrified knife. Leaping over his cover, he brought it down against her, managing to wedge it between her neck and her shoulder. “I’m sure Finster 5 will enjoy taking you apart.”
The electricity, being basically identical to lightning, ended up dissipating just like the earlier bolt from Drakkon, though the fact that there was now a knife jammed into a tiny joint did make Liz’s face scrunch up in discomfort. Both sets of left and right arms were quickly brought up to begin punching and clawing at the hand holding that knife, and the air around her began to heat up. “Wrong choice, getting in close to me.”
“I doubt that, machine.” Reaching into his armor, he produced another green shard. It pulsed, wrapping its energy around Liz, great tendrils seeping into her body. This didn’t stop her from continuing to try and dislodge that knife until it reached a part of her core and produced a sensation much like nausea as parts began shifting against her will.
The tip of the knife snapped off and ended up getting stuck between two shifting panels as the sentry found himself wrestling with a giant black widow spider. One who still had all of the other odd bestial appendages and adornments.
Meanwhile, Wyatt had managed to pull away from Drakkon, the dragon dagger still sticking out of his shoulder. The more experienced fighter was putting him through the wringer, and he didn't even seem to have broken a sweat yet. It was hard to think straight with a knife sticking out of him, but adrenaline helped him manage it.
His mind drifted towards possibilities of keeping Drakkon at bay, a rather obvious one making itself known. Moving his arm up, he grit his teeth and pulled the dagger out of his shoulder. He found a way to put it to his belt, reaching for a pair of cards. “You know something Drakkon? You're a real blowhard.”
Drakkon didn’t respond, pouncing on Wyatt like a wild cat. Wrapping his hand around the younger mans throat, his other went to Wyatt’s belt, attempting to remove it. Wyatt opted to protect the belt over his throat, fighting against his survival instincts. Keeping one hand on the belt, he dropped the first card into the slot.
“Kamen Ride: Agito!” Silhouettes converged on him, his armor changing to resemble a golden stag beetle. He sputtered, his vision starting to fade. Summoning up his strength, he slotted the other card in. “Form Ride: Storm!”
More silhouettes appeared and a short, blue staff with gold pieces on either end materialized into existence. Wyatt weakly grasped the staff with his now free hand, a bright light enveloping him. When it died down, his right arm and chest were blue, a golden brace on his right shoulder. Wyatt wrapped his arm around Drakkon's back, the staff extending and the two gold portions unfolding into blades.
“An act of desperation,” Drakkon commented, slamming his head into Wyatt’s. “A sign of weakness.”
Wyatt grinned beneath his helmet, letting himself fall back to break free of the older man's grasp. He sucked in a deep breath, grasping his Storm Halberd with both hands. “Says the guy who just tried to force me to demorph.” Exerting himself, he twirled his weapon to summon up a mighty gust.
Drakkon stood his ground, retrieving and hurling the dragon dagger at Wyatt’s chest. With a deft twirl, Wyatt deflected the thrown weapon and had it bury itself to the hilt in the ground.
“You're slipping, Tommy, Boy, you just can't seem to keep a hold on that dagger.”
“Merely a distraction,” Drakkon responded a moment before a Sabertooth sentry fired into Wyatt’s back. Moving with purpose, he threw a punch at Wyatt’s face, shattering one of his helmet’s eyes.
Wyatt rolled with the punch, tumbling backwards before returning to his feet. His body screamed in pain, his adrenaline threatening to fade out of his system. The situation was grim, Drakkon giving him no quarter and a sentry taking potshots at him.
A sudden thump was the only sound made as a large black box fell to the ground nearby. A few odd mechanical sounds came from it as it began to enlarge and expand, with a cluster of crystals the same color as the spider figurine at the base of one side. A haunting melody began playing as it continued to adjust its size, a melody that was intimately familiar to Liz, and could have been familiar to Wyatt. A dissonant tone crept in towards the end, making a rising note sound a bit like an old air-raid siren for a moment before the air filled with the droning sound of something approaching at high speed.
Sarah’s fingers twitched as she looked down at the world from miles above, her eyes glowing as she strained to keep her emotions in check. Alright, girls, bring us down hard and fast. Our beacon has been dropped and I want us less than ten feet above the trees in less than a minute. We’re facing enemies that I know little of, but they will be easy to identify as their uniforms or costumes will be dominated by a single bright color. Priority targets will be red, white, or green. Helmets are likely to have an animal design around a visor, depending on what season they’re pulled from. Restrict our ground forces to zerglings unless I say otherwise, but deploy drones to the Everfree and build up a full spawning cluster to keep our options open. Rangers aren’t supposed to escalate a conflict unless their enemy forces them to, but they’re evil and therefore unpredictable.
Short thoughts of agreement came from the six generals as they quickly manipulated the spell matrices that controlled the platform, and initiated a descent acceleration just shy of freefall while sending their own individual commands to the small number of existing troops the piggyback protocol could sustain. Once we ‘touch down’ give me a Wasserman song with a twist.
A sound akin to thousands of panes of glass shattering was all that heralded the arrival of some kind of floating platform above the trees, a sound which was followed by more and more mechanical shifting sounds as what were clearly and obviously giant speakers unfolded from the underside. The dull drone of amps tuned just slightly too high was broken by a feminine voice shouting, “One! Two! Three! Four!”
Another figure landed in the orchard clearing just as the platform above followed that classic rock callout with some drums and guitar playing a tune that sounded upbeat and almost heroic by itself. The person who stood up from that landing looked anything but heroic, what with the bony armor motif and raw, muscular-looking carapace where there wasn’t bony armor. Even the heels of her feet were raised by bony spikes of the armor. The skin of her face around her eyes was broken with a purple glow emanating from the cracked flesh as well as her eyes themselves. Her hair was some kind of segmented, alien insectoid growth that vaguely approximated dreadlocks, and two skeletal, winglike growths extended to her sides from her lower back, with each ‘finger’ of the wings ending in a spike that looked sharp and deadly. Everything remotely close to her capable of thought and without some form of anti-telepathy barrier in place heard the same thing clear as if she’d been standing next to them as she opened her mouth to speak. “Anyone not native to this plane of existence, leave immediately or face the wrath of the Queen of Blades.”
“That technically includes me,” Wyatt said, chuckling weakly as he processed what he had just bore witness to. “I’ve only lived here for a year.”
Sarah’s voice echoed dimly in his mind for a moment. If you’re the Displaced she was summoned by, this is your home now. We haven’t found a way back in forty years of research. Try and act like I’ve said nothing to you.
“Well, aren’t you something,” Drakkon noted and waved a hand, the tanks beginning to shell the stage. Retrieving his dagger, Drakkon leapt onto the stage, his presence emboldening his sentries to begin opening fire.
Wyatt cursed, chasing after Drakkon. With one leap, he cleared the stage and slashed at Drakkon’s chest.
“Oh you son of a bitch, I just came down!” Sarah screamed as she crouched to minimize the target size any sentries had while focusing to get an image of what areas were clear for landing above. Last thing she wanted to do was land on the local Displaced. Despite appearing to be nothing but bones, her wings snapped up into the air as if preparing to aid with a downstroke.
Liz, meanwhile, was still scratching at the gold sentry with those ape-like arms and trying to dislodge him from her back by climbing up a tree and between branches. “Let go of me you flashy creep!”
The sentry grunted, a tree branch slamming into his helmet. His grip lessened noticeably, but he stubbornly remained on her back.
The sight that greeted Drakkon up on that stage would be of four unarmored female beings who looked mostly like the local anthro ponies, except each one of them was a single solid color themselves, and all of them had at least one limb slightly distorted with bony protrusions. A solid forest green mare sat behind a drum set while a maroon woman stopped playing her guitar mid-chord and glared at him. A delicate-looking yellow being had just finished tuning a bass, while a jet-black one had her wings flared out behind a keyboard of some kind. “Who the hell are you and how dare you interrupt our performance?”
“Don't worry, ladies,” Wyatt said, landing after his attack. “I got distracted by the flashy entrance. You keep playing and I'll kick the rabid f-” Wyatt received a kick to the chest, sending him stumbling back into one of the performers.
Sarah leapt up at that moment, and her right hand began to glow with both green and blue light as she called to her mind-blade in midair. Her wings flapped down and somehow provided a boost to get her up and over the edge of the stage so that she could point her weapon at Drakkon. “You should have stayed on the ground. Now you’ve threatened my daughters.”
“If you didn't want to see them in harm's way, leave them off the battlefield,” Drakkon stated, looking unphased by the glowing weapon.
“Silly human-” The red one practically giggled as she spoke.
“She’s not concerned for us.” The green one ended the thought with a savage smile as a chorus of sounds came from within the base of the stage itself. Howls, screams, feral cries.
“You were dumb enough to put yourself-” The yellow one smirked as she crossed her arms under her bust.
“Right above where our troops spawn! You idiot!” The black one growled as she played the stereotypical ‘ominous organ’ chord on the keyboard. Panels slid open on top of the stage and the first things to emerge looked like wolves made of branches and twigs with just enough flesh to hold them together.
Drakkon went to work, dancing across with stage in a flurry of movement, reducing said creatures to twitching limbs.
While Drakkon was busy with the timber wolves, Wyatt jumped in and stabbed at the older man's stomach.
“Girls, forget the Wasserman. Give us something to beat down this tyrant, and deploy some troops to the ground before those tanks break down the shield talismans.” She sent an additional command regarding what troops to allow telepathically before leaping in front of Drakkon and blocking his sword with her own. The blade quickly morphed and became wavy as it attained the appearance of the soul reaver wraith blade. “You really won’t want to be here in about a minute, sweetie.” That last word somehow came out as a threat, dripping with venom.
“Was that directed to me or the psychotic dictator?” Wyatt questioned, using his halberd to deflect Drakkon's dagger.
Sarah answered by removing one hand from the ghostly hilt of her weapon and using that to send a blast of magical energy right into Drakkon’s face. “I don’t know you well enough to insult you yet.”
“Give it a day, you'll have a plenty of material,” Wyatt joked. While Drakkon was reeling, he slashed the man from stomach to head.
Drakkon leapt back off the stage, allowing his forces to concentrate their fire. “Anyone hits the boy and your entire unit is dead.”
“He certainly has a personality about as lovable as a rabid chihuahua.” Sarah quipped as the timberwolves began to reassemble and more monstrous troops emerged from under the stage to form a small crowd at the edge. Many of them had wings, but those that did not looked light enough to be unharmed by the fall. “Deploy lower ramp and roll out the banelings. Priority targets changed to artillery fire. Bolero, no napalm! We’re in an orchard and this family is an old one.”
“I’m not sixteen and stupid anymore, mother!”
Wyatt jumped off the stage, swinging his halberd and creating gale force winds to blow away several sentries. “Sure feels like you've been trying to kill me, Drakkon! Why care about my safety all of a sudden?!”
A seam opened on the underside of the stage, allowing a long section to fall down and form a ramp right as the speakers burst to life once more, broadcasting the sound of dozens of troops marching, quickly accompanied by a lonely trumpet as close to a hundred zerg soldiers of various body shapes descended to the grass below. This was followed by Sarah and the dozens that had gathered at the edge of the stage leaping to the ground from above. The zerg creatures that had a carapace resembling polished obsidian streaked off into the forest as nothing more than black blurs while the others scattered out at a more sedate running pace, and only sped up suddenly as they reached areas with unobstructed sight lines.
One wooden, wolf-like zergling leaped into a nearby tree to assist ‘Auntie Liz’ with dislodging her passenger. The sentry cried out as he fell from her back, landing to the ground with a heavy thud. His armor glowed before fading away, revealing an unconscious man that only looked a few years older than Wyatt.
Wyatt rushed into an open field, drawing a few of the sentries with him. He swept his eyes over the battlefield, trying to quickly form a plan of attack. This effort was made harder by the fact that there were now a good number of fresh combatants on the field due to the intervention of Sarah and the four daughters she brought along. The timberwolf-like creatures would collapse after a few good hits, but begin to reform within a few seconds as either a stony lizard-looking creature or two purple panthers with tentacles overtook their charge.
“Displacer beasts?!” Wyatt cried out, jumping to avoid a sudden hail of bullets. “We are talking about that later!” Using a gust of wind from his weapon, he sped up his landing and kicked a Mastodon Sentry in the chest.
Sarah flicked her wrist and changed the form of her mind blade as she followed that up with a swat to the side of the helmet with the side of a broadsword that quickly segmented and extended into a chain-linked sword. “Not really much to say, and they’re hardly the weirdest unit in my forces.”
“Not what I wanted to talk about!” Wyatt retorted, leaping forward and locked his halberd with another Mastodon Sentry. With a quick twist of his wrists, the sentry was disarmed and he kicked the armored person to receive a distinctly feminine grunt in response. “This is taking too long.” Opening his belt, he slipped in another card. “Lets see about speeding this up.”
“How fast are you talking about, kid? There’s a limit to how fast my troops and I can move, and Liz, wherever she is, can only teleport so far at a time.”
“A very debatable speed that the show contradicted a lot.” Wyatt slipped in his Kabuto card.
“Error!” the belt called out, the handles refusing to budge.
“Seriously?!” Wyatt hissed. “Why aren’t you working!?”
His momentary distraction allowed a pair of sentries to score hits on his chest with their rifles.
Sarah closed her eyes for a moment before swinging her weapon out wide to retaliate against those two sentries. She didn’t make any real effort to try and dodge the shots, but they also didn’t seem to slow her down much when they did hit her. “Seeing a lot of black ranger things, but not much else. This Drakkon guy only has one kind of soldier?”
“Obviously not, but I guess their rifles make for good raiding. Who needs accuracy when you can spray and pray?” Wyatt offered, looking for another battle.
“Oh, I’m not saying they aren’t hitting their target.”Sarah calmly scratched at one of the places on her arm where a shot or two had landed. “It just makes me wonder what kinds of forces he’s holding in reserve, and what they use.”
“I’ve seen pink, red, yellow and gold versions of these guys,” Wyatt answered, taking a moment to catch his breath while the zerglings held off the sentries. “I'd say it’s fair to assume he has access all of the Mighty Morphin’ colors with at least SPD.”
“Better SPD than Zeo, but at least now we know he’s a tyrant with no taste.” Sarah joked as she darted off to the left towards another section of the orchard. Two timberwolf zerglings moving in to accompany her. “There’s a tank over this way.”
With his moment over, Wyatt moved to help deal with the tank. He put himself behind the zerglings, waiting to see what he could do to help.
Without a word or gesture, the two wooden zerglings peeled away from Sarah’s sides and spread out as the three of them burst into a clearing, with Sarah charging straight at the armored vehicle, only to seemingly vanish in a blur right as the sentries guarding it began to open fire upon her.
Two sentries fell as Sarah reappeared a few seconds later right in front of them, one of them clutching at their groin and simply groaning as he de-powered while the other rolled aside from the blow rather than taking the full brunt of the attack. The two zerglings curled up into balls of wood while Sarah provided a distraction, before bursting out of their own bodies looking like floating beach balls with teeth and flying straight at the legs of the tank.
“That’s disturbing,” Wyatt noted, watching the new creatures explode upon impact and shower the tank in powerful acid. He rushed at the legs of the tank, slamming his halberd where the metal looked like it was weakening the most.
“We’re zerg. Body horror is kind of our ‘thing,’ and everything that’s in direct line of fire from your enemy here is mindless and savage, without control, so not like them dying means anything.” Sarah’s voice is almost detached as she states this, her weapon briefly flickering as she batters the joints on the other affected leg.
Wyatt frowned, keeping any comments about sociopathy to himself.
Drakkon found himself being swarmed by the strange creatures. Every time he went to swing at one, it would bury itself in the ground in a blur of movement while at least two others would bite him in his blind spot. The worst part, he couldn’t predict their movements. He was used to fighting intelligent life. Beings that used disciplined techniques. Whatever these creatures were, they clearly relied on instinct. Fighting him like a pack of wolves and taking bites at him every chance they had.
Or did they? A slight tremor was the only warning Drakkon got as a tree-sized ant-like creature burst out of the ground outside the area where these things were burying themselves and spit at him right as two more of the things smacked him in the back.
White and green lightning struck out from his weapons, followed by a slash to the ant creature’s head. “Your antics are obnoxious and uncoordinated.”
Two more seemed to sprout right out of the earth at either side of him. Both of them spat out their acidic bile before burrowing back into the ground in perfect unison; almost as if flipping him off. A rough laugh erupted from the treeline nearby before an invisible force struck him hard in the small of his back. “Oh trust me, my sister’s pets have plenty of coordination.”
Drakkon staggered, whipping around as if to locate his attacker. When nothing presented itself right away, he threw lightning in the general direction he had been attacked.
“Lightning lightning lightning. Drakky, baby, get some new tricks. We’ve already established that that simply isn’t going to work.” Liz’s voice came from a different direction this time, and then a beam of pure cold came from still another direction.
Drakkon moved Saba in a circular motion, muttering a few words. A portal opened before him, sending the beam to another destination. He muttered a bit more, and his visor began glinting. With a purposeful motion, he dashed forward and caught Liz across the abdomen with a slash from Saba.
Not that that was much of a feat what with her abdomen currently being a large and bulbous target in her spider form. The ‘flesh’ of her carapace parted and began sparking slightly as the inner mechanisms of her disguise were exposed. This was immediately followed by a one-two punch from the ape-like arms that were extending from her back, and a blur as she vanished from where she’d just been and reappeared a good twenty feet away. “Good to know that invisibility isn’t going to save me, but I never have been one to focus on just one trick.”
Drakkon tsked, holding his blades out in front of him. He was growing tired, but he wouldn't let his enemies see it. Calming his mind, he reached into his magic reserves and pushed onward, determined to catch his quarry.
Applejack grunted, swinging her orange sword at a sabertooth sentry. “How many of them are there?” She barely had a moment to dodge as said sentry slashed at her throat. “Ah don’t rightly know how to use a sword!”
“A lot,” Maud deadpanned, uppercutting a tyrannosaurus sentry. “And just keep swinging. And block when they swing back.”
“That don’t make me feel better!” Applejack kicked a sentry into a tree, wincing. “Oh Faust, Sweet Apple Acres ain’t gonna survive this.”
“It will if you keep fighting,” Maud replied, stopping a strike from the sentry's staff with her hand and punching him in the visor. “Trees can be replanted. Ponies can’t.”
The red sentry staggered back a few steps from the force of the strike, then moved to avoid a following jab from the rock-covered fist. “Your resistance is futile anyways. One way or another this world will burn soon.”
“Yer wrong!”Applejack boomed, rushing over and kicking him in the chest as if he were one of her trees. “Equestria ain't fallin’ t'no brutes like you!”
“Perhaps not, but it will fall to me!” Goldar lumbered into view, his gaze locking onto Applejack and Maud. “You may not be Power Rangers, but you’ll do well enough.” Raising his sword, he charged forward, slashing down at Applejack’s shoulder.
Applejack reacted quickly, bringing up her sword to block. The attack still overpowered her, the opposing blade nicking her shoulder.
It was at that moment that what looked like a timberwolf combined with a rosebush burst out of the treeline right behind Goldar and leaped up on his back to begin clawing at him and biting his neck.
Goldar sneered before reaching back and crushing the beasts head. “A minor annoyance. Now, amuse me, horse!” drawing his fist back, he slammed it into Applejack’s chest.
Applejack skidded backwards, her back crashing into a nearby tree. She managed to avoid a follow up, retaliating with a jab to the cyborg's jaw. Goldar laughed off her blow, taking out a blue pistol with traffic lights on the side. He didn’t bother to aim, simply firing off shots as he saw fit.
The wooden body of the wolf twitched a few times before rising again and leaping at the winged cyborg-monkey. The head slowly reformed itself, but this was clearly a move made to attempt to wildly reduce the threat to either of the armored ponies more than anything else.
Applejack had no idea why a timberwolf was helping them. Normally the creatures wasted no opportunity to attack ponies. But she wasn't about to question a good thing. Jumping up, she used both her hands to bring down her orange sword in a mighty swing at Goldar's shoulder.
Goldar stumbled, his armor absorbing the strike. “Look at you, wearing that ridiculous armor! You’re even more pathetic than the rangers were!”
“Yer one t’talk,” Applejack retorted, blocking another swing of Goldar's sword. While the flying monkey was busy, Maud jumped in and punched Goldar in the cheek. “Ya look like somethin’ a foal would come up with after breakin’ their toys.”
“I have more power than you can comprehend!” Goldar roared, flicking his wrist. The pistol became a baton, which he cracked against Applejack’s helmet. “Your pitiful power will be Lord Drakkon’s!”
Applejack could swear there was ringing in her ears, stumbling back a couple steps. Keeping a tight grip on her sword, she lunged at Goldar and stabbed at a spot in his stomach that looked less armored. “Come on, ya stupid monkey! Get the hay off ma farm!”
Sparks showered out from the place of the strike, the cybernetic monkey grunting in pain. Raising his arm high, he dropped it on the back of Applejack's neck.
Something collided with Applejack, knocking her out of the way. “They’re just letting anybody become a rider, aren’t they?” Trixie tsked, her blade locked with Goldar’s. “Let Trixie show you how it’s done!” Grinning beneath her helmet, Trixie angled her blade and pulled the trigger to fire off a shot at Goldar's visor.
Goldar snarled, forced to look away. “I don’t care how many of you riders there are, I’ll crush you all!” Swinging his sword, he followed it up with an upswing of his baton.
Trixie jumped out of the way of the attacks, lashing out with her own sword while the cyborg's guard was down. “All bluster it seems. Must have wasted a lot of bits on you, monkey-man. Is all that junk weighing you down?” She followed up her slash with an uppercut.
Bringing his arm up again, he slammed the baton into her arm, “Prattle as much as you like, you’ll be begging for mercy soon enough!”
Trixie's arm throbbed, forcing her to change her stance to give herself a moment for the pain to stop. “Trixie isn't much of a beggar.” Squaring up her aim, she fired off a few shots at the lights on Goldar's chest.
Dropping his baton, Goldar used the now free hand to protect his chest. “Enough games! I’ll destroy you, rider!” Drawing a bat-themed pistol from his hip, he opened fire, punctuating each blast with a thrust or slash from his sword.
“Connect, please!” A red magic circle appeared in front of Trixie, the blasts disappearing within them. Suddenly, a second one opened up behind Goldar, his own attack hitting him.
“How are you going to destroy anyone with aim like that?” Twilight questioned, striding out from behind a tree in Flame Style. “I’d think they’d give you something to improve your aim.”
“You riders are like cockroaches!” Goldar boomed, turning his aim to Twilight. “I’ll just have to squash you one by one!”
“That'll be hard since we're working together,” Maud pointed out, punching him in the back of the head. She was rewarded with a wing to the face and an elbow to the gut.
Trixie and Applejack came up next, slashing at both his left and right. Before he could follow up, Twilight continued to fire on him.
The timberwolf stood up one last time, and staggered as its right foreleg snapped under its own weight. It seemed to stare right at Applejack as it let out one long howl while being surrounded in a soft white glow. That same glow quickly spread out to all of the riders and soothed their most severe aches and pains as the wooden creature burst into white flames and collapsed.
The four felt renewed energy surge through them, Applejack giving the timberwolf a silent ‘thank you’ as she kicked Goldar in the chest. Goldar brought the blaster up, firing a few blasts into her side. Applejack grunted, the shots knocking her off her hooves.
“Ah ain’t gonna tell ya again, get off mah farm!” Pushing herself back up, Applejack raised her swords. One way or another, she was going to protect her farm and her family.
Spike grumbled to himself, beating the wings on his UniSaPo armor. He had to leave Rarity with her stuff once the odd sounds started coming from the orchards. A quick letter to Celestia and here he was, looking at a floating stage while bug monsters fought what looked like mass produced riders. Once he was close enough, he dropped down onto the stage.
“Don’t shoot me, I’m dancin’! Can’t stop the top. Ya can’t stop it!” An odd-looking yellow mare in what looked like a cheerleader’s outfit finished singing with a twirl right as he landed. The three other figures on the stage all stopped playing as well while looking his armor over.
“Alright, Prelude, that’s enough for now.” A red mare in what looked like a Saddle Arabian belly-dancer’s outfit set her guitar down. “We all need a quick break while we figure out if this one’s on the local or invader’s side.”
Spike couldn't find his voice, his armor feeling like a sauna as he looked between the four mares. The one in the belly dancer outfit in particular was hard to keep his eyes off of.
“The armor style and wings heavily suggest a local, as does the fact that he isn’t attacking us on sight. Even you should be able to come to that conclusion, Bolero.” This came from the black mare behind a keyboard, who almost looked more like a solid shadow. “Speak up, boy, before we’re forced to try reading your mind to verify the hypothesis.”
That caught Spike's attention, his gaze settling on the black mare. “Wait, you can read minds?”
“We can, but we generally avoid it as an invasion of privacy. We’re only speaking out loud because mother made it clear that having a private conversation around those who cannot tune in is rude and therefore only to be done around politicians.” This came from the solid green mare whose outfit was made almost entirely of lace made to appear like tiny vines against her fur.
Spike gulped, looking away from the mares. Why couldn't he have found a monster? That would've been way less dangerous. “So uh... what are you guys doing here? Do you know who’s attacking Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Some jerk who calls himself ‘Drakkon’ who has an army of cheap knockoff power rangers that he calls ‘Sentries.’ Mom’s pissed at him for various reasons. Try not to attack anything that looks like a monster to you, because that’s probably one of our soldiers.” Bolero didn’t even look at him as she stepped forward to take Prelude’s place on stage. “Granted, killing one of them by accident isn’t going to matter much. Our troops are mindless puppets at least.”
“Drakkon? That's an odd name,” Spike commented. “But uh, you can call me OOO's for now. I'm a Kamen Rider.” He shifted, pointing over his shoulder. “You’re uh ‘Mom’s’ in charge of the bugs right?”
“And the timberwolves, and the displacer beasts, and the chameleon shades.”
“Right...” Spike turned, his eyes locking onto the spider tanks. “Think you could uh tell her to try and capture those tanks? They’d help us out a lot.”
“We can guarantee your world has full salvage rights, but there’s no guarantees that they’ll be undamaged or fully intact. We know that at least one of them has a severed leg and some severe acid damage to the internal components of another.” Prelude chimed in, then smiled as she picked up the guitar. “Oh, if you feel a little light on your feet while fighting, that’s normal with our music.”
“Light on my feet. So faster?” Spike questioned, moving towards the edge of the stage.
“More effective in general, really. The world we come from has certain magical effects that we use to our advantage.” This came from the black mare again as she flicked a switch on the keyboard and a few presses produced something much like a chorus singing.
Spike nodded, the sound of a cannon shot echoing across the air. The Invincible sailed into view, two of its cannons firing at the spider tanks. “Let your mom know that ship’s ours, and not to attack any of the birds.” Spreading his wings, Spike dove off the platform, gazing around for the other riders.
Contrary to the previous rock-style the quartet had been producing, the sounds that started coming from the speakers as Spike descended were those of classical instruments that he had not seen while he was on top just a second ago, and the lyrics that began quickly were so different from the heated persona the red mare had exuded. The sensation was, indeed, quite inspiring though. “Colors weave into a spire of flame…”
Spike let himself fall off the stage, his wings slowly spreading as he fell towards the battlefield. His gaze fell upon one of the large tanks, noticing the exposed pilot. He nose dived, swooping down and wrenching the pilot from his controls.
“One guy down!” he called out, stumbling a little as the tank tilted to the side. “Okay, you can stop attacking it now!”
The small crowd of various quadrupedal monsters that had been hacking or biting at the legs of the tank, and leaving quite a few dents and gouges in the metal, backed off after another couple seconds before charging off in one direction as a unified force.
A wild idea occurred to Spike and he let himself plop down into the seat. His hands reached out and grabbed the controls. He experimented with them, trying to see if he could drive the war machine. It jerked to the side, one of the legs crushing a timberwolf. Spike lurched forward in the seat, loosening his grip on the controls.
“Sorry wolf!” he called out, trying again to get the tank under control. He decided to keep away from the buttons, knowing one of them would set off the weapons. The last thing he needed was to blow away his allies rather than the colorful invaders. “Maybe I should just leave this thing alone?”
Spike sighed, hopping out of the tank. While it had been a fun idea, it clearly wasn’t a practical one. Pulling out his three medals, he swapped them for the new ones that Twilight had given him.
“Shachi, Kujaku, Cheetah!” The colorful rings surrounded him, his armor shifting. A blue helmet with a fin and yellow eyes replaced his pink one, red gauntlets appeared on his body as well as a red buckler on his left wrist. His legs changed to yellow and his boots closely resembled sneakers.
Spotting a Mastodon sentry, he zipped over, leaving a yellow after image. Drawing his arm back, he tossed a punch at the woman’s leg. The woman crumpled with a cry of pain and before she could counter, he elbowed her in the helmet.
“What are you doing here?” He demanded, knocking her rifle away. “I want to know everything!”
“We’re here to burn this world to the ground,” the sentry replied slowly, turning on her elbow to stare back at Spike. “That is all you need to know, animal.”
Two of the creatures running past stopped and growled at the prone sentry as they heard that insult. The timberwolf darted in to clamp its jaws around one wrist while the displacer beast wrapped its two spiked tentacles around the entire other arm and began pulling.
“Stop!” Spike called out, grabbing at one of the tentacles. “Don’t kill her!”
The displacer beast looked over at Spike, and a series of cracks and pops came from it as its head slowly changed shape to form an approximation of a pony’s. When it opened its mouth again, Prelude’s voice emerged. “This is war, child. Enemies are either killed or rendered unconscious before they can do the same to allies. If you aren’t going to kill her, best knock her out while we hold her helpless.”
“Knocking her out is fine.” Spike reared his fist back, punching the sentry in the helmet with as much force he thought was necessary.
As soon as the sentry’s armor flickered out the two creatures released her, though not without a few scratches on each arm. The glint of intelligence faded from the eyes of the purple feline, but the head did not revert in shape before the two ran off to catch up with the swarm to take down the last tank.
With the sentry taken care of, Spike dashed off, looking for another enemy to take care of and protect his friend’s farm... only for Applejack to crash into his side. “Ow...” he muttered, shaking his head. He turned his head, taking in the person who had crashed into him. “Whoa! Another new Rider?!”
“Uh, hey uh, OOO,” Applejack greeted, pushing herself up. “Ah’m uh... guess Ah ain’t got a name yet but, we’re fightin’ this here monkey-man!” She gestured to the way she had come, Goldar locking blades with Trixie behind some trees.
“Wow, that might actually be freakier looking than the nine-headed cat,” Spike commented, pulling himself and Applejack to their feet. With his footing established, he ran up to Goldar, jumping once he hit full speed and positioned himself to kick the flying monkey in the side.
Goldar whirled around, his heavy blade slamming into Spike’s side. “Ah! A five man team! Now that brings back memories!” Spinning on his heel, he cut Feldspar across the side. “Destroying you will be all the sweeter!”
Spike soared through the air for a brief moment, only to be stopped by a nearby tree.
“Thou must be older than myself for such a simple error in counting.” Feldspar growled out while shifting to hold the now-tender side of his ribs away from the alien being. “By my count there be more than five of us riders alone.:
Goldar snarled, kicking a broken tree at Feldspar. “It matters not! You’ll all feel the edge of my blade cleaving through you!”
Feldspar dropped onto his stomach, letting the tree sail harmlessly over him. While on the ground he fired off shots at Goldar’s knees.
“You know, it’s rare that I second-guess what gets relayed to me through my daughters or one of my own soldiers, but you look like you were mangled by a cat and fixed with the cheapest possible spare parts. What happened, Goldar, get chewed up by a big white tiger?” Sarah appeared from the trees near Goldar, with her mind blade still in the form of an extended whip-sword.
“Hold your tongue!” Goldar snapped, whipping around to look at Sarah. “I was rebuilt through the best efforts my lord, Drakkon could provide! I’m more powerful than I ever was before!”
“Yes, yes, power, glory, blah blah blah. So much metal in your body is a weakness when you’re supposed to be flesh. I wonder just how much pain you’re in? Set down your weapon and I could free you from that pain easily, and make you just as strong as you are now.” There isn’t a hint of deception in her tone, and she even allows her weapon to dissipate as she opens her hands in an overture of peace. “Would you rather have metal, or the ability to feel again?”
“I don’t need anything from you!” Goldar boomed, charging at Sarah. “What I have is a gift from my lord!”
Sarah dove to the side and immediately re-formed her blade in one hand while the other sent out a blast of arcane energy towards Goldar. Once it was within a yard of him the energy coalesced and turned into a vile-smelling acid. “Very well, you have made your choice. My offer was sincere.”
Goldar cried out, the acid hissing as it splashed onto his chest. He dropped his blaster, frantically swiping the acid off his chest. “I’ll gut you like a bug, you ugly excuse for a monster!” Reaching over his shoulder, he drew the sword that had been strapped to his back.
“Ugly? Now there’s an insult I haven’t heard in years that wasn’t coming from some lazy noble with less common sense than legs. Almost makes me wistful for home.” Her voice shifts from pitying to sarcastic as easily as the weapon in her hands alters in shape into a close approximation of the buster sword. “As for ‘monster;’ have you ever even seen a mirror?”
Goldar charged, swinging his own sword at her chest and the other at a leg.
Sarah moved with far more grace than one ever would have been able to had her weapon been made of metal as she brought that leg back and turned aside the strike at her chest with the flat of the large psychic projection. “This isn’t a duel, the rest of you can join in any time you like now that I’ve given you a chance to breathe!”
Twilight was the first to take the offer, switching her gun to its sword mode and going in low to attack Goldar’s stomach. Trixie and Feldspar opened fire, pelting the beast with a barrage of bullets.
“Apologies in advance for any invasion of privacy, but I need a coordination advantage right now.” Sarah gives no real explanation whatsoever before lowering her barriers and allowing her mind to begin listening in on the surface thoughts of those around her in an attempt to catch a hint of their intentions so she could coordinate her own strikes better. A chaotic array of images and passing thoughts graced her mind as she did her best to blot out the signals from her brood and filter through everything else.
Liz skittered back a few steps while firing off a simple energy ray at Drakkon to keep him distracted while Wyatt engaged him blade-to-blade. The occasional zergling or baneling variety charged in as well, and she was going to have some words with her nieces at some point about certain forms. “I think it’s time to surrender, Tommy. My sister has your troops fully outmatched, and I haven’t heard more than one tank firing for the last few minutes, if that.”
Drakkon responded with another incantation, swirling Saba in front of him. A strange shimmer spread over him, giving his motions a mesmerizing quality to them. Striking out, he caught Wyatt in the side, the younger man unable to clearly perceive him.
An alert flashed in the corner of Liz’s vision for a moment as she let loose with another ray, then twisted it a little so that it lingered and stayed focused on Drakkon for a few seconds. ‘Debug complete, system purged. Transformation enabled.’ “About goddamn time!” She triggered the command without a second thought, her body finally reverting to her normal, humanoid form for the first time in what felt like hours.
“Good to see you... back on both feet...” Wyatt attempted to joke, faltering under Drakkon’s assault. He stumbled back, grabbing at his side. “Could use... some help...”
Liz nodded in response as she summoned a few weapons from her stockpile of those which she couldn’t reconfigure parts of herself into. A rather large burst of energy was release as an odd-looking sword with a pistol-style hilt appeared in her upper right arm while her upper left passed the huge blade/shield/grenade launcher down to her lower arm so that two hands on the same side could be used to stabilize it.
Drakkon regarded her cautiously, keeping Saba leveled at Wyatt’s head. “Do you really think that any weapon you generate will stop me?”
“Oh, these? I’m not generating them, I’m pulling them out of storage. As for how effective they’ll be or not, well, one’s a serviceable shield and the other just feels comfortable.” She grinned as she took another few steps in. “And it really makes me unpredictable for you since you don’t know what these are.”
Wyatt felt a blow knock him back, his body aching in ways that he hadn’t even known were possible. His adrenaline was fading fast and he had no idea how much blood he had lost from his arm. His guess was somewhere between a cup and enough to fill a kiddie pool. Something needed to change in this fight if he was going to avoid passing out on his feet.
“Wyatt!” Twilight called, blasting Goldar into view with a gust of green wind. “Oh my Faust, are you alright!?”
“Not... really...Story of my life and all...” Wyatt replied, feeling his halberd slacken in his hands. “Good to see... you’re okay.” His tired gaze fell on Applejack. “Oh neat… Gaim’s here.”
Goldar snarled, rising to his feet. “My lord, I apologize! I should have taken care of these insects minutes ago!”
Drakkon paused, tilting his head. “All is forgiven, Goldar.” A portal cracked open behind him, several more echoing through the area. “We have what we came for. Goldar, show these children just what those upgrades granted you.”
“At once, my lord!” Goldar grit his teeth, his body convulsing. Various sickening sounds filled the as Goldar’s body expanded. He dropped both of his swords, the ruby in his chest pulsing brightly. “I’ll stamp them out like cockroaches!”
“Oh...fuck.” Liz said the only thing that came to mind at that sight, followed by taking note of everyone around her and allowing her weapons to vanish back into the subspace pocket as a small box materialized in place of the smaller one. That box was quickly handed over to Twilight. “Get him out of that armor and feed him two or three of these. Sarah, tell me you had some kind of contingency plan in place for something like this.”
“R-Right.” Twilight crossed the distance to Wyatt, disengaging his belt. “Come on, we can’t do this here.” Without any further discussion, she swept him up bridal style and dashed off towards the farmhouse.
“T-tis but… a flesh wound,” Wyatt weakly protested, shifting uncomfortably in Twilight's arms. “I can… still fight.” Even as he said this, he could feel his eyes threaten to close.
“Less jokes, more resting,” Twilight snapped, placing him on the swing on the Apple’s porch. Shakily, she opened the box, blinking as she laid eyes on... sugar cubes. “Okay, that robot mare told me to give you some of these. I’m going to trust her on her word and so are you.” Picking one up, she held it to Wyatt’s lips.
“Could put it in my good hand,” Wyatt grumbled, opening his mouth to let the cube settle on his tongue. He leaned back into the swing, letting the cube dissolve in his mouth. “We waiting for something to happen or?” The cube had a faintly berry-like flavor accompanied by soothing mint.
Recall all non-baneling troops, sacrifice to biomass for injection into Magilisk gestation immediately. “Everybody not capable of getting that big fall back to a defensible position and guard all noncombatants as much as you’re able.” Sarah’s voice held the tone of someone who was used to unquestioned obedience on a battlefield, but her expression was one of concern and worry. “I can only hope his feet are vulnerable to various kinds of explosions and solvents while my ace in the hole grows.”
“And what would that ace be?” Trixie asked, taking a step back as Goldar grew past the treeline. “You have a giant on your side?”
The Invincible pulled back, turning parallel to the monster. She opened fire, a dozen cannons peppering Goldar.
“I have a centaur the size of a mountain who was clearly crossbred with a minotaur at some point before I got ahold of his essence. I think that qualifies, but it’s not something I tend to field except in emergencies. It tends to cause panic.”
The floating platform moved itself to hover above the farmhouse, draping the building in shadow while most of the odd creatures that had joined the battlefield were either heading to the Everfree or forming some kind of cocoon briefly before emerging as something vastly different.
“Ya’ll can’t just have a monster fight here! Y’all will destroy the farm!” Applejack protested, glaring at Sarah.
Sarah sighed as she turned towards Applejack, her voice slightly less harsh as she responded. “He’s not going to give us a choice in the matter, but I do know how much this farm means to the Apple family. Measures will be taken to force him towards the Everfree as much as possible, and away from Ponyville at all times. One of my daughters has based her entire brood upon plant creatures, so there will be every effort made to repair any damage that has been caused, but I cannot promise every tree will be brought back to perfect health.”
Applejack groaned, shaking her head. “Ah don't like this one bit, but yer right. Go ahead, do what ya gotta do.”
Sarah nodded in response and sent a single quick command to her daughters and the few troops of her own brood that she’d held in reserve at the small base they’d built up in the Everfree. “I’ll do my best to try and draw him away sooner, but I don’t know if the metal parts he has are weak enough for hydralisk spines to pierce, so, yeah, this is gonna suck for a bit.”
“Ah don't think Ah wanna look,” AJ said, turning on her hoof. “If y'all need me, Ah'll be checkin’ on mah family. Ah'll just get in the way if Ah stay out here.”
“Minuet, I want you to generate as many of your special caretakers as possible. There’s going to be a bunch of unavoidable collateral damage and I want them on standby for after this is over.” Sarah turned to the rest and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but do any of you have any other options for this? Any thoughts on how we can minimize damage or kill this titanic abomination faster?”
“That ruby looked important!” Pinkie Pie chirped, seemingly unbothered by the turn of events. “It was all glowy and stuff!”
“Pinkie says to remove or destroy his ruby,” Maud relayed.
“Indeed, all glowy and stuff certainly does seem important.” Sarah actually smiled as she said this, followed by closing her eyes and focusing on the troops moving through the orchard. “Thank you...Pinkie.”
The swarm moving through the orchard split as it neared the giant foe. The various types of banelings continuing to run, roll, or float towards him while a small group of serpentine creatures known as hydralisks halted and began to fire javelins made of chitin hard enough to pierce aerospace hulls.
Goldar crossed his arms, flinching when the javelins sank into his limbs. He charged forward, stomping on the offending beasts. Unfortunately, this also brought him well within range of the horde of smaller, explosive creatures that were practically impossible to see moving through the trees of the orchard.
Multiple floating green spheres barreled straight for his ankles while a handful of rolling red-and-white ones continued towards his feet. A dozen or so huge insects with bloated abdomens full of purple fluid charged in alongside the rolling spheres, and all of them exploded either as they connected with his body or as he stepped on them. The result was a ton of acid seeping into the top and bottom of his feet as well as scorch marks from the rolling spheres.
Goldar snarled, swatting away the remaining spheres while his metal body hissed and smoked.
Each and every one that was swatted away burst on impact with whatever they hit, with these creatures being designed to be fragile suicide attackers. That didn’t stop one or two from readying themselves before impact and exploding as he hit them, though. A fleshy, pulsing mass rose above the distant treeline as the last of the banelings charged in recklessly.
Goldar stumbled backwards, his face contorting into a mask of pain. He beat his wings, creating gusts of wind in an attempt to blow away anything that dared to approach.
That hill of flesh in the distance quickly grew larger, far faster than anything should ever be able to grow. Only Goldar could possibly see it, of the beings that were standing on firm ground in or near the orchard. The only clues that the valiant local defenders even had that things were going well were the fact that Goldar hadn’t come any closer to the farmhouse, and the speakers from the platform activating once again and unleashing a heavy bass and drum segment.
Back at the farm house, Twilight had just pushed the third sugarcube past Wyatt's lips. He could already feel a difference with the other two, an odd tingle emanated from his arm as his wound seemed to knit itself closed along with every minor wound he’d received. Once the third one had dissolved, his stamina had returned anew, causing him to feel compelled to jump off the swing and stretch out.
“Woo! That stuff is awesome!” he cheered. He summoned his card case, looking through it for a moment. “Alright, let's see what I've got in my bag of tricks.”
“You just wait one moment so I can scan your ass, buster. I’m not letting a patient run back on the battlefield until I’m sure they aren’t still in serious pain.” Liz held up one hand and seemed to just stand there for a moment before nodding. “Good enough for me, heartbeat’s much steadier than it was when you de-morphed, or whatever it’s called.”
“Eh, no official term,” Wyatt said, neglecting to tell her he would've ran off without her go ahead. Flipping through his case, he pulled out a card. “Aha! This little beauty should be perfect.” With a mischievous grin, he turned his head to Twilight. “Hey Twi, wanna take part in a little experiment of mine?”
Twilight quirked a brow, though the gesture was lost due to her helmet. “Wyatt, what are you thinking? I don't like the look you're giving me.”
“Hey, kid, if you’re really thinking of fighting that beast without growing in size yourself, you’re going to need a different kind of weapon. Let me see, what do I have that hasn’t been modified too much…” Liz paused in thought for a moment before a peculiar, boxy gun appeared in her hands along with a glowing crystal with straps on it. “How about a plasma cannon with an energon crystal backpack for ammunition? Superheated gas tends to hurt just about anything that isn’t outright immune to fire in my experience.”
Wyatt's eyes lit up at the sight of the gun. “Yes please.”
Liz handed the gun over, then the large crystal. The crystal was far heavier than it appeared to be from how she was holding it, but, robot and all. “Alright, once you’re all armored up again just put that on like a normal backpack, then you take this cable from the gun,” she unhooked it and showed him the end that looked like a suction cup with circuitry, “and you stick it to the first facet your hand finds. It’s made to bond to the crystal until the gun is turned off, so no need to worry about it coming loose. You can even keep it if you like it. I figured out how to reconfigure my weapons array to duplicate the design without the bulk a couple decades ago.”
“Alright, sounds simple enough,” Wyatt replied, donning his Decade armor. It took him a few moments, but he completed the instructions to get the weapon in working order and it let out a soft whine for a few seconds as it charged up.
“Seriously Wyatt, what's your idea?” Twilight questioned, pulling the young man out of his revery towards the new gun.
“Oh, it's pretty simple really.” Wyatt grabbed the card he had found and slotted it into his belt while subtly putting himself behind Twilight.
“Final Form Ride: W-W-Wizard!”
“Now, this might tickle,” Wyatt warned, putting his hands on Twilight's back. With a quick motion, he pulled his hands away as the mare floated up into the air.
Her body shifted, changing to more closely resemble a four-legged dragon. The bulk of her body was silver with gold accents running along various parts of her body. She also had red eyes and a red jewel on her chest and forehead.
With a quick jump, Wyatt settled on Twilight's back. “And now we can fly up there and run distraction on Goldar.
Twilight shuddered, testing her new limbs. “Ugh this is so weird. I mean, ponies aren't supposed to be quadrupeds.”
“Actually, as far as the multiverse is concerned about half of the worlds, or more, have quadrupedal ponies. The one Sarah and I landed on is like that and we’re the outliers there with our bipedal bodies.”
“I'm just going to start flying now,” Twilight deadpanned, beating her wings and taking to the sky.
A roar loud enough to rival Godzilla announced the hatching of Sarah’s ace in the hole as mammoth blades ripped apart the fleshy shell of its cocoon and the Magilisk stood up. Three sets of horns grew out of it head with one set curving out, then back in, and straight up to form a distinctive fork-like structure. Another pair grew from just behind those and spiraled back and down in a wide arc until they ended a yard in front of it’s muzzle. The third pair threaded straight out to the side through the curling set, giving the head of this being alone a number of ways to attack even if every other body part were restrained. All of the exposed flesh on its face looked like burn scars, and from the neck down it was covered in a bony carapace. It did, indeed, have the general body shape of a centaur, except for the blades made of the same material as its armor that grew out of the forearms and formed scythe-like weapons that were easily over ten feet long.
“Finally, something more than an annoying pest to fight me!” Goldar boomed, throwing his arms open in challenge at the Magilisk.
“Assuming direct control...” The monstrous voice altered even as it spoke, coming quite close to Sarah’s voice as the purple glow of her raw psionic power emanated from its eyes and surrounded the modified monarch blades on its arms. It began approaching Goldar carefully, hoofsteps avoiding as many trees as possible even if it was impossible to avoid all of them.
The speakers erupted with a deep, death metal growl as the two giant creatures approached each other. “Don’t call it a comeback! I’ve been here for years…”
Goldar opened, trying to grab his opponent by the horns on its head and throw it, only to find himself at a disadvantage as the huge centaur reared up and delivered a hard kick to his abdomen as he closed in. Goldar fell to the ground, the earth shaking with his impact.
“Ah damnit. Here I was hoping you’d be more stable!” It brought one of the blades down quickly, aiming for Goldar’s head as it circled around to impose itself between Goldar and the farmhouse.
Goldar growled, catching the blade between his hands. Using the momentum of the blade, he guided it down to stab into the ground beside his neck. “I'll enjoy picking the meat from your bones!”
The magilisk grunted before it wrenched the blade free and took one step backwards. “Then you’re going to have to start fighting better than that.”
Goldar growled, pushing himself onto his feet. Instead of charging, he got into a defensive stance, waiting for the Magilisk's next attack.
That attack was slow in coming as it deliberately moved once more before coming in with one arm swinging its blade high across Goldar’s chest while the other went in low for his thighs.
Goldar went to block, only to be flinch when something bright and hot slammed into his visor. He cried out in pain, the two blades digging into his body.
Another advantage gained, the magilisk wasted no time in trying to bull-rush Goldar away from farmhouse and out of the orchard towards the Everfree at Sarah’s direction.
Wyatt and Twilight circled around, looking for an opening to avoid hitting their ally. Goldar’s head popped up, giving them the opportunity they needed. Wyatt aimed his rifle, letting loose a volley of plasma that collided with the mechanical monster. Goldar flinched, the attack making him lose his footing slightly.
The magilisk tried to capitalize on this by shifting the arm that had struck lower to grab at a leg and lift in order to get the evil cyborg off the ground and make movement a little quicker.
Goldar pounded on his opponent, trying to force it to drop him as they crossed the boundary into the Everfree.
“Next stop, Angel Grove First National!” The quip is made as the magilisk turns and skids to a stop while pushing as hard as it can to throw Goldar away from civilization.
“So, do we have a plan here?!” Wyatt called out, keeping his gun pointed at Goldar.
His answer was a roar from Twilight, who spat a torrent of lavender fire at the giant. Strafing to the left, the new dragoness bellowed another roar, this one almost a challenge to Goldar's might.
***
Twilight's mind raced; nearly overwhelmed by the raw power of her new form. Beastial strength ached in her limbs, each begging her to exercise its full potential. Going into a dive, Twilight raked her claws across Goldar's face, drawing a blackish looking icor. A shiver of ecstacy raced up her spine, the drawing of her enemies blood bringing her an alien sense of pleasure.
She could tell that Wyatt was saying something to her, but the exact words were lost to her in her battle euphoria. She went in for another strike, only to be warded off by a swipe from Goldar. Much to her rage, the enormous hand had almost struck Wyatt. Roaring to the heavens, Twilight prepared to leap at the gorilla knights face, until something spoke.
Soft at first, it grew to a pleasing rumble. “Temper your fury with thought. You are a dragon, not an animal.”
‘Who are you?’ She thought, pulling up in the air to get away from Goldar.
“It matters not, you must give your baser instincts direction. You have a superior intellect, Twilight Sparkle, use it.”
Twilight sucked in a deep breath, feeling the hold her instincts had on her lessen.
“Twilight, you okay?” Wyatt asked, his voice full of concern.
“Yeah, I'm okay,” Twilight responded, taking a moment to hover over the trees. “That was...” She frowned, unable to put it in exact words.
“It was a wild ride from where I was sitting,” Wyatt commented, patting her neck. “I was holding on for dear life. Think we can get the Ruby outta that guy?” He gazed over to the two Giants, watching as they fought over an arm lock.
Twilight nodded, beating her wings to climb higher. “Yeah, I’m in control now. You just be ready to grab that jewel.” Once Twilight felt she had gained enough altitude, she dove down and made a beeline for Goldar's chest.
Steeling his nerves, Wyatt slowly stood up on Twilight’s back. “Just ignore the living TV character and grab his ruby. You can do that.”
The magilisk delivered a vicious headbutt to Goldar before swinging its head to the side to bring those sharper sideways horns in as cutting weapons to break the deadlock they were in. As Goldar reacted to the visor-cracking impact, it grabbed hold of one arm and quickly swung around behind the winged cyborg to pull that arm up high while going for the other arm with its free hand. “Yield or perish. I outmass you when puppeting this body, and, unlike you, I had backup available.”
Goldar snarled, beating a wing against the magilisk. “I will never surrender! My oath is to the death!”
“Knew he'd say something like that,” Wyatt muttered, Goldar growing ever closer. He had only a split second to react, throwing his hands out to wrap around the gemstone. Yanking his hand back, he ripped the palm sized Ruby from its housing. “Ha! Let's see how well you do without this!” he taunted, Twilight making a sharp turn upward.
Goldar stumbled, clutching at his chest. He screamed in pain-tinted rage as various parts of his body began to randomly change size. “You may defeat me but my master will return! You'll fulfill your purpose boy, no matter how much you resist!”
Wyatt brought his rifle to bear, firing a stream of shots as Goldar's head as it started to shrink. “Keeping creeps like you from hurting people is my purpose.”
“And anyone with that as their purpose in life is a good person, even if their methods are flawed.” The magilisk spoke one last time before shifting its grip from pinning the arms to wrapping both hands around Goldar’s head just to shut him up.
Wyatt nodded at the magilisk, Twilight leading them back down towards the farmhouse. Once she landed, she let him off her back before she suddenly shifted back to her Wizard form. “Good job everyone, we did it!”
Sarah opened her eyes and nodded somewhat weakly in response before standing back up and carefully wiping away the small amount of blood leaking from her nose. “Just in time too, because that was actually starting to hurt. You guys want to try and salvage any tech from that corpse, or should I just have my beast crush it?”
“Salvage would be the responsible thing to do,” Wyatt noted, taking off the crystal backpack before demorphing. “The G-Project would probably find something useful in ole Goldy.”
Sarah nodded and slipped a claw into an invisible seam between two of the armor plates on her stomach before pulling out a cylinder with a soft blue glow coming from a few lines. “Then I won’t feel like a ghoul by capturing a DNA sample as well. Liz will probably want to examine him a bit to see if there’s anything she could figure out how to replicate for herself.”
Wyatt nodded, walking away from the house. “Speaking of salvage; I remember seeing Goldar drop those swords of his out in the orchards.”
Twilight just stared at the two of them for a few seconds as they talked about ‘salvaging’ from the corpse of the creature they’d just fought like it was normal. “There is something very wrong with the both of you.”
“What? Goldar was a monster,” Wyatt retorted, turning on a heel to walk backwards. “Just because he could talk doesn't mean he wasn't evil.”
“You make a good point, miss Sparkle, there are things wrong with many people. Perhaps we could discuss why I think the way I do over a light meal and lots of water while your boyfriend searches for his new toys?” Sarah’s voice is a bit weary, and all of the harsh edge has left it as everything seems to have finally calmed down. “Either way, I need something to eat after all that running around.”
Twilight quirked a brow. “How did you know Wyatt and I are dating?” Shaking her head, she added, “You know what, that can wait. Come on, I’m sure the Apples still have plenty of leftovers from their reunion.”
“Alright, it’s been a few months since I sampled Apple family food. Is Edith Smith still the matriarch or has that title passed to Pear Butter already?”
“I have no idea who that second pony is, but I'm going to guess that you mean Granny Smith. And yes, she's still in charge.”
Sarah froze for a moment as Twilight spoke, then quickly continued walking. “Let’s get inside. I think I might need Liz to give me a checkup after the psionic exertion, and I’m going to need to have a chat with Granny even though your world’s version doesn’t know me.”