//------------------------------// // 35. Metal Strangers // Story: Spider in Equestria // by DarkSpider //------------------------------// The Cipactli snarled, its sharp teeth glistening in the moonlight. The crocodile-frog hybrid’s mouth opened wide before snapping down at its prey, only for it to miss again when the small bipedal jumped up and grabbed hold of the tree branch above it. The hybrid animal hissed angrily at the sight of the monkey being out of its reach and snapped its mouth at it repeatedly, the intimidating sight did nothing to the nimble spider monkey as it began laughing. The small spider monkey got up from the branch and mocked the hybrid animal, the primate howled with laughter pointing mockingly at the Cipactli. Reaching over for the closest branch next to it, it plucked a large fist sized fruit and chucked it right between the croc’s eyes. The Cipactli hissed reaching for its snout with its short stubby claws, only for it to quickly realize that its legs are much too short for it to properly wipe away the gunk obscuring its vision. Seeing this, the spider monkey laughed again, taking more fruit and chucking it down at the fish-like crocodile. The Cipactli let out a hiss in surprise as it was assaulted again with fruits, deciding that the primate is more trouble than it's worth, it turned tail and skittered away towards the nearest river, leaving the howling spider monkey alone. The mocking laughter of the primate burned itself into the Cipactli’s head, already this was a ninth creature to escape its clutches. The ponies were bad enough, but now it couldn’t even catch a stupid tailed ape anymore. Once it was far enough from the monkey, the croc slowed down, taking small cautious steps, its life in the temple have made it soft, but its not stupid enough to think that the forest doesn’t have any creatures that could be a threat to it. Finally reaching the body of water, the hybrid reptile dunked its head inside to clear away the gunk the fruit had left behind on its head. Finally clean, the crocodile stepped away from the water and looked around, already determined to find a new prey, one that was hopefully easier to catch than the ponies that visited its temple earlier…. And that awful monkey. The Cipactli’s head whipped back and forth as it continued to stalk the dark forest for a new meal, the night sky being the only source of light the hybrid had. The creature’s stomach growled angrily, making the croc wince. Already it was tempted to give up and go to sleep and try again another day. Just as it was about to do that, a low humming sound stopped it. Its head shot straight up trying to pinpoint the location of the humming. The Cipactli slowly crawled toward the bushes, the source of the noise coming from the other side. Seeing how close it was now, the crocodile poked its head over the bushes catching the sight of several large shiny bugs. Both the toad part of him and the fish part leaped in joy at the sight of three very large insects ripe for the taking. The trio of insects were strangely shinier than normal insects and they only barely resembled the insects that they looked like, with two of them looking like large overgrown ladybugs with scythes for arms, and the last one being a very large spiked purple caterpillar with fangs. The hybrid shrugged, not caring for how strange the three of them were, only caring about getting its next meal. It eyed the three of them carefully. The caterpillar appeared to be the most dangerous and hardest to put down, so he decided to go after the ladybugs. They only had the short scythes as weapons, and they wouldn’t be able to hurt him if he was fast enough. Crouching down, the predator smirked and jumped over the bushes, catching the trio of insects by surprise. Opening its mouth wide, the Cipactli snapped its jaws shut at one of the ladybugs, snapping the poor creature in half. The shiny ladybug let out a short wine before its eyes darkened, its head and arms being the only things to escape the creature’s jaws. The Cipactli grimaced at the taste. It certainly didn’t taste like any insect it ate before. It was far too bitter, and there was very little meat that didn’t even taste like insect meat. Shaking its head, it cursed its misfortune before deciding to get rid of the other two bugs. Swallowing the body of the bug it ate, it turned towards the other two and got ready to leap at them. The purple caterpillar’s eyes narrowed as it hissed at it. It coiled its body, making sure that its spikes were pointing straight at the crocodile. The ladybug next to it let out a loud screeching noise with the smooth black lower body and charged towards the Cipactli. The hybrid’s eyes widen at the alarming speed the shiny insect displayed and could do nothing as it slammed itself at him. The croc flailed its body, trying desperately to get up quickly before they could get the chance to end the fight, its wide eyes lit up in terror when it saw the ladybug’s scythes come straight down at its neck. Thinking fast, the Cipactli jerked its neck and flung the ladybug off it and towards a nearby tree. The insect’s body was smashed to pieces from the hard impact, parts of its body scattering all over the floor. Deciding it could eat its remains later, the croc turned its attention towards the caterpillar, only for a fireball to hit it straight in the face. The caterpillar hissed again, launching more fireballs from its smooth fanged mouth, its yellow antennas bobbing back and forth each time it fired another. The crocodile could only panic as the bug displayed abilities it had never seen before. It quickly skittered around it, trying its best to find a possible opening from the wall of spikes its hiding behind. The Cipactli’s eyes widen when it saw the caterpillar raised its head and poised itself to strike like a cobra would. Letting out a cry of pain, the Cipactli was stopped at its tracks when the purple caterpillar bit down on its leg, its fangs penetrating its hide. The Cipactli then roared as it felt the caterpillar’s fireballs being launched at the now exposed flesh. Lashing out, the Cipactli bit down at one its foes’ body segments. The crocodile quickly jerked its head away in surprise when it witnessed the segments connected to the damaged body part fly away, even the caterpillar’s head disconnected itself from its body and rolled away. The hybrid animal could only watch in fascination as the caterpillar’s segments all formed a pile and rebuilt itself a few feet away, leaving behind the damaged limb. The now rebuilt caterpillar roared in anger, firing more fireballs at its foe. Too stunned to react, the Cipactli let out a small roar as it was consumed by the fire. Pausing its onslaught, the caterpillar waited for the cloud of smoke to dissipate and reveal its foe. The caterpillar jerked back in surprise as the Cipactli jumped out the smoke and towards it. Firing more fireballs, the Cipactli shrugged off the hits and snapped its wide jaws down at two of the insect’s body segments, leaving it only with three more. The segments tried to repeat its earlier feat and rejoin, but the now aware croc quickly whipped its tail back at the leftover body parts and scattered them all again. The predator growled turning its head back and leaping at the head of the insect, it crouched down and growled at the dopey expression on the caterpillar’s head. Before the crocodile could deliver the finishing blow at the now cornered insect, three large blue bees burst out of some bushes and began attacking the crocodile. The Cipatcli could only cry out in confusion as it was pelted by more fireballs coming from the bees’ stingers. Deciding the battle was lost, the hybrid tried its best to escape the onslaught, only to be stopped by a strange new shiny creature. The large grey creature lifted up its red paws and grabbed the Cipatcli at its torso. The hybrid tried to get away from its grasp but was unsuccessful at getting away from its ironclad grip. Lifting one of its long grey feet, it stomped down hard on the ground and twisted its cylinder like body, its spring like legs groaning at the action it was performing. The grey creature then chucked the Cipatcli out of the area they were in. The crocodile hybrid let out a distressing roar as it flailed its limbs in the sky. The croc could only whimper as it saw the four insects and golem like creature get farther away before they were finally out of sight due how far it was thrown. Letting out one final roar, the Cipatcli disappeared from view, never to be seen again. The large metal being could only watch in fascination as the beast that caused its group trouble disappeared as a twinkle in the night sky. Nodding his head, he turned towards the three large bees and uttered a short thank you before turning its attention to the now reassembled caterpillar. The purple insect was missing half of its segments, now only having three body segments and its head. The grey being shook his head in annoyance and started picking up the damaged limbs. Seeing parts of the two dead ladybugs, it began to pick up those parts too. Finally collecting all of the pieces of metal, the golem-like creature dropped them all in front of him and reached over to grab the large brown backpack that was strapped onto his back. Opening up the bag, he carefully grabbed all of broken pieces and dumped them inside the backpack. Opening one of the bag’s pockets, he took out a small handheld device and slung the bag over his shoulders. Pressing one of the buttons on the device’s side, the contraption flipped open. Using his large red gloves, he pressed down on the green button on the bottom half of the machine. The grey golem then spoke, “Call Bomb.” The device squawked in an artificial voice, “Calling Bomb…” He only had to wait a few moments before the ringing in the device stopped. “Ping!” He nodded his head when he heard the voice of his partner. “Bomb, track my location and meet me here. I don’t think splitting up was a good idea,” he said as he took a look at the damaged caterpillar. “Ping!” His partner shouted in agreement before hanging up. Before he could snap the device close the artificial sounding voice from before called out to him. “Heavy,” it said. “What happened?” The shiny golem, Heavy, paused, considering his words before replying. “A simple complication. A wild animal got to some of our scouts,” he answered before adding, “I quickly disposed of the threat, and seeing that a simple beast was about to destroy the scouting party, I decided it would be best if we combine our forces. There is safety in numbers.” The device stayed quiet for a few seconds. “Understood. Try not to let this happen again. Our resources are not infinite.” The voice went silent, the green glow on the device’s screen shut off. Heavy snapped the device shut and pocketed it on one of the bag’s smaller pockets. He only had to wait for a few minutes before his partner finally caught up. Even compared to the wildlife of the forest, he was rather short. He had a spherical body that resembled a cherry bomb. The top half of his body was black and the bottom half was red. He also has no facial features and a white fuse on the top of his body. He had a pair of silver metallic limbs that ended with a pair of yellow gloves and another pair that ended with white and red shoes. Behind the cherry bomb being were a pair of short red crabs, the crabs being only slightly taller than the first being. Heavy's short bomb shaped partner saluted. “Ping!” He greeted. “Greetings Bomb,” Heavy replied. “There has been a change of plans. We’re going to travel together for now on. We can’t afford to waste anymore resources.” “Ping!” The bomb agreed, apparently having one of its crabs suffer an unfortunate accident earlier. The two groups then merged and began walking together deeper into the forest. The group of strange beings began to survey the area, wary of any more dangers that could deplete their numbers. One of the crabs climbed on top of Heavy and clung onto his back, its two eyestalks monitoring the area around them, watching for any creature that would dare attack them. Meanwhile, the trio of bees flew above the group, hoping to be able to catch any ambush predator off guard. The rest of the group merely walked in a semicircle, determined to protect each other.     Suddenly, Heavy’s red glove shot up in the air, signaling everyone to stop, those that were ahead stopping when they noticed that everyone was no longer moving. Heavy made his way forward, only stopping once he was in front of a tree. There was a noticeable distortion in front of the tree, one that would be unnoticable from afar.     “Have you found anything?” Heavy questioned.     The distortion revealed itself, no longer trying to mask its presence, revealing itself to be a large green chameleon with a metal chassis on it's stomach area. The yellow bulging eyes stared up at him for a moment before nodding. Skittering up the tree, using its four limbs to grab onto one of the branches. Briefly scanning the area, the chameleon pointed towards the direction of interest, it's mouth parted slightly and a gargled raspy voice echoed out from it, “a TrEe…” It paused, as if to catch its breath. “jUsT tO tHe NoRtH oF hErE.” It titled its head. “oLd tOo... AgInG rApIdLy. EnErGy ReAdInGs SugGeSt TaRgEt WaS ThErE.” The chameleon shook its head, sadly. “vErY fAiNt NoW.” Finally he added, “tHeRe WaS aLsO a TeMpLe NoT tOo FaR fRoM hErE, dO nOt ThInK iT's VeRy ImPoRtAnT.”     Heavy hummed. “A faint energy signature? This isn’t very promising…” The grey being sighed and shook his head. “Thank you Newtron. Return to your previous duty. Once finished, make sure to return back to base.”     The chameleon nodded, then it disappeared from view, leaving only a distortion in the space that occupied it. Heavy stood still for a moment before rejoining the group, making a mental note to try to fix the Newtron’s voice box once back at base.     Deciding it’d be best to continue, Heavy gathered up everyone and continue walking towards the direction the Newtron pointed them to. Finally reaching their destination, the group had arrived in front of a large old withering tree. Reaching over to the backpack, Heavy took out the small computer and flipped it open.     “Scan.” Heavy ordered, pointing the computer at the tree.     “Scanning…” A green light shot out of the handheld device and covered the tree in front of them, briefly moving up and down before disappearing. “Scan complete…. Scans indicate a large amount of leftover chaotic energy inside the tree. The tree also seems to be aging rapidly… possible side effect of no longer having the target inside of it keeping it sustained.”     “Leftover?”         “The emerald was here, that much is certain. Unfortunately, someone beat us to it.” The machine answered.     Heavy was silent for a moment, wondering what exactly do to. “Perhaps one of the animals here has found it?” He suggested, not wanting to leave empty handed.     “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case. I already scanned the area. There’s some residual energy, but nothing suggesting that it's still here.” Heavy’s hopes were dashed with the answer the computer gave him. “Return back to base. There’s nothing for us here. Whoever found the emerald before us are long gone by now.”     Heavy was silent, wanting to continue the search for the faintest chance to not leave empty handed. After a few moments, he nodded. “Affirmative.” He closed the computer and pocketed it in his bag before turning towards the rest of the group. “Mission failed, we’re all to return back to base for repairs.”     His partner, Bomb, stepped up. “Ping?”     Heavy shook his head, “Someone else came here first, but I doubt it was them. There would’ve been some kind of commotion if they had been the ones to find it first. I believe it's a third party.”     “Ping?”     “These ponies do not know what powers they’re dealing with. If it was them, then we will have to take back the emerald.” Heavy started walking back towards the direction they came from, some of the other creatures following behind him. “By force if necessary.”