Chapter 3: Breach and Clear.
By Eric Longtooth.
“Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
*0o()o0*{The Factory}*0o()o0*
“Three… two… one… CLEAR!”
With Millthorn’s shout, a great explosion rocked the side of the Factory’s Tower. Metal screeched in protest, whilst parts were melted away by the sheer heat of the angry green Witchflame detonation.
A single jar was all they needed, and a single jar was enough the strip the meter thick armour plating of the tower. But as the flames receded enough to grant sight, like a well oiled machine, the Princess planted herself in the gap and lit the insides of the tower with powerful blasts of combat magic.
Bonepickers and other miscellaneous abominations were felled by the blast, not even granted a chance to fight back as Luna’s held spell was released.
“Thou doth know We are the only one here. Thy cries grant only a warning to our foes.” Luna chuckled, preparing another combat spell for the inevitable counter attack.
“Apologies Princess, force of habit.” Millthorn sighed, his dour mood still not lifted since the loss of the rest of their team.
The goddess gave no response as she observed the room. The enchantments on her armour allowing her to see through the darkness that surrounded them, and, as expected, she was greeted only the steel walls, pipes, and cabling.
This was the first room they had managed to get into, but not from a lack of trying. Other sections of the wall outside was littered with scorch marks and dents, most revealing only addition layers of armour, but some not even managing to make it that far.
They had tried almost everything to get through, magic, brute force, even stolen explosives from the Factory itself. Luna herself was loath to use the Witchflame, but thankfully, it worked exactly as expected.
‘We’ll have to order a team to cleanse this place after We are done… We can’t be bothered to deal with the damned Ifrits after this battle.’ The Princess mused, turning to the single doorway at the other end of the room.
Interestingly enough, the bulk of the dead bodies where centralised around that point, but, at the same time, the larger creatures were all lain further away from it. The Bonepickers, and other small spiders had died in bulk near the door, as if they were fleeing. Whilst the walkers, be they Minotaurs or Ponies, had all charged into the breach.
‘So the beasts have some level on intelligence… annoying, but usable.’
“Wow… that’s a lot of machines…” Millthorn muttered, eyes going wide as he entered the tower. “If all of the rooms are as populated as this, there must be… millions…”
“Perhaps. Take heart, we shalt not be battling all of the machines.” Luna reassured in a slightly deadpan tone. “We are to create a hoofhold, and, if possible, to slay the core. Not clean up the dregs.”
“Still… Even a quarter of the creatures in this room would be able to take out a squad of Guards with ease.” Millthorn quickened his pace, catching up with his ruler as she made her way to the door. “I couldn’t even begin to imagine being one of the first Guards to have discovered this place. It would’ve been a slaughter.”
“Agreed.” Luna nodded, dispelling her combat spell, and switching to a telekinesis one as she attempted to pry open the door. “A painful death to be sure.”
‘Amusing how stress coupled with time is able to change one so quickly… Here We were, thinking Our loyalest champion would abandon this cause.’ Luna silently chuckled from behind her helm, pointedly ignoring the ear-grating sound of the door buckling under her strength. ‘Perhaps We should put more stock into these mortals. For all their flaws, they are not the same we left behind all those years ago.’
With a final snap, akin more to strip of aluminum than steel, the door crumpled into the frame. With points across the frame jutting out at unexpected angles as the inner components submitted to the harsh treatment of Luna’s Telekinesis.
Through the door, a long, dark hallway was revealed. With the electrical light fixtures indented into the walls having been smashed in by some unknown force. As the enchantments in her helmet poured additional power into her sight, Luna took note of the abnormal level of litter in this hall.
Scraps of metal and wiring littered the ground, paper and plastic dancing across the metallic flooring as the breeze from outside leaked in. Half built monsters stood attached to the roof my thick cables, lifeless every couple of meters or so.
Unlike the others, these ones had no organic components. Even for those with their heads and bodies left open showed only wires and circuitry. It was a welcome change, but an odd one.
“Huh… that’s… less creepy then expected.” Millthorn commented from behind her.
Luna opted to ignore him as she continued forward, taking care to hug the opposite wall to the half-built attomotons. From what she could tell, the path continued further then her enchantments could let her see, with no real considerable change in scenery.
As she continued, the Princess began a inner monologue. ‘We believe this is the point where the ‘creepy’ music starts playing. Heh, had this foe not taken so many from Us already, this would seem almost comical.’
‘Perhaps this is some kind of workshop? Though, it is quite narrow… Hmm…’ As she walked, the creatures started to become more and more complex. Beings once a fairly simple four legs, a body, and a head, start to become odd monstrosity more at home with Hoofcraftian Horror.
Tentacles of flexible plastic, with armour layered like the long-lost Snake Ponies of the East. Interlocking plates, spiked and covered in wires. Or even the centipede-like creature that took up a good seven meters of the left wall.
Oddities of the twisted she dubbed this hall, even though it would have to be destroyed like everything else when the cleaning crews came through.
‘Perhaps We can keep a few… some of these creatures would make for a good addition to Our trophy room.’ Luna thought, her horn flashing quickly to make sure the enchantments would still be near full charge. ‘Odd, the charge appears to be draining faster than expected. No matter. The servants must have failed in their duties to keep Our armour ready at all times.’
bɐʇəs¿ ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ,s ʇɥə ɐʇ ʞuoɔʞs ʍɥo
The Princess’ ears flicked at the sound of a deep, near inaudible, grinding of metal. Lasting barely a second or so, before the sound disappeared without an echo nor a response.
‘Perhaps this place is not as stable as first expected…’ She noted, taking extra care to keep track of everything she passed. “Wait… hault!”
As the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake.
A silly, amature mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
The mechanical bodies had stopped being what one would consider ‘pony-sized’ quite a few minutes ago, and had started to take up entire sections of wall, completely covering whatever would have wanted to hide behind them.
That included hidden passageways.
The body of a large mechanical replica of a dragon was hurled into the roof by its cabling at a speed a certain prismatic pegasus would have found comedible, and from behind the creature, a massive hallway revealed itself.
But, it was far from empty.
Eight large monsters emerged from the new hallway, each standing on a pair of long legs, layed with enough armour to make movement seem impossible, and looking down upon her with nearly two whole heads of additional height. They wore what appeared to be a suit of thick orange cloth, taking on the appearance of a bipedal version of a medieval suit of armour.
The cloth however, was tattered and frayed, revealing a black metal backing and thick cables running all across their bodies. Seven of them wore a bulky metal helmet painted a fading rusty orange, featureless aside from a trio of red lights arranged in a triangle in the middle of their ‘face.’
The final however, wore no helm. Instead, its head appeared to have been replaced by a metallic ape-like skull. With the only additions being a pair of beedy red lights in place of the ape’s eyes, and the teeth having been replaced by what appeared to be the fangs of a dragon.
Each of them held a long boxy weapon in their arms, easily as long as she was tall, starkly sleak compared to the rest of the creatures of this place.
As the split second of observation passed, the eight bipeds all dropped into a synchronised crouch, similar to that used by the archers of the Royal Guard. The helm-less one, called out a mess of sounds that sounded like somepony had gotten the native language of the minotaurs and stuck it into a rockcrusher.
“ʇɥə ɯɐunɟɐɔʇoɹınɯ ɔɐlls ɟoɹ ʎonɹ pəɐʇɥ' ıusəɔʇ¡”
In the three seconds it took for the creature to say… whatever it said, Luna was able to bring up her glaives and charge into the fray. She was able to kill off one of the creatures before they were able to return fire, having took only a fraction of a second to prepare her attack.
This… this was her rightful place in this dreadful battlefield.
Glowing green plasma launched from the ends of their weapons, but none were able to connect. For all of their mechanical prowess, the weapons were too long to fire inside easily. But, when they were able to bring their weapons around enough for a clean shot, a quick blast of telekinesis was enough to cause the shot to miss.
Elegance refined into combat, be it with the slight application of her wings, or the use of her foes to dance across the battlefield. Like an actress practicing a perfectly choreographed combat scene, that even with the death, looks more like a piece of art then the deadly game of life and death that it is.
Her weapons sung the song of death once more, their ancient blades cutting through their armour with ease, relics from a time long lost. A single flourish here decapitated one of the remaining seven, another jab spilled her third kill’s oil and circuitry across the ground.
It was glorious, the first real battle in millenia. Those mindless beasts had no ture allure, these however, held the intelligence of a true, living being. Subtle things a machine could not replicate, a twitch here, and well-timed dodge there. Even the feeling of their mechanical eyes on her glorious form.
Perhaps it was time to take out their commander.
Spinning on a hoof like a elegant dancer, Luna whipped one of her glaives around to cut through the commander’s weapon.
Thunk!
The blade caught onto the weapon, but, unlike all of those before it, the weapon stopped the attack. Her glaive dug into the weapon by an inch or so, deep cracks danced across the metallic surface of the alien ‘crossbow,’ if it could even be called that at this point.
A look of shock flashed across Luna’s face, as the creature reefed the weapons towards it, and flipped her glaive out of her magical grip. After it had done this, it threw its ‘crossbow’ to the side like a piece of trash, and gripped the stolen weapon in both hands.
“Thou shalt pay for this insult, beast!” Luna growled, launching forward with a sideways cleave.
The creature blocked it effortlessly, using her momentum to push the weapon over its head, opening her up to a counterattack that it took eagerly.
Thankfully, her armour was able to block the blow, though, the sheer force of the attack smashed her left barrel plating. Crumpling the metal, and forcing it to fall to the floor.
It’s attack completed, the creature backed off a meter or so, starting to circle the Princess with her weapon ready to attack or block. Even with the painful bruises across her side, Luna couldn’t help but to crack a smile.
It had been a long time since something was able to put up this much of a fight, and she planned to savour her victory once this was over.
She steeled her resolve as she greeted the beast with a wave of pure magic. Although she would have rathered fire, or something more potent, she would rather not waste energy testing the creatures resistances.
The magic impacted the creature, forcing it back a few steps as it rigidly held against the force. But, her attack brought some fruit, sections of its armour flew from its body, revealing tender flesh under them. Deep black skin, void of hair or scales, barely visible in the low light, was this creature’s only natural barding.
A strange outcome, but a welcome one.
The creature hissed out a wordless mechanical cry of anger as it went on the offencive. Charging forward, it came in for a jab, having let go with it’s right hand, and using the length of its arms to maximum effect.
Luna dodged to the side, capitalising on the creature’s anger to cut into it’s left arm. Unlike before, the creature had no tricks or uncanny dodges, and caught the blade right on it’s wrist, cutting clean through, and spurting crimson blood to the ground.
The creature grunted in pain as its other hand flashed out at a impossible speed, gripping onto the Alicorn’s horn, and cutting off her levitation magic.
Before she could make any vocal cry of indignation, the creature pulled her by her horn closer to it, delivering a painful knee to the gut. Her armour creaked and cracked as she attempted to use her earth pony strength to overpower the creature, only accomplishing copping a few extra knees to the gut.
“Princess!”
Millthorn’s cry cut through the pain, joined swiftly by another cry of pain on behalf of her adversary. Though she didn’t remember closing her eyes, Luna opened them to see her trusty guard had stuck a long, cruel looking dagger into the neck of her attacker. It took the creature only a second before the red lights of its eyes turned dull, and it dropped to the ground, freeing her.
In a split second call, Luna pulled her guard to her and called on her teleportation magic.
And as they fled, the last thing they saw was the other bipedal creatures in the room pulling their fallen comrades back into the darkness...