//------------------------------// // There's no blood, there's no alibi // Story: WHAT I'VE DONE // by CROSSOVER KING //------------------------------// The very next day, in another corner of Equestria, a much younger member of Equestrian royalty was preparing to send two of her best friends on an important journey. Her name was Twilight Sparkle, the recently crowned princess of friendship, and she was both excited and disappointed by the fact that her friends Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were going on a friendship mission to Griffonstone, the very heart of the griffon kingdom. While she was sad about not being able to go with them on this fascinating trip, she was nonetheless happy that they were given this great opportunity. Besides, she was confident that Rainbow and Pinkie were more than ready to deal with any challenge there. She and her trustworthy dragon assistant/friend were now at the Ponyville train station, seeing them off and giving them a few additional tips. "Remember, the mountains there are very rough and a bit cold. So, be sure to purchase lots of warm clothes and climbing gear once you get there." Pinkie pulled out a notebook and a pen from her mane, and wrote down this advice. "Extra warm clothes and climbing gear for mountains. Okie-dokie-lokie!" "Great. Also, don't forget to be as polite and respectful as you can possibly be to the griffons. They haven't been around ponies for a very long time, so it's important to leave a good impression without-" "Ugh! We get it, Twilight!", groaned Rainbow. "Solve the friendship problem, don't be jerks to griffons, and come back as soon as they're happy again. Right?" Twilight smiled nervously. "Um, yeah, right." Just then, their train arrived and several ponies either got off or boarded. Twilight let out a small sigh before hugging her friends. "Well, good luck and safe travels. I simply can't wait to hear all about your adventure once you get back." Pinkie exclaimed, "Aw, thanks, Twilight! We promise to get back before you can say 'chocolate-chipped cupcake with lemon frosting'! Right, Dashie?" "Yeah, sure. Hopefully.", she said with an uncertain tone. They let Twilight go and boarded the train. It soon began moving and disappeared into the horizon in a handful of seconds. Twilight, meanwhile, let out another sigh that was deeper than the first one. Spike noticed this and put his claw on her shoulder. "Uh, you okay?" Twilight turned to her with a nervous smile on her face. "Me? Of course! I mean, they're just going to THE most majestic kingdom of all the land, while I'm busy dealing with important princessy stuff. There's no reason to annoyed. No reason at all!" She nervously giggled a bit. "Now, come on. Let's get back to the castle and try to get those duties done before noon." Spike rolled his eyes before following her. However, just a handful of few seconds later, the royal train from the Crystal Empire arrived, and both he and Twilight became really surprised by this. "Uh, Twilight, were Cadence and Shining Armor supposed to visit us today?" "I don't think so. If my memory serves me right, it was we who were supposed to be doing the visiting, but not for another couple of weeks." "Then, what's this all about?" "I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about this. Come on, let's find out." They quickly headed towards the train and when they reached it, the first thing they noticed was the miserable look of the royal guards. Their armors were covered in dents and scorch marks, and their overall mood was terrible at best. While Twilight and Spike were surprised by this, their curiosity instantly turned into pure horror when Shining and Cadence emerged from the train. They looked even more damaged than the guards, there were serious wounds in nearly all over their bodies, and every step they took (no matter how small) seemed to cause them great pain. Upon seeing them in this horrible state, Twilight immediately trotted towards them and embraced them with great concern. "Shining Armor! Cadence! What happened to you guys?! Are you alright?!" Shining weakly replied, "N-no, Twiliy, we're not. We... we were attacked last night." "Attacked? By what?", asked Twilight curiously. Cadence clarified, "He... he called himself 'Brawl'. H-he was a giant metal warrior who destroyed nearly the whole empire by himself." At that point, both Twilight and Spike looked at the couple with extremely shocked expressions before shouting, "WHAT??!!" Then, Twilight exclaimed, "How is that possible?! I've never seen or heard of a being like this. Where did he even come from?!" "That's the crazy thing, Twilight", Shining replied. "He came from outer space." Twilight gasped in extreme shock before Cadence elaborated, "It's true. Shining and I witnessed a few very large objects fall from the sky last night. They turned out to be a means of transportation for Brawl and his companions. Though we don't know where exactly the others might have gone, Brawl himself went straight for the empire and began demolishing everything in sight with his terrifying arsenal while we were busy evacuating the citizens. Once everypony got out we engaged him with our magic, but his weapons proved to be too powerful. Even with our shields, we barely managed to survive his attacks. Before leaving, he told us that this was just a fraction of his kind's true power and that, they could bring about the end of our world if they wanted to." By the end of this story, Twilight was both awed and terrified at the same time. "Sweet Celestia! I... I never thought meeting a being from another planet would be like this. I always imagined that a group of peaceful creatures would visit us someday, but I guess real life is much scarier than fantasy." Shining put one of his hooves on Twilight's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Twily. I wish it was what happened too." She let out one more sigh in disappointment. "Well, I guess there's no point in moping. What's done is done. Did this 'Brawl' say anything else?" "That's actually why we came here. During the attack, he interrogated Shining about the location of an artifact that’s apparently connected to somepony from your family line. When he couldn’t get an answer from Shining, he decided to come after you instead. Now, both you and Ponyville are in grave danger. “ Twilight and Spike once again shouted, “WHAT??!!” before Twilight exclaimed, “But, I don’t anything about this artifact either! Even learning its name should take weeks of research! By the time I do, he’ll surely wreck the whole place ten times over! Oh, no! What are gonna do?! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!” She began to breathe so heavilly that Spike had to quickly run to the train station, buy a bag of muffins, eat the muffins themselves without chewing, and give the bag to Twilight in order to help with her breathing. Fortunately, she managed to calm down after ten seconds of breathing into the bag. “Thank you so much, Spike. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.” “Oh, please! I just helped you get over your two hundred thousandth mental breakdown so that you can think of a way to protect Ponyville from giant metal aliens. No biggie at all.” They both giggled a bit before Twilight declared, “ I guess you’re right. Now, let’s think of what we can do against this new threat. Since they can defeat even alicorn magic, the most sensible strategy is to evacuate the entire town as soon as Brawl or one his friends comes. For that to go smoothly, we need to increase the number of sirens in the town and maybe place a pair for every street corner. As for the artifact, I need to retreat to a safe place to conduct extensive research in order to find out what it is, where it is, and how it’s connected to my family. In terms of security and available resources, the best choice seems to be Canterlot.” “Good idea”, replied Shining Armor. “The city has been on high alert ever since the attack. The empire’s citizens were moved there and Princess Celestia had cast a magical barrier around the city. Relatively speaking, it’s currently the most secure place in Equestria. You should be safe there.” Twilight stated, “If you say so, BBBF. You and Cadence should now get yourselves to a doctor while Spike and I alert the townspeople about-“ “TWILIGHT!!!!” All four of them were instantly jolted by that ear-piercing scream. When they turned towards its direction, they were confronted by Twilight’s other three best friends Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy. All three of these terrified ponies trotted towards them at high speed before stopping right in front of their friend. “Did you what happened to Crystal Empire?!”, exclaimed Applejack. “It’s a disaster! An absolute disaster!”, shouted Rarity. “Oh my goodness! What are we going to?!”, asked Fluttershy. Just then, they noticed Shining and Cadence, and said “Ooohh!” in unison. Then, an unamused Spike stated, “Yep. We pretty much know exactly what happened.” Twilight asked his friends, “But, how did YOU learn about this?” “The ENTIRE TOWN knows about it, Twi” replied Applejack. “Do not tell me you didn’t read this.” She handed her the newest newspaper. On the front page, there was an article about the last night’s attack along with a slightly blurry image of Brawl mowing down the buildings with his assault rifle. “What in the name of Celestia is that thing?!”, inquired Rarity. “What is it doing in Equestria?!” Fluttershy then asked, “And why is it attacking us? Did somepony do something to make it angry?” Soon, they all began to talk at the same time and overwhelmed Twilight with so many questions that she was forced to shout “ENOUGH!!!” in order to silence them. “Girls, please calm down. Just give me a minute and I’ll tell you exactly what we need to do.” She immediately teleported away before coming back five seconds later with a checklist of things to do. “Fluttershy, Rarity; take my brother and Cadence to Nurse Redheart and stay with them until their recovery. Applejack, I want you to build and put a pair of sirens for every street corner in Ponyville as part of a new alarm system. Spike, you’re with me. We’re gonna go to the castle and scour the entire library for every single book that contains information about ancient artifacts collected before, during, and after the founding of Equestria. We'll be taking with them to study during the train ride to Canterlot." Cadence stated, “You’re more than welcome to travel with our train if you want. It will take you to Canterlot in no time.” “Thanks, Cadence", Twilight replied. "We certainly will.” She then turned to her friends with a determined look on her face. “We all know your jobs. So, let’s get down to business and stop wasting any more time. Everypony move out!” After this order, they all went to their seperate ways to complete their jobs. However, unbeknowst to them, the whole conversation had been monitored by another mechanical warrior hiding behind a large hill in his vehicle form five miles away from the train station. Once the ponies left, he transmitted a message written in his native dialect: “Primary target preparing to change location. Initiating pursuit in a few megacycles. Interception and interrogation expected to be smooth. The results will be sent soon. Barricade out.” Approximately two hours later; Twilight and Spike were riding the crystal train from Ponyville to Canterlot. They had collected nearly thirty books from the castle library and now, Twilight was meticulously searching every single one of them for any sort of information or clue that could lead her one step closer to solving the mystery behind the alien artifact. Sadly, her efforts were apparently futile as she had already gone through fifteen books in half an hour and none of them had contained anything close to what she was looking for. Eventually, once she had finished the twentieth book, she decided to take a break as her concentration had become very difficult to manage due to the amount of questions in her head: Which part of the universe did these giant metal warrior come from? Why did they want this artifact so badly? How did this thing even find its way to Equestria? What were its true capabilities? Were all these aliens evil or were there also good ones? These were only a fraction of the questions that she was thinking about during that time and right then, she realized the only logical thing for her to do was putting away the research for a while and getting some rest. Unfortunately, just as she was about to close her eyes, Spike came running towards her and shook her a bit roughly. "Twilight! Twilight! We have huge a problem! You've got to see this!" He then ran to the nearest window and a very confused Twilight followed him to find out what was the trouble. However, as soon as she peek through it, she was shocked beyond belief. Right outside the train was the vehicle mode of Barricade moving incredibly fast. While it was a bit smaller than Brawl's vehicle mode, it still looked like a formidable piece of machinery. Needless to say, what Barricade lacked in size, he more than made up for it in terms of speed and agility. Before Twilight could even figure out his intentions, he took a sharp turn towards the train. Then, he fired twin machine guns mounted on each of its sides to a wagon right behind Twilight and Spike, partially demolishing the wagon before smashing right through it. Right after that, he did the exact same thing to the wagon that was right in front of Twilight and Spike, destroying it as well and leaving their wagon isolated from the rest of the train. Finally, he rammed its rear side to this wagon, causing it to roll over and potentially destroying everything inside. Luckily, Twilight had managed to teleport both Spike and herself away before the attack. They were several feet above the train tracks and were now preparing to fly for the rest of their trip. However, Barricade had seen through this trick due to his thermal vision and just when his targets were about to fly away, he fired at them with his machine guns and one of the blasts hit Twilight's wings, causing her and Spike to fall down hard. The moment they made contact with the ground, Barricade drove right towards them. Even though Twilight desperately conjured up a shield to defend both herself and an unconscious Spike, the machine gun blasts took all her concentration to deflect and the sheer impact of the ramming instantly disintegrated the shield, which made her fall backwards. Before she could even get a chance to recover, Barricade transformed into his fifteen foot long robot mode and looked at her with an extremely intimidating glare. Understandably terrified, she instantly picked up Spike and began trotting away as fast as she possibly could while the mechanical monster pursued her relentlessly. A handful of seconds of this chase later, he smacked her upwards, causing her to land on the isolated back section of the train. After that, he walked up to a completely beaten up and defenseless Twilight, and violently shook the wagon she landed on a few times before speaking in a very threatening voice. "Are you the alicorn princess, Twilight Sparkle?!" "I... I don't understand..." "ARE YOU THE ALICORN PRINCESS, TWILIGHT SPARKLE?!" "Uh, yes..." "Where is the artifact that your ancestor stole from us?! Where is the Cube?!" "I... I don't know. I swear..." Enraged by her answer, Barricade knocked over the wagons, which made Twilight fall down once again. "Stop wasting my time, vermin! We both know that he took something that's rightfully ours. The question is, which part of this miserable excuse of a planet did he take it?" "Look, I'm telling you the truth! I don't know anything about this either! I haven't even found a simple clue in my research! But, if you could just give me a few days, I might find something!" "Oh, so you wish to play it THAT way, huh? Very well." He turned his right hand into an assault rifle similar to that of Brawl and began shooting at one of the wagons, completely obliterating it in five seconds flat. Then, he took aim at Spike, who was still unconscious and was lying a couple of feet away from them. "If I don't hear a solid answer by the time I finish counting to three, what happened to that thing will happen to your companion over there." "What?! No, don't it!" "1!" "Please! Leave him out of this!" "2!" "I don't know anything! Please, you have to believe me!" "3! Say your good-byes!" "NOOOO!!!" Ignoring her tearful screams, Barricade cocked his gun and was this close to pulling the trigger. However, he was suddenly hit by a pair of small rockets, which caused him to stumble a bit. Then, out of nowhere, a rather large vehicle with red and blue color scheme rammed into him and he was sent flying several feet backwards. While he struggled to get back on his feet, the vehicle transformed into a thirty foot robot with rectangular horns, a face mask for a mouth, a pair of large wheels on his back, and a rapid-fire ion blaster for his right arm. He proceeded to cock this powerful weapon and point it right towards Barricade in a threatening way. Even though Twilight couldn't exactly tell what his true expressions were due to him not having a normal mouth; she could understand from his design, stature, and recent actions that he was a bold and selfless warrior who wasn't afraid to do the right thing and help others in need no matter the cost. She could finally answer one of the questions lingering in her head: There were good aliens too.