The War Machine

by Urimas Ebonheart

Chapter 30: Magical R and D

I enter the tunnel and make my way into the market area. The sound of metal on metal echoes loudly throughout the place as a dog in the new armour I made for them runs over to me.

"Alpha! Rival pack has attacked! Spot cornered! Follow!" he says gruffly and heads off down a back tunnel. I chase after him as the sounds of combat grow louder.

We reach the residential area where my armoured dogs are holding back a larger force of scruffier dogs with old worn and rusty weapons and armour. Some even appear to have mange on their skin with missing patches of fur.

I notice some of the invading dogs have a few dead or wounded laying around while a few of my dogs have some wounds at the exposed joints of their armour, but the armour itself is holding strong with a few scratches on the metal. I step over to the fighting and some of the invading dogs look at me.

A bit of static sounds out as I amplify my speakers volume. "You will cease this attack at once. Failure to do so will result in lethal retaliation," I warn them and aim at the closest hostile dog.

"This not concern you! This between packs!" one of them yells, getting growls and howls from his fellow packmates.

"I am the alpha of this pack, and as such, this does concern me. This is also a recognised town of Equestria, and so makes this an act of aggression towards Equestria itself. I will warn you one last time, cease your attack or I will retaliate," I tell and warn them again.

"We have more dogs! We take what we want!" he replies again and slams his crude club into the shield of one of my dogs. The others resume their attack but it doesn't last more than a couple of seconds as I pull my rifle's trigger.

The loud gunshot makes all the dogs whine as it echoes throughout the cavern, the dog I shot in the head drops dead to the ground. All the fighting in the market has stopped as the invading dogs look at their dead comrade.

"Very well then, as Alpha of this pack I will defend them," I reply and aim at the next dog.

A couple whimper and bolt off down a tunnel while the rest back off.

"I take it you will now surrender? Should you do so, no more of you shall be harmed," I ask while a few growl and the others continue to whimper.

A large six-foot three inches tall pit-bull looking Diamond Dog walks in through the hole the invaders have made wearing better condition armour that looks like it was made from bits and pieces of other armour welded together and a massive crudely made iron war-hammer in his right hand. The armour covers most of his body exposing only his joints and face.

The invading dogs look to him and perk up. "Alpha! Rival pack Alpha there!" one says and points towards me.

The invading Alpha looks from him to me with a frown. "You Alpha of dis pack?" he asks with a look of disgust. "Dogs follow non-dog... Dey disgrace to all dogs! Me challenge you for pack!" he says in contempt and then demands.

The sounds of distant fighting continue throughout the town as I slowly walk toward the Alpha.

"I don't think you understand the situation you have found yourself in. You are in no position to make demands, you are just an invader with cruel intentions. I have no intention to do this your way," I tell him and aim at his head.

He growls and before he could utter a single word, I pull the trigger and don't let go.

I dump twenty-nine rounds into him from head to abdomen, putting holes in all his vital areas and spraying blood a good three metres from impact. All the other dogs cover their ears and whimper from the constant discharges.

His body spasms until my mag runs empty and he drops to his knees, blood pouring out of the holes in his armour. His eyes roll back as he falls forward with a light splat of blood and clatter of metal.

I quickly reload with a fresh clip and aim at the other dogs. "Surrender now or you will end up like your Alpha, I will not warn you again," I threaten them as the sounds of distant fighting can no longer be heard.

More ragged looking dogs enter the market from other tunnels with my dogs lead by Spot and his two larger friends following behind them, keeping their shields and spears ready in case another fight breaks out.

I count four-hundred and twelve of the invading dogs and look to one with better armour than the rest. He's wearing pelt padding with bits of plate armour strapped to it, his weapon is a crudely made axe and his fur is a dark brown.

"You, come here," I order him, making him growl at me. I aim my rifle at him and he flinches away.

After a few seconds, he walks over and glares at me.

"Why did you and you alpha come here?" I ask him with my rifle aimed at his head.

"Heard last Alpha of pack dead, our Alpha wanted gems and females from pack," he replies angrily.

If I could frown I would be glaring at this dog, as it is I already feel anger building up in my emotional systems. "So you just came here to steal from my pack and take the females? Give me a good reason not to kill you all here and now so you can never try again," I tell him as I walk up to him and place the barrel of my rifle right between his eyes.

His eyes cross to look at the barrel and he growls. "Strong take from weak, and we take what we want," he replies and swings his axe into my left hip.

A dull ring of metal against metal echoes throughout the market as the crude axe bounces off my titansteel plating, followed by a gunshot as the dog's head whips back and he falls dead on his back. The only sound left is the tinkling of the casing bouncing on the ground.

I look at the corpse for three seconds before looking at the rest of the invaders. "Anyone else think the same way?" I ask them and start walking over to my diamond dogs.

Some of the invaders turn tail and run back through the tunnel they dug out.

Most surrender and drop their weapons while others run off into the tunnel. I watch as I internally connect to the Canterlot radio station.

"Soundwave, please call Celestia immediately. The Diamond Dog town near Ponyville has been attacked by another Diamond Dog pack, the invaders have been stopped and their alpha has been neutralised. I need guards sent to round up the remaining dogs, over," I tell him, getting a startled yelp from him when I began.

"Adam!? Did you say the Diamond Dog town was attacked!?... Oh, over," he asks me in a shocked tone.

"Affirmative, please go and inform Celestia to send the guard here to arrest the remaining dogs, over," I reply as I stand between my dogs and the invaders.

"Alright! Hold on a second!" he says and I hear him talking into another mic where Celestia replies to him. It would seem Celestia now has her own frequency which I'll have to ask her for later. I hear shuffling and he speaks back to me. "Okay, the guards are on their way with cell carriages, they should arrive in an hour or two."

"Understood, I'll keep them in line until then, over and out," I reply and focus back on the cowering and growling invaders.

Four of the dogs nerves got the better of them and caused a panic as they charged in a frenzy, a total of thirty-two dogs attacked and I gunned down twenty-nine while the last three were stabbed in the head with the steel spears my dogs are wielding.

The pony guards arrived and it took forty-five minutes to round up the remaining invaders and cart them off to Canterlot where they'll be held till the Diamond Dog King Rover can come and decide what to do with them, this is also a good opportunity to call the other allies of Equestria to decide what will be done about the Gryphons and their failed kidnapping attempt on Luna.

With the invaders restrained and gone, my dogs have begun caving in and sealing the tunnels the invaders made and resealed the entrance with new bricks and mortar. With everything back in working order, I leave Spot in charge again and jet skate back to the Workshop.

I arrive at an interesting sight, the Diamond Dog that arrived with the warning is panting happily as he runs through the obstacle course like a shark through water. He jumps the hurdles easily while climbing the netting with ease. The barbed wire trench and the small tunnels barely slowing him down, it's an impressive display of speed, flexibility, and agility working together.

The Thestrals are just gawking at him as he comes out the end and runs back over to the beginning to do it all over again. I see Luna and Eve standing with them where Luna also looks surprised at the dog's skill.

I walk over to them as the dog is setting new track records with every run of the course he takes.

"This is certainly an interesting and impressive sight to come back to," I comment which makes Luna and a few Thestrals look towards me.

"It certainly is, and he only seems to be getting faster with each run," Luna replies and looks back to the happy Diamond Dog.

"He is completing the course on average zero point seven seconds faster with each run," Eve comments as she doesn't look away from him.

"He's getting faster?" Luna asks in a tone of awe.

Eve, without looking away still, nods her head at Luna's question. "Correct, I believe the Diamond Dogs have great muscle memory and can adapt physically to tasks quickly. This also explains how they managed to build their town so fast after father showed them how to build only once," she replies as the dog finishes the course and sits down, finally tired.

He shakes himself and runs over to me. "Alpha! Can we haz one deez in Den!? Much fun!" he asks excitedly, his tail wagging quite fast behind him.

"I do not see the problem with it, it'll be good training for the den's guards as well. Go back and prepare an area near the weapons and armour storage and I'll come by later to help build one," I reply, making him howl happily before taking off back to the den.

I turn to Luna who has a smile on her face as she giggles a little. "It's adorable when they get so happy, like a foal getting their hearth's warming gifts."

I chuckle and turn to her. "It is, but now we must make the Thestrals some temporary armour and weapons while I also research methods of weaponizing mine and Eve's magic," I tell her, getting the attention of the Thestrals as well.

"Alright, I fixed Eve's wing while you were gone, and how did it go at the den?" she says and asks.

We head back inside where I tell her of the invaders, how I killed their Alpha and how Celestia's guards arrived to take the rest away.

"I see, so it was another rogue pack just looking for loot and territory? Makes me wonder what Rover is doing or going to do about them, I guess we can ask at the next meeting," she says as she places ingots of steel and a couple of bolts of sturdy cloth, a sewing kit, and her welding tools onto the workbench as the details of Captain Night Hawk are brought up on her monitor.

It takes us just little over twenty minutes to finish his armour, basic steel plate with chain-mail and cloth padding underneath for now until we can get the nano-fibre fabricator built and running.

While we continue to make armour for the others, I've been creating and simulating designs for magical based weaponry that can be attached to my shoulder ports or forearm mounted attachments that connect to my core from a wire or tube running up my arm and into my chest. At the moment, I have something akin to a plasma rifle that fires a high concentration of magical energy the size of a baseball at best up to one-hundred feet away. The other design is replacing the warheads of my micro-missiles with runed crystals charged with magic from my core or Luna's magic similar but stronger than how Twilight's new bullets function that'll detonate with an effect depending on the rune and crystal used.

The third design which is still in a conceptual stage is a focused beam of magic using a focusing lens crystal to magnify the magic and keep the beam as thin as possible to either cut through anything non-resistant to magic or to burn through anything vulnerable to intense heat. So far the simulations are not going any longer than four feet, but this is giving me ideas of an old sci-fi concept called beam sabres or energy swords from old and modern movies or games.

I start redesigning the weapon into a sword shape, the pommel and the bottom half of the hilt will act as the battery, while the upper half of the hilt will focus the magic through the lens into a four foot long cylindrical blade. So far the concept and simulations are working within my estimations and I'm fairly certain I can have a functional model made within a week.

By the end of the day, we have all of the Thestrals armoured and several magical weapon designs on my Trailer's harddrive. Next Luna and I will be making the machine for manufacturing bolts of Nano-fibre as well as making light weight weapons ranging from, snipers, shotguns, and automatics that will be attached to the right side of a saddle with a trigger built into a mouth piece. On the left side will be either extra ammunition that is belt fed over their backs into their weapon if ballistic based, or a battery if they have a magical based one. This will help negate the need to constantly reload as only a unicorn would be able to quickly and safely reload a more complex weapon than a simple single shot bolt action rifle will need.

Aiming with these saddle based weapons will be simple, as the gun is connected to the mouthpiece, just turning their head will turn the the gun slightly on a pivot joint, and since they cannot aim down sight, a small camera will be placed as a scope on the weapon and a small monitor will be attached to the side of their helmets as their 'sights'.

I will also design weapons specifically for unicorns and earth-ponies should they decide they wish to join Luna's new guards, as she's debating if she could start her own new nation much later on the moon with domed colonies and plantations, along with a few small starships to start with to ferry people back and forth. Though I've told her that would take at least fifty years to one-hundred at most to even get to the moon.

As the day comes to a close, Luna bids us and the Thestrals good night and retires to her room leaving Eve with me. We both head into my Trailer and sit at the computer and start doing research and making designs on something that is for both Eve and myself, a fully functional artificial unicorn horn that connects directly to our cores.

And so, I spend all night researching and comparing my core to the biology I learnt of unicorns and their magical nervous system.