//------------------------------// // Chapter 89: Encounter with a Secretary // Story: A Sweetie Dream Land // by Lucar //------------------------------// Twilight trots in the hallways of Canterlot Castle, moving toward Princess Celestia's private quarters. The lavender princess has been invited for some tea with her ex-mentor, just to pass some good time away from all the political problems that their title asks them to participate in. Spike and Starlight are with her. And then, Discord appears in front of them, bouncing like a Pinkie Pie who has just drank some coffee. Excitedly, he babbles incoherently while doing some gestures with his paw and claw, trying to say something without succeeding. "What?" asks Twilight. "Discord, what are you trying to say?" "I think he's trying to say something about... a big... round... thing and... I don't know," says Starlight. "He said something about robots... I think," said Spike. Discord then takes a big breath, his torso visibly inflating before he shouts "Aliens!" ... "What?" ask the two ponies. "Wait!" suddenly shouts Spike in horror. "Are we invaded by aliens?! Are they already among us?! Are they foalnapping ponies to experiment on them?!" "Nononono!" rebuts Discord. "We aren't invaded by aliens! But... Let me show you!" He opens a portal showing what they recognize as Popstar as it can be seen from space, with its star-like form and its two rings. Only, now, there's a giant round metallic thing above the planet, with five feet planted in it! However, one of the feet is smoking, and its lights are off. Discord then changes the point of view to show the round thing... ship? The round ship from the surface of the planet, and gives the ponies and dragon an idea of how HUGE it is. He then shows Dedede's castle, now half in ruins, surrounded by the remains of countless robots. After that, he shows Dreamland, and their jaws drop at its new look. Almost entirely mechanized, with artificial trees and other things trapped inside glasses, water now mostly purple, pipes and screws and machines everywhere... And finally, he shows Sweetie Belle, now in some kind of bipedal mech looking like her, walking resolutely toward the ship. "What...? What...?" "So, how about we hurry to Sunbutt's chamber, call your friends, and watch Sweetie Belle kick some alien and robot butt? I feel like it will be quite the spectacle. Watching her destroying a whole army of mecha and robots was already extremely entertaining! And seeing her owning their leader was hilarious! Oh, you should have seen this. I will totally watch in loop this passage." "But what happened?! How could Dreamland end up like that?!" shouts Twilight. "Oh come on! It's easy to understand! Aliens came. Invasion. Aliens used weird technology to mechanise everything. And don't ask me how this works, I'm no expert in alien technology. Now..." He closes the portal and teleports everypony in Celestia's quarter with a snap. "Hello, Sunny!" Celestia has been in the middle of preparing the tea when they appeared, so it's with some surprise that she looks at them, before she spots Discord and her surprise diminishes to curiosity. "Discord? May I know the reason of your visit?" "Easy!" Discord teleports beside Celestia and puts an arm around her as if they were best pals. "I want to spend some time with my friends while watching Sweetie Belle fighting invading aliens!" Celestia raises an eyebrow. "So, Popstar is invaded by aliens now?" "You are in?" She smiles. "Very well." "Great! I'm sending invites to everypony! I will make sure to include Lulu, I'm sure she will love the explosions, without forgetting the whole 'filly facing an army of aliens and robots to save the world'." At this, he sends a few envelopes with a snaps, and in the following minutes, the room is filled with Luna, Twilight's friends, and Sweetie's friends. "Oh my gosh! We're gonna see Sweetie fight aliens! This will be so awesome!" shouts Scootaloo excitedly. "I know!" shouts Spike. "It will be like in a comic! But it will be real!" "But how she can fight a whole army of aliens? She's become that strong?" asks Apple Bloom. "Oh yes, I forgot to tell, she's using a mecha," informs Spike. "I saw it briefly when Discord showed us, it looks like her, but all round." "Oh, now she has her own mecha?!" shouts Scootaloo. "I want a mecha too..." When Fluttershy finally appears in the room, being the last, Discord claps his hands to gain everypony's attention. "Ok! Everypony is here! Is everypony ready?" "Yes!" shouts Luna excitedly. Discord nods, and opens the portal, showing to everypony other than Twilight, Starlight, and Spike the new state of Popstar. "That's the alien spaceship?! It's huge!" shouts Rainbow. "What have they done to the lands?!" screams Applejack in anger. "How will they destroy that monstrosity?" asks Rarity. "What I wonder is: How will they repair everything that has been done to the planet?" asks Twilight. "They won't be able to get rid of all that mechanisation just like that. Even if they destroy the aliens, the planet will still be... like this." "I'm sure they will find a way," says Discord. "Maybe it will just disappear the moment the aliens are destroyed," proposes Pinkie. "It would be too easy, even for this universe," says Twilight. "She hasn't learned yet?" asks Starlight. "She never learn totally. You remember her reaction to the tank, last time?" answers Spike. "And what happened with the volcanoes before that?" adds Rainbow Dash. "I'm hearing you, you know?" shouts the lavender mare, much to Discord's amusement. Discord then finally shows Sweetie Belle just as she destroys an enemy mecha with her own mecha with one good punch. Seeing the ruins around her, it's not the first. "So it's her mecha? Ok, I want one," says Rainbow Dash. "But how does it look like Sweetie Belle?" asks Rarity. "Dream Universe logic," simply answers Discord. After fighting this small group of armors, Sweetie Belle takes a path among the artificial forest, where she passes some docking station with another armor in it, which she destroys, before passing through an artificial black door big enough for Sweetie Bot. She appears on a path with many pipes that she doesn't hesitate to smash as she advances. And then, she encounters her first Waddle Dee outside of the castle, and to her horror, this one has a bionic eye. Another Waddle Dee behind him simply wears a hard hat, and above them is a Bronto Burt partially mechanized. Upon spotting her, the three immediately attack without asking questions despite her mecha. She has no problems knocking them out, and once done, she gets out of Sweetie Bot and walks toward them to look closer. She touches the bio eye of the Waddle Dee, then does the same with the mechanical parts of the Bronto Burt. And she growls in anger. It's not enough to mechanize Popstar, they also mechanize its inhabitants! Now, they've done it! She climbs back inside Sweetie Bot, turns her whip into cannon mode, and does her Ultimate Doom Laser, sweeping the area all around her with it, destroying countless of those columns with trees trapped inside bulbs. She then looks up and fires a second laser right at the alien mothership. "HEY! I AM HERE! COME! I WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!" Immediately, she starts running, just in time as the mothership fires one of its lasers at her, and barely misses her. More of the armors also come at her from the sky, and she encounters more and more brainwashed cyborgized inhabitants of Popstar. As the mothership continues firing lasers behind her, she barely stops to deal with any enemies blocking her path, mainly using her magic and her cannons, as she jumps above gaps from platforms to platforms. She doesn't hesitate to go all out with her attacks, to cause the more damage possible to the mechanized area. At that moment, a purple version of the giant green robot lands in a gap in front of her, blocking her way, so she jumps toward its head and does a Giga Punch at it, destroying it. The back of the robot falls on the platform at the opposite side of the gap, and Sweetie uses its remains as a bridge to cross. Arriving at a downhill slope, she jumps on an enemy armor and uses it to slide as the mothership multiplies the lasers to get her. At the bottom, the enemies have installed some kind of barricade, so she quickly places a big bomb on the enemy armor, jumps it, and kicks it toward the barricade, destroying it in one explosion. Just after the barricade, she enters a black door just before a laser reaches her. She appears in front of a lake with a factory already polluting it at the other side. Frowning, she jumps in the lake, making the Sweetie Bot turns into a submarine to protect her from the bad water. The mechanized aquatic fauna obviously attacks her almost immediately, but some electric shocks from the horn of Sweetie Bot are generally enough to calm them. However, she also has to dodge boulders, the activity of the HWC causing some pieces of stone to fall. Before long, she reaches the other side of the lake, and emerges near the factory. However, as soon as she gets out of the water, she is surrounded by two dozen of those giant green robots, some of them purple versions. Many armors also drop from the sky. She first think to fight all of them normally, but then, a... thought... seemingly coming from Sweetie Bot enters her mind. Smirking, she turns toward the nearest giant purple robot, and readies their magic. The next instant, Sweetie Bot is surrounded in light, then its pieces fly one by one toward the purple robot, surrounding it before hooking themselves to it, some of them changing form to adapt. The purple bot is then surrounded in light too, and when the light disappears, it is now a white robot with some pink and purple, two green eyes, and a horn, and Sweetie Belle is now piloting it from inside its head, grinning like Pinkie Pie. "Sweetie Bot, you are the best." From the horn of the bot, she starts firing a laser, sweeping the ground with it and destroying many of the armors. The giant green robot closest tries to punch her, but she deviates its arm with her own before Giga punching it on the head, the punch exploding it into pieces. She then moves to the side to avoid the punch of another robot from behind, its arm passing above her shoulder, catches it, lifts the robot, and slams it on the others robots, destroying five of them before she spins and throws it at the factory, damaging it heavily. She turns the two hands into screwdrivers, and uses them to drill the other robots approaching too close. Finally, she turns them into giant firefists, and slams them on the ground, creating a huge fiery shockwave that destroys all the remaining robots excepted the ones still too far. Those ones are easily destroyed with a few lasers. With all the robots destroyed, she turns to the factory, and destroys it with an Ultimate Doom Laser even more powerful than when she fired it with just Sweetie Bot. She looked up toward the mothership, then unfused with the purple robot just in time as a laser is fired at her, destroying it. More lasers are fired, and as the Sweetie Bot reforms, she quickly turns it into a car as lasers are literally raining around her. "Well, I wanted their attention, I definitely got it! You will owe me this one, Kirby!" Still approaching the mothership while rolling, she sees that she is approaching a mountain range in the distance. But first, she has to pass a forest of mechanized trees. By the stars, seeing the state of the trees, she can't imagine what they have done to Whispy Woods. But first, she has to reach it! Rolling without stopping, she passes another artificial door, escaping the bombardment of lasers. She appears on a path above a mechanized grassland, and with her armor still in car mode, she rolls on it, sometimes having to jump to reach other platforms. The path eventually leads her to a river, and she is able to roll on the water and reach the other side without any problems. The aliens seem to have spotted her again, because the armor return, and as she reaches a ravine, lasers start raining again. Going max speed, she jumps on a stone pillar, then on another. A laser destroys one of the stone pillars at the side, and as it falls, Sweetie is able to reach it to continue. Another, much taller stone pillar just in front is falling toward the opposite side of the ravine, letting Sweetie use it as a bridge to roll on, not stopping as more pillars are falling on it, threatening to crush her if she hesitates. However, one of the falling stone pillars cause the one she's on to miss its mark, and she has to settle entering a cave instead, turning Sweetie Armor back into biped mode. Of course, the cave is a dead end, so she has no choice but to use the hand-screwdriver to drill her way back to the surface. After a few minutes, she entered the forest, only to find an empty docking station in front of a door too small for Sweetie Bot. Sighing, Sweetie Belle puts Sweetie Bot in the station, and gets off. "Sorry Sweetie Bot, but I must go." Passing the door, she enters the deeper part of the mechanical forest, which is, of course, full of enemies. After Giga punching a cyborg Bonkers in the stomach, she passes a door that gets her on one of the branches of the trees. She jumps from branch to branch, avoiding a few Gordos, before she takes a series of cannon that leads her beside a poisonous river. Here, she encounters some green and brown slime-like Galboros that she knows is called a Miasmoros, a poisonous member of the Galboros family who essentially lives in swamps, junkyard, and sewers. Of course, with the aliens polluting everything, those guys would spread like rats. The Miasmoros spits some poisonous blobs at her, the blobs sliding on the ground, but she has no problem avoiding them firing a stream of water that pushes the Miasmoros in the river. Before it could come back, Sweetie Belle traverses the river by jumping from platform to platform, avoiding falling in the water. However, at the other side, the Miasmoros comes back and spits a huge stream of poison. Rolling her eyes, Sweetie Belle creates a mirror that deflects the stream of poison back at it, and again the Miasmoros is pushed back in the river. Suddenly, after advancing a little, some of the trees turn toward her, cannons coming out of mouths, and they start firing missiles and lasers at her. Continuing advancing, jumping, and fighting enemies on her path, Sweetie uses her mirrors to deflect the lasers, and her cannons to destroy the missiles and attack back the trees. After a quick fight against a Blocky, some enemy armors, and another Blocky allied with a King Doo, Sweetie Belle eventually reaches a clearing. In this clearing, Sweetie Belle stops upon encountering a strange girl with a head rather disproportionate compared to her slender body. Despite her disembodied hands, she would almost look human, with pink hair and all, if that wasn't for the fact that her eyes are entirely blue, and she has no mouth and nose. And despite her skirt, she doesn't possess legs and feet either, her body floating. Her metallic suit and her overall... out of this world appearance easily indicate where she comes from. And she is singing. "Noble Haltmann, we adore him Noble Haltmann, we adore him! Every day we wish him glory!" Then the girl spots her, and stops. "Oh. You are there. I was waiting for you. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself singing our wonderful company's theme song, The Noble Haltmann, it's just so catchy!" Sweetie Belle nods. "I agree. Too bad it's a hymn that clearly worships a jerk. But I wouldn't mind hearing the whole song so I could rework on the lyrics." "Do not insult the Great Haltmann!" shouts the girl in anger. She then calm herself with a few breathes. "So, let me introduce myself. I am the Haltmann Works Company's executive assistant, Susie. I would gladly say that I am pleased to make your acquaintance, but..." Sweetie Belle giggled. "I suppose that I must not be well seen by your boss after what I have done. Oh, but let me at least tell my name: it's Sweetie Belle." She then looks at Susie in rage. "Now, you know the name of the one you should fear." "Why should we fear a native? Because you destroyed some of our armors and robots? Because you fired a laser at the Access Ark? Because you caused great damages that will be costly to repair?" Sweetie Belle smiles. "Then, why did you attack me like I was a menace to be absolutely annihilated? Sending armies of robots, raining lasers that can destroy a battleship in one shot, wouldn't this be overkill if you didn't fear me?" Susie huffs. "Because we couldn't let you spread havoc when we already have so much to deal with." She then takes some kind of holographic tablet, reading some text. "We still have the Mechanizing Occupation Program under way, and without counting you, many natives are causing problems a little everywhere. There is that pink ball who destroyed one of the Access Ark's feet and is on his way to destroy a second. There was that knight that I was, thankfully, able to stop." At this, Sweetie's fur stands on end. "There is that castle that you protected, a group of mouse thieves, two girls that can give life to what they paint and sculpt, a spider..." Susie gets chill at mentioning this. "a mad jester with a dark version of the knight, a weird blue blob... But of all of them, you are the worse! Really! For such a backwater planet, you are giving us more troubles than we thought!" Sweetie laughs. "This is probably what Zero and all the other villains were thinking when they tried to invade Popstar! For your information, the majority of the ones who tried to conquer this world were destroyed." She smiles sweetly at Susie. "And your company seems to be the next. Destroying invaders is the speciality of this world." Susie stares at Sweetie Belle for a few seconds before saying. "Like I said, you don't scare us. And as you can guess, I can't let you continue your rampage." She then takes some device and presses a button, and the next instant, she jumps as a purple and white armor that isn't round like the others and has screwdriver at the bottom appears, and she lands in the cockpit. A visor appears in front of her eyes, and the mech's floating arms turn around it. Sweetie Belle takes her whip and turns it into staff mode. The mech then charges at her, its arms still turning around it, only to be stopped by Sweetie's staff parrying them, causing the two to clash. The mech then deploys explosives that home in Sweetie Belle, and while still clashing with the armor, the filly quickly turns four parts of her staff into cannons and uses them to destroy the explosives. The two then stop the clash, both jumping back. "What an interesting weapon," says Susie. Sweetie Belle twirls her staff while making the four cannons float above her. "Thank you. Some friends did it with the help of the robots of the world called Shiver Star. And I'm the one who got the idea of the plan. And no, you can't have it, it only works with my magic." "I still would like to study it once I'm done with you." Susie jumps and to land on Sweetie Belle, and the filly jumps away. The mech continues jumping after her, deploying some more explosives that are all quickly destroyed. Susie huffs. "I haven't chosen the best place to use the full potential of my Business Suit." "Then you should have remained hidden and waited for when I would reach such a place." "I couldn't, because in the path you have taken, there aren't such places, but I had to stop you." Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "Then you should have sent something else to deal with me. I'm sure that there are many powerful robots and weapons in this ship. And that's all I'm asking, to face everything you have and make you regret invading Popstar." Susie jumps and fires with her suit some explosive screwdriver heads that are also destroyed by the filly. "Do you really think you can face the full power of the Haltmann Works Company? You shouldn't say such things. You would be vaporized in a few seconds." "Then why don't you send that full power to stop me and my rampage?" "Because you are not worth it." "You will quickly regret thinking that," replied Sweetie Belle with a smirk. As Susie charges at her again, Sweetie Belle turns her staff back into its whip mode, makes it fly, and jumps on it, like in her fight against Dedede. Surprised by this move, Susie stops moving for a few seconds to look in awe as the flying whip extends, letting appear the magical part between the metallic sections. Sweetie Belle then starts flying in circle above Susie, gaining speed. Understanding that she is preparing something, Susie fires more of her home in explosives, only for lightning bolts shot from the whip to destroy all of them. As the whip now forms a circle, electricity appears in the hole, and when Susie tries to move away, it follows her. Then, Sweetie jumps from the whip, passes it back into staff mode, and using her magic, throws it at the secretary. When the staff connects with the Business Suit, it creates a huge column of electricity that doesn't destroy it, but at least badly damages it and greatly burn the girl. Before Susie could recover from the shock, Sweetie Belle creates a shield under her and uses it to send the mech in the sky. Here, the filly surrounds it with her ten cannons, and bombards it with an endless barrage of lasers. After one hundred or so lasers, she stops, air-jumps toward the suit, forms her staff again as she jumps above her enemy, and points it end toward her. The extremity of her staff then opens, turning it into some kind of long cannon, and fires from it a single beam that sends the mech back at the floor, then explodes. Susie, out of her armor, escapes the explosion in the nick of time thanks to a propeller. She looks at the filly is horror before flying away. She takes a communicator and screams "Activate the meteorological tower! Create the biggest storm you can!" Suddenly, she sees the second foot of the Access Ark exploding. "If I can't stop this native, then I will stop that pink ball." Sweetie Belle observes Susie flying away, not going after her. She will tell her boss how dangerous she is, and he will send more forces to fight her. It's what she wants. Turning around, she starts walking toward the mountain range again. But now, she can see clouds circling a huge tower in said mountain range. She has a bad feeling.