//------------------------------// // VICTORY!!! // Story: Equestria: A Flux Tale // by Star Sage //------------------------------// You transform to guardian mode, and do a dip roll around another shot from Soarin, just as Spitfire come up behind you, and you're forced to punch your jets hard, your teeth rattling a little. A few minutes ago you'd turned down the g-diffuser to milk a few bit more agility from the veritech, and are now trying your best to keep from passing out, as the g-forces of the ship push you against the back of your seat. Around you, the sky is full of light, but none of it can touch you, as your use the super mode's extra speed to rocket away, even while firing missiles, and your guns, forcing the Wonderbolts to scatter again, and again, only for them to reform a few seconds later, to continue to press the attack, knowing they have no chance to win if they allow you to speed away. You had to admit, somewhere in the back of your mind, that they really were the best. You doubted Rainbow Dash could have pulled off the turns, dips, rolls, and everything else these three did to get around you. What's more, if this were a real battle, they would have to fear death from your weapons, and they showed no sign of it. Even Soarin, who seemed so laid back when he talked, was focused on you, which would have made you laugh, if you could have spared the thought. Still, you are in a machine, and they're only biologicals, so the advantage is still yours. All you have to do is keep them flying around in circle, exhausting themselves, and eventually you will win, if for no other reason than sheer attrition. Transforming to battloid mode, the extra jets becoming a jet pack on your back, while the little bits around the fighter become armor for your arms and legs, you drop out of the furball with the Wonderbolts, forcing them to follow. Of course, the instant you are free, you change to fighter mode, and punch the jets as hard as they'll go, streaking back towards the city. You'd decided a few minutes ago, what with the speed, you weren't going to try diving between buildings or anything, but it still had that mountain to play around with, and that would- "Beep-beep-beep!" came a series of noises from your console, and you spare a glance at your radar. Three new blips appeared, yellow for a moment, but then, as they move, they vanish....then come back....then vanish again. At first you think it might be some kind of glitch, but diving down, you look up out of your cockpit, and you see three moving black streaks in the air, coming right at you. "Stealth ponies?" you ask incredulously. Of course, a second later, you realize that that's not the case. No, it's not that they're stealth, it's that they're moving so erratically, seeming to vibrate in the air, becoming indistinct and blurry, that your radar is having a hard time keeping up with them. Your human eyes are having problems too, and you are forced to blink away some double vision, before transformation to guardian mode, and spinning around as the Wonderbolts come from behind you. Opening up with missiles and guns, you watch as they scatter, almost forgetting about the trio of other signals, at least, until they fly around you, joining up with the Wonderbolts, and everypony stops in mid-air for a chat. "Hey, Spitfire. The Princesses figured you could use a bit of help," said a voice, and you turn to see it's one of the ponies in black...and then do a double take as you realize the suits the new fliers are wearing are Shadowbolt suits. Likely as not, that means they're elite fliers too, probably Luna's personal air force, which makes this quite a problem, as they had already shown they're skilled. "Blaze....I would normally tell you to go get clipped, but they're right, this guy’s good. He's been taking us three on one. By the rules, we take one more hit, and all three of us are down, and he's got three more himself," said Spitfire. "Heh, is that so? I never figured you'd be one to get yourself tagged....how's Snow working out for you, by the way? Guy’s a good flier," asked the same male pegasus, and you figure he's the leader of this little group. "He's great, but still no match for this thing. Still, we should ask. Human! You willing to let our friends join in this little dance? They're Razgriz flight, this is flight lead, Blaze, his partner over there is Edge, and the one in the trail position is Grimm," shouts Spitfire, motioning first to the speaker, who nods at you, then towards a female pegasus, who doesn't even seem to be looking at you, and instead is intently studying a cloud nearby, while the third waves, almost happily, while smiling at you. Still, despite their laid back look, you saw them before doing something that made it almost impossible to lock onto them, and they were coming into this fight fresh, and that would make it all the harder to win. That only made it more exciting, and after a few second of contemplation, you nod. "The more targets, the merrier," you say through your speakers. "Alright. Since we're joining a bit late, we each take one hit before pulling out, agreed?" asked Blaze, and his partners both nodded, Grimm eyeing you a bit wearily, but still shaking his head yes. "Okay, so, everypony against me, one hit each before you're out, I still have three myself, and no flying above a mile," you say, and Spitfire nods, whispering to Blaze how high that is in pony terms, who then tells his squadron. "Everypony, to your marks!" shouts Blaze, and all six ponies gather together, before breaking into two teams of three each, flying right in front you you. Shifting back to fighter mode, you fly back, getting a bit of space between you and them, before giving the thumbs up....and then getting odd looks from the one's you're going to be flying again. "Wolf 010, on mark!" you shout into your speakers, and the ponies nod, each one looking like they're about to take off at you. Of course, you're no slouch yourself, and readjust the g-diffuser towards the high end, meaning while you can't turn as easily, you'll be able to take the g's a little better yourself. That should keep your head clear, and allow you to study the newcomers a bit more closely, before having to really take it them to the mat. "Ready!.......Steady!.....FLY!!!" shouted Blaze, and he and his squadron took off. Rather than coming at you, they flew up and then away, constantly moving again, confusing the radar as they made minute changes to their course and speed, appearing to vibrate in the air. This tactic probably gave them more maneuverability than the Wonderbolts, at the price of overall speed. A trade off to be sure, but one that likely worked out for them. In the meantime, of course, Spitfire and her group engaged you directly, starting to fire as soon as the call was heard. You were ready this time though, and quickly transformed into guardian mode, firing missiles at them, and trying to do the same at the Razgriz squadron, before turning into a battloid and dropping out of the line of fire. As before, the Wonderbolts dodge around the missiles, firing with all four hooves to destroy them as each on is targeted by a group that splits from two missiles, into eight in moments after emerging from your firing panels. Still, they're not always hitting their targets, and after destroying four or five missiles each, they're forced to flee from the remaining three until they get far enough away that they self-destruct. Meanwhile, the Shadowbolts do something that you would call impossible, if you didn't watch it happen. True to your thought earlier, it was quite obvious they were slower than their counterparts, moving at only about half their speed, even when going all out. But they are so agile that the speed difference matters almost not at all. What happens is...well, it's just impossible. The Razgriz stay together, causing the missiles targeting them, a good twenty four, to fly close together as well, overtaking their targets with ease, but the instant they're mixed in with the black suited ponies, they explode. More accurately, the Shadowbolts sort of dance on the missiles, dodging in among them with seemingly no effort, placing hooves against them, and pushing off in random directions, the missiles quickly trying to change course, only for those they pushed against to fail to correct for the drift, and then slamming into the others, creating a massive cloud of multicolored dust, almost like a rainbow cloud, out of which soon comes bolts of energy, the same that come from the Wonderbolts, and you're forced to transform into fighter mode to dodge them. Seconds after you shoot away from the scene, you are surrounded by lines of fire, and looking back, you can see all six ponies getting beads on you. The Shadowbolts fire low, forcing you to do an ever rising dance, while the Wonderbolts shoot for your sides, both knowing the flight ceiling set that you would have to violate to get out of range. The meant you were trapped, and knowing that yourself, you decide quickly to take the hit that you could, and do a looping turn towards the left, right into Spitfire's line of fire, her bolts slamming into your craft again, the jarring feeling of being struck reaching you, only to be double as suddenly another line of fire intersects with your flight, and you quickly spin around to find Blaze had shifted his flight, and kicked at you with one hoof while the other continued to try to cover your lower escape. You had to admit, that was impressive, and brought you down to the same level as them, one hit til termination, but you weren't out of tricks yet, and dove at the six, firing your gun wildly, while launching every missile you had, depleting your stock faster than your magic could replenish them. This forced both sets of Bolts to dive out of your way, or risk getting hit by the slower, but heavier, ordnance of the fighter's missiles, while you kept a constant spray of fire with the gun pod. Sadly, the maneuver only bought you time, as it scattered the targets, Soarin and Snowbolt flying right, Spitfire up, Grimm left, and Blaze and Edge down, but you knew they would reassembled if you allowed them. You weren't ready to give up quite yet though. It might have been losing to Rainbow Dash earlier, it might have been you just wanted to show how good you could be, and it even might have been you were just tired of being the little guy here in Equestria, but you refused to lose. So as you came past the Bolts, you shifted forms, turning into the humanoid battloid form, and looking around you as the displays replaced your cockpits, and targeting icons appeared over every enemy in the sky. Your systems were locking onto them, but rather than fire with the gun, you let the gun pod drop from your hands, the thing pixelating as it fell, and soon to be followed by the extra jets and armor bits of super mode, that had proven speed couldn't beat real skill. This was the last ace in the hole, and one of the things a veritech was famous for, and so, sitting there in the sky, you focused, your will to win flowing out into the jet. You'd shown them all three normal modes, and then shown the ponies what a veritech looked like with super mode enhancements, but there was one more enhancement this ship had. Drawing on your magic, finding that the sun within you was draining quickly, becoming nothing more than a pinprick of light in the darkness, but still enough, you let it shift into a river of power, that made your whole mecha glow. Outside, wire frames covered your robot, taking shape slowly into rounded armor that made it look like you were piloting a sumo wrestler, even as the wire frames slowly filled in. When everything was done, the bolts all looked at you, probably not sure what you were planning. The formally gray-white body of the veritech had almost been completely covered by the armored mode's ebony black enhancements. Everything that had been straight edged and machine like was now rounded, and looking more like a real person, if a rather large one, and you just seemed to float there as if confident that nothing could stop you. Inside the cockpit, you knew this was really a last ditch effort though. If this didn't work, you didn't have the magic to make anything else, and the pegasi would just slaughter you. If this worked though, it was gonna be so cool. Smiling, you decided to give them at least some fair warning of what was coming over your speakers. "Here comes my ultimate attack! Macross Missile Massacre!" you shout, and then a big red button pops up on your console, as a staccato of beeps can be heard, a thousand glorious lock on tones, a ringing bell of victory, which you respond to by slamming your fist into the button. All over the fighter’s new armor, hatches popped open, little pin pricks appearing in them, before you feel the launch of missiles. It was a lot of them too. Enough to fill the sky with contrails as they spread away, and then split into four each, and then into four again, and probably one last time, until over a thousand missiles made their way across the sky towards the two sets of Bolts who, though surprised, recovered enough to begin fleeing, everypony firing backwards with their rear hooves, hoping to take out at least a few missiles as they went. Not that that tactic was anything but a delay. Heck, Edge seemed to realize this first, and rather than try and defend herself, she jumped behind Blaze, and began kicking out with all four of her hooves, sending spirals of destruction into the missile swarm as she fell back first towards the ground, trying desperately to save her flight lead. In between you and her appear a multicolored cloud of dust, but luckily, you could turn on the missile's own cameras, and see through it, watching as the spear like paths of the missiles converged on her, and when a single shot missed, she took a missile to her chest, which was soon followed by a dozen others, causing her to twitch in the air, crying out in pain as she lost the contest. Spinning your view away from her, you noticed that Soarin and Snowbolt were next to fall. They had apparently come to the same conclusion as Edge, and flew back to back....somehow, and were constantly destroying ever missile that came their way. This might have actually kept up indefinitely, were it not for the fact that as they continued to destroy the missiles, they moved around them, soon forming a sphere, and then instant one came in at an angle that neither was covering, it was all over. Soarin took the first blow to his knee, stoically trying to ignore the pain as he kept shooting despite being 'down' Of course, with one shooter out, it was only seconds before a hundred or more missiles converged on them all at once, leaving them hidden in a huge cloud of multicolored dust. Spitfire and Grimm were next, interestingly enough. The two, seeing the missiles coming, dove towards each other, rather than trying to fight on their own, leading the groups of missiles on their tail straight at each other, and then, just as they would have collided, the put up their hooves, and then pushed against one another, Grimm falling towards the earth below, while Spitfire shot upwards, going as fast as she could. This was a good plan, and might have worked, as dozens of missiles collided against each other behind them. What they forgot though was the sheer volume of missiles you'd fired at them, and as they both pulled away from the other, they were assaulted by the missiles that had made it through their trick, and neither could fire more than six shots behind them, before they each took that fatal hit. Blaze was the last pegasus flying, with Edge having covered him long enough for him to hit the deck, flying against the grass, and moving along the ground at speeds that left a wave of air fanning out behind him, obviously something akin to a sonic boom. Still, the missiles came on, and they began to impact the ground behind him, raising clouds of dust that shone in many colors in the afternoon sun, just as he reached a tree line. That was when you had to gasp. Seeing him through the infrared, you watched as he dodged among the trees, not even slowing, dipping, rolling, juking, diving, and then rising again, doing hairpin turns around branches and roots, as the missiles, trying to follow, all shattered against the wood, leaving the forest shrouded in the smoke that came from them, blocking even your sensors due to their heat. Still, Blaze had no sensors to detect the missiles with, and had to rise above the treeline to find out what was going on with his squadron and Spitfire's. This meant that he was rising above it, just as every missile, now freed of their own targets, turned on him. If he'd stayed down just a second longer, he might have saved himself, but rising just as he did, several of those missiles came at him from below, forcing him towards the open sky, where they came at him in almost a complete sphere, easily overtaking him because of his own lack of speed. Still, he danced in the sky, his hooves touching the missiles, pushing them out of his way, as his wings beat furiously, and he dodged among your ordinance, nearly making it out of the cloud of missiles, before one turned around in mid-flight, and took him in the back of the head. "YES!!!" you shout, as you descend towards the ground, taking stock of your opponents. All of them emerged from their clouds of colored dust looking somewhat bedraggled, but none the worse for wear. Mind, they would all need baths, as they were so wildly colored that even Rainbow Dash would have called them gaudy. Of course, as you descend from the heavens again, this time in victory, you feel lightheaded. Everything gets a little blurry, and you have to blink a bit to focus on the ground below. It's odd, but you feel like you just ran a mile, your breath is coming in heavy gulps, and still trying to come down gently, you feel yourself falling faster, as everything about you seems to pixelate, and you pass out, falling out of the sky, and into the void. You don't know how long you’re out, as time moves different in the void, but it can't be more than a few minutes. When you awake, you see several faces gathered around you, looking down at you from on high. Three sets of Wonderbolt eyes, their goggles down, three sets of Shadowbolt eyes, their goggles down save for their leader's, and one rather large pony, who's holding you. It takes you a minute to make everything connect back to what had happened, and realize you're staring up at Celestia, who's smiling at you. You try your best to smile back at her, but your effort is a weak one, and within moments, you find yourself falling back into sleep, and this time staying there for a while, as the world about you changes radically. It is hours later, night had fallen fully, when you awake next. This time, instead of being out of doors, you are in a fluffy bed. Really fluffy actually, almost fit for royalty. Of course, thinking that, you look around, and find the mark of Equestria's ruler for one thousand years all around the room, and quickly realize it is fit for royalty. Heck, this bed is made for a goddess, and you try to rise from it, only to suddenly fall into shadow, as you stare up at the other goddess who rules now. Luna, her face, was no longer that hard thing you'd seen before, back in Ponyville. Now you weren't someone who had hurt her sister, now you were someone weak, and helpless, who needed her care, and as much as you found you had to respect Celestia, for she shined with a guiding light, you felt safe as Luna looked you over, a guarding shadow. "How do you feel, little one?" she asked you gently, and you found yourself smiling at her. "I feel like I just ran five miles, uphill, in the snow, while wearing about a thousand pounds of weight. Still, I'm alive, and that's something," you tell her, trying to rise to your feet, but Luna's magic presses you back into the fluffy cushion below you. "No, no, don't get up. You drained yourself, almost fully, of whatever strange magic it is you possess. It took my sister and I an hour of work to stabilize you, and I won't have you re-exhausting yourself just after waking up," she says, sound like a big sister to you, and quickly levitating a tray onto the bed with you. It was pony sized, which included a bowl on it, but you could smell a nice aroma from within, and before you could ask, a large spoon was levitated into the bowl, and then towards your face. Not one to turn down a meal, especially with as weak as you felt, you opened wide, and let whatever was in the spoon, looking like golden liquid light, pour into your mouth. Instantly you feel the taste on your tongue and....it defies description. Really, it is not just tasty, it's not just good, it's...it's....it's ambrosia, a broth fit for a goddess, which honestly made sense, considering not only where you were laying, but who was serving you, and so you gulp down the spoonful of stuff, and then two more after that, and part of a third, before you feel like you're going to burst from it, and Luna, seeing you're full, giggles in a pleasant way, and then decides to finish the meal herself, slurping down the liquid almost as greedily as you had been. Obviously, this was not something served every day, and you felt kind of special that she'd shared it. Still, eventually she set an empty bowl aside, and looked down at you. "So, you beat my Shadowbolts, hoof-picked from among the best fliers in all of Equestria, inside a thing that made even Tia and I look like mere children playing at blocks, considering how fast you made it with pure magic," she says. She doesn't sound mad or anything, more stating facts, but you do have to feel a bit bad. You hadn't been trying to make fools of anypony, or seem that good, but dang it, you wanted to win, you wanted to feel, for lack of a better word, big. "Well, I had to cheat to win that fight. I mean, if I'd just flown the veritech normally, they would have gotten me," you admit, and Luna looks down at you, before shaking her head. "Oh, don't feel bad about that. I mean, you used your talents, same as the Shadowbolts and Wonderbolts used their own. Blaze even asked for a rematch sometime. He says that he thinks he can take you, one on one, with some preparation," she informs you, and thinking back to the pegasus, who nearly survived your last attack, you can only nod. He might well be able to do that. "However, before that, you will have to regain your strength. Luckily for you, Canterlot is a city just swimming in magic, so it shouldn't take you that long to recover it, though don't expect my sister or I to just hand you our magic as she did accidentally last time," she tells you, moving to sit on the bed with you, and looking out a nearby panoramic window, to view the moon, full in the sky through it. "Still, I must admit, you have intrigued me as few things have since my return, and I wish to get to know you, if that's alright. Sundance is of the opinion that we should send you home right away, whether you want to go or not, while Hoyden wants to see if you can make him one of those things you were flying too," she says, smiling and chuckling as she said those names, not that you knew them, but obviously, they were her friends. "And what do you and Celestia think?" you ask, not needing courage to do so. Celestia was intimidating in her power, seemingly as untouchable as the sun itself, but Luna, sitting here near you, seemed quite nice. "I don't know myself, but I know Tia wants to keep you around for a while. She thinks you're special, and that you can help. She's even having the Professor and his assistants come to Canterlot, having to send off for the others who are still in Manehatten, while also calling Twilight and her friends here as well. I even heard those two from the radio show will be joining us, one of them sounded quite concerned in the letter they sent," she told you, and you smile yourself. You'd made some good friends already in only a few days here, and look forward to seeing Octavia and Vinyl again. As you smile though, you yawn, the golden liquid sitting heavily inside you. Luna, chuckling, rises from the bed, and kisses you on your head, before levitating the covers over you again, and then exiting the room, leaving you to fall asleep, falling into a void, one made of light rather than darkness this time.