Rainbow was feeling an unfamiliar sensation, slowness. Not to say she wasn't darting about the void like a mosquito on amphetamines, but the fact that someone, ANYONE, was able not only to follow her, but to KEEP UP with her was terribly unsettling. Whereas Rainbow barely had the technology to maintain her suit, Applejack had spent the five long years constantly upgrading her mech and training herself how to use it more effectively. She twisted and weaved and doubled back on herself trying desperately to get away, but nothing worked, the ag worlder was relentless.
A death knell started to sound in Rainbow's suit as the low power alarm began to sound. She had less than ten percent power in her suit's core and she was forced to pick a place to fight or hide. She made a b line for the planet and coasted along the shoreline of some deserted ocean. Applejack was right behind her the whole way, lazily spraying rounds to the right and left of her, hemming her in, draining the little power she had left from her shields. Rainbow glanced at the rearview screen hatefully to see that Applejack was toying with her, closing the distance then backing off.
Suddenly Rainbow came to a complete stop, she'd run headlong into a cliff wall and a diamond glowed in the stone where her shields had cut into it. Applejack suddenly appeared behind her and focused her head mounted gatling guns on Rainbow's trapped suit. Rainbow reflexatorily held her suit's arms in front of her to protect herself. She watched helplessly as her suit's power meter ticked down, three, two, one. Her shields dropped suddenly and her screens died. That was it, once again she found herself in a dead mech, but this time it was applejack who was trying to kill her.
Applejack had timed her fire perfectly and had spent her very last bullet with the very last of Rainbow's shields. Applejack grinned as her gatling guns' barrels smoked. "Fahnally." She said as she slowly stomped forward. She picked up Rainbow's suit with one large hand and with the other tore the canopy straight off of it. "Fahnally Ah can do what Ah should a did ALL THOSE YEARS AGO!" Applejack snatched Rainbow out of her suit.
Rainbow wasn't afraid, she wasn't even angry, if anything she was glad, it was finally over. She closed her eyes and a small smile appeared on her face. She whispered, "Here I come Fluttershy." Then she heard Fluttershy's voice.
On the Damocles Pinkie and Twilight silently stared deeply into each other's eyes, even after five years of separation they still deeply loved each other. Then Twilight remembered what happened the last time they saw each other and she leapt screaming at Pinkie, sword drawn. Pinkie laid back and let Twilight's attack fly straight over her and out through the void shields. She activated the boosters on her boarding suit and she flew forward through the cargo bay. Twilight flew straight through the hull of the Damocles and two walls after her.
Rarity winced and shouted through every speaker on the Damocles, "STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP!" She'd had her hands full with the invasion. Every ship was crawling with boarding parties, and her tactic of sealing bulkheads was only delaying the inevitable. Suddenly a thousand of her fifty thousand eyes went out, one of her ships had just been captured. It felt like losing a limb, an eye, and a thousand sailors simultaneously.
She had to put a hand to her heart to steady herself. She inhaled deeply and started voiding entire decks to fling boarders into the void, but it still wasn't enough. Ship after ship fell to the boarders and soon their cannons were turned on her other ships. Then the horror, they were here, they had just boarded the Damocles. A thousand or more had flown into the hole that Twilight had punched in the hull. She inhaled deeply and focused on the Damocles speakers.
"Attention pilots, crewmen, and sailors of the I.N.S. Damocles. It has been an honor to serve with you all, but this ship has been boarded. I'm ordering a full evacuation of all remaining soldiers. You'll be needed for the surface battle. I swore an oath never to retreat, never to surrender. Therefore I will remain and take as many of these monsters with me as I can. Farewell. Hail the Solar Empire."
She turned to S.P.I.K.E. with a determined look. "S.P.I.K.E., you're not a combat unit, you'll be useless to me here. Get down to the planet and coordinate the survivors." She sighed hard as she drew her sword. "It's going to be a damned long ground war." S.P.I.K.E. silently shook his head. Rarity grew red faced and shouted, "S.P.I.K.E.! YOU ARE AN A.I.! YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO DENY AN ORDER!"
S.P.I.K.E. smiled "I'm integral to the ship's function Rarity, and I'm not an officer. I'm neither programmed to order about soldiers, nor do I have the authority to give orders."
Rarity threw her hands up in the air and stomped in frustration. "Oh Fuck it! Stay here and die then!" She mumbled grumpily to herself. "Artificial intelligence can deny an order when it bloody well suits him."
Pinkie Pie darted between rooms and down corridors. Twilight kept over shooting and flying past her through walls, all technique, all thought were just gone. Pinkie burst through the doors to the cafeteria and shoulder checked a terrified cook who was trying to evacuate as she entered. Twilight burst through the wall on the other side of the cafeteria and stomped towards Pinkie, her sword glowing brightly. Pinkie tried to turn around but slipped and began scrambling backwards. Twilight stepped heavily onto an overturned lunch tray and a banana cream pie was flipped up directly into her face.
Pinkie scrambled backwards holding a hand out in front of her shouting, "That wasn't me! That Wasn't Me! THAT WASN'T ME!!!" Twilight screamed and her aura consumed the entire cafeteria, burning a hole through the upper and lower decks as it did so. Pinkie scooted along the floor with her boosters away from the raging demigod and finally got to her feet. She sprinted down corridors and finally got to where she was going. She searched frantically through cabinets and drawers shouting, "Where is it? WHERE IS IT?!" Her eyes lit up when she found what she was looking for.
Twilight's burning hand gripped the doorframe to the med bay and it crumbled under her grasp. She found Pinkie Pie standing there smiling with something in her hand. Twilight was panting like a sprinter as she raised her sword. Her eyes went wide as she realized that what was in Pinkie's hand was the very last vial of the Discord Serum.