//------------------------------// // Chapter 22: Retreat // Story: Logic and Friendship. Roger! Roger! // by Anaylze //------------------------------// Ember was running out of options as she and her remaining Dragons were being surrounded by the remaining Droid forces at the front of the base.  She only had herself, 2 Dragon warriors and 1 large dragon left who was heavily wounded.  "Surrender meat bags!" A B1 demanded  "Dragons never surrender! " Ember shouted, breathing a wave of fire at the Droids melting the ones in front.  The Droids continued to advance towards them, as the Droid fighters came around to initiate another strafe run to finish off the last large Dragon.  Ember prepared for the worst when Shining Armor and his Ponies charged out of the woods and began to attack the Droids from behind, causing a moment of confusion between the B1s and B2s surrounding her as they decided which direction to fire in.  Ember took the chance and ordered the large dragon to unleash a wave of fire on them, which destroyed most of the Droids instantly and set the others ablaze. Soon all that was left of the Droids in the area were the ones in front of the base in an arc, guarding the doorway. The last group of droids outside consisted of B1s, B2s, 3 Crab Droids and 1 Dwarf Spider Droid who was dented, the same one who was from OOM-340's squad.  Shining Armor led his army forwards, with Ember and her Dragons bringing up the rear focusing on the larger Droids. Within 2 minutes they had dealt with the remaining Droids outside… at least the ones on the ground. The buzzing of Vulture Droids and Hyena Bombers was heard again as they made their way around for another pass.  "Shields! Now!" Shining called, as he and his fellow Unicorns all focused their magic together to create a large bubble-like dome over them that deflected the bombs and lasers.  "Fire!" Ember ordered, as the last large dragon poked his head out of the shield to let out an arc of fire into the air, knocking down 7 Vulture Droids and 2 Hyena Bombers, all but 3 of which exploded on impact. The other 3 of the Vulture Droids landed roughly, skidding across the ground before stopping.  "Great work! They won't get up from that!" Shining said to Ember  Suddenly though, the 3 Vulture Droids separated their wings into 4 legs and stood up on them. A distinct head appeared from the body attached by a thin neck, and they began to "scissor walk" towards them.  "Ooh…" Shining said  "You had to open your mouth!" Ember snapped.  The 3 Vulture Droids unleashed a barrage of laser blasts from their twin Blaster cannons mounted on their fuselage, mowing down many more Ponies. The large Dragon stomped up to one and picked it up with its claws and held it up in the air over its mouth. It was about to breathe fire on it when the Vulture Droid angled some of its legs at its mouth and fired missiles at it. The Dragon coughed smoke as the missiles exploded inside of it, before angrily tearing the Vulture Droid in half and throwing a half at one of the other Vulture Droids crushing it. The last remaining Vulture continued to focus its blaster fire on the Guards ponies, who fired bolts of magic at it. Eventually they scored a lucky hit on its thin neck, severing it and causing the Droids decapitated body to fall. They all began to relax a bit when suddenly the large dragon began coughing. It was subtle at first, but then he began to gag and choke, and cough up blood, along with small yellow balls that had 2 black dots, 1 on each half. The Dragon collapsed choking on its own blood, before dying. Ember rushed to its aid but there was nothing she could do, it seemed to be fine otherwise!  Suddenly, there were the sounds of flesh tearing and scales being cut by what sounded like circular saws, along with robotic chattering. Suddenly, small saws began to poke through its scales and cut holes! Out of the holes popped a small grey spider like robot, with 3 vertically arranged red eyes and 2 yellow hemispheres with a black dot on each. Suddenly, all the coughed-up balls split, revealing more of the small Droids.  "WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME?!" cried a guard as several launched at his face and many other ponies and began to cut away at their flesh with their saws, drills and claws, even decapitating some!  Many more Buzz Droids began pouring out of the Dragons mouth and hole riddled body, as they quickly began to swarm the Dragons and Ponies alike. The Dragons began spraying their fire breath at them, which was effective, but the ponies were having considerably less luck. Unicorns quickly tried to pull them off their comrades with their magic, and the others tried to smash them with spears.  Shining summoned his magical sword once more and began to slice through the Buzz Droids on the ground that leaped at him, before he began to help destroy the ones attacking his ponies.  "Why are there so many!?" Ember shouted in annoyance, kicking one off her and stabbing another one through the center eye with her staff. Suddenly, that once instantly fell limb.  "Focus on their middle eye!" She ordered "I think it's a weak spot!"  Several ponies around her and Shining began attempting to destroy them in the same way, which much success. Within 4 minutes, nearly all had been destroyed, with a few scurrying off into the Ever-free Forest.  Shining and several other ponies flopped on the ground in exhaustion, panting.  "What were those things!?" He asked weakly  "I have no idea. Now get up, you look like a little colt down there." Ember said  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Princesses and the Mane 6 and fought and destroyed most of Droids behind the base, leaving only the 2 MTTs, who began to fire their twin forward heavy cannons at them. Celestia and Luna raised a shield around them and the elements  "How are we going to beat these things?" Twilight asked  "Luna and I will distract them while you and the others get behind them and find some way inside the large transport. There must be some type of hatch!" Celestia said "Now go!"  Twilight and her friends split into 2 groups, with Twilight, Spike, Pinkie Pie, and Flutter shy in one group, and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity in the other, so that they wouldn't be able to fire on both at once. However, this proved redundant as they seemed to be focused on the Princesses.  The groups both met around the back of the MTT on the left. The back was sloped at a slight angle and had a large number of vents and tubes running down an indent in the middle. However, there seemed to be a sort of large cargo hatch on the back. The only question was, how to get inside…  Twilight had the easy solution, as Twilight simply Teleported them inside. The inside was dark, hot, loud, and smelled like engine fumes.  "Ugh" Rarity groaned "this place is terribly dreadful! How can one work in such conditions."  "Shh!" Twilight said, "were probably not alone!"  Echoing around the corner from the large generators came by came the high-pitched voices of 2 B1 Battle Droids who were standing on a catwalk that operated the deployment rack.  "What was that sound?"  "What sound?"  "It was like, uh, poof sound!"  "What? Your audio receptors are malfunctioning!"  "No really! I heard something! I'm going to go check it out!"  The metal footsteps of one of them on the grated catwalk came closer.  As soon as the droid came around the corner Applejack bucked it against the wall, with such force that all its limbs detached from their magnetic joints before loudly falling on the floor.  "Are you ok? Or did your legs fail too?" The other Droid asked while looking at at the control panel in front of it.  Rainbow Dash quietly floated over behind the droid worth a devilishly evil grin across her face as she rubbed her front hooves together.  "Think fast" she said as she grabbed her hand around its neck and yanked its head off. The Droids decapitated body stumbled around without a head before she kicked it over the railing. "Come on' let's go! She said floating up the lift followed by Twilight.  They came up to a small room packed with computer screens and terminals, which showed various amounts of data and live feeds of the outside. 2 blue OOM Pilot Droids sat seated in chairs, one operating joysticks and pressing buttons, assumingly controlling the cannons while humming.  Twilight pulled him back over the chair towards her with her Magic.  "What the?!" They both said, as the other stood up and turned around in time to see Twilight stomp on its comrade's head. The other droid simply raised its empty hands as if trying to surrender  "How does this thing work? Twilight demanded  "Um… this controls the steering…" the droid began "this controls the Turrets, and thi-" the droid was cut off by Rainbow Dash darting up to it and slamming its head into the chair it stood by and then bucking it up in the air.  "Rainbow are you crazy!? WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?" she said  "Don't be such a bummer, he was a bad guy, and he told us all we need to know!" she said, sticking her tongue out at the dead Pilot Droid and attempting to sit down in the seat. "Now come on Twi give me a hand with the weapons"  Twilight sat down and Dash turned the steering lever to the left. The MTT shifted in the direction and the view turned to face the other MTT.  Twilight pushed on the buttons with hooves, and the cannons let loose a large series of laser blasts that penetrated straight through the other MTTs armor in its generator, and the machine exploded with a loud boom, and it split in two and fell to the ground from its giving state.  "That was SO AWESOME!" Dash said, making her trademark "Awesome Face".   They left the cockpit and descended the lift down to the others.  "How do we get out of this dreadful place?" Rarity asked  "Hmm…" said Twilight, examining a nearby control  Panel before with buttons with various icons before pulling a lever, and the main hatch at the front opened.  They all stepped back out front back into the sun.  "Excellent work!" Celestia said, smiling at them. "Now we can breach the complex and apprehend these villains before they escape!"  They headed off towards the complex's rear door. It was a simple sliding door, which Twilight simply yanked open with her Magic, and they stepped inside. At the far end of the corridor stood a bunch of B1s and B2s.  "Hey! You're not a droid! You're under arrest! You have ri-AAGGHH" one droid began before Celestia, and Luna fired a blast of magic at them blowing them apart.  Around the corner came a metal rolling sound. The ponies all got in their combat poses again.  3 grey droids with a bronze outer shell came rolling around the corner at a high speed and came to a halt, where they unfolded into 3 legged Droids with an arched neck and back, 3 red eyes on a small head, and 2 arms which deployed last, but rather than ending in hands simply ended it 2 twin Blaster cannons. Then a blue transparent sphere appeared around them. The 3 droids let out a tsunami of laser fire, and although Celestia, Luna and Twilight were able to block some, the others were able to leap behind cover for the most part. For the most part…  Flutter shy rather than jumping as well curled up into a ball and began screaming in terror, before Dash swooped in and grabbed her, but not before she took a few shots to her front legs and right wing. Flutter shy began to howl in pain and tears ran down her cheeks as she felt the burning pain of the Droideka's Blaster shots.  The 3 Princesses all took turns shielding and firing Magic at the Droids, but their magic didn't appear to be very effective against the Droids! The blue shield surrounding them seemed to protect them from harm, much like their own!  "How do we defeat these fiends' sister?" Luna asked, “They have magic like us.”  "I'm not sure! Focus magic!"  All 3 of them focused their magic attacks together at the Droideka on the right. The shield began to fail and began rerouting its power to the front only.  "Randomize attacks!" Celestia ordered, and they began to mix up their attack patterns, making them less predictable. Twilight scored a lucky shot, hitting it in its right front leg, and the droid doubled over.  Dash took this as a chance and flew at high speed towards one of the other two and attempted to tackle it. Unfortunately, she was unaware that the shields stop any fast-moving object, and instead of passing though, she simply bounced off the top and slammed into the wall behind it with a thud as stars circled around her head and her eyes went crossed for a second.  By this point, the first Droideka was destroyed, and 1 turned to face Rainbow, leaving one in both directions.  The Princesses began to advance with the rest of the girls, apart from Rarity, who was staying behind to help comfort the injured Flutter shy. They got up close to the Droidekas, while the Princesses shielded  them from harm. Eventually they had the Droideka surrounded, and Applejack was able to dodge around its shots and slip through its shield, where she delivered a powerful buck to it knocking out its shield and sending it rolling into its comrade.  Applejack quickly finished off the downed Droideka and snuck up behind the other one, quickly grabbing it at its "neck" region and pulling back on it as she kicked its back leg, as Dash was barely managing to dodge its shots in her dazed state. The Droidekas back leg snapped off, and it fell on the ground on top of Applejack. The Droideka attempted to roll back into its ball form, but Applejack swiftly kicked it again, and broke it in half at the waist section, destroying it. "That was a close one." Applejack said while dripping some sweat. "Sister" Celestia asked Luna. "if these Machines can use magic, we many have to prepare for what else they could have." "Agreed sister." Alright My Little Ponies. lets go." They then continued their way into the complex…  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OOM-340 and his squad mates had just finished their repairs.  "Thanks buddy!" He said, patting the Astro mech on its large R4 unit style head. The droid whistled that gratitude wasn't needed, as he was just doing his job. They stepped out of the repair room and the sound of Droideka Blaster fire could be heard downstairs, before the sound of Droids or other mechanical things being destroyed was heard and the sound of hooves in metal flooring was heard at the stairs.  "Uh oh! He said as the ponies shot the OOM Security Guards on the stairs along with his comrade who had just finished their repairs. OOM-340 ducked down as they took a shot at him.  Suddenly the R4 unit rolled out to see what all the commotion was, right as they took another shot. The unfortunate R4 unit was hit by the magic pulse fired by Twilight Sparkle, accidentally saving OOM-340. OOM-340 booked it as fast as his legs could carry him outside to the landing platform where TA-175, along with his Astro mech and guards were boarding the Sheathipede Class shuttle. The boarding ramp was beginning to retract along with the landing gear, and OOM-340 leapt into the shuttle right as it began to lift off the ground. He turned around and looked out as the doors closed to see the Ponies emerge from the door and open fire as the shuttle lifted off into the air, quickly climbing higher into the atmosphere.  OOM-340 slumped against the wall and fell against it, letting out a groan of simulated relief.  "I'm made it… I made it…" he said it himself. Then he noticed 2 Tactical Droid legs standing in front of him. He followed them up and was met with the image of TA-175 glaring down at him with his arms crossed.  "I ordered you to remain at the base and hold them off."  "But sir, they were right there when I came out! There wasn't anything I could do! I didn't even have my Blaster!" He spat out, trying to explain why he disobeyed orders.  TA-175 stared at him for a moment more before walking off to the cockpit and activating the com system of the shuttle.   "Identity" came a B1 voice from the other end  "This is Shuttle 17-97-A4 requesting permission to land aboard the 'Enforcement.'" He replied, reading it out slowly in his monotone voice.  "Accepted! Welcome!" The Droid said, as the shuttle passed through the energy barrier and landed in the hangar bay, deploying its "legs" and boarding ramp.  TA-175, OOM-340, and the other Droids on board stepped out. TA-175 headed off to the bridge…