//------------------------------// // Rise and Fall // Story: My Little Cyborg // by Ignimbrite //------------------------------// Twilight reappeared at the scene of the commotion to see more of the strange metal creatures, many on the ground, and the rest firing their weapons at the townsfolk. She lowered her horn and called out to her friend on a nearby roof. "Pinkie! 2-26 maneuver!" Come on, quit moving around! Shadowpiercer was running low on loose stones and on patience. He had managed to keep the trio safe for now, but for every drone he disarmed, an armed one would take its place. Besides that, they were constantly turning around to fire shots at him as well. Unfortunately, he had been low on something else as well, something of which he'd completely forgotten to keep track. {WARNING: {BATTERY LEVEL CRITICAL {SHUTTING DOWN No! And with that, his interface winked out. He could no longer see the paths the bolts or the weapons would follow. Even is he could, without the targeting system controlling his legs, he couldn't kick accurately enough to ensure that they followed those paths anyway. He tried kicking stones at the machines themselves, but they only bounced off their armor. He even managed a headshot, but it only served to distract the thing for a second. They were lining up another shot. It was going to hit the crusaders, and he knew it. There were no other options. He charged out and bucked the nearest one into the others. The plan worked, but there was now an entirely different problem. He was out in the open, and his charge had gotten the attention of even more machines. He grabbed one of the guns and extended a screwdriver on his bracelet, jamming the shaft into the trigger guard as he had seen the crusaders doing. Why hadn't I thought of that before? Unfortunately, the awkward weapon sights made aiming unnecessarily difficult. He aimed for the largest group of drones he could find and pulled the trigger as quickly as he could, hoping to achieve a shotgun-like effect against the machines. Numerous bolts flew into the nearest cluster of drones. They were significantly more effective than the rocks, but as the drones spread out, they became harder to hit. Suddenly, with a new noise, the air was filled with purple bolts that blew through the remaining machines. Shadowpiercer ducked down, only glancing up when the sound moved away. He peeked up to see Pinkie Pie aiming Twilight like a machine gun and cranking her tail, while Twilight's horn fired the barrage of bolts. Twilight was right; he really needed to not know how that mare worked. After a few seconds, the firing stopped entirely. It appeared the battle was now finally over. Shadowpiercer got up and looked around. Everything in the immediate vicinity had burn marks or blast craters on it, and a number of walls had holes punched through them like cardboard. One roof had caught fire, and a team of pegasi were organizing a local rain shower to put it out. To prevent further damage, Shadowpiercer ran over to the crusaders and took away their gun. "Awww... can't we keep it?" "No." He thought a moment, "not unless you can at least learn some basic safety with these things. Besides, I'm not the one to ask." He gestured towards the other ponies, who had come out to survey the damage. Sweetie Belle sulked. "But we already know they'd say no." Shadowpiercer shook his head and walked away towards the others. "Come on. I think they'll want to talk to you about this anyway." As he approached, they were already discussing the nature of the attack. "Wait, they showed up at your house? Why would they do that?" "I don't know, Rainbow, but once they got there, they seemed content with holding Spike and me hostage." "They came out of the Everfree right there," Dash pointed in the general direction. "Scared the Crusaders half to death." "We weren't scared... we were...uh... making a tactical retreat!" "Scoot, you shouldn't have even been in the forest in the first place." "Sorry Rainbow." While the others were reprimanding the Crusaders, Shadowpiercer began sorting through the drone parts and examining what he could. "So who sent you?" "I don't think a severed head is gonna talk back." Twilight approached from behind. "Right, right..." Shadowpiercer continued to look at the head, "but this doesn't make much sense. Why here? Why now? What would anyone have to gain by sending these things to a small town like this?" "Sending? They didn't just come in their own?" "No... here, look," Shadowpiercer flicked out his screwdriver and opened up the casing on top of the head. Inside was a mess of wires and boxes with colored pieces of plastic on them. "They couldn't have. Machines don't just attack. Someone has to command them to do so." Twilight took a closer look. "Rainbow did say you called them combat machines. I guess you've seen these before?" "Not these specifically," he answered. "These are more generalized than what's on my homeworld. Look at the limbs here... and the hands. These hold a gun just fine, but they'll also carry boxes. It's as if they were designed to replace existing soldiers." "So, you're saying somepony built a mechanical army and then sent them here?" "Pretty much, but whoever did it must have been bipedal. They went to a lot of effort just to make these things stand upright, when a quadrupedal or hexapedal stance would have been more stable. Are there any bipedal creatures here?" Twilight shook her head. "Minotaurs, but they don't look quite like that, and I doubt they would do something like this." He nodded. "Something else is off." He paused a moment. "Who would go to the trouble to make these things and not include some flyers?" He pointed towards Rainbow, who was organizing the weather patrol to put out the rest of the fires that had started due to stray plasma bolts. "Air superiority is key, and flyers are usually easier to make than walkers anyway, yet this invasion consisted of nothing but ground troops." He shook his head and sighed, "none of this makes any sense."