"What was that?" Pipp asked, glancing about her. She looked back and saw Izzy was suddenly shaking. "Izz? What's wrong?"
Izzy stammered. "Th- they're here! They made that exact noise!"
Sunny dashed out of the Brighthouse and took a look in the direction of the noise. What she saw both shocked and horrified her in equal measure.
A large group of machines were emerging from the water. Water sloshed off them like wax as they stormed out of the ocean, horns blaring between one another which produced an absolute cacophany of noise. Some of them were absolutely huge, but all of them wandered about on three legs, with two at the front and one at the back. The movement would have been comical in any other context, but here it simply came across as rather uncanny.
The tallest ones had large heads and hunched backs which reminded Sunny of insects. They moved forward with a certain unstoppable feel, as if they were utterly confident about their abilities.
Sunny ran back indoors. "We need to do something about this!"
"Run?" Hitch suggested.
"To the Crystals!" Sunny replied, and the others all quickly began to follow her towards the Crystal Room.
Once at the top, they crowded around and looked out to sea. Izzy's features went whiter still. "They're almost the same!" she whimpered quietly. Truth be told she had never wanted to see those things again, and yet here they were, following her wherever she went.
She looked on and saw a design she didn't recognise. It moved about on three legs like the others, but the head looked rather more like a fish than an insect. It also had no moving cockpit, instead having three large eyes that pointed forward.
The three eyes started to glow, and a horrendous wailing sound started to build up, sounding like the howling of the dogs of Tartarus. After a few seconds, it fired. The three beams converged into one, and streaked through the air-
-Right into the main street of Maretime Bay. The beams impacted several structures and blew them apart, fire and rubble flying everywhere from the explosion.
Sunny stepped forward onto the balcony. "This ends here," she said, and within seconds her wings and horn flared into life. They glowed with barely contained energy, but Sunny knew what she was doing.
As the magic from four Cutie Marks flowed into her, she aimed her translucent horn, focused the shot, and fired. The beam travelled out across the Bay and travelled at incredible sleep. It raced towards one of the tallest machines, crashed into the framework...
...And bounced off. The shot collided with a sort of strange bubble and flew up into the air, presumably travelling into the limitless voids of space based on its speed.
"What the?" Sunny said, and tried again. The exact same result. "Cutie Mark magic is... useless against these things?" This was hardly good. It seemed as though she and her friends had finally met their match in the world.
Seconds later, a voice greeted her. "Sunny! Get clear! Retrieve the Crystals and get to safety!"
She looked back and saw two figures dash past her. Both of them were clad in some sort of strange armour, and furthermore had odd devices attached to their armour. However, the voices and language confirmed both of them were ponies.
Sunny was stunned. "What's going on? What's happening?"
"No time to explain! You need to get out of here before they close in!" the second figure said. "We'll buy you time!"
Both of them then lined up their strange devices. "There's one closest to us that looks vulnerable!" said the first. "Focus fire!"
Both their weapons charged up, and then an energy blast roared from them, striking the nearest enemy machine and temporarily stalling it.
"Nice shot!"
"I learned from the best!"
Sunny stopped watching and ran for it. She grabbed the crystals out of the crystal chamber and handed them to her friends. "RUN!"
The group jumped into the lift and once that had reached the bottom sprinted down the ramp to the bottom floor, the other two arrivals not far behind them. Once they were out of the door, the new pair continued firing on the mysterious foes whilst the enemy continued to blast away at the town, firing indiscriminately on buildings and anything that moved.
The machine with the three eyes then began to charge its main devices again. The beams were once again focused into a single shot, and the beam lit up the bay as it roared across.
It slammed into the Brighthouse, cutting a big hole through the centre of the structure. With such a large hole on one side the building could not stay upright, and with a groan the top layer's metal framework buckled. With a series of crashes and explosions, the upper half of the Brighthouse collapsed into the sea.
As the new group continued to run, they saw a red machine drive past. "Sprout?" Hitch asked."What are you doing?"
"Buying you guys time," the red Earth Pony replied. "You guys get to safety." He closed the window again and drove off towards the enemy.
"He's either very brave or very foolish," Hitch added.
As they fled out of town and stopped to take a breath, they saw Sprout moving past where the Brighthouse had once stood tall, and starting up Sproutus Maximus' splatapault batteries. Huge numbers of sticky balls flew through the air towards the machines- innefectually, as it turned out. The shots fell well short of the intended target, although one seemingly got stuck on the head of them. Which clearly had no effect.
Sprout never stopped firing, however. He stayed there to the end. And it was the end, as one of the larger machines closed in and stopped above him. With a surge, the energy cannons charged up and then fired, blowing the crude war machine apart in a hail of energy and smoke.
"We have to keep moving," said one of the armoured figures. "The sooner we're out of here the better."
"We can't just leave the ponies to die!" Zipp protested.
"What good would the element bearers being killed do?" said the other armoured figure. "I know of a safe place near here that we can shelter for a while. They'll have no way of finding it as their scanners cannot pentrate rock."
Sunny had no clue whether she could trust these two, but they had saved their lives. They owed them that. They dashed into the cave and stopped to rest for a moment.
"Who precisely are you?" Zipp asked.
The two figures turned, and suddenly removed their helmets. There was a collective gasp at whom they saw on the other side.
"Dad?" Sunny asked in amazement. "You're alive?"
Argyle nodded. "Right as rain, Sunny. Sorry I've been away for so long. I doubt you know who the mare is, though."
The other figure was a mare with yellowy-golden fur and a purple mane, which helped to accentuate green eyes. She looked at Sunny. "Hi, Sunny. I'm Goldie. I don't know if you remember me, but... I'm your mother."
Sunny blinked. "What?" she said. "How?"
"Well, when a mother and father love each other very much-"
"Hitch, not helping," said Zipp, before turning to Sunny. "What had they told you?"
"I thought you died!" Sunny said to the mare claiming to be her mother.
"Uh, guys, something bad's happened!" Pipp said. "I calculated the route those things are taking from Bridlewood, and Golden Shoals is right in the way!"
"No time to waste!" Zipp said, as she flared her wings. "To Golden Shoals!" Without a moment's hesitation, she and Pipp took to the skies, determined to save their mother.
Queen Haven thought it was noisier than usual in town when she emerged from the spa. She saw why a few moments later. Metal machines were speeding about, chasing after ponies.
"Good grief!" The Queen attempted to dive back indoors, but an explosion rocked the spa and completely blew the building to smithereens. The Queen was thrown backwards by the explosion, and as such decided running was perhaps the best strategy.
"Form a defensive line around the Queen!" shouted a soldier, and several guards closed in. They fired off a volley from their rifles, and then charged forward.
It didn't end well. The soldiers were cut down in a hail of energy fire, their lifeless bodies falling to the floor as weapons fire peppered their bodies.
Queen Haven looked up in horror at their new attackers, as an enormous machine closed in on her position. It was so massive that the sun ceased to be visible in the sky before it, and the armour seemed to glow a sickly bronze in what little sunlight could be glimpsed.
The machine looked down at her, almost in the manner a pony would regard an ant. Two mounts on the side of its head began to glow, preparing to open fire on the undefended monarch.