//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: The Cloak Master // Story: Of Archon Toilets and Bioballs // by MiniPsyker //------------------------------// Twilight yawned as she woke up, stretching her arms outwards while in bed and the blanked covering half of her body. She sat up and looked around, her eyelids heavy and almost closed, yet open nevertheless. She could see how Spike was still sleeping on his makeshift bed, snoring not so loudly. "Morning..." She whispered to Spike, without intentions of being heard, smiling. This morning was beautiful, with birds singing, the hooves of the ponies walking outside being heard, the rays of light entering through the window, and a bright sky without a cloud in sight. She moved her blanket away and stood up, ready to start the day. "Stray MULE!!" A voice screamed outside. She thought a mule was running amok and didn't pay much attention. She began walking towards the staircase, only to be interrupted halfway by a giant warhead-looking steel object falling from the sky, breaking through the roof and embeding itself into the floor. The steel missile broke appart, and from inside, a strange yellow machine with saws on its arms and red paint on a few places came out with the characteristic beeping of stereotypical machines. "Wh-- What?!" Twilight Sparkle could barely ask herself. Spike, who was woken up by the noise, stood next to her with the same expression: Eyes wide open and jaw almost hitting the floor. The machine, which had the engraving "M.U.L.E." on the side, suddenly moved on its own, went downstairs, and broke through the door. Apparently opening doors wasn't in its programming. Twilight, dumbfounded and upon recovering from her trance, quickly decided to follow the strange object to figure out what it was, where it came from, and what its purpose here was. She ran downstairs and jumped through the gap where the door used to be placed in. Then after a quick look around she saw the MULE circling her house around as if its objecting was something behind it. She followe it, and once she found something she was not expecting, opened her eyes and mouth even more than before. Right in front of her eyes was Mike and an entire Terran base, and in the distance, a few other bases acting as expansions. "What... In the hay... Is..." She muttered, shocked. "Yo." Mike greeted, appearing right next to Twilight as he stared at his work. "How-- Why-- When-- What the-- HOW IN--" Twilight was being overwhelmed by everything. "WOAH THERE CALM DOWN, one question at a time." "Where did all those 'terrans' come from?!" "Minerals." Mike stated as he held a mineral shard. "Thankfully I'm not limited to 200 supply, apparently I can build as many as I want without consequences." "...Minerals?! Those are living creatures, and you're telling me they came from minerals!!?" "Yeah." "..." "Yo! 50 minerals over here!" Mike yelled. At his command, 2 marines holding buckets of minerals appeared and threw them into one of the many barracks around. The building flashed, and a few seconds later a marine was kicked out. "What!?" Twilight asked utterly confused. Mike only shrugged, as if he didn't know either but accepted the fact. "F-fine... Uhhhh... Where did you come from then?!" "Bad Koprunet(tm) and an archon toilet." "What." "Bad Koprunet(tm) and an archon toilet." "..." "Seriously." "...Right... What are those minerals and geysers?! They didn't even exist here before I met you!" "They are-- Wait... They are... Uhhh... Oh wow, I actually don't know what they are. I just know they make stuff." "You don't even know!?" "Nope." "Oh for f-- Sigh... This is going to give me a headache... You have a base here, right? You'll stay here so I can ask you questions later, right?" "I have nowhere to go for the time being." "...." Twilight just slowly backed off towards her house, not wanting to even understand what was going on. Spike, however, had other intentions. "Can I eat those 'minerals'??" He asked, seeing them as gems. "Yeah, sure, why not. They are replenished after a while of no combat going on around." Mike answered as he handed him a bucketload of minerals. "So that means you never run out of them!?" "Sometimes I do but I just wait a bit." "...Can I get some every once in a while?" "I don't see why not." A few hours later... "Booooooored..." Mike sighed as he rested on top of a flying barracks strolling above ponyville. But then, his ears caught something. Not dust, but a noise from below. A noise as if a group was fighting. He crawled to the top edge of the barracks and stared down below. "QUIET!!" Twilight yelled, silencing the other 5 pastel-coloured small talking equined around her. "Girls, there's no use in arguing. "But Twilight..." Rarity begged. "AH! This is my decision and I'm gonna make it on my own. And I certainly can't think straight with all this noise! ...Not to mention hunger! Now go on, shoo!" Everyone began walking their own path away. "And don't worry! I'll figure this out!" The flying barracks turned around and flew a short distance before turning off its engines, falling and crushing a building completely. Coincidentially, Spike was in front of where it landed. "Yo Spike, what happened?" Mike answered. "Uhhh I don't know if I should tell--" Mike threw a bucket of minerals at him. "Twilight got two tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala from Princess Celestia and everyone wants the free ticket." "Grand whaaa?" "Galloping Gala." "Sounds gay." "Yeah well, it's special for them." "So there are two tickets and 6 ponies who want to go?" "Yeah." "Hmmmm..." Mike planned with a devious smile, his boredom had reached critical mass already. "Princess Celestia was that big white horse from before?" "You shouldn't refer to the Princess herself like that... But yes." "Where does she reside?" "Canterlot castle. It's directly that way embeded in the mountain cliff." "I see..." Mike said as he stared at the castle in the distance. "Thanks for the intel." "Anytime." Minutes later... Canterlot castle, main doors. Two guards patrolling it side by side with the giant doors closed for everyone. Mike in a Ghost outfit stared with a pair of binoculars from a safe distance, waiting for an opportunity. "Come on..." He whispered to himself. There appeared to be no way to enter except for the main gates. This could be confirmed by the failed attempts at climbing the walls and entering through a window leaving a giant ocean of corpses at the foot of the mountain, which magically disappeared after a while. Around ten minutes passed before the first sign of movement appeared, an escort with a dark blue tall pony, apparently Luna. Mike saw the opportunity and followed them with his sight. They moved towards the castle doors, and once close enough, they opened. This was the time. Mike stood up, activated his cloaking device, and gave the order. "Go!" Out of the woods no less than five hundred Ghosts activating their cloaking devices charged out, shaking the trees and sending a flock of birds flying. A small earthquake followed them as they pushed eachother like a big drunken moshpit towards the castle with Mike leading them. They got closer and closer until they passed Luna and her escort, leaving them dumbfounded as they kept on spinning and spinning due to the momentum, yet not having the slightest idea of what just happened. They charged inside and kept following the red carpet, making it violently wave one way and the other. Yet Celestia, who was sitting on her throne, only saw the carpet moving on her own, thinking it was a small earthquake. The five hundred Ghost force pushed through, passing Celestia and rendering her mane as a bad afro, and entered what appeared to be her room. The reason they entered her room, of course, was because they were following the biggest corridors and ended up there by mere chance. "Spread!" Mike yelled. Five hundred Ghosts cramped in a tiny space searching every single corner for yellow pieces of paper, yet finding none for the time being. They kept on searching and searching, until the minuscule maneuvering space accidentally made a Ghost uncharge his rifle with a snipe shot, hitting another poor ghost in the face. The ghost fell on his rifle and discharged yet another shot, causing another to fire, and so on and so on, until snipe shots and EMP shots were the only thing around for minutes, causing an incredible ruckus and a kill count that'd put Simo Hayha to shame, and the EMPs throwing more than half the ghosts into an epileptic fit. If the battle at the Ancient castle of the etc looked like a rave moshpit, then this was something out of this world entirely. Then, it all went silent when someone tried opening the door. Mike and the ghosts stood petrified looking at the doorknob spinning, realizing that the EMPs that rained down depleted their energy and they couldn't cloak, until panic struck and they all desperately tried leaving the room by breaking through the walls and jumping out the windows. Of course no one realized the castle was on a mountain, so they pretty much jumped to their deaths. Maybe they actually knew about it and decided death was a better fate. Mike, however, was just too slow and only got halfway to the window before Celestia opened the door with her magic, staring inside with shock in her face as she saw her room looking like Berlin after being bombarded by the Soviets. Mike was shocked too as she stared at Celestia, he had no way to escape and was at her mercy. "...Mike?" Celestia asked. As soon as she finished, the last remaining intact shard of glass in the window collapsed, with the entire wall soon following. "Boo..." Mike ranted as he sat next to Celestia in her carriage led by her guards, with Ponyville as its destination. "So, if I understand well, you barged into the castle just to get a few more tickets?" "...Yeah." "Why do you want to go to the Grand Galloping Gala so much then? Only ponies are interested." "I don't. I just wanted to give them to Twilight." "That's so kind." Celestia said. What she failed to understand is that Mike just wanted an excuse to jump straight into the action out of boredom. "But why didn't she say so in the first place...?" Once the carriage reached the altitudes of Ponyville, both Celestia and Mike saw a great multitude of ponies chasing another purple pony. Upon closer inspection, it was Twilight herself. "What." Mike said. He didn't even expect an answer. "Hmm, looks like everyone wants that spare ticket. Maybe we should help her out." Mike widened his eyes at the opportunity of yet another action-packed over the top mission appearing. "Allow me." He said as he suicidally jumped off the carriage without second thought. But as Celestia watched how he fell, a flying factory intercepted his fall, making him crash into it. It gained more speed and flew forwards towards the conglomeration of ponies. "Uhhh..." Twilight frighteningly muttered, being cornered by the ponies in a dead end. Out of desesperation, she began casting a teleportation spell to get out of there, but lost focus as a factory slammed its way out of a building and appearing right behind Twilight and Spike. "Yo, need a ride?" Mike asked from inside. Without a second thought, Twilight and Spike climbed inside, with the zombie horde pony horde still trying to convince Twilight for the ticket outside. The factory' engine made noise characteristic of an old car from the 60's, struggling to pull back, until it expelled a great pitch black wall of smoke and got out the way it came in, collapsing the building it damaged in the process. Inside the factory, Mike sat in an almost exact replica of a car's interior as he drove the flying building, with Twilight not even caring anymore to understand what Mike brought with him. "Thanks for getting me out of there..." Twilight said. All of a sudden, Celestia teleported inside the factory next to Twilight. "P-Princess Celestia!! Uhhh... I can explain, Mike is--" "He has explained everything to me already, Twilight." "Wait, what? When?" "He tried sneaking into the castle to get you a few tickets for the Gala. He has a kind soul." Again, she failed to understand Mike only sought amusement. Even now he was trying to supress his laughter at this misunderstanding. "Tell me, if you wanted more tickets for your friends, why didn't you say so?" "Oh... Well... I..." "Brace for impact." Mike with an overly deep voice said as he prepared for the landing. He opened the top of a box, revealing a button inside it, and punched it. The engines suddenly stopped, and the inertia sent the three of them to the ceiling of the factory. It shook and shook as it fell to the ground, until it violently lowered its speed and shook even more as if something was in the way. Of course, Mike landed on top of another building. The three of them were sent to the floor of the factory as soon as it struck the building, and once everything was calm, Mike stood up and opened a hatch that led outside. "Dominion inc. holds no responsibility for any broken bones this journey might've caused. All rights reserved." He said as he jumped out with Spike, the incredible shaking leaving his hair like an afro. Both Twilight and Celestia stepped out, both with an afro too, and stood outside where the rest of the mane 6 awaited them. "That was fun. I'll be in the base if you guys need me." He said as he walked away, with Spike following him for the minerals. "That was... Interesting..." Twilight remarked. Celestia soon patted her shoulder reminding her of something. "G-Girls, look!" She said as she levitated six tickets with her magic. Everyone began cheering with Celestia laughing to herself, and sporting a fabulous spherical hairstyle.