//------------------------------// // The Beginning Of The End // Story: When Worlds Collide // by MoonShine //------------------------------// Chapter 8: The Beginning of the End Last chapter: He quickly reaches Ponyville and lands in front of the three mechs who all look at him and ready for battle, “It’s the Overseer, he’s come to help.” One of the pilots calls out. “No, he isn’t. Look he’s targeting us, be careful, this is the Overseer we’re talking about, he’s the one with the most combat experience in these mechs.” Another pilot replies. “So what now, do we kill him” the third pilot asks. “No, I kill you.” Kieron responds as his face appears on their screens. The mechs stood looking at each other, Ambush’s ‘eyes’ moving side to side as it scans the SKULL mechs, “Scan complete, sir. Their configurations are...” Mathis goes to say but is interrupted by Kieron. “I know their setups; I did after all create them. Let’s see, we have a quad legged heavy design, bulky, slow. An all-rounder, relatively quick, average amount of armour, but I know a weakness. Then we have, oh, very clever, we’ve got someone wants to be clever, he has a pure blader...” he says to himself, “But as I have created and started the Havoc mech program, I know a weakness for all of them.” He smirks, an image of the three pilots appear on his screen, “So gentleman, who shall go first. Rules are simple, we fight one on one, like waves of enemies, and the loser die but the winner survives to see the next day. We won’t fight here, we will fight over there...” he says as Ambush points to a patch of land that is clear of all obstacles, it was the park green, “If you try to refuse then, well, I guess I will have to force you. Now let the games begin, and yes, this is fun.” He comments as the pilots listen to his orders and begins to move towards the park green. As they made their way to the green one of the pilots piped up, “Do you really think we can take him on?” “Of course, he may have created these mechs but we outnumber him, three to one. We can take him.” The second pilot replies. “So, who do I have the honour of fighting today?” Kieron questions them. “Surely you remember us Overseer. No? Well then, I am Flight-Lieutenant Stevens.” He replies. “I am Corporal Johnson. I still think you could have taught us a bit more than you did.” He adds. “And I am Sergeant Winters. Let’s see if the great mech pilot, the Overseer can take on his three best students.” He asks himself. “Oh, you three, Winters you know that you were learning everything I knew faster than I could teach it. I still don’t think you can beat me.” He responds. The mechs reach the park green, the three SKULL mechs stand next to each other as Ambush stands about 20 metre opposite them, the quad legged mech then steps forward, he and Ambush then ready themselves for battle, “Quad legged design, slow walking, can’t booster for too long, arm weapons are dual Gatling guns, shoulder attachments are flares, missiles are useless then, and the back weapons, ah, a Kojima missile launcher and a sniper cannon...” Kieron says to himself as he analyses the opponent’s mech. Ambush readies himself as the other mechs power down to stop any interruptions, “On the count of three, we draw.” He says to Winters to knods in agreement, “One......two......” Ambush then suddenly raises his arms up towards Winters and begins to spray the mech with machinegun fire and missiles, Winters deploys flares causing some of the missiles to fly off towards them but some ignore the flares and head straight for the mech and explode against its primal armour shielding, the bullets penetrate through it from the constant fire and cause some damage to the core. Winters begins to boost to the side to avoid any more fire and begins to return fire with the dual Gatling guns, Ambush doesn’t even move as he sponges the shots, the round hit off Ambush’s primal armour but something is different, there constant fire should penetrate through it but yet, nothing. “You didn’t think I had thought about constant fire, did you?” Kieron asks him, “In my time here, I created a new, highly advanced primal armour system that has higher density, but not just that, it has two layers, get through one and there is another one there to take the punishment.” He continues as he chuckles slightly, enjoying the fun. Winters stops moving as he watches the shield ripple round Ambush before becoming invisible to show just the mech, the sniper cannon then unfolds and takes aim, steadies itself and fires, Ambush dodges at just the right time by quick boosting that the round whizzes just past the head, as he glides to the side he turns slightly to correct his course and then boosts towards Winters who begins to spray rounds with one of the Gatling guns as the cannon reloads. It takes aim again and fires but just as it does Ambush activates his laser blade on his left arm and slices off the sniper cannon causing it to fall to the ground as the shot flies off into the sky. The mech slowly looks round to Ambush who is facing the other way behind it. It deploys the Kojima missile launcher, locks onto Ambush and fires; the missile immediately begins to head for Ambush who turns to see the incoming missile. He begins to boost in different direction in an attempt to shake it off but the missile follows his no matter where he goes, the missile is slow but highly agile. Kieron quickly thinks of what to do as the missile follows him and Winters shoots at him, he boosts towards Winters, dodging most of the shots, and then quick boosting round the mech to behind it, he drops his arm weapons and grabs hold of the mech, it struggles as Winters realises that he hold of him. The missile continues to follow Kieron but his plan was working, it was travelling towards his position, but Winters was in the way, the missile soon reaches the mech, Ambush quick boost backwards out of the blast-radius, the missile hits the mech and explodes with a large, green blast engulfing the mech, an electrical surge flashes from the mech as the shields depletes, the explosion soon dies down revealing the mech stood but weakened by the blast, Kieron quick boost towards it and stabs the laser blade straight into the core with no resistance from any shields, it easily slides into the metal armour like butter. He pulls the blade out and sparks fly out from the hole, he lets go of it and it slumps down on its legs, core hanging down over to the side, “NEXT! You’re done for Winters.” Kieron calls out. The Corporal steps forwards to go next, “Hello Corporal, ready to die? All-rounder mech design, weapons, dual shotguns, rear weapons are a chain gun and a Sirius Hi-laser cannon, shoulder mounts? There is none, this will be easy.” He smugly says to himself as he readies for the next battle. Ambush dashes forwards towards Johnson, who aims at him with his shotguns and fires, the slugs impact against the shields getting through slightly, the impact causes Ambush to stagger slightly but he corrects this by boosting to the side instead to flank the mech, he gets to the side, activate the laser blade and goes to swing for it but he dodges out of the way, deploys the Sirius cannon and shoots Ambush in the back, causing minimal damage to the back-left leg, “YES, energy weapons seen to penetrate the shield more easily!” Johnson shouts out to himself. Kieron turns round to face him, and deploys his left-rear weapon a railgun and takes aim, he shoots a few machinegun rounds to make him dodge about, and when he stops to take a shot Kieron shoots the railgun and hits the left arm ripping it off completely. He looks at the missing arm, drops the shotgun and a small laser blade replaces it, he dashes forwards to slash at Kieron who activates his own blade to block it. As they push against each other, Kieron deactivates his blade and quickly punches the mech in the lower-core area pushing it up over him and slamming it into the ground behind him. He flies up into the air and deploys his other back weapon, a Kojima cannon. He charges it up as he sprays a burst of shot at the mech. Johnson desperately tries to get up but one of the legs is damaged from the impact against the ground. Kieron’s cannon soon reaches full charge, he takes aim and fires, the shot travels towards the mech and hits it with great force, destroying it completely. Ambush lowers down to the ground to land next to the demolished mech, it moves slightly in an attempt to aims its gun at him, and he pushes the gun to the side and stabs the mech in the core to confirm the kill. He then pulls out and looks up the remaining mech, “two down, one to go.” He says to Stevens, “I have just defeated your teammates, you think you have a chance?” he asks. “Yes, of course, they had less experience than me, plus I have a faster mech.” He replies as he steps forwards slightly to get ready for the ‘last bout’. “True but remember that every mech has a weakness, even mine, you just need to find it.” Kieron admits. The two mechs begins to walk to the sides in a circle motion as if in a ring, Stevens make the first move and charges at Kieron, slicing with both laser blades, one of them misses completely as Ambush dodges to the side, the other blade slices against the core leaving a scorch mark. The blade easily piercing the shields, he quick boosts to turn him round quickly and take another lunge at Ambush, before Kieron could react the blades hit against Ambush, one blade ripping off the sniper cannon, the other slicing down the back of Ambush. Kieron sharply turned round and swung at Stevens hitting him on the back causing him to stumble. “You can’t beat me Stevens. You won’t beat me.” Kieron says to him over the intercom. Stevens reacts by turning round to look towards Kieron but he wasn’t there, “What? Where did he go?” he asks himself. He looks around to see if he was trying to flank him but not one mech could be seen apart from the ones laid on the floor. He continues to look around to find Kieron but still nothing, as he looks about a shimmer appears behind him, an electrical surge runs downwards to reveal Ambush, a red dot suddenly appears behind Stevens on the radar, but before he could do anything Ambush’s laser blade slices upwards diagonally to the left ripping off the left leg of the mech, before the mech could fall, move or do anything, Ambush grabs the back of the mech, lifts it up and throws in down on the ground. Stevens uses the mechs boosters flip its leg over the head so that it does a front flip and lands on the one leg, the booster still going to keep it up right, he then locks on to Kieron and dashes forward at speeds of that of three times as fast as normally possible, it was a special move only possible for blading mechs. Kieron saw this coming and at just the right time he steps to the side and punches the mech in the side causing it to become highly unstable as he damages one of the rear boosters, the mech topples and falls to the ground heavily. Ambush walks up to the mech laid on the floor, points a gun at it ready to finish it but all of a sudden some bulkhead armour covers the ‘eyes’ and Kojima, blue particles rush to the core, it was going to use Assault armour. Kieron responded to this by ripping off one of the shoulder attachments which was an Assault armour amplifier, this causes the FCS (fighting computer system) to make an emergency shut down to the Assault armour, “No! You can’t stop that, how did you do that?” Stevens angrily question Kieron. Kieron says nothing but responds by pulling the laser blades off the mech then grabs the mech by the lower-core area, lifting it up to him so that they are face to face, “I told you, I know everything about these mechs, now this is how you do a proper kill with Assault armour.” He says to him as the bulkhead armour covers Ambush’s ‘eyes’ and Kojima particles rush to Ambush’s core, a light emits from the core as a large blast erupts from him ripping the arms off the mech and the other leg to leave the core and head. The light soon dies down and the mech is still firmly in Ambush’s grasp, somehow the core protected Stevens from the blast but only just, “How...how do you do it? How...Why? What are you? You...truly are the bane of death...You truly are the ultimate soldier of death and war...now please, finish this. I have failed and must die.” Stevens says as he coughs and splutters. Ambush lifts the mech up higher, “I shouldn’t really kill you, I should let you be prisoner to the ponies of Ponyville as a reminder of what happened her but that would only make them depressed, so now my student...you must die.” He replies as Ambush suddenly slams the mech against the ground and stamps onto it crushing the core like a tin can. “KNOCK OUT!” Mathis shouts as the core of the mech crumples. “Ha ha ha, nice timing Mathis but now isn’t a good time to be having fun.” Kieron replies. He lifts his leg and then turns to look up at the frigate in the sky, “How to stop you...I know just the thing.” He says to himself, “Mathis, get the recruits to get into their mechs and go up to that ship and rip it out from the inside out.” He orders. “Already on their way, I thought it might have been the only way to take it down without having to use Emergency Protocol 2” he replies. Kieron looks over towards the mech facility to see three Havoc mechs flying up towards the ship, he then heads for the observatory with amazing speed. Moonshine it on Luna’s balcony and was watching the whole fight, “Princess, he did it! He’s won!” she shouts inside to Celestia, she rushes out onto the balcony to look down towards Ponyville but sees no mechs, Moonshine turns Celestia’s head towards the park green where there is various parts of mechs scattered all over and Kieron heading towards the observatory. “Why is he heading for the observatory?” she asks to herself. “I know why. I overheard him talking to Mathis one day, he has some shield generators there, and Dr Atom was working on them to get them to work better than what Kieron could do.” She replies. “Oh, I see. He must be putting up some shields somewhere, possibly here, to protect us, but from what? That ship doesn’t look nearly as big as the one that was there when he first came here.” She wonders to herself. “It isn’t, but I get the feeling that he knows something, SKULL never sends a single, light ship to do a job like this, they send a few, heavy ships to do the job. I get the feeling too that more will be coming.” Moonshine replies as she pats Celestia on the shoulder. A radar operator is looking at a screen that shows the three Havoc mechs approaching the ship, “Sir, we’ve got incoming, it looks like some Havoc mechs, maybe it’s the ones we sent coming back to give us a report about their defences.” He says to the captain who swings round on his chair to looks at him. “So be it. Let them into the hanger.” He replies. The mechs continue to travel towards the ship only to get a blind message to board in the hanger. They proceed to the hanger under the cover of pretending to be SKULL forces, “Kieron, we have managed to approach the ship without suspicion, we will proceed inside and then rip apart anything that moves.” One of the ponies says over a secure communication channel to him. “Roger that. Kill all of them, leave nothing standing.” He replies before cutting the channel. They then begin the boarding procedures with the ship, firstly they approach the hanger at a slow speed, in a wing formation, the hanger doors open and a blue energy shield can be seen, they continue to approach and enter the hanger, passing straight through the shield, it would seem that it’s to stop any air from rushing out. They then slowly land onto the floor of the hanger; one mech walks over towards a docking station. The other two mechs suddenly stop as the other docks, but refuses to open the core. A few engineers begins to become frustrated and shout at the pilot inside the docked mech, the others looks over to the engineers and the core of the mech docked burst open and the pony jumps out in full power armour, shooting at many humans as he lands on the gangway taking shots at any humans that come into sight. The other mechs that aim at the pony who stands still, “Intruder, stay where you are, how did you get into our formation undetected?” one of the pilots asks, the soldiers around their feet lowers their weapons knowing that the situation is under control, but then the mechs suddenly turns and begins to fire on the many humans about, standing on them, shooting at the fuel tanks, and launching missiles at any exits to cut off any escape. “HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!” one of the ponies calls out as the one of the gangway jumps back into the mech and shuts the core, and punches the ground to hold on, one of the other mechs then punches a wall to do the same. The third mech then blades the generator for the energy shield, air and objects begin to rush out into the vacuum of space as the mech uses its boosters to correct the pull and cause it to stand still in the hanger. The hanger’s bulkhead doors then shut closing off the hanger from space and the hanger decompresses as the air stops rushing out, the boosting mech uses this opportunity and boosts straight into the wall ahead and behinds to blade its way through the walls in front of it, easily ripping through, the others then behind to pull at the holes they created, pulling out any wiring, pipes and anything else they find. On the bridge alarms are blaring as the mech continue on their rampage, the captain orders for bombardment of the planet’s surface, the main gun doors open as the gun slides down out of the ship to point to the planet. “Warning, the ship is preparing to fire of Equestria.” Mathis warns the ponies. One of the mechs then turns to the bulkhead door, rips its way through and flies to the front of the ship, air begins to rush out again through the hole, humans and objects fly towards the hole until a build up of objects block the hole stopping anything else from rushing out although there is still a hiss from the gaps where the air is getting through. One of the mechs manages to reach the engine rooms after going through many walls, it begins to rip, tear and shoot at many of the objects in the room, even shooting at the generators to shut down all electrical hardware, the mech at the front of the ship begins to slice away at the barrel at a few shots get out and propel towards the planet. “KIERON, two shots have been shot, repeat two shots inbound.” The pony shouts through the channel to him. The mech then continues to slice away at the gun, soon reaching the base of it and disconnecting it from the ship altogether. As soon as the gun disconnects the ship’s security system activates and a bulkhead covers the gap, multiple quantum torpedo launchers deploy on the side of the ship and target the mech, they then fire as he flies off to lead them away. They mech in the engine room finally begins to stab and slice at the engine generators which after a couple of hit begin to overload, “ALL PONIES, GET OUT, IT’S GOING TO BLOW!” he calls out, the two mechs inside then runs for the hanger door they came in through, they reach the door just as the generators cause the warp drives to overload and explode furiously destroying everything as the explosions expand outwards. The mech being pursued by the torpedoes then head towards the ship and stop in front of the bridge, the captain staring into the ‘eyes’ of it, as the torpedoes get closer the mech suddenly dodges out of the way, before they could correct course they slam straight into the bridge and blow it to pieces, the mech sees the others heading for the planet and joins up with them. Moonshine and Celestia stand and watch as they see small flashes of light coming from the ship in the day sky; all of a sudden the whole of the ship explodes in one large, blue explosion, ripping it in half, the explosion’s shockwave reaching the surface almost instantly and causing ponies to tumble and stagger, even the remains of Ponyville’s hall falls to the ground into a pile of rubble and it shatters a few of the weaker windows. All the ponies then look up into the sky to see the remains of the explosion and cheer out in relief as the mechs fly out from the edge of the explosion towards the surface, they soon get through the atmosphere but they should be slowing down, something is wrong. They continue to plummet towards the ground at speeds way too fast for even a Havoc mech; Celestia watches as they fall, she knows something is wrong and begins to concentrate her magic on her horn as she begins to use her magic to try and slow them down, but it doesn’t nothing as even for her they are moving too fast for her to make any effect. “They’re moving too fast, I can’t do anything. Wait, something’s wrong, the explosion, it’s disrupted their electronic systems, they have no control, I need to reboot them, if I can, then the emergency landing systems should kick in and soften the landing to that of a cinder block landing in them.” Celestia explains as she begins to focus on the mech’s computer systems. Moonshine stood in amazement from what she just said. “How the hay did you know all that?” she asks herself as Celestia’s magic begins to take effect and the computer systems start the reboot sequence. She then opens her eyes as she stops and watches hoping the reboot with start-up quick enough to make a difference. Suddenly one of the mech’s front boosters flash as the mech begins to slow down, but the other continue to plummet. Out of no-where Ambush tackles one of the other mechs, lays so that his back is facing the ground with the mech held tightly against his front and activates his overboost dramatically reducing the speed but it isn’t enough as he tries to slow two mechs down at once, his own and the other mech. The last mech still falls as the computer system develops an error within the reboot system, the mech is travelling way too fast, it will hit the ground of that of a railgun round hitting someone, the impact would certainly kill the pilot. The mech continues to fall with no difference in speed, 10,000m...8000m...6000m...3000m. Then suddenly the boosters kick in as the computer system overrides the reboot and brings the mech to life, the boosters blaring as powerful as they possibly can, Mathis hacks into the mech and overrides the computer coding causing the boosters to go into overload, producing much more thrust but it isn’t enough as the mech is still travelling too fast and hits the ground just outside of Ponyville. “NO! The pony inside couldn’t have survived that.” Moonshine calls out as Celestia’s eyes well up with tears and places her head on Moonshine’s shoulder crying knowing that SKULL have claimed their first victim and that she has now lost yet another pony in her land of Equestria. “There there sis, I’m sure he died with pride or justice or both.” Luna tries to reassure her as she sits down on the other side of Moonshine and places her head on top of Celestia’s. “NO!” she shouts lifting her head quickly knocking Luna’s off hers, “He ISN’T dead. He can’t be.” She corrects Luna with a broken voice. Just then another thud is heard, they all look over to Ponyville to see Ambush and the other mech slam into the ground but at a much slower speed, they don’t see much afterward because of the dust created by the first mech’s landing. Soon the last mech lands safely in fact perfectly as if nothing happened; it then rushes into the dust towards where the first mech landed. Celestia focuses on the library in Ponyville and teleports the three of them to it. Ambush slowly pushes the mech off him as he gets up and rushes over to the crashed mech. When he gets there, Celestia, Luna and Moonshine are already trying to open it but they can’t is it is jammed shut. “Move aside, I’ll open it.” Kieron calls out to them. He then grabs as the core of the mech with both hands and begins to pull, the mech is in lockdown and so is sealed shut but it begins to creak as it starts to give way, the core opens slightly and cries of pain can be heard from within. “He’s alive!” ‘Tia shouts out with joy. She jumps up onto the core between the hands of Ambush which continue to slowly open the core, a gap just big enough for her to squeeze through appears and she pushes her head and upper body into the core, grabs the pony by the mane with her mouth and pulls, he mostly comes out but he gets stuck in the gap as it isn’t wide enough yet, “OPEN IT MORE!” she shouts to Kieron. “I’M TRYING! I WANT TO SAVE JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO!” he replies. Ambush does one big pull and for a split second the core opens just wide enough for the pony to be pulled out before slamming shut behind him. “YES, he’s alive. Quick, we need to get him to the hospital.” She cries out. “You take him ’Tia, I’ll get the other.” Kieron replies as she teleports the both of them to the hospital in Canterlot, Kieron rushes over to the other that crashed with him. As he reaches it he get a communication from the Malevolence. “I hope you are destroying that world, Kieron.” A voice asks from the other end, “If you aren’t well, I guess I’ll have to do it myself. Earth is no more and I need a new planet, I am on my way, Kieron.” The communication cuts off before he could reply, he stands in shock as he now knows what is about to come, “no, not yet. We have no defence. LUNA GET THIS PILOT TO THE HOSPITAL!” he shouts out before rushing off to the mech facility for the shield generators from before. The Malevolence and two other ships turn from the now gone planet and a surge of energy goes from the front to the back of each of them, in the bridge of the HLV Malevolence the GM is sat in his large wingback chair in the middle of the room. “Now, take us to our new planet.” He calls out to the drivers. “Yes, sir” they all reply. As the energy gets to the back and launches the ship into light travel towards Equestria, then the other two follow.