//------------------------------// // Meet The Fixers // Story: The Fixers // by that guy from that thing //------------------------------// Chapter 4 Meet the Fixers Two men looked out the large windows that took up most of the wall in the room. The view was spectacular. The setting sun cast a red glow on the mountains of Equestria. The room was lit only by the light of the sun. It was large and bare, only containing them and a long table. "So, it has been confirmed that she has returned." One said nonchalantly. The other remained silent. "I suggest we find those other five." The other turned to walk away. He did not want to waste any more time here. "Sir yes sir." Venom came out in the form of words. "You can say it if you want." He stopped and was silent for a while before continuing across the room. "I freaking told you so." ______________________________________________________________________________ Dash strained her eyes to see detail once again. The two figures that stood in front of her were a blur. Luckily, her hearing had come back entirely so she could hear what they were saying. "I assure you, we won't hurt you." The smaller one had a soft voice that reminded her of Fluttershy, only male. She found it comforting yet unsettling. "You've had a rough day. I suggest you get some more rest." Rest nothing, she had so many questions. 'What happened at Phillydelphia? Who are you? What are you? Where am I?' She tried to speak these out loud and was only able to let out a wheeze. Her lungs were burning from that smoke. The small figure rushed to her bedside with what seemed to be a glass of water. "Please Rainbow, don't try to speak. Your lungs and throat are damaged." She took the glass from its….hand? It had four fingers like a griffon or a dragon. She didn't think on it. "Drink slowly now." Dash downed the whole glass in one gulp. The water was cold and felt like a cool heaven drifting down her throat. She coughed as the water reached the base of her throat and a searing pain flashed through her. 'Worth it.' She thought. The small one took the glass and mumbled something about listening to it. Dash looked over at the large figure. It had done nothing but stand in silence and stare at her. Even if she could not really see where its eyes were looking, she could feel its gaze on her. She knew that gaze. She cast it at ponies she knew were dangerous. Usually prisoners in interrogations. This one didn't trust her. She once again tried to speak and actually managed to give a halfway understandable "who are" before bursting into a coughing fit. "Please stop making your physical situation worse Rainbow. If you must know something then know this." The figure leaned down so its face was in plain view. At this range, she could see more detail. Its head was large and its skin was grey. It had massive green eyes and a petite mouth. It's expression was that of sincerity and worry. "We are your friends, Rainbow. We are here to help you all in the long run, no matter what happens in the course of the next few days." They all turned to attention at the sound of something large sliding. Another figure stood in a doorway that seemed to have magically appeared. "It's time for a pony round up." It said in an accent similar to Applejacks. ______________________________________________________________________________ The sun was now setting over the city of Canterlot. The moon was rising from the other side of the horizon to take its place. The lights from houses and offices nary dimmed with the sky. Canterlot was a busy city, and many citizens were awake around the clock. In one house was a mare who did not have papers to file or documents to study. She was awake because she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Applejack sat on her bed with her face in the pillows. She did not cry or say anything really. She only thought and remembered. Rainbow Dash had been the first pony Applejack had gotten along with in Canterlot. Two years ago, when she was just starting her position as head of agriculture and Dash was a simple guardspony. Applejack never wanted to be at a desk every day. She wanted to be in the guard or at least on a farm. Every day, she wondered why she had run for the office. The other heads and chancellors did not take her seriously. She was to….rural to be a government official. The older ones simply didn't want to talk to her, while the younger ones loved to pick on her. For the first few weeks, the guards wouldn't allow her into the federal district without checking her I.D. while others were allowed inside without a moments glance. Even after that, some guard stopped her for kicks. She wasn't powerful enough to have them fired. The only guard that didn't give her trouble was Rainbow Dash. Dash was assigned to Applejacks floor of the office of financial and rural affairs. Every day it was a friendly greeting instead of "Sorry ma'am, permitted ponies only." The two were connected by the bullying they experienced. Rainbow was always assumed to be...deviant because of the way her mane looked. They weathered the storm of ridicule together and grew close. The prize for the most fork tongued pony had to go to Ivy leaf, the head of who knows what. Every day there was another witty little comment to make Applejack boil over. But one day she was going through the motions of spewing her hate and took it one step too far. "Hey, you're the head of agriculture right?" The green mare asked nonchalantly. "Why don't you pass a law against the guard hiring fruits." She looked Rainbow in the eye. Being a guard, Rainbow couldn't do anything in protest. She simply tried to remain composed. "Oh wait, maybe that hasn't happened because you like having her around." The mare gave a suggestive glance. Later that day, Ivy leaf was found guilty for assault and resisting arrest. So what if Applejack had started the fight. The two knew they had each other's backs from that day forward. They had become best friends. And now… Applejack didn't want to admit it. She didn't want to think the thought that her best friend was dead. Nopony, not even Rainbow Dash, could live through that explosion. Now that she had allowed even the thought to enter her mind, she found it was all she could think about. The orange earth pony became aware that tears were flowing from her eyes into the pillow. She was silent for a long time as she cried. She may have laid there forever if not for an abrupt sound. It was a sound she had never heard before and it certainly wasn't natural. ______________________________________________________________________________ Twilight Sparkle sat on the couch in her living room. The house was silent. Twilight normally would have had a book in hoof to unwind on nights like this. But her mind simply needed time to do nothing and wind down. She had had a very frustrating day. They spent half an hour looking for that E.C.D.R.P. pony and still hadn't found her. They eventually decided on sending a platoon of guardsponies and two teams of various scientist and magicologists to the site of the disaster. A whole platoon. They had to be insane. If they were on the threshold of war with whoever the hay had decided to attack, they shouldn't be wasting troops on escort. Twilight sighed and stared at the ground. She felt that familiar feeling. It was calling her again, the object. She didn't remember when she had found it. She didn't remember anything about acquiring it. She just remembered finding it in her basement one day, a year ago. When she touched it, all hell broke loose in her head. She saw visions, terrible visions of war and fire and hatred. And the worst part was that she felt some sort of sick pride that overwhelmed her terror. She didn't understand it. That day, she locked it in a trunk and put it in the darkest corner of the basement. On some nights, she felt it pulling her to it. Sometimes, she could even swear she heard a voice calling her name. She never went in the basement when it called to her, for fear of what might happen, but she once found that she had walked to the basement in her sleep. It was simply a fact that the object should never be allowed to be found, whatever it was. Twilight did her best to forget about the thing. She cleared her mind and gazed into the fire in her hearth. It felt so warm and comforting. She felt herself being drawn into the fire. Her head leaned forward and soon, her body trailed behind as she moved toward the fire. She couldn't stop going. She could almost hear the fire calling to her. "Twilight." A voice sounded from far away, like an echo down a hallway. She seemed to regain control at the mention of her name and jumped away from the fire, which now felt hot in its proximity. She now wanted only to get away from the fire. The flames seamed to reach for her as she backed up. The fur on her body was beginning to smoke when a wild wind ripped through the room and the window blew open to reveal the full moon. The fire recoiled like an animal hiding in its burrow from a predator. Calm came over the room that was now basked in moonlight rather than fire light. Twilight still stayed away from the fireplace. The other side of the room did not feel enough of a distance. She had to go outside. The front door was violently thrown open by her magic before she half trotted/ half scrambled outside. She had expected the streets to be rather empty at this time of night. Even though the city was never truly asleep, there were usually only two or three ponies outside on a single street by night. Instead, the entire street seemed to be outside tonight. They all had their gazes aimed at the horizon. Twilight only now noticed the sound. It didn’t sound like any sound she had ever heard. But the sound was only the accompaniment to the grand prize winner for strangest thing she had witnessed that day. Quickly approaching the city was a massive construct of metal that looked like a tower on its side. The most amazing part was its form of locomotion. It was flying! _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Heart Beat watched the flying monster from the roof of a building. It was larger than even she could have imagined. The metal that formed most of its structure shined in the moonlight and made it almost to look like a celestial body itself. But this was no bringer of light or beautiful guardian of the sky. This thing was a machine of death and she would not allow the monsters that inhabited it to hurt her kind again. The others from the order were spread out among the city, waiting to strike the moment these things attempted their attack. Standing beside Heart Beat was Lyra Heartstrings or, as the members of the order called her, the prophet. Lyra Heartstrings was a unicorn ostracized from society for her knowledge. Few ponies knew her story like Heart Beat. Two years ago, Lyra Heartstrings was a semi-famous musician performing in Canterlot. She wasn’t particularly close to anypony, except for some candy maker, but she was kind and sociable until one fateful day. Nopony really knew what happened to make her “snap”. All they could say for sure was that she had developed a severe combination of narcissism and amnesia that was unknown to medical experts. Overnight she could not remember most events of the past five years and believed that creatures from another world had invaded and killed off a large portion of the population of the entire world. Obviously, many believed she had completely lost it. Lyra lost her job, her home, and her best friend because of her “madness”. Before she was completely thrust onto the fringe of society, she managed to publish a book called: The Dream of Reality. It didn’t sell well, but it did find its way into the hooves of a young filly, just out of school. Heart Beat felt much the same as Lyra did. She did not remember the wars at first, but she did have dreams. Terrifying dreams of fire and beams of light from the sky decimating the earth below. Her father had said that her mother died of a heart attack but Heart Beat knew better. Her father did not remember the soldiers that came to tell them, in excruciating detail about her mother’s death at the hands of the monsters. They did not bring her body back with them; it wouldn’t have been worth it. Heart Beat always felt that the explanation for the feeling of forgetting something when you woke up was more like waving it away. There was something more. She had memories nopony else had. She had dreams that were so real. She didn’t dare tell anypony else. For a year, she felt like she was going crazy. But then she saw a book in the local library, by Lyra Heartstrings. It had opened her eyes to the horrible truth of the world they were living in. Heart Beat sought Lyra out. By the time she found the prophet, she already had a small following. Other ponies knew that the truth everypony accepted had holes in it. The group grew and turned into an order and with the wisdom of the prophet, they readied themselves. Lyra knew they would return one day. Heart Beat rose through the ranks of the order quickly to become Lyra’s most trusted follower. She entered the E.C.D.R.P. to pursue leads on the return of the monsters and her vigilance was rewarded today. Not that it was a reward to find that your world was about to be ravaged by monsters. The two stood and watched the giant machine silently. The noise was the headache inducing moan of the thing. A light appeared from the side of the floating colossus. An opening was allowing light from inside to leave along with a much smaller craft. It too was made of shiny metal but was the size of a small house and vaguely resembled a bird. It silently glided toward the city. Lyra turned to her most faithful follower. The two nodded wordlessly, it was time for action. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ The ponies of Canterlot stared in awe at the metallic thing that had landed in the middle of the central road. Half the city was gathered on the block to witness whatever this was. Guardsponies were stationed around the machine, making sure Nopony got too close. Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack all stood together in the crowd. Everything was silent for a minute. Time crept by as if nervous to set in motion the events of this meeting. Eventually though, the craft opened and a dull red light emanated from inside. Another moment of apprehension was rudely interrupted by a group of large creatures that burst from the machine. They were amazing and terrifying. The all stood on two legs and wore white full body armor with golden cross symbols on their shoulders. These were the only obvious characteristics they all showed. Most of them stood completely and impossibly erect while two of them had bird like legs and reptilian tales. Some were short with large heads and others were incredibly tall and thin. They carried strange black things that ended in barrel like a hoof cannon, but had many strange features in addition. The six creatures formed a circle around the area bathed in the red light and did nothing. The guardsponies had hoof cannons and various melee weapons trained at them; still they did nothing. Another figure made its way out of the ship. This one was another small body- big head creature. It, unlike the others, did not have its face obscured by a black visor. It had grey skin and very few facial features and the ones it did were very pronounced. It had large eyes of bright green, eyes that held kindness and trustworthiness. It looked over the crowd of petrified ponies. “This is a little cliché, but we come in peace.” It spoke almost apologetically. “We have come to invite some select individuals of your kind to meet with our leaders.” Nopony dared step forward or say anything. Everyone was in awkward silence for what seemed forever before one yellow pegasus stepped forward. A relived smiled crossed the aliens face as if he recognized the mare. “Um, w-welcome to Equestria.” The diplomat Fluttershy greeted them. The alien bowed to her gentlemanly. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ “The weapons are in place. What commands from the prophet?” “She will give the signal herself. She wants to formally great our enemy before we strike.” _________________________________________________________________________________________________ “Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity Belle, and Pinkamina Diane Pie. Please step forward.” The creature called. The four mares in question came forward from the crowd. “I extend to you an arm of peace and cordially invite you to speak to our commander.” The crowd was confused as to why these creatures asked for the mares by name and did not ask specifically for their leaders. Still, these creatures seemed friendly enough. Twilight stood in front of the speaker and bowed. He was slightly taller than she was but they could still look each other in the eye. “I accept your offer on behalf of the nation of Equestria.” It was rather rash and unordinary to simply up and accept these requests but this was a certainly unordinary situation. The crowd was now alive with excited murmurs and chatter. The tension had eased and become delight. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ “Clever, monsters, very clever. But why are you making friends when you could blow us sky high?” _________________________________________________________________________________________________ A white and green mare made her way through the crowd. Her hood concealed her face and her cloak covered her body. She moved like a reaper, approaching its victim with a grim certainty. She strode out of the crowd and through the four mares in front. Her hood was lifted by her magic and she gave the creatures a hate filled grimace. She pointed her hoof at them accusingly and spoke. "Not so fast, alien scum! You may have them all in the palm of your hand, but I see you for what you truly are." The crowd let out a collective gasp. Some recognized her and began to fear for the stability of this peaceful meeting. Pinkie Pie materialized behind the mare. "As do I! They are just really clever planet-to-planet salesmen!" Everyone stared at the strange arch chancellor for a moment. Even the alien soldiers that, until now, had seemed to have no interest in the events unfolding in front of them. Lyra spoke up again. "No…that's not what I'm talking about." Pinkie gave an 'okie-dokie-lokie' and disappeared behind Lyra. Recovering the mood, the cloaked mare got back to business. "What I'm talking about is that these beings are not here for our benefit! If they are so peaceful, why did they bring weapons, why are they leading half our government away like children to be kidnapped, and why did they destroy Phillydelphia?" Lyra had grown closer to the small grey creature with each sentence and now had her face pressed against his. He backed away fearfully while the ponies in the crowd considered this. The soldiers around the sky ship raised their weapons slightly. Twilight Sparkle trotted up to the deranged mare. She couldn't allow her to drive a wedge between them and these creatures. "What makes you believe you have any evidence to support any of the things you just said?" Lyra looked away for a moment, unsure of what she was going to say, but she knew she had to say. They were right in front of everypony, the things she had talked about. If the ponies didn't believe her now then they deserved their fate. " Every day, you wake up feeling like you've forgotten something. Why is that? " Twilight rolled her eyes. "I know some of you have dreams and memories that don't fit." She was now speaking to the crowd. "Some of you have voids in your lives where there should be none. How many times have you waited for a spouse to get home and then remembered that you are single? How many times have you sent a letter to a cousin that doesn't exist? When you dream, it is of fire and pain and blood. When you remember the last two years, you feel like you are thinking of a story, not your life." The crowd was beginning to murmur once again, only this time it was with worry. Quite a few did have that feeling. Lyra looked to the grey and smiled in victory. She had them now. Even the five they had called on looked unsure now. "Now I have an offer for you. Leave our world and never come back or suffer the consequences." She boldly said with her head raised. The grey looked morbidly interested in this statement. "And what would these consequences be?" Lyra looked to the surrounding rooftops and giggled like a filly. "Contact, roof-!" A soldier shouted before being blast to the ground by a hail of milk. A cold white liquid was being sprayed onto the aliens from both rooftops, knocking most of them to their feet and blinding the rest. It went on for several seconds before the torrent thankfully ended. Before anypony could say or do anything, one of the perfectly straight aliens was on his feet and firing his weapon at the rooftops. The sound was like a chain of explosions that never ended. The stone on the top of the building was being blown away piece by piece by the thing. Another alien (also tall and straight) rushed to his comrade. He put his hand on the others shoulder and wave his arm wildly. One could only assume he was telling him to stop. The noise died away but left an echo in the ponies ears. Every living thing was drenched in milk. It pooled on the ground and ran down the street. There was silence. Everyone was still recovering from that, needless to say, surprising event. ______________________________________________________________________________ Heart Beat was mortified. Her plan had failed. But she remembered the day of her capture. When the aliens had foolishly revealed their weakness. One had told her that milk was highly poisonous to them. She should have known that it was a trick all along. Now they had no secret weapon, no way of fighting these things, and they had pissed them off. She had barely escaped that fearful weapon that had torn holes in brick. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of that again. ______________________________________________________________________________ The one that had calmed his friend now walked to the center the disaster area that was the landing sight. He surveyed the situation. No casualties, no real injuries, and the ponies were still in the yellow. He looked to the grey who thought over the unspoken question and nodded, sighing in defeat. He removed his helmet quickly and non-dramatically. His face was the polar opposite of the grey one. Her had a pronounced nose and a defined brow and chin. His eyes were tiny but they burned bright. He had a short mane of brown hair and freckles on his cheeks. "Alright, listen up!" His accent resembled Applejacks and his voice was high pitched but still managed to be masculine. " Ah am not gonna sugar coat anything for yah. We have been here for a long time and the unicorn's right. We've both done things that we are better off forgettin' and we deemed you little guys deserving of that luxury. I'm not gonna take the time tah' explain anything to you cause we'd be here for hours. All you need to know is that shit is going down and…" He trailed off. He swallowed as if he was physically swallowing his pride. "…and we need yer' help." ______________________________________________________________________________ Scootaloo stood at a table with a large map placed on it. She studied it to find optimal strategic locations if whoever attacked (assuming they were under attack) was still in the area. The tent she was in was lit by a single lamp. It had been quite for most of the night. The soldiers and agent of various agencies picked through the rubble of Phillydelphia for any survivors. (yeah right, survivors. It made her want to laugh and cry.) A commotion outside caught her attention. She exited the tent into the warm night air, almost unnaturally warm, and looked to see what the problem was. Two soldiers came into the encampment with a pony slung over their shoulders. Her hair was singed but it looked like it had once been light blue. She had a cape on that had been burned to a crisp. She was unconscious but seemingly alive. Her eyes were shut tight. The ponies rushed her to the medical tent and it was the last Scootaloo saw of her. Well, maybe there would be a few survivors after all. It gave her hope to think that. A light in the sky distracted her for a moment. It looked like a shooting star only it was moving up. She watched as it flew higher into the sky until she was distracted by a smell. The smell of smoke. Scootaloo turned to see that the medical tent had gone up in flames while she was distracted. She rushed to see if they had gotten out and was greeted by four ponies. The soldiers, the medic, and the mare. They moved untouched through the flame and calmly approached her. Their eyes burned orange like hot coals and their smiles were wicked. The pegasus found herself staring into those eyes and being unable to look away. Her head felt like it was catching fire. Memories and old thoughts flooded into her head. 'Of course.' Her eyes burned and she almost screamed, but the pleasure of being back overshadowed the pain. She stretched her wings and stared hungrily at her blades. The four saluted their new general. She smiled back and turned to look at the ponies coming through the wreckage in the distance. 'So many fresh troops. The fire of war will burn once again.'