//------------------------------// // Ragnarok: The Finale // Story: When Worlds Collide // by MoonShine //------------------------------// Ragnarok: The finale Last chapter: “Kieron, princesses and other ponies, you have seen my ships in orbit, you have seen by forces attack you, you have seen my power from the Element X bomb but now...now you see the true power of SKULL in front of you. We WILL take this planet. That city was a great help, thank you...” he comments as ‘Tia looks at the screen confused, “Cloudsdale, is it? I used that city to create my forces, those ships you see, they were created in Cloudsdale. Now, surrender or we will kill you all.” He order as the screen goes black and the transmission ends. Kieron, Atom, Moonshine and the others watch as the invasion force approaches them and more still emerging from the dust, he then comments, “This is it...the end of the world.” Ambush, Reaper, Hades and the others watch as the force approaches them, Kieron quickly gets Mathis to scan the forces for a count up of them. “There is a total of 34 Havoc mechs, 1,350 Soldiers, no Talons, 60 odd Fighter jets, over 100 tanks and the three ships...” he comments, just as he continues the scan he notices something odd about the ships, “Sir, those ships, they’ve been rushed, the GM has rushed their production. They are fully built with the same armour as on the Malevolence but they don’t have shields.” Mathis explains, Kieron then looks at the ships thinking quickly of a way that could take them down quickly. “Mathis, take aim of the cruiser with the big guns and the EP (Emergency Protocol) cannon. I, Atom and Moonshine will take down the frigates.” Kieron replies, Mathis tries to object but he cuts him off. Ambush then turns to look over at the C.O.C and L.R.M.S to see them begin to turn and aim at the cruiser. They don’t shoot until Kieron is to give the call. Ambush then faces Hades and Reaper, knods and turns back round, raises an arm and begins to speak, “Now, we fight for the survival of all pony kind. We fight for the protection of them; we fight to stop the evil that wishes to take this planet. We fight not for death, not control but for survival. They have come to our land, our world, our territory. This is our land; we will stop them, why?” he them looks over him shoulder back at his forces all pumped, ready to fight for him, “...Because this is our world, not theirs. Now go my brothers, fight for me, fight for the ponies, fight for Equestria!” All of the forces behind him roar and cheer as their moral is sky high, ready to fight to the death, every last soldier ready to die. Ambush looks forwards, takes a few steps and points at the cruiser. He lowers his arm, his torso then tilts forwards to 45 degrees, and Reaper then walks up behind him. The Sirius cannons an Reaper’s back deploy and slide together to meet in the middle as he climbs onto the back of Ambush, putting his core against the back of Ambush so that the cannons are aiming forward over the top, Reaper then drops the arm weapons and grabs onto the sides of Ambush’s core. Hades walks behind the two of them and then jumps up onto the top of Ambush’s hind legs, deploys the pulse cannons round his arms and places against the sides of the Sirius cannon only for them to attach to the guns. A low, whirring noise comes from the cannons as the ‘eyes’ of Reaper glow brighter, Ambush and Hades powering down as the power from their generators is redirected to Reaper. The noise gets faster as a faint glow can be seen down the barrel, all of a sudden the dual cannons then extend upwards and the inner barrels slide outwards together as the cannons then attach to each other to make one big cannon. Moonshine takes control of the combined mechs as she turns them slightly to aim at the left-hand side frigate. As she takes aim and pulls the trigger the cannon begins to whir violently as it charges, the glow from in the barrel can now be seen from outside as it brightens. Soon the whirring is really loud and the glow very bright. Ambush automatically steadies them by spreading out his legs; Hades’ back boosters activate to ready to absorb the recoil from the shot. The cannon soon reaches full charge, bulkhead armour covers Ambush’s and Hades’ ‘eyes’ as Reaper looks up towards the frigate. A mechanical type roar can be heard as Reaper’s head moves in a circle is if roaring like an animal before Moonshine pulls the trigger again. The whirring suddenly intensifies and the glow becomes blinding as the cannons begin the final firing sequence, the trio of joined mechs vibrate and shake furiously as the whirring gets louder and higher pitched soon reaching above the hearing range of humans, it shatters some still intact windows in Ponyville. The SKULL forces are almost at their location, the fighter jet fly ahead and begin to open fire as the guards at Canterlot start to fire at them, multiple SKULL mechs shoot some missiles as Equestrian mechs deploy flares and shoot them causing them to explode with only a couple getting through but do no damage. The glow from the cannon atop of Reaper suddenly disappears as a violent, large rumble begins to start up as Moonshine pulls the trigger for a third time and the cannon fires a large, blue beam towards the frigate. It soon impacts against it and tears a hole straight through it a the beam melts through the armour and right through the whole ship. The ship immediately begins to explode in multiple places as it loses control and slams into the other frigate causing the two to crash into the ground and taking some of the SKULL forces with them as the hit frigate explodes largely destroy both of them. Hades detaches and jumps off, Reaper then leaves go of Ambush and fold the cannons back up whilst stepping down, Ambush then stand up straight, “NOW MATHIS!” Kieron shouts out after getting power back to Ambush. The C.O.C and L.R.M.S begin to fire along with the EP cannons at the cruiser which deflects some of the shots but not all as some round smash against it causing slight damage and the missiles ripping some of the armour off it. A set of doors open on the bottom of the ship as its main gun lowers and takes aim of the now battling forces that are rushing at each other. The main gun activates as it charges and begins to shell the Equestrian forces but due to the low velocity most of them miss but cause splash damage throwing mechs and infantry everywhere. Kieron hacks into the aiming system of C.O.C, the screen on his HUD then appears showing what the cannon sees, he then takes control and aims it at the cruiser’s main gun, and right down the barrel at is turns to aim at Kieron. He fires, the rounds luckily travel straight into the barrel and hit against a shell inside the barrel causing it to explodes and destroy the main gun, the front of the ship bows upwards slightly from the explosion before coming back down. The ship continues to approach them as the SKULL and Equestrian forces battle in full scale war, Reaper and Hades both rush off to help them as Kieron stays and watches the battle take place. Mechs fall in heaps of scrap metal, tanks erupt into flames, jets burst into flames and crash into the ground, soldiers and Anthros fall down as meat bags as everything and everyone fights. The cruiser stops as a bulkhead shielding covers the gap where the main gun was; it activates all of its weapons systems and takes aim of Kieron, just Kieron. Missiles, shells and lasers fire directly at him as he starts to charge at the ship, darting past Hades and Reaper who turn and join him; they all dodge most of the shots as only a few missiles hit them now and then. As they get close to the ship a bright explosion flashes from the cruiser as it starts to fall to towards the ground, Kieron stops and starts to see that the explosion wasn’t from inside but was from a gunshot that penetrated through the top of the ship and out the bottom. He looks up to see faint lights in the distance above them. Could it be another ship that had turned on SKULL and is helping them? The lights get closer as an outline begins to form, Kieron’s eyes widen as he recognises the shape, it wasn’t SKULL at all, nor was it Equestrian. The ship reaches the ground at high speed, it looks tattered and beaten as it flies down over Ponyville above Kieron and the others to face the cruiser which recovers from the shot and raises back up. Kieron sees a name on the side of the ship; it says ‘Spear of freedom ’. No SKULL ship had this name; he saw this name about 8 years ago just before they found Equestria. It was a ship from the UEFDC; they must have finally tracked SKULL here after their last engagement. The ship looked a wreck because of what the Malevolence did to it, the emergency quantum jump that it did had damaged the armour slightly, and the light-jump engines must have been damaged as there wasn’t a flash when they arrived at the planet. The ship stops and some hanger doors open as multiple attack jets fly out and begins to open fire on the huge hoards of SKULL jets flying by, some dropships come down to the surface and drop off huge amounts of troops, some large transports land as multiple UEDFC Leviathan class tanks exit from them. These tanks are 2-3 times bigger than the SKULL tanks attacking and have dual high-velocity cannons that can topple a Havoc mech with low stability; they also have a smaller turret atop of the main turret that has dual Gatling guns on one side and a large missile pod on the other side. The troops and tanks encircle Kieron’s mech as a corporal from inside a Juggernaut class siege mech walks up to him, others then deploy from the transports, they look as though they fold up and after being dropped off, and they unfold to come to a height just under a Havoc mech. They have reverse joint legs for enhanced stability and for folding up, they have quad autocannons to the side on the front of the body that can rotate right round, the cockpit is just above these cannons with dual chain guns sat next to it. It also has some hidden missile racks that are concealed behind the chain guns, a flap opens to reveal the racks that fire upwards and down on top of the enemy. The corporal then pipes up, “Stay where you are Overseer, we have you surrounded.” He steps forward as other Juggernauts approach Ambush. He relaxes as they walk towards him, the jets above fighting in the sky, troops being dropped off still as they charge into battle, some taking cover in the remaining streets and houses of Ponyville. Leviathan tanks are driving along at high speeds running over SKULL Deathtroopers and blasting at SKULL tanks that stand no chance, but some mechs charge back at the tanks and return fire. “You need not to fear me, Corporal Philips. I am not SKULL no more. Can’t you see that?” Kieron replies, the mech that the Corporal is piloting turns to looks at the battle waging on the edge of Ponyville. “Are these your forces fighting SKULL?” he questions as he looks about then back to Kieron. “Yes, they are mine, I have turned on the Grand Master, and I will not let him take this planet. I have vowed to protect them, the ponies of Equestria.” Kieron claims as Ambush walks up to the mech and looks into the cockpit. “Ponies? Why are you protecting ponies?” he asks. “They are not like the ponies of Earth. They are much different but for now don’t ask any more questions, just help me take down that cruiser so that we can take down the jets to control the skies which will let us control the battle. Then we take on the Malevolence.” He explains as he looks over to the huge ship over the forest. The ‘Spear of freedom’ wasn’t that much smaller than the Malevolence but everyone knows that the Malevolence was virtually impenetrable. The UEFDC ship then begins to fire its whole arsenal of weapons at the cruiser, the armour puts up a good fight against the shots but eventually they blast through creating a hole as it continues to fire the bridge is blown apart but the ship still stands. It then stats to turn to face Canterlot, it must have an autopilot feature activated, the ship’s engines then flash as it suddenly begins to speed up towards Canterlot. “STOP THAT SHIP!” Kieron shouts out to some of his Drone mechs who stop fighting and chase down the ship, about 12 mech in all pursue the ship as other mechs take their place in the battle on the ground. The UEFDC ship then turns its guns to the SKULL ships and fires hitting the engines which explode in bright flashes but yet the ship still charges for Canterlot, it’s going to crash into the castle. ‘Tia, Luna and the other watch as the ship gets closer, “Luna! Give me your hoof.” Celestia calls out, Luna and ‘Tia then hold hooves as they both their eyes and concentrated magic on their horns. Kieron then begins to run after the ship but stops as he hears a voice in his head, “Shot the ship with the C.O.C, Kieron. We will do the rest.” He looks about a little to see who was talking to him then looks over to Canterlot and soon had an idea, he then overrides the C.O.C and controls it himself, takes aim of the cruiser and shoots hitting the ship immediately, the explosion is different as a light can be seen coming from Canterlot castle, Celestia’s and Luna’s magic fed through the gun shot and amplified the power and impact greatly. The ship is pushed to the side by the force; it slams into the ground just on the edge of Canterlot as it explodes furiously from the magic bullets that hit it. The drone mechs pursuing the ship stop and dash back to the battlefield to help start the turn of battle. Kieron then puts the C.O.C back on auto as he then looks over to the Malevolence which starts to move to turn and face Canterlot. Its main guns deploy and quickly charge, “MOVE YOUR SHIP, NOW!” Kieron shouts to the captain of the ‘Spear of freedom’ as he sees that the Grand Master is going to shoot it. The main guns soon charges and fires a devastating laser that rips a hole straight through the UEFDC ship, with still enough power in the shot the laser propels towards Canterlot and impacts against the shielding which wasn’t designed to take this much damage, it overloads and the faint, green aura round Canterlot begins to peel away as the shields power down from the hit. The noises from outside were muffled before but now can be fully heard as the shields continue to peel away. Ponies in the streets begin to panic as they hear the loud explosions, gunshots and missiles from outside. Kieron then dashes towards the Malevolence with some drone mechs, they pass below the UEFDC ship just in time as it slams into the ground and erupts in flames but still continues to fight as gunshots and missiles are shot from it towards the SKULL forces on the battlefield. Kieron and the mechs rush over to the Malevolence which begins firing on them destroying one mech immediately, Kieron then reaches the ship, jumps up at it and begins to tear his way inside, the other mechs of which there is three jump up and do the same. He pulls and slices as the armour, a hole is made, as he looks inside he sees that it is a jet hanger, he and the mechs then push themselves in through the hole and begin firing on the jets, engineers, pilots and soldiers inside. As they fight Ambush’s core opens and Kieron jumps out in full armour to land on top of a soldier squashing him to the point of exploding, he then darts about as he takes pot-shots at soldiers and runs towards a door that leads out of the hanger. Once through the doors shut and he punches the console to lock the doors, Ambush back in the hanger closes up and begins fighting as Mathis takes control. Kieron then walks slowly down the corridor towards a control point which would allow him to briefly shutdown Mathis aboard the ship and get it to travel away from the planet so he could destroy it. He continues to walk down the corridor only for the lights to shut off leaving him in the dark, a voice then echoes through, “Overseer, did you think you could just come aboard without asking? Well you can’t, so die.” A noise from down the corridor then echoes as he looks over with his night vision activated, the noise came from some metallic footsteps. It was something now that the Grand Master was trying, they were Anthros but different, they had some mechanical parts attached to them. They stand at the far end of the corridor as he stands and looks at them, “What has he done to you?” he says to them. One looks at him with a sorrowful face. “Help us Overseer. He’s gone crazy, he’s torturing us, and this...it hurts. Make it stop.” It says to him just before it grabs at its head, it then roars and stares at Kieron. “Damn it, he’s put loyalty chips in them.” He says to himself as they begin walking towards him. He then begins to walk to them, as they approach each other a large hand smashes through the wall and grabs an Anthro and pulls it out of the corridor, the others them begin to fire at the mech on the other side of the wall as Kieron slips by them to the other end of the corridor and into the control point room. He soon comes to the control point, he opens the door and walks in, and the door closes behind him, he walks up to a console and begins to type away as he temporarily shuts Mathis out from the console. He manages to lock Mathis out, he then sets the ship to head for orbit, he jerks as the ship begins to move. He then finishes off by detaching the warp drives from their frames. He exits the room and heads for the hanger that he came in. When he reaches the hanger he sees that one of the mechs lay against a wall torn open with scratch marks everywhere. He sees another swinging its arms around as the Anthros from earlier rip it apart with ease. Kieron dashes over to Ambush and jumps in, the core closes and he ‘falls’ out of the ship as is enters orbit. He floats away waiting for the warp drives to kick in, but they never do. He drifts slowly towards the planet watching the ship waiting for something to happen, “You didn’t think that would work did you?” A voice asks him, a missile door opens as he looks at the ship, “Mathis has stopped your little plan, you really are stupid sometimes, Kieron. It is a real shame that I have to waste this missile on you to kill you.” The voice adds before cutting off, a single missile launches and moves towards him, it wasn’t a normal missile, no; it was an Element X missile, the only thing that can virtually kill him. He dashes about to shake it off but it doesn’t work, he then quickly thinks and darts over to the ship’s engines whilst dodging more shots and missiles, he flies over to the main engine and waits as the missile closes in, as it almost reaches him he quick boosts out of the way and the missile impacts against the ship’s engine and create a large explosion like before but also disconnects the warp drive from the knock, the explosion hits Ambush, engulfing him as he drifts towards the planet. The warp drive then activates as the explosion reaches the warp engine room. It activates but with it begin suspended in the middle of the room and not attached to the ship it causes the ship to be torn in half as the warp drive launches half the ship into a void in space after having no particular designation. An escape pod launches from the bridge of the ship, it heads for the surface as the remaining half of the ship explodes, Ambush falls towards the planet with an arm and two legs missing and part of the core ripped open, Kieron is fine though thanks to his armour, he is unconscious but can safely breath and isn’t sucked out into space. He falls at an incredible speed, soon entering the atmosphere. Reaper finishes off a SKULL mech and then stops to look round and cannot see Kieron or the Malevolence anywhere, she then looks over to Hades and asks, “Hay, Atom. Where is Kieron?” Hades stops and looks over to the Everfree forest, then up as a light catches Atom’s eye, he then points up, they both look to see the ship aflame with half of it missing and two flames in the atmosphere coming closer, “Oh my god, KIERON!!!” she shouts out as she begins to fill up with grief. She goes to fly up there but Hades grabs hold of Reaper and hugs her. “Princess, look.” Twilight calls as she point to the sky where the Malevolence is in flames and in half with the two flames in the sky getting closer, Treacle Tart walk out and looks down towards to Ponyville to see that Ambush isn’t anywhere to be seen, she then quickly looks up to see the ship alight and assumes that the explosion got him. “No, no, NO, NO!!!!” she shouts as she goes to jump off the balcony as if to try and get closer to him. ‘Tia grabs her just before she goes over the edge. Treacle buries her head into ‘Tia and cries her heart out. As the flames in the sky get closer one of them becomes visible, “Wait, Treacle look it’s Ambush, Kieron, he made it.” Twilight says as she squints to see the mech falling, Treacle quickly looks up to see Ambush. “Something’s wrong, the lights, they aren’t on. He has no power, and the core, it’s open. He’s going to CRASH!” She replies as she runs out of Luna’s room and down towards the main doors to the castle, ‘Tia and Twilight chase after her as Luna looks after the others. Ambush plummets towards the surface at speeds as fast as that of a space shuttle entering the atmosphere, he is travelling way too fast, not only will the impact be too much, the core is open and could crumple during impact causing piece to maybe stab into him. The mech falls faster and faster as he lies inside unconscious. The escape pod from the ship lands down just outside of Canterlot whilst begin hit by shots from the Canterlot guard mechs, the front of it opens and a figure exits from it, it was the Grand Master, he walks towards the castle with his cane in his grasp. As he approaches the main gates he swings his cane to the side which causes the two mechs to be thrown to the side into the pile of scrap metal, he then pushes the gates open, many royal guards rush over to try and stop him but he swings him cane causing them to be slammed against a wall, one pony is then stabbed in the head with the teeth of the cobra only to fall to the ground. As the GM continues to walk towards the castle he stops and turns to see Ambush smash into the ground, “Finally, he is dead. The perfect soldier, who can’t die, is dead.” He says to himself. He then turns to see Treacle running out of the main door of the castle; she skids to a stop and backs up. “No, not you. Other way Princess, it isn’t good out here.” She says as she pushes at ‘Tia who looks at her confused then looks over to see the GM staring at her, he then slams his cane against the ground causing him to be teleported directly in front of her. She jumps back in surprise as Treacle stands in front of her protective, “Stay away from her you evil bastard.” She calls out to him. He smirks, swings his cane making her be thrown into a wall. “NO, you evil man, how can you hurt an innocent pony like that?” ‘Tia questions him as her horn glows ready to fight if needed. He smirks again. “Quite easily, like this.” He replies as he lifts his cane causing Treacle to be lifted into the air, he then turns it horizontally causing it to start and crush Treacle as she chokes and coughs. “Stop it, stop hurting her!” She shouts at him, just as she goes to use her magic on him, a light pink pony tackles him to the ground. Moonshine had come down and was beginning to fight him; he hates her with all his guts because of the countless amounts of times she had tried to ‘play’ with him. Treacle falls to the ground, almost dead from suffocation, ‘Tia helps her up and takes her to Luna’s room whilst Moonshine fight the GM. When she gets back the GM has Moonshine pinned against a wall, her belly facing the wall and was ready to stab the cane into her back when a mech slammed the main doors open, it was broken, worn and severely damaged. The figure from inside climbs out of the gap in the core only to fall to the floor covered in blood with his helmet off and a piece of metal poking out of his belly, it had gone straight through him. He coughs and splutters as he slowly gets to his feet, he then grabs at the piece of metal and begins to pull, at first nothing happens but then slowly in gives way and begins to slide. “How is this possible? The Element X explosion should have killed you.” The GM says to him as he shouts whilst pulling at the metal, “You shouldn’t be alive.” Kieron stops to get his breath, then musters the strength for one, last pull and pulls with all him remaining energy, the piece of metal then slides out as a load of blood gushes out of the wound, “I...I may not be...dead...but I wasn’t...wasn’t created to die...was I?” he asks, out of breath. He then looks up at the GM; the GM sees that he has half his face covered in blood as part of his helmet had embedded itself into his head. Kieron begins to walk over to the GM who then begins to throw things at him with his cane; Kieron taking all of the blows as he still manages to walk towards him, Moonshine falls to the floor, still conscious but waits. The GM looks panicked as Kieron still gets closer and closer, Kieron then swings for him but the GM blocks this with his cane, grabs hold of his arms and then pulls back him cane ready to strike. Suddenly his cane slips out of his hand as Moonshine takes it from him and then whacks it across the edge of a wall causing it to snap in half. The GM looks back to see what she just did and fear suddenly fills his face. Kieron then grabs him by the throat and throws him back over to the stairs. “The tide has turned Grand Master. You no longer rule supreme; this planet will be free of your power and pain. We have won.” Kieron comments as he walks over to him, ‘Tia walks down the stairs to come next to Kieron. “Not yet, I have one, last thing...” he smugly replies, “Remember this? Delta...” he says as Kieron’s head jerks, “Echo...Alpha...Tango, Halo.” He adds as Kieron screams and struggle as he feels something inside take over. He then suddenly grabs at Celestia who is surprised by this. She looks him in the eye and notices that his eyes haven’t turned red like normal, he then winks at her. She notices and plays along with it. “What do you want me to do with her?” he asks the GM who stands up and brushes himself off. “Kill her.” He replies. Kieron then looks at him and smiles, “I vowed, vowed to protect them, this coding was put in me when I was created, and when I was created I was created to serve and help the rise of SKULL...” he replies as he lets go of ‘Tia and pulls out a pistol and points it at ‘Tia, “But SKULL has had its rise and now has fallen, so I now have no purpose, I am a free man.” He adds as he then slowly points the gun at the GM. “In that case heed this, Overseer. They will be watching, kill me and they will soon come and take vengeance. Kill me and you WILL die.” He replies just before Kieron grabs at the GM’s head and adds. “No they won’t, I don’t care for IRIS.” He replies as he pulls the trigger and kills the GM who falls to the ground in a heap. Kieron then flops to the ground as he feels weak, “We win, we win.” He says to himself before blacking out.