//------------------------------// // Tara City // Story: Resurrection // by Silverstreak //------------------------------// "Scootaloo run! They have the Crusader! Just run!" The message ran over and over in Scootaloo's mind. The image of the Crusader being pulled into the jaws of the Imperial Command ship wouldn't leave her alone. She felt sick by the fact she just left her friends, just left them in the hands of the Imperial Military. She knew they warned them to leave, she knew they wouldn't do much harm to her friends, but she still didn't know how they were doing or where they were. A dark figure appeared in the thick fog, it was massive, Scootaloo couldn't get an exact size on it, but she'd have to say it was 60 ft in length, a wingspan of about 85 ft, and a height of 22 ft. Scootaloo couldn't get her head around the shape of it. An angled front of about 30 degress, and a back with a tail with an angle about five feet from the tip of the tail, and what appears to be propelers on the wings with some small fire at the ends of the wings. It vanished into the fog, Scootaloo wanted to chase it, wanted to figure out what it was. The NavPointRadar brought her attention back to flying. Tara City was less then three hundred meters away, Scootaloo turned Orange Lighting in a SouthWest direction, heading towards a docking port that she could access even if the Imperial Military had put a price on her head. "This is Orange Lighting to Tara City, requesting docking permission to land and refuel." "Tara City to Orange Lighting permission granted, head to docking station three." Scootaloo knew she didn't have to responed, the stallion working the air tower never really cared about what or who came in. Just as long as they gave him a good report when his superiors wanted a comm recorded brought to them. Scootaloo brought the Orange Lighting to dock three, lowered the landing gear, and landed with a little jump. Lowering the cockpit to the floor, Scootaloo opened the cask and walked out to see the dock nearly empty of ponies, more importantly dock working ponies. Scootaloo found the lack of dock workers troublesome, sure there was a thick fog, but it shouldn't have any affect on working conditions. A group of ponies came out of the city and headed to a ship. "But daddy..." "No buts. We have to get out of here before it happens again." "But mommy." Another pony came sprinting out of the city lugging two cases. "Mommies here. Mommies here." A little filly ran to her mother and gripped her in a tight hug. "Mommy." "Yes, yes I'm here, everything's alright." "No everything is not alright! If we don't get out of here in," He lifted his left hoof to look at a watch, "five minutes we'll get stuck in it again." "Excuse me!" The family jumped at the sound of Scootaloo's voice. "Oh...oh sorry if we disturbed you but," He looked at his watch again, "we have to get going." "I was just wondering where everyone is." They looked at each other with a confussed look on their faces. The mother looked at Scootaloo, "You don't know?" "Know what?" The father looked at his wife and daughter, "You two get on the shuttle." "But daddy." "No buts, go with your mother." "Come on sweetie." "But." "Go on, I'll be on soon." "Don't get caught daddy." "I won't. Now go on." The mother and daughter got onto the E-class shuttle. The father looked around nervously. "Have you heard about Appleloosa." "Yeah." "Do you know what happened." "Yeah, the whole city was destroyed." "But do you know by who." "No?'' "Well we don't either, but the thing that did...it's coming here!" The fear in his eyes told a tale to Scootaloo, a tale of horror and destruction. "What happened?" "A message came on all the vids and comms. Warning us that we had a hour to leave the city without moving any of the human artifacts. None of us knew what to do, some left, the rest stayed. All of us questioned our choice before the attack, the way it spoke and...and the things face....before we knew what was happening a ship that we'd never seen before comes out from the south and just flies right past the defense cannons. The Imperial fighters were fighting it, then...then it just blew them right out of the sky, all of them. Then soldiers got onto rooftops and tried to shoot it down....then the city was on fire...screaming, terror, running." "Hey, hey take it easy." "Sorry, it's just it was so horrible.'' "It's okay. So this creature sent another message through the city." "Yeah that was...Oh good Celestia!" "What?" "It's been an hour I...I got to go." Scootaloo nodded her head and watched as he got into the shuttle, lifted off, and vanished into the fog. Scootaloo stayed standing there for a few minutes obsorbing the information she just recieved. A creature that could destroy a city! Scootaloo couldn't believe it, neither side had the tech to do that. "Move aside." An Imperial troop came to Scootaloo's side. pushing her back to her ship, which had a nozzel attached to the fuel tank. An Imperial shuttle came into the dock, and lowered a door. A platoon of troops came marching out of the city each carring something under a blanket. Warning us that we had a hour to leave the city without moving any of the human artifacts. Scootaloo felt a tremor of fear, eyes glued to the foggy sky looking for the ship...the ship she pasted on her way here. Scootaloo backed into her landing gear in shock. she was just a few feet away from the creatures ship. She looked back up to the Imperial shuttle loading the last of its cargo. The four enginees ignited with zapapple fuel lifting the block of a shuttle into the air. Scootaloo barely saw the flash of a bright light seconds before the shuttle erupted into a flying fire ball, crashing into the city wall and falling 300 feet to the ground, bits and pieces of the shuttle fell onto the dock. Scootaloo hid underneth the Orange Lighting, waiting for the last shrapnel fell onto the dock. Scootaloo stuck her head out from underneth the wing of her fighter to see the large shadow she saw earlier, approaching the dock. Wind blew everywhere as it came to land, again Scootaloo was in shock by the mere size of it, and the sound deafing her ears. Two large propellers a top the ends of the wings, three feet of metal leading down to two small fires. An 85 foot wingspan filled the entire docking port just barely a few feet away from Scootaloo. As the wind started to die down the fog slowly crept back into the dock. The side of the ship popped out and slid to the back, revealing an interior of lights, wires, and a six foot tall creature. Scootaloo couldn't stop staring at it, no face or skin, just a full suit of armor and an aurora of authority and power. It stepped down to the dock, the sound of metal on metal echoed in the silence. "A....a full suit of metal?" Scootaloo couldn't believe it, the royal guards had a chest and head pieces made of metal and it took them years of training in order to wear them as long as they do. It stopped near the front of its ship, turned its head towards Scootaloo. Her heart stopped, she couldn't see a face, but behind that visor that filled a fourth of the helment she was positive that the creature, no.....human was scanning her, picking her a part piece by piece. "Halt right there!" Five Imperial troops appeared out of the city wall, barely visible in the fog. They all had their SG's pointed at the human, even from this distance Scootaloo could tell that they were shaking with fear. The human continued to walk towards the city. "Halt! Don't move!" "Stand down, walk away, and you won't be harmed." A shiver went down their spines from the coldness in its voice. "You don't have the power, or ability to fight me. Stand down, and I'll let you live." Silence, no sounds, no muttering, breathing, or beating. Just silence. The human took a step forward, one of the troops fired his SG, then the other four fired. All the shots made contact with the human, but Scootaloo knew it wouldn't do any good the human had a full metal armor suit not a single hole to reveal any skin. The SG crystal's used a type of magic to surround the crystal, and launch it at a high velocity. When the magic shot makes contacted with skin it sends an electric charge into the body, a few shots will stun, a whole bunch can kill. Each troop fired till the SG's overheated, everyone stood still from shock as the human grabbed something from his hip, it was about half the size of a SG. "Such a waste." Five loud, sharp bangs rang in the air, five small clank's followed. The five Imperial troops dropped like a sack of rocks. The human put the thing back at his waste, walked over the troops, and dissappeared into the foggy city. Scootaloo found herself staring at the city for some time. She just couldn't tear herself away from what just happened, the human just killed five ponies without hesitation. Time seemed to have disappeared from the world, Scootaloo couldn't tell how long she stayed under the Orange Lighting. Lights from the human ship got her attention, Scootaloo walked towards the ship, despite the warnings in her head. Scootaloo halted just before entering the side of the ship. The metal seemed to have a dark, sinister look, but it also seemed like it wanted to protect something. Images and words flowed through screens all placed inside the ship, Scootaloo couldn't help herself, she stepped into the ship looking around for...well she didn't really know. Static broke the silence. "Don't do it Featherwings! We don't know what else it's capable of!" "You guys did nothing when Appleloosa was attacked! I won't let Tara City have the same faith!" "Damn it! If I have to shoot you down.." Scootaloo heard the sound of an approaching fighter ship. Eight shots she heard from the fighters eight crystal canon, four made contact with the ship. "Ya see! It's not in it's ship, we can destroy it, and the creature will be left in the city under our mercy!" A choir of cheers came through the comms. ".....didn't even dent it you idiot!" Static filled Scootaloo's ears as the comm was disabled. Scootaloo stood still, listening for anymore sounds in the silent foggy sky. Nothing. How much damage could this ship take? Scootaloo didn't plan on finding out. She was about to leave when an image of a round object made her pause. Scootaloo approached a terminal, a round image with some text to the side filled the screen. Scootaloo skimmed through the text. Lunar Station...lock down protocols...travel beam located... "Travel beam?" Travel beam located at 36°10′30″N 115°08′11″W. Security cameras pick up activity by the locals digging it up. There's a massive military presences, I have to find a way to lure most of them away from the beam, I can't risk fighting them at the site. I don't know how much damage time has done to it. Scootaloo didn't need to read anymore, she grabbed a pencil out from her bag and started downloading the information to her fighter. If she could get this to the Lunar Forces... "Hey you." Scootaloo looked towards the front of the ship. "Ya you on my ship." Fear ran down Scootaloo's back. It knew she was on the ship! "Your doing a very dangerous thing. When I find you, you'll regret it." Scootaloo dropped the pencil, checked that the download was finished, ran back outside, and was half way back to her ship when a giant explosion rocked her to the floor. Crumbling metal, shattering glass, and the screams of ponies filled the air. Scootaloo ran to the small room that the docking station supervisor used when working. She slammed the door shut and locked the door. Hiding under the desk she could hear more fighters fly over the docking station, each firing their canons at the human ship. The sound of propellers told Scootaloo that the human was back on his ship. She peek her head just above the desk to look out the window. Several fighter ships could be seen through the thinning fog, the human ship lifted off from the docking station, heading south, when three fighters came towards it in an attack formation. They fired on the human ship, leaving little to no damage. The human ship turned on a sharp dime, following the three fighters back into the group of ships, Scootaloo couldn't here any of the sounds of the battle, but she could see the number of pony fighters decrease fast, while the human ship seemed to fly like they weren't even firing at it. Two destroyer class Imperial airships were approaching from the city, moving to intercept the human ship. Scootaloo didn't want to watch it any more, she knew nothing of their technology could match that of the human. She left the room, headed to her fighter, unhooked the nozzle, enter the cockpit seat, and raised it into the rest of the fighter. Scootaloo looked one last time into the dogfight, it had moved towards the city, rockets, fire, and destroyed buildings could be seen now that the fog had lifted. One destroyer was gone, the other was falling into the city, and the human ship was laying siege to Tara City. "Tara City to all fighter ships we need..." Scootaloo shut the comm off, she didn't want to hear, or see any more of this. She ignited the engines, lifting the Orange Lighting a few feet of the docking port she was on, she looked down to her right trying to see the remains of the Imperial shuttle. There it was, crushed metal and fire. Scootaloo turned the fighter to the right, heading west she left Tara City heading for Las Pegasus and the Lunar Forces.