Discovery
Canterlot
General Shining Armor sighed as he began trotting along a pathway inside the castle already deep in thought what the griffons are planning since the fall of Fillydelphia Three years ago when they declared all out war on them but blitzkrieg like tactics they have been able to employ overrun Manehatten alongside Saddle Arabia, thinking through the only time they were prepared was in Las Pegasus they where able to evacuate the city but at the cost of many guards but the weight of being a general was also taking its tall on him since princess Celestia promoted him when the war reached the Crystal Empire where they had their first victory but again at the cost of ponies, he was about to take a left turn when a royal guard was running towards him preparing for bad news he stopped and asked the guard.
"Whats the matter the griffons attacking again?" in a worried tone since every guard running towards him always ALWAYS told him the griffons are attacking kind of messages.
"No general the princesses request your appearance at the throne room at this instance" the guard replied showing signs that he was rather worn out, a clear indication that he searched the entire castle for him then he continued on"i do not know why general the just told me to look for...you"with that the guard was already leaning on a nearby pot with that Shining Armor then proceeded to go to the throne room but before telling the guard to take the off to his surprised the guard collapsed, he sighed then continued onwards wondering why would the princesses need him, the only time they would request for him was either a griffon attack or to bolster a garrison in a city or village but the messengers would tell the reason this time they did not now getting a bit worried he decided to run the rest of the way there to be greeted by the princesses and a group of Pegasus and unicorns, to his opinion he was going to be shipped of in enemy territory with a group of elite ponies cut off from the rest of pony kind...he prayed it wasn't that.
"General Shining Armor sir!" the group said saluting.
"At ease princesses you needed me?" he asked rather hesitantly not sure whether or not this was either good news or bad.
"Tia would thou care to explain the situation to thee?" Luna leaving her sister the situation.
"Shining armor earlier today your sister has sent me new of mysterious creatures roaming the Everfree forest" she paused to allow her to remember what the message informed her "she written that her and a few other ponies including the garrison spotted a multitude of them she then added the fact that this creatures weren't in fact griffons either and were roaming around the forest edge when a few guards decided to investigate they disappeared deeper down the forest" she stopped allowing him to take in the information.
"Have they been spotted by the creatures?"he wondered.
"No the message noted it was when the garrison captain ordered a few of the guards to go investigate what they are alongside Rainbow Dash if they ran, they were about to give pursuit when they heard a multitude of what Twilight presumed more of the creatures heading deeper along side the more visible ones on the edge of the forest they stopped since they were as the message goes as high as trees" she finished knowing the general knows whats coming.
"So you want me to lead personally selected group of elite pony guards to investigate the matter?" he stated with a smirk.
"Of course Shining Armor i informed Princess cadence it unfortunate that she cant see you go but the Crystal Empire is still undergoing medical aid for the injured, she is personally seeing the operation through she wishes you good luck General"Celestia informed him.
"At least she knows right?" he thought before acknowledging her"of course your highness right away"making his hoof motioning for the group of guards to follow him as they were about to leave princess Celestia mentioned one more thing.
"Shining Armor before you go i forgotten to mention that Rainbow Dash and Applejack will be joining your party since they wanted a first hoof glance at this creatures when you arrive".
"Anything for one of my sisters friends your highness" with that him and his men began to exit through the castle doors to cast a teleportation spell to make haste toward Ponyville to investigate the creatures still in his mind whether or not this "creatures" were either from foreign origin or a trick developed by the griffons.
When the spell was cast they were engulfed with a flash of light to appear in the center of Ponyville, after a while the general began to proceed to ask nearby ponies of the whereabouts of Applejack or Dash before they got a chance to answer Rainbow Dash was seen bursting out of Sugar cube corner alongside Applejack...restraining Pinkie?
"Pinkie hold it now maybe Twilight's brother will knock some sense into ya!" Applejack told her while the pink pony took no heed the answer she gave her was both predictable and confusing.
"But i need to throw the aliens a welcome to Ponyville party come on Dashie i was halfway through planning the PARTY".
"Pinkie as much as i would like you to throw a part UGH STOP MOVING, we need to go Twi's brother now and i am pretty sure he will agree to NOT throw a party for the red...things whatever they are until we figure out they will not go out of their to destroy Ponyville GAH STOP MOVING,Pinkie this would be a lot easier to sort things out if you did not go the other way you know!" Rainbow Dash explanation somehow convinced Pinkie to agree to her statement.
"Okay fine but don't come to me telling the aliens wanted to do was party" with that they left her to return home while proceeding towards Shining Armor and his troops, he was about to greet them but something was missing...where was his sister.
"Applejack, Rainbow have you seen my sister?" he asked since he did not like the idea none of his relatives would see him off in person but he was able to hear a couple of conversations from the guards just barley noting what was said.
"Bet ten bits that his sis is not available?".
"Sorry Shining Twilight is busy handling the refugees being a princess and all that she can really lighten up the mood" replied Dash causing a couple of guards to hoof bump each other "hey whats up with them?" at this Shining jerked his head around to face them stopping their little celebration in the progress while the ones that weren't began to smirk deviously towards them causing all of the proposed bet winners to chuckle nervously.
"You can hand me those bits later but right now we have to head towards the Everfree come on" he told the group before hearing on more little snippet from them.
"The rumors are true he has super hearing!" he face hoofed shaking his head at how ridiculous that statement sounded but kept on going along the path to the forest along with Applejack and Dash who have been rather quite lately.
"Something bordering you two?" he asked causing Rainbow Dash to answer him.
"Yeah um let me put it this way were going up against tree high monster thing's that could probably kick all us towards the moon care to explain why did you not bring an entire army?" this also got him confused if they were a big as trees why would Celestia send him with a few guards but it did make sense in a way that they were here to investigate the creatures not confront them.
"We are not here to fight them dash were only here to see if this creatures are a threat or not including if their sentient and-" not even allowed to finish when Applejack interrupted him pointing her hoof forward.
"hey is that Doctor Hooves?" this got the attention of both the guards and Rainbow Dash to the advancing stallion with a brown coat along with a light brown mane and tail with blue eyes and his cutie mark was of a hour glass, next to him was a walleyed Pegasus mare with a grey coat with a blonde mane and tail, her eyes were yellow but the most interesting feature of the pony was her cutie mark which had a group of bubbles.
"Ah general Shining armor nice of you to drop bye i see mind if i tag along seeing the circumstances of are new guest here i would like to have a first hand-er hoof look at them?" Doctor asked rather expectantly.
"Sorry Doc official Canterlot business here now move along" Rainbow Dash ordered before getting hit by Applejack, while the two were arguing Shining Armor thought it through the Doctor has been rather helpful solving mysteries so he decided he could.
"Sure i don't mind as long as you tell me what you think of the creatures" he answered.
"Well while me and Ditzy were trotting ha trotting who would imagine the word trotting but anyway while we were..trotting we saw how you say the creatures venture deeper into the forest to me they looked rather.." he paused considering it through before Rainbow Dash chimed in.
"They looked rather what?!" the answer he gave was not expected.
"Mechanical" with that there was a long silence that was on everypony nerves it was rather predictable at first Rainbow began to take his statement as a joke but thinking it though it could be a possibility but the silence was broken when Ditzy began to talk.
"Oh before anything else happens Doctor would you like to tell them?" this made Shining Armor suspicious of what they know more than him.
"Ah yes we sort of...followed them we went up a mountain and discovered that they had a little base of their own really we can take you there only one problem however..."
"That is?" Shining asked if they were willing to help only if he allowed them to come.
"Are your guards afraid of heights?" with that the entire group laughed for a while until Shining Armor somehow managed to stop and ask.
"Why we need to scale a mountain?"
"A at least the good old Shining Armor is one step come tally ho!" he said now trotting towards the forest while Ditzy just shrugged and followed suit now full attention at Shining Armor who simply ignored what just happened.
"you heard him lets move em out!"
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Unknown
It has been some time after Blade did little swoop around the forest with his hunters but he couldn't shake the feeling he wasn't alone but he would be able to find out more easily one he was able to construct the last of his air factory's while taking the liberty to fully upgrade all of his land factory's including a couple of the air factory's that were freshly made although not all of them where fully upgraded since now that time has gone by to allow him to add in a couple of Cybran mass fabricators to extend his now medium sized base although if his Aeon commander had a few Engineers around he might have been able to construct the infamous Paragon.
The paragon is one of the marvels Aeon managed to work up since it gave the commander near infinite resources capable to matching the output mass and energy, if Blade had one he would have had a couple of Monkeylords roaming the globe since he was a rather big spender but the drawback of the Paragon is the fact it needed o be heavily defended at all cost the reason...if it gets destroyed it will release a blast as powerful as a strategic nuke, the idea of him going out of his way to place a structure a Paragon in unknown territory was retarded in its own right, but there were hardly any mass deposits to his dismay and he was forced to expand further down the plains to create an area dedicated to air superiority which he would rarely do since he focused on ground units and indestructible lines of massed point defenses and artillery, to him air was only relied upon when he needed to get to point a to point b in a hurry. (top is air bottom is land tech 3 factory's)
It has been fairly quite around the base until the impossible happened.
"Commander our base is under attack!" the a.i informed startling him.
"WHAT PUT THE BASTARD ON SCREEN!!!" he bellowed absolutely pissed, after all that time something decide to rear its ugly head to attack him, WELL not this time but the attacker that was on screen was unreal.
"A.i is that a...DRAGON EATING MY GENERATORS?!?" he examined while it was as he said having lunch on his Tier three generators.
"Affirmative" it answered with that he began to command all of his forces (which was mainly hunters, 34 to be exact) to gather towards the beast and slay it.
"A.i calculate the time it would take the command unit to get there" he ordered bu the a.i was quick to respond.
"Fifteen minutes"
"Good i would like six renegades deployed by the time i arrive!" with that the command unit walked off before issuing one last command.
"Send the main force using assault waves"
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###Intermission###
Assault waves is a Gundam reference i tend to use as a little plan if i have lower level units in the game against lets say a colossus or experimental units
If i have a group of... 157 Loyalist and two Monkeylords if i have them to charge it straight on it would probably wipe them all out so i devised a plan that goes like this.
First i send in a group of Loyalist at the front charging it...while it is busy i will have another group Loyalist attack it from the rear...then when it is finished with them it will bring its attention back towards the attackers from the rear...i then repeat the same process by sending more at its rear defenseless...when it reaches a low health i then finish off with the remaining Loyalist (if there are any left) with the Monkeylords.
FOOOOOL PROOF PLAN UNLESS THE COMMANDER HAS TWO in a way to i feel like i am trolling him since the time and resources it would take to build that thing only to have it defeated by lesser units.
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Mountain path Everfree forest
"So this is the path you took to find this so called base?" asked Rainbow Dash already skeptical about the Doctors directions.
"Look if you don't trust me scout ahead stop when you reach we will catch up oh um while your at it try and keep a low profile" the doctor answered taking note of the time comparing it to how long it was since their departure using his watch "Wow only ten minutes ain't that a pleasant surprise i guess with all the running and talking time sure fly's ain't it" he thought as the rest of the group proceeded towards the ledge where he and ditzy found their "Base".
"Uh guys i think you need to see this!" Rainbow Dash called out causing the group to hurry towards her.
"what is it that we..." Shining Armor stopped as he witnessed a battle between the creatures and a substantially bigger dragon.
Part 1 END