The cart ran at a tremendously high speed, and the little holes in the roof bringing in a bit of sunlight just created temporary flashes in the tunnels. It was clear that whatever had been digging here had done so thoroughly judging by various holes in the walls. Twilight was still unsure of how the knights were hanging onto the cart. Any pony would have let go by now, not just from pressure and speed, but from fatigue as well.
"What's going on?!" Twilight shouted.
The wind and the sounds of the wheels rolling on the rails was strong enough to mute out anypony's voice.
"We're getting away from our previous position." Steamlord answered.
"Yeah, but where are we going?" Sunrise added.
"I don't know. There was no time to think this through."
"Hey, dad?"
"What?"
"What are those boxes against the walls?"
"Boxes?"
Steamlord dared to poke his head out of the the confines of the cart to see that there were, indeed, several squarish casings against the walls with a cable going through each one. Steamlord felt a pressure.
"I think those are point-defense turrets."
"What?" Twilight asked in confusion.
"Automated defence system that shoot those not designated within the system.'
"They shoot you if they don't know you?"
"...Essentially. Yes."
The three beings hiding in the cart could distinctly hear a strange crackling sound running behind them and getting louder as time passed. Suddenly, they cart went uphill with the same amount of speed, but the crackling continued, showing it to be an electrical surge passing through the cables and into the boxing, electrifying them and creating small sparks.
"KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN!" Steamlord shouted as he covered Sunrise and Twilight.
The boxes all opened to show what looked like a small gun with an ammo pouch underneath it. The weapons began to spool up and fired at the cart and the ones occupying it, bringing about several thousands of flashes and deafening explosions echoing throughout the caves. Using their claymores, the knights were more than capable of deflecting the incoming bullets by swing their swords at incredible speeds. This was a most stressful test for Twilight and Sunrise who had never gone through such horrors. The only ones who seemed unaffected by the situation were Teutonic and Steamlord, with Templar and Hospitaller stressing their ligaments to intercept each bullet and deflect it.
"Oh dear Celestia! Make it stop!"
"Stop your whining! You're the one who wanted to come on this trip."
The cart suddenly sped up and turned around a corner to reach a higher point in the mines where, what the ceiling cracks had reappeared.
"But I didn't think it would be this bad!"
"You destroyed a machine weighing several tons and you're complaining about a few bullets?!"
"A FEW?! There are hundreds, if not thousands of them flying through the air."
Teutonic poked Steamlord's back, but Sunrise told him before he could look up:
"Are those robots. They look like they're holding something."
"Huh?"
What stood around the cracks seemed to be even more rusted robots, but these ones had a peculiar shape. Several pieces of them were mismatched and the legs could be either rear-jointed or forward-jointed, and their bodies took the shape of a ball. Unfortunately, several of had what looked like missiles on their backs. They were rusted and properly mostly duds, but they were missiles nonetheless.
"Oh crap. Teutonic, while the other two intercept the bullets, you think you can intercept the missiles?" Steamlord asked him.
The robot nodded and jumped onto the edges of the cart, using his claymore to eventually cut away at the incoming missiles. Just as expected, a volley of rockets flew towards the tracks, to which both Sunrise and Twilight screamed. Steamlord had also calculated the possibilities with the missiles, and he was right. Several of them were so rusted that their inner components could not trigger the explosives held within, so many felt dully into the ground. This wasn't true for all of them, and even as the bullets flew in, the pressure coming from the explosions of rockets intercepted by Teutonic were very real. Each explosion brought in a new heat wave that Twilight felt could and certainly would singe her mane.
Finally, after much screaming and potential explosions destroying the tracks, the group managed to reach the top, but they were going too fast. If they kept up like that, the cart would derail and toss everyone into the air and have plummet to their doom. Steamlord didn't have to say anything that his Crusader Knights used their claymores and planted them into the ground, turning them sideways to let the blunt, and bigger, side take all the pressure. After awhile, the cart slowly came to a stop, finally allowing some breathing time for the group.
The man simply stepped out of his cart and helped Twilight and Sunrise out as well. Both looked like they were drunk as they tipped from side to side before craching into eachother, making Sunrise fall over and on top of the lavender unicorn. Both groaned in pain at the result of both their soothing and relaxing trip along with them "meeting" eachother again.
"That's done. Perhaps we should rest here and wait for them to recuperate. Knights, I want you to form a peri--"
The group was already encircled by several bipedal robots blasting out toxic black smoke from their exhaust areas. They had the same interior build as the "birds" from before, and their heads were the same, although their bodies seemed rather bulky and the fists seemed to crackle with sky-blue electricity. That same energy waved over the fists, becoming denser in some areas and weaker in the rest before passing over again and producing the same effect.
The man was wary of all these dangers he wasn't expecting and let the knights take care of the problems. Surprisingly, these rusted bots were capable of moving forward very quickly and, unlike many others, didn't give a moment of hesitation to instill a prescence or any such thing. The knights cleaved right through each one that came, bringing up sparks and pieces of metal. Eventually, one was going to reach Sunrise who was just getting back to her senses. Hospitaller grabbed its wrists, broke them, then tossed it against the others with one arm. Templar took a few hits with its sword, blocking huge bursts of power that began to push it back gently, but surely.
"Kinetic bursts? But there's nothing in this world that has technology of that calibur." Steamlord thought to himself.
The knights charged forwards and cut up swaths of these constructs, tearing them to bits and performing special moves to block and redirect punches towards others, blasting the rusted buckets into piles of parts. U,fortunately, the three knights were pushed back into the circle where Steamlord stood and both Sunrise and Twilight sat, the two finally regaining their proper trains of thought. As soon as the knights were about to perform a technique that they were famed for, more of the missile creatures appeared on the hilly regions nearby, taking a height advantage on the ledges. THere was even another of the giant machines from before that had appeared.
"Crap. They can deal with these pitiful machines on their own, but I haven't perfected their cooling mechanisms, and the constant high speed twisting of their wrists from early must have caused an over-heat. That, and those ranged machines would prevent them from going forward."
"Well, Twilight. It was good to have known you." Sunrise said as she looked around with stress.
"Same here. I don't think I can make a powerful enough shield, and even if I did, it wouldn't hold forever."
"Well, it's best you do it anyways, Twilight. We need to stall."
"Stall for what?"
"JUST DO IT!"
As the strange ball-machines prepared the missiles on their backs and, rarely, arms, Twilight's horn flickered and created a protective pink bubble around everyone, even the knights, and just in time. Missiles had been fired and, although several of them bounced off harmlessly, a few brought what they were intending to deliver, putting a great strain on the poor mare's mind and body. Sunrise bent over and held Twilight up with her arms and looked at her father who was now smiling. The same kind of relaxation could be felt with the three knights around him who kept their swords on the ground and their hands on the hilts, like statues.
"What are you expecting?" Sunrise asked.
A huge explosion rocked a hilly formation and tore it to pieces, sending rocks and rubble into the ranks of the "punching robots". The robots holding the missiles were also torn to shreds or thrown down below. The rusted metal constructs seemed unfazed by the event, striking the man as something abnormal. They truly were automatons only made to defend the area when something was in it. What looked like several beams of lime-green passed through the heads of several of the bots at once, causing them to collapse due to excessive damage. Several more explosions erupted everywhere, much to the surprise of Twilight and Sunrise. The automatons then finally turned around towards one direction as they were filled with holes that caused them to short-circuit due to a sudden burst of electricity and collapse. The giant robot stepped on its brethren, only to find huge portions of it melted away at a distance, allowing it to collapse on the floor and remain there.
Twilight let down her shield, and both she and the dragon stared at Steamlord with whide mouths, but the human simply said:
"Centurion. Rejoin me."
A machine stepped out from the shadows, and it looked quite fierce. Its body was of a silvery hue, but the main torso, the forward arms, and the legs were made to look like ancient Roman armor. It even looked like it wore a roman Pu, with silver coloring being placed within the straps. Its head was the shape of a Roman soldier's helmet, with the nose cover and large openings from the eyes and lower. Strangely, though, these details on the helmet were only diistinguishable by silver linings. It still only had a long, black visor in the eye view points that were more reminiscent of a Spartan's helmet than a Roman's, leaving way for two, fierce blue lights. It did, however, have a brush with red follicules placed vertically across its top. It held what looked like a pilum in its right hand and a bronze shield in its left.
"Meet Project SPQR: Centurion version two-point-zero. It has the equivalent amount of upgrades to the Crusader Knights, with a few extras specifically designed for its role."
The robot stopped next to Steamord and expelled a very cold steam.
"And what was he designed for? You never told me when I was helping you design and build him." Sunrise asked.
"It was designed for ranged combat."
"Ranged? But it doesn't even have any ranged weapons!"
Centurion's back clicked, and several pieces came into its opened left hand, where they formed what looked like a very long gun lined with pulsing blue lines. The shield was kept along the wrists, so it wasn't completely hindered.
"It has many more, but I prefer for it not to show them."
"But...if it was made for ranged combat, why did you give it a javelin and a shield?" Twilight asked.
"Every archer needs a knife or sword for their protection, and it's a pilum, not a javelin."
The lavender unicorn walked up to the newly activated creation and smiled, attracting its attention as shown by the dark blue lights moving down to her position.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle, how are you?"
The robot neither reacted nor answered to the question, causing Twilight's smile to fade away into a face of sadness and pity.
"He's exactly like the other three when I first met the them."
"Twilight, it's newly activated. That, and the others had years to develop and evolve, like SS did."
"Well well. Look who it is. It's the Ink Mechanic."
Sunrise growled as she took an aggressive stance with her teeth bared and her claws out. She had even placed herself diagonally compared to the creature opposite of her, ready to charge at it and tear it to shreds. The man and the unicorn turned to look at what was waiting for them after the dust had cleared. It was a tall, bipedal creature whose body seemed completely black and surrounding by an inkish mist. Despite Twilight and Sunrise readying to attack it, Steamlord, the knights, and Centurion didn't move. Centurion was also the least mobile of the four concerning reaction time.
Ink Mechanic, despite keeping its arms and hands behind its back as a smug creature, seemed frightened. As more of the dust cleared, a large building appeared behind it with the appearance of a shack of two stories. It was built near one of the mountain's edges. The second Sunrise and Twilight took a step forward, an enormous beast jumped from a height and slammed down in front of them, casting the two would-be assaulters away. The creature turned around and roared. It was a tripedal beast with only one white eye with a single black dot that served as its pupil. Its body looked like it was made from many silicon shards, and the winds only brushed off clouds of black dust with them. It was ready to charge at any moment.
