//------------------------------// // Replenishing Numbers // Story: Friendship Is Futile // by VaporingRat //------------------------------// Captain Lightwing and his team were sat in the back of the carriage that was escorting them to the site where the object from the sky landed. His team was assembled of two Pegasi, two Unicorns and two Earth ponies. He himself was a Pegasus, and a member of the royal guard that guarded Princess Celestia. “Are we all clear on our orders?” Lightwing asked the other five ponies. “Yes sir,” was the response. “Good. If you have any questions, speak now.” “I have one, sir. Will the Elements of Harmony be joining us?” the Unicorn known as Brighthorn asked. “No. Princess Celestia has sent a letter to the Elements telling them to stay put. And besides, what kind of guards are we if we let the Elements handle everything?” some of the team nodded in response. “Sir, we’re approaching the drop point.” One of the Pegasi that was harnessed to the front of the carriage reported, his voice barely audible due to the wind and the carriage wall. “Right, everypony, this is it.” Lightwing stated as the carriage descended into a clearing in the Everfree Forest. Lightwing’s team filed out, and Lightwing signalled for the two Pegasi that were pulling the carriage to leave. Soon, only the six armoured ponies were standing in the clearing. Lightwing led the team forward as they trekked through the dark forest. It wasn’t long until they came across the dead Manticore, sickening the ponies. “What in Equestria did that?” one of the Earth ponies muttered as they examined the burnt flesh. “Looks like a type of combat spell, but I don’t know one that can do damage like this.” Brighthorn said as he peered closer. After a few moments of examining, he retreated back due to the smell. “This might be related to the object that fell. We might get some answers when we get there.” Lightwing stated. And the team was moving again. After a few minutes, they were coming up to the rope bridge, to find that somepony had removed it. “Wasn’t there a bridge here?” the other Pegasus asked as one of the Earth ponies consulted a map. Soon, most of the team had started bickering over the accuracy of the map. “Something doesn’t feel right…” Lightwing muttered to himself as he gazed across the ravine to the fog that covered their objective, obscuring it from view, blocking out the noise his team was making. A green haze flooded his vision for a moment, before it faded, to reveal that Lightwing was no longer at the edge of a ravine, but inside some kind of building. Startled cries from behind him indicated that his team had experienced the same thing. They were in a chamber big enough to fit the Princesses’ height and wide enough to cram 20 ponies inside and still have room for more. Everything was slightly dark with green lights and occasional flashes. The walls, floor and ceiling were all metal and in normal lighting they would look grey, almost black. “Silence!” Lightwing hissed, making the rest of the team to fall silent. Something shuffled, which caught Lightwing’s attention. “Do you hear anything?” he asked Brighthorn. “Nothing. It’s so quiet.” Brighthorn replied. “And hot.” One of the Earth ponies muttered. A shadow moved behind the team, catching them by surprise. But when they turned around to face the source, the cause was gone. “Let’s get out of here.” Lightwing ordered as he led the team out of the chamber and down a hallway. The lights didn’t help their situation, which caused most to see things that weren’t there. But occasionally, some of the shadows did move. They didn’t encounter a living soul for two minutes, until Lightwing turned round a corner and trotted straight into something tall, thin and made of metal. The rest of the team bumped into him in a cartoon-like style, and as one, they looked up to see what they had walked into. It was six foot tall, standing on its hind legs. Most of it was wearing some kind of black metal armour that had flashing lights in certain places. Instead of hooves on its forelegs, it had a claw-like hand made of pale, clammy flesh on the left and a similar hand, but with three claws and they were made of metal. Its head was also made of pale flesh, with some metal plating covering its right side. Tubes that contained unknown substances for unknown purposes were protruding from its head and they connected to its neck and back. Covering its left eye was some kind of eye patch with a weird glowing green light. It stared down at the ponies, who stared up. Then, in a swift movement that caught them all by surprise, it had wrapped its metal claws around Lightwing’s neck. It raised its other hand and two small tubes extended from its wrist and punctured the exposed parts of Lightwing’s neck. He felt something invade him; his entire body became weak as whatever this monster was doing finished, releasing him and letting him collapse on the floor, gasping for breath. The others yelped and backed away as the metal monster advanced forward. Brighthorn used his magic to create a barrier between the monster and the ponies, as the other Unicorn prepared a concussive spell. That is, the other Unicorn was preparing a concussive spell. Another metal monster with different metal parts on his head and what appeared to be a saw on the end of its right arm did the same procedure to the one done on Lightwing. The remaining Pegasus flew up to the ceiling of the hallway and tried to ram the first monster, but it caught the pony with impossible speed. One of the Earth ponies charged forwards and rammed the second monster, causing it to tumble backwards. This distracted the monster to alow the second Earth pony to leap through the air, turning in mid-flight to buck the monster with his hind legs. But the monster recovered faster than they expected, and caught the Earth pony around the neck, again piercing the coat and skin with the tubes. The other Earth pony tried to save his comrade, but was blocked by the saw, which was now spinning in a deadly and menacing manner. A scream from behind Brighthorn told him that the valiant earth ponies had falled to the evils of these monsters. He increased the power of his magical barrier which protected him from all sides. One of the monsters reached out a hand, and it passed through the barrier like it was air. Brighthorn screamed as the first monster lunged forward, piercing the weird tubes into the pony’s neck. **** It was daytime when Spike woke up in the library that he lived in with Twilight. “Good morning, Twilight,” he yawned as he stood up in his basket and stretched. No response. Puzzled by this, Spike turned to look at Twilight’s bed, which was unoccupied. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t been slept in all night. Spike shrugged this off thinking that she was asleep downstairs from her late night stargazing session. He got out of his basket and walked downstairs, completely ignoring the scroll that was left in his basket. Spike entered the main part of the library to find no sign of Twilight, except for a scroll on the desk. “Twilight?” he called out. No response. Spike searched every part of the library, but Twilight wasn’t home. He walked back into the main room, pondering where Twilight could be. “She might be at one of the others, but she usually wakes me up first…” he thought out loud. Deciding to check the rest of Twilight’s friends, Spike walked out of the library towards Carousal Boutique. **** The two Pegasus guards that pulled the carriage containing Lightwing’s team returned to the clearing after hiding out in the clouds. There they waited for several minutes, but the team didn’t return. “They must’ve been held up somewhere.” One of the guards said to the other. “Shall we go look for them?” the other guard asked. “We can’t. The Princess ordered us not to follow the team no matter what.” The first guard replied. “Shame, I was hoping on getting a look at that old castle.” The guards fell into a silence that lasted several minutes, until the first one spoke again. “Hey, do you still collect those different metals from across Equestria?” “Yeah, why?” “Because there’s one on the ground there,” the first guard said, pointing with his left forehoof at a piece of metal lying on the ground. “Hey, I’ve never seen metal like this. It’s really strong yet slightly flexible… I wonder where it came from?” the second guard pondered when he picked up the piece of metal after he unhooked himself from the carriage harness and trotted over. Something moved in the canopy above their heads, causing both guards to look up. Something darted between the trees behind them, but they didn’t notice this. “We’ll wait five more minutes, and then we leave.” The first guard stated more to himself then his colleague. A red dot appeared on the flank of the second guard. The first noticed this and approached it, pulling the carriage with him. “What’s that on your flank?” the first asked. “It’s called ‘armour’, now stop joking around.” The second replied. “No, there’s this red dot on your flank.” “What red dot?” the second guard turned his head to examine the red dot that was on his flank. “What is that?” The first guard raised his left forehoof and moved it in front of the red dot. The dot was now on the first guard’s hoof. “Let’s get out of here!” The second guard yelped as the red dot vanished. They both spread their wings and took off fast, the second guard completely forgetting to harness himself back onto the carriage. A green beam of energy shot forwards from deeper in the forest and grabbed the carriage. The first guard cried in shock as the carriage was pulled backwards. No matter how hard he flapped his wings, he just kept going backwards. The second guard turned round to try and help his colleague when something black shot out of the canopy and tackled the second guard. After a brief struggle, the second guard managed to send his attacker spinning away. He turned back round and flew as fast as he can to the edge of the forest, his attacker pursuing him. The first guard watched his colleague get chased away, as the carriage came closer to whatever was pulling it. He passed the edge of the forest and the ravine, and entered an entrance into some kind of building made of metal. The doors closed and the weird magic pulling the carriage vanished, leaving the guard in pitch black darkness. The darkness was pierced by three red lines of light, all focused on the guard. He screamed as something rushed him, puncturing his neck with something cold. **** Fluttershy happily trotted parallel to the edge of the Everfree Forest, singing the My Little Pony theme tune, but she didn’t know that. On her back was an owl that she had found injured near the forest yesterday. “Here we are, Mr. Owl.” The shy Pegasus pony said as she arrived at a tree at the edge of the forest. The owl hooted happily as he flew up to his home. “Now you be careful when flying, you don’t want to have another nasty bump on the head.” The owl hooted in response. Satisfied with her good deed, Fluttershy began to trot back towards her cottage. A scream from deep inside the forest made her freeze in fear. Something was rustling in the forest, coming ever closer to the edge. Fluttershy slowly turned to look at the direction of the noise. Something flew straight into a bush in front of her, making her jump in the air in fear. A Pegasus in royal guard armour fell out of the bush, covered in cuts and bruises, some of the injuries still bleeding. he looked up, and spotted Fluttershy. “Help! There’s something in the forest… it’s attacked Captain Lightwing’s team and now it wants me! Warn the Princess, get away from the forest!” he half yelled, half pleaded to Fluttershy. Fluttershy just looked at the guard in frozen fear, barely able to stay in the air. Then two black hooves reached out of the bush and grabbed the guard’s hind legs, dragging him back into the forest. He tried to buck at whatever was pulling him, but it continued unfazed. “Warn the Princess!” the guard cried out to Fluttershy as he disappeared into the bush. Then a scream pierced the air for a second before everything went deadly silent. Fluttershy couldn’t stand it any longer. She flew as fast as she could away from the forest towards Ponyville, crying. She never noticed the thing that watched her go, detecting some of the traces of magic associated with the Elements of Harmony, like the residual magic that was found on Twilight when the Borg did a thorough scan on the Unicorn.