Flash, AJ, Dash, and Firefly came out of cover to see the arm partially damaged but the lid destroyed, allowing them to see down into the hole, which took on a sewer like appearance.
“All right Mom, lets find out what’s down there.” Dash said to her mother Firefly, this got some objection from Flash.
“I know Fluttershy was your Protoform friend, but I did this Everyday before the war.”
Dash put her hoof to her chin and stood up on her hind legs. “Let me think about it…” she took a step forward allowing her to fall into the hole. “Nah.”
Her mom followed suit and used her grapple to get to the bottom safely while Dash plummeted and slammed to the bottom on all four of her hooves creating a small shockwave that tore up a few vines on her left. Flash spoke into her Comm. “You did that on purpose didn’t you?”
“Eeyup.”
Dash took out her Scatter Blaster while Firefly took out her Neuron Assault Rifle. They began walking down the path Dash made destroying the vines and the signal became stronger. Firefly spoke to the others as the signature began to look familiar. “Guys, the signature’s getting stronger, I think it might belong to Spike.”
This confused Applejack. “Spike? Why would Spike be down there?”
“I don’t think he had a choice.”
“How’d you know?”
“Call it a…” Rainbow Dash found something and shocked herself and Firefly when she picked it up, a large clawed purple arm… Spike’s right arm. “Hunch.”
Dash stuttered for a moment but found her composure and talked into her Comm Link as she looked up and saw a large purple dragon with green spikes on his back tangled up in webs above her left. “Guys, we found Spike.”
Flash was surprised at how fast they found him. “Is he all right?”
“I’m not sure ‘arm torn off and tangled in vines’ count as all right.”
Firefly flew up to… what was left of Spike and looked at him than spoke. “He’s in Stasis Lock. Probably enough Energon to get into his Memory Core.” She tapped his chest and it opened up, allowing her to grabbed the core and inserts it into her Right wrist. She and Dash moved ahead and was moving towards a large cavern ahead with sword slashes on the walls in the tunnel, when a video started playing at the far left corner on her and Dash’s eyes. The video was from Spike’s perspective but only enough light for them to see the silhouettes and basic outlines of some parts of the caverns. A large Mare Pegasus silhouette turned to Spike and spoke and when she did it sounded like it was over a Comm Link but was still audible.
“Quit your whining Spike, those things caught us by surprise.” At the far right corner of the video, a small earth pony mare spoke to the larger one.
“Fluttershy, we need to turn back now, Celestia can-”
“Celestia doesn’t even know were here!” Firefly heard the name and realized that huge Pegasus was Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash said she was big, but seeing her now, she was bigger than Celestia, and Nightmare Moon on top of each other’s shoulders. Her thoughts scattered when a much smaller Pegasus came into view. “More of those things coming in, and coming in fast!”
The earth pony shouted to the others as silhouettes darted around the room and some attempted to attack them. “They’re everywhere!”
Fluttershy said one last thing in that. “STAND AND FIGHT!!” she and even some of her teammates gave out a battle cry before going in slicing up several of the smaller things, before one came at Spike’s face, then static.
Dash could only think one thing and talked to the others on her Comm-Link. “Guys… did you catch Any of that.” AJ responded.
“The Screaming the Horror, followed by more Screaming?”
“All of the above.”
She and Firefly moved into the Cave and found vines had just trapped them in and then Firefly saw something out of the corner of her eye scurry through. She than enlightened the others on what they were thinking about. “Guys I think I know what got Fluttershy and her team…”
Her daughter turned to her curious. “How?”
“I think were about to meet it.”
As if on time, several wirewolf-like insect creatures attacked them and they were huge. They were the size of a Dog’o War, but as Dash just found out, as durable as a regular trooper. More began to swarm them and Dash managed to yell to her mom about this. “I think I’ll call these guys Insecticons! After they are the same kind of Purple, and just as annoying!”
More came in and Dash had an idea. Seeing a gas pipe, Dash shot at it, making an exit for her and Firefly to escape through. An unintended consequence was the fact that, it created a chain reaction, which caused toxic Byproduct to overload and was going to flood the whole cavern.
With not a moment to lose, Firefly transformed into a four wheeled motorcycle, doing a little break-dance while doing so, at this point to her it was second nature to her. Dash did the same and like mother like daughter, did a dance of her own into an assault jeep. Both vehicles drove through hole, and into a large tunnel where few Insecticons were crawling through it attempts to escape, some however meet the quicker end by road kill from Dash or Firefly. They made it to the spot they came in from and heard sounds of struggle upward. They both transformed and in sync thanks to their wings jumped to opposite walls and switching to the other at the same time as the By Product flooded the hole.
They both jumped to the same side at the same time seeing AJ and Flash on the Arm pinned down by four Insecticons. In sync, Dash and Firefly shot two each than shot the arm support. Firefly used her grapple to pull down the arm causing it to fall and sink into the water; AJ managed to jump off and Flash simply flew off landing right next to Firefly.
“What’d you find?”
Firefly heard a blink on her Comm. “the energy signature we picked up earlier just picked up again.” She turned behind her than pointed that way. “There.”
Flash transformed into his alt mode of an armored motorcycle, Dash, AJ and Firefly followed suit and drove in that direction Firefly pointed to. Dash got to the front in time to smash through the ancient door. All four of them transformed quickly at a sight to cause jaws to drop: a large tower in the distance with a claw like top shooting a bolt of electricity into the air with no signs of stopping, and in front of them, a lake of pure clean Energon.
AJ managed to find words in the awe she felt. “This could be the last reserve of Energon on all of Ponytron,” Dash finished her sentence bitterly.
“And the Kul’asepticons got to it first.”
Large cables snaked down and into the Energon Lake and began to pump it into the pipelines towards the tower. The group saw a pathway into a canyon and took that way ending up at a path with large scaffoldings above. AJ turned to Dash and Firefly.
“You two take the higher way, me and Flash will continue on foot.”
AJ and Flash transformed and drove into the canyon avoiding the corrosive water. Firefly and Dash flew up to the scaffoldings above them. Firefly found a Sniper Rifle than ducked behind cover as Slender Spider like Snipers flew in and latched themselves to the walls of the scaffoldings in front of Firefly. She looked to her right and saw Dash was gone, but than looked up seeing a few Snipers get either their head slammed into the wall causing them to fall into the water below or their necks snapped by a distorted wind. When all of them were dead, Dash uncloaked and looked at her mother smirking. They moved forward caution than quickly hid when two rocket troopers walked out and continued a conversation they had in the control room they were just walking out of. “I still don’t like it. Tirek takes control, just like that? He’s no Nightmare Moon.”
“Yeah, but better than Corona.”
“Don’t remind me. I saw what her pets did to those Autoponies.”
Firefly was curious at this. She had heard the name Corona, but she couldn’t recall where. Dash managed to take out both troopers and they flew into the doorway ahead. They came upon a crossway and several Cons stood between them and the way through. Dash Transformed and just rammed through them, knocking them into the toxic water. Firefly sighed and took a few stragglers with melees and her Neuron Assault Rifle. They made there way to another room and found Flash and AJ on a lower deck pinned down by some Kul’asepticons. Firefly smirked at Flash’s predicament. “What happened to all that Cloak and Swag?”
“Cloaker jammed on the last hit. And AJ wasn’t any help with her shouting.”
AJ could be heard on the platform even from Firefly’s distance. “Sorry if you didn’t want a sniper to turn your head into slag!”
Dash rolled her eyes and flew down there shooting several Cons to pieces and on fire proving how much easier she could get it done. Firefly followed suit and all 3 of them walked through, coming upon a walkway into a room with the Tower from earlier above them. They proceeded forward but the door was jammed. Firefly used her grapple and pulled on the gears, causing the gate to lift. AJ and Flash went, but his time Rainbow joined them. Firefly found an access point on her right than flew up there and walked through. She came into a room filled with tools and butchered Autoponies, she felt a brief shudder than walked through, coming into a hallway and seeing a terminal. She walked up to it and pressed a button on it, allowing a hologram to pop up. It showed the tower shooting a laser to shoot up into the sky, than another solar system, than the Green and Blue planet she found a hologram of in the ruins when she was sneaking around, she thought it was beautiful, but said nothing as she might as well have painted a picture or write a poem. She walked through still thinking about how is that planet so special.
She walked past the hallway and found herself on a high platform, than looked up seeing the tower even closer than looked down seeing a large control platform surrounded by some rocky ground but what surprised her was the pony on the platform talking to the large hologram of Tirek.
It was the spitting image of Celestia but her mane was much, much darker tone, sporting purple boots with a gold trimming at the top of them, and to top it off her crown was shaped like a pair of horns giving her a devil like appearence. . she than realized whom she heard the name from: Corona, the Cold Calculating Diabolical scientist of the Kul’asepticons Army.
And from the look on Tirek’s face, there was a very heated discussion was happening. Firefly managed to come in at the right time as they began to talk more. In this case Tirek. “Enough of your experiments Mirrorlestia! This Energon is meant for the Kul’asepticon army for the future campaign against the Autopony Ark.”
Corona spoke, a spitting image of Celestia’s but with an evil tone to it. She did not even sound angry. “Nightmare gave her approval on these experiments, and commanded that I continue because if the calculations are correct, they will bring forth more Energon than we’ve collected here 10 times over.” Both were oblivious to Flash as he cloaked and was prepared to come behind Corona.
“Allow me to help you get back to reality… Nightmare Moon is Dead! Terminated! I am your leader now and you will do as I command: cease these worthless time wasting experiments and prepare to transport the remaining Energon to Kaon.”
Flash was close enough and about to take down Corona had his cloaking not screw up then and there. Allowing him to be spotted. Corona saw Flash from the reflection in the window, unfazed by this new development, she dodged Flash’s blade saying one final statement. “Your argument,” she punched Flash disorienting him momentarily before he came to his senses, but not before Corona grabbed him by the head, finishing her statement, and allowing him to see her eyes, her right one normal, her left one having a white film over it.
“Is Illogical.”
She than slammed his head into the console destroying the projector for Tirek’s hologram causing it to vanish. Flash managed to get out of the hold on his head in time for RD and AJ to ram her causing a three-way fight. Firefly took out here sniper rifle than fired, hitting the console causing an explosion. Corona threw RD and AJ off than turned to Firefly seeing what happened but only sounding slightly angered at this.
“You fool! You’ve severed the fuel lines. I must reconnect them.” She transformed and unlike Celestia, she transformed into the sleek purple and white jet with gold in certain places than flew off to the fuel pumps.
Firefly flew down and joined AJ and RD while Flash headed for the Terminal than turned to the girls. “I can redirect the flow of the by-product, that should do it to blow this whole thing sky high.” He proceeded to push some buttons but then a dome closed up around him. RD, AJ and Firefly made their way to controls but stopped as Insecticons surrounded them coming up from pipes on the side of the floors walls. All three of them gave them everything they got, until their guns ran empty than used there bare hooves to take them down. Flash succeeded in reversing the flow and uncovering the dome. He got out and saw several Insecticon corpses AJ and Firefly waving at him, and RD was busy tearing off the head of one and Energon all over her body. Explosions began as the reverse flow of the Byproduct began to damage the works, the door out was blocked so RD and AJ went with number two: both of them raised their right hoof and smashed it against the door shattering it. The explosions got worse, so AJ and Flash transformed than drove while RD and Firefly did the same along with their little dance. They drove through ramming Insecticons on the way and turning steep corners. Firefly contacted Daring as they drove out of the area. “Daring, we’re ready to go!” Daring responded. “Way ahead of ya Mom.”
The ship appeared over the plateau AJ, Firefly, Flash, and RD were driving up, they transformed mid-air landing in the ship as it flew away from the large explosion that just occurred, destroying the tower as well.
Firefly walked to the monitor and it brought up thankfully Celestia and not the calculating Con that looked just like her. Her voice had a hint of cheer in it, as Firefly was still alive. “Thank the Allspark you and the others are alive. Did you find Fluttershy?”
Firefly was also happy. “Better, we found a whole bunch of Energon and it looks like just enough for the Ark.”
“That’s Wonderful, we’ll send a transporter over to collect it.” Rarity came into the picture. “Those things? They guzzle up as much Energon as they collect.”
Firefly than looked sorry at Rarity's objection. “Sorry Rarity, but there isn’t enough time for us to take all the cube, cause we sure as Primus don’t have enough Titans to carry them from the Sea of Rust all the way to Iacolt.”
Rarity huffed. “Fine, it is our only option I suppose.”
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Several Autoponies loaded the Energon cubes they had just received happy as they now had enough to fuel the Ark, hopefully to wherever they’re gonna head to next, not knowing they’re plans may be delayed a little longer as Tirek did not take kindly to losing all his Energon…