Rose threw a copy of Applejack flat on ground, before reaching her hands around its neck and swiftly jolting its head cleanly around with a clear snap. At the same time, a fake Rarity came galloping up from behind with her teeth bared. In one swift motion, Rose sprang backwards while arching her back, flipping over the speeding attacker. One hand planted itself firmly on the copy’s withers to carry over the motion, while the other reach behind herself and pulled an Enforcer from its resting place on her back. Before Rose was even halfway through the flip, she lodged a bullet inside the changeling’s head.
Somebody get me out of THIS FUCKING THING!
A bolt of purple magic knocked a changeling away midair, a split second before it could slam into the caster. Twilight whipped her head towards a pair of Rainbow Dashes, one of which had the other in some form of choke hold. Her horn lit up in preparation to knock them apart, but a firm grip grabbed onto the base of her mane and angled her head towards a bronzed face with shining blue eyes. Rose’s other arm raised itself past Twilight’s head and quick gunshot fired off, startling her with the sheer proximity of the bang. Although a quick thanks could be heard directly afterwards.
“Twilight, I need you to teleport Alex out of there—now!” Rose ordered without missing a beat. With her grip on the unicorn’s hair, she then pointed Twilight’s head towards the massive pile of imposters that had completely covered Alex’s Exosuit.
“But what about his phobia?” Twilight quickly asked.
“Just do it!” Rose barked back as she caught a lunging changeling in the neck with a high kick, upon which she pinned it to the floor with her foot and delivered a swift execution.
Okay… Magic once again flowed through her horn as Twilight focused on the pile of bodies, searching out for the one in the center of it all. It wasn’t terribly difficult; he was the one thing inside it all to have a thin line of separation between the others. She could only hope that Alex wouldn’t be upset about this. With her focus set, she pushed a little more magic through her horn and…
A large purple flash appeared next to Twilight, followed by a yelp as Alex appeared out of thin air. His limbs had been all folded up, just as they were inside the suit, and they quickly fell away and flailed as he landed flat on his rear. He blinked his eyes several times and spun his head in every direction, confused about his sudden displacement. “What the—”
Neither one of them had the time to so much as smile at the successful teleportation before one of the loudest booms either one of them had ever heard shook them to their very core. The pile of changelings and metal that Alex had been pulled from was instantly annihilated in a pale blue fireball. Every changeling that had made of the mistake of trying to tear a piece off of the Exosuit was instead torn to pieces itself—if they weren’t already consumed by the explosion, that is.
“Ack!” Alex yelped as something grabbed him by the collar of his suit and yanked him back, just as a large piece of scrap slammed down on the spot he was just sitting in: the barrels of one of the miniguns, still connected to one of the forearms. The joint had been torn apart, and the rest of it was smoldering and shredded, completely unrecognizable from its former self. He stared wide-eyed at the torn machinery with his legs curled up and one arm up over his chest, as if it would somehow snap up and attack. “Oh fuck me!”
“Get up!” Rose barked as she knelt down from over him, subsequently shoving an Enforcer into his chest which he automatically clutched with both hands. Her other arm raised up and she fired off several shots from her spare at something Alex couldn’t quite identify. “And don’t do anything stupid!”
For a second, Alex fumbled with the firearm that had been thrust at him. The sounds of fighting were still all around, but at least the banging metal had stopped. The occasional gunshot from Rose announced to everyone nearby that another changeling had been removed. Thankfully, Rose’s words were strong enough for his mind to follow them, despite the chaos of the situation. Alex stumbled to his feet, squeezing the Enforcer’s handle with both hands, but completely unsure of what to do with it. His breathing remained as quick as ever as his head whipped back and forth, attempting to make sense of it all.
“Alex, watch out!” Twilight suddenly yelled.
On instinct, Alex’s looked to where his name had been called, and was completely caught off guard when another body slammed into his side and threw him to the ground. Pinned to his back and staring up at his attacker, Alex found himself face to face with a copy of Applejack, grinning down at him. His body froze up at the sight of the one who would only do him harm, until another of Rose’s many gunshots punctuated the air. His attacker’s palomino fur promptly evaporated into nothing, just as a flash of purple caught it in its side and tossed it off of him, leaving nothing but a horse-shaped thing lying on the ground with a hole in its head that oozed a viscous green liquid.
“Focus!” Rose yelled as she spun and kicked another would-be leaper in the face with her heel.
Alex scrambled to his feet again, gun still in hand. “God dammit, I’m an engineer! I don’t know how to fight!” However, his eyes lingered on Rose, transfixed on her mobile figure as she danced across the battle. She seemed to spend more time in the air or on one foot than both, performing impossible feats of both grace and brutality. Rose was moving too quickly for Alex to commit any of what she was doing to memory, but he could swear he saw her perform a back flip to kick one changeling in the jaw, only to then land on the back of another, twist its neck, then leap off and shoot a third midair before the second realized it died. Each movement; punch, kick, shot, and reload flowed flawlessly into the next. Never once stopping; never once hesitating.
“Hi there!” Alex froze at the voice, not just by its abruptness, but by its familiarity.
“Pinkie Pie…?” he mumbled as he turned his head to look across his left shoulder. There she was, amidst all the chaos around them, simply smiling up at him. He inhaled a ragged breath. “H-how do I know you’re real…?”
Her smile turned to a malicious grin. “You don’t.”
As quickly as she muttered the words, Alex brought his gun to bear on her. His hands didn’t shake—they couldn’t anymore—but by the way the muscles in his neck pulled down on his lower lip, and by his hesitation with the trigger, his hands’ predecessors certainly would have.
Pinkie tilted her head and pouted. “You wouldn’t use that on a friend, would you?”
Alex took a step in reverse. “Just s-stay back! I-I don’t wanna hurt you!”
This time, the fake Pinkie frowned, sending him a rancid stare as she hissed out her words. “You seemed more than happy to attack our queen and kill my siblings.”
Alex sucked in a gasp as the changeling dashed to his left, milliseconds before he pulled the trigger on reflex and missed it entirely. The fake Pinkie wasted no time leaping at him, her blunt teeth instantly morphing into the fangs of the original creature. With his own reflexes much too slow, Alex could only take another step back before the fanged pony clamped down on his left arm.
He yelped in surprise at her movements, but paused when the changeling continued to thrash at his arm. The limb communicated with the rest of his nervous system and brain, allowing him to feel the pressure from the bite, but failed to cause him even the slightest amount of pain. It’s fangs gnashed uselessly against the sleeve of his nanofibre blazer, all the while the casing of his arm proved to be more than sturdy enough against the bite force of its sharpened jaws.
Do not allow this fleshling to frighten you.
In less than a heartbeat, Alex’s right arm raised up, doubling the force of its grip on the Enforcer, before whipping down across the changeling’s head. The sheer force of the bludgeoning easily discombobulated his attacker and pushed it away from him. Even when it instinctively bit down harder as it was hit, the changeling’s fangs only cracked and shattered against the impenetrable carbon vest. The Pinkie double stumbled for a few steps to its side, but managed to remain standing. Green blood was already leaking from the side of the changeling’s head and staining its borrowed pink fur by the time it regained its balance. When it did, it turned its glower back to Alex with a broken snarl.
A snarl that immediately ceased to be when the changeling confronted the sight before it. Against the blue of the sky was a pair of neon green eyes, glaring down from within a enshrouded face. The human stood firm, with both feet planted on the ground and a fist clenched at his side, while the other hand extended out towards the false Pinkie, who now found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
Deathly silence surrounded everyone on the plateau, then a final clap against the tranquility signaled the end of the conflict, echoing for blocks around.
With a bit more room to relax, the ponies took the time to heave out a few more breaths. “Everypony alright?” asked Twilight.
They all nodded and mumbled in acknowledgement, though Alex’s hand snapped up to force itself against his forehead as he grit his teeth and quietly groaned.
Rose placed a hand over Alex’s shoulder and repeated Twilight’s question. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, just a headache…” he grunted in response. Soon enough he lowered his hand and let out a breath, his eyes back to their normal color. “There… It’s gone now.” Alex looked back over at her, then briefly to the others. “We got ourselves a breather?”
“For now,” said Rose. “But we have another problem: the Reds are out of commision.”
“Fuck…” Alex muttered under his breath, turning his look away from her.
“Although, I have a solution.”
Alex looked back up at her, expecting an some form of elaborated plan. Instead, he found Rose staring off towards the Palace, so he did the same. He didn’t have to wait for very long before the Raven emerged from behind the building and swept over the city as it made its way straight back to Ponyville.
“Good thinking.” Alex grinned as he took the opportunity to pull open the backside of his pants, and carefully tuck the handgun into his waistband.
“Alright, everyone, let’s get moving. Backup’s on the way, but I don’t really want to sit around and wait until they get here,” he said, making sure his blazer hid the gun’s handle.
“Neither do I,” Twilight’s agreed, stepping ahead of him. “Come on, the Elements are in here.”
“Hey, Alex, what happened to your hair?” Pinkie asked as she and the others trotted by.
“What?” Alex raised a hand to his head, only to have it come into contact with bare skin. Upon noticing the absence of his hairpiece, Alex glanced back over at the smoldering remains of the Exosuit, swearing under his breath. “Forget about that. I’ll worry about it later.” He frowned at the carnage of his machine, but the unwelcome sound of buzzing snapped him back into the moment.
Likewise, everyone else looked back out over the city and the alarming number of black figures that were flying towards them.
“We’ve got company,” Rainbow Dash announced.
“Quick, get inside!” Twilight said, as she used her magic to surround the doors of the treasury and pull them open.
Almost immediately, the sound of even louder buzzing and chittering entered their ears as even more changelings laid in wait within the building. An entire crowd filled the floor of the building’s lobby, while more were suspended either in the air, or on columns, walls, and even the ceiling. Mere seconds later, the reinforcements from the city came buzzing in from behind, completely surrounding the group of eight.
Alex grit his teeth as he raised his hands. “Mother fucker…”
Chrysalis continued her infuriating cackling as the six ponies and two humanoids were herded back into the chapel by a collection of her minions. She turned her eye towards the real Cadence, who stood next to the zombified Shining Armor with her hooves fixed to the floor by a strange green paste. “What was that you were saying?”
A twitch came upon Alex’s cheek as his eyes surveyed the room to assess the damage. Just as Rose had said, each of the Novas had been thoroughly dismantled: cybernetic limbs were severed from their bodies, heads were either smashed or removed altogether, and torsos were forced open and gutted. This level of carnage against such military grade machinery should have been impossible, but then again, after the changeling queen’s display of magic earlier, it wasn’t a surprise how she managed to get the upper hand on them.
All the more reason to get working magical countermeasures developed.
However, the remains of one bot caught Alex’s attention. Its head had been blown open and its legs were crushed, but its arms and torso still appeared perfectly intact, propped up against one of the room’s support columns. Alex projected the thought to Rose, and a series of letters appeared above the torn body.
NOVA0002-HYDE
STATUS: ACTIVE
So he’s playing dead. Alex grinned. Smart mother fucker. We can use that.
Peering further around the room, Alex picked up on two more details that could eventually come in handy. Rose’s civilian body had remained hidden behind a pillar the entire time, and carefully eyed them from the safety of its hiding spot. It definitely wasn’t a fighting unit, but an extra set of hands could be useful. Lying on the floor, right where Rose left it, was the AVRiL. Alex could tell at a glance that it wasn’t loaded, but that wouldn’t be a problem. The weapon was designed to be self loading, but the process had to be initiated manually. If Chrysalis could be distracted…
Alex glanced up at the ceiling, his eyes drawn by an odd shade of green he was pretty sure wasn’t there earlier. Indeed, it wasn’t: a translucent cocoon was suspended from the ceiling, stuffed into a neat corner of the room. Encased in it was none other than Princess Celestia, upside down and seemingly asleep within her organic bed.
Welp, she’s out...
“I hope you all realize that the reception has been canceled,” Chrysalis sneered down at them before turning her attention to the changelings buzzing above and around them. “Go! Relinquish your hunger! Feed!” At her words, the changelings eagerly zipped out of the room, either through the doorway or the chapel’s many windows, leaving them alone with the queen, who magicked the door closed.
“She’s either really confident or really stupid…” Alex muttered under her breath.
“I don’t know just how aware you are,” the queen continued to them, “but you’ve all been a rather annoying thorn in my side. Especially you two.” She pointed a hoof at Alex and Rose. “You’ve both killed more of my subjects than I was willing to sacrifice for this city, on top of doing this.” She turned to her right to show them the wound on her left shoulder. “Those things of yours are surprisingly dangerous.”
“They are,” Alex responded, keeping his face as neutral as possible, “and I can promise they’ll be the death of you.”
“Hmph. Such bold words.” Chrysalis levitated one of the Novas’ heads over to herself and placed it on her hoof. “But do understand that I don’t exactly feel threatened by them.” She tossed the head aside, laughing to herself before walking towards the nearest window to look out over the city.
While the changeling queen had her back turned, Alex looked to the ponies so that he could ask Twilight a question, preferably one Chrysalis couldn’t hear. However, Twilight was already far out of whispering earshot as she snuck off towards Cadence and Shining Armor.
Dammit. He would just have to settle for the next best thing.
Carefully moving himself next to Rarity, Alex lowered himself to his knees and leaned into her ear, keeping his eyes on the queen.. “If I were to hit your horn, how badly would it hurt?”
Rarity’s head jerked back at the question. “Excu—mmph!”
Alex’s hand shot up and clamped her mouth shut before she could make more noise. With his other hand, he pointed towards Chrysalis and then layed a finger over his mouth in a hush. Rarity’s eyes followed his movements carefully, then he released her muzzle and whispered his question again.
She nodded and whispered back. “It hurts quite a bit, actually.”
“Where, exactly? Tip, base, middle?”
“Well, the base tends to hurt more when struck…”
“Thanks.”
Alex turned his head over to Rose, who had kneeled down next to him as well. Their eyes remained fixed on each other for a moment, and Rarity’s curiosity forced her to observe the entirety of their silent conversation. Eventually, Rose simply nodded once, and the two of them looked back towards the changeling queen.
“Huh…? What happened…? I-is the wedding over…?”
Everyone, Chrysalis included, turned their head towards the source of the voice: Shining Armor. He blinked his eyes several times and held a hoof up to his head, attempting to nurse what seemed to be a nasty headache. Cadence stood next to him, her hooves freed from the substance that restrained her just moments ago.
Chrysalis stomped a hoof. “It’s all over."
“Your spell!” Twilight implored. “Cast your spell!”
“What good would that do?” Chrysalis cackled, pointing a hoof towards the window. “My changelings already roam free!”
Shining Armor’s mouth hung ajar as he glanced between his sister, fiancée, and the strange creature that stood in the room with them and laughed at him. Confusion set it, so his brain focused on the one statement spoken by a familiar voice: cast your spell. Shining blinked several times until he forced magic through his horn. Unlike others, where their entire horn would become illuminated, only the very end of his managed to glow. Both his eyes and teeth clenched as the stallion attempted to bring more of his magic into focus, though never getting beyond that pitiful amount.
Eventually, his horn gave out, as did the breath he was holding. “I… I can’t… I don’t have the strength to do it…”
“My love will give you strength!” said Cadence as she fully wrapped her forelegs around him.
Alex and Rose shared a look, one dull enough to smash concrete.
Chrysalis scoffed. “What a lovely, though absolutely ridiculous—” The changeling queen cut herself off mid sentence, and her eyes imperceptibly widened, as if she had just remembered something important. “—sentiment…” Her eyes turned towards Alex and Rose, who each remained calmly sitting on their knees with their hands resting against the front of their thighs, staring back at her.
“It occurs to me that I’m getting short on time,” she announced, “and that it would be best for me to deal with you both now.”
Alex’s eyes flashed green, just as he allowed himself a smirk. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
In one swift movement, each of his hands reached behind him: the left lifted the fabric of his blazer, while the right gripped the Enforcer he had hidden there. His arms flowed through with the motion, almost moving of their own accord, bringing the weapon around in front of him, and aimed squarely at the queen’s head.
The resulting gunshot caught nearly everypony off guard, save for Cadence and Shining Armor, who seemed to be in their own little world at that moment. The spiraling bullet sailed out of the end of the Enforcer at supersonic speeds, traveling faster than any organic creature could react to. Without any barrier to impede its path, the bullet flew towards its target and hit it true: the base of Chrysalis’ horn, right where it connected with the rest of her head.
The changeling queen recoiled, throwing the entire front of her body back as she let out a painful scream. At the same time, both Alex and Rose shot to their feet, the former yelling: “Thirty seconds!” Alex kept his glowing eyes trained on his target, and practically let his arms aim for him with each squeeze of the trigger as his feet carried him to his left. Meanwhile, Rose bolted right, heading straight for the AVRiL.
Each bullet panged uselessly off of Chrysalis’ impressively armored skin, but they hit their target with the intended effect. A foreleg covered the queen’s eyes against the hail of metal, even though their purpose was not to kill, but to disrupt. Whenever it came into view, Alex automatically fired off another round that smashed into the base of her horn, sending a recoiling shock of pain through her body, while simultaneously preventing her from casting any magic that could spell disaster.
Over by the floral archway, Cadence and Shining Armor became enveloped in swirls of their own magic, the tips of their horns nudging against each other and glowing as fiercely as their affection. On the other end of the room, Rose hefted the AVRiL on her shoulder and initiated the weapon’s loading sequence. Internal whirs could be heard as another rocket was ferried into position, but a dull clunk signaled a jam in the mechanism. Rose wasted no time laying the launcher against her bent knee to stare down the barrel. The same green substance that held Cadence down had somehow made its way into the AVRiL, preventing it from reloading properly. She didn’t hesitate to stick her arm in to remove the obstruction as quickly as possible.
A barely audible click from Alex’s Enforcer warned that its magazine had finally been spent. “Fuck—I’m empty!”
Chrysalis brought down the hoof we was using to cover her eyes, smashing it against the ground as she snarled. “Why you little—ARGH!”
Another gunshot rang out, impacting Chrysalis exactly where the first volley had, sending her jerking back again. This time, however, the assault came from the mangled Nova, its own Enforcer held firmly within its grasp. Its legs may have been useless, rendering it immobile, and its head may have been destroyed, making it unable to see long distances, but the sensors and computers within its chest, alongside its unbroken arms, still enabled it to use a gun at this range without any difficulty.
As Chrysalis continued to stumble back, Cadence and Shining Armor began to float off the ground, their combined magic becoming more and more brilliant with every passing breath. Outside the window, the Raven appeared just above the city’s buildings, filled to the brim with Blues that were armed to the teeth and quickly closing the distance. Changelings that were either foolish or unfortunate enough to either charge or simply be in the flight path of the aircraft splattered against its uncaring hull.
Rose jerked her arm out of the AVRiL’s barrel, having finally cleared the last of the solidified green goop. She initiated the reloading sequence again, and was this time met with success. After hoisting the Rocket Launcher back onto her shoulder and taking aim, the only thing that was left to do would be to wait a few brief moments for the target to be locked.
Who needed reinforcements when this threat would be eliminated before they could even get here?
Just as the AVRiL’s targeting reticule turned red, a dazzling pink wave of light exploded from Cadence and Shining armor. On the other side of the room, nearly an instant later, the AVRiL’s rocket screamed forth from its resting place on Rose’s shoulder. The two forms of onslaught raced towards Chrysalis in a fraction of a second, each making a bid on which would be the one to take her down.
The couple’s magic reached the changeling queen first, effortlessly sweeping her off her porous hooves and sending her careening out of the chapel’s window. The AVRiL’s rocket, designed from its inception to hit a moving target with the utmost precision, and able to pull two ninety degree turns in as little as one hundred feet, compensated for the disturbance and altered its trajectory to keep itself on a collision course…
… Straight into the wall right next to the window. Unfortunately, the AVRiL had never been designed for indoor use, making it fundamentally ignore obstacles. As the rocket attempted to keep itself on track with Chrysalis’ sudden new trajectory, its newly calculated flight path simply didn’t include the open window she had been projected through.
The rocket immediately detonated against the stone wall, powderizing it and sending the debris cascading to the ground below. As for Chrysalis, she continued to wail against the pain in her horn as the wave of magic carried her body and every one of her changelings in the city up and away, back to who knows where. As the queen soared over the city under the influence of magical repulsion, she was fortunate enough to avoid smashing against the oncoming Raven, though just barely. Chrysalis was never truly aware of just how frighteningly close to death she really came—not just once, but twice.
“NOOOOO!” Alex shouted as he ran through the residual smoke and stopped just short of the window Chrysalis had been thrown out of. The dust cleared quickly enough, leaving a giant, crumbling hole big enough for an SUV to fit through. “We fucking had her!” he yelled, throwing his gun behind himself and sending it skittering across the floor.
Alex’s cries, though, went unheeded as Cadence and Shining Armor floated back to the ground, staring into each others’ eyes as the ponies cheered for their victory against the changelings. Twilight almost immediately made for Princess Celestia, who had been torn free from her cocoon prison by the couple’s magical burst.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,” Celestia reassured her student as Twilight helped her stand.
The Princess’ attention was drawn away as the Raven hovered near the chapel, blocking incoming sunlight as it did. The Raven positioned itself near the balcony, behind the floral archway, and remained in the air as its cargo bay opened to reveal an entire crowd of blue colored Liandri, each one armed with a Link Gun. A dozen Liandri disembarked, barely leaving a dent in their total number. Instead of leaving, however, the aircraft remained in place, awaiting further orders.
The arrival of the bots managed to shake everypony from their glee, and they each looked around the room for the Liandri’s leader for some form of explanation of what they were going to do. Each of Rose’s bodies flanked Alex, who was now on his knees, clenching his fists while his head rested against the ground.
“Hey, Alex, what’s wrong?” Rainbow Dash asked as she walked over to him. “We won! Why you looking like that?”
“God fucking dammit!” Alex yelled, pushing himself to his feet to glare at her with neon green eyes. “She got away! That’s what’s wrong!” Everypony jerked back at his outburst, unable to respond. “We had her right where we fucking wanted her!” He turned his glare to Cadence and Shining Armor. “And then you two went and fucked it up! You went and gave her an express ticket out of here! A fucking get out of jail free card!”
“Hey, what’s your problem?!” Shining Armor shouted back with his own glare.
“You are, you fucking idiot!” Alex snapped. “First Twilight does a better job of telling the difference between your own fucking girlfriend and a fake than you do, then you not only let that bitch get away, but send her off yourself!”
“Like you and those metal heads were doing a better job!”
“We were! There wasn’t even going to be enough to fucking bury her if it weren’t for you!”
“ENOUGH! Both of you!”
The two hotheads finally quieted down as Celestia’s deafening shout echoed throughout the room.
Rose shook her head as her civilian body moved to take a place next to the Princess. “Thank you for saving me the trouble.”
Celestia nodded at her before returning her attention back to the two males in the room. “It goes without saying that today hasn’t been a pleasant day, to put things lightly. Mistakes have been made on everyone’s part. Starting with all of us, myself included, with regards to Twilight’s warnings.” She turned a smile towards the unicorn in question, who beamed back at her. “Had we all listened to her about her suspicions with the false Cadence, perhaps this could have been avoided altogether.”
She sighed as she rubbed a hoof against her head. “Thankfully, that’s all behind us now. With the changeling threat gone, perhaps we can host a real wedding now.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, wait, are you serious?” Alex objected, holding his hands out to her. “You’re just going to dismiss them like that? After only kicking them to the fucking curb?”
“Alexander, the changelings are no longer a threat to us,” Celestia clarified. “And I can assure you that, after this, they will not return any time soon.”
“Oh, so you are going to just dismiss them!” Alex snarked, flapping his arms against his sides. “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Celestia, but those love bugs were fucking hungry. They only reason they’d have for attacking a capital city like this is either sheer stupidity or desperation, and they’re definitely not dumb. Now maybe you’re not familiar with the concept, but fewer things are more dangerous than an animal that’s been backed into a corner with nowhere left to run.”
“The changelings will not return, Alexander.” Celestia stood tall and kept her posture firm. “Of this, I can assure you with the utmost confidence.”
Alex took a step forward, narrowing his eyes. “And what if I told you those assurances don’t count for shit in my book?”
Shining Armor took his own step forward. “If the Princess says they’re not going to come back, they’re not going to come back.”
“And I respectfully disagree.” Alex held a hand up to him, extending only a single finger, though the significance of the gesture was lost on everyone but him. He then turned to the Liandri next to him. “Rose, get the Blues are on cleanup duty. Have them get our things from our room, and that mess over by the treasury. If there’s any bodies left over there, store them for autopsy. If you can find any live ones, tag ‘em and bag ‘em.”
“Hey, you can’t do that!” Shining Armor interrupted, just as the Raven offloaded several more Blues before it closed itself up and took off for the treasury. “Any changelings that are still alive are criminals, and need to be taken into the custody of the Royal Guard.”
“Blow it out your ass, captain,” Alex snapped without missing a beat. “After seeing that gross display of ineptitude from those so called ‘guards’ of yours, it’s obvious to me that if anyone wants actual results, then I’m going to have to be the one to do the work.”
Twilight trotted up to him, her brow creased in worry. “Alex, please, just work with them! Why are you acting like this?”
“No I won’t, because I’m fucking pissed,” he hissed to her, baring his teeth. “Your brother let her get away, and now I have to pick up the fucking slack.” Alex turned to Rose, leaving Twilight to her thoughts. “Get the Reds rounded up. I want them back to The Pits for recycling. Not him, though.” Alex pointed towards Nova two, whose arms were now lying against the ground, but still clutching its weapon. “I want that one sent to the proto lab.”
He approached the broken Liandri and crouched down, balancing on his toes as he stared into its shattered head. “ ‘Cause I have plans for you…” Alex muttered.
“Is there anything else you want me to take care of?” asked Rose as she followed closed behind him.
“Yeah,” he announced. “Bring the Raven back around here as soon as you can. We need to get back home.”
“You’re not going to stay for the proper wedding?” Rarity asked.
Alex stood up and began to make his way past Cadence, Shining Armor, and the floral archway and onto the balcony, Rose in tow. “Absolutely not. As far as I’m concerned, I’m done here. Right now, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and unlike some people, I’m not going to just sit around.”
Shining Armor continued to glare at the human and Liandri as they passed by, but Cadence held a hoof around him to keep him in place. “Maybe that’s for the best…”
“Yeah, whatever,” Alex waved off behind himself as the Raven approached, this time significantly lighter. As he and both of Rose’s bodies stepped onto the hovering cargo ramp, Alex called back: “Oh, and sorry about the wall. We’ll send some cash to fix it.”
“Who the hay does he think he is?!” Shining growled as the Raven took off again, this time speeding away from Canterlot altogether. Once the aircraft was out of sight, he started to stomp off down the aisle. “Let’s see how high and mighty he feels when I arrest those machines of his.”
“Shining, don’t,” Twilight protested, stepping on front of her brother to block his path.
“What?” Shining Armor jerked back at his sister’s reaction before frowning down at her. “Twilight, I can’t just let them do what they want. I have a job to do.”
“So do they.” She pointed towards a nearby Blue, which was busy collecting the limbs of a dismantled Nova while seemingly ignoring them. “The Liandri have their orders, and trust me when I say you’re not going to be able to talk them out of it. If you try to stop them, I can guarantee that they won’t hesitate to hurt you.” She peered up at her brother with pleading eyes. “Please, Shiny. Just let it go. I’ll talk to Alex when I get back.”
The Royal Captain looked away, biting his lip. As much as he hated to admit it, his sister was right. He did know what they were capable of. Even though these blue machines looked different, he had no way of knowing just how different they were from the others. That, and the fact that he had no way of knowing if they would come quietly or not, and if Twilight was telling the truth, then “no” was probably the answer.
How could things like these even be allowed to exist?!