Back in Chapter 38 - Inevitably Come
"Interesting how he was able to create a machine that almost perfectly mimics Death. Even got the deal part correctly." I've met Death a few times, and I had discovered that Death does like making deals. So he would actually take my life and give life to Scootaloo if I made such a deal with him. I started scrolling through the information again, before I noticed something that scared me. "No... they wouldn't."
I stared at the computer, and on it, was schematics for a creature that looked almost exactly like me, but it was a robot. It was still in early development, so It didn't seem to be that lethal, other than the rudimentary Cosmic Energy Generator. But I couldn't let this creature be developed, If they managed to replicate me, they could destroy the world, if not the universe. I quickly deleted all the information on the computer, before placing a bomb on the screen, back-flipping out of the way, and spinning in midair, throwing bombs all over the place. I quickly landed on the ground, and jumped out of the door, and blew up the room, and badly destroying my leg, which quickly regenerated. 'I got to find Midnight, and get out of here.'
The Robo-Connor punched me once in the face, and I was suddenly implanted in the wall. I pulled myself out, and was punched in the stomach, before the robot slammed it's hands into the back of my head, making me impact the floor. Before it could do another move, I activated the thruster on my robotic leg, and flung myself forward, and causing Robo-Connor to trip. "You seriously need a better name for your robot! Robo-Connor is not original! It sounds like what I would name my robotic form!"
"Yeah, you're right." Malicious' voice crackled over the loud speakers. "But we'll focus on that later, I think you have more important things to be concerned about right now."
I looked over at a grey blur, and quickly kneeled over, clutching my stomach in pain. I grit my teeth, and reached out, grabbing the robot's head, before slamming my knee into it, and spinning around, throwing it across the room, where it impacted the walls. I quickly charged after it, but before I could reach it, the robot disappeared in a flash and I struck the wall, not even creating a dent in the strange metal.
I turned around, looking around the room, hoping to figure out where the robot's going to attack. But to my shock, I couldn't even remotely follow the robot, which means that it's much faster than I am.
I felt something hit the back of my neck, and I fell down to the ground, paralyzed. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the robot crushing my back with it's leg. "Prepare to be terminated." The robot said in a completely robot voice. It stomped it foot on my back, shattering my spine.
I screamed in pain, and created a explosive wave around me, blowing the robot back, and buying me enough time to speed up my regenerative factor (while reducing it's effectiveness, leaving me with a faulty spine) and I get up, before cracking my back, fixing it quickly. I quickly got to a fighting position.
"Activate Protocol C!" Malicious' voice spoke over the radio.
Before I could even wonder what he meant, the robot stood facing me, a couple yards away. It flicked it's arms, and suddenly two small blades, similar to my hidden blade, came out of it's wrists. "Blades? Seriously? I know I'm afraid of small sharp ones, but not ones that look like a reference!"
"That's not all." I heard a faint humming sound, and the robot's blades became a Cosmic Purple.
"Oh..." Then, a small liquid spills onto the blades, and I instantly knew what it was. "Eggs..." 'I can not let one of those even remotely touch me.'
I blinked, and had to bend backwards to avoid being hit by it quick charge attack. I watched with wide eyes as the poisonous blade went by right in front of my face. I used my powers to push myself away, and I took a deep breath. 'That was close.' I noticed a small drop of red liquid fall in front of my eyes, and I felt a small stinging sensation across my face. Another drop of red fell down, and I noticed some black overtake it, and it splat across the ground, overtaking the entire drop of red, and the drop of red it landed next to. I raised my left arm, and I gently touched my face, and brought it in front of my face. Covered on my hand was black ooze, and my blood, which was being overtaken by the ooze. "Oh crap."
The robot watched with lifeless eyes as a cut appeared on Connor's face, before coming in contact with the eggs, changing them both into black ooze that followed the blood into his bloodstream, and quickly went throughout his entire body. Everything nearby felt the difference as Connor's powers disappeared, and Connor looked at the robot with fear in his eyes. The robot was better than Connor with his powers, it could move faster than he could see, hit harder than he can defend against, but without his powers, Connor wouldn't even stand a chance.
Connor looked back at the robot, in time to be catapulted across the room, slam into a wall with enough force to leave a big indent. Connor let out a small moan of pain, as he pushed off the wall. He wiped some blood out of his eyes, and charged forward, only for the robot to grab his hand, break his arm, forcing Connor to scream in pain, as he fell to one knee.
The robot brought it's fist back, and with one swift punch to the jaw, sent the god skidding across the floor. "You broke my jaw." Connor said with a muffled voice, as he felt his unhinged jaw, and tried to push it back into place, but couldn't. 'I got to work on a better metal skull. This pseudo-adamantium one isn't working out. Maybe I can try to replicate the Proto-adamantium in Captain America's shield. I'll look into it later.'
Connor was barely up to put up his fists in time to block the robot's next attack, and when they collided, a huge snap ran across the room as Connor's left forearm shattered. His arm fell limp against his body, as it sagged, due to no longer having any structural support. Connor looked down at his hands, noticing that he'll no longer be able to use his left hand until it healed, but he realized he also only has one hand left.
Connor was kicked in the face, breaking his nose, and sent flying back again, but this time he quickly got his feet, and kept a close eye on the robot. The second before it charged at him, Connor flicked his right arm a certain way, activating a certain function that he has never used before outside of his lab. Right before the robot dove it's blade through Connor's heart, it was deflected out of the wall by a large metal pole.
Before the robot could even process what happened, it was pushed back, and stared at Connor, trying to figure out what the anomaly in the fight was. "Error. Subject [Connor] has unknown weapon. No countermeasures available for offensive weapon. Adaption required."
In a room outside of the room where the battle was taking place, Malicious was yelling at his scientists and 'researchers' and all the people who had a hand in making the machine. "Why don't we have a countermeasure for his staff?! How did we not know he had something like this?! This is a great unknown factor! Who knows what gadgets he has in that thing!"
The various creatures in the office were panicking. "We're sorry sir, but Connor has never used the staff. Never used it anywhere we can spy on him. We can only assume he developed it in secret, and trained with it in his bases, the only places on this planet we can't infiltrate."
Malicious' face was an unhealthy shade of red. He stared at the screen with all the known facts about Connor, before finally turning around, and facing the other creatures, ignoring the crushed metal his hands once laid on. "I want more advanced systems. We need to get into his base. We don't know what kinds of technology he has down there that would help him accomplish his goal." Malicious turned back around to face the window to continue observing the battle.
The robot charged at Connor, who quickly deflected the blow with the staff (one-handed, as his left arm is unusable), and he got the robot to stumble, and whacked it in the neck, sending it flying to the side. Connor quickly ran (at normal human speeds) at the robot, before slamming his staff in the ground, creating a shock wave that he jumped up to avoid, twirled above the staff, grabbing it, and spinning around, before throwing it at the robot's left arm socket, imbedding in it, and the wall.
The robot tried to get up and remove the staff so it could do so, but Connor landed on the end of the staff, plunging it in deeper, breaking off the arm, and then used the staff to bounce away.
The robot got to it's feet, and looked at it's empty socket. The robot looked at Connor, and it's eyes almost seemed to get angry, before it charged at Connor at light speeds, knocking him back into another wall, where his spine would have been snapped, if Connor didn't activate a booster on his staff to pull himself away at the last second. The robot collided with the wall, as Connor got to his feet, and fell down to one knee, breathing heavily.
"Darn it, my body isn't made for battling stuff like this without my powers." He muttered, catching his breath, and rubbing his still unhinged jaw, before being upper-cutted into the ceiling. Connor fell back down, and was kicked directly in the crotch into another wall, where he slumped down, his staff rolling away from him. The robot walked forward, snapping the staff in two with a loud crunch and the fizzle of electricity.
"Now die." The robot brought it's remaining hidden blade filled with Cosmic Energy, and covered in eggs to in front of Connor's face. It moved it's arm back, preparing to kill Connor, and was about to bring it down when a huge piece of metal landed on the robot's arm, throwing off it's aim and slowing it down. Before either man or machine could process what happened, a blue blur shot upwards, along with the piece of metal, before a blue beam hit the robot right in the head, sending it stumbling back, as some cracks appeared in it's head.
Connor blinked in surprise as the blue blur landed in front of him, and he blinked again upon seeing who it was. Standing in front of him was a tall blue pony with a blue sparkling mane, two wings, and a long horn, which was glowing, along with a very familiar weapon wrapped in the same aura.
"Is that...?" Connor asked.
Luna nodded. "I sensed you were in distress, plus it was rather obvious you were here. Sometimes, my sister is just so gullible. I went into your secret chambers, and found this on a podium. Seeing as it was the only I could wield and knew how to wield, I took it." She took another look at the scythe. "The metallic grey is a bit dull though. Going to have to make it a different color."
Connor chuckled, as he got up, and picked up one of the pieces of his staff, before slamming it on the other piece, quickly connecting them back together. "We'll see about that later. Let's finish this quickly, repairing this staff is only a temporary measure." Connor held it in an offensive pose.
"Yes, lets." Luna agreed, and both of them charged forward at the robot, who tried to attack Connor with it's remaining arm, but Connor quickly flipped over Luna, and the robot had to retract it's attack, due to not having any programming allowing it to harm anyone else but Connor.
Connor whacked the robot in the neck, causing it to flinch just enough for Luna to swing at it's legs with her scythe, and Connor slammed it's head into the ground using his staff. The robot quickly used it's speed to get away, and try to access the situation again.
Luna quickly flew at the robot, swinging the scythe right as she got to the robot's location. The robot barely dodged in time, only to be blasted back by a purple beam coming from Connor's staff. Luna took this time to whack it back to the floor, and before it could fully get up, it was blasted into the wall by Connor's staff, where he kept up a continuous stream, and Luna added her own beam to the mix, allowing the Cosmic Beam to finally get past the robot's defenses, due to being designed to only fight Connor, and had no defenses against magic.
"THIS IS FOR HARMING HIM!" Luna screamed, as the robot blew up, and it's lights went dark. She turned around, and faced Connor with a smile, and a tear in her eye. "I'm glad your okay." She ran up to Connor, and wrapped up his lower body in a hug. "We'll get you to Canterlot and get you all fixed up." She had a small smile on her face.
Connor laughed. "Sounds nice." He had an unsure look on his face. "Luna, I-i love y-GAH!" Connor screamed in pain as the end of a small purple blade appeared in his chest. He pushed Luna away, and looked behind him to see the disconnected arm of the robot, missing a hand. Connor fell to his knees, as his spine finally gave out from the damage that a blade being run through it can do, and he coughed up blood, as he fell to the ground.
"Connor?! Connor! CONNOR!" Luna screamed, as Connor's eyes closed.
"He's waking up." I heard a gruff voice say. I moaned, not wanting to wake up, before realizing that I never went to sleep. My eyes shot open, and my vision was obscured by something white covering parts of my eye. I looked through the small gap I could see through, and saw Luna with a disheveled mane, and dried tears under her eyes, as she looked at me with hope.
"Luna? That you?" I ask, and I realize my throat was dry. I cleared my throat, and I felt a familiar sensation as my powers took care of that. "Where am I?" Luna was crying again, as she engulfed me in a hug, wrapping her wings around as much of my body as she could. This was making me worried. "Luna, what's wrong?"
She didn't let go of me, and she sniffed. "You were stabbed through the spine by the weird robot creature's arm, and I rushed you to the hospital. You were treated for several wounds, like your left arm, the cut on your face, your broken snout... nose, a few other small wounds, and your spine injury."
I sighed. "Luna, it's okay. I won't die from a spine injury, you know that." I hugged her back, and tried to get to a more comfortable position, when I realized something. "Luna, why can't I feel my legs?"
Luna sniffed again. "The doctor said you were permanently paralyzed from the waist down. You'll never walk again."