Windy bit down on the knife in his mouth, his wings flared out and his hooves evenly spaced as he stared down the faceless thing that held its deadly claws to Blues neck. His breathing was ragged and he was sure it had broken one of his ribs but given that he only felt a dull ache in his chest it might only be a fracture.
“Sentinel, drop your spear” he said though his knife to the earth pony behind him as he slowly lowered his head putting his knife on the ground while he kept his eyes on the large creature getting a good look at it.
It had a thick exoskeleton that was white and grey with dark lines running all over it, its feet ended in two pointed toes for balance and its hands had more digits than anything had any right to have, each one ending in a wicked looking talon.
Windy had stared down monsters all over Equestria. Dragons, Hydras, manticores and even a timber wolf once. He never knew how looking into the eyes of monsters could be a comfort, a way to predict its actions and feelings until now, this thing had no face.
“Sergeant are you sure that is a good idea” the colt behind him asked sniffing and slurring his words.
“Yes, put it down slowly and do not make any sudden moves.” He heard the soft crunch of the spear being put into the snow and the monster, that had been so still moved backwards. One arm wrapped around Blues neck it pulled her back with it until it was next to the broken egg. Making a fist and plunging it into the side of the pale cracked oval it dug around for something before pulling out a black boxy looking thing covered in brilliant silver webbing.
Pressing it into its side Windy was surprised when it stuck to its carapace like glue and the thing pushed its hand back into the egg recovering a pale looking silver cylinder that fit neatly into the palm of its hand, pressing it to its side it recovered three more before, with stunning speed, it pushed Blue forward and jumped up over the side of the trench dug by the egg and sprinted away.
Flaring his wings Windy pulled himself into the air ignoring his body's protests as he flew high enough to see out over the expansive wastes, he caught sight of the Faceless sprinting away and with the natural talent in trigonometry that all pegasi had he put its speed at between fifty and sixty kilometers per hour. He could shadow it with ease, it seemed its greatest asset was its capacity to go form a standstill to blinding speed at will, its running speed however was not as impressive potentially due to its bipedal stance.
Letting himself drop to the snow he looked over the two younger ponies, Stoic Sentry was clutching his face and trying his best not to cry while Blue was wiping tears from her face and shuddering from the after effects of fear and shock.
“Come here let's get a look at you” he turned to Sentry and pulled his face towards him looking it over, his lip had been torn open and he had lost a tooth, by the look of his gums he was going to lose two more before the days was out and his eyes were looking swollen. Two Black eyes, three broken teeth, a nasty scar on his lip, he would live.
“Here” Windy gave the colt his flask of brandy, he did not drink often but his sergeant had always carried a flask of the stuff for her squad and he felt the need to continue the tradition “Drink a bit of this” The colt complied taking a swig before spitting out half of it onto the ground gasping for air.
Turning away from Sentry he approached blue who was taking deep breaths and had a hoof to her neck where the Faceless had held her hostage.
“You feeling okay blue” she jumped slightly and looked at him, a cut ran from the tip of her muzzle, just under her nose, to her cheekbone, despite being shallow it was bleeding quite a bit.
“I- It's fine, I'm fine” she assured him and he nodded.
“Good, now I want you both to know that you did good” he looked between their disbelieving faces.
“Sergent, we just got your flanks handed to us” Sentry moaned his lips already swelling painfully.
“Hay, enough of that, we just survived an attack from a deadly monster, so it gave us a hell of a time but we are all alive and moving under our own power. Blue you ever been in a real fight before?” The mare shook her head. “Well now you have, and you got out of it with a scratch and a hurt ego but you got out of it. I am proud of you both, you kept your heads, in more ways than one and we will be going home soon, but we have to wait here until we are reinforced” he looked between them and smiled.
“Sentry get some ice on your muzzle, Blue let me bandage that cut then you can start a fire.”
Storming into her cave she carefully placed the rather cumbersome black box onto the ground, she needed to open it up and make sure nothing was broken but she could do that later. Flexing her body she twisted to the right, then left, feeling her ribs to make sure they had healed correctly.
She frowned and slumped down leaning against the wall of the cavern. What kind of weapons did the Equines use? It did not fire a actual projectile, just a strong, directed kinetic force in the direction it was pointed. Clenching her fists in frustration at the attack she pushed herself upright and stalked over to the box, putting it off to throw a temper tantrum would not help her in the slightest.
Twisting the simple lock on the side she watched as the reinforced box opened up revealing one of the most complex devices ever created. A computer, Long and thin it was made to be held in a single hand, a micro refinery and fabricator, not much use for tools or anything that would help her in the short term but it would allow her to construct the necessary machinery to get the Genesis device working. Finally in a neat row six crystals secured to the case of the box, four of them had genetic templates for various life support gels and chemicals but the last two had the genetic code for the entire library of life Humanity had encountered for thousands of years including humanity itself.
Shutting the box and locking it before hiding it in the loose pile of soil and upended mushrooms she laid down in the cave to rest ignoring the hunger pains as she closed her eyes on her first day alive.
A dark hoof clad in dulled silver cracked the inch thick ceramic before the Princess of the night coated a falling shard of the material in her magic. Turning it this way and that the Immortal quickly lost interest and turned to regard the scout sergeant an eyebrow raised.
“It attacked you?” Her voice was level and her eyes betrayed a disinterest in the stallion, a wish that she was elsewhere.
“It did, quick and nasty, got what it wanted and scarpered. I checked and its tracks are already gone s-”
“Thank you Sergeant that will be all, you will return to the Empire with the rest of my escorts” The Mare of the Night turned to look over the vast expanse of snow as it howled with loneliness.
“You won't be joining us your majesty?” She grinned at that.
“No, I won't” With that she stepped out into the snow, it had been a very long time since she had hunted anything worth her time after all.
Night fell on the frozen wasteland.