Dimension Jumper

by redtau

The First Drops

The monsters that charged forth from the forest were strange things unlike any seen before in Equestria. Each barely half a pony in height, they moved on two legs with a pair of small grasping claws hanging from their chest. Their wide mouth was filled with sharp teeth and seemed to make up almost a quarter of the beast. The pale leathery flesh that covered it was broken by bony spines along its back leading to a sharp, squat horn near its nose. The strangest thing about the creatures was that it had no eyes. By itself a single one would be little more than a joke to any zoologist. In a swarm light this, it was more of a nightmare.

Dozens of spawn swarmed down from the treeline towards the ragtag army. The defenders rallied against the sudden charge and fell into rough formation. The monsters hit the front lines, and almost immediately the screaming started.

The creatures were stronger than they looked, and that surprise had cost a few of the defenders dearly as their shields were butted aside or ripped away. Many found that the spawn would bite down on almost anything in front of them, and more than a few combatants had their weapons dramatically shortened or a semi-circle set of dents set into their shields.

What was more surprising was what happened to the monsters that fell. As one dropped three of its brethren fell upon it ripping it to shreds before it had even stopped moving. More worrying, the ones who ate appeared to grow slightly, adding muscle and armored plates.

Unicorn shields sprang up where the minotaurs had failed. Pegasi overhead fired a volley of lightning bolts down onto the battlefield, scorching dozens of the monsters. A second group of pegasi, armed and armored for close combat, streaked out towards the Jumper at the far end of the field.

As they closed the distance, a brilliant ruby beam arced across the sky. One of the pegasi let out a scream and began to tumble downward. Two of her comrades caught her, and Twilight watched in horror as one of the injured pony's wings continued to fall. That beam had sliced right through armor and bone in an instant. Again and again the red energy lashed out, first cutting down two more assault pegasi and driving them back before turning its focus on the lightning throwers. Several of the volunteers were singed and one of the weather team nearly lost a hoof before they retreated, leaving only a few who dared to stay among the clouds.

Luna stamped her hooves anxiously, maintaining three separate shields. "Sister, we cannot stand by and watch this. Creatures are dying!"

"And if they have the same magic drinking powers that D had?" Celestia asked, flinging a half dozen of the creatures back from the front lines with a quick kinetic burst. She frowned at the amount of blood that seemed to stain the ground from just the first charge. "We must maintain a distance until we know they lack that ability, or we are given no other choice."

The red beam arced out again, and several of the weaker unicorn shields cracked against it's power.

"Really? Is that the best you have?" the man mocked. "I might just have to call some of these darlings back if this is all you can throw at-"

twang

THUDD

James looked very slowly to his left. A massive arrow, only slightly smaller than a spear, had grazed his cheek and embedded itself into a tree.

"Halth a degree to the lefth!"

Twilight turned and marveled at what she saw. It looked like parts of Applejacks' apple cart from market, along with parts of plows, a spinning wheel, and a pigs trough. Twist sat to the right of it, peering down a long spyglass and scribbling on a chalk board. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were busy rewinding the massive bow. Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon were at the very back, pushing the back of the cart between stakes pounded into the ground. "Half a degree left!" Diamond Tiara confirmed as the adjustments were made.

"Reload!" Scootaloo called. Snips and Snails stood nearby a large pile of ballista bolts, carefully lifting it up into the primed machine.

"Clear!" Apple Bloom called as she and Scootaloo leapt down from the machine.

"FIRE!" Sweetie yelled, and once more the bolt launched through the air. A devouerer leapt up to defend it's master, and the man still had to jump aside as the monster was pinned to the tree.

"Right!!" he yelled, enraged at being nearly hit twice. "You want to play?!? Let's play!!!"

Three dozen more devouerers poured from the forest, filling the small clearing and threatening to overwhelm the defenders who had just started to push back. The man walked out among his horde, each death feeding them, making them stronger, and his red light flickering across the shields. A larger pair of creatures, ones with bulging arms and thick plates, flanked him, defending against the ballista bolts.

---

"Did you see that, Tavi?! AW man, those kids are awesome! Total DIY warriors. I can't believe they built their own freaking ballista!"

"Vinyl, while I'm sure they are impressive, for this project of yours to work, you have to pull, too!" Octavia grunted, pulling forward on the overburdened cart. "How did you pull all of this around between shows before anyway?"

Vinyl Scratch shrugged in her harness. "Extra-dimensional robot demon disguised as a pegasus," she said. "You should get one, they're a great help." She turned back to the battle and frowned. "Might as well stop here. With those reinforcements, we won't have to wait long to be in range."

Octavia nodded and slipped out of her harness, reaching around to start unpacking the massive amplifiers. "I can't believe you made this in a month. Only someone like you would think to weaponize sound."

"Oh, I made this years ago," Vinyl said, connecting the mobile generator to the sound board. "All my current speakers are based on it, but the police insisted I install limiters on them. I mean, you collapse one apartment building, and the whole world is against you."

Octavia shook her head. "I can't believe we're friends. Sometimes I think-"

"TAVI!"

Something pushed her down, and she smelled hot metal, burning electronics and cooked meat. She rolled over and looked around. A deep singed cut marred the trees on either side of the cart, and scorched some of the equipment near where she had been standing. Next to her was Vinyl.

She wasn't moving.

"No. Oh no! Please, please Celestia, no!!!" Octavia bent down to her friend. She had the turntable clutched to her chest, and it had taken most of the hit, but there was a deep cut on her waist and another on her shoulder.

"MEDIC!!!" she screamed, waving at the pegasi circling overhead.

"You *cough* you have to be more careful, Tavi," Vinyl said weakly.

"Shut up!" Octavia hissed as the pegasi pulled the DJ onto a stretcher.

"Got you a present," Vinyl said, already becoming dazed by the pain.

"Miss, you should evacuate the area," one of the medics said sternly. "It's not safe."

Octavia nodded, looking over the equipment. It was almost setup, too. But with the turntable destroyed, there was only the microphone to feed sound into the device. She scrambled back into the cart, desperate for some other piece of equipment.

"Extra power cables, extra audio cables, fuses." She sorted through, trying to ignore the sounds of fighting that were getting closer. "You couldn't pack an extra music player?!" she asked, frustrated as she lifted a wooden support.

No, it wasn't a support, it was shaped wrong. It looked like part of a washtub instrument without the washtub. Like someone had ripped the central stem out of an over-sized cello.

"What in Tarterus is this thing?" she asked, spinning it around. On the back, painted in electric blue was the message To Tavi with love. Below that was stamped the most wonderful words she had ever read.

ELECTRIC UPRIGHT BASS

---

"Sister, we cannot hold back much longer," Luna said, trying not to look at the numbers of dismembered and wounded the medics were dragging back from the front lines. While the strange army of so many desparate creatures hadn't lost any ground and had slain the devouerers at a rate of almost five to one, it was still a losing battle. They were outnumbered, and for every devouerer that fell the ones around it grew stronger feasting on their own dead and wounded.

"Agreed, sister," Celestia said. "We are in luck then that we may not have to." She nodded skyward, as a half dozen armored pegasi, accompanied by another half dozen Lunar Guard streaked down onto the devouerers. The defenders cheered the sight of reinforcements so soon into the battle, yelling out as the newcomers swept low overhead, dropping stones among the monsters before pulling away.

As they rose, the bombs they had dropped ignited as one, turning the middle of the enemy ranks into a smoking crater.

"YES!" Twilight cried, giving a little hop.

"What?" Luna asked.

"Something my faithful student worked out about a week ago," Princess Celestia said. "The bombs were filled with a slight magical charge, as a timer. If any of the creatures they touched could siphon magic, the bombs would have gone off in sequence instead of all at once."

"What does this mean?" Luna asked.

Celestia dropped her shield. "It means, dear sister, that our magic users are no longer limited to Twilight's protected shield spell." Her horn began to glow, and a fireball the size of a melon appeared above her head. "It means that we can fight, too!"

The magical blast arced over the allies and landed amid the devours, detonating in a brilliant fiery burst that caused even Twilight to turn away from the light and heat for a moment.

It was followed by a rainbow barrage of magic as every unicorn assembled, from student to shop keep, and threw everything they had at the invaders.

"We may win yet!" Celestia said.

Luna looked worryingly at the human, standing at the other end of the battle between his two body guards. She didn't like the way he was grinning.

---

Mr. Cake stared in mute horror at the sea of jaws and teeth just beyond the shield line. The thought of those teeth closing down on him was almost overwhelming him with fear. He had stood frozen as they charged and he was still frozen now.

"Sweetie?"

He blinked and turned to his wife, who was helping to load one of the catapults.

"Can you help wind this up? I need to balance the load," she said, lifting a large pie.

Stepping next to the catapult he pulled back on the winding crank, stopping when he heard the catch click into place. His wife put the pie carefully down.

"FIRE!" Pinkie called, and an assortment of baked goods went flying . Muffins hard as rocks pelted the enemy. Pies with caustic meringue and bubbling hot filing burned away the flesh of the monsters. Carrot grinned with satisfaction at seeing a dozen fall and wound the catapult again.

---

"More bombs," Starlight ordered, touching down lightly next to the supply cart. She had arrived with the first set of guard reinforcements just after the battle started. She had done three runs in the time it took most of the other pegasi to do two, and she looked ready for more.

"Aren't you tired?" A militia pegasus asked, slouching. "This armor weighs a ton, I can barely fly in it."

"I'll rest when they are defeated. More bombs."

"All out!" the white unicorn with a red mane said, stroking his mustache. "We honestly didn't think it would be such a big success, so we only made a few dozen."

"You've dropped more in a single run then the others did in two," his twin observed, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. "We are putting more together as fast as we can, but you'll have to wait."

"Waiting is for the wounded," Star snapped. She dropped the bomb carrying satchels and started fastening on her raking wing blades.

"You can't go out there like that!" one of the other guard protested. "You saw what that thing did with that red light. If you're out too long he'll slice you up and those things will eat you before you hit the ground."

"There are CHILDREN fighting these monsters!" Starlight yelled in their face, strapping the last blade down. "If you want to cower here then be my guest."

She launched herself into the sky. Training in the heavy armor had been difficult, the weight made it hard for most pegasi to even get off the ground. Maneuvering was tough, and passing the obstacle course had been a real bear, but Starlight had learned something important about the extra weight. It gave her momentum.

She climbed high into the sky, using the sun behind her to help hide her. Once she was high enough, she began her dive. Her wing blades reached out as she drew level, momentum carrying the quickly dulling blades through scale and flesh. A line of monsters went down, and she pumped her wings trying to climb away.

A flash of light caught her eye, and she folded her wings, dropping under the ruby death beam and impacting a devouerer. She launched herself right back into the air and was forced down again by the flashing beam. She crashed down again, and the last of her forward momentum was sacrificed slashing the throat of the creature lunging for her.

Around her the devouerers crowded, feasting on their dead and dancing just outside of her blades reach. Being little more than jaws, Star had the unnerving feeling they were all grinning viciously at her. One stepped forward and she dropped it with a slash. As others fell on the dying, she was able to take a few steps back. The process repeated twice more, and Star started to hope she could edge her way free.

She felled her fourth before she realized the pattern. Each one that died made the others stronger, but the strong weren't staying. The damned things were using her to get stronger, then marching off towards the front lines. Worse, she saw one of the larger beasts take a blast from one of the unicorns and keep going.

Star was stuck. If she took off, the red light would almost certainly cut her down. If she kept fighting, she would doom her friends.

Was the only choice to give up and die?!

Comments

[redtau]

6789169 You aren't far off, but even the Guard have some tricks up their sleeves.
Granted that between Vinyl, Pinkie Pie, and the CMC this is closer to a CHAOS army than an imperial one, but still.

[Dipti]

i cant wait to see the Sonic weaponry and Angels reinforcements.

[Schroedingers_Katze]

6790592
Ahh, Lost and Damned then hn? Okay, than there might be a chance for this not to become a onesided slaughter.

[Kenshinryuu]

Octavia is going to drop the Bass... up to Eleven!

And thank goodness Celestia and Luna can cut loose magically, FEEL THE WRATH OF THE SUN AND MOON YOU MURDERING A-HOLE!!!!!

I loved seeing the Crusaders and the rest of Cherilee's class working together, especially with their home made ballista. Now why hasn't one of the magic attack teams started enchanting their bolts to tear through the baddies ever more or be engulfed in flames??????

[Snowkitsune]

6791306 you know i always wondered why does Tia not just summon a solar beam of plasma. I mean she has a source of pure fission she could bring new meaning to scorched earth

[Kenshinryuu]

6791961 Even better, make a giant beam and swing it like a sword. Enemy army literally cut in half.

[redtau]

6794623 Aww, and here I was going to have the final conflict be an epic rap battle between Nightmare and Discord.

Out of curiosity, would it have been better to just do descriptions of the actions and link the song via youtube to play in the background?
What did you think of the Wicked song reference a few chapters before? Essentially, how could I improve? I'm interested in your opinion.

[EvilEnchantress]

We need more chapters.

[redtau]

6797237
A bit more like this than nids, but pretty close.
privateerpress.com/files/products/73004_Shredder_WEB.jpg

[redtau]

6821151 For the first few chapters the language is gibberish. After that, the language is just English backwards

[JMP]

"Halth a degree to the lefth!"

Twist's lisp is for 's' sounds, not 'f' sounds. "Half" is still "Half" with that kind of lisp, and it shouldn't really manifest in "Half a degree to the left". There's not a single 's' sound in that sentence. Also, even if you were to just give her a bigger one, the lisp isn't even consistent within the sentence. First, Twist can't pronounce 'f' in "half', but it's perfectly fine in "left", but the lisp is there on the 't' when she says "to" and "the" without issue?

Ovtavia shook her head.

Minor typo. "Octavia", not "Ovtavia".

Like someone had ripped the central stem out of an over-sized cello.

Seriously? Octavia doesn't know what a string bass is?

While the strange army of so many disparate creatures hadn't lost any ground and had slain the devouerers at a rate of almost five to one, it was still a losing battle. They were outnumbered, and for every devouter that fell the ones around it grew stronger feasting on their own dead and wounded.

*Desperate, *devourer x2. Or at least be consistent with how you want to spell it.