My Little Annihilation

by Word Wizard

Chapter Three : Not Everything Goes As Planned

That morning was a beautiful day, a day in which ponies basked in the warmth and goodness of the sunshine. A day when thankfulness was payed to the all important sun princess. A day when families would drop everything, merely to take their children out for a picnic. All these things would have happened....except today. The bunnies hopped alone, the countryside lay desolate, not a soul in sight. Even Fluttershy was forced to stay in the Crystal Empire.

Though that morning, everypony was more focused on a certain science project than anything else....

"What have we got?" Cadence asked seriously, walking up to a pony dressed in a white lab coat, the Crystal Empire labs insignia shining on her belt.

"Well," Chem Tech answered, "We have almost reprogrammed the nanolaything mechanesam. Loading of the resources will begin momentarily." The lab pony jogged along next to Cadence through the sprawling underground laboratory. They walked at a fast pace, passing excited scientists, focused theologists and an awful lot of chemists. Chem Tech was the head science officer on project Red Bird, as the research and development of nanolaything was codenamed, and knew everything that went on inside the safe room.

"Good," Cadence said," When do you think you'll be ready to start construction?" Cadence put her hoof on a scanning tablet next to a large metal door. It swung open after shining a bright light on her hoof.

"Well, hopefully by this afternoon," Chem Tech said, following the princess into project Red Birds safe room.

"Good," Cadence replied firmly, walking onto an overlook of the safe room, "What's the expected ETA of the prototype after construction begins?"

"About half an hour," Chem Tech replied, writing things onto a clipboard that hovered in front of her as she walked.

"Good, I want the element bearers down here as soon as it's finished, I'll meet them here." Cadence looked over the project Red Bird safe room, watching relativly miniscule ponies climbing ladders, typing on computers, flying and generally buzzing around the dormant machine. The machine itself stood about two storied tall, the size of a small house, with large metal feet. Yellow and black construction markings surrounded the main torso of the machine which ended in a flat top. The flat top consisted of two doors which opened to reveal a nanolaything instrument, which right now was hanging open as the scientists climbed about inside it.

Cadence sighed. They were on the verge of fighting a war. She paused upon thinking the word 'war'. There hadn't been a war in Equestria since that Hearths Warming Eve one thousand five hundred years ago when the three factions lay down their weapons and made peace... ever since then, Equestria was a happy and peaceful place. Until these infernal machines fell on it, that is.

-----

"So princess, you never said how you managed to capture this thing," Twilight asked Cadence as they walked towards the entrance to Crystal Empire laboratories, "How did you manage to capture a robot the size of a building?"

"Well," Cadence began, "We didn't really capture it, persay."

Twilight looked at her curiously, "Go on..." she proded.

"Well, it fell to the ground three years ago... flying right into a plain right near here. We've been trying to get it to activate for three years... but only after the commanders landed did it began to function. We upoaded the plans and began to reprogram it, and now it's ready to begin functioning."

Twilight whistled a little. "Anyway," She said, "You said you wanted me down here to witness something?" By this time, they had almost reached project Red Bird's safe room.

"Yes," Cadence said, putting her hoof on the scanner, "I want you to observe the building of the first prototype of our commander."

"Woah..." Twilight said, her jaw dropping open at the sight of project Red Bird. The hatches were closed on the monstrosity of a construction bot, concealing the nanolaything machine.

"Engage in T minus 5 seconds," A voice boomed over the loud speaker. Scientists ran last minute checks over all their code and modifications, clearing out of the room as the countdown started.

"4,3,2,1... ENGAGE." With that final word, the bot swung open, and a sketchy green outline of a mecha appeared in front of it.

"It's working!" Cadence said, visibly excited, "We've worked for three years of research and designing, it works!"

Twilight look on in awe, staring at the shear size of the bot and the thing it was constructing. Suddenly, the room shook, almost knocking Twilight off her hooves.

"What was that?" Twilight asked, regaining her balance.

"I don't know," Cadence said, "Could you cast a communication spell? I can’t juggle any other spells while keeping the shield up."

"Of course," Twilight powered up horn, accepting a communication call coming from the science lab down below. Chem Tech's face flickered on from Twilight's horn, a look of concern on her face.

"Princess," Chem began, "We have a problem."

"What?" Cadence said nervously, if not surprised.

"The energy readings, it seems that this machine can't support nanolaything such a large object, we have to shut it down," Chem Tech half shouted, the instruments behind her starting to smoke.

"Shut it off!" Cadence called.

"We're working on it!"

Meanwhile, in the project Red Bird safe room, the robot was billowing smoke. Electrical arcs flew out from the nanolaything nozzle any piece of metal in the area. The outline of the mech faded, combusting as it disiintigrated.

"We can't turn it off!" Chem Tech shouted, typing furiously on a computer in front of her, "The cables we were sending data to it through have burned, we can't attach new ones."

"What's it going to do?" Cadence asked, she and Twilight began to run towards the door.

"Most likely, explode," Chem Tech had stopped typing and was now running with the rest of the scientists towards the door.

"When?' Twilight asked.

"Probably somewhere around thirty seconds?" Chem Tech shouted, running herself. Twilight powered down the communication spell for they had met up with the head scientist in person.

"So what do we have to do to shut it down?" Twilight asked as the trio ran towards the main
office of Crystal Empire Laboratories.

"Attach a cable," Chem Tech said, "Or cut the power, although we don't really know where it's getting power."

Twilight put a hoof to her face. "Wait here, I think I can stop it."

"WHAT?!" Cadence and Chem Tech shouted in unison. Twilight, however didn't hear. She was already off like a shot, determined to get to the safe room before the blast.

"About five seconds," she panted. The door had been left open so she rushed into the abandoned computer lab where the orders were issued. The robot of impending disaster stood just outside a viewing window.

"Alright, you," Twilight powered up her horn, pouring magical energy into it. "You're not going to blow up, not now. We need this." A bright flash of light filled the room and the order cable was reconstituted from the ashes to which it had smoldered. With less than a second left, Twilight did an emergency move: She teleported the end of the cable and stretched the rest along with it.

The cable ended right in the orders port and the machine shut off almost immediately, right before overloading. Twilight lay on the floor panting.

"Twilight!" Cadence shouted, running into the room. "Twilight, are you alright?" Chem Tech light her horn with a medical scanning spell and bent over the unconscious pony.

"She’s overextended her magic!" she said, powering down her horn, "We need to get her to the medical bay immediately."

"Do it!" Cadence said, gently rubbing the side of Twilight’s barrel with a hoof, "And get an engineering team to find out why that damned thing almost killed us all!"

"Yes ma'am," Chem Tech said and began issuing orders. While the medical team was on it's way, Cadence continued to rub Twilight.

"It'll be alright," She told the unconscious unicorn, "You just wait and see, it'll all be fine."

Meanwhile, in Canterlot:

The battle of the past afternoon was long since over, returning a quiet tranquilness to the land that it hadn't seen in days. The Canterlot castle was too quite, however.

As you recall, a volley of plasma artillery was about to hit the shield, rupturing it and destroying the castle; this, however was not the case. Just before the shots hit, Celestia performed an ancient magic trick, dangerous yet powerful: the Mariath Link.

The Mariath Link is a spell created by Mariath, a professor at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns five hundred years ago. The Link, as it is referred to, is a spell in which one unicorn arks his/her magical power through the air to a recipiant. This allows magical power to be transferred freely from one unicorn to another to support or boost difficult spells.

Celestia performed this to give Shining Armor just enough power to deflect the plasma shots, preventing the disaster. However, it did not come without it's price.

Celestia's ark fed directly into Shining Armor's horn, boosting his power, but when Shining released the spell after deflecting the shots, Celestia didn't have time to properly terminate the spell, thus the risidual magic in the air created a shockwave that ripped through the castle, disrupting the magical field that surrounds all of Equestria.

The resulting flood of magical energies caused an overload of magic in the nearby ponies, putting them all in a comatose state.

The first to come back to their senses was princess Luna.

"Tia! Sister wake up!" Luna prodded the limp form of the sun princess.

"Wha-" Celestia groggily opened an eye, "What happened?"

"I don't know,but we must see if the others are alright," Luna said, helping Celestia to her hooves.

"Yes," Celestia said, brushing her mane back to normal with a hoof, "I will check on Shining Armor, you go check on the others, I will join you soon."

"As you wish," Luna trotted off, flinging open the doors to the balcony with her magic as she went. Celestia leaped off the balcony and glided down to the limp form of Shining Armor.

"Shining?" She asked, landing next to the stallion, "Shining, are you alright?" She put an ear to Shining Armor's chest, and, upon hearing the regular rhythm of a heart, she retreated. Casting an evaluation spell on Shining, status of his vitals floated in the air above him.

Celestia noted the low magic level.

"Hmm," she thought to herself, "I poured an awful lot into him...and he's still that low? That must have taken a lot of energy to deflect the attack..." Just then she noticed something.

Shining Armor's horn was still glowing.

Looking up, she saw the blue sheen still surrounding the castle, unheeded by the caster's state.

"By my godly beard..." Celestia exclaimed, her usual royal composure giving way to wonder, "I've never seen anything like it..."

A unicorn, like all ponies, naturally stores a lot magic in their body. Magic is used by all ponies to live, and all have a content of it in their blood. Unicorns, however, power their horns from their internal magic, resulting in a low content upon using large amounts of magic. To replenish their supplies, unicorns have developed a unique ability to absorb magic through their skin, allowing them to keep their supplies in good stead.

However, most spells, especially large shields, use more magic than can be safely absorbed through the skin, so rests must be taken between casting. Extremely skilled unicorns like Shining Armor can entwine and use magic from around them to aid in their spells, allowing them to maintain large spells for large amounts of time. This, however, takes conscious effort to do and is thus only used to give the unicorn's natural magic a break to replenish.....but Shining Armor had been casting a shield spell while in a coma for six hours completely from his natural magic reserve.

"I must get him to the hospital," Celestia muttered, picking Shining’s unconsience body up with her magic and carrying him behind her as she ran towards the castle's medical wing. She ran, avoiding the limp forms of ponies that littered the castle hallways.

Arriving in the medical wing, Celestia found Luna checking on the patients that had gone unattended while everypony was out for hours.

"Luna, prepare a syringe, we must raise his magic levels now!" Celestia said, her eyes wide with panic. The numbers that represented the magic content in Shining Armor's blood was dropping before her eyes... fast.

"Yes, sister," Luna galloped to the back room of the hospital, returning moments later with a metal and glass syringe filled with blue liquid. Celestia lay Shining on a bed and watched as Luna, a natural caregiver, injected him with the blue liquid.

The magic content in his blood began to stabilize, reliving Celestia of her worries. All they had to do was keep injecting him with this every few hours until he came to and could use external magic.

Author's Note:

Special thanks to the fellow in the comments that told me to make it more beleivable! Making the bot fall to Equestria three years ago (about the time when the Crystal Empire reappeared) made it seem a lot more pheesable that CEL did what they did in such a short time.
Also, the little science lesson on magic and how it effects ponies was thrown in there to make things make more sense, and hopefully make it more interesting
Anway, enjoy reading!
~Gardian20

Comments

[Lovecraftia]

I’m gonna give it to ya straight, i cringed at multiple points during this chapter.