The Lightning Seven: The Second Strike *Old story*

by Barracuda cyborg

System Overload

A small group of robots started to fire at Thunder Buster. She dodged quickly and unleashed an electrical blast that shorted out the robots. Soon, the rest of the group joined in as the robotic clones charged towards them.

"This is why I suggested the hat idea," Scalor said. He charged up one of his eye lasers and hit Applejack thinking she was a robot.

"Ow! Hey!" Enraged, AJ rushed towards Scalor, spun and brought both her back legs into his face. The cyborg's head went flying off revealing that it had actually been a robot.

"How did you know that was a robot?" Scalor asked confused.

"Well uh, ah didn't," she said flatly galloping towards Charger to give him a helping hoof. Scalor looked at the robot and gulped thanking that wasn't him.

"Things are really starting to heat up!" Razor shouted as her talons and wings cut through the heads of many Circuit Breaker and Twilight clones. Bits of wires and synthetic mane flew everywhere as she flew by.

"I think it's just the little spark we needed!" Lightning Scale grinned, starting one of his patented electric charge attacks. He put his tail into his mouth, spun around like a certain blue hedgehog of a certain franchise and dashed through a large group of robots in a huge burst of electricity. Charred parts of the robots were left in his wake. "And I did all that without a single ring!"

A robotic Celestia lowered its horn, preparing to blast Slash. "Any last words overgrown gecko?"

The reptile snarled at the insult. "No one calls me a gecko, Ima ALIGATOR!" Slash dodged the ray she unleashed Matrix-style, bending down and touching the floor at the last second as the beam flew over him. Pushing with both of his legs, he turned the motion into a spinning leap and decapitated the phony pony in a single swipe. Headless, the robot's neck sparked before slowly falling over in a heap and exploding. He then turned his attention to a group of Razor-bots Sir Slicer, Snaggletooth, and the real Celestia were fighting off.

"We're surrounded," Fluttershy said as she and Dice cowered behind Tarlok.

"Not for long," the lankly being quietly remarked. He sprung from behind Fluttershy and his claws skewered the robots, deactivating most of them. The ones that were still activated had to deal with Tarloks blood curdling screams. Their heads exploded before they could fully process the sound that was being made.

"I think I'm kinda happy to be blind right now," Dice said, shivering as something wet hit his bill.

"Time to take this fight into my own feelers," Mollusk said, moving around, loosing himself from his ceiling prison. As he fell, he managed to latch his wires into the robot walker. The gang soon saw the commotion going on as the metallic behemoth standing before them rose up. "Prepare for permanent deactivation!" Mollusk shouted as he slowly marched towards the group of heroes.

"Hey guys?!" Scalor asked the group, the robot walker approaching.

"Yeah?" they asked in unison.

"If it seems like I'm getting visibly smaller, don't worry. It's just because I'm leaving," Scalor said as he bolted for the door.

"GET BACK HERE COWARD!" Razor shouted in disgust, seeing her leader act like a chicken rather than the large, cybernetically enhanced walking barracuda that he was.

"Forget it Razor, we got bigger things to deal with," Twilight said looking up at the giant menace.

"What's the plan?" Slash asked Twilight.

"Uh..." Twilight thought, trying to think up some kind of strategy. And then logic followed Scalor out of the room. "HIT IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU GOT!"

The group bombarded the walker with literally everything they had. The ponies and mercenaries bucked and beat the machine, Celestia Twilight, Lightning Scale and Thunder Buster zapped it with their respective powers. Fluttershy and Dice threw random things that were just laying around, both with little accuracy- Fluttershy because she was timid, Dice because he couldn't detect anything with all the noise.

Mollusk smirked. Finally, the upper hand, hoof, feeler, whatever, was his. For all their combined efforts, all their little "teamwork" and "togetherness/unity" lovey nonsense, nothing really compared to just a good ole' fashion humongous war machine. Complete with carbon fiber reinforced carbon fiber armor, dynamic dispersing PS2 dual shock dampeners, power push-and-pull lift servos, and temperature-controlled cup holders for both hot and cold beverages, the villain thought about using the cockpit phone to call his mother in Skokie and telling her if she could only see him now.

Tear in his eye, a smile spread across his face while a barrage of force was unleashed by his mortal enemies. Safely surrounded in an egg-shaped dome encapsulating the cockpit, he engaged the robot's twin arms and spun the machine's torso. The heroes close by were thrown into the ones firing from a distance, Fluttershy and Dice being the only ones who dodged.

"This guy's tougher than he looks!" Kooker said as he climbed on top of his brother's shoulder.

"And he looked really tough to begin with," Buzzer said as he tried readjusting his antennas.

"Give it up! I am the controller of this world! I AM THE MOLLUSK! None of you are truly heroes, rulers or even real! You are all just playthings, toys for the amusement of your true king! Plankton in the current!" Mollusk said, approaching the group on the floor. "Now prepare for me to end you slowly giving the scene ample time for literally anybody to just jump in at the last second and say-"

"Hold it right there you overgrown slug!" A familiar voice rang as a giant robot dropped in from the ceiling.

"Scalor, you're back!" most of the group shouted in joy to see their friend back in action. Dice applauded, though was facing the opposite direction.

"Just thought I'd drop in for some es cargot!" Scalor said over his own robot's microphone system, " Now to crack some shell," he said lunging towards Mollusk, getting into the most climatic fights in history.

Mollusk held up a feeler. "Actually, the mollusk is a member of-" Scalor's robot cut him off, slamming against him chassis-against-chassis. "So that's how you want to play, fishy?"

"You destroy everything you touch Mollusk!" Scalor yelled, grappling at the controls of his robot, forcing Mollusk's machine down.

"Because everything I touch is food! Different forms maybe but it's all food for my power!"

"We're not your toys!"

Mollusk pushed Scalor off of him, cursing the fact that he built a duplicate identical giant robot AND had left the keys in the ignition. Why did this always seem to happen at times like this?

"Foolish fish!" Mollusk shouted, raising his arm cannon at Scalor. "This world is ruled by the hungriest, the one with the most drive, the most ambition! The rule of one is the only one that works! My hunger rules, therefore I rule!"

Scalor glared at him. "I'm gonna make you lose your appetite." His robot dodged a deadly blast that scorched the floor by jumping up to the ceiling. Grabbing a scaffholding and swinging, Scalor jumped down and was on top of Mollusk once again.

"Almost cyborg trash, but almost wont finish the job! You can't stop me!" Mollusk pushed himself off the ground and the mechs grappled, hooked to one another by the arms.

"You're old Mollusk, yesterdays model and ready for the scrap heap."

"We'll see who's ready for the scrap heap."

"Junk that's what you are: JUNK!"

"SILENCE! When I 'm through with you there wont be enough of you for recycling!"

Scalor's robot backed up, nearly slipping. Mollusk used that one instance to push him to one knee, claws interlocking as the villain's mech gained the upper hand. Claw. Whatever. Scalor's teeth were gritted, gripping his controls he couldn't find anything in his own cockpit that could possibly get him out of this contest of pure strength he was losing.

"Face it, Scalor," Mollusk grinned triumphantly. "I'm just the better design." He pushed Scalor to the floor.

Squinting, in that last second as gears grinded and metal bent, Scalor noticed something. "Better designed, maybe," he let his claw loose of the other robot's claw and raised it towards the mech's head. "But also designed with an ejector seat!"

The villain's eyes went wide. He watched as Scalor reached out with a claw and pressed a small red button on the side of his robot's chassis. And that was when Mollusk realized the price of overthinking.

The dome on his robot retracted and the ejector seat underneath him fired. In a second, the tyrannical slug was launched to the ceiling and smashed against the roof by his own rocket chair. The villainous invertebrate crashed through the ceiling and rocketing to the sky, soon becoming a twinkle in the distance.

"Critical damage sustained. Self-destruct sequence activated."

"It's about to self-destruct!" Twilight yelled. The group backed away from the two hooked robots.

The remaining robots began flashing, tons of clones all about to explode.

The Lightning Seven began blasting them, shorting out each before they could blow up. But the mechanized legions kept coming.

"Go! Get out of here!" Scalor yelled, blasting a group of bots with his laser.

"Scalor," Applejack yelled, "We can't leave y'all!" Cut off from the group, the ponies could only watch as the robots swarmed towards the Seven perched atop the two robots.

"We can get you out!" Celestia yelled at their friends.

Scalor smiled. "We're mercs, your majesty. We leave when the job's finished."

The ponies nodded. There were many destinies on many different worlds. The Mane Six had their own and the Lightning Seven had theirs. It was something no amount of technology or magic or creatures from another dimension could change. While the robots were focused on the Lightning Seven, the ponies ran for the exit.

They turned around the moment they cleared the facility. But they only turned around in time to see the factory turn into a ball of fire. Explosions rocked the building's foundations, throwing debris everywhere. The Mollusk Industries sign was set on fire and blasted out, soaring over the group along with the Days Without An Accident plaque underneath it. The entire facility exploded, leaving behind nothing but ash and rubble.

The heroic ponies looked through the smoke to see any sign of their friends. There was none. Applejack held her Stetson over her heart in reverence, Fluttershy broke down and sobbed. A single tear rolled down Twilight's face, a shimmering reminder of those she'd just lost.

They had all learned so much lately. So many strange, new things had happened. It was hard at times to find a stable spot, a point where it all made sense. Those moments were fleeting and tend to come and go before they were ready. Yet in all the randomness and confusion, the ponies were all sure of one thing: they had made new friends.

Scalor and the Lightning Seven were gone; their last mission accomplished. Twilight and her friends would be the only ones left to tell the tale and they knew that. So they would. The purple mare knew that when she returned home, she'd have a new job to do. She would begin cataloguing the tales of a group of heroes not unlike her own friends from Equestria- individuals not necessarily with a rhyme or a reason but with a purpose. A mission that they made themselves not because they were the right ones for the job but because they were the ones that wanted to do what was right.

Author's Note:

Title by: BRyeMC

Edit help by: Barrobroadcaster