Saints and Sparkles

by Etriax

Damn your metal!

Twilight Sparkle panted softly as she leaped between platforms, quietly unable to believe how easily she could jump and how fast she could run. It must be the armor, she had concluded. Definitely the armor. No other explanation for how she could fucking glide around like Rainbow Dash on a lazy day existed.

And she wasn't at all complaining. It was exhilerating. The act of merely putting her hooves out in front of her was enough to slow her descent and allow excellent control of her trajectory. Even when she inevitably slammed into walls, rather than meeting them headfirst, she swung her back hooves forward to hit the wall and then to run up said wall. She felt like a spider. A fast, strong, magical, gliding, metal clad unicorn spider.

She just wished she could have been a little more useful. She could see the Boss firing odd blue energy balls at Zinyak's "robot" while dozens and dozens of "rockets" were fired back at the woman and at her.

Nopony... Nobody could accuse Twilight of not trying to even the odds, however. Whatever the "robot" was made of, it was resisting all her attempts to pick it up and tear it apart. Oh how it resisted, and oooooh how she had tried. Her frustrated grunts as she tried to not only tear the giant machine asunder, but to also block and redirect the rockets he fired at her, were quite loud.

Her attempts to burn him out and to teleport the robot into the wall also failed. Her frustrated growl earned a loud "Shut the fuck up!" from her human ally.

He also seemed quite capable of standing up to her more conventional attack magic. Fireballs and blasts of lightning were seemingly shrugged off by the immense feat of technology. What the fuck was it made out of, she had thought. After about five seconds, she stopped caring.

Instead, she resented just how useless she felt. Lacking means to directly attack Zinyak while the Boss plinked away at the alien leader left her dodging and occasionally providing support for the human by way of blocking rockets. She had also tried to teleport the President out of harm's way a few times, but it seemed that their armor also resisted her magic.

Now that had gotten her thinking. If the Boss' armor and Zinyak's robot were magicproof, that could very well mean that her own was magicproof. If that was the case, then perhaps Twilight could afford to be a biiiit more reckless with her spellcasting.

As the Boss put another lengthy volley of projectiles into the robot, it stopped firing its rockets, flying back to the middle of the room. "You're not leaving here alive, Zinyak," came the Boss' random taunt.

"You think you're winning, don't you? How amusing..."

Twilight came to stop on a smaller platform next to the Boss' and stood her ground. Much to her irritation, several beams of red light shot up from small... things in the larger platforms, reflecting off something on the ceiling and creating a cylindrical red shield around the damaged robot.

"Seriously?!" the woman and the mare yelled in perfect unison.

"I do hope you like my latest creations," Zinyak declared deviously. "They're very... friendly."

More of those CID things began to come out of the woodwork and fly around the massive machine. Twilight watched them warily as the Boss' voice sounded in her ear.

"How many of those things does he have?"

Their CID's monotonous voice gave its reply. "Readings on those CIDs show high amounts of explosives inside. I would not let them get close." Twilight's eyes widened slightly at that news, especially as several of them began to approach her and the President, beeping ominously.

"Aw fuck. What about getting past his shield, CID?" the Boss uttered as she froze a few CIDs and blasted a few others.

Twilight, on the other hoof, took all five that were approaching her in her telekinetic grasp, hurling them off in random directions. The last one she threw went right back at Zinyak, passing right through the barrier and exploding on the alien overlord's giant robot.

"Those CIDs seem to be able to pass though unhindered. Perhaps throwing them back would work."

Twilight smirked at her accidental ingenuity. "I can see that," she snapped back in a devious tone. The bookish unicor lit her horn again and reached out for as many of the robotic spheres as she could within her usual telekinetic range. She could reach much farther, but that would require extra effort and concentration. The mare didn't feel like being blown up while fishing for big metallic balls of TNT... Or whatever the Zin used for explosives.

"On it!" the Boss yelled, Twilight watching as the human leaped away from a very aggressive cluster of CIDs and launching one at their foe mid-glide. "Keep looking for a way to disable that shield!"

"Very well. I will attempt to find the power sources generating the shield."

"Just make it fast!" the Boss replied, landing on the opposite side of the room and frantically throwing CID after CID after CID at the alien emperor. Twilight stood her ground, her magic halting any CID that got close and swiftly returning them to their master at ridiculous speeds. It was a wonder the mere force of impact didn't send Zinyak's robot sprawling.

"Clever, but ultimately futile!" Zinyak declared defiantly.

"Nothing you have is gonna save you!" the Boss yelled.

Twilight grit her teeth. "We will stop you!"

"We'll see about that." As the conqueror of worlds said this, three portals appeared over their heads, Zin soldiers leaping out of each and immediately opening fire on the woman and the mare. The lasers' hits hurt, to be sure, but the armor was doing a lot to mitigate the damage it did.

She cast a fierce lightning spell on one of them and fried the bipedal alien, then began sprinting in a circle around Zinyak's troops, bowling them over or knocking them off the platform. The last one standing got a fatal dose of front hooves to the gut as Twilight leaped at it, managing to use her momentum and magic to swing her rear end between the Zin's legs and buck the unlucky alien in the back mid-spin.

She couldn't resist letting out a maniacal laugh at the ridiculous feat she had just performed. She turned her gaze on the remaining Zin as more leaped out of the still open portals, lighting her horn as two medicine ball sized orbs of swirling violet flame appeared on either side of her body.

For whatever reason, music began playing in her helmet, loud and... invigorating. She began to bob her head in time with the beat, pumping more magic into her horn and making her purple fireballs release directed columns of flame at every single Zin still standing.

Watching them burn, hearing them screaming (albeit faintly over the escalating beat of this odd new song), witnessing the violent, furious beauty of what she was really capable of... there were no words to describe it. Her mouth slowly curved into a massive, manic, Pinkie Pie-ish grin as her eyes grew wide and violent.

Then the bass dropped.

Twilight Sparkle jumped into the air and began gliding from platform to platform, roasting the Zin alive in time with the deep, energetic music. She stamped her hooves, bobbed her head, swung the massive orbs of fire that hadn't left her sides to the beat in a clumsy, unimpressive, but passionate and giddy dance of death. Her heart raced as adrenaline rushed through her body, eliciting an excited, frenzied, fiery "BUUUUUURN! BUUUUUUUURN! Hahahaahahahahaaa!" from the unicorn.

It was probably for the best that she was not thinking rationally about her own actions.

---

The Boss watched as her equine ally went fucking crazy, watching the mesmerizing pillars, waves, and swathes of purple magicky fire while still tossing CIDs at Zinyak's robot. While she would have liked Twilight to continue lobbing the bomb laden orbs as well, the human wasn't about to say it. Not only was she rather partial to the idea of not being on fire, but... well, the Boss almost didn't want to let Twilight go home now.

Having someone capable of that on her side would easily get the Saints anything and everything they wanted. Hell, if Twilight stopped caring enough, they could probably invade Equus themselves and take the place as a new home for humanity.

The Boss almost failed to notice the lack of pursuing CIDs as she shook her head. That would never happen. Twilight wasn't that kind of person... or pony.

When she did notice, she chuckled and yelled. "Having a few problems with your suit, Zinyak!?" she taunted.

"No, my dear Saint," Zinyak retorted proudly. "I am not the one with the problem! You forget... I have an army at my command!"

Shit. As soon as he said that, more portals began opening, SuperZin, shield CIDs, and Murderbots pouring out of them in droves. "Can't handle me yourself, huh?" she called back, using her hand blasts and an Ice Buff to kill everything on one platform as quickly as she could.

"And deny my people the enjoyment of aiding their beloved leader? I think not." His voice seemed so calm and nonchalant. It just made him so much more... behead-able.

However, when Twilight flew over her, still lost in her pyro craze, leaving scores of Zin cooking in their own skins and robots starting to melt in her wake, the President of the United States merely laughed. "Believe me. They aren't enjoying it~" she chimed cheerfully as a Stomp sent another wave of Zin flying.

---

"I have succeeded in unlocking the shield generators." CID's monotone interrupted the music as Twilight glided around the huge room, burning any Zin foolish enough to exist in her way. "Disable them and the shield should go down." She took note of three spires rising from the shield lasers' points of origin. She quickly put two and two together and began approaching them.

"No more hiding for you, Zinyak," came the Boss' voice in her ear.

"Don't expect it to be that easy for you..." the alien overlord chimed softly as several more portals opened, more of those smaller, shinier robots emerging from them.

Twilight, on the other hoof, was expecting it to be easy. And as she reached the first spire, letting her fireballs vanish, she gripped the entirety of the generator in her magic and began pulling.

In truth, she was surprised that the spire didn't resist her magical grasp. It bent and groaned under her influence, torn from the ground in a matter of seconds and ceasing its work on projecting the shield. Reassuringly, the red barrier dimmed slightly. Twilight grinned widely, beginning to swing the dismantled object in a circle around her to smash any of these so called "Murderbots" still firing on her... Of which there were many.

... Twilight suddenly realized how much her everything hurt. She had taken a lot of hits while destroying the first generator, and at least a dozen different places on her body burned like Tartarus. Twilight was now very glad to be wearing the armor.

"Sorry we're late!" Kinzie's voice startled her and the mare turned her gaze skywards, seeing several purple... things emerging from a new hole in the ceiling, each carrying a Saint. They flew in and began raining death on several Zin troops and "Murderbots."

"Time to get this shit started!" Pierce added.

"We're here, Boss!" Shaundi called.

"Don't worry, we got your back!" Johnny yelled.

"What is this intrusion?!" Zinyak angrily protested, to which Twilight merely chuckled.

"Glad you could join us~!" she cheered to her allies, leaping into the air and gliding towards the next generator as the Boss did the same for the third.

"Welcome to the party!" the Boss commented happily, using that ice power of hers as she shoved her armored arm into her target.

Twilight had to quickly duck as Johnny flew his vehicle about two feet above her head. "Get the fuck away from the Boss, assholes!" he cried, lasers slamming into troops surrounding the President.

The mare landed next to the last generator, ignoring the rest of the chatter from the other Saints as she skipped over the whole "rip it out of the floor" routine. Instead, she channeled her magic into the object, pumping more and more into it until it satisfyingly melted into a pile of molten slag.

The red shimmer in the corner of her eye vanished.

Zinyak was vulnerable.

---

The Boss saw her opportunity and immediately pointed her right hand at the emperor's robot, firing blast after blast after blast as rapidly as she could. With a mere ten hits, the entire thing exploded, sending Zinyak flying into a nearby pillar before he landed weakly on the floor, struggling to get up.

She grinned deviously, cracking her knuckles and gliding towards her soon-to-be victim. "Twilight. Come cover me," she ordered as she landed, striding towards the weakened Zinyak. "End of the road, Zinyak."

---

Twilight landed beside the President of the United States and lit her horn, creating a smaller dome shield around them to guard them against any interference. It was difficult, though. And not for a lack of magic.

There he lay. Zinyak, the bastard responsible for the Tartarus she had had to endure for the past fifteen months lay there, defenseless, exhausted, unable to do any more than groan a defiant "This. Changes. Nothing...!" Twilight sorely, sorely wanted to take him apart, slowly, painfully, to bring him suffering far beyond her own.

Yet she restrained herself... He was the President's to kill. She had pledged to help the Boss get her revenge and she wasn't about to go back on the Boss. As the Boss sauntered towards the alien overlord and delivered a devastating punch to his skull, she stood there and maintained the shield, watching in envy as he fell to the ground.

"Lucky..."

---

"Kiss your empire goodbye~" the Boss chimed in a tone that only slightly betrayed her childish glee over what she was doing. Watching him fall, and then seeing him desperately trying to crawl away filled her with such utter delight. "Where's your army to help you now?!" she then taunted loudly, following him and grabbing a hold of his waist to begin pulling.

"The legacy of the Zin Empire will continue to live on..." he feebly panted just before the wrathful woman wrapped her arms around his waist, lifted and fucking suplexed the much larger, heavier alien. As his huge head hit the floor, lying facedown on the ground, he stopped moving.

The Boss very briefly considered the possibility that he could already be dead.

Better safe then sorry. She came to stand next to his head, raising her right foot to slam it down on the back of his head. Then she stomped again. And again. And again, each blow producing a blissfully satisfying crunch of bone under her armored boot.

The Boss couldn't help a grin as she stepped over his head, crouching down and putting her left hand under his chin and right firmly against his forehead. She began twisting.

"You can kill me, but my people WILL avenge my death!" he managed, not even resisting the brutal tearing and pulling. "Then your race-"

A long, loud, orgasmically satisfying rip sounded from the alien's neck, Zinyak's head coming off in her right hand with his remarkably massive vertebrae hanging from the late ruler's dripping noggin. "-Is running shit now," she finished as she dropped the head, Twilight's shield vanishing as seven non-exploding CIDs watched her and the mare from above. She strode towards the middle of the platform, smiling widely behind her helmet as the former emperor's throne began to rise from its center. She could hear Twilight being surprised by the sudden change in footing behind her, but as she saw that seat emerge before her, she knew what must be done.

She took her place as the Empress of the Zin Empire. As Twilight Sparkle came to sit beside her throne, magically removing her helmet and smiling very softly at her, dozens of blue screens appeared all around her, showing Zin bowing to their new leader. The Boss just nodded, reaching for her own helmet and removing it with a noisy "CLUNK."

With it off, she saw the rest of her crew walking up to her new throne, nodding at them all. She also realized how hot it had gotten in that suit.

Shaundi seemed unimpressed. "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Kinzie seemed more accepting. "'Keep what you kill.' It's a classic."

The Boss just smirked, standing up from her throne and dropping her removed helmet on the glorified chair while idly scritching at Twilight's ear with her left hand. "So do I get a manservant or what?" she half-joked.

"Excellency." The vaguely familiar voice almost got its owner blasted. "I'm Zinjai, your personal steward," Zinyak's former second-in-command replied, bowing respectfully while also very slightly trembling.

The Boss turned to face her new servant. "Alright, ZJ, I need you to level with me. How technologically advanced are the Zin?"

"In our experience, we are the most advanced culture in the known universe."

The Boss' smirk returned as she kept noting just how terrified Zinjai seemed under his false, polite smile. He'd have made a really shitty politician back home, she idly thought. "Zinyak told a friend of mine that he could restore Earth," she began, casting a sidelong, "I still haven't forgiven you for that" glare at Vice President/Vice Emperor(?) Keith David. "Was he lying?"

"A... half truth, your Excellency. Earth has been atomized, there's no undoing that." The Boss sighed and started to sit back down when he continued. "However, time travel would allow you to see Earth again before it's destruction."

The new Empress turned back to Zinjai with wide, incredulous eyes. "Whoa whoa whoa... Time travel?"

"Zinyak was fascinated with Earth culture, he made it a point to go back and build a menagerie of his favorite humans."

A smile curved the leader of the Saints' lips, glancing at the rest of her crew.

"Don't tease me, your excellency," Pierce uttered with a smirk.

The Boss was tempted to go back in time for a celebratory dance party to the tune of Montell Jordan's "This is How We Do It," but a glance at the unicorn sitting at her side - staring hopefully up at her - made her rethink her priorities.

"Not yet, Pierce," she started, smiling down at Twilight Sparkle. "Ready to go home?"

"I've been ready for fifteen months, Boss," the pony replied softly, her tone lacking the snark to go with her words.

"Good," she replied, wiping a bit of sweat from her forehead. "... But first, send someone back to Nobody Loves Me. I want my damn clothes back. And a gun. A real gun."

Author's Note:

Here it is. The chapter that got rewritten three times because I wasn't satisfied with the end product. I'm pretty okay with this version, though, so here you guys go.

I've been doing my homework on this mission in game. Since I couldn't find any videos of the final boss fight where the player was using female voice 1 on YouTube to save my life, I ended up playing through Punch the Shark at LEAST five times between the last chapter and this. I wanted to make sure the lines were authentic to a fault and I wanted a really clear picture of the fight in my head. I have that picture now... and I never want to play that mission again.

Leave me some feedback! Comment on this chapter! The Boss demands it!

... Well, okay, I would like it. Seeing that notification bell with that little red number just makes me happy.

Next chapter contains ponies! I promise!

Comments

[p0nypanda]

Since when was the Ship called Nobody Loves Me? Or is that what they called a mission?

[FTKnight]

I am so looking forward to the various reactions that should appear in the next (few) chapter(s)

[Creed Miles]

5679677

There is a shop in sr3 called nobody loves me dealing in darker clothing and gothic stuff

He means go back in time to go shop

[6flyer]

5679677 That's the name of a store in-game, she meant to send somebody back in time to get her usual clothes and a 'real' gun.

[Crepusculo]

FREAKING AWESOME!! Not surprised about how crazy Twilight got, remember Lesson Zero?
Can't wait for more.

[pahnazd]

Now that was an amazing boss fight. I can see that you indeed did a lot of studying on how the fight was supposed to go, and we can't blame you for not wanting to go through that again
Now yay to the next chapter!

[Timuri]

That was excellently done. The battle was definitely an interesting read, though Twilight might want to learn a little self restraint! Ah...who am I kidding? We all know that that mare barely tries to restrain herself in the best of circumstances, and of course, the boss is once again reflecting on just how absurdly potent Twilight can be when she lets herself go.

One thing that they never even tried to answer in SR4, however....there were several thousand other humans kidnapped along with the Boss and his/her crew. Probably enough people were taken that the human race as a whole could eventually recover...but we never did see the Saints even start to consider releasing everyone else. It does leave one curious, though.

[Militia Man]

HELL YES!!! That's how the Saints do it!

sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-booya-bitch.png

[Starcat5]

5681387
Release them where? Best the Saints can do right now is rewrite their simulations to something vaguely normal, maybe make them interconnected like a Holodeck Internet, and tell them to chillax until a new homeworld for Humanity could be found for colonization.

[King of Kings]

The bookish unicor lit her horn again and reached out for as many of the robotic spheres as she could within her usual telekinetic range.

This should be The bookish unicorn lit her horn again and reached out for as many of the robotic spheres as she could within her usual telekinetic range.