Chapter XVI: Heat
"Shit shit shit!" I cried out as the new Xartik robot leaped towards me as I lit up my horn, barely letting loose a teleport spell right before it pounced on me. Since I cast it at random, I was only a dozen feet away from the robot, but it gave me some distance and confused the robot long enough for me to get back on my hooves. Activating my radio, I shouted into it, "All units, a new Xartik robot is on the field near the breach. Do not engage until more intel has been gathered!" It was then that I heard the sound of something launching itself off the ground, causing me to jump to the side just as the Xartik crashed into the ground, right where I would have been if I just kept running.
“Aether? Are you alright?” Celestia asked on the radio as the Xartik turned its head towards me.
“Can’t say yet, but I’ll find out when this new Xartik scores a hit on me,” I replied as I tried to put some distance between me and the new bot. “Though, for the sake of being cautious, I suggest that you hightail over here as fast as you can,” I added, only to hear the Xartik’s loud stomping as it was rushing towards me.
"For Equus!" shouted Resolute, causing me to look up in surprise as I saw him trying to divebomb at the new Xartik, an energy sword in his forehooves.
"Resolute you dipshit! Fall back!" I shouted as I turned around, releasing my own sword from my foreleg as I saw the Xartik trying to pounce at me again. Ducking beneath it, I swung my blade at one of its legs, only for the shielding to hold up against the strike. At the same time, I could hear Resolute's blade banging off the Xartik's shield as well as I noticed one of its inner legs reaching out in an attempt to grab me. This prompted me to roll forward, with my shield flaring when the boys claw scraped against my backside.
As I rolled back into my hooves after the Xartik passed over me, I saw Resolute dodging a swiping claw as he shouted, “You will not lay a claw on our Captain!”
“Resolute, get away from that Xartik, you dumbass!” I yelled as I took my rifle as started to open fire at the bot. Off to the side of my vision, I could see my squad alongside Resolute’s team rushing towards us as they were taking shots at any Xartik drones in their way.
“Captain! I can handle this as long as I st-“ Resolute started to say as he was darting left to right to dodge the swipes from the Xartik’s claws as he swung his sword at them in retaliation, only for its rear end to suddenly rise up as the rear legs darted to Resolute. The left leg grabbed onto his head while the right latched onto his rear legs, causing him to let out a yelp before crying out in pain as the Xartik's legs pulled at him while I was firing my rifle at one of its limbs. Sadly, I couldn't break through its shield as I watched in horror as the Xartik pulled Resolute apart before tossing his halves aside like he was some discarded toy.
“Shit...” I muttered to myself, making note that close range combat was a terrible method of attack if the Xartik was just going to pull us apart. As the Xartik returned its attention towards me, I looked back at my squad and Resolute's. Seeing the looks of horror on their faces along with a few of them looking more green, I shouted, "Get back! Don't engage in close-quarters combat, and don't clump together!"
Hearing the Xartik launching off the ground in another attempt to pounce on me, I let off a teleport spell, appearing about thirty feet away from it and closer to the frontlines. However, before I could turn around to run to safety, I felt a sudden surge of magical energy as I saw a beam of yellowish-orange light surge down at the Xartik. Looking up at the sky, I saw Celestia, decked out in golden armor, with a fierce yet determined expression on her face.
“Wow, the princess looks amazing in armor,” Agate commented as he and a few of the others stared at the sight until I fired a round into the air.
“Get your act together before the Xartik fires a shot up your asses!” I shouted, as I scanned our surroundings, where I saw Xartik soldiers scrambling to reform a new defensive line. “Take those bots down before they get reorganized!” I ordered before rushing towards some cover, only to pause as I heard Celestia landing beside me.
Looking up at her, I could see through her protective visor that she was angry, probably due to what happened to Resolute. Putting a hoof up to her own radio, Celestia ordered, “All forces in the central battleground, pull away from close quarters combat,” as she turned to look at the sun in the sky.
"What do the fu—“ I started to say before Celestia lit her horn up brighter as two beams of energy surge from the sun as the one that hit the new Xartik drone faded away, leaving a smoking molten crater as the two new beams crashed into the two broken ends of the Xartik line. “Sweet Luna,” I croaked out as Celestia directed the beams into the rest of the Xartik, leaving behind the molten remains.
“Maybe this will convince the Xartik to leave us alone,” Agate commented, only for me to slap the back of his head.
“This is nothing more than a nuisance to them. We only have two alicorns available, which only gives us around the firepower of a capital spaceship space. I don’t know if I’m low balling it or overestimating them, but we only have a shot at winning these ground battles due to Dis-“ I said until a giant metal claw burst out of the ground, wrapping its talons around me. I could feel the heat radiating off the claws, alerting me to the fact that the six-legged Xartik survived Celestia’s attack by simply burrowing beneath the ground.
“Captain!” Agate and Night cried out in shock, though Cherry and Windbag rushed to the claws. Cherry grabbed onto one claw with her forehooves, bracing her rear ones against the ground as she tried to pull it up. Meanwhile, Windbag took a metal handle from his side, activating it to create an energy ax that he would promptly start chopping at one of the other claw's joints.
"Fuck this thing to all corners of Tartarus!" I shouted as I tried to move my hoof to my sword, only to notice that a golden glow had surrounded the claw, prying it wide open. Jumping out of the claw as Windbag and Cherry backed away, I looked up to catch the sight of Celestia looking down at the Xartik while still releasing what I would feel as her ‘solar death rays.’ “Seems like she’s decent in multitasking during a battle,” I commented before as I pulled out my sword, only to witness Celestia pulling the Xartik out of the ground before using her magic to slowly crush the robot into a chunk of scrap.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Windbag commented, causing me to smack the back of his head. “Hey, What was that for?”
“Instead of acting like this is some show, get back to picking off any stragglers or search for any Xartik that might be waiting to ambush!” I roared, as I saw our troops through the cooling remnants of the Xartik Celestia fried. Checking myself to make certain that no molten pieces of the new Xartik unit were jammed onto my armor before I charged forward, my squad following directly behind me.
“All that talk and the Xartik quickly folded before the princess and our forces.”
“Windbag, I swear by Luna’s starry mane, if you don’t stop complaining, I’m putting you on latrine duty!”
“But there are no latrines when we can get back to base where we have working toilets.”
“Then I’ll have you dig us a dozen of them and have some troops use them as a training exercise for long term deployment in the woods!” I hollered as we were inspecting the battlefield. Celestia’s magic was more than enough to break through enemy lines, though it did leave large portions of the enemy army as molten slag. As Celestia was surveying the rest of the forest for any signs of the enemy, the rest of the army was back to salvaging the enemy remains.
“Isn’t this... gruesome for us to simply haul off the enemy like they’re loot?” Flare asked as she was lugging a half-molten Xartik unto a waiting transport chopper.
“They're simply machines, Flare. If the enemy won and had a foothold, they would simply recycle the fallen to make new robots out of them. Not to mention, they would have dragged our fallen's corpses to some laboratory for dissection or even worse," I answered as I watched as a copter was hovering above the remains of the six-legged Xartik drone.
“Is that something most alien empires would do?” Night asked as she picked up one of the few alien firearms that survived Celestia’s onslaught.
"Oh no, some of them might just enslave us, and if they're one of the more predatorial species, they may simply have us be livestock for them," I calmly answered as I picked up a Xartik rifle and looked down its scope.
Agate then turned to look at me with an aghast look, as he asked, "Please tell me that you're joking, captain."
Raising an eyebrow at Agate, I replied, "Considering that these empires have resulted in displaced populations that slowly approach extinction due to economic circumstances, it shouldn't be that surprising that some empires would do that instead. While there are conditions and rules that the various factions agree on in regards to worlds that are shared between them, on their own private turf, who knows what they could be up to."
"So based on what you're saying, there could be a ruler that enslaves creatures to make them act out some kind of story just for the ruler's amusement?" Night asked, causing me to roll my eyes.
"Night, there is someone out there that has creatures doing all sorts of things, some that I won't mention cause I don't want to break your minds, when I need you lot focused on blowing holes in the enemy's heads," I answered with a snort before spotting a pegasus mare who was poking at one of the Xartik rifles with one of her wing feathers. "Stop poking it before you accidentally fire it and blow one of your squadmate's heads off! Just pick it up already and stow it with the rest!"
As the pony was scrambling to pick up the gun, I heard a voice behind me saying, "Do you really need to yell at her for approaching that rifle with caution?” As my troops and I jumped back from the voice in shock, I drew my rifle as I turned around to point at the speaker. I lowered however when I saw that the speaker was Celestia, who was standing there with a bemused expression.
“Where the buck you come from? I didn’t feel nor hear you use a teleportation spell,” I asked as I bolstered my rifle as the others were doing the same. With Celestia’s armor being gold plated, I was wondering how I couldn’t notice her approach without spotting her from a mile away.
Smiling still, Celestia replied, “I do recall how you always said that the Solar Guard’s armor makes them easy targets for the enemy, so I worked on a spell that could blend the light around me to render me invisible whenever I pleased.”
Rubbing my chin with a hoof, I stated, “That’s a rather useful spell... if we weren’t facing the Xartik. They probably have some sort of thermal vision installed or some other kind of detection that we can’t cover right now.”
“A shame that isn’t an option for reconnaissance operations,” Celestia replied as she turned her head to look over the battlefield with a sorrowful expression. “Aether, was... Resolute’s death something that will be commonplace as we continue to fight the Xartik?”
Letting out a sigh, I answered, “No...” causing Celestia to look at me with a surprised look plastered on her face. A look that faded away as she saw the solemn expression on my face as I continued, “Cause the Xartik will use far worse means to kill us when they’re done tossing cannon fodder at us.”
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Yay! Update, even though its unedited! How do you feel about using other people's OCs?
Cannon fodder, huh? Do we even want to see what happens if the Xartik take Equis seriously? And Resolute's death was mostly his own fault. Like, if he got pounced on and then torn apart that'd be one thing, but Aether did shout at him to fall back.
Ok wtf this story has property's of what mine had it it and mine was ass so wiard
But if she's bending light to turn invisible, then she could just bend infrared, too, and thermal wouldn't work...
They could still use
radarsonar (this is what I get for posting right before sleep) (and probably do, I bet they've fought cloaking tech before) or something esoteric, but detecting heat needs light.As long as they don't go as Freezer and destroy the planet just because they are sore-losers...
9439882
Might actually be a good idea for Celestia, go for their suns and crash them at their own planets. Good offense and all that.
Goddammit...what a horrid way to die. RIP Resolute.
At least she isn't a weakling in this story.
Nice chapter, good work.
9439385
Radar is also light. There's magnetics and air displacement?
Gotem
9442137
No, Silvak was just showing how adaptable the Xartik are. Celestia had already used that trick once before.
For every move you make, there's a countermove the enemy will soon use. For every counter-countermove you develop to block that, the enemy will quickly learn a counter-counter-countermove. And so on, and so on.
They're like the Borg, only not as sociable.
9445691
I know. I'm just joking with how so many people like to make Celestia be a pushover ever since her fight with Chrysalis.
How did I miss these updates for so long? Welp. Only two chapters but time to catch up.
9439385
Yeah but it would make an absence of heat.
9820206
No, it would not. Just as invisibility to normal light makes you invisible, not a solid black shape, invisibility to infrared would make infrared cameras see whatever is behind you. It can't work, not without some scifi "heat sensor" that works off Handwavium and not light - and in that case, you may as well handwave them as having a "matter sensor" that can directly detect the presence of matter, thus making any non-esoteric stealth useless.
RL getting in the way?
Updates on the way?
That's almost kinda meta... also as I was writing this I was seeing an advertisement for Westworld
Distorted fate, The Lost Prince Returns, and Past Sins
Ather Aura, Dawn Light, and Nyx Now thats a combo that would make someone's a day!!
I can haz upd8s?
Update Pleeeaaaassssseeeee 😇😇☺️😊
Hopefull boop
I hope there are more chapters
Oh no! The Next button broke again!
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. And definitely made up for the previous book as that was really tiresome to read at the end.
I am going to hope that this story will continue, even though it has been almost two years since last update. But so far it isn't four years, and the author isn't dead, it can always come back.
Wish you made an unrelated chapter where Anon Filly meets Aether. I would imagine they would get along fine, and when I define 'fine' is choking each other's throat until 1 Victor comes out top
11257039
That does sound familiar, but I can't recall if it was a book or a movie.
No answer for MP nor in comments... So I can guess the author just forgot there is a nice tag 'CANCELLED'
Hi I've been wondering when are you going to continue this story and nocturnal Mayhem because these stories are really good well I like them