Cold Scales

by Konatra

Briefing

Dusk's eyes broke open from a rather unusual amount of crust in his eyes keeping them closed. "BY SOLARIS!" The prince could not believe he passed out in front of an intergalactic envoy! He scrambled up from the bed... bed he was tucked into. "Wha?" He questioned. He looked around to see he was back in his room in the castle and for the first time in a while he felt refreshed.

"...oh I get it." A smile touching on his face. "I was dreaming this whole time, Spines going missing, dark demons, robot aliens?" He started chuckling. "Boy, I need to stop drinking soda before bed." Getting up the Prince started his morning routine of washing up, brushing his mane, etc. "Wait until I tell Spines about this one." He mused going out to the balcony to overlook Ponyville...

Dusk had a grand view of the immaculate black and green wall that entrapped his town with large turrets jutting out of each section. They seemed to survey the outside perimeter. The landscape outside was a mess of craters, and burnt grass. Despite the obvious signs of warfare that had overtaken the land there were no bodies to be found sans one rather horrifying sight not too far off from the wall.

A red and purple flesh mass about four meters in length and width pulsated like a tumor. It bulged a bit violently and in response one of the four lean androids guarding it stabbed its center with a long toothpick-like pole and electrocuted the flesh for several seconds until it stopped moving.

Dusk noted this as a definite contender for top five worst things he has seen in his life thus far. Holding back a shudder and suppressing the image for later therapy he quickly made his way out of the castle to figure out just what to do next. Rushing down the hall Dusk almost missed the sight of Blitz crashing on his couch with a comic in his grasp. Blitz looked up at the slightly more put-together Prince in shock.

"Oh crap you're up! Guys, he's up!" Dusk saw both Applejack and Scotch get up from the other seats.

Dusk feeling glad for a sense of normalcy went to them. "Someone explain to me what the flying hoof has been going on out there." It was AJ who was the first to begin.

"Well, I'll be the first to admit when I'm wrong..." The farm pony said looking down. "I was wrong, buncha metal aliens and black demons were tearing each other limb from limb out there a few days ago and you were out cold for the entirety of it."

Dusk nodded and simultaneously took a double-take. "Wh- a few DAYS?" Butterscotch was the next to explain.

"You've been unconscious for almost three days now, we were really starting to worry..."

Blitz chimed in. "Only reason the doc didn't hook you up to any IV stuff was cuz we were told by Solaris that Alicorns can go about a month without needing any foodstuff in a comatose state. So we just stayed here to turn you every few hours cuz of bedsores or something."

Solaris never told him anything about that. In more important manners, "Uh, thanks guys for that. Really but how about someone explains what's going on outside with the robots and the wall and the massive, throbbing, pile of flesh outside."

Rainbow Blitz continued on "So yeah, there was like a huge war outside that lasted for a few minutes, I saw it when I flew up to see. There were like a million of these weird crazy monster things and this huge bloody one that Queen robot fought...she got torn to bits by it but the wall started blasting the monsters with thousands of guns and won the battle."

Dusk once again nodded. "The Queen got damaged?" He only met her for a few minutes but he was grateful for the assistance, to hear she got hurt made him feel uneasy.

Blitz nodded. "Yeah and I didn't get the best view from the distance I was at but I'm pretty sure each of her limbs were missing when the other bots took her away to Canterlot. I'd be lying if I said it looked good..."

Something inside Dusk quivered like he just learned devastating news...yes she was here to help but for some reason, this felt personal. "Solaris said he would be hereafter our meeting."

"He got here after the battle ended and came to make sure you were okay, Blitz told him what happened to the Queen which he then seemed to rush his way back to Canterlot."

'Probably to fortify defenses back in Canterlot...' Dusk mused pacing around the room, then he stopped frozen in his tracks. "Did they attack Canterlot?"

"Well we haven't gotten word from them yet but I would think we would of see damages or smoke at this distance." If the same brutality that attacked Ponyville hit the capital there were sure to be great visual signs with how relatively close Canterlot is.

Another one of Dusk's fears has been quelled for now. "Alright, so what's going on outside?" He hated being so in the dark, a whole new world was unfolding right in front of him and he had no way to react. AJ brought himself closer.

"Well there's a huge wall around us, those junk heads practically kicked us out of the farm cuz it was too close to the forest and took our jobs for themselves...to be fair I'm not going to fight them on this for now. I may be stubborn but this is a whole nother beast. The family has been crashing at friends' houses until those bots 'accommodate', us so they say, whatever that means." The farm pony looked miffed.

Blitz went on. "Everything is kinda normal despite the fact we can't leave until we get an 'all clear' and that there's a guard every block watching us and sometimes helping out with chores...it's pretty bizarre Dusk." Saying this Blitz popped open a window and pointed out to the town below.

Dusk looked down to see those androids from before patrolling the streets. They stuck out with their black shine in the technicolor wasteland that was Ponyville. The androids on top of the wall holding up guns really made this look like a prison yard. "Last question Blitz, why the flesh mass?"

Some sick sense of amusement lit up in the speed Pony's eyes. "Ohho that was brutal, the robot Queen blew herself up and that huge flesh monster in one huge ass explosion and then the wall started shooting like a million times. But after that a bit of it is still there moving around sometimes. I'm not sure why those tin heads haven't destroyed it yet but they've been burning it every time it moves."

Dusk sighed inwardly. "Just great another 'unknown' to deal with." He started towards the exit. "I need to speak to who's in charge of these aliens, stay here and keep overlook on the town." Like the wind, he was gone.

Blitz gruffed. "Yes your 'majesty'."

"You think we should be doing something...I dunno, more important than sitting around here all day?" AJ asked.

"Nah, intergalactic peacekeeper isn't really our strong suit. For once I think it's best for Dusk to handle the hoof work on this one." Blitz didn't trust himself or AppleJack not to start a galactic war on accident.

Scotch sat there preparing tea looking a bit gloomy. "I feel really bad for Dusk, he has to deal with so much and doesn't have time to spare finding Spines. The two winced at the name, due to the increasingly chaotic events these past days the missing dragoness just couldn't find the time to be relevant in their minds.

___

"I need to know what happened while I was out." Spines sat propped up on a modified chair that kept her upright despite her lack of appendages. Her father Solaris sat by her side to support and witness this war council meeting she set up.

Spines was doing well to ignore the glaring issue that was her crippled state but the thing was no one cared. In the room and out there with her loyal followers, no one would question her ability to command or fight. The Androids of Unity will serve and fight to the last under her no matter the injury, affliction or even mental state, pending very specific circumstances.

Right now she needed to know how many Spawn were left, the state of Ponyville, and the progress of her forces. She needed to get those dormant moon forces down ASAP before another potential wave. With her and Bek out of the picture, they were short on heavy hitters.

The few Captains, Majors, Lieutenants, etc, she had were sitting around a holographic 3D map of Equestria. With the sudden destruction of Commander Bek there left a power vacuum in her rank they were still calculating how to fill. Speaking of-

"We've found the remains of Commander Bek that were salvageable inside the remains of the Clot Spawn." Captain J3-90 'Jems' presented the preserved mangled corpse of Bek. The only thing that survived was an arm and bits of the head. Spines frowned at the image, the one who guided her through her start as Carbon, was gone. "We can rebuild him." Hope struck Spines. "Fragments of his brain unit can be pieced together with a blank slate, we need more resources first but once possible he can be remade, he will not be exactly as he was before but the 'soul' as the other Generals put it will persist on."

She thought on this, if even a chance existed for her right hand to be brought back she would take it. "Yes, please do all you can to restore him." Jems saluted as he motioned for two grunts to take the corpse into R&D for a deep bit inspection.

Solaris was next to speak about something he has been worried about days prior. "Listen all of you." All took attention. "Days ago during the battle of Ponyville before my group began leaving Canterlot after you all left we heard an unearthly loud boom coming from the base of the mountain. Many of us felt a kind of 'static' sensation but none of my men can figure out what caused the phenomenon.

lieutenant KI-88, an esteemed unit named Korite brought up a schematic of the ship showing the bow. "I wish we had this information sooner your Highness. This explains the sudden loss of power near the front area near the same time you described." The report showed several stations suddenly went offline but what made it not warrant investigation was the fact the whole ship was prone to losing power in several sectors due to the fact they ran on a backup grid. But losing several stations all at once did raise non installed eyebrows but the emergency battle and Spines' surgery took the focus off the rather small issue. "If you were able to feel a static surge all the way up the mountain then we have a high likelihood of energy weapon of some sort, possibly an EMP." The room became frantic with orders from the commanders who moved their troops with their wireless connections. Spines was relayed information as it came through her earpiece.

in minutes a hull sweep was made, logs checked, Units counted and the outside searched. No hull breaches, security feed showed nothing out of the ordinary, all Units accounted for but what the search party found but the whole ship on high alert.

"Blood?" Solaris asked for clarification.

"Void blood Father, pure corrupted Void blood in the process of infecting the landscape." A scrub team was sent out quickly to cleanse the zone of the contaminate. Small droplets of dark purple scattered near the base of Canterlot, already starting the process of coagulation into Spawn but worse of all... "Fresh Void blood here can only mean one thing." Spines said in horror of the new threat unfolding. "He's here. The Overlord from centuries past is here!" One Unit patched an emergency comm to her.

"General, we've found that the trail leads to a freshly made opening into the mountain, we sent a drone in and it confirms the target made it to the Void battle crui-zzZZtzz!" Her comm cut off followed by the violent shaking of the room...no, the entire ship.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" She ordered from her troops while slumped into her floating chair. Solaris struggled to keep standing from the violent tremors.

One of them, she couldn't tell which, shouted back. "VOID CRUISER IS PREPARING LIFT-OFF!" She felt an unusual sense of dread at the simple statement. The King took a step toward his daughter with confusion and fear. "What does this mean Spines?!" The shaking grew more powerful.

Solaris looked his daughter in the eye but what he saw was not the daughter he knew. "...Canterlot will be destroyed." She said void of emotion. A matter-of-fact statement the once optimistic Spines said without an ounce of spirit in her. "We're all going to die here."

As if heard the sound of an engine took to eardrum splitting sounds. The inhabitants of the room were flung violently into the wall.

The mountain shook.