A Heart of Stone

by TheWhiteFreak

Ch. 5 Armor of the Sun

Ch. 5 Armor of the Sun

**

“*pant*… *pant*… dammit… *pant*… Celestia dammit! Why are those bucking bandits here!?” Red Shot was breathing heavily after running behind a house before shooting another arrow right between the eyes of an earth pony.
Attacking the army was merely his own stubbornness more than any chance of winning; he knew this research station was lost the second the bandits set their sights on it the place. Those greenhorns that Second Gear hired were probably all dead, they were there mostly as a façade of power than any form of actual skill.

He was running in between the houses, hoping to somehow make it to the Protector Tower, praying that it would miraculously repel the attackers. He quickly popped his head out from behind a house and took down another pony and ducked down as a lightning bolt arced through the air right above his head.

“*pant*… ha… *pant*… gotta be faster than that mate.” He rasped out with a smile as he raced around another building, only yards away from the tower.

He looked up at the tower and saw bolts of energy come from the attacking forces connected with the tower and it detonated in a shower of sparks and metal.

“BUCK!” Red shouted as he dove into the snow.

He lifted himself back out of the snow and cursed his luck at the sight of the tower; it was nothing but a twisted skeleton of what it once was. Pipes and gears were scattered all around the site while the tower itself was banana-peeled around the center with pipes bent outward in every direction. Red let out a sigh and dropped his head before a faint glimmer of light drew his attention, he looked up and saw the suit of armor that had wandered into the town almost two months ago was standing onto of the remains of the tower.

‘What is that thing up to?’ he thought to himself as he watched the strange creature.

He watched it as it turned it head towards the army, looked back at the tower, reached for something before recoiling its hand back quickly. It turned back to look at the army once again before grabbing for something with both of its appendages. Red Shot was knocked off his hooves by a huge blast of wind, his senses were dulled and his entire body was tingling, he stared up at the sky and watched as all the clouds were blown away, revealing Luna’s stars, even the wind and snow from the storm was blasted away, leaving only an eerie silence. He rolled over and tried to get back to his hooves but his legs were trembling like a new born foal. He turned his head back to the tower and saw something nearly overwhelmed his mind.

The suit of armor was standing there; the blue crystal was gone and was replaced by a glowing red light like the fires of the sun itself. The spires that were sticking out of its shoulders had shattered to pieces but they were floating in the air, as if held by an invisible force as they had no magic aura surrounding them and flames were erupting from where the spires stood. Red could only stare at the armor that made him feel like he was standing in front of Celestia herself. He watched as the creature leapt over the railing of the tower and landed in the snow with a quiet thud, the snow instantly started melting and evaporating from around its feet as he stood up. It then let lose a thunderous roar that rattled Red’s teeth before he lunged forward with such incredible speed that he became a blur of light

**

I grabbed the ball of energy and instantly felt the effects, insane amounts of magic started pouring into me, I almost couldn’t keep track of it all, and it felt amazing and terrifying at the same time. I released the ball and took a step back and looked at it, gone was the strange swirling mass in the center of it and it looked like a plain glass orb. I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands, my entire body was glowing like a spotlight yet I didn’t have to squint my eyes at all. I felt AMAZING! Like I just drank a case of Red Bull and had way too much energy to just sit still. I turned to face the approaching army before heaving myself over the railing and fell to the ground. As I fell, the world seemed to be moving at quarter-speed, even the fall from the machine which was only ten feet high, it felt like it took thirty seconds. I heard a quiet sizzling and I looked down and saw the snow around my feet melted away in seconds.

The strange feeling I had when I first woke up returned again and I realized that my body was moving on its own, like I was a passenger of my own mind.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” I roared out as I ran headfirst into the soldiers with a sword as my left and an axe as my right.

My body felt like it was moving on its own, like I was a passenger watching through the eyes of another but even though I wasn’t in direct control of my body, it seemed to take my ideas and use them as I thought of them.

'I' reached the front lines in seconds and loped off the heads of the first two ponies before any of them could react. The rest were all looking away, apparently blinded by the light but that didn’t stop me as I continued cutting down more and more of them. I cleaved the head of a unicorn in half, watching as his brains spilled out in a shower of blood, I hacked off the two front legs off an earth pony, my sword sailing through his steel armor, skin, muscle, bones and the earth beneath him like water, I then cut another one clear in half from chest to tail, separating him from his legs, and five other ponies before the first even hit the ground.

[....]

A few of the other ponies, still unable to see, started stabbing wildly at where they thought I was, most missed by a mile, one actually stabbed another pony right in the eye and the only one to actually hit me got a glancing blow against my upper arm with a spear before catching under my shoulder and snapping like a toothpick as I brought my axe around and decapitated him. Time was beginning to speed back up and the light was fading fast.

‘I’m running out of time, gotta finish this now.’

I brought both my hands together and morphed them into a greatsword about fifteen feet in length, I groaned as the weight sent me off balance and the tip fell into the dirt. With another roar, I spun my body around in a circle, bringing the sword around in a massive arc, slicing through dozens of ponies in a single swing. The sword changed back into my hands and I fell to one knee, panting heavily. I looked up; hoping that I had killed the last of them and my eyes went wide when there was still another six ponies alive, all unicorns.

‘Fuck, it just had to be all unicorns did it Murphy?’ I sighed as they all charge up spells in their horns.

I watched as the heads of two unicorns standing next to each other suddenly exploded that showered me in blood, brains and bone. They all turned suddenly to see what had killed the two of them, but I took full advantage of their lapse in focus, I smashed my head straight into one of the unicorns, snapping his horn off and hearing the satisfying crunch of a fractured skull as I grabbed two of the others in my hands. I clenched my fingers closed until I felt the snap of breaking bones and the ponies went limp. I dropped them and looked to the final unicorn; he flinched backwards as I locked eyes with him. I lunged at him, he cried out in terror and launched a lightning bolt that was off target and hit me in one of the spires on my shoulder. The blast sent pain through my shoulder that sent me off balance and I ended up tripping over my feet and body slamming into the pony. I got to my hands and knees and saw that I was directly on top of the pony, he was unconscious and his legs were bent and twisted at wrong angles, showing me that they were broken. I raised my hand, clenched it into a fist, and slammed down hard on his head, the last sound of his life merely the sound of his brains as they squished between my fist and the dirt.

I stumbled back to my feet and snapped my head around, hoping that there were no more ponies hiding somewhere waiting for me to drop my guard. Deciding that I was fairly safe the reality of what I just did finally sunk in as I came down off my adrenaline and magically-supercharged high as I collapsed to my knees, emotionally and physically drained. My body was tingling and felt like it was made of lead and the crystals were flickering from blue to black and every color in between.

‘Guess my body can’t handle having that much magic running through me for very long, gives new meaning to ‘burn twice as bright for half as long.’

“Bucking Celestia, you are a one-pony army mate!” a voice that was happy and jovial and sounded like an Australian called out from behind me.

My flickering crystals soon settled back down to a slightly dimmed blue and I reassumed control of my body as I struggled to get back to my feet, spun around and took a defensive position and came eye to eye with a red coat pony with a blue mane and a longbow strapped to his back that looked vaguely familiar. He was also wearing a heavy coat that covered most of his body except for his face.

“Whoa, whoa mate, I mean ya no harm.” He brought his hoof up over his face in some form of submission.

“Who... are... you?” my arms felt like they weighted a thousand pounds each and my legs were shaking while trying to hold myself up.

“Name’s Red Shot,” he placed a hoof on his chest, “leader of the merry band of mercs that watch… er… watched over Research Station Alpha” he said with a sheepish smile as he looked over the remains of the research station.

Most of the buildings were destroyed; those that weren’t were fully engulfed in fire. A sudden realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

‘Third Gear!’

“Hey, Red Eye or what-”

“It’s Red Shot!” he huffed at me.

“Whatever. Is there a medical building somewhere?”

“Yea its right over… well damn, that sucks” he turned around to point at a building but ended up pointed at the splintered remains of a building.

‘Son of a bitch, I just can’t catch a break can I?’ I staggered past Red Shot, my legs felt like they were made of rubber and I stumbled with almost every step and straight to the remains of the medical building.

‘Come on, come on! There has got to be something here!’ I quickly scanned the remains of the buildings, tearing away splintered beams, chunks of wood and all sorts of broken medical supplies, ‘Ah ha!’ I exclaimed in my head as I came across a tin box with a red cross on it.

I quickly opened the box and scanned the contents.

‘Let’s see, gauze, disinfectant, pain killers, good, it’s all here’ I quickly snapped the kit shut and lumbered back towards the house where I left Third.

As I staggered as fast as I could, I was soon joined by Red Shot following next to me; I snapped my head to face him.

“What do you want?” I growled as I passed more destroyed building.

“I came to help ya out, ya saved my life, I owe ya a debt” he answered as we came upon the house again.

I didn’t say anything back to him as I walked over to where Third was hiding and lifted the rubble out of the way and knelt down next to her. She was still unconscious, but still had a heartbeat.

“Oy, is that the foal Third Gear?” Red asked as he walked up beside me and looked down at her.

“Yes.”

“She don’t look so hot, you think you can help her.”

“SHUT UP! I am going to save her! I’m not going lose someone else!” I shouted at him as I tore open a package of gauze and started carefully wrapping it around Third.

I had to be careful, my fingers were still sharp and I didn’t want to give any more cuts than she had. I had never bandaged an injured person back when I was human and doing so in a body with razor-sharp fingers added an extra level of difficulty that I did not appreciate.

“FUCK!” the bandages weren’t doing their job; she was losing too much blood, she was going to die at the rate she was going.

The bandages were suddenly engulfed in a dark red and they lifted into the air.

“Buck mate, you can’t do emergency first aid to save your life, step aside, I’ll have this filly taken care of in a jiffy.”

I couldn’t do anything to help so I just shifted to the side and hoped that he could somehow help her. I paced around the floor of the room, still unable to feel the cold of the weather but the icy grip in my heart still made me shiver, I kept pacing until a cough from Red drew my attention.

“Alright mate, I’ve done everything I could, it’s up to her now.”

I rushed over and quickly looked down at Third, she looked more like a mummy than a pony, her wings were individually bandaged and then tied to her side to prevent her from using them, her body was covered in bandages with some red splotches on them, even her horn was wrapped up but as I placed my hand on her side, I could still feel her heart, it was weak, but steady. I let out a sigh before I leaned up against the remains of a wall, right next to her. Red Shot let out a sigh of his own before slumping down next to me.

“So mate, mind tellin’ me yer name?” he asked with a cheesy grin on his face

“Diamant.”

“Diamant eh? Well then if ya don’t mind me askin’ what are ya? I’ve never seen a living suit of armor before.”

“I’m not a suit of armor, I’m a Magic Eater” I answered with a little frustration, why him calling me a suit of armor bothered me, I had no idea.

“That how ya turned yer claw thingys into swords and what not? That the abilities of yer race?”

“Yes, and they are called hands, but I don’t know of any other Magic Eaters, the last sighting was apparently millennia ago. I think that I am the only one left” my head drooped a little; the thought of being the last of anything unsettled me.

“Oh… uh… sorry mate, I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“Yea, well… whatever, why don’t you go see if there are any other survivors or something.”

“Alright mate, be back in a little bit” he answered as he got up and walked out of sight.

I followed him with my eyes till he was out of sight before giving another sigh and looking down at Third and noticed her shiver, I reached over and grabbed a scrap of a bed sheet that large enough to cover her and wrapped her up in it. I tilted my head back and got an eyeful of the extremely clear night sky, there were stars everywhere, it almost seemed way too crowded with stars just thrown around randomly but then I remembered where I was.

‘I wonder how long it takes… Luna to make each night?’

I kept star gazing looking to see if I could spot any familiar constellations but my lack of any real knowledge in astronomy kept me from recognizing any of them. It was strangely calming staring up at the stars and I didn’t even notice when my eyes grew heavy and I fell asleep.

**

My sleep was interrupted by a large boom that rocked to caverns and sent dust and a few small rocks tumbling down from the ceiling, one of which hit me square in the head and rolled out of my bed while clutching my head. I was interrupted from nursing my head by my friend poking me in the shoulder.

“Something is wrong. That boom wasn’t from a cave-in or simple digging. We have to go see her!” I nodded my head and stood up and followed him as we raced through the door.

As soon as we passed the doorway we knew immediately that something was very wrong. The others were all racing towards the sound that had rocked the cave; I had suspected it was from somewhere down in the lower caves but the direction the others were running only led to one place, the entrance, we were under attack. I was tempted to follow them, to see what had happened, but I knew that we had a different job than the rest.

“Come on, if we truly are under attack, we have no time to waste!” he nodded his head and we raced through oncoming crowd.

The going was slow, fighting against the tide of the others was slow as they had a job to do and were unwavering in their resolve to complete it, as were we but in the opposite direction. I was bumping shoulders almost every other second, almost knocking me to the ground but still I pressed on until I felt something wrap around my neck and pulled me against the wall.

“This way! We can use the service tunnel to get around the crowd!” he shouted at me that I barely heard over the noise of the crowd running through the cave and shouting orders of their own.

I gave him a nod and we were soon racing through one of smaller service tunnels that were barely big enough to fit me as I followed behind him. I could still hear the din of the crowd as they raced by and it was soon accompanied by a series of thud and muffled booms that shook the walls just as fiercely as the first one that roused me from my sleep. After what felt like a few minutes the service tunnel had looped around and exited into one of the main caverns and was mostly empty aside from a few stragglers who were making their way to the surface. We quickly got our bearings and recognized where we were and quickly sped off into another cavern.

“We must hurry! We cannot fail!” I shouted to him as we raced through the darkened caverns with practiced ease, we had been down this way many times and could probably make it with our eyes shut.

He nodded again and we ran even faster, my legs were burning, my throat was dry and ragged but I did not slow down, we had a job to do and would see it finished even if it killed us. We soon came upon our destination and there she sat, quietly weeping. She heard us enter and looked up at us, her beautiful green eyes were marred by tears as they swelled and fell down her equally beautiful face.

“You have come! I was so worried that none would make it here in time!” her face brightened immediately that also lifted our spirits as she lifted herself out of her seat and quickly walked up to us.

“A-are we the first ones to make it here?” I looked up at her with worry.

“I am afraid so and there is not enough time to wait for the others, you two must escape this place, now please, lower your heads.”

I wanted to object, to beg her to wait for the others; this charge was far too great for just us but as soon as my eyes met hers, all desire to object bled away from me in an instant. I lowered my head and closed my eyes and felt her touch on my forehead and a tsunami of memories crashed into my head, all the memories that she has been burdened to carry for her long life, the memories of lives lost, battles won, challenges overcome and the secrets that weighed heavy in her mind. All of these were now mine and they weighed as heavy in my mind as they did in hers. Once she was finished she looked down on both of us with tears still running down her face and a forced smile on her face.

“You must hurry, there is not much time before the invaders breach this place” she looked back to her chair and gave it a swift kick, knocking it over and revealing a small tunnel that was the same size as the service tunnel, “this will lead to the outside, now please, you must go now!” she was still crying but her voice was strong and unwavering.

I lingered for a moment as my friend entered the tunnel first, I looked back at her as she turned her head towards the tunnel entrance that we came from, the sounds of shouting ponies and the clatter of weapons rang out against the cold walls of the tunnels. The ponies came bursting into the room and she took a defensive stance, ready to slay the invaders of our home. They all gave out a battle cry and charged her and she in turn gave a cry of her own and a massive wave of green fire erupted around them and engulfed them and reduced them to ashes in seconds.

I suddenly felt a tug on my back leg and saw that my friend had remerged from the tunnel and had grabbed my leg; he gave a strong tug that made me lose my balance and fall over as he dragged me to the tunnel. I struggled against him, trying to kick him off of me.

“No! Let me go! I will not abandon her!” I continued to struggle but his grip would not falter and I was soon hanging on the edge of the tunnel.

With a final tug I slipped over the edge of the tunnel and the last glimpse of her was her looking back at me, her eyes were somber and full of sadness and a halfhearted smile on her face.

“MY QUEEN!” the entrance of the tunnel erupted in green fire and collapsed as she sealed the only way back to her closed.

**

I lurched awake and saw that I was once again leaning up against the destroyed wall with Third Gear right next to me and Red Shot sitting a few feet away with a roaring fire in between us. He gave me an uneasy look as he turned his head and I followed his eyes and saw that sitting close to the fire was a green coated pony with a bandage over his eye.

Comments

[SwiftEthan]

Wow...Diamant is an absolutely badass. Keep doing what you're doing, because it's working.

[Drknss]

ME GUSTA

[Referments]

FIRST!!!

[Allen H]

The flashback was kinda confusing until i reached the middle of it. other than that, the story is nice.

[Allen H]

sry for a second posting, but would you consider a magic eater to be a type of golem?

[WarpPony]

1061780 NOPE

[TheWhiteFreak]

1061863
Yes I would, it is obviously made up for those who follow D&D and such but I didn't want him to only have his fists as weapons

[Allen H]

1061896
Ok, I was just asking, due to probbly going to write a Chress game of the gods story my self. has a golem too, but would seem to be the first one to have a female one. been trying to read a few of the stories to get a hand one what I must write.

[Lighter Knight]

He should pretend to be a statue in a museum and start terrorizing guards that work in the night-shift

[Referments]

1061876 i just wanted to be first

[lolz anonymous]

well... that was fast...

[demanji]

1066340well to bad you were third

[Magna85]

A little late, but is Red Eye a reference to Red Eye from FO:E? Took me a couple seconds to realize it, but I had to ask.

[Pelakka_wurm]

1061896
D&D IS AWSOME

[Pelakka_wurm]

1066179
agreed