Sunny 10

by CrossOverLord

And Then There Were Ten: ACT 4

And Then There Were Ten: ACT 4:

“ERRRRRRRRR!”

Hitch had to hoof it to Pipp. Despite all that previous business about the pegasus’s paucity of proficiency with her magic powers, her uninterrupted, sustained, and ceaseless shrieking never did quite acquire the cacophonous apex of a sonic cry.

Although, it was most certainly getting there regardless of the remarkable control she’d demonstrated thus far.

Verily however, he couldn’t rightly bring himself to blame her. He’d be yelling up the proverbial storm she was too were he sufficiently far away on the branch of a titanically tall tree and not close enough to the object bringing about such terror he could see the individual granules of dirt as they flowed down and off its form.

The form of a giant.

The form of a robot.

The form of a giant–basically four story tall–robot.

Tripedal.

Pentapodal.

Very, VERY bug-like.

Twin clusters of crimson, compound eyes.

Squared.

On.

Hitch.

But of course, the sheriff wanted to run. While it wasn’t the first overgrown automaton he’d ever personally witnessed weirdly enough thanks to the misguided efforts of his former deputy, it was most certainly the most… minacious. So much so that if his hooves could spirit him away faster than the monumental machine could tag him, a notion he was not confident in given how easily it’d just surprised him with the speed at which it rose from the earth, he feared he wouldn’t look back, even for a moment. Not even to see how his friends fared with the hulking, mechanical creature in their midst.

That frightened him above all.

Somehow greater than Pipp’s extended shrieking, he heard Izzy shreak, “Hitch! What are you doing!? Get away from that thing, now!”

With automatic rapidity, the giant robot hinged its head towards the big leaf maple, attention doubtlessly concentrated on the unicorn–and positively possibly the pegasus–and not on Hitch in what felt to him like forever.

The sheriff dawdled not and awayed elsewhere while the contraption was distracted at prodigious pace. He sought shelter abaft the black bark of the closest tree, an ebony, and after sliding to what he presumed to be safety and hyperventilating profusely, only then did he chance a glance back at the machine, head slowly looking around the trunk.

The giant robot remained far more… immobile… than Hitch’d discerned, eyes still pointed in the direction of Pipp and Izzy. Probably mostly the former, who kept shrieking so forcefully. Though it’d only seemingly become aware of the ponies up there in the maple once Izzy had given her warning to him, he knew he’d quickly switch to primarily analyzing the pegasus princess’s boisterousness were he in the magnified home appliance’s place.

One thing he certainly did know, though, as the moments went by and he managed to reclaim some serenity again, was that the giant robot did not appear… aggressive per say. It maintained its intimidating image, true, yet its outward actions did not affirm nearly as much alarm. Indeed, it merely stood there, examining.

A tenth of a minute passed. Two tenths. Three.

Hitch, hope replenished, believing that maybe, just maybe, things weren’t set to be much worse, dared to ponder that perhaps the contraption’s purpose was far more peaceful than he’d first surmised.

Such optimistic thoughts had to wait, however. For, ten more seconds later, something decided to plummet into view.

A large sphere, white and black, descended from the heights of the night. Crafting a screech of metal clashing against metal, it collided with the top of the giant robot’s head with such immense strength before bouncing off that the automaton almost tipped over forwards fully. It would’ve too, if not for the quick work of its arms anchoring themselves into the dirt and suspending its fall.

Soon after, when the sphere came to a thudding halt in front of it, the mecha-insectoid grabbed hold of the orb with both hands, stood back up tall as it could, and started rotating it horizontally and vertically in its grasp–all in one, fluid, automatic movement.

Hitch’d, of course, withdrawn back behind the ebony partially initially at these events, most unsure of what to take away from this development other than being kind of glad that it finally got Pipp to find silence again, which was a definite plus sign since his ears were no longer ringing like a wobbly old, analogue rotary phone.

He had to say though, he certainly felt more than an iota of unease once, with no warning telegraphed in its mechanized demeanor, the machine straightened up its head till it was parallel with the planet again, turned around in a single hop that shook some of the leaves in the surrounding trees including the one hiding Hitch as well as the sheriff himself, and from its shoulders retracted two, what could only be described as disk-shaped, drones. Each hovered on either side of the giant robot’s head before sonic booming into the forest in said head’s line of sight, the great gizmo following with a speed that, while nowhere close, was still much faster than it had any right to be being so gigantic–over a hundred miles an hour without question.

Inevitably, all three zoomed out of view, leaving the light amber stallion with a visage that spoke both of worriment and wonderment in more or less isometric terms.

That was, until he suddenly heard Izzy shout right into his ear like it was a megaphone, “Are you okay!?”

Then, he looked completely terrified as he screamed and jumped a good ten feet and spun in the air and landed on his face and yelled, “Ah!” in pain. He didn’t linger in agony however and swiftly lifted his head to face the unicorn, commanding, “Izzy! Don’t… do that!”

“Don’t do what?” she asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Don’t… just… turn up when nopony’s anticipating you to! You had me bouncing like I was on the moon I was so scared!”

“But somepony was anticipating me to just turn up. I told Pipp that that’s what I was going to do.” She craned her head around to the branch of the big leaf maple where the pegasus princess in question still rested on. “Right?”

“Yeah, I, uh, guess you did,” Pipp replied, hesitantly. “Even though I totally told you not to.”

Nodding at that first part and ignoring that last part, Izzy turned her head back at Hitch and said, “Plus, you hopping so high is a good thing! It means you can still sprint a bunch, which we’re all probably gonna have to do to stop all those alien robots.”

“What?” Hitch asked, massaging his sad, suffering face. “What do you mean alien robots?”

“Um, that tall one and those two little saucer looking thingies that just took off the same way we were going before they fell outta the sky, obviously,” Izzy responded as though it were a perfectly typical sentence, raising her eyebrow.

As Hitch stammered, trying yet failing to find the words, he heard Pipp proclaim, “Okay, I’ve been meaning to say this for a while now, but I think it’s a pretty apropos time to tell you all things considered that you’ve seen WAAAAAAAAY too much sci-fi, Iz.”

“Enough to know alien robots when I see them. Like, adoi, Pipp,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes before pointing in the direction of the automatons in discussion. “Even if you hadn’t sunk in countless hours reading, watching, and playing countless fantastically fantastic and fancifully phenomenal fiction, how else would you describe them? Do their designs match any machines you’ve ever seen on this world? Do they appear to be any you’ve even heard about? Do they even resemble the craftsponyship of equine hooves? No! The big one especially literally looked straight up like an Insecticon!”

Hitch attempted to relax his temples with both forehooves as he listened to the argument, finding issue with the last word and doing his best to remember the similar word the unicorn had used earlier before trying to correct her by asking, “Don’t you mean, Decepticon?”

“Well, yes, but actually no,” Izzy said swiftly, as though that made matters non-opaque. “Insecticons are like a type of Decepticon. Though sometimes they weren’t because they’d broken away and were out going their own way, doing their own thing. It’s all really, really, REALLY complicated and would take at least two hours of in-depth lore videos on the Canternet to explain properly.”

Hitch heard Pipp’s facehoof echo across the woods and wished very much his own mien was in sufficient condition to permit the same sans pain.

“The point is, those things are quite clearly extra-equistreal in origin! They literally crashed down from outer-space! And they’re moving towards Sunny!”

Hitch’s eyes widened and he recalled Izzy had recently said something analogous, hoof on chin as he said, “Yeah, I think I heard something about them going where we were going a couple rambles back. But how do you know for sure that Sunny’s in danger from them? I mean, scary as they were, they weren’t exactly lunging at us back there even though they had plenty of opportunity.”

“Your friendship sense?” Pipp asked.

“My friendship sense,” Izzy said, nodding matter-of-factly.

Hitch and Pipp both sighed in comprehensive exasperation.

“As to why, I don’t know, but if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with that first meteorite,” she said, using air-quotes on that final word. “And at this rate, I’m using meteorite loosely.”

Hitch grunted in thought at this, his mind quickly pulling forth the image of the giant robot holding the sphere. It was a detail that’d been paid little attention to before, yet now it stood prominent, aloft all else. The sphere was not truly a sphere. At least not technically. Or totally. Two quadrants seemed to be missing a notable amount of material, revealing an interior that all in all was greatly reminiscent of a case of some sort. A case that’d been… opened.

The sheriff huffed, his prior optimism that maybe, just maybe, the contraptions came in peace–of a sort–and that the evening couldn’t get any more labyrinthine or laborious being dashed aside like he and Pipp and Izzy were when the giant robot slammed in from the black. “Well, whatever’s going on, we aren’t going to figure it out by just standing around, thinking out loud about it.” After some neck stretches, he stood on his backhooves long enough to clap his forehooves before they landed on terra firma again and he shouted, “Okay ponies, listen up cuz here’s the offense plan!”

“Okie-dokie-lokie,” Izzy and Pipp said with varying levels of vivacity.

“Pipp up there is going to dive down here and carry me while flying till we reach the big guy while Izzy intercepts the floating, charging chargers, ideally before they reach their destination. After, we should all form up to find Sunny again. Unless one or more of us does as this cookie crumbles. If that happens, just go with the flow, you know?”

“Si, si, capitano,” Pipp said sarcastically, just as sarcastically saluting, visibly not finding the prospect of having to haul Hitch and her saddlebag which he still hefted on his back a considerable distance while keeping pace with something so surprisingly celeritous fun. “But what about Iz? Those drones broke the sound barrier. How do you honestly expect her to catch up?”

“I just assumed she’d just appear over to where she needed to be after mysteriously disappearing from our sight when we least expected, ya know?” he said, shrugging before looking back down in front of him to see naught but empty space where once the unicorn stood. “E’yup. Like clockwork.”

“Hate it when she does that.”

“Very so-so on the subject personally. Anyhoof, we need to get to blazing some trails here!”

“On it!”

Hitch whirled about and bounded forward and into the aether, fronthooves extended maximally. As he envisioned, as he had full faith in lest she actually wanted him to fall face down onto the ground again, Pipp dove into action with quickness, grabbing hold of his fronthooves with her own, and raced towards the giant robot at her topmost speed possible with the sheriff in tow.

As he struggled to keep his lips from billowing in the hundreds of miles an hour’s worth of wind, he heard the pegasus princess sonorously ask, “So, mind filling me in on the details of how exactly you plan on stopping that thing!?”

“Let you know when we get to that part!” Hitch said, or rather gave his best to given the aforementioned draft of air-resistance kind of made it difficult to say much of anything. “Still trying to solve that there problem myself!”

Verily, it was quite the considerable quandary. Direct confrontation was out of the question, incontestably so, even with magical support. His abilities didn’t work on metal and somehow he couldn’t shake the inkling that throwing rocks at it, big ones included, wouldn’t amount to much besides making it angry. Pipp’s powers might’ve fared better between potentially bringing to pass a diversified array of atmospheric effects and the vociferous force of her sonic cry. Yet, as established innumerably prior, she was no prodigy–intentionally anyways–at forgathering her capabilities to their fullest. Hardly an apprentice in the field, in fact. Depending on her mystic efficiency thusly was just asking for trouble. Yet, by that same token, depending on his was not much of an improvement, for as skillful as he was, he hadn’t the arcane might.

Regardless, Hitch soon realized that whoever took the lead in the oncoming clash, their overall methodology would have to be of the indirect category. Preferably while maintaining total stealth, or at least heavy low-visibility so that even if the machine was aware that a proverbial–maybe literal–stone was chucked into its path, its list of recourses would be rather limited and the time used searching for them was more time for Sunny and the others.

Soon, as in ten seconds later soon, the giant robot came back into view a thousand feet straight ahead, legs a blur of movement as they propelled it through the flame and smoke and the flaming and smoking trees in its path as though they were naught but towering toothpicks, and Pipp asked, “Wanna share with the rest of the class now?”

“Yeah, actually,” the sheriff responded rapidly, eyes narrowed in determination. “Finally got a lightbulb beaming or two. The first is for you to slow down and match speed so you don’t overshoot that oversized and overpriced toy and get us on its radar and so I have some extra time to think.”

“No argument here!”

Pipp performed precisely as requested, her swiftness lowering itself till it equaled the giant robot’s own.

“Anymore brilliant light bulbs?”

Hitch clicked his tongue. “Yeah, but you’re probably not gonna like it. I know I don’t.”

“What? What is it?”

He turned his head up, looked her square in the eye, and said, “I’m gonna build me a sandcastle.”

“Huh?”

“And not just any sandcastle, but the biggest, most TERRIFI-MONGOUS sandcastle I’ve ever built! Ever!”

Pipp gasped. “I knew it! I should’ve said something earlier once I saw enough of the signs, but now, there’s no doubt! You’ve gone mad! This whole situation has driven you crazy! Just as crazy as it is!”

Hitch chuckled. “You’d think so, but no. Honestly, if even a quarter of the secret, forgotten lore Sunny told me growing up is true, this event here rates at about a six, maybe a seven. Significantly emotional, but not sanity striking.”

“Ah, I see. So you’ve just always been crazy and these conditions are just giving you the chance to express that. My mistake.”

“Now, now, Pipp. I know it sounds a little off-kilter–”

“A little!?” she exclaimed, composure completely consumed. “The last sandcastle you made carved a hole in the beach bigger than the Canterlogic factory! And that was just from one little wave just a little taller than your average foal! Now you’re telling me you want to go grander in all this rain!? That could remove half the forest off the map!”

“Actually, by my estimates more like a tenth, but at that scale, really, who’s counting?”

“Um, me.”

“Pipp, look at that.” The sheriff turned his head pointed towards the giant robot, still just plowing through every tree in its way with its strength as though they were paltry impediments indeed. “Does that seem like anything we have escalatory dominance over?”

“Escalatory what?”

Hitch huffed. “We can’t go by bit packets with that bot, Pipp! We either give it everything we’ve got, dial it up to eleven now, or we’re not stopping it at all!”

“You don’t know that!”

“Might be true, but you know what I know for sure? One hundred percent? I’m not pushing my luck tonight!” He looked back at the pegasus. “Are you?”

The princess’s visage appeared visibly conflicted at this, yet still did it retain too much of its prior uncertainty for the sheriff’s liking.

“Now or never, Pipp!”

The pegasus grumbled a while before finally responding with a reluctant, “Fine!”

Hitch nodded. “Why thank you kindly, Pipp. Appreciate it a bunch.”

“You better!”

“Oh! That reminds me! Please, don’t get upset now, but just in case, and it might not even be the case so chillax before you go on getting all the more jumpy, I might, keyword: might, need you to augment my stratagem depending on how it goes by sonic screaming at that robot! A lot! Till it calls it quits!”

Pipp roared her disgruntlement. “Okay, now you’re just being extravagant!”

“Better safe than sorry as my Grannie Figgy always says!” Hitch said with a smile wide as a hillside.

“What!? I don’t remember her ever saying anything like that whenever we’ve met!”

“Yeah, well, you should’ve been in Maretime Bay back when me, Sunny, and Sprout were kids! Used to use that there proverb all the time with all the trouble we brought!”

“Was that more or less the kind of trouble I’d be bringing myself for breaking a Pinkie Promise!?”

“Extenuating circumstances, Pipp! In service, or even sufficiently presumed service, to a friend it's okie-dokie-lokie not to abide a Pinkie Promise! Besides, if you’ll recall, you said you’d keep your magic in check, not to not use it! Just think of that as some unscheduled arcane training against a very durable target! Plus, if anypony still tries to say you didn’t hold to your guarantee, just point out that Iz totally forgot and broke hers very evidently when she surprised me after the bots left!”

The pegasus’s eyes broadened. “Huh! Guess she wasn’t the only one that totally forgot about that!”

“I figured!” Hitch chuckled. “Feels like forever since that happened to me too! Just don’t forget to sing in the whistle register if I ask!”

“Got it!” the princess groaned in annoyance.

“Good! Now set me down a decent ways ahead of that thing and stay in the air closeby! And please, do not let it see us! And now that I think of it, could you please take your saddlebag back and off my back when we land!? It’s really, really, RIDICULOUSLY heavy!”

“Wilco!”

Pipp proceeded to fly them both up beyond the treetops and past the giant robot at her speediest pace. A mile along at a clearing her eyes noted in the woods, she decelerated to a hover and then descended to an altitude low enough to let go of and deliver the sheriff safely to the ground. Once the task was finished, and he removed her saddlebag from his person and firmly attached it to hers, she returned to greater heights in the air in a push of her wings, her climb coming to an end only when she ascended to a good thousand feet or so. She then turned towards the earth stallion, stretched every which way, cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and signaled she was ready to render aid if needed with a hoof’s up.

Hitch sent a hoof’s up of his own before turning forwards and stretching and clearing his throat and taking a deep breath himself. “Now, let’s go and start this show.” He sat down and as a stage magician like Rufus would, pushed his fronthooves out far from his form and into the air dramatically. “Here goes nothing.” He closed his eyes and frowned with focus, gulping anxiously. “Or maybe everything.”

The sheriff reopened his eyes and with a clap of his forehooves and the green glow of his magic, yelled out as he expended all his mental capital into composing his super-colossal castle of sand.

The earth quaked.

“BOO–”

The pinnacle of the tapered spire of the central roofted turret took shape on the ground before him.

“YAH–”

The spire shakily and slowly rose, revealing the crenelated denticulations of the aforesaid central roofted turret.

“KAW–”

The four spires of the surrounding, smaller, half as huge roofed turrets popped up from the forest floor next, the central one now standing taller than the giant robot he could now hear gaining on him somewhere in the distance at his back.

“SHAW!”

With that last word and the final effort following it, Hitch lifted the machicolated battlements, the walls that carried them, the gatehouse with attendant barbican, the portcullis, the drawbridge, footbridge, the surrounding terrain-only moat, the bailey within, the firm foundation they rested upon, and all else left of the palace. When it was fully completed, it towered over him at two-hundred and twenty-two feet at its most prodigious peak, spanning an area some hundred feet in length by an equal hundred feet of breadth. It was magnificent. August. A thing of most rare, true beauty. Hitch could not contain himself from shedding twin streams of tears down his face in addition to the sweat that’d flooded it ever since he’d begun this titanic undertaking.

“One day you’ll be permanent, Trailblazer Keep. One day,” he sniffled, head hung low as the sounds of trees snapping into bajillions of pieces and fast feet approaching became louder to his ears. “Yet not today, dear friend.”

The sheriff leapt back to all fours, twirled to his right and galloped towards the treeline there like it had a donut shop. He didn’t bother looking back when he heard the rushing rain begin to sizzle against the colossal sand castle without his focus and magic to fight against such deleterious effects. He didn’t bother looking back when that sizzling turned to outright boiling and the sand comprising the structure started to join in. He didn’t bother looking back even when he felt the ground shake beneath his hooves even though he was many hundreds of feet away by then. He only did so once he’d reached the treeline, was securely behind the biggest, most durablest tree he could find there, and heard the giant robot enter into the clearing, seeing the machine continue straight along its path, on an inevitable collision course with the now half melted looking castle. With any luck, Trailblazer Keep would not be the lone construct that would appear so.

“Oh, this is gonna be blaring,” he said, looking away, shutting his eyes, and jamming his hooves against his ears hard as possible.

Indeed it was, and when the giant robot struck the castle, it seemed as though the entirety of planet equis for miles and miles and MILES around trembled from the ensuing, booming, and absolutely monstrous explosion.

Despite all his quite accurate predictions and expectations, the power of the event was so compelling he could not bring himself even to shriek slightly.

And he wanted to.

Oh, did Hitch seek to shriek.

10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10

“YAAAAAAAAA–HOO–HOO–HOO–HOOEY!”

Sunny Starscout was not okay.

Sunny Starscout, through mysterious means via a mysterious watch that’d fallen out of the night sky had been transformed into a mysterious creature of fire and fiery rock apparently so scary that her friend Zephyrina Storm, usually amongst the bravest of their mutual quintet of amity, had permitted her fight to overwhelm her such that she’d attacked with an unrelenting, furious wrath.

Sunny Starscout, rather than endure the pegasus’s fearful ire, had to resort to literally blowing herself up, up, and away with the biggest fireball she could create to escape.

Sunny Starscout cartwheeled through the aether over the forest at speeds easily exceeding the sound barrier and perhaps poking upon mach five and thus the much storied hypersonic regime, spinning so fast she wasn’t sure what was up or down or left or right or diagonal.

Sunny Starscout shrieked the second loudest she would that night, the only reason it didn’t take the top place due to the sound around her as she ‘flew’ and from how winded she was from the explosion that’d launched her so far and so fast.

Sadly for her, the situation would worsen vastly before it improved.

This began to occur once she reached the zenith of her arc. Then, past the collage of legerity she experienced, she saw the first of the many, many, MANY trees she was set to shatter through: a redwood some three hundred feet tall. Moments later, she did. And then the giant cedar, ponderosa pine, black cottonwood, silver fur, lodgepole pine, red alder, white oak, western juniper, and sugar pine–of course–beyond it. And then the big boulder roughly the same dimensions as the larger pod beyond the trees. And then the steep cliff beyond the big boulder, though it should be said concerning said cliff that it was in fact where her journey finally did arrive to a sudden stop. Six feet or so within, true, but a sudden stop nonetheless.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even think. It was as though the agony she was going through was so grand that it’d spun full circle and she didn’t feel much of anything at all for a tiny eternity, her entire body having been numbed like it was a leg she’d been slumbering a little too firmly upon.

On the subject, she began to wonder as feeling slowly returned to her. Was she even awake? Was she really just catching some dreadful ‘Z’s’ back at the cave? Was this whole terrible trial merely an odd nightmare?

“Hey, monster! Why dontchya tell me where’d you decided to rocket away to!? I wasn’t finished asking you nicely about my friend, yet!”

“EEP!”

Sensation totally returned at hearing the intimidating tone of Zipp’s voice again, Sunny immediately initiated what she presumed would be the arduous process of removing her face from the cliff face. She greatly underestimated her own strength, however, especially under duress of the utmost variety, and managed to dig herself out in less than ten seconds flat even considering the extreme lack of leverage. Though, as she finally fell back and out of the ‘rock angel’ she’d hewn and got a better look, she found the edges of her limestone mold to be molten. No doubt because of her ‘warming up’--most literally–in responsive fright, so it couldn’t all be chalked up to strength in the conventional sense alone.

Sunny didn’t sit and ponder long though prior to getting up on her two hoo–feet. She really needed to quit confusing the two–and sprinting as fast as they could carry her into the woods proper, running through the forest edge and going around the cliff. She got pretty far too. Almost to the other side, and it was not a small cliff either, measuring some one and half miles in diameter. Yet then, she noticed the tell-tale sound sign of something whooshing through the wind at voluminous velocity somewhere above and abaft and bearing down at her.

“No, no, no!” the transformed mare said in her mind in a fright. “How’d she find me so quickly!? How could she possibly even see me past all this smoke!?”

Sunny didn’t know, and contrasting against her sense of common sense, she took a glance up and over her shoulder on the small chance she could maybe begin to piece it together.

She didn’t, yet not in the manner she anticipated not too.

That is to say, that Zipp simply wasn’t there in the air at all.

In her stead were what she could only describe in her present state as… as… flying saucers. Each colored by a medium, almost amber orange ring atop a black ring atop a dark orange ring. Each about as wide around as a dining table. And each seemingly opening up as some stranges, mechanical crustaceans at the top and at the bottom to respectively reveal a toroidal ‘head’ of bright, glowing, even flowing red glass-like material with blacklines criss-crossing in a pattern she couldn’t even guess the logic of, and a thickset, cylindrical ‘body’ of grayish-silver metal from which six spindly little arms or legs or perhaps some other sort of limbs, arose.

“Whaaa…?”

To say Sunny was a smidge mystified was akin to saying that it rained a bit last night the day following a major hurricane. She was so confused and her confusion took such a curious incline that she planted her feet into the ground, burrowing up twin trenches through the dirt till she halted wholly, and twisted herself around to examine them in more detail.

A momentous mistake, as it turned out.

The flying saucer mechano-crabs–she really needed a better, more abbreviated way to refer to them by–zoomed faster, and before she knew it they dived down, their limbs clamped about both her shoulders, turned themselves around and her along with them, and whisked her away, back into the night, to parts unknown.

To say Sunny was an iota unsettled by this unforeseen and unforeseenly swift turn of events was akin to saying Maretime Bay was a little smaller than Zephyr Heights. She was so superfluously afraid that she thrashed every which way in their gras with all her apparently prodigious physical power, shouting, “Hey, hey, HEY! Who are you!? What are you!? Let me go, RIGHT NOW! Did I say you could haul me around ANYWHERE!? NO! So kindly get your robotic-grabby-thingies off me!” all the while.

Neither action ultimately profited her, though, the flying saucer mechano-crabs not heeding her words or her strength, their flight path hardly diverting from its trajectory despite her particular efforts in the latter. Yet that was fine, she supposed. For she hadn’t begun to get away.

“I said: LET. ME. GO!”

Recalling all the wrath she felt when Zipp just wouldn’t listen to her earlier and all her admittedly short but rather intense know-how concerning her pyrokinesis, Sunny decided it was now time for something similar, though not quite the same as all she’d done before. Much like with what she’d apparently accomplished in the ‘rock-angel’ without a lot of intent, she started to dial-up the temperature of her ‘skin’, only this time she was cognizant of what she was doing. VERY cognizant. Though she was unaware of the exact degree of fahrenheit she reached, she knew it had to have been great since the air around her distorted as though she were surrounded in a plasma sheath like, fitting enough, a meteorite. Compared to exciting molecules to the point their electrons were freed from their covalent bonds and ionized, the energy output by the fire her friends had set and rested around to keep warm for the night in the cave might as well have been a flashlight to the array of a thousand production studio scale limelights that Sunny radiated. Combined with a renewal of struggling with her strength, she’d a reasonable faith that the limbs would loosen some way or another and she’d drop safely hundreds of feet into the burning forest below.

The flying saucer mechano-crabs seemed to have other machinations in mind, however. Or rather, the material they were forged from. Whatever it was, Sunny realized to her soaring horror that it must’ve been of similar construction to the larger and smaller pods, for although their limbs and much of each’s form had been super-heated to a glowing, white hot only a few shades darker than she was, neither of the automatons sent any hint of their hold on her weakening.

“Perfect,” she muttered sarcastically to herself. “Just… just fantastic.”

Tired both mentally and materially, Sunny huffed angrily as she cooled and settled down.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Minor setback is all.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes after a few moments. “Because that was only the easy way. They haven’t seen the hard way yet!”

Her brow furrowed in intense focus, Sunny then tried a different approach. It required her to revisit the fury she possessed towards Zipp again, verily, but instead of merely warming herself, she would export all that excess energy elsewhere and in a more kinetic fashion. Omnidirectionally. And, rather rapidly.

A white-hot blast wave of both heat and shock, though primarily the latte, was sent out from her form and placed within the proverbial post box of the flying saucer mechano-crabs. It was so much more successful than what she’d even hoped that the automatons were launched away, far out of eyesight as their grips were forced open and she plummeted to the surface of the planet as a, fittingly enough again, meteorite. The impact with the shining willow below and its subsequent sawdustification and the craterization of the surrounding area caused her some discomfort, yet was ultimately infinitely favored to being captive to the contraptions.

“Haha! Yes! It worked!” she cheered, raising her fists victoriously into the air prior to pulling them back down equally as victoriously.

She didn’t stay to celebrate though, and within five seconds, jumped up to her feet and proceeded to run forwards fast as practicable considering the recoil and expenditure of power from her all-round explosion had rendered her somewhat faint. More faint, honestly, than the follow-up crash with the tree and the ground.

More faint than the albion object that then crashed to the ground in her avenue of travel with such force that she was knocked back upon her back, though honestly, nowhere near as surprised.

“There you are!” yelled the unmistakable voice of Zipp.

“Oh no… not THIS again!” Sunny sighed and yellow aloud, facepalming with both hands in sheer, weary annoyance over removing herself most effectively from her would be mechanical captors only to fall under the sight of her misguided friend that she’d removed herself from first in fiery form.

“Sorry, but you really don’t get to grumble!” the pegasus declared, hovering in the air and folding her forelegs over her chest in quite the condescending manner. “Because if you really didn’t want me to find you, then you shouldn’t have gone all ‘supernova’ back there. Ponies could’ve seen that all the way in Bridlewood!”

Sunny huffed at herself for failing to consider that factor in her calculus and now having to suffer the ensuing consequences. “Uh! I so do not have time for this!” Swiftly, a little too swiftly upon reflection, she attempted to stand up again.

Yet another momentous mistake, as it turned out.

For Zipp, via lightning vision, zapped her in the forehead in a way that between the power and pain from the electricity, Sunny was brought back upon her back upon the earth.

“Well me neither, monster!” the princess shouted.

“Ow,” Sunny said within her head. “Right. No sudden moves. Bad idea, Sunny.”

“Now tell me: how long do I have to keep reminding you who’s boss around here before you start telling me what I wanna know!? And while we’re on the subject: tell me what I wanna know, NOW! What are you, why are you here, and where. Is. My. FRIEND!?”

“A very hapless pony, just to continually be confused and in pain it seems, and right. In. Front. Of. You. You. MADMARE!”

That was what Sunny so wished to say, yet couldn’t for fear of her friend overreacting for the billionth instance ever since seeing her in her transformed state seven minutes ago at the pod crash site. No. Past failure caused her to figure the fastest, really lone lane out from that murky doom was to play along. A conclusion she arrived at doubly so when she saw the flying saucer mechano-crabs enter her cone of view and rapidly descend towards her again.

“I surrender! I surrender!” Sunny shouted, raising her arms as far from and as non-threateningly from her head as she could. “I’ll tell you everything! I give up! I’ll tell you everything you want to know! I promise! I promise! Just save me from–” She twisted around on the ground, making sure to exclude any perceived sudden menace in the enterprise, to point with both hands at the automatons. “Those things!”

“What things?” Zipp asked, brow forced together in disbelieving suspicion, eyes not leaving the transformed mare for a second, at the ready to fire a second time in this conversation.

Sunny was about to air her anger at her friend’s tone when she felt the now familiar mechanical limbs of the flying saucer mechano-crabs clamp on her shoulders and lift her with them into the night sky once more.

Understandably and instead, she yelled, “THESE things!” as she was carried over and beyond the pegasus.

10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10

Zephyrina Storm wondered to herself why it was recently that right as she thought she’d a hoofle on events that yet another event always seemed to arrive left of field and leave her mind back at the drawing board.

The monster of flame and volcanic rock upon a lava-like base of ‘skin’ she’d surmised had foalnapped Sunny and was mimicking her voice with one of its no doubt innumerable secondary, malicious, monastery powers and that had attempted to flee from her plus the smack down she’d brought to it via a rather large explosion while she was distracted by that sudden earthquake and that she’d spent a sadly immense amount of time tracking down and probably would’ve lost if it hadn’t decided to shine like the most shimmering star and that’d just groveled at her hooves for her to stay said hooves in exchange for finally answering her many, MANY questions… had just been taken aloft by what appeared to be large, orange, aerial… crustacean-like… drones?

Zipp shook her head. Yet another question the monster would have to resolve once she’d rescued it from the flying robots. She’d been perplexed into stillness more than enough in the recent past! Action now, talk later! There’d be time to suffice for queries, and she was NOT losing her only lead to find Sunny!

With a flap of her wings and kick of her hooves, she propelled herself to the height the crustacean drones and their ignatius cargo had reached and with one more of the former proceeded by a volume of smaller ones, got to within two hundred feet of the three, matched speeds, and followed them cautiously.

Soon, as in, a second later soon, Zipp saw the monster manage to aim a palm at one of the bots and the other palm at the other bot at angles that though odd, were well enough aligned to allow the firing of fireballs right in their donut shaped ‘eyes’, or more likely and accurately, visual sensors. And they were mere fireballs. No great, continual funnels of flame. Not even bursts flame in such a form. And most certainly nothing of the white-hot magnitude it’d achieved, she now reasonably presumed, to get out of their grip before and that’d inadvertently lead to her finding the creature again. The igneous thing seemed altogether rather exhausted and increasing in exhaustion with each fiery rondure it threw, huffing and puffing like Izzy after rearranging every item of furniture in the Brighthouse for the tenth time every other weekend. For their part, the crustacean drones appeared completely impassive and unmoved from their line of flight, as affected from the force and heat of each hit as twin pottery kilns in which twin infernos raged ultimately were.

It was kind of a, dare she say, saddening sight, and for the first moment since she’d met it, Zipp felt kind of sorry for the monster. She’d be sure to seek Hitch’s help in making its accommodation in jail comfy… if they could even find a way to properly contain it at the Maretime Bay Sheriff’s office or elsewhere in the first place. Oh well. She and her friends would travers that tenuous suspension bridge when they arrived at it.

For now, the pegasus focussed upon the task at hoof. It occurred to her in a flash of possible epiphany that maybe, just maybe, the monster’d failed to tell her the truth in some manner and that, for all she knew, the automatons were, if not totally without fault in the present situation, the far and above more trustable party. So, rather than attack with lightning-vision as she’d prepared to, she changed plans, sped up till she was parallel and to the left of the trio, equalized quickness, and attempted to converse with the crustacean drones with a very simple, “Hey!”

They did not respond.

“Hey! HEY! I’m talkin’ to ya here!”

They still did not respond.

“No need to be mean and act like stone, ya know! I’m just wondering about the whole and what you two are and why you’re hauling away that walking, talking birthday candle there! I sorta, kinda, need it to learn where my friend is!”

“What are you doing!?” the monster yelled with a fleetingly refilled font of strength as it hurled its hundredth or so fireball against the automaton at its left. “I thought you said you were going to help, not ask them questions!”

“Hey! I never promised anything!” Technically true, even if Zipp’d more or less agreed with the monster before realizing it may not have been entirely in tune with verity. It most certainly didn’t need to be aware of that fact right that second, in any event. “Far as I’m concerned, if there’s even a one percent probability of getting my answers without having to lift a hoof for your benefit, it’s mine. Sorry, light ornament.”

The monster snarled at that, ceasing its attack briefly to focus all its attention on the pegasus. “Look, I might be about as in the dark here as you–”

“Irony of ironies,” Zipp interrupted with a cold chuckle.

“Ignoring that,” the monster said, continuing with, “As I was saying–or about to say–somehow, I don’t think they’re exactly in the chatty mood!”

“How do you know? Did you even try conversing with them?”

“Yes! And they still wouldn’t speak or let go! So stop the talkin’ and get to zappin’ already!”

Zipp raised a curious brow and massaged her chin with a hoof at the monster’s words. She then looked at the crustacean drones for a short while, the automatons remaining with nothing to announce even after the rather loud quarrel concerning them. If they had anything they wanted to make known, even if it was a simple, ‘Do not interfere,’ they would have voiced it by now. Probably.

Turning her sight back at the monster, she said, “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“About what?”

“This.”

In a fashion closely resembling one of those Neighton’s Cradle desk toys, Zipp suddenly flew sideways and upways and then arced down in a flawless forty-five degree angle, shoulder checking the automaton at the left so hard that it slammed into the one on the right that, they both crashed at supersonic speed into a tree–mendocino cypress if her quick observations were anything to go by–and, most importantly, that they both let the monster go and tumble towards the ground as it yelled in a fright and tried to keep aloft by hurriedly, and most humorously to the princess’s eye, flapping its arms as though they were wings like a bird’s or the pegasus’s own. It was only upon achieving a grand amount of righteous serenity at the monster’s predicament, and at the proverbial eleventh hour, that she interceded via diving down, grabbing the monster’s shoulders with her forelegs, and sending the both of them back into the sky right before they would’ve held their appointment with terra firma.

As the whatever-it-was slowly calmed down and craned its ‘eyes’ to look at Zipp, the pegasus smirked and said, “Told ya to be cautious, didn’t I?”

The monster blinked like she’d just told it that the answer to one plus one was none other than strawberry-rhubarb pie prior to closing it eyes, sighing, brushing its brow with its fingers, reopening its eyes, and saying, “Yeah. Yeah… I guess you–LOOK OUT!”

Zipp’s vision immediately widened and she followed where her cargo pointed to find the crustacean drones already zooming through the air again, towards her and the monster. And that wasn’t all. Both had a claw raised, and from the relatively little laser-pointer like device either had there, a ruby beam of light rushed outward and towards the pegasus. An immediate hard aileron-roll right spared her the problem of being hit, temporarily. Complications announced themselves however when the beams ceased not their projection across the distance between her and the automatons, said bots merely reaiming the continual outpouring of energy with swished of their wrists to continually try and reacquire their target.

“I think you made them mad!” the monster shouted as the princess rolled, lined, spun, looped, and hammerheaded to dodge the deluges of rubicund power.

“Yeah, yeah! And the daylight sky is blue! What’s new!?”

As if in dialectic answer to her rhetorical question, the crustacean drones then decided they were tired of their current tactic’s unsuccess. For that was when the other claws in their possession joined in with the other emitters of intense photons on them by shooting forth unending ruby beams of light of their own. Where before her breathing was steadily controlled, her brow steely cool, and her mind completely concentrated on her task, now her breath was a staccato chaos, her brow shone with sweat, and if her mind’s inner clockwork could be converted to clever visual metaphor, it’d be akin to her playing a pinball machine in any of the numerous timed competitions she’d participated in growing up.

All that to say, a grand total of twelve lasers she now had to avoid meant it was not good times for Zipp. A reality she readily voiced via repeatedly yelling, “Ah! Ah! Ah! No, no, no, no, no!” and its various variations over and again.

“Hey, hey, hey! Careful with the flying!” shouted the monster as Zipp aileroned continuously to keep a quartet of the beams from hitting their mark. “I’m getting really, REALLY dizzy here! Like spinning a gravitron kind of dizzy!”

“Would you rather get hit upside the back of your head by these lasers!?” Zipp shouted before barrel-rolling rather sharply to the left for ten entire seconds to stop precisely that and more.

“Poi-oi-oi-oi-nttt-ta-ken!” the monster replied, voice shaking from all the barrel roll’s shaky motion. “Howww-lo-lo-lo-long-caaan-you-cooon-tinueee-dodggg-ging-like-thiiis-forrr-thooouuuggghhh!? Seee-aaa-mmm-sss-verrry-exhausstting!”

Verily, it was, and as Zipp dived into the canopy of the woods in the hopes of fining concealment if not exactly cover there, she concluded for the first time that it was only a matter of time prior to the assorted stresses of the situation would lead her to making at least one little, tiny, meager mistake that’d snowball quickly to ending this unforeseen chase on most favorable terms.

She couldn’t allow that.

She wouldn’t allow that.

Her friends were counting on her.

Sunny was counting on her.

At this point, Zipp herself was counting on her.

But how?

How was she to clutch victory away from the steel-gray claws of defeat?

Those very same claws had or could have every direction filled with lines of energy of great range to avoid, more than balancing out the apparent hypothesis that the crustacean drones seemed to be stuck at only supersonic velocity and unable or unwilling to overtake her present, hypersonic celerity.

Their aim was getting better, incrementally so, yes, but progress was progress.

Plus, as stated earlier, she was getting more and more tired from this endeavor and was sooner rather than later set to fail in some way, shape, or form that would ultimately lead to colossal calamity.

Even if she did find the reprieve she sought beneath the collage of foliage atop the trees, for all she knew the automatons had sensors that could see or at least track reliably her trajectory, and they probably would’ve resorted to some other, as yet unknown method to render things equally or more difficult.

The lone lane out, she knew, as she reached the shelter of the upper leaves and branches and fire and smoke of the forest and ceased her barrel-roll, was to stop playing defense.

To take the game to them and to them out of the game.

Decisively.

And the window on that opportunity was not on her side, for, as she’d feared, the clutter of the more confined space she’d entered didn’t do much to throw their marksponyship off, though the branches did block what otherwise would’ve been direct hits to her wings, and even a few occluding leaves that were singed as they were pushed away from their tree yet weren’t set ablaze, unexpectedly enough.

Well, at the very least, if she was struck, the subsequent attempt to stay airloft and not crash and or fall would be all she really had to worry about. Not the most assuaging of comforting thoughts, perhaps, yet certainly more so than the quickly cobbled together course of action she constructed and soon did share with the monster.

“You’re right! Much as I don’t wanna say it, can’t maintain evasive maneuvers forever! So I was thinkin’ on making that beside the point!”

“That means you have some ideas already, right!?”

“Yeah! I got a few! One of them depends on if you got at least one more supernova left!”

“What!?”

“That big flash of light that led me to finding you again not too long ago and that I think you were trying to do a second time when they grabbed you! That was you trying to get away from these crustacean-like drones, right!?”

“Yeah!”

“Think you could do that one more time!?”

“I dunno! Maybe!?”

“Maybe!? Doesn’t seem very encouraging!”

“Well honestly, I’m kinda sleepy at the moment!” the monster yawned. “When this is all over, I think I’m gonna need to take five! Or take ten! Or however long it takes!”

“Oh, and I look like I couldn’t use a nap!?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I just… don’t know if I can expend anymore firepower on that scale till I rest my little conflagrant head! But if it’ll make things easier–”

“It will! Trust me!”

“Then I promise to try!”

“Mind promising to actually do instead!? By my estimates, we passed trying however many miles it’s been since these bots stopped playing and started getting serious!”

The monster sighed repeatedly, demonstrably weary with every breath. Zipp herself sighed yet once–in vexation more than impending collapse. If the blazing whatever-it-was could step up to the plate, she truly had not been joking about how much simpler events would proceed. Though she soooo didn’t want to, she sensed that the only thing between her and an easier time was a pep-talk, so that’s exactly what she did.

Or rather, she would’ve, if one of the lasers hadn’t fortuitously accomplished her goal for her, striking it upside her head much as Zipp had mentioned she was trying to prevent earlier.

“Ah! Ah! Ow!” the monster shouted, swiftly grabbing at and massaging the affected spot. “I take it back! I take it back! I think I can help! I think I can help! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”

Zipp’s inner conflict concerning this tremendous development only being possible because of one of the increasing errors of hers as she flew away from the beams lasted all of three owlish blinks before her surprise stepped aside for brave boldness.

“Alright then! Now, I’m gonna launch you towards those drones soon, so please do not lose your cool!”

“Wait… you’re gonna what!?” the monster replied, totally losing its cool.

Upon completion of the chandelle followed by the vertical figure eight she had to perform, Zipp said, “That sounds alot like losing your cool to me!”

“One: I’m on fire in case you haven’t noticed! I literally don’t have a lot of cool left! Two: that was before you told me you were going to hoof me to them!”

“I’m NOT hoofing you to them! If you’d listened to me and let me finish, I would’ve told you that just before they try and grab you, to blaze like a bursting star like you’ve done before!”

“But why would I–!?”

A cry of pain from Zipp silenced the fiery creature. A laser beam she wasn’t keeping track of, distracted by the conversation as she was, had managed to brush against a shoulder blade in a manner that though brief, was enough for her to vocally make known her agony and spiral half-way to the ground before regaining control, evening out her spin, and righting herself into flying parallel with the ground again.

As the pegasus clenched and breathed heavily through her teeth, the monster yelled, “Oh no! Are you okay! Are you–”

“I’m fine!” Zipp interrupted. “But I’d be alot better if you’d just do what I say and trust me, comprende!?”

“Alright, alright!” replied the monster. “I comprende! Much oh, much oh, comprende!”

Ignoring the creature’s awful attempt vaguely resembling proper sponish, Zipp did her best to ignore the pain atop her weariness and responded with, “Mue bien, monstro! Mue, mue bien! Now get ready, cuz on the count of three, you’re gonna be skybound! Oh! And sorry in advance!”

“Got it!” The monster nodded.

Not letting a single second go by inefficiently, Zipp nodded back and began the countdown with, “One!”

Five of the beams found gaps in the canopy ahead in her flight path, and Zipp had to zig-zag between them.

“Two!”

The monster suddenly appeared confused, a hand on its chin as it asked, “Wait… why’d you say you’re sorry–!?”

“Three!”

Zipp flipped herself till her back was parallel with equis and with her backlegs kicked the monster in the back with all the power in her possession towards where she presumed the crustacean drones to be.

“IN ADVAAANNNCCCEEE!?” the monster shouted as it was propelled upwards through the uppermost tier of the forest and out of her cone of vision.

When the beams abruptly seemed to cease, Zipp prepped a breath of ease, and once she cleared the canopy and saw the automatons moving towards the still screaming, meteorically rising monster, she sent the breath along its joyous way.

Perfect. Her stratagem proceeded right on schedule.

The princess next focussed her attention to the stormcloud above them all, herself included, and with a couple stretches to ensure her slightly singed foreleg could move without too much pain, began the next phase of her grand, master plan.

True, she may’ve believed reasonably by this point that the usual lightning-vision probably wouldn’t have worked since the bots seemed to be made of extremely durable material and were too swift and pressing too much to charge up a normal thunderbolt from the sky, yet that didn’t speak of the type of attack she had in mind.

She’d never really practiced it before. It was actually something she’d discovered completely by accident before on one otherwise uneventful and decidedly dull day. When, in curiosity, she wished to see how well she could sculpt clouds–if perhaps she’d a mastery for artistry or was even merely okay if only she used her magic as the hammer and chisel and other such creative hewing implements and the clouds as the medium of marble stone.

It hadn’t worked.

Of course it hadn’t.

Beauty, jubility, and basic intelligibility seemed forever fated to elude her no matter the aesthetic endeavor. Though the impromptu experiment was ultimately the product of her boredom, she’d ended up quite invested in the hope that maybe, just maybe, she could be capable of crafting so much than ugly, misshapen clumps no more distinct in form than those she made in her mashed potatoes when she was anxious.

Upon learning the truth of the matter, she’d flown into a rage, most literally, rocketing into the sky at top speed with her unsuccessful, nebulous clumps in tow, and when she’d reached a decent enough height, in her anger, she commanded the clouds to clash together with all her arcane strength. If she was foredoomed to constructing clumps, then she’d construct the most colossal cloud clump construct she could! The thought of how the mass darkened and shook with thunder and lightning was thoroughly ignored.

The pegasus was only one-quarter of the way complete with that expedited concept before she’d learned its folly, firsthoof.

A most powerful and humbling lesson she would share with the others present in most spectacular a fashion–if everything fell within its proper place.

And it did.

As the monster neared the automatons, it’d found whatever will and power required of it to begin to glow with such a white-hot intensity that the princess found herself shielding her eyes with the entirety of a front leg.

“Wow that’s so much brighter so much closer,” Zipp thought.

Though true, she hadn’t a split-second to spare. Her sight raised to the stormcloud as she raised her forelegs far as they’d go before bringing her fronthooves back down and against each other as forcefully as she could as though she was squeezing a giant paper ball right before throwing it in the closest, tiny garbage can. She supposed, verily, that was what she was doing, after all, except yon paper ball wasn’t the only thing set to get trashed.

In response to her telekinetic action, the stormcloud obeyed, compressing into an even black and more turbulent assemblage. She didn’t need to add any more clouds, for the conglomeration of energetic water vapor already possessed the matter–she just needed to condense it.

And condense it, she did.

It was merely a few fractions of a second from achieving critical density and cascading away before her command when the monster must’ve finally gained full supernova glow intensity, Zipp’s fur standing on end from the force and heat even as far removed from the epicenter as she was. She allowed herself to check to see that the crustacean drones fared as much the worse as she’d anticipated, being knocked into a fairly linear collision course with the stormcloud.

Upon confirming this, difficult as it was through the fiery shine, she refocused her sight on the stormcloud and continued concentrating on concentrating it to the inevitable conclusion she sought before the automatons cleared their way through.

“Here goes nothing!” Zipp thought to herself as the crustacean drones arrived at the storm clouds center just as it illuminated the night sky for easily dozens of miles around in the same two colors as her cutiemark, rewarding her efforts a little sooner than she’d thought. She grit her teeth, looked away from the obscuring shine, and braced her forelegs around her head for impact. “Or maybe everything!”