Sweetie Bot X: Cutie Mark Crusaders Maverick Hunters!

by Zytharros

Highway to Hell, Part Three

Highway to Hell, Part Three

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WARNING

The first hit is always the most painful one. It is the introduction to levels of pain one can only hope to forget a few moments later. It is the merciful one – the one that tells a person or pony if one has any hope in hell of winning a fight. It is the most vengeful one, where the body decides it didn’t like what happened and is going to tell the brain to tell its host to stop as loud as it can. Finally, it is the relaxing one. The only way it can possibly get any worse is for one to die. In a way, that first hit is morbidly assuring – that is the worst pain one is ever going to receive in a fight. After that, the body numbs, the mind quiets, and the brain shuts down ninety percent of its pain receptors.

Sweetie Belle quickly found some small comfort in these facts.

A fist easily the size of her tiny body effortlessly sent her flying into the force field separating her from her friends hard enough to ricochet clear across the battlefield. She landed hard, viciously somersaulted five or six times and skidded to a painful stop fifty feet away from a cackling, insane robot without any remorse or care for her safety. Slowly she began standing again only to hear a rocket booster fire up and rapidly increase in volume. In a flash, the pain returned and her world was once again flip-flopped left side right. This time, she landed square atop her horn, impaling herself into the roadway.

“Ouch… What do I do, X?” she asked, wrenching her horn free from the path with a grunt.

As X replied, she deftly dodged another reckless charge and fired two quick corn balls at her opponent.

Let him hit you.

Sweetie Belle groaned. “What?! You said you fought him and beat him. What’s the problem?”

She ran off to one side, barely avoiding repeated abuse at fists constantly crushing the road behind her. She screamed as she was chased around the highway by the psychotic mount-bound robot.

I beat him the second time and every time after that, X said. This first time I lost, and badly.

Sweetie Belle uttered the first non-Equestrian curse spoken by the entire country’s populace since Nightmare Moon’s banishment as she dropped to the earth and rolled.

“Dammit.”

She barely dodged the freight train intent on creating a pancake with her body as the main ingredient. The news of X’s initial defeat killed all her bravery, eliminated what zeroes were left, shredded the negatives, nuked all the shredded bits, and wiped out whatever radiation fell behind. In her panic, her anger flared at X for this predicament.

“So you led me to my death, you backwater feathered flank wart!” she shouted as she ran. “Sweet Celestia, this is the worst! Possible! Thing! Why?”

I’m sorry, but listen, please… X began. He knew in her voice he had lost some of her trust.

“Shut up! Take me home!” she shrieked. “Do something! Save me!”

She screeched in pain and agony as the robot chasing her bore right through her, running over her poor form. She was sent rolling for a good ten feet, grunting and groaning and grimacing through the whole ordeal. Quickly getting to her feet, she rolled again, but just as he passed her, Vile stopped, twisted, and ploughed her two feet into the highway with his fist.

That was that. Her energy reserves were sapped, her body was bruised and broken, and her will was torched. Sweetie Belle, in a world of pain she had never experienced before this moment, swallowed and mentally apologized to the world before she squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the final impact, the one that would send her to her death.

Vile approached her, slowly and sadistically, savoring every last step of his inevitable victory. He let out a chuckle as he raised his left foot. With half the amount of pressure used to fuse steel together, he pinned her down under the lowest-most appendage and began applying increasing amounts of pressure very, very slowly, steadily and sardonically crushing the young pony. He let loose a loud cackle, howling over his victory.

“You worthless piece of scrap metal!” Vile crowed. “Did you really think you could defeat me?”

Sweetie Belle screamed as Vile proceeded to continue to crush the life from her helpless and heavily damaged body.

On the other side of the field, Scootaloo had been knocked out cold at the start of the fight and remained that way, though she was still breathing. However, Apple Bloom had begun flailing her hooves, her sword and her body on the barrier about halfway through the fight, trying to eviscerate the not-thing that had isolated her from Sweetie Belle. She was screaming at Vile for things like child abuse, being a bad pony, and ordering him to stop through a mixture of anger and fear. Occasionally she would call out Sweetie Belle’s name, hoping to help in some way, shape or form. However, until this point it had proved worthless. The battle was progressing without her, and her friend was getting indefensibly obliterated as a result.

At that point, Apple Bloom had taken out her sword, trying to destroy the barrier with her assault. As she prepared her final furious frustrated throw, the barrier suddenly and inexplicably dropped. Her sword flew through the air, a long light bullet that was on a trajectory aimed right at the shoulder joint of the robot who was about to kill her friend. The young swordspony noticed this and cheered loudly, celebrating what she thought was her barrier-breaking success and the unplanned bonus of the elimination of a foe’s limb.

At the last second, hearing the cries and cheers of his victim’s friend for the first time, Vile turned to look at the new sound source, shuffling his monolith vehicle slightly to accommodate his desired vantage point. Just as he looked over, the sabre pierced an even weaker part of his battle armor’s arm than what was originally targeted before. This severed the limb instantly, sending it crashing to the ground and Vile atop the ride armor reeling at the shockwave. The robot, responding to the surprise of its rider, stumbled back a couple steps and relieved the two tonnes of pressure bearing down upon the poor filly beneath. The sword impaled into the highway behind the wounded. The angered robot’s eyes, hidden by the shadows of his helmet, shone red as Apple Bloom charged toward him, fully intending on tearing this robot limb from limb. Her trademark bow’s outer leaves rotated until they faced her opponent and launched two half-charged green blasts. She stopped, screaming all manner of vitriol at the purple antagonist as Vile leapt into the sky, then disappeared. The airship swept down from clear across the city, catching the evil robot in its cargo hold and flying away at a high rate of speed. Her bullets flew past, unhindered by any obstacles, and eventually simply disintegrated about three hundred yards away.

Apple Bloom groaned. She looked at her friend and sighed.

“Well, I guess he’s gone for now,” she said, smiling.

Sweetie Belle frowned. “I guess I’m not powerful enough to defeat him…”

Apple Bloom returned the frown and sighed. “Sweetie Belle, I don’t think we shoulda ‘spected to beat him. He looked like he was built for war. ‘Sides, we ain’t been here long, and he’s bound to have had more a-spear-ience than us at this kinda thing.” Her frown turned into a kind smile. “I’m jus’ glad yer okay.”

“That’s right,” Axl said. “Besides, you just got that form. You can’t be expected to learn all its abilities in a single day.”

Zero nodded. “When you realize all the abilities X was designed with, you should become stronger.”

X chuckled. “You may even become as powerful as I am. The next time you fight him, you’ll be able to beat him. I’m sure of it.”

“We’ve got you guys to help us, too,” Apple Bloom replied with a smile, indicating their recently rematerialized guardians. “I’m sure we’ll get through this.”

Apple Bloom placed a comforting hoof on her friend’s shoulder. Sweetie Belle smiled at her compatriot in hopeful gratefulness just as Scootaloo woke up with a pained groan. Noticing this, they gasped in happy shock and glee and ran over to her, tackling her in a rolling wheel of metallic pony love fest. After a brief moment of joy, they separated and simply looked at each other. Slowly a common thought passed between them and their faces lost their shine.

Oh boy… Zero said to X and Axl, a wilting feeling forming in his heart. Here it comes…

As predicted, the girls whirled around to the figures behind them and began screaming thousands of different complaints, questions, insults, and general berating statements at them all at once.

“Did you know that would happen?”

“How dare you keep secrets from us!”

“I wanna go home!”

“You’re all morons!”

After two minutes of this scream-fest, Axl sighed and turned to Zero. “Remind me never to build kids of my own.”

Zero and X seconded and approved the motion unanimously before Zero managed to quiet everyone down with some difficulty.

“Listen, I know you all have questions. We’ll be glad to answer them all when we get to Maverick Hunter Headquarters and get you all debriefed with Signas,” the ruby robot replied. “It’s not safe to stay here. They probably have crews coming to fix the highway as we speak.”

Sweetie Belle sighed in exasperation. “Fine…” she grumbled. “But as soon as we get to Hindquarters, we’re getting some answers.”

Comments

[Zytharros]

1329625
Everfree portals are for amateurs.

[MaverickHunterZero]

I really need to give me some time to read this, glad to see more Megaman crossovers take care

[Shazam 25]

Why did you stop? I play and beat Megaman X many times. I can help out if you want.

[Zytharros]

5275846
So have I. Unfortunately, I stopped because I hit a pony overload and something had to give. That, and I got stumped after Chapter Five. I do plan to go back to this, but at the moment, it's not moving anywhere.

[Shazam 25]

5275998 OK, if you need some help let me know.