Ponies Versus Starcraft

by ambion

Applejack vs High Templar

The high templar puffed out his chest, and the eldritch energies writhing through him turned evening into glorious day.

“We are the Brotoss!” he declared with the sort of rumbling voice that says there’s plenty more exclamation marks in stock and it’s a clearance weekend.

Applejack lounged against one of her favourite trees, her hat rested over her eyes, a single straw of grass sticking from her mouth for the look of the thing. Anyone who has actually done this will, sooner or later, have that minor annoyance of trying to get it back out of their teeth. Such is why the feathery tip of the grass shoot wobbled back and forth.

“Uh huh.”

The glowing figure rose up in the air, crackling with power. “Our race outlives the most ancient stars! We have created and destroyed worlds as seen fit by the immutable light of the Khala!”

Maybe if she sorta bit it just there, then pushed at it with her tongue here...“Yeah.”

“The very energies of being are at my beck and call, and great are the storms I command!”

“That so.” Aha! Got ya, blasted weed! Applejack spat the offending plant material away with throaty percussion and stretched as she stood.

“That’s mighty interesting and all, I’m sure, but you’re on my land. Any particular reason for that?”

The swirling tempest energies steadied as the templar considered himself. Grudging tolerance was not a reaction a master of the ancient and honourable ways often encountered, but he had it on highest authority that this pony was terribly important.

Applejack settled her hat to its natural position, and in a not quite natural way the Stetson seemed to entirely defy the swirling gusts of rampant energies, just as the orange pony did.

The high templar caught himself staring, something he hadn’t done for hundreds of years. And yet... he was fascinated with the hat. It seemed so, so alien.

Applejack rolled her eyes even as she rolled her shoulders. “Right, I think I’ve seen your type. Indulge me with a little something and kick this tree here.”

“Kick the tree?” He knew the mysteries of the Preservers and the trials of the Khaydarin, but never in his long years had he done anything like kicking a tree.

It didn’t seem to be a particularly wise tree. “Kick...the tree?”

“That’s right. Just give it a good old swing.”

“I could reduce this tree to the barest bones of smouldering black heartwood!”

Applejack nodded like a patient teacher dealing with a slow child. “I’m sure you could, but what use would that be? A kick’ll do fine.”

The templar wanted to shout: I have faced down the darkness of the void!

The reason he didn’t was the nagging private expansion to that thought: so why am I being so weirded out by a rather ordinary looking fruit tree?

“Well, get on with it. We don’t have all evening.”

The templar focused all his potent faculties and remembered his purpose, but the nagging quarter of his mind grew in its insistence. This tends to happen when people self-assured of their intellect come up against someone who they suspect isn’t half as simple as they let on. In short, he felt like a disciple of a meagre two hundred years again.

With burning determination he drifted steadily towards the trial set before him. Legs that centuries ago might have run with warriors and brutalized the miles had grown lax with constant floating.

There was a sort of wobbling swing of a leg, and for all the secrets and mysteries the master learned something new. Under scrutiny, this quintessentially defeats the purpose of being called ‘master’ in the first place. It was as simple as this: it is almost impossible to kick something without either motion or contact with the ground.

It was, however, extremely easy to topple over in the air when one is slightly top heavy. All the fancy runic armour certainly made him this. Its purpose, and the glowing contrails of powerful powers sort of lost their dramatic effect when the vigilant warrior of light who wielded them bobbed helplessly upside down in the air and clawed at the ground in a desperate bid to right himself.

Applejack coughed and an orange hoof shot out behind her. The sharp impact of wood was followed by the rustle of leaves. The high templar looked up just in time to get an apple of resplendent red in the face, the impact of which spun him back upright.

“Right then. This is how we do it down on the farm.” Applejack shouted, though she didn’t need to, and her hoof struck home. Every last leaf danced as a torrent of apples fell.

A perfect stack of the fruit glimmered in the templar’s eyes. Of all the things he had ever seen, of great fleets and wondrous constructs...

Not so much of that, anymore. The conclave had collapsed and every echelon of the brotoss were struggling to grasp this incredible new notion called ‘learning.’

The templar bowed as deeply as he dare, conscious of tipping over again. He’d never float so jauntily again.

“You humble me, mighty one! I come to learn from your wisdom!”

“Yeah...nope.”

That wasn’t right. “Wait, what?”

“You think I got time or patience for that sort of thing?” Applejack sighed, adjusting her hat with no particular need to. “Look. I’m more of a practical mare. I solve practical problems. What’s got you bothered, and how can I help? If it means flapping my gums more than my hooves though, I ain’t doing it. And enough of that kind of speaking, because I know fancy speak and yer doin’ it wrong.

This stumped the templar for some time. “Well, uh. Our Colossus keeps, um, getting blown up. That’s bad.”

Applejack gave the flustered templar a hard stare. “You ain’t been letting Pinkie Pie and-slash-or the Cutie Mark Crusaders anywhere near them things, have you?”

“No?”

“Good. Don’t. Just trust me on that. Anyway, let me take a look at the thing, shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“It’s right there.”

“Where?”

“There.”

It is the nature of the world that very large things have a tendency to sneak up unexpectedly, if only because no-one expects very large, vista-dominating things to be capable of being so unexpected. As it was, a hundred tons of glimmering golden metal seemed to just pop into her view.

It had to be visible from Ponyville, easily.

“Oh, there it is, yeah.” the pony nodded a couple of times to herself. “Yeah, I think I see your problem. Just leave it with me overnight and I’ll sort it out for ya. No worries. You got any scrap bits I can use?

“Yes.”

The mothership just sort of faded into the foreground. It was too big to loom. It was too big to be big. It was humongous. It was immense. It was all those words meaning ‘great big thing’ mixed together and recast into a super word. Clouds drifted by under one outstretched arm of it. Canterlot huddled together against its anthill of a mountain as the ‘Oh momma that’s a big ship’ ship spun slowly.

-ENGAGING MASS RECALL-

There was light, then...well, it wasn’t like the Apples had been using those fields anyway, and it was always good to have a junkyard around, even if this was more of a junkontinent. Mountains of detritus loamed in swirling seas of discarded items.

The silly templar was gone too. Sure, she’d been put upon, but the anticipation to get her hooves into something slapped a grin on her face.

“Apple Bloom!” she roared out. “Get me my rope. And bring me a roll of duct tape.” Applejack regarded the hundreds upon thousands of tons of metal before her. “Maybe make that two rolls!”

Soon enough, in the waning minutes of evening the only sounds to be heard were ffzzzzsswwww-IPPP! FFzzzzssssswwwwww--IPPP! and these continued on deep into the night, or at least until Applejack found herself needing a third roll of duct tape, something utterly unheard of before. An unseasonal crack of lightning briefly shone across her terrifying work, and the mare couldn’t help but let loose a healthy cackle. Somewhere along the way, wide-brimmed metalworking goggles had cozied up under her hat.

The golden rays of dawn were met in kind by the shining metal of the colossus and its...minor adjustments. It shone in the light as it passed over them.

“By the Void, what have you done to this machine?!”

“Just a bit of this and a bit of that. You want to learn from me? Two words: Duct. Tape.”

“The greatest war machine in the history of the brotoss is skating on four hellions!!”

“No it ain’t! It’s doing ballet on four hellions, and Darla’s doing alright by them pirouette thingies if I do say so myself!” Opposing legs rose and curled gracefully, punctuated by a blast of scorching blue flames from its new roller feet.

“You were supposed to make it better!” The brotoss’ voice hit new levels of crazed high.

Applejack huffed. “Well, she’s faster now and that’s good too.”

The templar covered his eyes and forced a deep nasally breath. “And the bunker fixed atop it...?” Gray neosteel and the dull sheen of tape capped the golden monolithic construct.

“Helmet,” Applejack said with a no-nonsense attitude, but a smile slipped through as Darla managed another graceful twist that belied her several hundred tons. “I wouldn’t set a bad example for my sister and her friends. Only right. Oh, I found a couple of those sentry thingies of yours. They were happy to go into the bunker, so that’s where I put ‘em. Makes for a nice little light show when I ask for it. Seems they’re rather unhappy about being out in the open, fragile as they are. Apparantly some of yours have been calling them ‘tickle cannons?’ They ain’t happy about that.”

The trees might as well have been blades of grass under Darla, but she - and the templar had to think of it as a she or accept that machines could in fact go insane - bore down on them with terrifying speed, each spidery leg weaving delicately between the pathways of the orchard, riling up no more than a slight breeze that brushed against the leaves.

Applejack seemed entirely unconcerned. Before the templar could shriek in terror Darla leapt, two legs splayed ahead, two behind, and time seemed to stand still.

The brotoss’ expression was certainly timeless.

There was only a slight tremor of the earth as she landed, than whirled about like a dancer basking in the glory of their completed routine. A sphere of translucent blue light expanded from the bunker-helmet and wavering streams of white energy waved back and forth like ribbons of celebration.

“Yeah, the sentries love that one. She’s growing on me, like a great big puppy.”

“...”

Applejack coughed the cough that is trying to say something without having to say it. “I daresay she feels the same way. The sunshine and fresh air are certainly doing her good, as you can see.”

“...”

Applejack scuffed at the dirt. “Once I can work out something for arms or the like, I might even have her help around with a couple of the chores and such. I’m sure Bloom would love to have another friend around the farm.”

“...”

“I’m keeping her, is what I’m getting at.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am always serious, except when I’m not. Darla! Do you wanna go back with the brotoss or stay here?”

“UUUUHHHHHHHLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Applejack nodded happily. “Well there ya go. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

It was here that the high templar thought fairly quickly. He thought he’d been certain that the machine, being a thing, was theirs. He hadn’t thought to ask Darla’s opinion on this sentiment, and trying to force a mighty destroyer of the ancient and glorious past to go somewhere it didn’t want to would be more foolish than starting a staring contest with an observer.

For one thing, observers weren’t giant warriors that could incinerate the world. This one was probably happily insane, and brotoss had never even heard of the word warranty, let alone receipt. There was a word very close to that one though that they had learned recently, and the templar beat a hasty one.

It was a sort of wobbling, after-image inducing floating shuffle towards the horizon.

“Well, thanks for the stuff anyway! If it makes you feel any better, she won’t be exploding anymore!

“Every sapient in this sector is crazy,” the templar muttered.

In the steadily growing distance, Darla spun about happily and sang the UUUUHHHLLLLLAAA song.

Comments

[Dragon Turtle]

Sooo... I don't get it. So AJ is a mechanic? Where did you pull that from? It was also confusing in that at first, it seemed like the Templar was trying to learn something from her, but then he's the one who gives her a job to do.

[ambion]

1349104

Aj isn't really a mechanic, but she is a problem solver. Not of precisely a mechanical nature, that's what's called an engineer. Aj solves practical problems, I think the leastmost stretch of imagination in Aj vs ht is to presume that she's got the same basic working knowledge of how to get bits that should move to move and bits that shouldn't to not that most farmers have. Hence; duct tape. Also, he's just a silly ol' high templar. Don't mind his antics.

[A fat elephant]

Was that a TF2 engie reference I saw?

[Midnight Loki]

Every sapient in this sector is crazy

No Shit Sherlock.