Ponies Versus Starcraft

by ambion

Rarity gets a slice

Justice has come!

...and with it, one small vegetarian pizza. Plus breadsticks, and a two litre bottle of mineral water.

Rarity clapped happily at the shining orb now flying overhead. A softly glowing beam of energy sent the foodstuffs down to her. While not her first choice, the mother ship core had only seen one takeout still open at this late hour before warping in. The hot food smelled wonderful, spiced and seasoned as it was by Rarity’s peckish hunger.

“Thank you!” she called up to the mothership core as she gladly received her pizza.

“You’re welcome.”

The mare trotted along, her mane and tail bouncing happily, a graceful look that was only slightly conflicted with by the entirely less graceful foodstuffs she magically carted along with her. She popped into the central nexus, followed only by her little attendant probe.

---

The noble soul within the Immortal’s carapace felt a pang of longing. He could see the photon cannon in the distance, but only because the bionics of the strider still functioned. What was left of his real eyes had been shut, like a babe’s, for these long centuries. He could not feel the creep beneath his metal limbs, or the wind through his warrior-braids. Nor could he feel the tension of suspence and anticipation. The pulse of his own heartbeat were shadowy recollections. He could remember what this was, but not how it felt.

The nearby observer overlaid his visual reading with the burrow of the nearest creep tumour. The great-strider towered over the spot, its shadow falling on the seething ground where it hid. Hydraulics growled and hissed as one leg lifted and slammed back down, shattering earth and stone, tearing through the mesh of life atop it.

The oozing, pustulant organ twitched where the hot, dry breeze touched it. The Immortal stared at it for a minute, fleshy motions and rampant vitality. An unfeeling, unfaultering body had some advantages, the old soul decided, and the great-strider’s leg came down once more. The creep tumour burst and died; giblets, glands and body fluids splattered against the shining metal of the Immortal. As he marched the long march home, the chunks slid and fell to the parched dust until only a dried crust remained.

The observer stared on, unblinking and unflinching.

---

Rarity had, in completely unladylike fashion, gotten pizza all over herself and was an absolute mess. This was to say in normal people terms that she had a smidgen of sauce here and a string of gooey cheese there, but was otherwise pretty much pristine. Half the pizza remained by the time she felt content; she’d never really had one before without her friends around to help polish it off. They really were foods for groups she decided, and entirely too greasy and full of fat to eat on anything but the rarest of occasions.

“I miss Twilight,” she said. “I miss everyone.” P.W. made it’s distinctive techno-meow sound and came closer. Rarity glanced to it, then hugged the little thing. “I know.” She stared at the sad, limp slice that remained on her plate. The barely-touched breadsticks still in the bag. Tried to imagine the sounds of her friends, the mess they’d surely have made of it. Pinkie Pie making faces, using breadsticks for props, and Fluttershy smiling, Applejack and Dash fighting over the last piece. Twilight recounting her sometimes boring and sometimes quite interesting trivia. Rarity tried to imagine it, but it wasn’t the same.

Probey-Wobey took the box in its little harvester beam. The grease-damp lid shut with a finality that was somehow just too sad. “Thanks,” she murmurred distractedly, and the probe took the leftovers away, to wherever it was they went.

She readied herself for the night, but it would be a while yet before sleep. When the dusk came it was sudden, like a black drip of ink that had been dropped into the sky. There was a thrum of energy and, all at once, the mothership core and the cannons at either end of the base turned on their lights. They were an eerie, unnatural colour, like peering into the warp conduits. The lights were not bright, but as they swept back and forth across the ground, its contours and shapes stood out with almost painful sharpness.

The core itself, floating as it had since arrival, glowed like the Equestrian World Record attempt at putting fireflies into some humungous jar. If Rarity stared, she could just see the spherical shape of it before the whiteness of it made her eyes water. It lit up the base perfectly adequeately.

“Lady Rarity, the patrols return,” it announced on a projected whisper.

“Very punctual,” she said, not really addressing anyone in particular. The silohuettes of zealots and her Immortal stepped into the light. The tracking beam of the nearer cannon went over them, held them momentarily in its sight, then resumed its endless back and forth searching.

“Another three tumours destroyed,” the lead zealot announced, bowing and crossing his blades across his chest as he announced this. Rarity really did wish they’d stop doing that.

“And yet the creep does not recede,” said another.

“Oh?” Rarity asked, looking to the Immortal, wondering if he would share his thoughts. “How is that so?”

“For each we destory during the day, another takes its place in the night. By dawn it as it was, and will be.”

Rarity huffed. “Well that’s cheery.” She prickled; she didn’t like these meetings, liked them less and less each day. She didn’t like the way they looked at her, expecting orders and leadership. “And still no more encounters with the zerg themselves?”

“None. The observer’s sensor range has allowed us to avoid the few mutalisks that patrol the desert. It has also spotted an overlord holding position on the horizon, and did manage to glimpse the queen responsible for the recurring tumors. We still do not have any indication of where their hive cluster is situated, or how many hatcheries might be at their disposal.”

Rarity looked straight up, though there were no stars to be seen, than stared her zealot in the eye. “Send it further. That overlord sounds like as good a start as any for it. If we can’t find any zerg, we can at least broaden our awareness of the topography. That’s all, for now,” she said, watching the zealots nod respectfully as they left. Rarity paused when she reached the Immortal, waiting like the patience of eternity itself. She stifled her instinctive attempt to call him dear or darling. “You have a bit of something...” she said, gesturing politely as she could at the dried tumour muck. She called a probe over to promptly clean it.

“Ah. Yes,” the great-strider said. “As do you.”

“What?! Ah, oh...a bit of pizza sauce, that’s all. Don’t startle me like that! Zerg stuff is entirely more gross.”

“My apolgies,” he said, but she could hear his half-entombed ass smriking. Her cheeks flushed with indignation, but she smiled too, feeling a little more herself.

“Something troubles you,” he said.

Rarity sighed as she began her nightly walk. For the last week she’d do this, as if it were her own little patrol to maintain. It helped her think and to sleep, even if it did not set her mind at ease. “No, no. I’m fine. Really. I appreciate the concern, though.” She barked out one clipped note of laughter. “And to think, I don’t even know your name yet. I’ve been trying to nickname you, did you realize? Nothing seems right. Oh, there’s been some I considered, like Valour or Shield or...” she mumbled ‘Tom’ quickly and quietly, “but nothing seems to be you, as such. It’s terribly frustrating.”

The Immortal said nothing, though the unicorn fancied that she sensed gentle amusement from him. They walked in the cool twilight a ways further.

“Do you think they will attack?” she asked.

He said nothing for a minute, as was his way. When he did speak, Rarity gave it her full attention. “Sooner or later there is always conflict. What matters is how we face it.”

The first mutalisk glave richocheted off the Immortal’s shields and embedded itself between Rarity’s hooves. She blinked. A few strands of her wavy hair fell to rest, never to be brushed again on the ground next to the menacing zerg blade. Rarity raised her hoof to the side of her head, than poked the glaive, which trembled menacingly and made her promptly step back, crying out and wincing only a little bit under her breath.

“That was very poetic," she said, "but I think, in this instance, a simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed, don’t you agree?”

The base lit up and the deep, resonating firing cycles of photon cannons, shooting their pulses into the screeching darkness.

The great-strider thrummed as its systems powered up and moved closer to Rarity. “Yes.”

Comments

[Angels]

this has probabaly already been said, but you must construct additional pylons.

[Messiah Complex]

3310903
pirate the first one. is one of the best rts games of all time. and all you need to know about scii storywise is:
Protoss are still kinda douche's
Zerg kick ass, and Kerrigan is still somehow really hot.
James Raynor topples the dominion, huzzah. (oh, and he de-zergs Kerrigan. haven't played brood yet, so lol i dunno about that)

[Rotorix]

If it could help you in any way, protoss can read minds and thoughts as long as they are not blocked.

[ambion]

3316554

Just a heads up that I will use or abuse this factoid by whatever whimsy I feel at the time of it being relevant. I can always hand wave it in either direction.

That said, if you're referring to the Immortal, he probably can read Rarity, but is polite enough not to, or at least not bring it up in conversation. Either way, I'll keep that titbit in mind, thank you.

[quade]

Now I want to see Pinkie have a overlord drop creep directly onto Rarity at some point, just to see how berserk Rarity becomes in response. Or even better, have Fluttershy do it in retribution after Rarity's forces blow up a hatchery.

[Joural]

3311199

Rarity already solved that little problem, thank you very much.