Chaos and Courage

by SabreXio

For The Mare Next to You

"Are the six of you OK?" I asked. I was really hoping I hadn't landed too close.

"A little shaken" Twilight said as the rest of the ponies shook themselves off and joined her "but otherwise, we're fine"

"Good, sorry for dropping in like that" I said as the cockpit slid open with a hiss "this thing can't fly so I had Storm carry it"
I turned toward Rarity.

"What do you think of my new suit Rarity?" I joked as I flexed the mech suit's arms "I wanted to dress for the occasion"

"Not quite the colors I would have chosen" she replied smiling "But otherwise, you wear it well"

"I must say Captain, I'm impressed" I swung the robot around to face the Chimera

"Discord, this is your last warning: surrender or else"

"And what, pray tell, would happen if I don't surrender?" he asked from his ornately carved throne.

"If you resist..." I raised the claw on the left hand, spinning it around and clamping it shut with a satisfying clank "...I'm going to shove this claw so far up your ass, you'll be able to taste it"
All the ponies were disgusted by that little gem. If only they knew I wasn't kidding.

"There's the sadistic side of you I love so much" Discord taunted "good to see it still works"

"Come a little closer, and I'll show you how wrong you are"

"See Archangel, isn't it easier to be who you are, not what they want you to be?"

"When those two things are the same, yes" I snapped back

"When will it occur to you, you aren't some noble knight" he sneered "You're a killing machine. A tool that the ponies brainwashed into thinking your a soldier"

"Maybe so, but at least I'm happy" I replied with a Cheshire smile "And that's all that really matters"
Discord sighed in anguish. He was trying to convince me to join him, but I was not going to make it easy.

"Just let me ask you something out of curiosity" Discord said as he summoned an intricately "Why do you care?"

"Because it gives me a chance to beat you into a squishy lump" I replied

"Ok, that's disgusting, but I meant about the ponies: what do you see in them?"

I turned the mech slightly so I could see my friends: why did I want to protect them? The obvious answer was because I was ordered to, but that isn't the real reason I wanted to be here

"the answer is a bit more selfish than you'd think" I said "I've never had many people consider me a friend, but they do, and I'll die before I let you take them from me"

"What about those friends from before?" he said "All those soldiers and that one young woman, what was her name again?"

"You are entering dangerous territory Discord" Guardian warned him over the radio.
I was about to explode with anger, no one tries to use Sword Dancer against me. That's when Discord did something I would never forget. He snapped his claw and a figure appeared between us, a very familiar one.

"Why did you abandon me, Captain?" It said in a feminine voice "You said you'd never leave"

"Discord, I wouldn't do that" Twilight said as she backed away. She's never seen this human before, but given what Discord had said, she could guess who it was.

"Cheyenne?" I said in disbelief. It was my old partner, just as I remembered her. "No, no th-th-that's not possible, you can't be real!"

"Just like the promise you made?" She said

"I can explain Chey" I said trying to hold back emotion. It had been who knows how many years since I'd seen her

"No you can't" she snapped, her golden eyes boring a hole through me "Because no explanation will make this go away, Jack. Nothing you can say will fix this"

"Captain, stop!" Guardian said over my radio "She is an illusion"
I felt like someone ran a tank over me. On one hand, I really wanted to believe that this was my partner, and maybe I could convince her to join us. But on the other, Discord could have been using her to distract me. I had to know for sure.

"I swear Cheyenne, I would have come back if I could have" I said as I jumped out of the robot "I've felt nothing but guilt since I realized you weren't here"

"Not enough to come back" she replied "Not enough to try and find me"

"Look around; do you see a spaceport?" I said "But I do have a way to make it up to you"

"And what's that?" she said finally softening a bit. I knew he would love this.

"Stay here with me" I said "It could be just like before, and you'll love this place, I swear"

"HELP!" A terrified voice shouted, I turned around to see a group of Titan robots attacking my friends.

"C'mon Storm, let's do this" I said as I went to return to my mech.

"NO! You have to choose" Sword grabbed my shoulder and spun me back around to face her "either you stay here with me, or you lose me forever"
She looked serious. She always had a weird sense of humor, maybe she was just kidding.
"Chey, what are you saying?" I asked "This doesn't sound like you"

"I'm not going to say it again: Choose. Them or me?"
I broke her grasp and walked toward the mech.
"I don't know who the hell you are or where the hell you came from, but you are an insult to that image"
I climbed back into the mech and closed the canopy

"Why am I not surprised" the illusion said "You never really did care what happened to me, did you?"
"You? Not at all" I said as I turned and thundered toward my friends.

I grabbed the nearest Titan by the leg with my claw and crushed the reversed knee joint, causing him to fall over. I then dropped my hand like a hammer and crushed his head, rendering one of the four Titans offline. Swinging the Claw in a wide arc, I caught a second Titan off-guard slamming the steel pincer into his exposed shoulder joint, dropping the chain gun on the ground. Once he realized I was attacking him, he struck back, nailing the mech dead center with a missile from his other shoulder. I staggered back hoping the standard steel could stop the warhead. Satisfied that I was still OK, I charged forward and slammed a shoulder into the robot's chest, followed by a shattering stomp kick to it's leg, causing it to collapse into my rising fist which snapped it's head clean off.

"RUN!" I commanded my friends as one of the two remaining Titans spun up his guns. I threw up my arms and braced for the lead tsunami. The roar of the chain guns was deafening, until I heard a pair of loud pings off my armor. The guns fell silent and I dropped my arms to see a massive hole through one of the Titans heads. the remaining frantically looked around until an orange bolt flew into it's helmet shaped head and blasted it off. I followed the round's trajectory and zoomed in on the roof of my base, where I could see Guardian chambering a 30mm Rifled cannon.

"Nice shootin', Tex" I said over my radio. I had to remember to modify my own Titan designs to add armor to the head

"Captain, This must end soon" Guardian replied "Discord is resorting to steadily more vicious attacks"
I turned the mech to face the god.

"This shouldn't take long"

"Are you Ok, Captain?" Fluttershy asked as I rumbled up to the group

"I'm fine" I replied tersely

"Are you sure?" Twilight said "I've never seen you that mad"

"I'm fine" I replied a little more forcefully

"You don't look fine" The female voice said again.
Time to finish this

I retracted the canopy and jumped out of the mech. I had my eyes dead set on my target. As I stalked toward it, I drew my sidearm, a Taurus .500 revolver, and stopped directly next to Sword Dancer.

"Discord, here are a few things you need to know" I said "one: never piss me off"
I raised the large handgun, lining the sights up with my former partners head. The look of abject fear in her eyes will never leave me.
"Two..." I continued, cocking the hammer "Don't insult my friends with cheap knockoffs"
I fired. Sword Dancer disintegrated into dust before she hit the ground.
"And three..." I concluded as I holstered the smoking weapon "...is never underestimate your opponents"
I snapped my fingers and the mech shook as it reactivated. It thundered over to me and squatted down. I climbed up into the cockpit, replacing the cover and prepping for battle

"You just...She was.."

"A fake" I said cutting Twilight off "I know Sword Dancer and that wasn't her"
I locked in on Discord.
"And now, I'm going to beat Discord into a thin paste"

I didn't wait for a response, I just charged. Shaking the ground with every step, I met Discord head on. I swung the fist and hit him hard in the stomach, followed up by a claw bash uppercut into the head.

"You made a big mistake fucking with my emotions" I roared as I lashed out with the hand again
He dodged the swipe and kicked both of his stubby legs into the canopy, actually cracking it. I hammered down with the claw, missing but allowing me to swipe it around and catch him in the side.

"I have no idea why that human liked you" Discord taunted as he slithered his way past my attacks "Or why the ponies like you, for that matter"

He was getting cocky, so he eventually made the mistake of trying to snake his way through my open claw. I caught him of guard when I snapped the claw closed around his long neck. He struggled and squirmed against the industrial strength pistons that held him, and I was actually finding a small amount of sadistic joy in this.

"How does it feel, jackass, knowing you don't have a god damned chance" I growled as I ratcheted the claw down on his skinny throat.

He stopped struggling and looked me right in the eye.
"How does it feel to have a metal spike in your back?" he said with that stupid smile

"What?"
He snapped his talons again. The surround indicator alarmed, having detected something, but before I could turn, it hit. Hard. A depleted uranium spike had just pierced the unarmored generator casing and jammed the high-powered system

"ALERT: POWER CORE COMPROMISED! DETONATION IMMENENT!"

I looked back at the claw to find Discord had poofed away. I had to get out of this thing. I flipped a few switched to release the canopy, but it wasn't responding. I frantically tried kicking the reinforced glass as the robot shuttered from a small explosion. Each adrenaline fueled kick cracked the glass a bit more, but I was running out of time. after about the sixth kick the canopy shattered and I started to climb out, but the machine shifted backwards forcing me to fall back into the seat as it fell on its back. I started to climb out again, but I had run out of time. The machine erupted in an earth-quaking explosion, enveloping me in fire and propelling me into the air about a hundred feet. A few seconds later I crashed to the ground like an artillery shell. I tried to get up, but I looked to see my left shoulder was shattered, the pain receptors responding to the now crushed servo motor in the joint. I mentally switched them off and tried to stand, but with little luck. All I could manage was to come to a kneeling position

"Not so easy without your toy is it?" Discord said as he landed in front of me. I looked up to see the smug look on his face

"I'm not...*cough*...dead yet" I shot back, wiping some blood from my head

"No, you're not, are you" he said raising his lion's paw into the air "Let's fix that, shall we?"
His paw began glowing a blood red, most likely some kind of a dark magic attack that would end me.

"You have been a thorn in my side from the moment you entered this world, Soldier" he hissed, the power in his hand growing "Now I will destroy you and cement my rule over Equestria"
He dropped his hand and the energy shot out of it right at me. I raised an arm as though that would save me. I always though I'd die doing something crazy, not being executed by a science experiment. But none-the-less, I waited for my doom. I looked up expecting a searing pain, but instead, I saw a light purple dome that had been constructed around me.
I looked at Discord and watched as a tornado surrounded by a white light careening toward him.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Twilight exclaimed

"Oh my gosh, Captain, are you OK?" A soft voice asked
I dragged myself to my feet, only to stumble and almost fall down. I felt something catch my arms and I turned my head to see it was Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie and AJ.

"We gotcha" Dash said. I pulled myself back up and stood a little shaky.

"I'll live Fluttershy" I replied

"But, how did you...?" Discord stammered as he looked in disbelief "...that should have reduced you to ash!"

"I warned you Discord, don't underestimate your opponent"

"We ain't leavin him" Applejack said, stomping her hoof defiantly

"We're here through thick and thin..." Fluttershy added

"...Rain or shine..." Dash said

"...No matter the cost..." said Rarity

"...And no matter the danger" Twilight concluded
I looked around at the ponies I called friends, each united with me in our quest to protect Equestria from evil and realized I had found the best friends a guy could asked for.

"You girls are the best" I said "Truly, you are the best friends I could ever ask for"

"That's really touching" Discord sneered "But Pigs will fly before you have a chance"

"Ok first of all, there's a flying pig right behind you" I said pointing out the airborne animal. Discord turned around to look and quickly turned back with a look that said 'Did not see that coming' After we all stopped laughing at him, he just continued with other threats of how pointless this was.
"You know Discord, my plan for defending Equestria had been to build an army of robots" I said interrupting him "a legion of mechanized warfighters dedicated to Equestrian defense. But I just realized: the only army I need is right here. And I'm the power source"

"Where?" Discord asked as he looked around mockingly "All I see is a group of misfits and their pet toaster"

Toaster? That's a new one

"Here, Discord, let me enlighten you"