Tactical Espionage Rodents
It was on a bright and sunny autumn afternoon when Cheerilee squatted above her flower garden on the edge of Ponyville. She hummed a quaint tune, her teeth clenched over the handle of a watering can as she tended to a bright, blossoming rose bush. After a prolonged moment of bliss, she heard heavy hoofsteps clamoring towards her from the edge of the Everfree Forest bordering the town.
"Hmm?" Cheerilee tilted her face up, blinking.
An orange shape limped towards the grassy embankment, teetering left and right. As Applejack came into focus, her face held a dazed look. She wobbled suddenly to her left, veering, and bumped into a tree several times. This went on for a good ten seconds.
Cheerilee slowly, slowly raised an eyebrow.
At last, Applejack froze in her tracks, pivoted with a quiet whir, and stomped towards the schoolteacher. She stopped within a hair's inch of Cheerilee's flinching hooves. When Applejack exhaled, it was as if emitting a phantom gust of steam.
"Felicitous greetings, pony of mane most fuschia," Applejack spoke, each syllable pronounced with bombastic gusto. "Upon where can it be found the acorn of size resplendent?"
Cheerilee's eyelashes fluttered. "Mmmf—mmmff-mmmf! Mmm—" She spat her watering can out and smiled. "Why, whatever are you talking about, Applejack?"
"Acorn most large, brought here by malevolent intrigue; into anxiety ceaselessing, we seek it."
"Well, if you want an acorn that badly, you can buck just about any tree around these parts!" Cheerilee giggled lightly. "You of all ponies should be able to do that in a heartbeat."
"This is an attempt at humor..." Applejack stared straight ahead. With a quiet hiss, her eyes stretched in opposite directions then bounced back in place. "Is it not?"
"If I had any acorns to give you, I would, Applejack!" Cheerilee's expression stretched in concern. "Are you feeling alright?"
"The pony of mane most fuschia expresses worry. Fear not, citizen of horse horse. Apple of Jacked unit functions at exceptional parameters."
"It almost sounds like you've lost your accent. It could just be a head cold." Cheerilee leaned a hoof forward to touch Applejack's forehead. "Have you got a fever—?" The farm mare's orange coat was red hot to the touch. Cheerilee squeaked in pain and jerked her hoof back, blowing habitually on it. "M-my goodness!"
"An accent. Accessing..." Applejack's head tilted twenty-five degrees to the right... forty-five degrees... ninety. "Accessing..." Suddenly, with a piston noise, it snapped back into position, followed by a flickering of the pony's forest green eyes. "Affirmative. An accent. We have one."
Silence reigned.
"Yes... well..." Cheerilee eventually spoke, smiling nervously. "I wish your luck in finding... erm... acorns!"
"It is no mere acorn that we search endlessly for," Applejack droned, looking directly over Cheerilee's head. "It is the Heart of the Ancient Sciuridae Empire, acquired through countless years of strife and bloodshed with the Heathen Confederacy of Chipmunk Feudal States. They believe that the Rodent Goddess built incisors out of bone meal instead of tree bark. They shall all perish in a thousand righteous infernos for their heresy most abominable."
"Yes, well, if you're looking for... uhm... fall decorations..." Cheerilee turned and pointed over her shoulder at the bustling center of Ponyville. "Then I suggest you stop by your friend Pinkie Pie's Sugarcube Corner. She's just now baking the latest dessert treats for the upcoming Autumn Harvest Dance."
"Sugar of Corner Cubes?" Applejack's voice rang with metallic curiosity.
Cheerilee opened her mouth, lingered, and blurted, "Close enough. Have a pleasant afternoon, Applejack!" she sing-songed.
"Of this we are in unanimous agreementsing." With a jerky spasm, Applejack half-curtsied, then raised a hoof up to tip her hat. She jabbed herself in the eye instead, but made no show of it. "Fare your wells, Berry of Punch."
"Uhm..." The school teacher squinted. "I'm Cheerilee..."
"Best of luck to your kicking of the fermented quaff." Applejack lumbered away, her face plowing through a half-barren tree branch and snapping twigs loose with the brim of her hat.
Once she was several yards away, she ducked low behind a pile of fallen autumn leaves. The green irises in Applejack's eyes rolled back, exposing pure white sockets. With a whirring noise, her brown hat tilted up. Steam vented out of a hollow space in the pony's skull. A furry body rose up, bearing goggles over his tiny, fuzzy cranium. Lifting his goggles, a bushy-tailed squirrel looked through a pair of binoculars, performing a detailed survey of Ponyville's downtown district.
"Psssst!" A voice hissed up from the hollow in Applejack's neck. "Do your see our destination?"
"I think I found it," the one with the binoculars muttered. Lowering the binoculars, he pointed with a clawed finger towards a bright pink shape in the distance. "Over there. The building shaped like discarded picnic refuse."
"What happened back there with the pony citizen?"
"I don't know." The topmost squirrel grumbled. "I think some things were lost in the Translation Matrix. Still, she gave us some valuable information."
"Then let's seal 'er back up and proceed with the mission!" The voice down below chattered. "We've already lost a quarter of our reserve energy and we can't afford to waste anymore time!"
"Copy that." With a grunt, the squirrel leapt down into the hollow of Applejack's skull. A hissing noise announced the brown hat sliding back into place.
Inside the pony's head, the pilot squirmed back into a plush seat situated in the center of a glowing array of sparkling lights and spinning instruments. After the hat hatch sealed above, a deep crimson aura illuminated the whole cockpit. A wide viewscreen gave birth to static ahead of the seated rodent, then flickered to a digital HUD broadcasting Applejack's forward point of view. Steam hissed to the left and right of the pilot as he gripped four controller sticks—two with his hands and another pair with his feet. His bushy tail curled around a lever, and the whole interior of the mech wobbled as Applejack stood back up on even hooves.
"Alright, let's do this!" The pilot gritted his bucked teeth. "For the glory of Mother Rushnut—"
"Captain Pliskinuts!" A voice shouted up from the steamy bowels of the pony mech down below. A sweaty squirrel chirped with a radio pawed up against his ear. "Incoming Priority One Message from General H.Q.!"
"Unnngh!" Pliskinuts slumped in the pilot's seat, rolling his black eyes. "What, now?! There's no time for this!"
"You'd better respond, Captain, or they'll self destruct this unit from remote! All squirrel secrets must remain hidden from the horse creatures!"
"I know, I know." Pliskinuts slapped a switch and frowned ahead. "Onscreen."
With a flurry of snow, a frowning face melted into view, complete with a scarred face and a green beret. Behind him, the transmission showed the enormous hollow of an oak tree covered in computer equipment with various rodents in uniforms working dutifully at their separate monitoring stations.
"Captain Pliskinuts! Come in!"
"I read you loud and clear, Colonel," the pilot responded, keeping the ire down in his voice. "I'm about to engage the next leg of the mission. What's the emergency?"
"Pliskinuts, one of our operatives in the field has discovered that another member of Forage House may have infiltrated your location."
Every squirrel inside the mech gasped, nearly dropping their instruments. Pliskinuts leaned forward, his toothy jaw agape. "Good heavens! Forage House?! You mean the secret combat organization that went rogue five years ago to perform mercenary assignments in the Everfree Forest abroad?!"
"Yes," the Colonel said, his face reading cold and grim across the fluctuating transmission. "And Forage House's new sworn leader is allegedly none other than your own brother, Licken Snoodle. So you must understand the gravity of this situation..."
Pliskinuts, shuddered, gazing aside as he snarled, "Licken is no brother of mine. Not anymore. Not after what he did to me and..." He shut his eyes and palmed his face with a quivering paw. "... Gray Squirrel."
"Yes, but the deadly virus he infected you two with also flows through his veins."
Pliskinuts glanced up, blinking. "You mean..." He leaned forward in shock, his voice growling with a gravelly tone. "...Lickens is also a victim of the dreaded Forage Die?!"
"Affirmative." The Colonel's face nodded. "So, as you can see, both of your days are numbered. If you run into him, do not allow your thirst for vengeance to take over." The Colonel looked over his shoulder as the camera panned to show a superbly ticked-off mare with freckles and an orange coat bound and gagged to the inner wall of the tree hollow behind him. "As you can see, it has taken us a great deal of sweat and hard work to get to this point. The mech that you are piloting, is the most technologically advanced prototype of squirrelkind: Mare Gear. If we did not have this secret weapon in our arsenal, we would have forced you into a far less fortuitous expenditure, such as a one-squirrel-sneaking-mission."
"Luckily, it did not have to come to that." Pliskinuts' eyes narrowed. "Colonel, I believe I have a lead on where the Heart of the Ancient Sciuridae Empire is located."
"Good. Pliskinuts, pilot Mare Gear into the ponies' heartland and retrieve the acorn at all cost. The glory of Mother Rushnut lies in your paws." The camera panned away from the writhing farm mare and focused solely on the Colonel's emphatic glare. "Can we trust you to finish the mission?!"
"Aye, Colonel, sir! You can trust in me to finish the mission!"
"Then do so!" The figure in the viewscreen brought a paw up to his beret to perform a noble salute. "And bring honor to all of our fallen rodents in arms!"
The screen went to static, then switched back to Applejack's feed. As it did so, a pale-faced foal with raspberry-red mane curls smiled plumply into the mech's face. "Why, thalutathionth, Apple Bloom'th bith thithter! Want thome thweet thinnammon thwirlth to take home to Granny Thmith?!"
"Mare Gear!" Captain Pliskinuts shouted into a mic hanging above his cockpit seat. "Evasive maneuvers!"
"Aye, Captain!"
"Rear left hoof, locked and loaded!"
Pliskinuts jerked on a control stick. "Fire!" he shouted.
The world beyond the viewfinder spun as Applejack twirled one hundred and eighty degrees, pivoted her hips, and bucked Twist clear over a wooden fence and into a clattering junkyard beyond. The sound of her foalish screams was muted by dog barkings and rattling detritus.
"Target eliminated, sir!" a voice shouted from below, followed by the sounds of victory shouts and high-fiving paws.
"Good! Now, no more delays!" Pliskinuts adjusted several dials and instruments. "Lower legs?!"
"Standing by."
"Front hooves?"
"Standing by."
"Interior and Exterior flank servos?"
"Both standing by."
"Navigation?"
"Ready when you are, Cap'n."
"Artificial Neurological System?"
"I've got a few kinks left to work out in the Translation Matrix, but all other systems are functioning optimally!"
"Good enough. Let's finish this." Pliskinuts took a deep breath and pushed forward on the controls. "In memory of Gray Squirrel..."
With a grinding of gears and servos, Applejack trotted briskly forward. She crossed paths with a screeching stagecoach, knocked a gasping gray mailmare into a nearby thornbush, and scraped emotionlessly over a sidewalk, ruining three foals' chalk drawings and reducing the children to a crying mess.
"Captain...?" A squirrel spoke in a feeble voice from the engineering bay down below. "Is it true what the Colonel said? About you and Forage Die, I mean—"
"At your station, Lieutenant!" Captain Pliskinuts grunted. "All that matters now is the mission! I can't afford to have any of you distracted!"
"Yes, s-sir. But of course, sir."
Another voice shouted up. "Captain, sensors detect several life forms inside the dessert establishment dead ahead!"
"Then we must proceed with caution, or else risk being detected." Pliskinuts swung his controls forward. "I see a door. We must enter the building somehow."
"Accessing..." A voice muttered down below, then shouted, "Relaying pony-door opening instructions now!"
"Affirmative." Pliskinuts twisted at the controls, licked his lips, and thrusted forward.
With a thundering crash, Applejack plowed straight through the door frame. She stood in the front entrance of Sugarcube Corner, twisting her head about as the dust settled and several splintery bits of wood clattered off her orange figure.
"We have arrived upon the threshhold of cupcaking." Applejack faced the wide-eyed, blinking crowd within. "We desire the acorn and friendship, but mostly the acorn."
"Applejack! Awesomesauce!" Pinkie Pie bounced up from behind the counter. She frog leapt over the counter, plowed through a pair of elderly patrons, and skidded to a stop right in front of Applejack, her teeth grinning wider than the earth’s equator. "Just in time! Wanna check out the latest cakes I've baked for the Autumn Harvest Dance?"
With a squeaking noise, Applejack's neck pivoted towards the fluffy-maned mare. Her head pivoted to the side, whirred, then snapped back. After the green irises sprung back into their sockets, Applejack's mouth opened. "But of course, Twilighting the Sparkles. With great joy balls would we get fulfillment from thereby."
"Neato keano!" Pinkie Pie squeed. She hoisted Applejack off her hooves with one limb and bounced merrily towards the kitchen, knocking the elderly ponies aside as they were trying to get back up. Applejack flopped and stumbled after her like a limp marionette as the pastel pink equine rambled endlessly: "At first I was thinking of baking a bunch of doughnuts with black icing and orange sprinkles because that would be in the spirit of Nightmare Night, but then I realized that it's far too late to celebrate Nightmare Night and besides too many ponies are afraid that stuff might go down again like it did last year with Princess Luna and it would be way better to distract them by focusing entirely on the nature of the Autumn Harvest Dance instead, even if most ponies will be too full of sweet desserts to bother with dancing, unless of course they paced themselves in eating like my Auntie Pinkie Pie always said it was best to do—"
Meanwhile, inside the pony mech, the squirrel stationed at the Translation Matrix was pulling at his scalp while the machine before him haphazardly spat out: ‘"—forced window upon the ultimatum sound with deleterious weather fowl crooked watersport piloting messages to severely criticize your...’"
"What in Mother Rushnut's name is going on down there?!" Pliskinuts shouted.
"I-I have no idea, Captain!" The squirrel whimpered and banged at the computer console. "She's speaking way too fast for the system to process!"
One of the rodents at the rear legs spoke over the intercom. "Want me to fire a warning shot across her muzzle?"
"No! Negative!" Pliskinuts grunted back, struggling to regain control of the mech's flopping body. "We can't risk the success of the mission! Now, calibrate for the loss of balance and bring her around so I can get a proper view of the—"
Just then, the viewscreen evened out. A towering cake loomed into view, atop of which there nestled a full, rich, enormous brown acorn.
Pliskinuts' mouth hung open. "—target."
"Heeheehee!" Pinkie Pie bounced around Applejack. She performed a pirouette and stood on her hind legs in the center of Sugarcube's kitchen. "Ta-daaaaa! Isn't it the most awesome autumnal cake of autumnal awesomeness you've ever seen?!"
Applejack ticked, whirred, and ticked again. "Just essay!"
Pinkie Pie blinked. She plopped back down on all fours with a twisted expression. "Huh?"
Inside, Pliskinuts jerked at the controls and kicked at an instrument panel. "Translation Matrix! Pronto!"
"Got it!" A fuzzy thumb's up broke through the steam below the pilot. "Green light, Captain!"
Applejack's head swung like a pendulum before locking on the sight of Pinkie Pie. Her mouth hung open as the voice crackled forth, "A cake of supreme sugars, Twilighting Sparkleness. Most certain of you to please the flying princess of the horse horse."
"Heeheehee!" Pinkie Pie leaned forward and ruffled Applejack's golden bangs behind her hat. "Silly pony! Celestia's sworn off both cake and blood transfusions for the next six months! She said so in the last letter Twilight shared with us, remember?"
"We remember blood rushing like geysers in the frozen courtyards of St. Petersbrittle."
"Oooh! Speaking of Twilight!" Pinkie Pie bounced out of the room. "I've got some really sweet blueberry muffins to send her! I even used her own recipe to make ‘em! Stay here, I'll come back and show you!"
The doors to the kitchen swung to a stand still. Applejack was alone in the room... alone with the cake and the item of treasured glory mounting the top of it.
"Captain!" the navigator spoke up the neck chamber of the Mare Gear. "She has departed! The target is ours!"
"How did it even get in the ponies' grasp to begin with...?" Pliskinuts thought aloud, hunched over on his controls. "It's almost as if this whole absurd scenario was a delicate arrangement..."
"Captain! The mission!"
Pliskinuts snapped out of it, his face growing tight and earnest. "Right." He jerked forward at the controls. "Forward hooves, prepare to retrieve the Heart of the Sciuridae Empire!"
"Roger that! Engaging lateral motors!"
"Adjusting for weighted variance!"
"Steady... Steady..." Sweat poured down Pliskinuts' furry face as his goggled eyes locked on the target beyond the viewscreen. "Almost got it..."
Just then, the doors swung open again. Instead of a bouncing figure, a yellow shape came into focus.
"Intruder sighted! Four o'clock!"
"Stabilizers!" Pliskinuts hissed. He glanced to his right. "Switch to Camera three! Identify!"
The viewscreen flickered, displaying the far end of the kitchen where a golden pegasus with a pink mane trotted slowly towards the mech. With soft, aquamarine eyes, the pony blew loose a tuft of hair and stared at the Mare Gear solidly.
"I need info, soldiers!" Pliskinuts grunted.
"Coming in now!" A squirrel down below fumbled to speak. "Name: Fluttershy. Occupation: Animal caretaker." He looked up, cupping a pair of paws over his buck-toothed mouth. "She's harmless! What's more, she's an ambassador between ponies and squirrelkind!"
"Ah yes, I've heard of her." Pliskinuts smiled. "Fluttershy the Kind. She nursed the Colonel's niece back to health after a terrible run-in with a griffon years ago. The pegasus is a true saint, an angel."
Fluttershy took two careful steps towards Applejack, twitched, and swung a violent hoof across the orange mech's face. Sparks flew across the cockpit as the viewscreen went to static. Alarms blared; consoles exploded. The whole crew shouted and stumbled as the entire weight of Mare Gear fell on its side.
"Unnngh!" Pliskinuts hissed as he climbed back into his pilot's seat. "That bitch! Quick! Give me camera number seven!"
The viewscreen flickered once, twice, then displayed a lopsided view of Fluttershy hovering up on golden wings, snatching the acorn straight off the cake, and grinning demonically at the sprawling mech.
Someone from navigation shouted. "No! The Heart of Sciuridae—"
With a metallic snarl, Fluttershy flew straight down at Applejack with all four hooves.
"All paws!" Pliskinuts shouted into his mic. "Brace for impact!"
It was too late. The viewscreen turned to black as camera seven utterly shattered. The entire cockpit spun as Applejack rolled from the impact. Squirrels screamed as they hung for dear life from their sparkling instrument panels. Nevertheless, the rodents in the lower stations held tight to their controls, and soon Applejack was bouncing back onto all four hooves. She twitched and spasmed every other second, but she had managed to recover from the horrific blow.
"Nnnngh... Hckkkt!" Pliskinuts spat blood as he climbed his way back into the center of the cranial unit. "Ugh... r-report!"
"Power reserves at forty percent!"
"We can't take another blind hit like that!"
"Legs are stabilized, but it'll be a good minute before we can deliver a counter buck!"
"Come on! You gotta give me something!" Pliskinuts shouted as he wrestled with the pilot sticks. "We're sitting ducks here so long as we can’t—"
"Incoming!"
Just then, Fluttershy's face loomed into view. The pegasus juggled the acorn casually in one hoof while a sinister voice dripped through a rotten sneer. "Still working for that whore on the squirrel throne, Pliskinuts...?"
Pliskinuts gasped. "That voice...!" He leaned towards the staticky screen. "Could it be...?"
Fluttershy's mouth opened wide... then wider and wider. At last, with a sickly hiss of steam, her jaw snapped back, revealing several striped rodents seated at brightly lit computer stations within the pegasus' skull.
"Sir!" One of several squirrels' gasping voices spoke above the rest. "Chipmunks! The Confederacy has sent a mech of their own!"
"Hmmm-Heheheheheh..." One chipmunk in particular stood up, a pale rodent with long white hair and a ridiculous accent. "It's been a long time, brother. But I'm back!"
"Lickens!" Pliskinuts shouted. He yanked the microphone closer to his mouth so that his voice could be broadcasted over Applejack's speech. "I was told you would be here! Give me back the acorn of my people!"
Lickens Snoodle backflipped and stood nimbly on the tip of Fluttershy's opened muzzle. "Hmmm... always taking things that don't belong to you. How's it feel to leech off the legacy of our old friend, Gray Squirrel?!"
"What happened to Gray Squirrel was your fault!" Applejack hissed back with Pliskinuts' voice. "Now, we both too will someday die because of your unquenchable thirst for power!"
"If you speak of that annoying little poison, brother, I'm afraid you've allowed yourself to be brainwashed." The pale chipmunk slicked his hair back and flung his forearm for emphasis. "After all, it was your precious Mother Rushnut that invented the condition, not I. But now..." He gritted his incisors and struck a dramatic squatting pose with both arms extended. "I shall claim the glory of our forebearers for Forage House, and bring honor to the new Rodents of Liberty!"
"Your ambition is a blind one, Lickens!" Applejack grinded her hooves. "So long as you're in league with a coalition as heartless as the Heathen Confederacy of Chipmunk Feudal States—"
"Do not lecture me on the H.C.C.F.S.!" Lickens grinned wickedly as he stood up straight. "After all, I know what you did in Zanzabrittle, brother—!"
"Shut up!" Applejack leaned forward. "You are not Lickens! Not the one I know!"
"Then prove it!" Lickens Snoodle spread his arms out straight like a cross, forward flipped, and landed expertly in the pilot seat besides his fellow chipmunks. "Eliminate me in glorious combat! I shall grind your pitiful old soldier's ashes into the dirt!" He pulled on several levers. Fluttershy's skull slid back shut, hissing steam as the villain's voice crackled through her grinning, re-formed face. "With the Confederacy's new, superior weapon!" Fluttershy spread her wings wide, exposing several razor-sharp feathers that glistened in the bakery's bright light. "Metal Mare Ray!"
Deep in the steamy belly of Applejack, several squirrels shook with fear. "C-captain..."
"Battlestations!" Pliskinuts gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on the controls. "We fight for the glory of Mother Rushnut—"
Just then, Pinkie Pie hopped back into the kitchen, humming as she balanced a tray full of blueberry muffins on her flank. "Dum-de-dum! Oh! Hiya, Fluttershy! Your wings are certainly looking shiny today!"
"All the better to slit the throats of my bushy-tailed heathen nemeses with."
"Heehee! You said it, girl!" Pinkie swiveled around. "Anywho, Applejack, try out these muffins! I baked them extra blue—"
"Raaaaaaaugh!" Fluttershy spun like a tornado, smacking Pinkie Pie upside the skull with a tail comprised of pink titanium filaments.
"Fappo!" Pinkie Pie grunted as she flew straight into the pantry, collapsing under a pile of splinters and flour bags.
"Lickens!" Applejack galloped forward on clattering, metal hooves. "That is the last pony you shall ever harm!"
"Haaaaaa-hahahahaha!" Fluttershy stood up, gripping the acorn with forelimbs wide. "I've been waiting for this—!"
Applejack speared the enemy Mare Gear Ray in the chest. Both mechs flew through the wall of the kitchen, smashing out the other side and into the lobby of Sugarcube Corner with a spray of wood and mortar. Ponies shrieked and scampered every which way out of the place as Applejack gripped Fluttershy's neck in a leglock, threatening to twist the cranial unit clean off. Lickens' voice cackled through the pegasus' speaker as the pony's wings extended, knocking Applejack back. The squirrels' mech stumbled, giving Fluttershy the opportunity to spin her neck around with a pair of glowing red eyes. The room lit ablaze as twin laser beams blasted into Applejack's orange chest, throwing her clear out the window.
Applejack toppled across the ground outside as glass shards landed all around her. The metal beneath her chest was exposed, along with several loose, sparkling wires. The pony struggled to her hooves, wobbling left and right.
"Nnngh! Status!" Pliskinuts shouted.
"Major damage to the sternum plate!"
"Power at thirty percent and draining!"
"Sir!" A squirrel shouted up the neck-space from navigation as steam billowed through the interior. "Mare Gear Ray is far more superior! We have nothing in our arsenal to match its firepower!"
"Then we must find a weapon of our own to use!" Pliskinuts shouted as he swiveled the head of Applejack back and forth, squinting through the viewscreen for a sign of something to aid in their battle. "Quick! Scan the immediate vicinity for something heavy and blunt we can use against Lickens' mech!"
"Accessing..."
"Hurry..." Pliskinuts grunted through a sheen of sweat as a golden body could be seen bounding through the fresh hole in the side of Sugarcube Corner. "Target is inbound—!"
"Weapon found!" A squirrel's voice shouted over the intercom. "Behind us! Seven o'clock! Invulnerabilty Factor of Eight Point Two Five!"
"Good enough!" Pliskinuts jerked at the controls. "Battlestations, prepare for return fire!"
Behind Applejack, Derpy Hooves was squatting on the sidewalk beside her tattered mailbag. She was busy with plucking loose the last of several brown barbs from her flesh, wincing. "Unnngh... I hate thornbushes. Now what pony could have been so rude as to—Yaaah!" The wall-eyed mare shrieked as Applejack picked her up in reverse and held her like a massive club.
"Raaaugh!" Fluttershy glided in at full-force. "I am an unwavering wind of wrath from the east—"
"Have at you!" Applejack swung Derpy so that her flank collided with Fluttershy's skull, bubbles-first.
Fluttershy hissed steam as she crumpled unnaturally low to the ground.
"Nnnngh!" Applejack jumped high and came down with three more massive swings of Derpy's twitching rear to the pegasus mech's skull. "Haaugh! Yaaaugh! Take that—"
"Not today!" Fluttershy dug her wingtips into the ground and spun her body skyward like a ferris wheel, successfully uppercutting Applejack's sparkling skull. The orange Mare Gear dropped Derpy and stumbled backwards. As the mailmare's body fell, Fluttershy landed on her hooves and bucked her into a nearby fireworks vendor, sending bottlerockets and sparklers flying everywhere. Ponies screamed and ran for cover as the downtown area suddenly burst into billowing flames.
"Guhhh... Lickens! Stop this madness!" Pliskinuts shouted through Applejack's dying voice box. She struggled to stand upright as sparks and metal bits flew from her crumbling muzzle. "Give us the acorn so we can leave ponydom in peace!"
"Their war is our war now, brother! Forage House has seen to it! Soon, all will tremble under the paws of rodentia!" With that uttered, Fluttershy rocketed into the sky. "You haven't seen anything yet!" She pivoted about and spread her legs. A pair of missileheads poked out of her belly just above her crotch. "Holy nipples of flammable revengeance!" Twin rockets flew down at the orange mech. "Cleanse the landscape of all miserable cowards! Ah ha ha ha ha!"
A flashing alarm blinded Pliskinuts through his goggles. His voice cracked as he shouted into his dangling microphone. "Evasive maneuvers—!"
But it was far too late. Even as Applejack was turning to gallop away, the missiles landed, blowing up the very ground beneath the mech's hooves and sending clumps of Equestrian dirt flying all across the warzone. When the dust cleared, Pliskinuts' Mare Gear was a twitching, crawling mess. He yanked and tugged at the controls inside, but it was no use. Applejack had been reduced to a pitiable crawl.
"Nnngh—Report!" Pliskinuts wheezed and coughed against the rising smoke. "I'm opening the hatch so that we can breathe!" He pulled a lever, and sunlight poured into the cockpit as Applejack's hat lifted up. "Now, report!" He glanced down the neck compartment, panting heavily. "Who's still alive down there?"
All was silent, save for the sounds of groaning metal and sparkling computer consoles.
"Someone?!" Pliskinuts stammered. "Anyone—"
There was a loud thud as Fluttershy landed in the middle of the burning street before the squirrels' collapsed mech. Pliskinuts gasped and flung the enemy a look. Flames flanked the pegasus' glistening body as she marched intimidatingly towards the fallen pilot, juggling the precious acorn in one hoof.
"Face it, brother. The time of heroes is over. You and I are appendixes to a grand legacy of once-honorable warriors. Now, all we do is cling to bitter politics while wasting away from an artificial disease. And all for what?" Fluttershy raised a hoof over Applejack's hat to crush the squirrel within. "Face it, you should have been roadkill years ago. Embrace your end..."
Pliskinuts winced under the shadow of the impeding hoof-crush. Just then, he heard a voice crackling like thunder from the distance.
"Embrace yours first, Lickens Snoodle!" A figure blurred in, like a comet, swiping by Fluttershy's metal hoof with a resounding clang!
"Gaaah!" Fluttershy stumbled back several trots, reeling, barely keeping ahold of the holy acorn. "Who dares?!"
"I do, you heartless traitor!" A shadowy streak surged back and forth across Fluttershy's muzzle, shredding golden plates loose with several showers of sparks. "I am the ghost of the fallen! The final vengeance of every dying breath that has served Mother Rushnut!"
Fluttershy flinched and flung her bladed wings about blindly. Several razor sharp feathers were lost in the process as a tiny figure lopped them off, ran up the skull of the pegasus, and jumped away—only to perch majestically atop a street sign. The rodent stood proudly in the flickering light of Ponyville's fires, clad from head to tail in silver, reflective metal, and brandishing a razor sharp katana.
"I have come to save you in your time of need, brother! We are all born a second time through war, with a union that does not falter!"
"My stars..." Pliskinuts gasped. "Could it be?" He stood up straight in his cockpit. "...Gray Squirrel?"
"I have been called many names, but I have only ever had one voice!" Gray Squirrel struck a pose with the tip of his glinting blade. One of his eyes pulsed red with brimming energy. "And it is a shout—full of righteous fury that knows no pain! And you, Lickens, you bastard of technology and avarice, you shall hear it and nothing else!"
With a banshee scream, Gray Squirrel leapt clean off the street sign, spun in the air, avoided Fluttershy's retaliatory hoof-swing, and came down in a massive, lacerating dive. She split the cranial unit of the pegasus clean open, sending waves of energy surging down the body of the spasming Mare Gear Ray. Lickens snarled in frustration, lifting his foot to kick Gray Squirrel off. Gray Squirrel flipped out of his lunge, landing between the other chipmunks. They stood up on either side of him, brandishing miniature rifles aimed straight at his cranium. He merely spun in a circle, sending spurts of blood spraying from their screaming throats. As the evil rodents fell limply from the cockpit, Gray Squirrel proceeded to slash every instrument panel within sight, causing more and more of the pegasus' systems to fail.
At that moment, Lickens jerked at his controls, causing the mech—and the entire cockpit—to lurch to the side. Gray Squirrel lost his balance, and it was just the opportunity Lickens needed to shove his weight into him, punch him in the gut, and send him hurtling over the side of the cranial unit.
Gray Squirrel jabbed his sword into the bottom jaw of Fluttershy at the last second. But—as he dangled there—Lickens gave him a good kick to the red-eyed face. With a grunt, Gray Squirrel lost his grip of the katana and fell the long, hard distance to the ash-laden grass below. He landed in a thud. Before he could get up, a giant golden hoof landed over his lower body. "Aaaaugh!"
"Gray Squirrel!" Pliskinuts leaned forward, shouting at the top of his lungs. "No!"
"Snkkkt—Do not s-succumb to the forces of cowards and power mongers, dear br-brother!" Gray Squirrel struggled to say under the massive weight of the hulking pegasus mech above. "Though I may die, my spirit goes on!" The bleeding ninja rodent reached a twitching palm towards Applejack's shell from afar. "The last great warrior of Zanzabrittle..."
"Sorry to cut this scene sort..." Lickens' voice roared across the burning landscape. "...but your days of glory are over!" With a loud yell, he brought the other hoof of Fluttershy down over Gray Squirrel's skull. The air echoed with a sickening crunch.
"Gray Squirrrrrrrrel!" Pliskinuts howled. His fists clenched and he banged them several times against his dying computer consoles. "Nnnnngh!" Just then, there was a scurrying sound behind him. He looked over his furry shoulder.
A bleeding, wincing squirrel had crawled up the neck compartment to toss the pilot a rocket launcher. "H-here, Captain," the navigator wheezed. "The Nutkita Missiles. Use them to br-bring that traitor down..."
Without hesitation, Pliskinuts swiped up the bazooka, perched on the edge of Applejack's skull, and squatted. "Lickensssss!" he shouted.
The pale chipmunk breathlessly glanced up from the bloody mess far below him.
Pliskinuts squinted down the sight of his launcher. "I've got your future right here!" The missile surged forward like a shooting star. The world rang with Pliskinuts' prolonged scream, and then all was consumed by a gigantic fireball of devastating proportions.
Pliskinuts flinched from the blazing mess. As the dust settled, a bizarre stillness permeated the fire-swept scene. Fluttershy's metal body was lying chest-forward in the grass across from Applejack. Bits of her golden plate were blown off in several places, and in the very center—charred and bruised—lay the limp body of Lickens.
Pliskinuts blinked, his face covered in blood and sweat. He became aware of a heavy heartbeat throbbing in his ears, growing louder and louder until it filled his entire skull like a drum snare. He started to hyperventilate, especially as the figure of Lickens stirred in the Mare Gear Ray cockpit positioned across from him.
"Nnnngh..." Coughing up crimson juices, the pale-faced chipmunk glanced up from his seat. He grunted, then limply wheezed forth, "Br-Brother... Brother...!"
Pliskinuts' eyes flared. He had to snarl beyond the sound of his own heartbeat. "Forage...?!"
Lickens' eyes were wide as he pointed a single claw at Pliskinuts. He paused for breath, then ultimately shouted: "...Dieeeeeeee!" A continuous echo emanated from his outburst as he once again fell limp.
All was silent once more.
Pliskinuts blinked several times. At last, the sound of his heartbeat faded, and he breathed a little easier. His fuzzy brow furrowed in confusion.
All of the sudden, Lickens jumped up, pirouetting into a ballet pose. "Think again!" He flipped forward, yanked Gray Squirrel's katana out of Fluttershy's metal chin, and landed in a lithe squat on the grass.
Pliskinuts frowned. He scampered out of Applejack's hat, dragging and reloading the Nutkita Missile launcher.
"Raaaaaaaugh!" Lickens charged across the burning heart of Ponyville with the katana slicing through the air.
"This ends—" Pliskinuts howled as he jumped against the flash of forked lightning in the distance. "—now!"
"Cut your shit!" Lickens met his missile launch with a swinging blade.
Both rodent warriors converged in the middle of the madness, sending a wave of metal and flame erupting outward in every direction. Windows shattered. Storefront signs fell loose. The Equestrian flag burned to a crisp from where it hung several yards away.
Meanwhile, inside Applejack's abandoned cockpit, the Colonel's voice crackled desperately through the communication system. "Pliskinuts! Pliskinuts, respond! What's happened?! Pliskinuts?! Pliskinuttttttts!"
Princess Celestia sat with folded legs on a bed of cushions in the center of her firelit royal chambers. With great poise and a calm voice, she finished reading the unrolled scroll levitating directly in front of her.
"'...and after the fires were extinguished, we found Applejack and Fluttershy lying on the edge of the woods, their legs bound and their mouths gagged. Apparently they were let go around the same time the battle took place in Ponyville. We went to investigate the two separate trees that they told us about on opposite ends of the forest, but we found no signs of conspiratorial squirrels or chipmunks hidden inside the great wooden hollows. All was empty, save for some mushrooms and scurrying centipedes. As it turns out, they both were just as confused as we were about the whole mess, and yet still they were willing to help us bury the rodents we found at the site, and right now we are currently visiting Derpy and Pinkie Pie in the hospital while they make a swift recovery. Twist’s body was never found.'"
The sound of rustling paper lit the room as Celestia dutifully turned the scroll around and continued to the last part.
"'It just goes to show how careful we have to be with our friends, your Highness. You never know when they're just having a bad day, or when they're actually pony-sized robotic mechs built with improbable detail to impersonate real-life equines while enacting a timeless war between militant squirrel and chipmunk factions. So long as we're there for our friends, in every trot of the way, the magic will outlast the mayhem. This, you have taught me, and I hold it dear to my heart. Also, we now have this big brown acorn covered in burn marks and we don't know what the hay to do with it. Do you have any wise ideas, as usual, your Highness? Sincerely, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.'"
Celestia dropped the scroll and blinked ahead of her several times with a blank expression. At last, she ran a hoof over her face and weathered a tremendous headache.
There was a gentle knock on the door.
"Mmmf... You may enter."
The polished white entrance to the royal chambers creaked open. Princess Luna poked her head in. "We sensed that something of great enormity hath been bothering thee, sister. Wouldst thou care to share it?"
"Oh, it's just Twilight's latest letter from Ponyville, dearest Luna." Celestia stood up, trotted across the room, and poured herself a steaming cup of relaxing tea. "In which she endeavors to explain the nature of the tremendous fire that engulfed much of the tiny town last week."
"Oh?" Luna cocked her head curiously to the side. "And what news doth thy faithful apprentice have to impart thee?"
"She claims that the source of the dreadful explosions was a pair of metallic suits piloted by none other than sentient rodents, made to look like two of Twilight's closest friends as the creatures battled to the death for ownership of some enormous, rare acorn scrounged from the Everfree Forest."
"That..." Luna blinked several times. "...is the very definition of absurd."
"I know, sister, and yet I wonder..." Celestia turned and squinted across the way at the midnight alicorn. "Could it be possible that... they have returned? After so many millennia of quiet peace and prosperity, the violent war mongerers of the Sciuridae Empire and the Chipmunk Confederacy could be back to sow more chaos and destruction?"
Luna softly shook her head. "Exaggerate not, our fair sister, for those times art far behind us. Surely, this was but a random incident of magical or chaotic influence." She gestured with a blue hoof. "Ponyville doth experience them every Tuesday, yes?"
Celestial smiled sweetly. "You're right, Luna. As always, you have the voice of reason." She sipped from her tea and trotted back to the bed of cushions. "I have a letter of response to write. You may return to your royal duties."
"As thou wisheth." Luna curtsied, turned around, and trotted out of the room.
Once outside, the alicorn froze in place. She looked left... then looked right. With a hiss of steam, the top part of her skull slid open. Two chipmunks stood up from their cockpit, wearing gas masks. One turned towards the other with a deathly glare.
"She knows..."