> Pony Versus Machine
>  by Smoker
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Worst Hiking Trip Ever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“My hooves hurt…” Sweetie Belle grumbled as she slowly trekked along the high mountain path with her two colleagues. “I’m gonna get dust in my mane, and the light’s hurting my eyes…”

“Oh, why hello, Rarity!” Scootaloo said sarcastically. “I didn’t know you were coming along on this trip too!”

“Har dee har har.” Sweetie Belle said, glaring at the Pegasus. “Why don’t you go back to your coop, you little orange chicken.”

“I’m not a chicken, you’re a turkey!”

“Girls!” Applebloom snapped. “I’m just as crabby and tired as you two are. Let’s all just be quiet and get our bloody hiking cutie marks a’rready.”

“This is so stupid!” Scootaloo whined. “What would a hiking cutie mark even look like?”

“Walking cane?” suggested Sweetie Belle.

“Dirt road?” Applebloom asked.

Scootaloo was about to reply when all 3 of the girls felt a heavy rumbling under their feet.

“Earthquake!!” Sweetie Belle cried, leaping onto Applebloom’s back. “I’m too young and squeaky to die!”

“Get offa me, darnit.” Applebloom grumbled, tilting to have Sweetie Belle fall off her back. “That ain’t no earthquake.”

“How do you know?” Scootaloo questioned.

“Because it’s coming from that!” Applebloom cried, pointing a hoof to her left.

An enormous blue… thing… was slowly trundling across the Everfree forest. It was thrice as tall as even the tallest of trees, and had four enormous tank treads, each the size of semis. Its headlights glowed yellow as the thing slowly moved across the forest, crushing trees underneath it like they were twigs. Even though it was about a quarter mile away, the girls could still feel its tremendous destructive power shaking their hooves.

“What is it?” Scootaloo asked.

“I think it’s a whale!” Sweetie Belle said. “A land whale!”

“You marshmallow!” Applebloom said. “That’s no whale.”

“Well then what is it, Mrs Know-it-all?” Sweetie Belle countered.

“It’s… uh… an alien spaceship!” Applebloom said, pulling the words out of thin air.

“No, it’s Celestia’s new ride!” Scootaloo suggested.

“That’s the stupidest of all!” Sweetie Belle snapped.

“Shhhh!” Applebloom said suddenly. “It stopped! I think it saw us!”

Sure enough, the enormous blue thing had ground to a halt, its tank treads hissing. Small, dark figures rose from the top.

“What the heck are those, now?” Scootaloo whispered.

“Babies?” Sweetie whispered back.

Suddenly, as if by magic, an arrow sprouted from the rock directly in front of the crusaders. The three hid behind a small outcrop, but no further projectiles followed.

Applebloom slowly approached the arrow, which was almost as big as her. She saw a sheet of paper wrapped around it. She untied the paper. Written on it were two words.

RUN HOME.

“What do they want?” Scootaloo asked.

“I’m not sure… I think they want us to… run away?” Applebloom replied.

“Hah! Yeah right! That thing’s such a lousy shot with an arrow, it couldn’t hit the broad side of-“

She was cut off by a faint “bang” from the large machine. At first they didn’t know what it was, but then they saw: a smoking hole had just appeared in the dead center of Applebloom’s red bow.

“On second thought, I vote we start to head back home.” Scootaloo continued.

Then the three saw something large rushing through the air, emitting a smoke trail; it hit the cliff face not ten feet away from them, showering them with debris.

“And fast!” Sweetie said, pointing. More projectiles of many shapes and sizes were already beginning to rain down upon them.

Without further discussion, the CMC’s founding members turned tail and scampered back along the trail to Ponyville. Rather than letting them go, the large blue machine made a low wailing noise as it began to move once again, following them.

XXXXXXXX

Onboard the Robot Mothership, a robot slowly walked down a dark hallway, each footstep making a loud clank. Blue eyes glowed as it walked through a particularly large doorway.

“Yes, what is it, 3714?” Came a low, metallic voice from the other side of the room. The speaker was completely shrouded in darkness, practically invisible.

“Sir? What exactly is the point of terrifying those three organic life forms?” The robot said, scratching the back of its metallic head.

“Did you not listen in the multiple debriefing seminars I held?” The deep, echoing voice groaned. “It’s simple: we find the ponies, follow them to their home, then claim the settlement for our own. Then we turn it into a robot factory, and move on to the next settlement.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry to bother you, sir.” The robot said, beginning to back out of the room.

“3714.”

The robot froze and saluted upon hearing its name.

“Tell the long-range weapons experts not to kill this one if they see her.” From seemingly nowhere, a photograph appeared, fluttering to the ground in front of the robot, who picked it up.

“Why is that, sir?” The robot asked.

It then promptly exploded.

There was a loud bang, and robot parts were scattered through the air. The head of the robot was caught in a telekinetic grip.

“I do not tolerate robots who question my orders.” The voice said coldly. It then crushed the robot’s head with sheer telekinetic force, dropping the parts to the ground.

A second robot walked in. “You called sir?” It said.

“Tell the long-range weapons experts not to kill this one if they see her.” The voice repeated, picking up the photograph with its telekinetic grip and giving it to the robot.

“Yes, sir.” The second robot said, noting the scattered pieces of the last robot on the ground. It then hurried away.

Alone, the malevolent being turned to a small window, and viewed the small town growing closer by the second. It chuckled darkly.

> 1: The Mechanical Menace
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We need streamers! Who’s in charge of streamers?!” Pinkie Pie cried worriedly as she ran around the room.

“You are, Pinkie.” someone said as they walked by her.

“Oh yeah! Hee hee hee!” Pinkie said, pulling streamers out of nowhere and beginning to hang them on a ladder also pulled from nowhere. “And where’s the cake? Please tell me someone made the cake!”

“That’s also you, Pinkie.” said a stallion as he trotted past her.

“Right, my bad!” Pinkie said. She raced over to the kitchen and wheeled out a massive purple cake. “Fluttershy, how are the birds coming along?”

“They’re ready to go when you are, Pinkie!” Fluttershy said, hovering near a perch of songbirds. Her beloved Angel Bunny was with her also, perched on top of her head like the world’s grumpiest hat.

“Rarity, hurry up with the ribbons!” Pinkie called as she raced past the unicorn.

“Don’t rush me, darling.” Rarity said as she slowly continued to straighten a ribbon which she was hanging from the wall. “These must all be positioned perfectly if there is to be any hope of this party’s success!”

“Rarity, you’re on your third ribbon out of a hundred, and we’ve been working on this for over an hour. Pick up the pace a little!” Rainbow said as she dashed past her, forelegs full of boxes. She pulled out some goodie bags and began to line the consessions table with them.

“AGH! Where’s the seventh box?! There needs to be a seventh box of goodie bags, or someone won’t get one!” Pinkie panicked as she scampered past Rainbow Dash.

“Jeez, Pinkie, lighten up. It’s just one party.” Dash said as she continued to place the bags.

Pinkie froze, then scurried backwards to Rainbow Dash. “Just a party?! JUST a PARTY?!?!” She yelled, her face inches away from the rainbow-maned Pegasus. “Dashie, this is Twilight’s ‘we-missed-you-while-you-were-in-away-in-Canterlot-for-six-months-on-royal-business’ party! It’s the first Pinkie Pie Party® she’s had since her coronation!” Then Pinkie cried out. “OMIGOSH! I forgot the party cannon!” She ran upstairs, leaving behind nothing but a lingering cotton candy smell.

“Ah swear,” Applejack said as she walked up next to Dash and began to set purple plates of purple cupcakes on the table. “Pinkie’s so gosh-darn worked up about this party, you’d think she was gonna propose to Twi’ or somethin’.”

“I know, right!” Dash replied, emptying the first box and moving on to the second. “I mean, it’s already going to be the best party she’s ever had. Heck, she even - … um, AJ? You ok?”

Applejack had stopped mid-sentence, her ear twitching.

“AJ? You ok?” Dash said, waving a hoof in front of the earth pony’s eyes.

“Applebloom’s calling me.” Applejack said seriously, rushing towards the door.

“What? What do you mean?” Dash asked, zipping after her.

“I’ve lived with Applebloom for nine years, Dash. I can hear her from a mile away. And right now, I can hear her calling for help.” Applejack said simply.

“Ok, well where is she?” Dash questioned.

“Here.” Applejack said, running out the door and pointing to her left. Not fifty feet away, the CMC fillies were running as fast as their little legs could carry them.

“Applejack! Help! Help!” Applebloom cried as she and her friends ran up to Applejack before flopping down, exhausted.

“Steady, girl! Where’s the fire?” Applejack questioned.

“…whale…” wheezed Sweetie Belle.

“…aliens…” gasped Applebloom.

“…Celestia…” choked Scootaloo.

“What are you…” Applejack paused, feeling something vibrating. She lifted her head up, and peered into the wind. Her hair blew back behind her, and she put a hoof on her hat.

The rumbling slowly grew in pitch as a titanic blue shape appeared over the treetops. Its enormous treads shook the ground, causing the rumbling. It came to a stop just at the edge of the town, crushing several of the outermost houses like toys.

As Applejack watched, the entire front of the huge thing began to open. The huge door on the front made a low “ding” noise as it unhitched and slowly lowered, the hydraulics whispering as the door lowered to the ground.

Inside the opened chamber, Applejack could see dozens of dark figures. She squinted, but couldn’t see them very well. One thing was for sure, though: they weren’t ponies.

One by one, the figures began to start up. A low, mechanical rumble started as they began to move.

Robots.

The first one out wore a helmet bearing three stars that covered half of its head, and carried a large weapon of some sort. Slowly, the rest of the metallic mob began to follow it. A chorus of clanking came from their feet as they stomped out in an organized fashion.

For a few seconds, it was like some bizarre staring contest, as ponies and robots stared at each other, not knowing what the other would do.

The first robot raised its free arm high above its head, then it snapped it forwards, pointing towards the town. It cried three words in an electronic voice:

“CRUSH! KILL! BLEEP!”

With that, the horde came alive: bullets began to fly everywhere. Some of the fat robots spewed fire, while some of the large ones sprayed dozens of bullets. The helmeted robot and his comrades began to fire missiles at the nearby buildings, rapidly destroying them.

The smaller, faster ones were already approaching Applejack and Rainbow Dash; they were firing their guns wildly, which spewed out dozens of bullets per shot.

“Girls, get inside! Now!” Applejack yelled, and the CMC promptly hid inside sugarcube corner.

“I don’t know what you guys are, but you’re destroying Ponyville, and that’s NOT cool!” Rainbow Dash yelled, zooming towards the nearest robot.  The bot whirled around and fired a blast at her. One missed shot was all it got; Dash literally blasted right through the robot, leaving just parts behind. Laughing, she raced for the next one.

“Applejack! We heard noise, what’s going-“ Pinkie said as she and the other elements rushed outside. Then they saw the robots, and no further explanation was necessary. “Good thing I brought my party cannon!” Pinkie said, pulling out the cheerfully colored cannon and blasting the robots with it. While tablecloths wouldn’t normally hurt the robots, tablecloths blasted from a cannon and traveling 60 mph probably would.

“Ugh! They’re making such a mess! I simply cannot stand for this!” Rarity said, as she brought out some of the ribbons she had been using just moments ago. With a designer’s precision, she began to wrap up and immobilize the robots.
Applejack sprang into action. She saw her marketplace stall nearby; she raced over and tipped over one of the buckets of apples. Without hesitation, she began to buck the apples using her hind legs. The nutricious projectiles traveled almost as fast as the robots’ bullets, and often had enough force to tear robotic limbs off.

As for Fluttershy, well, she didn’t earn her PhD in “hiding and whimpering” for nothing. Angel bunny, however, was not so cowardly. He leapt off of Fluttershy’s pink mane and gave a high-pitched whistle. Within seconds, hundreds of animals had joined him; raccoons, squirrels, weasels, cats, even a couple bears. Angel made a squeak which sounded more like a battle cry, and the small army rushed forwards. The bears plowed through the robots like tanks, bullets bouncing off their thick hides. The smaller animals banded together, and crawled up a robot’s body, gnawing its wires and gears. Working together, they were able to cut the power and shut down the robot in seconds, then move on to the next bot.

All together, the elements of harmony were an impressive fighting force. However, it looked like they wouldn’t be enough. A second wave of robots poured out of the machine, coming out shooting. At this point, though, all of Ponyville knew what was happening, and many residents were taking arms. Most just fought with their hooves or magic, but a few had their own unique styles of fighting.

Vinyl Scratch was throwing her record discs at the robots from a second story window. She somehow threw them so that they sliced through the robots’ metal hides like a buzzsaw through butter.

“Wow, Vinyl! How are you doing that?” Octavia asked, as she fenced a robot, bat vs bow.

“Years of DJ practice. All in the wrist, Octy girl!” Vinyl said, hurling another record. Then she paused, and stared at her hoof. “…or is it my ankle? My toe? I have no idea.”

Across the street, Bon-Bon was pelting the robots with candy. While this didn’t do much damage, it did blind the robots with chocolate spatters, distracting them long enough for someone else to take them down. “Dammit, Lyra, help me with these things!” She yelled, dodging a particularly large bot as it lunged at her.

“Sure, sure, in a minute…” Lyra said, as she sat on the couch, fascinated with a metal hand she had pulled off of one of the robots. “Apparently, these things only have two fingers and a thumb… fascinating…” she whispered to herself.

Up on the rooftops, Doctor whooves was fighting Robots who had climbed up to the roofs. “For pears’ sake, the Golblurnians weren’t supposed to invade until next Tuesday!” He cried, blasting another bot with his sonic screwdriver. “Derpy, keep on NOT fighting the robots!”

“Yes sir!” Derpy said, saluting. As she moved her foreleg, she knocked some conveniently placed bricks off of the roof and onto a couple of robots below. “Oops… my bad…” she said, quickly backing up and bumping a conveniently loose chimney, which toppled over onto one of the larger bots. “Sorry, mister!” Derpy cried, as she leaned over to look at the robot, inadvertently swishing her tail and knocking a convenient flowerpot onto yet another robot. Et cetera, et cetera.

Even Big Mac was pitching in; whenever a robot started to come near his orange sister, he charged at it and crushed it. “Nope.” He continually said as he crushed the robots’ metal skulls with his mighty hooves.

And so, most of ponyville, including almost every background pony the author can think of off the top of his head, continued to valiantly fight on.

And on.

And on.

XXXXXXXX

“You have to be kidding me! How many of these things are there?!” Applejack hollered as a seventh wave of robots clanked out of the machine.

By this point, the Ponyville populace were seriously getting tired. Ponies lay on the streets or cowered in their homes, too worn out, injured or scared to fight anymore. Vinyl’s records and Bon-Bon’s candy reserves were bone dry, and even Pinkie Pie had run out of party cannon supplies, and was resorting to shoving rocks into her cannon to fire. “Rocks. Why’d it have to be rocks.” She grumbled as she tossed in another load.

Rarity had run out of ribbons, and was trying to reuse the old ones, but most of the time, when she tried to pick off a spare ribbon off of a restrained robot, the bot would break free and she’d be forced to tie it up again.

Angel Bunny only had a lone bear left as his compatriot. The little bunny was riding on top of the bear’s head and was using his ears as reigns. However, even the last bear was starting to get tired now, and Angel had to yank harder and harder on its ears to convince it to attack.

Heck, even Derpy was running out of convenient things to knock off of roofs; Whooves had moved her to most of the roofs nearby where the robots were attacking, and she’d exhausted all possible things to knock off on each one of them.

All in all, things were not looking good for the small town, and Applejack could only think one thought as she tackled yet another robot:

“When in Tartarus is that gosh-danged overpowered Twilight gonna get here!?”

> 2: Welcome back, Princess!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Bloop!”

Twilight Sparkle sighed as she dropped a sugar cube into her tea, and watched the ripples slowly travel outwards from it, distorting her reflection in the murky brown liquid. She levitated a spoon and slowly stirred the steaming beverage. She looked out the window of the train, watching the landscape slowly pass by.

“Hey, Twi.” Spike said, opening the door of the luxurious train compartment. He’d had a minor growth spurt over the months; he was now an inch or two taller. Hardly noticeable to most ponies, but it reminded Twilight of just how long she’d been away from her friends.

“Hey, Spike.” Twilight said rather glumly, as she continued to stir her tea, even though the sugar cube had already dissolved.

“Come on, why are you so miserable? You’ve been looking forward to getting out of Canterlot for weeks!” Spike said, plopping down on the seat next to her.

“I was looking forward to spending time with my friends. Which I’m not going to be able to do.” Twilight said.

“Why do you say-“ Spike began, then he noticed her looking at the inner window of the compartment. He followed her gaze to see a dozen Solar Guards, goose-stepping down the train’s hallway vigilantly. “Oh yeah, the bodyguards.”

“Celestia sent, like, fifty of them, Spike!” Twilight burst out. “How am I supposed to see my friends with these guys breathing down my neck 24-7?!”

“Well… it’s not like they can tell you what to do. I mean, you’re the princess!” Spike said.

“So is Celestia.” Twilight said, levitating her bag and pulling out a scroll. “I’m not supposed to show you this, but…”

Spike grabbed the scroll and unfurled it. “…It’s a schedule. So?” Spike said.

“Spike, actually read it!” Twilight said, rather agitated.

“All right, all right, jeez…” Spike said, looking at the parchment more thoroughly. “hmm… Royal parade, 11:00… Royal Banquet, 12:00… Royal Address, 12:30… “ he flipped it over. “That’s pretty short for you, Twilight. Only three things?” he questioned, handing the scroll back to Twilight.

“That’s just it Spike. I didn’t make it.” Twilight said, staring miserably at the schedule. “Celestia herself made this, and she forbade me to stray from it.”

“Um… so?” Spike asked, still not seeing what was wrong.

“SO the thing doesn’t give me any time to spend with my FRIENDS!” Twilight yelled, throwing the parchment on the ground.

“Ohhhh…” Spike said, realizing why exactly Twilight was so agitated.

“I’ve spent six frigging months in Canterlot, and what do I get in return? Less than two hours back in Ponyville. That’s shorter than an average royal court session.” Twilight said, the words pouring out of her. “And plus, I won’t get to talk to them personally during the parade or the speech, so that shortens my time with my friends to a grand total of a HALF HOUR. Lucky me!” She was pacing around the room now, kicking shoes and bags angrily. Her royal dress billowed out behind her like a yellow tidal wave.

“Twilight, relax!” Spike said, hiding behind the seat. He always was scared when Twilight got like this. “A half hour’s better than nothing!”

“Maybe, Spike, but a half hour? In return for six bucking months?” Twilight said, flopping back down onto the seats in a huff. “I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t add up. And now I’ll need to spend another six months in Canterlot for another half hour!”

“You could try and bend the rules a little bit, and give yourself more time to talk with your friends…” Spike suggested, but stopped cold when Twilight glared at him.

“Spike, when GOD gives you a schedule, you follow the schedule or your plot gets smited!” Twilight cried as she pounded the seat with her hooves. “I mean, the only way I could possibly convince Celestia to alter the schedule is if there was a zombie apocalypse or something!”

As if on cue, there was a loud crash, as a severed robot head came careening through the window. It entered with such force that it bounced off the walls, broke the table, and landed in Twilight’s lap.

“Yo, wassup?” said the skinny, baseball-cap-wearing robot head, before sparking and shutting off, the blue light leaving its eyes.
Twilight yelped and tossed the head off of her lap. Judging by the screams she heard through the thin walls of the surrounding compartments, the nearby passengers were also being pelted with robot parts.

“Where in the hoof did that come from?!” Twilight cried, rushing to the broken window. She gasped, not quite understanding what her eyes were seeing.

Ponyville was quite close, not a half mile away; they must have been very near the station. Parked directly next to Ponyville was an enormous blue machine, half the size of Ponyville itself. The thing was constantly spewing out gray figures, which moved into the town. Though Twilight’s view was blocked by buildings, she could hear fighting taking place throughout the town. Chunks of buildings were missing, and Twilight could even see a rainbow blur as Rainbow Dash fought the invading robots.

“So… I take it a robot apocalypse is as good as a zombie apocalypse?” Spike said, pulling himself up to the window.

“Attention, passengers.” Said the train’s intercom in a cheerful male voice. “We’ve experienced a slight inconvenience here at the front, and the train is going to be forced to stop for… an indeterminate length of time.”

Without a word, Twilight unceremoniously tore off her regal princess dress – literally ripping it into pieces – and exposed her slightly small wings. Then she leapt through the broken window, and took flight, soaring towards Ponyville. 

She could hear Spike calling her back, but she paid him no heed. Her true home needed saving.

XXXXXXXXX

It took Twilight a couple of minutes to reach the town, despite it being close by. Her wings weren’t as strong or often used as those of a pegasi, and she couldn’t fly as fast or as far as most pegasi. She could fly for moderate distances, though, at admittedly rather slow speeds.

The alicorn was already panting as she finally reached the town. She looked down, and saw the streets in absolute chaos. Holes and rubble were everywhere, and robots and ponies fought at every street corner. Twilight worriedly noticed that there were signifigantly less ponies then robots; almost half as many. Not only that, but the robots showed no sign of stopping, as another surge of the things tromped out of the machine.

Twilight was about to fly down and help, but she heard a particularly loud, high-pitched scream. Rarity! Twilight flew as fast as she could in the general direction of the scream. Then she saw her: the white unicorn had fallen near the ponyville library in the center of town. She was clutching her hind leg and wailing in agony, blood staining her white fur.

Twilight landed via faceplant, then got up and ran over to Rarity, still huffing from the relatively long flight. Despite her aching muscles and the sweat streaming down her neck and back, she started to charge up a healing spell. “Are you ok? Don’t worry, I’ll fix you up!” Twilight said.

Rarity leapt at her, and hugged her tightly. “Thank you, t-thank you! I was so s-scared that nobody w-w-would help m-me!” she cried, tears running down her face.

“There there, it’s ok.” Twilight said quickly, trying to angle her horn to hit the wound. “Just let me-“

“-Urk!”

Twilight froze as still as a rock. She toppled to the ground on her side as Rarity let her go; the trickles of sweat pouring down her back had turned into a warm, sticky waterfall.

Twilight’s vision began to dim. As she craned her neck upwards, she saw Rarity somehow standing on her hind legs, despite her leg wound…. And that being a physical near-impossibility.

In her white hoof, she held a bloodied butterfly knife.

As Twilight watched, Rarity became shrouded in smoke that seemed to originate from nowhere. When the smoke cleared, a robot stood in rarity’s place. This one was particularly skinny, and its face was painted as though it was wearing a ski mask or a balaclava.

“Oh dear, I’ve made quite a mess.” The lean robot said, brushing a few spots of blood off its dark blue metal chest. It clipped the knife to its belt and unclipped a revolver.

“I never really was on your side.” The robot said as it lazily took aim at Twilight’s head.

Then, to both Twilights and the robots astonishment, an arrowhead sprouted from the robot’s chest. Then another one appeared in between its eyes. The blue lights in the robot’s eyes dimmed, and it fell backwards.

“I was never on your side, either! Wankah!” An unfamiliar, accented voice came from somewhere farther away.

Twilight tried to tilt her head to see who had spoken, but she was getting weaker. Her vision was rapidly fading now; turning black, and her head flopped to the ground. With the last of her strength, she put her faith in the stranger, and weakly croaked, “…please…help…me…”

The stranger’s voice echoed in her head like the speaker was in a deep cavern. “Ah, bloody hell, it got one… MAY-DIC!” she vaguely heard footsteps running away. She wanted to beg him not to leave her, but couldn’t speak. As she neared unconsciousness, she faintly heard the unknown speaker saying “this way, doc!”

And another voice: “ooh… zis is not good!”

Twilight desperately wanted to open her eyes, but she had no strength left, and lapsed into unconsciousness.

XXXXXXXX

It could have been a few minutes or a few years later, when Twilight regained consciousness. The first thing she heard was a light humming. So peaceful…

“UEEEEEHHHH! UAAAAAHHHHH!”

A third voice, which sounded like Snowflake the giant Pegasus wailing like a baby, penetrated Twilight’s eardrums, and her eyes jolted open. And for the second time, Twilight had to take a few seconds to register what she was seeing.

Her first thought was, “Lyra was right. That crazy madmare was right…”

How often had she walked to the market, and her route had taken her past the street corner where Lyra was constantly preaching the dangers of humans. (Didn’t that unicorn have a day job?) The green pony constantly warned of the two-legged humans, with no fur and spidery front hooves, would come one day and advance all of ponydom to a higher plane of existence.

Of course, Twilight had dismissed this as utter nonsense, like she did with all fairy tales. Humans were just an old mare’s tale; some alien civilization which supposedly lived tens of thousands of years ago. There were no physical remains of them or their culture, nor were there any nonfiction books on the subject, and so Twilight had completely ignored Lyra.

Next time the two of them were at a bar, Twilight would buy Lyra not just a drink, but the bar’s entire stock.

Standing over her was (what else?) a human, in a long white lab coat like the medi-ponies in Equestrian hospitals. It wore red gloves over its bizarre hands, and was looking down at Twilight with a rather grim, yet somehow excited expression. He wore black spectacles, and was pointing to Twilight a most curious device.

The odd device was connected to a backpack on the human’s back. The device itself looked like some bizarre cross between a plunger and a boat throttle; the front was a large, plunger-like nozzle, while the rear end was just a black mass of metal, with a horizontal handle which the human grasped, and a pipe connecting it to the backpack.

Strangest of all, the device was shooting some sort of… energy at her. It was difficult for Twilight to understand what it was; some sort of constantly twisting beam of red light, traveling down from the device into… her body?

Twilight looked down and over her chest, to where the loud cry had come from, and saw another human. To her great astonishment, this one was much larger than the first, with bulky, disproportionate arms, and carried an enormous gun, which was spewing an impossible amount of projectiles. The big one was wearing red and black, and around his torso was a strip of… were those enormous bullets? To complete the big one’s ensemble, an odd metal case of some kind was strapped to his back; it bore a red cross on one side, and more of those bullets on the other.

“CRAI SUM MOAR!!!!” The enormous human roared as his grinned wickedly, continuing to fire his weapon.

Twilight registered almost all of these details in a matter of seconds, thanks to her skilled brain. Then she sat up abruptly, causing the skinnier human to jump a little bit in surprise.

“A miracle! I can’t believe I could save it in time!” The human said to himself. Twilight stared at him in astonishment, still getting over the fact that a mythical creature that she had never even believed in was standing in front of her. It was oddly beautiful in some way; this large, majestic creature.

After a few more seconds, which felt like hours as she stared at the human, she found her voice. “Excuse me? I am a ‘her’, not an ‘it’.” she said. Then she almost facehoofed; all the questions she could have asked, she said THAT?!

The human jumped in surprise. “Oh! My sincerest apologies, my dear lady.” The human said, bowing and twirling his hand.

Finally, Twilight thought to ask an actual question. “What…. Who are you?” she said. Better place to start then nothing.

“Oh! Where are my manners…” the lab-coated human said. “I am formally addressed as ‘the medic’, but you can just call me Medic.” He bent down, lightly took her forehoof, and kissed it politely.

“Ok, Medic…” Twilight said, still a little hysterical.

“Heavy! Come over here and say hello to the little sleepyhead!” Medic called.

The large man began to walk backwards towards Twilight, still firing his massive gun. Now that Twilight had focused a bit more, she saw that he was shooting robots, which were still pouring out of the huge blue machine. Evidently, she hadn’t been out for very long at all.

The big man looked at her for a moment. “I am heavy weapons guy. And this-“ he stopped firing and hefted his gun. “-is my weapon. She weighs one hundred-“

“Yes, yes, Heavy, we don’t exactly have time for the whole spiel. Robots, remember?” Medic interrupted.

“oh. Yes.” Heavy cleared his throat, then began firing again and yelled “I HATE ROBOTS!”

“Heavy’s been protecting me vhile I revive you.” Medic explained. “Can you valk? Because I really must get back to assisting my comrades.”

“Oh… yes, I can walk. Can I help at all?” Twilight asked.

The medic snorted. “The battlefield is no place for little fraulёins like yourself.”

“What’s a-“ Twilight began.

“Little girl, it means little girl.” The Medic said, rolling his eyes and waving his hand dismissively. He turned his back to Twilight and began to heal Heavy.

Twilight fumed. A minor alicorn princess, and arguably the most powerful magic-user in Equestria, and she was being called a “little girl”?!

She stood up rather shakily, but got her balance and began to run towards the battlefield. She promptly began blasting the swarming robots left and right with shots from her horn.

A droplet of oil got in her eye. She blinked it out and continued fighting.

Within seconds, she’d killed every robot on that corner.

She turned around proudly to see Medic and Heavy staring at her, jaws open.

“…ok, maybe you can help us fight a little, miss…” Medic said, still staring at Twilight.

“Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight said proudly, her nose a little bit in the air.

They all heard a loud noise, and turned to see a robot three times as tall as any other robot thus far come stomping out of the machine. It was one of those helmeted bots, only giant.

“Could use help.” Heavy grunted, and together, the three began to wade their way through the sea of robots towards the giant.

XXXXXXXX

“Roooannn….” The giant robot groaned and creaked as it slowly walked through the town. It was plowing through buildings like they were tissues. Wreckage was strewn in its wake as it mercilessly crushed anything in its path.

Suddenly, a thick rope looped around the giant’s neck. “Yee-haw!” came a battle cry from nearby.

Applejack pulled on the rope, throwing the robot off balance. “Now, Rainbow Dash!”

The cyan Pegasus promptly crashed into the back of the robot’s knees, causing it to topple to the ground.

“All right!” Dash cried. She zoomed over to Applejack and the two high-hoofed.

“Roooaaaannnn…”

The two turned to see the metal giant creaking as it got up again, fazed but mostly undamaged.

“Wuzzat? You want some mo-“ Applejack began, but was cut off as the robot’s huge metal hand lashed out in the direction of the sound. It connected with her and Dash, and sent them flying clear through a couple of buildings.

“Urgh… I think I broke something…” Dash said, rubbing her shoulderblade. Then she gasped. “My – my right wing won’t move! I think it’s broken!” she strained visibly, but only succeded in causing herself excruciating pain.

“Well there goes one of our last weapons…” Applejack said, slowly getting up and cracking her neck. “Oooo-wee… I’m gonna be feelin’ that one in the morn’.”

A rhythmic rumbling started up, and the two saw the giant robot towering over them. The huge thing straightened its helmet, and pounded its fist into its other palm.

“AJ, in case we don’t make it… you always had an annoying accent.” Dash said, not taking her eyes off the robot.

“Love you too, girl.” Applejack said, holding her hat to her chest.

Then something came hurtling out of nowhere, hitting the robot squarely on the head, stunning it. Was that a… baseball?

“Theah’s a dinga for ya!” came a Boston accent.

A particularly skinny human rushed around the corner, wielding a brown bat. He wore a red outfit with brown pants and running shoes, and wore a red hat.

“Dash, you seeing this?” Applejack said slowly, as she watched the human taunting the robot.

“If you mean the skinny ape mocking the huge robot, then yeah, I see it.” Dash replied as the robot recovered and turned around to face him.

Scout raced over to the two ponies. He quickly rattled off, “hey-you-guys-ok?-ok-I’m-Scout-just-wanted-you-to-know-who-to-give-praise-to-gotta-run!” he ran off as a huge fist slammed into the ground where he’d just been standing.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack watched in astonishment as Scout continually dodged the robot’s slamming the ground with its fists. “Missed me!” Scout yelled as he vaulted over the slow robot’s fist.

“ROOOOOAAAAANNNN.” The robot moaned, louder than before, as it rapidly walked after Scout.

“Oy!”

The robot stopped, and turned, as well as the two ponies. There, previously hidden behind a building, was another human. This one had dark skin, wore an eye patch, and had on a vest with grenades strapped to it. He held some sort of weapon; a round spout connected to a circular barrel, with a laser pointer strapped to it.

“Couldnt’cha see the bloody bombs?” he said with a sort of maniacal glee, as he gestured to the robot’s feet.

Sure enough, surrounding the robot’s feet were a dozen round orbs.

“Ka-BOOM!” the Demoman said, setting off the bombs as he did so. The robot was promptly blasted to smithereens.

“Diiiiis-missed!” The Scout said from nearby, with a mocking salute. Then he held up his hand. “Demo! Don’t leave me hangin’, brotha!”

The Demoman ran over, and the two of them pulled a glorious high five. The Scout pumped his fists while the Demoman used two fingers to playfully make the “I’m watching you” motion (despite him only having one eye).

“These humans Lyra talked about are very strange creatures.” Applejack said, putting her hat back on.

“You said it.” Rainbow said, absentmindedly rubbing her injured wing.

“Dash! Applejack! Thank Celestia you’re ok!”

Twilight came running over, followed by Medic and Heavy. “Are you hurt? Where’s the giant?”

“Well, the giant’s taken care of…” Dash said, pointing to a chunk of metal from the robot. “…and my wing’s broken.” She continued to rub it.

“Ha! A simple fix.” The Medic said, pointing his device towards Dash. He fired the red energy to her, and in seconds, Dash’s wing was fully repaired.

“Wow! What the heck was that?” Dash asked, experimentally flexing her wing.

“My medigun. I don’t exactly haff time to explain it now.” Medic replied.

“Da. Ve still got probblum.” Heavy said, pointing to the huge blue vehicle. Now two more giant creatures came out; one a larger version of the fat, dumpy robots that spewed fire, the other a Cyclops which looked unnaturally like Demoman.

“Ye lot can have the firebug. Me an’ Scoot’ll take the demobot.” Demoman said, pumping a lever on his stickybomb launcher to reload.

“Consider eet done.” Heavy said.

“Wait! What about us?” Dash asked.

“eh….” Demoman looked to the Medic. “Wanna swap?”

“No problem.” Medic said, turning to the ponies. “Twilight, you go with Demo and Scout. Orange and Blue, you’re with us.”

“nice ta meet ya, pardner. Ah’m Applejack.” AJ said, nodding.

“And I’m Rainbow Dash! Fastest thing on the planet!” Dash said.

“Now hold on just one gosh-danged minnit here! Ah’m the fastest thing around dese parts!” Scout said, stepping forward and jabbing a thumb at his chest.

“Oh yeah, pipsqueak? You don’t even have wings!” Rainbow laughed.

“Oh, dat’s it!” Scout growled. “Apple-whateva, go with Med and Hev. Twi’s with Demo. I’m gonna show this prismatic pony who’s the real pavement pounda around heah!”

“Where are you even going to go?” questioned Medic.

“Um…” Scout said, before there was an even larger rumbling. Everyone turned to see the largest robot yet, looking an awful lot like Heavy, step out of the blue machine. It was so large, it had to bend down to exit the huge machine.

“Dat ting! We’ll take dat ting.” Scout said, pointing.

“All right; your death wish.” Medic said. “Just be careful, eh? We need our Scout.”

“Hey, I could probably outrun the thing’s bullets!” Scout bragged.

“This is all very nice, but can we please MOVE?” Twilight said, looking at the Demo-bot beginning to launch explosives from its grenade launcher.

“Da! Move!” Heavy said, and the three teams split up for their own goals.

> 3: The Battle for Ponyville
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Angel Bunny was having a bad day.

First, Fluttershy woke him up before 2:00 pm in order to take him to the party for that purple pony. Then he had to cling on to her hair as she flew up to the ceiling to hang stuff.

As if all that wasn’t enough, a robot apocalypse started up, and while he held out for a while with his friends, he was forced to retreat, and now was cowering in the safest place he knew: Fluttershy’s mane.

The two of them were hiding underneath a flower stand. The gap between the stand and the ground was barely a foot, but he and Fluttershy had managed to squeeze in there just before the robots caught sight of them.

Now they were trapped; Robot feet had tramped all around them, making it impossible to escape without being seen. Fluttershy was weeping quietly into her hooves. Angel honestly couldn’t blame her; they were in a pretty bad situation. He had tried to gain info as to how the battle was going, but that was hard to do when all the information you had was whose ankles were nearby.

Angel hadn’t seen a pony ankle for the past half hour.

Now, to top off Angel’s crappy day, a huge blue mechanical Cyclops had arrived nearby. From what Angel could gather through peeks and darts was that the big robot was holding some sort of pipe-cylinder-explosive-throwing thingy in its enormous hands. It launched glowing projectiles which exploded after a few seconds.

The big thing was camping out nearby, and though most robots had cleared out of the square which the stand was in, the huge robot was just waiting calmly, using a nearby building as a seat. Why wouldn’t it leave? Why did it just sit there? Did it know where they were? Was it waiting for them to come out? Actually, the latter two were unlikely, considering if it did know where they were, it would just lift up the stand and that would be that.

“There’s the scabby doowally now!” came a heavily accented voice. Angel looked to see Twilight and Demoman enter the square quietly. The robot hadn’t noticed them yet, but it probably would any moment.

“Demo, do you have a plan in mind as to how to defeat it?” Twilight asked.

“Yes.” Demoman said, holding up his stickybomb launcher.

“That one’s different than the one you held back near the library.” Twilight said curiously.

“That one back there was me Scottish resistance; I ran out the last of mah ammo fer it. Mah bad.” The Demo replied. “This one’s mah classic launcher; can’t launch as many bombs, but still packs a punch.”

With that, Demoman pointed his launcher. “Oi! Ya great lactatin’ wet-nerf!” He shouted in challenge to the giant robot. The huge thing roared. Demoman grinned wickedly, and pulled the trigger, shooting a stickybomb…

…about two feet.

“Wot tha…” Demoman said, launching a few more, but they all fell far short. “The bleedin’ thing won’t launch ‘em far enough!” he pulled a second trigger just below the first one, causing the stickies to beep, but not do anything else.

“Tha little buggers won’t explode, either! C’mon, ya dumb thing, work!” Demoman said, smacking his fist against his launcher.
“Look out!” Twilight cried, leaping and body slamming demo out of the path of a huge grenade.

“I di’ what ah could…” Demoman said miserably, as Twilight pretty much dragged him to a nearby doorway. Putting her horn to the lock, she magically picked it and dragged Demo inside.

“That should buy us a few seconds.” Twilight said, relocking the door. “Don’t you have any spare weapons? Anything?”

“Yeh, ma grenade launcher.” Demoman said, pulling out a device pretty much identical to that of the huge robot. “But it won’t do much good against somethin’ that size.”

Twilight groaned. An explosion rocked the house; the robot was getting closer. “Looks like I’m going to have to do all the work myself. Again.” With that, she reopened the door.

“Oy! Tin man!” she yelled at the approaching robot. “Bring it on!” She began to charge up her horn for a powerful destructive spell.
She didn’t get the chance to finish charging; the robot launched another massive grenade, forcing her to take off to avoid it. She cast some less powerful spells at the robot, but those only seemed to irritate it.

Desperate, Twilight weaved through the maze of Ponyville’s buildings, trying to lose the robot. Once she deemed herself sufficiently far away, she began to once again charge her destructive spell.

Then she saw something arcing through the air towards her. Another stinking grenade.

She tried to dodge again, but this time wasn’t quite fast enough. The grenade blew her into the air, before gravity took over and slammed her against the ground.

Twilight groaned, and looked up to see the enormous robot approaching once more. As a matter of fact, she was right back in the square. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” She said as the robot raised its grenade launcher once more.

“OY!” came a roar. Twilight and the demobot both looked to see Demoman appear from behind the corner, wearing a shield on his arm and carrying some sort of stick.

With a mighty battle cry, the Demoman charged at an incredible speed towards the robot. The very air seemed to hold him back as he rushed towards the huge Demobot. The big thing launched another grenade, but missed completely, as Demoman got right up to the bot and smacked it with the stick.

There was a massive explosion. Demoman came careening out of the smoke cloud which immediately followed, and landed right next to Twilight. “Mah caber.” He said in response to her questioning look, holding out the stick to her, which was his Ullapool caber. The explosion had used it up, so now it was just an exploded mess. “It’s a godsend.” Demo said proudly, still breathing heavily from the charge.

Then they heard movement. They turned to see the smoke clearing, revealing the giant robot. Demoman’s caber had blown off one of its legs, and given most of it a good scorching, but the robot was still going. In its right hand, it held its enormous grenade launcher. It pointed the launcher at them from pretty much point-blank range. “Oh, me mother…” Demoman cursed.
Then the robot’s solitary eye spontaneously exploded. There were popping and fizzing sounds from the robot’s head, before it froze, then went limp, thudding to the ground.

“Thanks fa standin’ still, wankah!” came a voice from behind them. Twilight and Demoman turned to see the Sniper, holding a rifle in one hand and waving with the other.

“Good shot, lad!” Demoman said cheerfully as he picked up stunned Twilight gently.

“Thanks, mate.” Sniper replied. He noticed Twilight. “Well, who’s this precious li’l pony?” He said, scratching Twilight’s stomach. She giggled, feeling like an idiot.

“Not sure o’ her name… sumthin ‘bout vampires, maybe?” Demoman said, cocking his head.

Sniper was about to say something, but then he stopped. His keen eyes had just noted a tiny movement nearby. Years of experience had taught Sniper that if there was a flicker in the corner of your eye, there was a spy near. He gave the Demoman a signifigant nod, who nodded back, and carefully placed Twilight over his shoulder. This freed one hand to grab his grenade launcher.
The two of them walked towards where Sniper had seen the movement: under a nearby flower stand, half-destroyed by the robots. They got into position, and Sniper abruptly flipped over the stand, Jarate at the ready.

Then he stared.

Under the stand was another, hidden pony. This one was yellow, with a pink mane, and 3 butterflies on her flank. Sniper caught a glimpse of a turquoise eye, before there was a squeak and the pony buried deeper into her mane.

A small white bunny poked its head from the pony’s mane. Glaring at Sniper, it crawled on top of Fluttershy’s head and made a fighting pose, like a tiny boxer.

Sniper looked over at Twilight, who had crawled so she was on top of Demoman’s head. “Y’know this one?”

“Yeah, that’s Flu-“ Twilight said, before she suddenly had a flashback to the fake Rarity standing over her. She shuddered.
Sniper shook his head. “Trust me, if she was a spy, she’da cloaked or attacked by now, or at least moved.” He turned back to Fluttershy, kneeling down to her level. “Hey, little pony. Wha’s  your name?”

The small yellow pony made another squeaking sound.

“Come again?”

A third squeak.

Sniper looked back to Twilight. “Is she daft or somethin’?”

“No, just shy.” Twilight said. Then she called out, “Fluttershy, it’s Twilight! You’re safe now.”

Fluttershy peeked out of her mane, then slowly stood up. “Oh Twilight, thank Celestia! I was worried I was in trouble there!”

“No, these are friends. This is Demoman, and that one’s… Sniper, right?” Twilight said, turning to Sniper.

“Yeh.” Sniper said. He smiled peacefully at Fluttershy, and the mare’s shaking subsided slightly.

“O-oh… well ok…” Fluttershy said quietly. Then she gave a small smile. “Quite the welcome party, don’t  you think, Twilight?”

Just then, an enormous robot head came flying through the air and landed not ten feet from the group. Fluttershy squeaked again.

“Yeah… wonderful.” Twilight said sarcastically.

“C’mon, mates!” Demoman said, hefting his grenade launcher. “Dem robots ain’t gonna kill ‘emselves!”

Twilight hung on to Demoman’s head as he moved. “You know, I can walk just fine.” She said with a hint of indignance.

“Nah, I like ye better up thar. It‘s like havin’ a free hat!” Demoman said cheerfully.

“It’s a long story.” Sniper said in response to Twilight’s questioning looks. “We really should get going, though. The others are probably hogging all the fun right now.”

XXXXXXXX

“This is not as fun as you made it out to be!!” Rainbow Dash whispered worriedly as she and Scout cowered behind the carousel boutique. They could hear the giant Heavy-bot’s footsteps on the other side.

“How was I supposed to know it was crit-boosted?!” Scout hissed back.

The two of them jumped as the thumping suddenly grew louder. “Crap, It’s getting closer…” Scout said. He pulled out a red-and-yellow can from his pocket.

“I don’t think now’s the time for a drink, dude!” Dash said as she worriedly eyed the Heavy-bot’s shadow growing larger around the corner.

“Relax, I got dis.” Scout said, downing the entire can in one go. Then he tossed it to the side as he began to literally vibrate with energy, shaking so fast that Dash’s eyes couldn’t keep up. Then he got up, and ran so fast that he left a blur where he was a moment earlier.

“What the hay?!” Dash said as she saw Scout run directly into the giant’s line of sight. The huge thing rapidly revved up its minigun and fired at scout, but to Dash’s amazement, despite Scout being bombarded with bullets, he wasn’t damaged in the slightest; he wasn’t even fazed.

“Ya can’t hit what ain’t theah!” Scout taunted as the Heavy continued to pump bullets out of its minigun. Then Scout cried “Get ‘im, fancy-hair! I’ll keep his attention!”

Rainbow Dash grumbled, “fancy-hair?” and took into the air. Accelerating at an incredible rate, she blasted clear through the Heavy-bot’s  torso…

…and smack into a tree right on his other side.

“Ugh… anyone catch the number of that carriage…” Dash mumbled as she put her hoof to her head.

“Dash! Hang on, I gotcha!” Scout said, making a u-turn. Unfortunately, that was when his BONK® drink’s effect ran out. He took a hit from a couple of the heavy’s critical bullets, and fell down. “Ugh… this bites…” He muttered into the dirt.

Rainbow Dash looked up, still woozy. She saw the giant heavy as it revved its minigun once more, about to deliver the killing blow.
Then some sort of rectangle came flying through the air, hitting the heavy on the shoulder. Instantly, arcs of electricity surged through its body, and it stopped moving.

“Honestly, Scout, you are an embarrassment to virgins everywhere.” came a calm, civilized voice. Dash looked around to see two more humans, having appeared from around the corner of the boutique.

One was a well-dressed man, clad in a striped suit and wearing a ski mask. Behind him was another human, who didn’t even look like a human – more like a red blob with a gas mask. It held… a spout connected to a propane canister?

“Good to see you too, Spy… and you, Pyro.” Scout said, pulling his face out of the dirt. “Take this guy down, eh?”

“But of course. Pyro, if you please.” Spy said, gesturing to the Pyro. The red-suited being nodded and pointed the nozzle of its device to the giant heavy, which had just begun to wake up.

Pyro squeezed the trigger, and flames spewed out of the opening on the front of his device. Wherever they struck the giant robot, the metal immediately began to heat, then melt and buckle.

The Heavy-bot roared, and revved its minigun, but then the Pyro pulled a second trigger. The gun was blasted out of the heavy’s hands by a blast of air. The enormous thing tried to smash Pyro with his fists, but the Pyro simply sidestepped the clumsy attack.
The Heavy made to attack again, but froze once more. There was a deafening creeeeak, and the heavy-bot slowly fell to the ground. It landed smack on its face, causing a shockwave to ripple the ground and a circle of dust to rise. When the particles settled, it was revealed that Spy was now standing on the heavy’s back, examining a tangle of wires he held in his hand.

“The big ones are quite easy to take down, if you pluck exactly the right wires with exactly the right timing.” The Frenchman said, climbing down from the massive robot’s back.

“Well, then why din’cha handle it sooner, ya dumb smoker.” Scout said, pushing himself up. Still stunned at the sudden turn of events, Rainbow Dash also stood up.

“Well, I was hoping to save some of your pride in front of your girlfriend, but-“ The spy began, but was interrupted by Scout.
“Whoa whoa whoa! Whoja… whatcha… huh?! She’s not my girlfriend! She’s not even my SPECIES!” The Scout said, gesturing frantically at Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, please. At the rate your sex life is going, you should be glad to have an animal to-“ Spy said, but was again cut off by a scattergun to his chin.

“Finish that sentence, frenchy, and the only thing o’ ya left intact will be ya cigarette!” Scout growled.

“Come on, we’d best be going.” Spy said, not fazed in the least by the scattergun as he turned around and began to walk away.

“Wait!” Dash said, and the three turned to her. “Where’s Rarity?”

“Rari-wha?” Scout questioned.

“She’s my friend, and this is her home. She said she was running back here to get more ribbon, but I haven’t seen her anywhere.”

“Speakin’ a’ missin’ people, where’s Pyro?” Scout said, looking around. Then he spotted Pyro, who was pressing his face to one of the windows of the Carousel Boutique. Without looking away, the gas-masked maniac waved a hand for them to come over. “What’cha find, mute?” Scout asked as the three hurried over.

The others looked through the window, and they saw two robots through the window; a pair of those helmeted ones. They were tearing things up, and ravaging the shop, apparently looking for someone.

“I will find you! That’s what I do! That’s all I do!” One of the bots said as it flipped over a table.

“I’ll take them.” Scout said, reloading his scattergun.

“Before you rush into things like you always do, I’d suggest you take a look over in that corner.” Spy said, putting a finger to the glass of the window.

Rarity had appeared from in between the dresses of one of the few racks still standing upright. She ducked back in as one of the bots passed her, then promptly leapt out, tackling the robot from behind. With a battle cry, she twisted the robot’s head clean off of its body. The robot made a beeping noise, and fell to the ground with a clank.

The other robot turned around at the noise. “There you are! Shutting down.” It said, before spontaneously dropping to the floor.

Rainbow Dash wasted no time in opening the door. “Rarity, that was incredible!”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity said, running towards her. “Thank goodness you’re-“

Suddenly, the apparently shut-down robot launched at the unsuspecting Rarity, gripping her tightly to its chest. “Gotcha, crouton!” It growled as it stood up, Rarity clenched in its arms.

The robot looked to the doorway where Rainbow, Pyro and Scout stood. “I am taking this organic life form hostage. Any attempts to stop me will result in its death. I will-“

The robot was cut off by a loud “KRANG”. Its grip on Rarity weakened, and she slipped to the ground and fled. Then the robot over to the side, revealing Spy standing behind it.

“That was pathetically easy.” Spy said, plucking his butterfly knife out of the robot’s back and wiping it off with a handkerchief.

“Nice work, Spy. Let’s get outta here before more show up.” Scout said, already beginning to run down the path to the center of Ponyville.

“He’s rather impatient, isn’t he?” Rarity said, as the other four began to also walk back into town. The Pyro nodded in agreement. “Nice suit, by the way.” She mentioned to Spy. “It, um… matches your mask quite nicely.”

The Spy raised an eyebrow under his mask. “I hardly think now is the time to be complimenting each others’ dress choice. I’m not into animals, by the way; that was a very transparent attempt to hit on me, you know.”

“Well, I mean- it’s only polite to- I just wanted to-“ Rarity said, suddenly flustered. Her cheeks blushed a visible red shade from under her coat.

“Wow, Rarity, I didn’t know you had a thing for guys in ski masks.” Rainbow Dash said, stifling a giggle.

“It’s a balaclava.” Spy growled.

XXXXXXXX
“It’s a medi-gun.” Medic growled.

“No it ain’t! it’s magic’s what it is!” Applejack retorted.

“It’s not ‘magic’, it’s science!” Medic said angrily. He was sick and tired of arguing with the farmpony, but she just wouldn’t stop. “Using nanoscopic particles and highly advanced targeting technology, I induce a chemical-“

“Don’tcha use yer fancy mathematics to muddle the matter!” Applejack said.

“It’s not math, it’s science.” Medic said, and would have said more, if he wasn’t interrupted.

“For Sandvich’s sake, SHUT UP DE BOTH OF YOU!” Heavy roared. “Heavy eez trying to kill puny robots, and he gets no satisfaction because stoopid pony keeps argooing with Medic!”

Then Heavy sighed. “Heavy eez sorry, pony and doctor. Heavy has been fighting robots for what feels like hours, and Heavy gets grumpy when he no gets snack break.”

“Iss’ok, pardner.” Applejack said. “Ah feel like ah’ve been workin tha redeye shift on the farm durin’ applebuck season.”

“Indeed. I believe we’re all tired.” The Medic said, continuing to overheal Heavy. He held his medigun with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. “I really vish the Engineer vas here. He could just put up a sentry, and ve’d be able to take a break at zhe dispenser.”

“Does the engineer wear tinted goggles?” Applejack said.

“Why… why yes, he does. How do you know zat?”

“Cuz I think that’s him right over there.” Applejack said, pointing to her right.

An enormous mass of robots was clustered around the town hall. On the front porch was a most curious duo: the Engineer and Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie! Watch that spy!” Engineer said, constantly smacking his sentry with his wrench. The machine was constantly turning and firing, keeping the tide of robots at bay.

“Yessiree!” Pinkie said, leaping over and tackling a skinny robot who was about to attack the Engineer’s dispenser.

“Hey! Over here!” Applejack yelled, waving. She, Heavy and Medic were on the other side of the enormous crowd, but were still visible to Engineer and Pinkie Pie.

“Applejack!” Pinkie said delightedly as she wrestled the robot.

“Heavy!” Engineer said, waving with his free hand as he continued to whack his sentry.

“MEDIC!!” came a third voice, and to Applejack’s astonishment, a third man leaped, impossibly high, out of the crowd of robots. He wore a large helmet and carried an enormous weapon of some kind. The man fell flat on his face right in front of the three.

Medic rolled his eyes, and activated his medigun. “Honestly, Soldier, you must stop wading into crowds of robots like that. One of these days, you’re going to be gravely injured, and I’m not going to be around to heal-“

“Thanks, doc!” The Soldier interrupted, standing up as the medigun finished healing him. He then yelled a battle cry and charged straight back into the horde of robots.

“…I take it he isn’t the shiniest apple in the barrel.” Applejack said after a moment.

“I suppose he isn’t, but he has a good heart, and only wants to help.” Medic replied, turning his medigun back to Heavy. The huge man revved up his minigun, preparing to fire at the crowd.

Then Applejack noticed Engineer and Pinkie Pie. The two of them were waving frantically at her, with whatever limbs they could spare. The Engineer pointed at her… no, not at her… over her head.

Applejack slowly turned around to see the final enormous robot, the fat, fire-spewing one, not twenty feet from them. It leveled the barrel of its flamethrower at them, and squeezed the trigger.

“MOVE!” Applejack screamed, body-slamming Medic and Heavy to one side just as the fire came exploding out of the weapon. A split-second later, and they would have been toast. As it was, they just barely dodged it, though Applejack’s tail was rather singed.
Heavy roared, and got back up, revving his minigun. However, before he could spin it to sufficient speed, the Pyro-bot began to chase after them, and he was forced to stop in order to run.

“Sauschwanz!” the Medic cursed. “Engineer’s sentry and Heavy’s minigun are the only weapons around which can stop that thing, but the sentry can’t spare any firepower for us, and heavy can’t rev up his minigun with this thing chasing us!”

“Anyone ever tell you you have a talent for statin’ the obvious, sugarcube?” Applejack said, leading the other two around a sharp corner. She quickly bucked down a door to a random shop and beckoned them inside. “Hurry, darnit! That beast’ll be here any moment!”

The three of them managed to make it inside the shop just as the giant robot rounded the corner, hot on their tracks. They crouched down and watched through the window as the robot slowly looked around. Then it stomped across the street and began to torch the buildings one by one, reducing them to flaming rubble.

“Ok, we have a lil time… I hope there weren’t any ponies in those houses…” Applejack said quietly, turning to Heavy and Medic. “Either of you have an idea?”

“Now that we’re hiding, Sasha has time to rev up.” Heavy suggested.

“Sasha?” Applejack questioned.

“His minigun.” Medic explained. “Even so, Heavy, it would still take a bit for even you to take that thing down, and it would have reduced you to ash long before that.”

“Well, do YOU have any bright ideas?” Applejack said to Medic.

“Yes, actually.” Medic said, tapping a gauge on his medigun. “Almost… yes!” As Medic said that, his healing device began to glow a bright red. “Heavy, I am fully charged.” Medic said to Heavy.

Heavy chuckled quietly. “Excellent. Discharge on my command.” The two of them stood up and began to walk to the door.

“Wait! What are ya doin’?” Applejack said worriedly.

“Do not fear, apple pony. Just stay in de house; we’ve got this.” Heavy said. Then he and Medic walked outside. Heavy spun up his minigun.

The giant monster saw them almost immediately; it roared and began to charge at them. “NOW, DOCTOR!” Heavy yelled, spinning up his minigun.

“Ja!” Medic said, quickly pressing a red button on his minigun, but the giant robot was faster; it had already reached them, and was bathing them in white-hot fire. Applejack winced, and looked away. After a couple seconds, the flame shut off. As Applejack turned back, she fully expected to see two piles of ash lying on the cobblestone street.

Instead, she beheld Heavy and Medic, who were not only completely unharmed, but also glowing with an otherworldly red light.
“I AM INDESTRUCTIBLE!!” Heavy roared as he fired his minigun, pelting the robot with hundreds of bullets. His eyes glowed a demonic yellow as he laughed horribly.

The giant didn’t stand a chance; Heavy’s bullets shredded it like it was in a blender filled with shrapnel. By the time Heavy and Medic returned to their normal colors, the bot was nothing more than pieces of metal lying on the ground.

Applejack rushed outside. “That was incredible! Not to mention rather terrifying.” She said to the duo.

“Thank you, apple pony.” Heavy said, brushing a few fragments of metal off his shoulder.

“Ve’d better head back and help Engineer and… Pinkie Pie, was it?” Medic mentioned to Applejack.

“Oh horseapples, I forgot about them!” Applejack said. “C’mon!”

The three quickly made their way back to the courtyard where Engineer and Pinkie were, only to see that there were no more living robots around. The ground was littered with surprisingly intact corpses as the three waded through. They passed Soldier, who was shaking a robot by the shoulders, and yelling, “Do not lie down! I did not give you permission to take a nap! Fight me, you cowardly hunk of junk!”

“Nice work taking them all down, herr Engineer.” Medic said as he and the others reached where the Engy was repairing his sentry.
The Engineer looked at them curiously. “It’s a funny thing…” he said. “I didn’t kill ‘em all. As a matter of fact, we were about to be overrun, when the robots just sort of…. shut down.”

“Really? When did this happen? We just saw you fighting them off a few minutes ago.” Applejack questioned.

“Happened a matter of seconds ago.” Engineer replied, finishing his repairs and standing back up. “Oy Pinkie! Done fixin’ that dispenser?”

“Just about!” Pinkie chirped, still rummaging about in the dispenser’s main compartment.

“I never knew you could work human techno-majiggers, Pinkie.” Applejack noted.

“It’s easy! I’ve had a harder time fixing my party cannon!” Pinkie said, closing the compartment back up as the dispenser began to hum again.

The Engineer chuckled, as he patted Pinkie Pie on the head. “Ain’t she a beauty? She’s a prodigy, as far as you ponies go.”

Applejack was about to reply, when a loud noise echoed through the air. It sounded like feedback from a microphone, only even louder. Everyone cringed briefly.

Then a loud voice boomed through the air; it took a few seconds to determine that it was coming from the massive blue machine, still parked on the edge of town.

The voice was impossibly low pitched; the user must have been using a voice scrambler. Even so, they could tell it was a male speaker. The low voice reverberated through the very streets, so that everyone could hear it.

XXXXXXXX

“Greetings, Equines.” The booming voice said.

“My name is not important. All you need to know is that I am the leader of these robots.

“As you may have guessed, my original intent was to try to take over your town. However, you lot fought back with surprising, unsuspected force. After you took down four giants, I decided to stop my assault.

“Why?

“Because you are strong.

“And strength is one of the few things I respect.

“Therefore, I offer to you that which hasn’t been offered to any towns previously conquered: a chance for survival.

“I will not send in any robots at any point for the next seventy-two hours. I swear it upon my own soul. Tend to your wounded; bury your dead.

“You now have two choices.

“Option one: you evacuate your entire population from the town during the seventy-two hour period. I will not pursue you, nor will I attempt revenge on you. I will simply turn this spot into a robot factory.

“Option two: You continue to fight, and are crushed underneath my hordes of robots. Believe me, this assault was a fraction of what I will send out if you choose to stay.

“Seventy-two hours. Use them wisely.”

> 4: Resident Mercenaries
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

1:09 P.M.

71 hours and 51 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

“You actually did it. I can’t believe it.” The announcer’s voice rang from the speakers placed all around coaltown.

All nine of the mercenaries gave a loud cheer, taunting the robots and high-fiving each other.

Demoman laughed. “Guts and glory!” he cheered, as he took another swig from his scrumpy bottle. He took a spit take, though, 
when the loud, mechanical moan of a tank echoed across the town. “Bloody hell!” Demoman said, pulling his grenade launcher back out. “She said tha’ was the last of ‘em for today!”

The nine braced themselves for the tank, but none came out of the gaping mineshaft. Instead, to everyone’s surprise, the large blue machine, about a half a mile away, began to move. Its enormous treads churned and tore up huge chunks of earth as the large vehicle turned around and began to drive in the opposite direction of Coaltown.

“What in sam hill?” Engineer said, hefting his wrench over his shoulder. Even his sentry gun turned to watch the enormous machine rumbling away.

“The metal cowards are running away!” Soldier cheered. “We did it, boys! We beat the robots! Pizza and hockey games for everyone! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

“Pizza iz Italian, and hockey iz Canadian…” the Medic said.

“Boys…” The Sniper said, climbing down from his perch. “…why would that thing run away now, when it hasn’t moved so much as an inch for over three months?”

“Is gud question.” Heavy said. “Maybe robot babies find another target?”

“I say we follow ‘em, and rip them a bloody new one when we get where they’re goin’!” Demoman said.

“...Whaddya know, the drunk actually had a good idea.” Scout said, eyebrows raised.

“Ya don’ need ta sound so bloody surprised about it…” Demoman grumbled, taking another swig from his bottle.

“I can build a tracking device! If I’m quick, I may have just enough time to launch it after them!” Engy suggested.

“Gentlemen.” The Spy said, making them all jump. He was so concealed in shadows that it was almost impossible to tell he was there. “If I may.” He turned to Sniper. “Bushman, you live in a van, don’t you?”

“Yeh.” The Sniper replied.

“Well, vhy don’t ve just all get in Sniper’s van, and drive after them?” Spy suggested.

“…To the camper-mobile!” Scout said, running off.

“It’s parked over there, ya midget!” Sniper said, pointing in the opposite direction.

“Mah bad! C’mon, ya slowpokes!” Scout said, running the other way.

The rest of the mercenaries cheered and followed, except for Spy. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “Why, oh WHY must I be the only one on ze team with a brain…” He said, following after the rest.

XXXXXXXX

“Hey… Hey, I think it’s slowin’!” Scout said, tapping his finger on the windshield and smudging the glass.

“Thank god.” Engineer said, slowing the van down. 

They’d been driving for almost three days solid, and Sniper had only passed out this afternoon. They’d taken him to the back to try and revive him. Engineer was now covering for him, seeing as he and Sniper were the only ones with legal driver’s liscences in this state.

The car suddenly stopped, jolting everyone awake.

“Oy! Wot’s goin’ on?” Demoman said, poking his head out of the back of the van. Then he looked out the front windshield, and his jaw dropped.

The monstrous blue vehicle had begun a rather steep descent downwards into an enormous quarry. It was bigger than a football field, and must have been six stories deep at its lowest point.

At the very bottom of the quarry was some sort of enormous archway. It appeared to be crudely cobbled together out of scrap metal, but it was still awe-striking, as it was at least fifty feet tall, and thirty feet wide. 

“Vot ze hell is zat?” Spy said, as the mercenaries piled out of the van.

“What makes ya think ah know?” Engineer replied.

The enormous blue vehicle approached the archway. It was large, but still small enough to fit through the arch. Just as it was about to pass through, though, a green light flashed. Suddenly, the archway was filled with green light. The blue vehicle was passing through it, but didn’t appear to be coming out the other side.

“Huh. Is portal.” Said Heavy.

“Yeah, but to where?” Soldier said, scratching his helmet.

“All in favah of goin’ through the green portal which may or may not kill us!” Scout said, raising his hand.

“Anywhere those stupid robots go, I’m going too!” Soldier said, standing by Scout.

“Ja. Ve vill crush puny robots.” Said Heavy, also stepping up.

“I’m too drunk to say no.” mumbled Demoman, stumbling up.

“Ooh, zis looks like fun!” Medic said, readying his gloves as he stood next to Scout.

“…hangon…” Sniper said, looking through a small book. “…eh, my next assassination’s not scheduled for another three weeks, so I got nothin’ better to do.” He, too, stepped forward.

“You guys are probably all gonna die without mah stuff, so I may as well go too.” Engy said, joining the group.

Even the Pyro looked excited. “mmmmm-hm-hm-hm-hmmm!” he giggled as he joined the rest.

Everyone looked at Spy, the last one standing back. “…You are all idiots, but you’re my idiots, and I will not leave you to die on your own.” He eventually said, joining the rest.

“This is all very nice,” Soldier said, “But I think the portal won’t stay open much longer.” He pointed down into the quarry, where the blue vehicle was almost all the way into the portal.

“…ah, crap. EVERYONE BACK IN THE VAN!” Scout yelled, and the nine scrambled back into the camper van. Sniper rammed the keys into the ignition, and floored the pedal. The van lurched forward over the steep cliff, landing hard on the floor of the chasm.
“Go, go, go!” Scout cried as they raced across the desert floor. They now noticed robots all across the desert floor, but the van was racing so fast that it just plowed over them.

“Hang on, fellas! This could get messy!” Sniper said, plowing through a pyro-bot. The van then tore through a heavy-bot like it was made of tissue paper, causing oil to splatter all over the windshield. The Sniper cranked a lever, and activated the windshield wipers. Fortunately, it was hard to miss the enormous portal, which was looming over them.

“C’mon, c’mon!” Scout yelled again. The robot transport vehicle was nearly through the portal now, and the portal already flickered, threatening to close. With seconds to spare, the van hit a ramp, and soared clear into the portal.

There was a bright green flash, and a noise like a telsa coil, and suddenly the van was soaring through a bunch of trees. There was a loud clump as it hit the ground, swerving before the Sniper got it back under control. Then the Sniper slammed the brake pedal, bringing the van to a halt.

“…are we in South America or somethin’?” Scout said, looking around.

“South America is not a real country!” Soldier snapped from the back.

“To be honest, I don’t know where we are, shortstop.” Sniper said, also peering around. “These trees don’t look like anythin’ I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been all over the planet.”

Suddenly, a loud roar came from nearby. To everyone’s astonishment, a huge monster appeared from between the trees, into the clearing caused by the vehicle’s enormous treads. The beast looked like some sort of bizarre cross between a lion, a scorpion, and a bat. The monster roared at the van, and pounced at it, but Sniper accelerated, clipping the monster and stunning it as the van zoomed away.

“…I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Sniper muttered as he refocused on following the tracks through the marshy ground.

“Kansas is not a real country!” Soldier called from the back.

XXXXXXXX

“And so, ve followed the enormous vehicle, and it eventually reached here. Ve parked ze van just outside of town as the robots were being let out, and… vell, you know ze rest.” Medic concluded his story, and sat back, leaning against the bookshelf.

The nine mercenaries and the mane 6 were all sitting on the floor of Twilight’s library. Needless to say, it was rather crowded. Spike hurried around, trying to bring everyone drinks and food, but it wasn’t exactly easy, especially since the humans seemed to eat twice as much as ponies.

“I see.” Twilight said, closing up her notebook. “So, you mentioned there were nine of you?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then why do I only see eight?” Twilight said, motioning around. Medic looked, and sure enough, a certain large figure was missing.
“Vere is Heavy?” Medic asked, just as there was a loud noise at the door. With a loud slam, it burst open, revealing a rather sweaty Heavy.

“Heavy is sorry that he is late; Heavy is not fastest runner in world.” Heavy huffed. Then he looked at Twilight. “You.”

“Me?” Twilight questioned, as Heavy stomped up to her.

“Yes, YOU!” Heavy said, cracking his knuckles and glaring at the princess. “I shud hav done dis long ago!”

Twilight whimpered, and then cried out as Heavy suddenly picked her up…

and began hugging her.

“Tiny pony is adorable!” Heavy cried as he nearly cracked Twilight’s ribcage.

After what felt like hours to Twilight, Heavy released her, and she gasped for air. “Right… So… Moving on…” She gasped. “Does anyone…. have any plans…. For stopping the robots?”

“Easy! Just go into the big blue thing, kick some flank, and walk back out. Easy as pie!” Rainbow Dash said.

“two words, folks: KA. BOOM.” Demoman said, spinning the barrels on his grenade launcher.

“I say we let ‘em come back inta town.” Engineer suggested. “I could build a hell of a lotta sentries in 72 hours.”

“Gentlemen.” Spy said, stepping forwards. “I hate to shatter your delusions of self-grandeur – and by ‘hate’, I mean ‘don’t mind at all’ – but going into zhe vehicle would be suicide, it vould take kilotons of explosives to blow it up, and I have a feeling that zhey have more than a few sentry busters stored up in there.”

There was a collective sigh from around the room. “Well, what can we do? It’s not like we can just wait for the robots to come back…” Twilight said.

There was silence for a few seconds. “Actually… zhat might work.” Spy said, scratching his chin.

“What? What might work?” Twilight questioned.

“Over the next seventy two hours,” Spy explained, “we teach you ponies how to use our weapons. If you all learn to use our methods of fighting, and then we all work together, we might just stand a chance against ze robots.”

“…I guess it’s better than nothing.” Twilight said. “Everyone good with that?” she asked. When there were no objections, she continued. “Ok, now the real question is, who gets what weapon?”

“Ah…” Scout said, raising a hand as he took another muffin from Spike’s tray. “…I hate to be a bother, but… where are we going to stay for the next three days? ah mean, ah am NOT staying in Sniper’s campah van for any longer then ah have to.”

“Smells like Heavy piss.” Engineer agreed.

“Purple!” Soldier suddenly barked, thumbing up his helmet and staring at Twilight. “You have third amendment here?”
“…what have the what-what?” Twilight questioned, tilting her head.

“Close enough! I demand that you grant us quarter in this time of war!” Soldier said, leaping to his feet and walking over to Twilight.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Twilight said, looking at the rather large man looming over her.

“Ignorant maggot!” Soldier roared. “The third amendment says that in times of war, civilians MUST house soldiers!”

“That is, with proper legal procedures.” Engineer added.

“SILENCE, grease monkey!” Soldier barked.

“Please ignore him. Soldier is three screws short of a tire.” Medic said quietly to Twilight as Soldier continued to rant nonsense.
“Maybe, but that actually gave me an idea.” Twilight replied. “The library’s too small for all of you to fit in, but maybe one or two can fit in here. The rest of you can split up, with a couple staying at each of my friends’ houses.”

“Sounds good to me.” Medic said. Then he gave Soldier a good smack to quiet him down, and explained the new housing plan to everybody.

“Dibs on the rainbow one!” Scout said, hugging Rainbow Dash.

“Hell no!” Dash said, pushing him away. “Last time you hooked up with me, I was nearly murdalized by that giant robot!”

“…I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING SPECIAL!!” Scout said, bawling as he ran out the door.

“Way to go, Rainbow. You made Scout cry.” Twilight said irritatedly. For some reason, this made Spy snicker.

“All right, fine, I’ll take him in.” Rainbow said, crossing her arms and pouting.

“I’ll take the loud guy! He’s funny.” Pinkie said, pouncing on the Soldier.

“AUGH! Giant pink maggot!” Soldier cried, trying to shake Pinkie off.

“I’ll take Medic.” Twilight said. “He seems intelligent, not to mention I want to ask him more questions about the human world.”
Then Twilight felt something hugging her. She looked around to see the Pyro, hugging her from behind. “…I guess I’ll be taking Pyro, too.” She said, shrugging.

“anny’you got any – hic! – alcohol?” Demoman said, tilting his bottle over to indicate that it was empty.

“Um… ah got cider…” Applejack said, raising a hoof.

“gaaaah, ah luv ya man….” Demoman slurred as he abruptly passed out, landing on Applejack’s back and forcing her to the floor.
“I’ll stay with the orange one, too.” Sniper said. “I’ll need her cider or whatever to refill my Jarate supplies.”

“DON’T ask.” Medic warned Applejack.

“I believe I will take the smartly-dressed man in the suit.” Rarity said, pointing to Spy. “He seems clean.”

“Indeed.” Spy said, nodding. “Laborer! Join us, will you?”

“Yeah!” Engineer said, heading over to them.

“Him? Why?” Rarity asked, looking nervously at Engineer’s greasy gloves.

“I have my reasons.” Spy said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you object?”

“No! no, it’s just….” Rarity stuttered, “…no, no. I wouldn’t be the element of Generosity if I didn’t.”

“Element of Generosity?” Spy questioned.

“I’ll explain it all tomorrow.” Twilight said. She looked out the window, and saw the sun setting. That story had taken longer than she had thought it would. “It’s pretty late right now, and we should all start getting some rest.”

“Vait!” Medic said. “Vere vill Heavy stay?”

Everyone looked over at the giant man, who was petting Fluttershy like she was a dog.

“Heavy is staying with tiny yellow pony!” Heavy said, his tone a mix of a coo and a bear growl, as he hugged Fluttershy to his cheek. 

“Oh dear.” Fluttershy said quietly.

> 5: Faster than a Speeding Rainbow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

11:46 P.M.

62 hours and 14 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

“Scout! Where are you, you speedy little jerk!” Rainbow Dash shouted irritably in her scratchy voice. She rapidly soared low over the town, eyes peeled for Scout. 

Everyone else had gone to sleep long ago, but Rainbow Dash had stayed up at Twilight’s house, waiting for Scout to show back up. When he’d been gone for hours, she decided to go looking for him, but the little brat was apparently pretty good at hiding. Dash had been all over Ponyville, but saw neither head nor shoe of him.

“Ugh, where the hell is he?” Dash grumbled. “The only place I haven’t been to is…” She trailed off, flying up. She looked towards the Everfree forest.

“He wouldn’t… Of course he would, that idiot! SCOUT!” Dash cried, speeding towards the forest.

“Hey! Rainbow! Over here!”

Rainbow pulled a turn to see Scout running towards her, out of the forest. The biggest manticore Dash had ever seen was right on his tail.

“Hang on, kid, I got this!” Dash yelled, speeding towards the Manticore, her hind leg outstretched. Like a bolt of multicolored lightning, she smashed into the Manticore’s thick skull, instantly knocking it out.

“Jeez, kid, what were you doing? Why were you being chased by a Manticore?” Dash huffed as she trotted over to Scout, who hadn’t even broken a sweat during his frantic run.

“Well, after I calmed down, I went through a jog for the woods.” Scout explained. “I was doing some parkour, vaulting over rocks and stuff, only one rock wasn’t a rock, it was that bat-lion-thing!”

“Ugh… you idiot…” Dash said, facehoofing. “Well, the important thing is you’re all right. Come on, lets get to my place before that thing wak-“

Dash was interrupted by a loud BLAM. She whirled around to see Scout standing in front of the Manticore, his scattergun pressed to its forehead.

Or what was left of its forehead.

“There! That’s one bat-lion-whatever that won’t be bothering nobody anymore.” Scout said, smiling as he nudged the caved-in skull of the Manticore with his toe. “Ok, now we can-“

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

Scout jumped at Rainbow’s horrified scream. He turned to see her standing over the Manticore, her cyan fur turning a very pale blue. “You killed it! Oh my gosh! You killed it!” Rainbow said, trotting in place as she looked around herself frantically, as though she thought someone might have seen.

“What do you mean, I killed it? IT tried to kill ME-AAGH!” Scout cried out as Dash spontaneously vomited all over the grass. “Not the shoes, not the shoes!” Scout said, dancing out of the way.

“Oh my gosh… oh my friggin…” Dash whimpered before suddenly tackling Scout. She started beating his chest with her hooves. “How could you?! You’re a murderer! YOU’RE A FREAKING MURDERER!”

“Wha-ha-huh?” Scout stuttered, amazed at her reaction. “But-but-but-”

“It was a living creature!” Dash yelled in Scout’s face, tears running down her cheeks. “It had a family! It may have had kids! And you murdered it like it was nothing! What the hell is WRONG with you, you bucking PSYCHOPATH?!” Dash said, before burying her head in Scout’s shirt as she continuously pounded his chest, sobbing all the while.

“Er… there, there?” Scout said cautiously, as he gently petted Rainbow’s multicolored mane. The hairs of the mane felt oddly staticky, and sent a tingle through Scout’s fingers.

“Get away from me.” Dash said, shoving Scout away from her. “Just stay the hell away from me.” She flew off, leaving a very confused Scout behind.

“What the hell just happened?” Scout asked nobody in particular.

XXXXXXXX

A few minutes later, Scout reached Twilight’s house, hoping for answers. He had his fist raised to knock, when the door suddenly opened. “Ah, Herr Scout! Do come in!” The Medic said, gesturing inwards.

“Thanks, doc.” Scout said, walking inside. He saw Twilight, standing by the shelves and rifling through books like they were potato chips being snarfed down. She was surrounded by a massive pile of tomes. “Um, Twi-whatever?” Scout asked, tapping her.

With a start, Twilight whirled around. “Oh, Scout. You startled me.” Twilight said. She quickly used her magic to put all the books back, smiling nervously at Scout all the while.

“Um… what were you doing?” Scout questioned.

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all!” Twilight said, walking over to the table. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Oh, yeah…. Well y’see…” Scout said, as he began to explain his predicament.

Twilight stayed quiet for the duration of the rather short story, only asking a couple questions now and then. She gasped when he described how he killed the Manticore, but other than that remained expressionless.

“And then she just says ‘just stay the hell away from me’ and flies off! I mean, what the hell was that about?” Scout finished.

“Well, Scout, the thing you have to understand is that intentional murders are very rarely committed in Equestria. Barely one per year country-wide, unless some major crisis occurs.” Twilight stated.

“That wasn’t murder, that was self-defense!” Scout cried.

“Even so, most ponies have never seen anything more harsh then a bug being squashed, let alone a large mammal being killed.” Twilight said.

“But… But…” Scout stuttered. “…but you guys were murdering robots left and right just a few hours ago!”

“That was different! They weren’t alive!” Twilight said in an exasperated voice.

“Oh for the luvva…” Scout said, rolling his eyes. “Well then what do I do?!”

“Apologize!” Twilight cried, waving her hooves in the air. “Say you’re sorry for killing a wild animal right in front of her!”

“Aw, but that means I have to take responsibility for my actions!” Scout whined.

Twilight looked at him, dumbstruck, and was about to reply when Medic cut in. “If I may, Twilight.” He turned to Scout. “You may stay here instead, Scout.” Medic said.

“Really?” Scout said, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course! It’s time for your monthly injection anyways.” Medic said, casually polishing a syringe the size of his forearm.

 “One apology coming right up!”  Scout said as he zoomed right out the door.

XXXXXXXX

“17… 18…” Scout counted the addresses as he walked down the street. He’d obtained Rainbow’s address, and was just about to reach her house.

“19… 20 Cooler Lane!” Scout said, but as he took a look, he saw no house in the designated spot. He looked around, but could not spot the house anywhere. Then he looked up, and saw the massive cloud-mansion up in the sky, almost directly above him.
“Damn.” Scout said in awe. “But how the heck do I get up there?” He looked around, but saw no stairs or ladders. Then he remembered. “Oh yeah… wings.”

The runner sighed. “Figures. Now how the hell do I apologize?” Then he came up with an idea. He pulled out his Sandman, which he was still carrying with him. He backed up, and took aim at the one window with a light on. He kissed his lucky baseball, then smacked it with all his strength. The small projectile went up, up, up, up….

“home frickin run!” Scout cheered, throwing his hands in the air as his ball went clear through the open window. Then he heard a faint cry of pain, and a rainbow blur zoomed out of the window.

“Ok, who’s the wise guy!” Rainbow said, whipping around and throwing punches at the air. Then she spotted Scout on the ground. “Oh. You.” She said coldly, not coming down an inch.

“Yo wassup.” Scout said calmly, oblivious to Rainbow’s irritation.

“You got ten seconds flat before I start screaming for the police, you murderer.” Rainbow said, crossing her forelegs.

“Ah, geez…” Scout said, rubbing the back of his head before saying quickly, “Look, it’s a bit complicated to explain. Could’ja just come down here, and – WHO-AGH!” He was cut off when Rainbow zipped down and picked him up, carrying him onto her cloud/front porch.

“C’mon… we may as well talk in here.” Rainbow muttered as she trotted to her front door. Scout followed tentatively, rather nervous to be walking on condensed air.

The inside of Rainbow’s home was even bigger then it looked on the outside. The walls were covered with medals and trophy stands, and pictures of some ponies in blue jumpsuits. 

“Sit.” Rainbow said coldly as she walked up to a cloud/chair, and sat down, gesturing to another cloud/chair on the other side of a cloud/table.

Scout sat down,  and placed a hand on his forehead, rubbing it gently. “Look… I don’t even know where to start with you. I mean, do you even know who ya talkin’ to?”

“A cold-blooded murderer.” Rainbow snapped back.

Scout shivered. “Geez, girl, enough with the murder already, ok? I already told you, it was self-defense.”

“Even so, you had the opportunity to just walk away.” Rainbow said.

“Ugh.” Scout said, still rubbing his head. “Look, I don’t really know how to tell ya this.”

“Just spit it out already-“ Rainbow said, but was cut off by Scout.

“Look, it’s my  job  to kill people, ok?” Scout said, slamming his hand on the cloud/table. Being a cloud, there was barely any sound from the impact, which just amplified the following silence as Rainbow just stared at Scout.

Taking the opportunity to talk now that Rainbow was quiet, Scout quickly said, “For the past five or six years, it’s been my job – been  all  of my friends’ jobs – to murder people.

“I admit it, I don’t know that many details.” Scout continued. “All I know is, this lady in a blue-red suit comes up to me one day, and asks if I’d like a crapton of moolah. I say yes, and the next thing I know, I’m given a scattergun and a baseball bat and ordered to kill a bunch of people on the other team!”

Scout put his head in his hands. “I needed the job, I’d do anything for it! My family… I have, like, twelve brothas, and they eat a  lotta  food. Before my mercenary job, Me and my older brothas had to work like three jobs each to support ourselves and our… our ma…” Scout trailed off. “Oh god… oh god, Ma! I – I’m never gonna see her again! I don’t know where that portal thing here was, none of us do! My entire family’s gonna crumble without me, and I’m stuck here with a bunch of GODDAMN TECHNICOLOR HORSES!” Scout broke down entirely, and started bawling, his head hitting the table with a soft thump.

It felt like eons to scout as he laid there, crying into the soft clouds. It was only a few seconds later, though, when he felt soft arms encircling him. He looked to his side to see Rainbow Dash had crossed over, and was hugging him softly. “It’s ok.” She soothed quietly, stroking his back with her surprisingly soft hooves.

Scout’s crying increased a little, and he scooped up Rainbow Dash in his arms. Together, they had a good cry for a little while, in each other’s arms, Rainbow next to Scout.

Eventually, Rainbow pulled away. “C’mon, kid. Let’s get you to bed.” She said, slowly helping up the still-sobbing Scout and escorting him to the stairs. Even though she only came up to his waist when she was on all fours, and only up to his neck when balanced precariously on her hind legs, she still managed to lead him like a guide dog, with him gently hanging on to her neck.

Eventually, the two of them reached the guest bedroom, and Rainbow Dash laid Scout down on the cloud-bed. She then pulled the sheets over him, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.

Then Rainbow Dash walked to her own bedroom, and flopped down into her bed. Sleep eluded her, though, and she found herself staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours, all the while thinking, “Why? Why am I allowing a murderer to sleep just down the hallway of my own house?

“And why… do I feel the strangest sense of pity for him?”

XXXXXXXX

Rainbow awoke the following morning to a most delicious smell. It smelled like pure, buttery, warm, freshly-baked goodness. Still half-asleep, she slowly crawled out of bed and drifted down the hallway and down the stairs.

The smell led her to the kitchen, where she saw Scout. The Bostonian had his back turned to her, and was facing the stove. He soon casually turned around, and flopped two steaming-hot pancakes from a frying pan onto a plate on the kitchen’s island. He then turned back around to grab some syrup.

When he turned back to the pancakes, he saw two giant, adorable, magenta-colored eyes peering over the side of the island at the warm cakes. He chuckled. “Mornin’ to you too, Rainbow.” He said, picking up the plate and bringing it and the syrup over to the table. As he grabbed a second plate, he noticed Rainbow Dash slowly circling to the opposite side of the table and sitting in the chair over there.

He walked back over and plucked one of the pancakes from the plate, delicately setting it onto the second plate. He then passed the plate over to Dash. The little pony pounced on it immediately, moaning like she was dying as she took her first bite of the scrumptious pancake.

“Yeah, Mom’s secret recipie gets ‘em every time.” Scout said, cutting off a bite of his own pancake and eating it. The two of them ate for about thirty seconds, then Scout spoke. “Listen, Rainbow, about last night-“

Rainbow stretched across the table, and placed her forehoof to Scout’s mouth, silencing him. “Tell you what – make me another couple of those pancakes, and we’ll call it even.”

Scout paused, than smiled. “Can do.” He said, getting up and walking back to the stove.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am still mad about it.” Rainbow said after a minute. “I just, um, figured that we had more important things to worry about.”

“Like what?” Scout asked as he finished the pancakes, putting them onto a plate.

“Like you teaching me how to be as good a fighter as you.” Dash said, smiling.

Scout looked at her, then smiled back. He walked over, carrying the pancake plate in one hand and unclipping his scattergun with the other. He set the pancakes in front of Dash, then knelt down next to her.

“Now, you fire by hitting this little trigger here. Then you reload by twisting it like so…”

> 6: I am Pinkis Cupcake. I Will Eat YOU.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

5:55 A.M.

56 hours and 5 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-BRIIIINNNGGG!

Pinkie smashed her hoof down on the alarm clock as she bounced out of bed, prepped and ready for action. She had a busy day today – she had to throw nine welcome-to-Ponyville parties! That was the most parties she had thrown since last week!

First, though, she had to wake up her house-guest. Pinkie opened her closet, brushing off the confetti which showered upon her from the upper shelves. She looked around the disproportionately vast space, filled to the brim with costumes, hats, socks and scarves. She looked around and around, trying to find the perfect wake-up-silly-it’s-a-brand-new-day outfit.

Finally, she settled on a nice purple fez. Placing it on her poofy hair, she opened her door and tippy-toed down the stairs from her room in sugarcube corner, and over to the guest room.

Without hesitation, she bounced in and began singing. “ This  is your singing wake-up call I hope it finds you well! You’re gonna –“ Pinkie paused, then stopped bouncing around, staring in astonishment.

Not only was the Soldier awake, but he was actually doing alternating one-armed push-ups on the floor. 

That’s where he did a push-up with one arm, then one with his other arm, then one with the first arm, over and over again, without taking a second’s pause between them. The muscles in his arms bulged and gleamed with sweat as he breathed heavily.

“four-oh-seven, four-oh-eight, four-oh-nine, four-ten, four-eleven…” the Soldier muttered as he continued to push-ups. It was several seconds before he noticed Pinkie Pie out of the corner of his eye. “four-twenty-two, four-twenty-three, hey pink, four-twenty-five…” he said without stopping.

“Um… hi!” Pinkie Pie said, tilting her head at the whole bizarre spectacle. “What are you doing?”

“Four-twenty-eight, havent – you ever – seen a man – do push ups – before – four-thirty-three, four-thirty-four…”

“Um… can you stop?” Pinkie asked. “I sort of wanted to, um…” she trailed off, mesmerized by Soldier’s rhythmic, merciless exercise.

“four-forty-two, four-forty-three, just a – few more, four-forty-six…” The Soldier said before finally slowing his pace. “Four-forty-nine, four-fifty!” He stopped, and flopped down on the floor, breathless. He laid there for only a moment or two before springing right back to his feet. “I normally do a full five hundred push-ups, but it’s never polite to keep another soldier waiting.” He said as he walked over to a nearby rack and pulling off his uniform.

“Five hundred? How long have you been up?” Pinkie Pie asked, astonished. She couldn’t help but stare at Soldier’s nipples, as they were in a completely different place on a human body then on a pony.

“Since five hundred hours this morning!” Soldier said as he finished putting his arms into the sleeves and tucked his uniform into his belt. “The push-ups were just the last part; before that I did five hundred sit-ups, and before  that  five hundred chin-ups. Your chin-up bar’s broken, by the way.”

“Um… we don’t have a chin-up bar.” Pinkie said. “I don’t even know what a chin-up is!”

“Sure you have one! It’s right there!” Soldier said, gesturing towards a corner of a room.

“…that’s a shelf.” Pinkie said slowly.

“details, details!” Soldier said as he finished buttoning up his uniform. Then he walked over to his backpack in a corner of the room, and pulled out his helmet, jamming it onto his head.

Something else the Soldier had said suddenly registered with Pinkie Pie. “Um… did you say that I was a Soldier?”

“Of course you are!” Soldier said as he pulled out another Soldier helmet. He promptly walked over to Pinkie Pie and was about to put it on her head when he saw her fez. “Oh… my apologies. Didn’t notice you already had a hat.”

“What, this?” Pinkie said; she’d completely forgotten she’d been wearing it. “It’s ok, I can wear another one.” She pulled off the fez and put it on a desk nearby.

“All righty then!” The soldier put the helmet on Pinkie’s head, but it fell right off. “Hrmm.” The soldier said as he placed it again, this time trying to stuff Pinkie’s mane into the helmet. Again, it just popped off.

“Let me.” Pinkie said, picking up the helmet with her mouth, then flipping it into the air. It landed perfectly on her mane and stuck there as if superglued. “Sorry, my mane’s kind of touchy.”

“That’s why I have a crew cut!” Soldier said, lifting his helmet to demonstrate. “Now then! If you are to be a soldier, I must give you the initiation speech!”

“Um… ok.” Pinkie said, sitting down.

The soldier began to pace back and forth in front of pinkie, his posture perfect. “IF fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!” He paused, then looked at Pinkie. “Sun Tzu said that. And I think he knows a little more about fighting then you do, pal, because he invented it!” As he said this, he leaned down and tapped Pinkie’s helmet, looking into her eyes. Then he straightened back up and resumed pacing. “And then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor!”

“Um, who’s Sun Tzu? And what’s a ring of honor?” Pinkie asked, raising her hoof as if in class.

“Sun Tzu is the cousin of George Washing-machine, and the ring of honor is what wrestlers fight in! Not to be confused with the cage match of honor!” Soldier said without missing a beat. He then unclipped two grenades from the belt on his chest. “Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on earth!” He held up his grenades to represent the animals. “And then he herded them onto a boat…” Soldier made little running motions with the grenades, then pounded the high explosives together multiple times. “…and then he beat the crrrap out of every single one!” he growled.

“I… I don’t think that’s how the story goes.” Pinkie said slowly.

The Soldier wasn’t listening, however. He was lost in thought, his hand on his chin. He chuckled quietly, apparently remembering some pleasant memories. Then he was right up in Pinkie’s face, and she could smell his breath. Soldier said quickly, “And from that day forward every time a bunch of animals are together in one place, it’s called a TZU!” He said the last word with such force that Pinkie toppled backwards onto the floor, her helmet falling off.

Soldier got on his hands and knees, looking Pinkie in the eye once more. “Unless it’s a farm!” He cried directly into her face.
The two stared at each other for a few moments, on the floor. Then Pinkie snorted. Her face scrunched up, and she burst out laughing. “That’s the funniest story I’ve ever heard!” she said, laughing hysterically while rolling around on the floor.

“What?! There is nothing funny about history!” Soldier cried indignantly. “Sun Tzu and his army of mongols puked out their intestines in order to give us the liberty to eat hamburgers and watch baseball! He must be revered as a god!”

If anything, this only made Pinkie squeal harder. “It’s called a zoo! Hee hee ha ha!” She giggled.

“Bah! Come along, maggot! We shall discuss history during breakfast!” Soldier barked, hoisting the still-howling Pinkie over his shoulder and walking towards the stairs.

XXXXXXXX

A half hour later, Pinkie had finally calmed down, and the two were sitting at a table in sugarcube corner, eating breakfast.
While Pinkie was inhaling a pile of sugary sweets, the soldier was munching on a veggie burger. He’d wanted some beef stew or chili, maybe a chicken fajita or some other military food, but when he saw the ponies only ate either sweets or vegetables, he relented and got the closest thing he could find.

“Hey Soldier.” Pinkie said, munching on a donut. “Can I ask you something?”

“ma’am yes ma’am.” Soldier said casually, taking another bite of his burger.

“Why did you make me a soldier? I mean, Applejack’s stronger, and Twilight has destructive magic bursts.” She plucked out a piece of cake and ate it in two bites.

“Ehhh… I’m not really sure, actually.” Soldier said; Pinkie could almost hear the two gears in his head turning. “Maybe it’s because you invited me into your house, or maybe it’s because you remind me of me. I don’t know.”

“How do I remind you of yourself?” Pinkie questioned.

“We’re both nuttier then froot loops, for starters.” Soldier said. “I mean, who else would wake up this early in the morning to exercise or sing songs?

“Also, I’ve seen you with your friends. You’re easily the most energetic of them, and you’re gonna need energy for this job.”

“Why’s that?” Pinkie asked.

In answer, Soldier slung off his backpack and started to rummage around in it. “Ever seen one of these, soldier?” he asked as he pulled out his rocket launcher.

“Only the other day when you were using it.” Pinkie replied.

“Well, as a soldier, this is what you’ll be relying on for defense and offense most of the time.” the Soldier continued as he hefted the rocket launcher. “C’mere a sec.”

Having already finished, Pinkie rounded to the soldier’s side of the table. Soldier gently set the launcher on her back, and she immediately was forced to the ground. “R-really heavy!” Pinkie grunted as she tried to stand back up.

The soldier nodded. “Yeah, it’s heavier than it looks. But I’ve seen you with your friends. You have the strength for it.”

Pinkie slowly braced herself, then pushed herself off the ground. While it was still heavy, now that she was expecting it, it wasn’t as hard. The rocket launcher still balanced on her back, she slowly began to walk forwards. “Jeez… and you carry this all the time?”

“You get the hang of it after a bit.” The Soldier said, also finishing his breakfast. “Only question is, how are you going to fire it? You don’t have trigger fingers…”

Suddenly, Pinkie’s mane came to life – it wrapped around the trigger and barrel of the launcher, not only locking it in place, but also enabling it to fire.

“I have an opposable mane.” Pinkie said to the jaw-dropped Soldier. “I think that’ll help.”

“Wha – how did you do that?” Soldier asked, astonished.

“I told it to in my mind, silly! I mean, how do you get your legs to move?” She started heading to the door; with the launcher weighing her down, she could only trot rather then bounce, but it was better then nothing. “C’mon! I wanna try and fire this thing!”

Soldier stared after her for a second. “Apparently, there’s more to you ponies then meets the eye.” He said, following her out the door and down the steps of sugarcube corner.

“Ooh, nice Transformers reference!” She said, coming to a stop. “Ok, so how do I fire this thing? Huh huh huh?”

“What are – oh never mind.” The Soldier said. “Now keep in mind that the rocket launcher is very destructive, so you should never ever-“

“Bo-ring! Ooh, what’s this button do?” Pinkie said impatiently as she pulled the trigger of the rocket launcher with her hair. With a loud noise, the rocket launcher fired, sending a rocket barreling down the street.

“Dammit!” The Soldier cried, yanking the launcher away from Pinkie Pie. “Never, ever, EVER fire the rocket launcher at anything BUT the enemy! You’re very lucky no civilians were around, or you could have hurt someone!”

Pinkie started to sniffle. “I’m sorry.” She said, her eyes watering.

“What’s this?” Soldier said, running a finger along Pinkie’s cheek. “A tear?! Soldiers do not cry!” He pried up one of his eyelids. “Our tear ducts are shriveled up from disuse!”

At this, Pinkie only cried harder. The Soldier sighed, and knelt down. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping like that,” he said, “but the rocket launcher’s not a toy-“

“Ooh, look at the birdie!” Pinkie cried, spotting a small bird a few blocks away, and rushing off to it. Soldier again stared after the bipolar pony, wondering if maybe he should have recruited the purple one after all.

XXXXXXXX

After a couple hours, three dozen misfired rockets, two injured ponies, three accounts of property damage, and a sugar break, Pinkie had finally gotten the hang of firing the rocket launcher.

“All right, Private, I think it’s about time I teach you your next skill: the rocket jump!” The Soldier said, smiling at his apprentice.
“What’s that?” Pinkie asked.

“Watch.” Soldier pulled out an orange-and-white rocket launcher, and pointed it to the ground. Then, almost faster then Pinkie’s eyes could follow, he jumped up, tucked his legs under him, and fired the launcher.

BAM! The Soldier went flying twenty feet into the air, making a strange whistling noise as he flew, before somehow turning 180 degrees in midair and landing back next to Pinkie.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Pinkie asked, astonished.

“What, the fall? Nah, just stings a little bit. Maybe a couple broken bones, but nothing to-“

“No, no, I mean shooting yourself with a rocket.” Pinkie clarified.

“Oh! Well, yeah, that would hurt, but this is the rocket jumper.” Soldier patted his colorful rocket launcher. “It fires specially modified projectiles, which are totally harmless. That makes it useless in combat, though.

“Now, I understand if you don’t want to try to rocket jump.” Soldier continued. “It looks downright suicidal, and even attempting it requires you to be kind of crazy.”

“Yeah yeah, gimme it!” Pinkie said impatiently, hopping up and down.

“Now, the timing on a rocket jump is quite precise, but with practice it’s easy. First you need to-“ The soldier began, but stopped when he saw Pinkie execute a perfect rocket jump on her first try. She somehow did a 720 degree spin, and landed back next to Soldier.

“How was that?” Pinkie asked, smiling widely.

The soldier opened his mouth… and then gave a long, wheezing laugh. “You really are a natural born soldier, you little pink menace!” he cried, scooping up the pink party pony and giving her a noogie.

“D’aww, thanks Solly! Now c’mon, next we gotta try chain rocket jumps!” Pinkie cheered, leading the soldier off to a more deserted area to practice.

> 7: Dragon's Fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

10:14 A.M.

50 hours and 46 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

Spike sighed as he slowly walked down the road, continually kicking a rock as he went. He’d searched all over ponyville, yet nobody seemed to want to hang out with him, or even give him a second glance. All of his friends were hanging out with their respective mercs, and even the villagers were all either boarding up their houses, making new weapons, or stocking up on supplies.

Spike looked up, and smiled. “Hey, Derpy Hooves!” He called to the friendly mailmare. He’d recognize those clumsy, haphazard flying patterns anywhere.

The Pegasus looked down at Spike with one of her eyes. “Oh, hey Spike!” She said with a slight pause in her voice. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“C’mon down!” Spike said, eager for some sort of company.

Derpy’s eyes twitched. “Uh… no thanks, I’ll stay up here…” Spike then heard her mumble in a quieter voice, “Where it’s safe.”

Spike’s heart fell. He was used to this reaction, but it still disappointed him. “Okay.” He said, waving again, but Derpy was already looping away from him. He sighed, and decided to head back to the library for the day; maybe his sister figure would have some kind words for him.

XXXXXXXX

“I told you, Spike, I’m busy!” Said Twilight. She peered out of the crack in the door to the basement.

“Aw, c’mon, Twilight! I just want someone to hang out with!” Spike begged.

“Your kleinen Bruder is rather irritating, you know that?” Came the voice of the Medic from the basement behind her.

“He’s not my little brother, and he’s not that bad; he’s just bored.” Twilight called behind her. Then she sighed. “Okay, maybe just for a-“

“Twilight! I think I just figured out the key to oxidizing the sulphur! Move! Schnell!” The medic shouted.

Twilight squealed with excitement. “Sorry, Spike, but this is much too important to wait!” Twilight cried, and shut the door in Spike’s face.

Spike was frozen for a moment, in shock at being so brutally snubbed by his sister figure. Then he sighed, and walked into the kitchen; maybe eating something would make him feel better.

As he walked back out, carrying a sandwich, he heard a quiet noise. It was almost a crackling of some kind. Curious, Spike walked up the stairs, where the noise was coming from.

When he reached Twilight’s room, he found a curious sight. The fireplace on the opposite end of Twilight’s room was lit. This in itself was odd, because Twilight never actually used that fireplace; she was too paranoid about “green-mouse glasses” or something that Spike didn’t pay attention to.

The real oddity, though, was sitting in front of the fireplace: that blob thing from earlier (the pyro, was it called?) was calmly watching the fireplace, legs crossed, chin resting on its palms. It was almost cute in a way.

Spike walked over. “Hello?” he said to the Pyro, who did not respond. He waved his claw in front of the Pyro’s face. Slowly, the black mask turned in Spike’s direction.

Spike inhaled; the pyro’s mask was unnerving to say the least. The eyes were a soulless, unforgiving black, and despite the mask being expressionless, it gave off an aura of hostility. 

The only noises while the two stared at each other were the crackle of the fire, and the quiet wheezing of the Pyro’s gas mask.

Spike snapped out of his trance, shaking his head. “I’m Spike.” He said, raising a claw in greeting.

“Huddah huh.”

Spike blinked. “Come again?”

“Hah huh, hudda huh.”

Spike stuck his pinky finger in his ear, trying to clear up his hearing. “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand what you’re saying.

There was a louder-than-average wheeze from the mask, which may have been a sigh, and the Pyro turned his face back to the fireplace.

“I take it you’re a pony – I mean, human – of few words.” Spike said, sitting down in a similar position to the Pyro. Then he raised an eyebrow. “You are a human under there, right?”

The Pyro just shrugged his rubber-clad shoulders.

“Was that a yes, or a no?”

Another shrug.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Okay. Well… as long as you’re not going to talk to me, can I at least talk to you?”

There was a pause. Then the Pyro nodded, not turning his head away from the fire.

“Okay…” Spike said. There was a silence between the two as they stared at the crackling fireplace together.

“We’re kind of similar, you and I.” Spike said finally, turning to the Pyro. The rubber blob turned his head again, and tilted it in a questioning gesture. “Well, we’re both the odd ones out.” Spike turned back to the fire.

“I’m a dragon on a team of ponies, and you’re a… thing, on a team of humans. We’re both the freaks, the sideshows, the ones which stand out.” Spike’s claws clenched. “No offense.” He added.

“mmm-huh.” The Pyro mumbled in a placating tone.

“Folks are scared of what they don’t understand.” Spike continued. “For a long time now, half the people who’ve seen me on the street have stared in awe. ‘I still can’t believe she tamed a dragon’, ‘How does that thing’s biology even work’, ‘mommy, can I touch the pet?’” He now had a resentful tone in his voice as he reflected upon the memories. “Wherever I go, I’m treated as a freak, a circus act. Oh, they act nice, but I know what they think behind my back. I know how they stare at me, in fear.”

Spike’s fists clenched tighter. “Why? Why can’t they just treat me like they would a normal pony, rather than a monster? Even earlier today, Derpy, the second friendliest pony in Ponyville, fled from me in fear.”

He sighed. “At least you can just take off that suit and be a normal human whenever you want.”

“hmm-mmm.” The Pyro said, shaking his head.

“What, you can’t take off the suit?” Spike asked, looking at Pyro.

Pyro looked at Spike. “huddah huddah huh?” he said in a questioning tone.

“Sorry, but I still have no idea what you’re saying.” Spike said in an apologetic tone.

The Pyro gave another wheeze-sigh, and reached into the fire. Picking up some burning embers with his fireproof hand, he turned to Spike. Then he shoved the embers into his face, and gave a pained groan.

It took Spike a few seconds to guess what this meant. “So you… burned your face?” Spike asked.

The Pyro nodded vigorously.

“But that doesn’t explain why you can’t take off your suit.” Spike said questioningly.

The Pyro face-gloved. Then he stood up and went over to Twilight’s bookshelf.

“Looking for a book? I can help you!” Spike said, smiling and following him.

“ra-huddah huh uh hudda-hudda-huh huh-huh.” The Pyro said to Spike.

Spike stared at him. “On second thought, maybe you should look for the book.” He said, raising his hands.

Pyro nodded, and returned to searching the shelf. A few minutes later, he finally found what he was looking for. He pulled out a book titled “mythological monsters” and began to flip through the pages.

Finally, he stopped on a page, and showed the book to Spike. He pointed to a particular picture, of a pony with a mane made of snakes.

“Oh hey, that’s Mare-dusa.” Spike said, nodding. “I remember her. She was an ancient mythical monster, who was rumored to be so unfathomably hideous that just looking at her face could cause someone to turn to stone.”

The Pyro nodded. Then he pointed at the picture of Mare-dusa, then pointed again to his face.

Spike finally understood. “You won’t take off your mask, because the fire burned your face so bad that you became hideously disfigured?” That was a bit specific, but Spike’s gut told him he was right.

“Raaa-huh!” The Pyro said in an approving tone, putting the book back on the shelf and giving Spike two thumbs up.

“Geez…” Spike said, scratching the back of his head. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know.”

“mm-pha-ra.” The Pyro said, patting Spike on the head.

Suddenly, Spike felt something welling up in his throat. He belched, and out of his mouth came a scroll. “Ah, Celestia must have finally gotten Twilight’s request for help.” He said to himself. “I’d better give this to-“ He paused when he noticed that the Pyro’s face was now two inches away from him, the black eyepieces staring.

“Whoa!” Spike cried, leaping back. “Dude, that’s creepy.” He added, pointing.

The Pyro reached forward, and pried open Spike’s mouth, peering inside. “Hey, whoa! Personal space, buddy!” Spike cried, pushing the Pyro away.

“ba-huddah-hu-hu-huh?” The Pyro said in a questioning tone, raising his hands.

“I’m guessing you’re curious about my fire-breathing?” Spike asked. Seeing the Pyro nod, he continued. “Yeah, it’s not a big deal. All dragons can do it.” He blew another stream of green fire to demonstrate.

The Pyro made a giggling noise and clapped his hands. Then he rushed over to his backpack, which was hanging off of a chair. From the bag, he pulled a disproportionately large device.

Spike watched with astonishment as the Pyro raised the device and pulled the trigger, shooting an arc of flames into the air above him. “Dude, sweet!” Spike said, grinning widely.

Then the Pyro suddenly pointed the flamethrower towards Spike. “Whoa dude, what-“ was all Spike could say before the Pyro pulled the trigger. Flames enveloped Spike.

A few seconds later, the flames stopped, leaving Spike covered in soot, but unharmed. “What was that for?” he questioned, shaking the ashes off of himself.

“hudda-huh! Huh-huddah-huh!” The Pyro said, poking Spike’s unblemished scales.

“Yeah, dragons are fireproof, too. Didn’t I mention that?” Spike added.

The Pyro paused for a few moments, scratching his chin with his finger and thumb. Then he nodded, and made a gesture with his hand.

“What?” Spike asked.

The Pyro pointed to Spike’s mouth, then gestured to himself. “You want me to hit you with my flames, is that it?” Spike asked. The Pyro nodded enthusiastically.

Spike shrugged, took a deep breath, and blew another stream of fire at the Pyro. “There! Howd’ya like that?” he asked, smiling smugly.

The Pyro looked at the rather tiny scorch mark on his suit that Spike’s flame had made. “mmm-mmm.” The Pyro mumbled, shaking his head. Then he reached back into his backpack, and pulled out something else: a second flamethrower. It was similar to the first one, the only main difference being that instead of a spout, there was a crude metal snakehead welded onto the front.

“Huh-huh.” The Pyro said, handing Spike the new flamethrower. Spike took a good look at it: scratched into its barrel was the word “Backburner”. He pulled the trigger experimentally, and a huge blast of fire came out of the snake mouth.

“Sweet.” Spike said, smiling. He tried to hand it back to Pyro, but the rubber-clad man shook his head, and pushed it towards Spike. “You want me to have it?” he said, astonished. “But don’t you need it?”

The Pyro shook his head. He pointed to the Backburner, then held up three fingers, then pointed to his backpack. “You have a couple of spares.” Spike inferred, and the Pyro nodded.

“By the way, why’s it called Backburner?” Spike asked. Pyro took the Backburner from him, and pointed it towards his own chest. He made a pained noise, then shifted the Backburner around so that it pointed to his back. The Pyro then made an even more pained noise.

“So it hurts people more when it hits them from the back?” Spike guessed.

“haa-raddah!” The Pyro confirmed, handing the Backburner back to Spike.

“So…” Spike said, smiling. “Mind teaching me how to use this thing?”

“mmm-hmm!” The Pyro said cheerfully, gesturing for him to go down the stairs.

“You’re right. It probably wouldn’t be wise to use flame weapons indoors, especially in a wooden house filled with books.” Spike mentioned.

As the two walked outside, they continued to talk/mumble about their interests. Twilight watched from the basement, smiling. “I thought they’d get along well.” She said, closing the basement door.

> 8: Cutie Mark Crusader Demolition Experts! YAY!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

1:16 P.M.

47 hours and 44 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

“What is it, Applebloom?”

“I dunno… I think it’s a big monkey.”

“You blockhead, it’s one of the humans who came to town yesterday!”

“Yeah, but don’t they all have white skin?”

Sweetie Belle poked the big sleeping thing. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But what else could it be?”

“Not only that, but why does it smell like that special brand of cider mah sister makes? The one she tells me not to drink till I’m older?” Applebloom asked, sniffing the air around the creature.

“How did it get here again?” Scootaloo questioned Applebloom.

“I dragged it here. Found it in the pigs’ watering tank. Took me all morning.” Applebloom answered.

“HEY MISTER! WAKE UP!” Sweetie Belle squealed with a pitch that could shatter glass. The big thing just kept snoring.

“That thing could sleep through the next robot invasion.” Applebloom commented.

“Hey, look. It’s got something in its claw.” Scootaloo said, pointing at the big thing’s left hand. A brown bottle of some sort laid in it, emblazoned with three Xs.

“Ooh! It’s shiny!” Sweetie Belle said, reaching for the bottle.

No sooner had she laid her small hoof on the bottle, then a second brown hand clamped on top of hers.

“Don’t touch tha’!” A voice roared. All three girls screamed, and scurried to the other side of the room.

XXXXXXXX

Demoman slowly woke up from his drunken slumber. He yawned, and looked around. “Cripes, tha’ was the weirdest dream I’ve had in a while… Spy musta slipped somethin’ inta mah scrumpy…” Then the Demoman noticed he wasn’t in his bed; he was in some sort of small wooden house.

Sitting in the corner were three small ponies. “Bloody hell… It wasn’t a dream?!” Demoman cried.

“Please don’t hurt us…” the white one whimpered.

Demoman sighed; no man alive could possibly resist those faces. “Relax, lass, I ain’t gonna hurt’cha. What’s your name?”

“I’m Sweetie Belle.” Said the white one.

“Ah’m Applebloom.” Said the one with the bow.

“And I’m Scootaloo!” Said the orange one. “And we’re THE CUTIE MARK CRus…” She trailed off. “Come on you guys, do the chant with me.”

Straightening up, all three girls yelled, “and we’re THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!”

“Ah, cripe!” The Demoman said, holding a hand to his head. “Will ye stop yellin’ like banshees? I’ve got one hell of a hangover.”

“Oh… sorry.” Applebloom said sheepishly.

“Who are you, stranger?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Aye, M’name’s Tavish; Tavish Degroot. Everyone just calls me Demoman, though.” Demoman said, holding out his hand to shake. The three ponies slowly reached out their hooves to shake back; they were so small, all three hooves could fit in Demo’s hand easily.

“So… Mister Demoman…” Scootaloo asked. “You wanna play a game with us?”

The Demoman raised his good eyebrow. “A game, ye say.”

“Yeah, see-“ Scootaloo began, but was cut off when Applebloom bit her tail and dragged her to an opposite corner of the room. “Ow! Applebloom, that hurt!” Scootaloo whined.

“Scoots, what’re ya thinkin’?” Applebloom asked. “This thing could be dangerous, and you want to play a game with it?!”

“Come on, it can’t hurt! We weren’t going to do anything else anyways, and it seems friendly enough.” Scootaloo explained.

“Oh… okay.” Applebloom said, seeing the logic.

“Okay, mister, here’s the game:” Scootaloo said to Demoman, walking back over. “We’re going to ask you a question, and you answer. Then you ask us a question, and we answer. This repeats over and over. Simple!”

“Aye, okay, lass. Don’ see why not.” Demoman said, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. “Why don’tcha go first, then.”

“What happened to your eye?” Sweetie blurted out. The other two smacked her upside the head, but Demoman only chuckled.

“Aye, it’s okay, lasses. I’ve come to terms with me eye, and it’s a rather interestin’ story.” The Demoman hunched over, and adopted a dramatic voice.

“I was but a wee lad, a’ the age o’ twelve. T’was all hollows eve, and the time was ripe for ghosts and ghoulies… and, accordin to me mum, jobs for a lad mah age…”

XXXXXXXX

“…and when I woke up, the castle was gone… the magician was gone… the book was gone… and me EYE was gone.” Demoman finished, straightening back up.

The three fillies sat, jaw-dropped. “Wow!” Scootaloo said. “So, you never saw… merry-muss again?”

“Merasmus, lass. And yeh, I actually did see ‘im again, the slimy rat.” Demoman said. “See, ‘bout two years ago on halloween, I discovered that Merasmus was my friend Soldier’s roommate. He slipped away back then, but I did catch him and rip him ta pieces the next year’s Halloween. Didn’t get me back me eye, though.” Demoman sighed.

“Aw, poor guy.” Sweetie Belle said, patting Demoman on the back.

“I dun’ need yer pity, lass.” Demoman muttered, shoving her away. Sweetie crawled back up and hugged Demoman on his waist. He tried to remove her, but she hung on like a leech.

Demoman sighed again. “A’rright, ye had yer question. Now it’s my turn.” Demoman pointed at the fillies. “Why the bloody hell do you call ye’selves the ‘fruity bark grenadiers’?”

“That’s ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders.’” Scootaloo corrected. “We’re called that because we’re constantly searching for our cutie marks!” They showed Demoman their blank flanks.

“OCH! Get yer rumps away from me, lasses! Iss too early fer horseplay!” Demoman cried, shielding his eye. Then he chuckled. “Heh. Horses. Heh.”

“So why do they call YOU the Demoman?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Well, they call me it because I demolition things, lassie!” Demoman said.

“’Demolition’ isn’t a verb…” Sweetie belle said.

“What are ye, a dictionary?” Demoman asked the pony still hugging his waist. “Anyways, my nex question… Ehhh…” Demoman scratched the back of his head with his bottle. “Would you… care for a swigga?” Demoman held out his bottle.

“I thought you told us not to have any!” Applebloom said.

“Eh, jussa drop couldn’ hurt.” Demoman said, gesturing for her to come over. Applebloom nervously walked up, and Demoman shoved the neck of the bottle in her mouth. Applebloom took a couple of small gulps of the drink.

“gragh!” Applebloom said; her throat felt like it was on fire. “That’s like my sister’s cider, but a bajillion times stronger…” She mumbled. “You got any water?”

“Water? I never touch the stuff.” Demoman said, swigging down a few gulps himself. “A’rright, next question. Fire away.”

“Are you a good Demoman?” Sweetie Belle piped; she’d finally let go of Demoman and was sitting next to the others.

Demoman’s eye narrowed. “Am I… a good Demoman?” He slammed his bottle on the ground, causing the crusaders to jump. “If I were a BAD Demoman, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here, DISCUSSIN’ it with ya!” Demoman roared. “One wayward pinch o’ potassium chloride, one errant twitch… AND KABLOOIE!”

The crusaders tried to get a word in, but Demoman was on a roll now. “All ye fine dandies, prancin’ aboot wit yer heads fulla eyeballs! Come’n get me, ah say! I’ll be waitin’ fer ya!”

Demoman was just speaking nonsense now. “I’m a grim bloody fairytale, with an unhappy bloody end! They’ll have to glue the lot of ye back together IN HELL!” He took a long swig from his bottle.

“That answer yer question?” Demoman said congenially, smiling.

“Um… sure?” Sweetie Belle mumbled.

“Okay then, well I’m outta questions, so you can just go next I guess.” Demoman said, eyeing his bottle as though he were considering taking another gulp.

“Excuse us a second.” Scootaloo said suddenly, grabbing Applebloom and Sweetie belle and dragging them to the other side of the room. Demoman tried to hear what they were saying, but they were speaking in whispers.

Eventually the three came back over. “Can we be Demomen too? Pleeeeease?” they all said together.

“Wot?! Ye’re jokin’, surely!” Demoman cried.

“Come on! It sounds like a lot of fun!” Sweetie Belle said.

“It could get us our cutie marks!” Scootaloo added.

“We’ll be super careful!” Applebloom promised.

Demoman paused, thinking. “It’d be grossly negligent of me ta give ye three high explosives…” He mumbled. “But eh, what the bloody hell.”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DEMOMEN! YAY!” The three yelled, as Demoman winced and took another swig from his bottle.

“A’rrigh’, let’s see here…” Demoman said, swinging off his backpack and rummaging through it.

“A grenade launcher fer the feisty young lass…” He passed Scootaloo a grenade launcher, which she squealed with glee over.

“…A sticky launcher fer the tactical one…” Demo continued, giving Applebloom a sticky launcher.

“…and as fer you…” Demoman looked at Sweetie Belle. “Hmm…” He pulled out a large sword. “Nah.” He tossed it over his shoulder, and pulled out a golf club. “No.” He tossed that one over his shoulder either, and pulled out a fancy bottle. “ah, I been lookin’ fer this!” He took a swig from the fancy bottle before tossing it, too, over his shoulder. Then he looked in his backpack and gasped. “Perfect!”

He smiled at Sweetie Belle. “You, m’dear, will have the most important role of all.” He pulled out a pirate hat, some fancy shades, and a frying pan. He set the shades on Sweetie’s eyes, and put the hat on her head. “I dub thee…” He handed the pan to her. “Demopan!”

“Aw, they get explosives and I get a frying pan?!” Sweetie whined.

“Oi! Don’ underestimate the power o’ the pan, lass! It’s a powerful tool o’ destruction!” Demoman reprimanded her.

Sweetie looked at the greasy old piece of blunt metal. “Right.”

“Now. If yer gonna be a Demopan, ye gotta know the Demopan battlecry. Repeat after me.” The Demoman cleared his throat, then shouted in a jerky, somewhat stuttering voice:

“Stat Sha-KO! Fer two r’fined!”

Sweetie Belle nodded slowly, then cleared her own throat. “Stout Shako for two refined.” Sweetie pronounced clearly.

“NO!” Demoman roared. “Ye do it like this: Stat Sha-KO! Fer two r’fined!”


“Stout… Shago? For two refined?” Sweetie said in a confused manner.

Demoman smacked his face with his palm. “This could take a while…” He grumbled.

> 9: I am Heavy Weapons Shy.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

3:57 p.m.

45 hours and 3 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

“Woah ho ho ho hah!”

“Heavy, stop it!” Fluttershy cried at the giant man. “You might-“

“Do you jest, Flutter pony?” Heavy said as he did a pile driver. “Back in motherland, we did bear wrestling all de time!” He put Harry the bear in a headlock, and it roared, biting his arm. “Oh ho ho ho! You are no pushover, mister bear!” Heavy cried, not fazed in the slightest from the bear sinking its teeth into his arm.

“Stop it! You’re going to-“ Fluttershy yelled, but was interrupted by a loud CRACK.

“HAH!” Heavy laughed, stepping off of the defeated bear. “I am victorious!” He roared.

“Oh, now look what you’ve gone and done!” Fluttershy cried, rushing over. “You’ve gone and dislocated his shoulder! Now I need to reset it.” She flew past Heavy. “Hang on, Harry. This will only be a second.”

Heavy watched as Fluttershy gave the bear a “soothing” back massage.



Heavy blinked.

Then he winced.

Then he covered his eyes.

He uncovered one eye, and rapidly covered it again.

“Mother of…” Heavy mumbled, as he watched Fluttershy snap the bear’s neck.

“There you go! Feel better?” Fluttershy asked. Harry nodded, and licked her cheek. “Glad to hear it.” Fluttershy said, smiling as she smoothed her hair back down. Then Harry lumbered off, and she turned to Heavy, her smile turning into a frown.

“You’re lucky you didn’t do anything worse.” She admonished Heavy.

Heavy stood there, his jaw still dropped. Then he scooped Fluttershy up in one massive arm, and gave a deep, bellowing laugh as he stroked her hair. “You are strongest pony in entire town!” Heavy roared as he petted Fluttershy. “You are now Mini Heavy!”

Fluttershy promptly squeaked, shot out of Heavy’s grasp, and flew up and through the window leading into her bedroom.

“Flutter pony?” Heavy called. Then he walked inside. “Flutter pony, Heavy was not going to hurt bear. Heavy knows his own strength.” He called, trying to soothe her as he walked up the stairs.

Then he heard sobbing, coming from a door. He opened it to see Fluttershy crying quietly on a red-checkered bed. “Flutter pony, what is wrong?” Heavy asked, sitting down. “Do you not want to be mini Heavy?”

“Well…” Fluttershy sniffled, looking up at him with teary teal eyes. “I’m honored that you would take me on as your apprentice, but I… I just can’t accept.
“I’m not the strongest pony in the town; if anything, I’m the weakest.” Fluttershy buried her head in her hooves once more. “I – I spent the entire battle hiding under a flower stand, for Celestia’s sake!”

“Flutter pony, do not say that! You are strong-“ Heavy began.

“NO I’M NOT!” Fluttershy squealed as she continued to cry. “I’ve seen you fighting; wading through hordes of robots, carrying your enormous gun! I’m not strong or brave enough to do that! Go to Applejack, or Big Mac, or Rainbow Dash, or Twilight, or Pinkie – anyone but me! I’m just so pathetic!” She sobbed for a while more, feeling Heavy’s hand on her back.

There was a deep, rumbling sigh. “Flutter pony…” Heavy said. “Look at me.” Fluttershy looked up at him, sniffling. “Heavy will tell you story.” Heavy said. Then he reached into a breast pocket of his vest, so well disguised that it was almost invisible, and pulled out a crinkled, yellowed paper. He unfolded it and handed it to Fluttershy.

In the picture was a family. The biggest one was a man with a rich moustache; not as big as Heavy, but massive nonetheless. A plump woman with kindly old eyes stood next to him. In the lower part of the picture, three children were visible.

“See dis?” Heavy pointed at one of the boys, who was quite skinny. “This is me.”

“That’s you?” Fluttershy whispered, looking closer. “But – but here you’re tiny! And now you’re-“

“Giant man, I know.” Heavy chuckled. “This was long time ago, as you might guess.”

Fluttershy giggled lightly.

“Yes, dis was taken back in motherland.” Heavy stated. “The mighty country of Россия – Russia, in your words.”

“And this is your family?” Fluttershy asked.

Heavy gave another deep sigh. “Was my family.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry.” Fluttershy whimpered.

“Don’t be.” Fluttershy felt Heavy’s hand on her back. “Now Flutter pony, back then, when I was leetle man, Russia was in turmoil. Not everybody liked government; those who didn’t, called rebels. Rebels sent to… Siberia.” Heavy shivered.

“Siberia?” Fluttershy asked.

“One of most hostile and unpleasant places on my planet.” Heavy explained. “So cold that if you cried, tears would freeze while still in eyes. Eyeballs themselves would freeze in short time, if not warmed.”

Fluttershy winced. “Yes, I know. Nasty.” Heavy mumbled. “Even worse were the Siberian gulags; like prisons which forced you to work, and gave very little food.”

Heavy looked at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy saw the pain in his eyes. “My father was rebel, Fluttershy.” Heavy said quietly.

“Oh…” Fluttershy said, her eyes widening. “So you were sent to…”

“Yes.” Heavy said simply. He shivered again. “Even talking about that place makes Heavy feel cold. Heavy spent six months of his life there, Flutter pony… felt like six years.”

“And then they let you go?” Fluttershy asked.

Heavy shook his head. “Those who go to gulags, Flutter pony… do not come back.” Fluttershy’s eyes widened even further, and she shrunk into the blankets.

“But one day…” Heavy’s back straightened a little bit. “One day, Heavy decided he would not take it anymore. Leetle stove in kitchen; Heavy stole burning embers from, and set fire to gulag. Then prisoners escaped, and overwhelmed guards with sheer force of numbers.”

“Oh… my.” Fluttershy said.

“Many prisoners died to fire and guns, but a good few escaped, and made it to nearest town, five miles away, after six hours of walking.” Heavy shook his head. “Soon after, Heavy escaped to ship, and made it to America – land of free, home of brave.”

“So, a happy ending?” Fluttershy asked, a flicker of hope in her voice.

Heavy didn’t look at her. “Heavy’s family… no make it out of gulag fire.” He mumbled.

“Oh… you poor thing…” Fluttershy whispered. Then she saw a glint. “Aw, don’t cry, Heavy… It’ll be okay…” She said quietly, flying up and drying the tear on the giant’s cheek.

“What? No! Heavy does not cry!” Heavy said with a sniff. “Crying is for leetle baby men!”

Fluttershy smiled softly. “It’s okay, Heavy… we all cry.”

“Not Heavy.” Heavy said quietly.

There was a pause, then Fluttershy asked politely, “But what does this story have to do with me? Why did you tell me this story?”

“Flutter pony…” Heavy sighed. “Heavy still remembers the strength leetle Heavy had when he decided he’d had enough, and set that fire.” Heavy looked into Fluttershy’s eyes. “Heavy sees that same strength in you.

“You may not have strongest muscles, Flutter pony. But you definitely have strongest will.” Heavy picked Fluttershy up. “And Heavy has faith that you will make the best Mini Heavy that will ever live.” He smiled. “What say you?”

Fluttershy paused, then a smile slowly grew on her face. “I’ll be happy to be your… ‘Mini Heavy’.”

Heavy gave another deep, roaring laugh, petting Fluttershy on the head. “Eez gud!” Heavy stated. “Let us celebrate by eating sandvich!”

“Sandwich?” Fluttershy asked.

“No! SandVich!” Heavy stated, pulling out his sandvich. He set Fluttershy down, then tore his sandvich in two, and handed one half to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy took a bite, and her eyes widened. “Wow! This is incredible! What’s in this?!”

Heavy shrugged. “Sandvich is simple to make, but hard to perfect. Takes bread, and tomato, and lettuce, and most importantly…” Heavy pulled out a little slice of meat, and waved it in front of Fluttershy. “Baloney! Perfect fuel for killing tiny cowards!”

“Baloney? What’s that made of?” Fluttershy questioned.

“Eez pi-“ Heavy said, but was cut off by a squeal.

A pig ran into the room, and whimpered something to Fluttershy. “There there, Mr Squiggums, it’s okay. You’re just hearing things again. Nobody’s going to hurt you, I promise.”  Fluttershy hugged the pig, then she turned back to Heavy. “Sorry; What’s the baloney made of again?”

Heavy paused as he looked at the pig, then at the baloney, then at Fluttershy’s smiling face. “Erm… Baloney eez…” Heavy stuttered. “Eez… cheese!”

“Huh. It doesn’t taste like cheese.” Fluttershy stated, frowning a bit.

“Eez… eez special cheese, with unique flavor! Yes, that is it!” Heavy said hurriedly.

“Oh.” Fluttershy paused. “All right then.” She took another bite of her sandvich.

Heavy exhaled in relief, mopping his brow with his sandvich before taking another bite from it.

XXXXXXXX

“Okay, Flutter Pony!” Heavy said. The two of them were now outside; Heavy had promised to show Fluttershy how to fight like him.

“First thing you must remember!” Heavy stated. “Your gun must never leave your side!” Heavy pulled out his huge minigun. “This is Sasha. Sasha, say hello.”

Heavy revved up his minigun, then fired it into the air briefly, eliciting a squeak from Fluttershy. “Oh ho ho! Sasha likes you, Fluttershy!” Heavy stated.

“So, um… do I get to fire it?” Fluttershy asked, then cowered when Heavy glared at her.

“I am only one touches Sasha.” He stated. His tone left no room for argument.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked…” Fluttershy whispered.

“But you may have Sasha’s sister!” Heavy continued, and Fluttershy looked up as Heavy pulled an even bigger gun out of his backpack. “This is Natasha.” Heavy said. “Sasha’s sister. Does less damage and spins slower, but fires cripple bullets which slow target.”

“Ooh! Can I try it?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well of course!” Heavy stated. Fluttershy reached for Natasha, but Heavy stopped her hoof with his hand. “Just remember, Flutter Pony.” Heavy said seriously. “Without heavy weapon, Heavy weapons guy is just guy. Gun is not just weapon; it is extension of body. Gun is life.”

Fluttershy paused. “So… can I use it now?” She asked.

“Of course!” Heavy said, smiling as he passed her Natasha with one hand. Fluttershy took the huge minigun, but was dragged to the ground. 

“Rrgh… this is really heavy!” Fluttershy said, struggling to pick up the gun.

Heavy stared at her for a second.

“Oh… right.” Fluttershy said, blushing.

“Put back into it, Flutter Pony, and use wings; I’m confident you can do it!” Heavy said, smiling.

Fluttershy grunted, and flapped her wings rapidly. Soon, she was hovering with the gun, just two inches above the ground. “I’m… I’m doing it!” she panted.

“Gud! Now try and fire!” Heavy encouraged. “Press leetle trigger under handle!”

Fluttershy obliged, finding the small trigger and pressing it. The gun spun up, and fired with such force that Fluttershy was knocked back. It was as though a rocket had been strapped to her chest; Fluttershy screamed as the gun flew around in loop-de-loops, as she desperately hung onto it. It was almost comical.

“FLUTTER PONY!” Heavy shouted. “STOP PRESSING TRIGGER!”

The gun abruptly stopped firing, and promptly fell like an anvil, Fluttershy still being dragged along with it. She screamed until the gun came to an abrupt impact with the ground.

“Flutter Pony! Are you okay?” Heavy asked.

“I’m… fine… just a little… disoriented…” Fluttershy said, dazedly stumbling around in circles.

A few minutes later, Fluttershy could see straight again, and walk normally. “Perhaps Natasha is not for you.” Heavy said, shaking his head.

“Then what gun will I use?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well, ideally you would use Sasha, but she is mine…” Heavy put his hand to his chin in thought. “Brass beast is even heavier than Natasha… Tomislav is broken… Huo-long Heater requires experience, and consumes lots of ammo… are there any other big guns?” he paused. “Maybe…” he clapped his hands. “Yes, that might work!”

Heavy walked back to his backpack, and rummaged around, eventually pulling out a third minigun. This one was similar in size to Sasha, but was more angular in design. The ammunition stock and muzzle were hexagonal, and the stock was made of wood. Also, a symbol was etched into the stock: a crossed hammer and sickle.

“This is iron curtain.” Heavy stated, setting the gun in front of Fluttershy. “Is has same statistics as Sasha, but has different design.”

Fluttershy tapped the stock. “Is this… wood?” She asked.

“Made from finest trees in all of motherland!” Heavy said proudly. “Also, wood is lighter than metal, so you might be able to pick this one up easier!”

“If it’s lighter and does the same damage as Sasha, why don’t you use this one?” Fluttershy questioned.

“One: Heavy had deep emotional attatchment to Sasha.” Heavy said. “Two: Heavy is heavy weapons guy, not medium weapons guy. Now go, pick up.”

Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around the handles of the gun, and was actually able to pick it up without even using her wings. She pulled the trigger, and the barrel spun. The gun fired harmlessly into the air, but instead of being knocked back, Fluttershy could now plant her feet into the ground, meaning that she wouldn’t go flying.

“I’m… I’m doing it! I’m a heavy weapons guy!” Fluttershy cried, as she began to slowly walk forward.

“Good work, Flutter Pony!” Heavy said, patting Fluttershy on the head. “You are greatest Mini Heavy, in history of world!”

Fluttershy stopped firing, exhilaration still coursing through her. “So, what now?”

Heavy chuckled darkly. “Now,” he said, “We start the really fun stuff.”

> 10: Fashionably Smart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

6:43 P.M.

42 hours and 17 minutes remain

XXXXXXXX

“Augh!” Rarity growled as she trotted into the basement. “Why that-“ She cut off, her jaw dropping as she saw the state of her basement.

She’d insisted the Engineer at least set his stuff up down here, but now she was regretting even that. Spare wires and oil grease was everywhere. The Engineer sat on a stool, reaching his greasy gloves deep into a compartment of his Sentry gun.

“C’mon, you sunuva…” The Engineer grumbled as he wrenched his arms around in the compartment. Then there was a flash of sparks, and the Texan grinned. “Hoo-wee! That’s how it’s done!”

He closed the compartment back up, and spotted Rarity. “Oh, well howdy, Miss Rarity.” He stated, tipping his hat at her.

“What. Is. This.” Rarity growled.

“What’s what?” The Engineer questioned.

“ALL of this!” Rarity roared, stomping over. “There’s wires covering everything, these oil stains will take months to buff out, and… DEAR CELESTIA, why is there a turny-portal on top of the shelf?!”

“That’s a teleporter, ma’am.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s a slice of red velvet cake! You could at least use a coaster for the bloody thing!” Rarity let out a loud groan, and flopped to the ground.

The Engineer stared awkwardly at her. “Well… I’m sorry, ma’am. I could always just clean this stuff up-“

“No, no, it’s… it’s fine…” Rarity grumbled, standing up again. “It’s just… now there’s all this nonsense on top of what I’ve been doing all day.”

“What, has Spy given you a hard time during your training?” Engineer questioned.

“In a word? Yes.” Rarity replied. “That man is running me absolutely ragged. ‘walk backwards faster’, ‘stab a quarter inch to the left’, ‘No, no, never disguise as a heavy’… he’s been doing nothing but complain about my performance the entire day!”

“Yeah, I admit, Spy has one of the trickier jobs among us.” Engineer said, going back to fiddling with his Sentry gun. “Bastard has to act exactly like a member of the enemy team, and at the same time worry about what disguise to choose. Not to mention, If he doesn’t do a sap-and-stab exactly right, he’s dead, and don’t even get me started on the corpse dropper…”

“Oh yeah, like you’ve got it a lot easier.” Rarity said, gesturing to Engineer’s contraptions. “you have to position your machines in all the right places, not to mention worry about all of those electronic whatevers!”

“Eh, the positioning ain’t hard.” The Engineer said, yanking out a tangle of wires from the sentry gun and rearranging them. “You just gotta know the layout of the map. You know where the enemy’s going, you can get there before them. As for the mechanical parts of it, well, that’s no trouble at all if you know what you’re doing.”

“But… but it’s so dirty!” Rarity said, recoiling as the Engineer grabbed a bottle of oil and dripped a few drops onto a component.

Engineer chuckled. “Ma’am, you have no idea how much of a mess the spy’s knife makes when he stabs someone. This is nothing compared to that. Wear some good tough gloves, and you’ll be clean as a whistle.”

“Well… at least the Spy is mobile! You’re weak as a toothless rabbit without your sentry gun!” Rarity said, desperate to prove her point.

“You got that right.”

“In fact, I - …wait, what?” Rarity cut off as what Engineer had said registered.

“I said you’re right.” The Engineer said. He stopped fiddling with the tangle of wires, nodded, and shoved it back into the sentry gun, connecting the wires with his hands. “Ma’am, do you know what I do on this team?”

“You… build things?” Rarity guessed.

“That’s but the surface.” The Engineer closed up the compartment of his Sentry gun, and turned to Rarity. “Y’see, Miss Rarity, this whole team is like… like a Thanksgivin’ dinner. All of us mercs, we’re like different foods. You got yer turkey, yer gravy, yer cranberries, yer drinks…”

“And what are you?” Rarity asked curiously.

“Well, I’m the table under it all.” The Engineer said, pride in his voice. “I’m the one behind the scenes. You may not even ever see me – at least, not without my protective tablecloth.” The Engineer patted his Sentry gun. “Though, if you ask me, I’m easily the most important part of the whole shebang – without me, everyone would have to eat on the floor, and that’s just downright unsanitary and unpleasant.”

“Y’see what I’m getting at, Mrs Rarity?”

Rarity paused. “Actually… I think I do.” She said, smiling. “You’re like the glue that holds the entire team together.”

The Engineer blinked. “Y’know, that’s a much better analogy. I’m gonna have to remember that one.” He and Rarity shared a chuckle.

“Now, I’m sorry, but I really should get back to work.” The Engineer continued, pulling over his dispenser and opening up a compartment of it.

“Oh, my, yes, I’m terribly sorry to be a bother.” Rarity said, leaving the basement.

“Don’t be. It’s good talkin’ ta someone. Gets lonely when I can only talk to my devices.” Engineer replied, not looking up from his work.

Rarity closed the door to the basement behind her. Then she headed over to the kitchen to make dinner.

She opened the cupboard, and frowned. “That’s odd… where did all my frying pans go?” She asked herself. Then she shrugged it off and got some ingredients out of the cupboards to make dinner.

She hadn’t even gotten started on dinner, though, before there was suddenly a loud cry from downstairs. Rarity turned, and rushed back to the basement door, throwing it open.

The engineer sat at a desk at the basement, banging his fist on the table. “Damn dagnabbit dammit-nabbit-daggit!” He growled. “C’mon you piece of cow crap – work!!”

“Is something wrong?” Rarity asked worriedly, and the Engineer’s head whipped to face her. He put on an enormous smile. Rarity may not have been the element of honesty, but she knew a fake smile when she saw one.

“Nothin’ to worry your pretty little head about, ma’am.” The Engineer said, standing up. “I just got a little rip in mah glove. Nothing to worry about.”

Rarity gasped. “But if your glove is ripped, then your hand will get stained with oil and grease! Oh, I absolutely refuse to allow you to work if you get your hand all dirty!”

“Er, no really ma’am – it’s fine, I –“

“I insist that you allow me to fix it!” Rarity said, and before the Engineer could stop her, she levitated the glove off of his hand.

Then she gasped. Her magic cut out, and the glove dropped to the ground.

“Happy now.” The Engineer said, in a voice barely above a whisper. He raised his hand, or rather, what had appeared to be his hand.

Where the Engineer’s hand was supposed to be, was instead a robotic hand.



“Now y’see why I wear my glove.” The Engineer whispered, picking his glove off the floor and shoving it back onto his hand. Rarity saw the fingers twitching. “God dammit, work already.”

“So, um…” Rarity said, still in shock.

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re gonna ask.” Engineer said, sitting back down. “Let’s just say I was young and foolish, and I thought this would be a good idea.”

Rarity was silent, then she slowly walked out of the room. Engineer sighed. He honestly couldn’t blame her.

XXXXXXXX
A few hours later…
XXXXXXXX

“All right, that just about does it.” Engineer said to himself, standing up. He had finally finished repairing his devices. Whacking his devices with his wrench only did so much, after all; if he really wanted to get at the fine components, he needed to go in manually. 

He turned his head as he heard the door open. “Well howdy, Mrs Rar-“ He said, but stopped when he saw the bizzare device Mrs Rarity was levitating with her magic.

It looked a little like an old canister vacuum cleaner, with a large compartment with wheels on it that was dragged around, connected by a hose to the vacuum’s head. Where the vacuum nozzle should be, though, was instead a small device which looked almost like a hot glue gun.

“Darling, do I ever have a surprise for you!” Rarity said happily, walking up to the engineer with her strange contraption. “You just close your eyes, and when you open them, I promise you’ll be pleased with the results!”

“Um… is this gonna hurt? It looks like it’s gonna hurt.” Engineer said, eyeing the device. He could actually see lines of intense heat radiating off the head of the glue gun.

“Nonsense, darling!” Rarity said, levitating the Engineer’s glove off of his robotic hand. “Now just close your eyes and hold perfectly still, and we’ll be done in no time!”

Engineer sighed, and closed his eyes. He then heard a short hissing noise, and jumped lightly. “Relax, darling, I know just what I’m doing.” Came Rarity’s voice.

The hissing came at regular intervals for what felt like forever. Engineer was about to impatiently open his eyes when Rarity’s voice rang out again: “Okay, darling, I’m done. Open your eyes!”

Engineer obliged, and looked at his hand. Then he blinked, and his jaw dropped open.

His robotic hand was bedazzled with glimmering red rubies. They covered most of the flat surfaces, and yet were strategically placed as to not restrict movement. 

“What… how…” Engineer stuttered.

“Yes, I’m sorry it took so long for me to whip this device up.” Rarity said, scuffing her hoof. “I had to make do with what I had, and connect my vacuum to one of my glue guns. Then I had to crush my spare rubies into sufficiently small pieces, and get them into the vacuum bag. Not to mention I had to pressurize the whole thing, and calibrate it. Don’t even get me started on changing the size of the gun’s nozzle…” She smiled up at Engineer. “But I figure it’s all worth it, to have that rusted old hand of yours spruced up so nicely, don’t you agree?”

Engineer didn’t respond; he just continued to stare at his robotic hand, flexing and rotating it.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?” Rarity said worriedly, then her tone turned to apologizing. “I’m so terribly sorry, I really thought you’d like it, I mean, the rubies are just the right shade to perfectly compliment your uniform, but if you really don’t like it I can get Twilight to-“

“No!” Engineer said, looking at Rarity. “No, it’s just…” He sighed. “This is… the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I mean, these gems must have cost you thousands, if not millions…”

“What, those? Oh no, I’ve got plenty of gems, entire cases full. I go out hunting every week with my little Spikey-wikey.” Rarity said, smiling in relief. The Engineer looked at her, shocked. “What?” Rarity asked. “Are these gems more rare on your world?”

Engineer sighed, and shuckled, placing his good hand against his forehead. Then he pointed at Rarity’s bedazzling device. “So… you put that together all on your own?”

“Why, yes. Yes, I did.” Rarity said, glancing at the machine. “I mean, it’s not quite my finest work – I’ve worked much harder on my dresses, so it wasn’t hard to attach some things together and manipulate some shapes and sizes. I had to borrow a book from Twilight to figure out some of the more technical bits, but yes, I did all the work on my own.”

“Ma’am…” Engineer said after a moment of thought, “How’d you like to become an Engineer with me?”

“Who, me? Oh, no, I couldn’t-“

“Miss Rarity, if you can build somethin’ like that, then you can easily learn how to work one of these.” Engineer continued, patting his sentry gun.

Rarity blinked. “Are you going to be as harsh as Spy was?”

“No need – you’ve already got the hang of the important part.” Engineer replied, smiling.

“Then… I suppose I don’t see why not.” Rarity said, smiling.

“Excellent.” The Engineer said, smiling back.

As the Engineer began to teach Rarity how to work the Sentry Gun, neither of the two noticed the light shimmer in the shadows. the Spy, standing invisible in the corner all along with his Cloak and Dagger, slipped up the stairs and out of the basement, uncloaking.

“Just as planned.” He whispered to himself, grinning. “I work alone.”

He walked off, leaving Engineer and Rarity to their machinations.

“Will the wrench work if I bedazzle it?”

“Well, a shade of amethyst would go beautifully with your eyes.”

“Oh, you flatterer.”