Chapter 37: Special Delivery
The tricked-out purple car screeched to a halt. Astra almost didn't need the momentum to fling herself out of it and start her sprinting towards her destination: a fancy neon green night club, "Veggie Vegas" printed across the top in large flashing letters, lights pointed at the sky and every which way. On a good day, these lights would be strobing in time with some upbeat music, bass shaking the ground, people lined up from miles around to get their groove on. But not today. The lights were all off, and the structure was silent as a funeral home. Despite the haunting sickness that wrought Astra, she pounded on towards the double doors, determined to save her friend.
"Hey!" shouted the gruff voice of the driver. "What about the fare?!"
"I'll pay you when DJ isn't in danger," Astra called back coldly.
Wario, now trapped, folded his arms and stared angrily at his feet. She knew that he wouldn't leave without his cash.
Astra dove into a dropkick that slammed open the doors. The dance floor hadn't been this deserted since it was still under construction. It felt almost alien, surrounded by death where there had been so much life days before. Hastily, she made her way up the stairs, to the DJ's room.
The room looked just like she expected it to have been left. Jukeboxes of progressively older models lined the walls, each one in perfect condition. Records stacked upon records stacked upon records in the corner. Lava lamps on nearly every flat surface. A dated, colorful computer monitor with a psychedelic screensaver. The turntable in the center, its records still spinning. The amp was unplugged, but the sound was still audible... the record had begun skipping a while ago, creating a perfect loop: "The Earth may drop but the jam don't stop... The Earth may drop but the jam don't stop..."
The DJ was nowhere to be found, but his spirit still lingered in the room, playing through that tenacious audio clip. He was still alive, the templar was sure of it. But where...
She descended the stairs again, stepping across the dance floor, but something unusual caught her eye, something she didn't notice on her way in. It was a small, brown package. Astra picked it up and noticed that her name was on it, nothing else - no sender, no address. Just "Astra".
The red flags were raised, but before she could contemplate dropping or discarding the package, there was a shout.
"Package in the fee-mail!"
A man burst out of the box, leading with his fist in an uppercut which socked Astra cleanly in the jaw. As she reeled and stumbled backwards, the man landed gracefully on the opposite end of the room. His brown bowl-cut hair and mustache twitched with the created breeze as he stretched in his skin-tight reddish-pink mail uniform. "Mefirst, at your service!" announced the mailman as he adjusted his shades unironically. "That'll cost ya an arm and a leg."
Astra stood up swiftly, rubbing her chin and wondering why in the world anyone would want to pay a fee every time they got the mail. "So, you're the one behind this..."
"If you were expecting Prince Charming, there's still room for that," Mefirst said with a flirty smirk. "We could end this silly game before it begins and cruise down to a REAL club... just you and me..."
Astra's face contorted out of sheer disbelief. "Really. You're going to try to pick me up after punching me in the jaw. Really."
Mefirst burst into a playful guffaw. "Well, it was worth a shot," he shrugged. "You have no idea how often this works back home."
Astra was fairly adamant she had a good idea of how often that worked, but she wasn't here to criticise some sad little man for his social skills. She drew her scythe and struck a stone-cold, threatening pose. "Tell me what you did with DJ or you'll never see any of your obviously numerous girlfriends again."
"If that's what you're here for, you've wasted your time," Mefirst answered, his arms wide in another shrug. "I already told you what I did with him. I killed him."
"No... whatever you did, he's still alive," she retorted sharply. "I can feel it."
"Kind of like how you can 'feel' that your parents are still alive?" taunted the mailman, though no sooner had those words passed his overconfident lips than he felt the sharp blade of Astra's scythe at his throat.
"As many lines as you've crossed," Astra hissed, "you're lucky your head is still on your shoulders."
"Ah, but killing me will accomplish nothing," Mefirst mused, not a smidgen of smugness leaving his demeanor as he casually walked away from Astra's frozen weapon. "It's not like you can bring a soul back to life by getting revenge on its murderer. What's done is done! You can return a letter to the sender, but you can't unwrite it!"
Astra stood in place, Mefirst's words echoing in her head. For a moment, she questioned the purpose of being there, of trying. The past cannot be changed. Where there is death, there will always be death. This was the bottom line of reality, the golden rule of the universe.
"Have you any direction, girl?" Mefirst broke the silence. "There's only one direction for you to worry about, Astra. And that's forward." He turned around to meet the downward-gazing Astra. "Now, if you want even a hope of stitching your universe back together, you'll do what I say. You'll go back to your house, and play your game. You'll do this not because I said it, but because it's the only way. You can accomplish this task less one player."
"If you still want me to play the game..." Astra mumbled, "and repair this universe..." She looked up, anger barely holding back tears. "Why would you kill him?"
"No matter how hard you try, you can't understand everything," Mefirst explained with a condescending shrug. "Sometimes, you just have to accept that and play with the cards you're dealt."
Astra fought his subjugating tone with a glare of rebellion. "I refuse," she enforced, drawing her scythe once more. "There's no changing the past, but it's there for a reason - to learn from, to improve the future. I may not fully understand it, but giving up is worse than failing. I will not leave until I get an answer. Even if I have to beat it out of you." She charged at the mailman, a look of bloodlust in her eyes.
"Heh." Mefirst removed his shades and tossed them neatly into the box, just in time to dodge a swing of Astra's scythe. "The dog chases the mailman." She turned and made another quick swing, which was also easily dodged by the quick-footed villain. "Barking, she asks why, why is this strange man here, invading her space." He tossed a handful of letters, which flew through the air like razors, thinly slicing the edges of her face. "The mailman remains calm. He knows he's bigger than the dog. Her bark is worse than her bite."
Astra lunged at him again, predictably so as Mefirst sidestepped her and clubbed her with a heavy box. "The mailman wishes no harm on the dog. He makes his delivery and leaves, defending himself from her only when he needs to." She reeled from the hit, stumbling against a wall. "Sometimes all it takes is a good whap on the nose with a newspaper." He stood, hands proudly on his hips, waiting for Astra to make her next move.
"I am not a dog!" Astra sprung forth, a spark of wrath visible in her eye, and the world seemed to slow down around her. A swing here, a stroke there, almost too fast for Mefirst to handle. There was a look of genuine surprise for a moment from the mailman as he barely ducked under a slice that was clearly aiming for his neck.
He jumped back, out of melee range. "Jeez, what are they feeding you," he asked sarcastically. "Guess I'll have to step it up a notch." He whipped out a mailbox still on a pole, holding it somewhat like a hammer to parry Astra's next strike with enough force to stagger her. He slammed the mailbox head into her shoulder, nearly knocking her over, and followed up with a high roundhouse kick to her head, sending her into the air. She recovered abnormally quickly, landing on her feet and rushing at him again, cutting short his presumed next taunt with another surprising maneuver. This time, she nipped his chest, tearing the jumpsuit. The pain was startling enough for him to falter, and Astra was able to land two more hits on the shoulder and forearm.
Mefirst backflipped away, tossing a few razor-envelopes to ensure the distance. "You're trying my patience," he stated bluntly. "Looks like I'll have to pull out all the stops." Astra dodged the letters, losing only a bit of time... but it was enough for Mefirst. "Super Fist of Fee-Mail... Special Delivery!" With a swipe of his hand, about a dozen packages flew out from his person, surrounding Astra.
This was undodgeable even for her. The packages burst into explosions all around her, each one with the force of a grenade. Everything went white.
The boat docked. Before the eight ponies rose several pillars of smoke which blended into the air around them, making it harder to breathe. The towers from which the smoke billowed brought memories to Hailstorm's mind, memories that seemed so distant relative to the now. He nearly took a deep breath in preparation for the upcoming, undoubtably hectic robot slaughterfest, but stopped himself when he realized that doing so would probably cause a massive coughing fit. "Well, it's a good thing Eggman showed me how to get here before," Hailstorm joked, "or else we may never have found Metropolis until it was too late..."
"Oh my..." Fluttershy gasped in horror at the thick smoke, following with a light cough. "This can't be good for the wildlife..."
"I dunno if even I can clear this air," Rainbow Dash admitted. "Not in ten seconds flat, anyway!"
"I'm getting the strangest feeling of deja vu right now..." Light Star muttered, squinting at the towers.
"You've been here before?" Pinkie asked. "Cause this is the last place I'd pick to have a party. And I've picked a lot of places for a lot of parties!"
"I..." Light hesitated, racking his brain, trying to hunt down that mental image. "Probably not, but... there's something about these towers... and that face..." He pointed a hoof at the giant Eggman image plastered on the tallest tower in the city.
Twilight Sparkle hopped off of the boat. "We can discuss Pollution City later. Right now, we need to go after Spike."
"Right, right, sorry..." Light trailed off as Pinkie helped him off of the boat.
With all of the ponies on land, they didn't have to go far before they ran into their first obstacle: two of Eggman's oddly-proportioned robots, staring at them with piercing red eyes and guns pointed straight at them. "HALT!" one of them shouted in a cold, synthetic voice. "THE MASTER IS BUSY. WE ARE NOT TAKING VISITORS AT THIS TIME. LEAVE OR BE EXTERMINATED."
"My, talk about rude," Rarity exclaimed.
"Tell us what you did with Spike or you'll be the ones exterminated!" Rainbow threatened back, failing to take into consideration that robots don't feel fear.
After a short pause, the robot responded. "ERROR. UNKNOWN SUBJECT 'SPIKE'. INTENTIONS NOT RECOGNIZED. LEAVE OR BE EXTERMINA-."
SLAM! The robots, focused on the "visitors", had not noticed Twilight picking up a giant boulder behind them, lifting it and dropping it, flattening them. Fluttershy flinched, but everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.
"You... you didn't have to... crush them..." Fluttershy whimpered.
"They're robots," Hailstorm assured her. "Machines. They don't feel pain, and they're certainly not animals. We'll be crushing a lot more of them if we want to rescue Spike, now come on." He began to follow the others, approaching the city cautiously. Fluttershy hesitantly followed.
"If I didn't know any better," Light spoke, "I'd say that robot had no idea what we were talking about..."
"It was probably lyin'," Applejack stated. "...uh, CAN robots lie?"
There was silence, as nobody knew enough about robots to know the answer to that one. The silence was broken fairly quickly, however, as the wail of a siren, followed by gunfire, filled the air. The ponies quickly dove behind bushes for cover, but the gunfire continued, even though there were no robots nearby.
Hailstorm poked his head out of the bushes. "They're not firing at us!" he shouted over all of the noise, seeing no hostile entities. "I'll try to get a closer look!"
The others anxiously watched as Hail took off into the air and approached the city. He hovered just outside the fence and looked within. To his astonishment, he saw waves upon waves of robots... shooting each other. An entire robotic war, being played out in front of him. They were too involved in this battle to notice Hail hovering nearby.
He flew back to the bushes. "Looks like they're fighting each other!" he relayed.
"That's... odd," Twilight observed. "Well, it sounds like enough of a distraction for us to get through. Come on, everypony!"
"Are y-you s-s-sure about th-that, T-Twilight...?" asked Fluttershy, not at all liking the idea of getting any closer to all that gunfire and chaos, but she was too quiet for anyone to hear over the gunfire and chaos. The ponies emerged, ready for a mad dash to Eggman's tower, and Fluttershy once again took up the rear shakily.
They ran and flew into the city, avoiding the fray as best as they could by diving into alleyways and side-streets, but the closer they got to the tower, the heavier the concentration of robots. It soon became evident that one mechanical force was attempting to fight their way to the tower itself, and the other was trying to hold them back. They appeared to be locked in a stalemate for the time being, with the tower covered from all sides. There looked to be no easy way in.
"How are we gonna get past them?!" Rainbow Dash yelled as the group hid behind a building. "If they can hold back all those other bots, they'll have an easy time with us!"
"Can't you do the rocky thing like earlier, Twilight?" Hail suggested.
Twilight shook her head. "There's way too many of them. Even if I clear a path, the rest will know we're here."
"Ooh! I've got an idea!" Pinkie Pie bounced several feet in the air to get everyone's attention. She pointed a hoof towards a wide circular hole in the ground behind them. "Let's use that!"
"You CANNOT be serious," protested Rarity. "We've no idea where it leads! And on top of that, being surrounded by dirt isn't exactly my idea of entertainment. You know that, don't you?"
Pinkie's only response was "Wheeeee!" She had jumped into the hole while Rarity was talking.
Nearly half of the squad face-hoofed. "I coulda sworn that hole wasn't there before," Applejack commented, scratching her mane.
"Well, if Pinkie trusts it, so do I!" Light Star exclaimed, getting a running start and diving in. "Geronimo!"
"Wait!" Twilight tried, but Light had already disappeared into it. She sighed. Curiously, she approached the hole and looked down. "I don't even see the bottom..."
"Whatever, if it turns out to be bad news I can just fly out." Rainbow gave in and dropped into it herself, before Twilight could finish contemplating it.
"Can't argue with that," Hail agreed, following closely behind.
"I... guess I could do that too..." Fluttershy squeaked, descending slowly into the pit.
"Aw, heck, a little dirt never hurt anyone," Applejack surrendered, glaring playfully at Rarity in particular as she said it.
As Applejack slid into the hole, Twilight and Rarity were left exchanging glances.
"Oh, you first, dear," Rarity insisted. "I'll catch up." She stared at the hole in disgust.
Twilight sighed again. "Fine." With little left to lose, she followed all of the others. Rarity, bracing herself and closing her eyes, did the same.
"Oof!" The landing was surprisingly soft. A pile of sandbags covered much of the floor where the ponies landed. As they examined the room, they saw it was a lobby to some kind of facility, floors and walls of solid metal. More importantly, though, the room was filled with robots who were hunkered down, using the sandbags as cover, guns pointed steadily at the door and windows... yes, windows, which revealed the city streets that more robots were currently occupying and fighting in. The building itself was under minimal fire, as if the enemy was trying not to damage it as they fought their way closer.
The robots guarding the inside all turned their heads simultaneously towards the eight new bodies in the room. "THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY... WE HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU," one of them droned.
A deathly chill ran down the spines of the ponies, fear being the only emotion that held back their confusion. But the guns were still pointed at the entrance. The robots did not appear to be threatening the equines. Confusion took over once more.
"What's going on?!" shouted a panicked Twilight, frantically looking around the room for something that made sense. She looked at the ceiling from which they had fallen. There was no sign of a hole - just plain metal ceiling.
"The hole dropped us into the tower!" Pinkie chimed, as if a matter of fact. She was the only one who was neither afraid nor confused.
"DOCTOR ROBOTNIK WILL EXPLAIN. PLEASE TAKE THE ELEVATOR QUICKLY TO THE TOP FLOOR." The robots resumed watching the entrance.
"This smells like a trap to me," Rainbow Dash pointed out suspiciously.
"We have no choice," Twilight explained, heading for the elevator. "The only way out of here now leads to certain death."
"I should know better than to trust Pinkie..." Hailstorm muttered as they all swarmed into the elevator.
"You'd be surprised how often she's right," Twilight dully assured him, not entirely thrilled about how true that was.
The doors closed, and the elevator began rising.
"But how did that dinky hole lead us into the tower?" Rarity pressed. "I just don't understand."
"There's no need to," Light answered. "Hajike works in mysterious ways. The only important thing is that it works!"
"And now they have a name for it..." Rainbow remarked.
Ding! The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. The ponies emerged into a control room, filled to the brim with machines, monitors, panels, and computers. Not to mention the team of robots that sat at various stations, frantically working at the controls to attempt and aid their allies on the surface. All of that advanced technology in one place was very overwhelming for the Elements of Harmony plus two.
But what was perhaps most surprising about the room was the console where Eggman himself sat, rubbing his temples with worry as he flipped through various camera shots of robot versus robot. Next to him sat a familiar purple dragon, watching the carnage in awe and concern. Hearing the elevator, both of them turned around.
"Twilight! Everyone!" exclaimed Spike, running up to the purple unicorn, who hugged him gratefully.
"Spike! Am I glad to see you," she greeted.
"Wait wait wait," Hailstorm spoke. "Spike was never in any danger? Why did you kidnap him?"
"If I straight up told you," Dr. Eggman began as he rose from his chair, "you wouldn't have believed me, and I certainly wouldn't have gotten you all to come here."
"Now that we have Spike, there's no reason for us to be here any longer anyway!" Rainbow responded impatiently and turning to fly back towards the elevator. She was having none of this.
"Hold your horses, Dash," Applejack sternly commanded, grabbing her. She disdainfully chose not to resist. "I wanna hear the truth, and I'm sure everypony else does as well."
"Yeah, why are all of your robots attacking each other?" Light asked.
"They're not all MY robots," snapped Eggman. "They're very different from my robots! Just because they're robots doesn't mean they're mine! They were sent by... someone else, I don't know who, but they seem to want to take over my tower! And if they get up here, they can repurpose all of my robots and equipment for their own uses, whatever they are! And I need you to help me drive them back!"
"Ok, I understand you're in trouble," Twilight replied in disbelief. "But why should we help you?"
"Because... I have some information that you might find very useful," Dr. Eggman promised. "You're not the only ones who want everything to return to normal. I've been looking into this dimensional mishap myself, and I've uncovered some secrets of my own. We have the same goals, so it's only logical that we should combine our efforts!"
"He's telling the truth, honest!" Spike backed up the doctor. "And he's really not that bad of a guy."
Hailstorm blinked. "Hang on..." A realization hit him. He glared at Spike skeptically. "How do we know this is the real Spike and not some kind of robot duplicate?"
There was a gasp, and a sudden rush of mistrust among almost the entire group as they came to the same conclusion.
"What?!" Spike reacted, with genuine shock. "I'm not a robot! Look, see, real dragon scales!" He knocked on his chest with his fist. "Scales as hard as... metal? Ok, well, I'm still cold-blooded! Cold like a... robot..." Even Spike was starting to doubt himself. He looked up at Twilight, his eyes washed with worry. "I'm not a robot, am I?! Please tell me I'm not a robot!"
Twilight looked down at Spike and chuckled. "Spike, you're not a robot." She rustled his head reassuringly. "This is the real Spike, there's no doubt about that."
There was a sigh of relief from everyone, including Eggman. "I suppose I can't really blame you for suspecting that. You're smarter than I thought," he grudgingly admitted.
"So, all we have to do is fight off some robots and we can finally get some more answers about this whole thing?" Applejack asked.
"That's what you came here to do, isn't it?" Eggman reminded them, staring at the ponies' armor.
"Finally! Time to beat up some metal morons!" Rainbow exclaimed, heading for the elevator again.
She was stopped this time by Twilight. "We can't just rush in there without a plan of action. I may not know much about guns, but I do know physics, and this armor can't stop the full force of those bullets. We're not invincible." Rainbow groaned.
"Well, we've got a whole attack force just waiting in the lobby," Light pointed out. "Send about a third of them in first just ahead of us to absorb the shots, since they're expendable. Then with us charging ahead, the rest can all swarm out and provide cover fire while we pick off the opposing army. The three pegasi can land behind enemy lines for a flanking attack, maybe airlift a few robots for backup, and the unicorns can snipe from a safe distance. Eggman, what can be done from here?"
"I can order the troops en masse and wirelessly by sending them commands small groups at a time," he responded. "I designed the interface to mimic a real-time strategy video game. If you're familiar with that sort of thing."
"Great, so Spike can stay behind and help Eggman with that. It sounds like his cup of tea." Many of the ponies exchanged glances as Light took control of the situation. They certainly didn't expect him to be harboring such natural leadership abilities, but none of them disagreed with what he was saying.
Almost none of them, that is. "C-can I stay behind too...?" Fluttershy questioned. "Pardon me, but fighting on the front lines isn't exactly my cup of tea. I-if you don't mind, that is."
"We need as many air units as we can get," Eggman argued. "If we can control the air, we can control the battlefield."
"Don't you have any... flying robots?" Fluttershy asked.
"They were all, uh..." Eggman paused, knowing that the following news would not help sway the yellow pegasus. "Shot down."
Fluttershy flinched, imagining a scenario where she did help the others on the front lines, only to befall the same fate.
"That's hardly what I'd call 'controlling the battlefield'," Applejack asserted. "Come on, can't ya just let poor Fluttershy stay here? She's really good at getting critters to do what she wants, that's for sure."
"And I can do the work of two pegasi easily," Rainbow contributed, elbowing Hailstorm.
"Yes... yes she can," Hail testified.
"Fine," Dr. Eggman caved. "I guess you can never have too many commanders, it'll increase our actions per minute. You know what they say, the more the-"
"Ok, we get it," Light interrupted.