It was dark. And cold. The air was a bit stale as well, not surprising since she was 10 miles underground, exactly. Those tablets seemed to have the location described in great detail, which is how they... She bit back tears as her 5 other friends' deaths flashed through her mind, in great detail, starting with the first one to fall: Pinkie.
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The 6 had just managed to reach the mouth of the cavern before they were spotted by the aliens and gunned down like the thousands that had acted as a meat shield just so these 6 could survive and activate something called The Guardian Factory. A machine that builds more machines, creating an unstoppable force. The survivors saw that this was their last chance at driving the aliens off, and knew that was the only way, all 500,000 of them. The aliens were smart, their weapons deadly, and their technology was miles above the tech level the ponies possessed. The 6 friends quickly ran down the hole that would eventually lead to The Guardian Factory. The sounds of the aliens' weapons echoed through the air, loud and piercing. Their decent did not go unnoticed, and just before hitting the bottom of the hole and heading into the cavern, one alien spotted them, and took aim at the leader. (Twilight.) It knew the distance would take a toll on its gun's accuracy, but one or two might still strike true. Pinkie was the only one who noticed the alien at the top of the pit, and jumped forward to shield Twilight. Not one bullet, or two, or even 5 hit her, 17 struck, but it was more than enough to prove fatal. "Pinkie!" Her friends shouted as the dull "thup" of bullets piercing flesh hit their ears. Even with deadly injury, Pinkie still managed to dash inside the cover of the cave. "No, no!" Twilight shouted as she saw the severity of her wounds. Pinkie managed to create a sound resembling a giggle. "Don't... Don't waste your time with me... Twilight." She mumbled, managing a smile through the intense pain, her vision slowly darkening. "Go... You need to... Find the machine-y thing..." She laughed as the last amount of life left her, and her friends sadly continued down the path.
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The next to die was Fluttershy. Twilight and her remaining companions had been spotted by some alien guards, and had dashed into a storage area. Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were trying to open a vent to escape, but Fluttershy had other ideas. She hid behind a large collection of crates, where she could watch the 3 aliens and not be seen.
"Hide and seek eh?" Said one of the aliens in a deep and threatening voice. "I do love me a game of hide and seek."
"Um, excuse me." Fluttershy spoke up.
"It speaks! I didn't know you vermin could speak, this changes everything. We could 'ave a game of marco polo!" Said the second, loading its large triple-barreled fully-automatic shotgun.
"Oh wait, you'll be dead first!" The first added, laughing maliciously as it smashed open a crate with its personal quad-cannon.
"I guess yo're roight..." The second added, faking sadness.
"I see, but maybe you could just leave us alone?" Fluttershy continued, trying not to panic as the smashing of crates got nearer and nearer.
"Can't do that love, we've got to have oor ores, and we've used up all oor's, so we'll use yours." Said the first, snarling in the direction of where he assumed the location of the creature was.
"Oh I see. What do use the ores for?" Fluttershy continued, climbing up behind a large tank of liquid labeled: liquid propane, behind them.
"We use 'em for dese beauties!" Said the first said waving its quad-cannon around. "And for building bombs, tanks, towers, basically, if we've killed you mongrels with it, it's built with ores." Fluttershy noticed the aliens were getting dangerously close to where her friends were trying to escape.
"I understand, but I have just one more question, that is, if you don't mind me asking..." The two aliens paused and exchanged glances, while the third continued smashing open crates with the butt of its assault weapon.
"Eh, why not? You've deserved it for being such a joy to play with." He first said, shrugging.
"How fast do you burn?" She said as she kicked the liquid tank with such force, it went over the edge of the crate and landed on top of the first alien, and shattered, slathering the first in it and splashing the surrounding area with it. The surprise caused the first alien to jump, accidentally shooting a couple of its shotguns rounds, which caused the liquid propane to burst into flame, baking the first alien like a cupcake, which proved fatal. The second alien's gun caught fire, spraying rounds into the ceiling, knocking the second alien over into some crates. Unfortunately, the third alien wasn't incapacitated, and fired at Fluttershy, 3 rounds passed right through her skull, killing her instantly. A fountain of blood erupted from behind her head, coating the wall. Her friends had escaped, but had still witnessed her bravery, and her death.
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The death of Applejack came next. While traveling through the vents, they found a presumably deserted room, full of food supplies. They decided this would be an excellent place to hide for awhile. They did manage to eat some food, before 3 guards entered the room. The ponies quickly hid. The aliens didn't know the 4 ponies were in the room, but did wonder at why some food crates were open, and why the vent grate was removed. But then one remembered that the 4 remaining creatures of this planet that had entered the base were traveling through the vents, and the 3 guards began to search the room. Then Applejack jumped out of her hiding place and kicks a strange fan like thing on the back of one. The fan explodes and the alien scrambles to remove the heavy armor, but is too late, and the miniature reactor overheats, and detonates, mincing the alien in its now relatively empty body armor.
"Go! I'll catch up with ya later!" Applejack shouts as she lifts the gun off the dead alien and begins shooting the remaining ones. "I'll use this to hold them off. GO!" OK, she didn't lift it up as much as she used the locked armor in the hand to move the gun about, like a turret. The gun is a double barreled assault rifle, holding a total of 150 FMJ rounds per clip, which were automatically switched by the gun, per barrel (300 FMJ rounds total, at a rate of 10 bullets per second per barrel. That's about 20 bullets every second of sustained fire, capable of sustained fire with two full clips for 15 seconds.) The second guard didn't last long, but the third, unbeknownst to Applejack, ducked behind cover.
"Whooee! This thing packs some punch!" She then counted the bodies. "Oh wait weren't there—"
"CHUCHUCHUCHUCHUN!"
"Three?" Finished the final guard, loading a fresh clip into its identical assault rifle. "Yes, there were." Applejack dies by multiple bullet wounds at near point blank. The final guard watched her blood seep out for a minute, then called it in that another one of the mongrels was dead, and the rest were traveling through the ventilation.
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Rainbow Dash was next. The 3 remaining friends managed to find a secret room, that the aliens would never found, as it wasn't connected to the main hallways. They stayed for what seemed like days, but then Rainbow Dash had an idea, she would scout up ahead. She was fast enough to avoid most of the bullets, and nimble enough to swish around them and kick the fan thing on the aliens' backs. So she set off. She never came back. Twilight and Rarity were the only ones left. Them they discovered a secret passage behind a rock. They quickly raced down it, and then came to a small room. It had several screens on it, all except one were on.
"What do you suppose this is?" Twilight asked, climbing onto the chair that sat facing the wall of screens, a maze of buttons, levers, and dials spread in front of her. Only one button was lit up, a green triangle.
"What's this?" Twilight asked, pressing it. The single lit screen began to play out a terrible scene...
Rainbow Dash was led into the sterile white room by two of the soldiers, who were holding her by painfully by her wings. A single alien stood in the middle of the room, dressed in a lab-coat and and gloves.
"Ah yes. My patient." It said in a gruff, yet airy tone.
"Put her in the machine will you?" The two soldiers dragged her to a large ring, that clamped down on her hooves and wings, locking her in place.
"You may leave now." The alien said to the soldiers, who responded by leaving the room, sniggering.
"So..." Rainbow Dash began, looking at the strange ring she was locked in.
"What are going to do? Spin me?" She continued, with a tone of sarcasm.
"Quite the opposite." The alien said, turning to a small control panel with a single dial with numbers and a big lever. "This machine, well, it is rather hard to explain, shall I just show you?" Before Rainbow Dash could reply, the alien pulled the lever, and a burning sensation shot through her, causing an enormous amount of pain. (Electric torture. She got zapped.) It only lasted a few seconds, as the alien returned the lever to its original position, stopping the flow of electricity.
"How was that? Clear enough?" Rainbow didn't reply, she was too shocked (...) to speak.
"Now," the Alien continued, messing with the dial so that the pointer was in the low yellow.
"Why don't you be a good little... Thing, and answer these questions, or else." Rainbow Dash gulped. She knew this was the end of her line.
"First question, why did you do something as stupid as come here? Is it not clear we are superior to you?" Rainbow Dash remained silent, staring at the alien defiantly.
"Times up!" The Aline burst out after a couple seconds, and yanked the lever into the "on" position, sending painful amounts of volts through Rainbow's small body. She clenched her teeth tightly to avoid making any audible sound above the whine of electricity.
"Let's try a different question, we'll come back to the first one." The alien switched it off again.
"Where are your little friends hiding?" Rainbow Dash shook her head slowly, the edges of her vision turning grey and black.
"Not... Going... To... Tell you..." She repeated this twice.
"Why not?" The alien asked after zapping her again. "It must be very painful, getting electrocuted. All that energy coursing through you, frying your puny brain, if you even have one. I may have to see, and I don't like waiting." The alien fiddled with the dial more, the needle right at the edge between yellow and red. Rainbow Dash had a feeling red was more "electrickiceity" was it? She couldn't pronounce it right.
"Then get yourself... A nice long book... Because you're going... To wait a looong time." Rainbow Dash retorted, a bit of vision returning
"Really? We'll see." The alien turned it on again, and severe pain erupted across her body, her vision went reddish, she could feel her coat starting to singe for some reason. She couldn't keep her screams down this time.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" The walls shook from the shear volume of her screams. The alien switched it off, and said,
"Feeling a bit more helpful?" The alien asked with a smirk. Rainbow Dash couldn't see very well, it was all fuzzy. She nodded with her head to come closer. The alien put is ear right up to her face.
"Go... To... [EXPLETIVE]!" She yelled in his ear, then head-butted him. The alien jumped to his feet, furious. It twisted the file past the red into a small black sliver, and pulled the lever. Rainbow Dash's heart stopped.
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The last was Rarity. Finally, the remaining 2 of the 6 reached the final door, but it was very odd, the was a square metal platform in the middle of the room, and on the far side, a large blast door. Beside that was a green button. Excited, the two raced towards the open door. Twilight passed through it, before something stopped her from moving. She peeked behind her, and saw that the platform had slid out to reveal a turret, the letters: M.D.T. painted on the side. A rock clattered loose from the ceiling, and before it even hit the ground, it was minced by the turret.
"Rarity, don't move!" Twilight cried, but thankfully, she had already heard the turret rise up, and knew exactly what it did.
"Twilight," began the unicorn, "I have an idea."
"What is it?" "See that button? The green one?" She gestured with her eyes towards it.
"Rarity, I know what you're thinking..."
"Then you know it's the only way."
"I could use my magic—"
"No. It took you months to charge up that much magic, you'll need it all for that Factory."
"Rarity..." Twilight pleaded, but Rarity's mind was made up.
"Goodbye, and good luck, Twilight." With that, the white unicorn sprang forward and hit the button. Almost as soon as the button was pressed, the blast door slammed shut incredibly quickly.
"TOWTOWTOWTOWTOWTOWTOWTOW! Came the sound of the motion detection turret as bullet marks appeared on the door.
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Twilight sobbed quietly as the terrible memories soon dissipated once again into old memories. She looked up at the wall, the control wall of The Guardian Factory. Twilight could magically "see" a magical vacuole right where the digital dial was, and she began pumping the magical energy she had stored up for almost 2 months into it. But the magic just bounced back into Twilight!
"Oh no!" She thought, panic surfacing. "It's not working! Why isn't it working!?" Her panic was interrupted by a strange voice, it said:
"Input DNA before power-up." A small red ball of energy appeared atop a tiny spike near the screen.
"Oh whoops." She thought, forgetting that crucial information from the tablets. She did have three vials of DNA, one for Earth Ponies, one for Unicorns, and one for Pegasi. She tipped the contents of all three into the ball of energy, which disappeared after a couple seconds. Then a blue one appeared.
"Input DNA of main threat." The same voice said. She did this as well, hoping that didn't matter that it was from a dead one. A little "ding" sounded, and the voice said.
"Thank you. You may now initiate power-up." Twilight once again tried to pump her magic into the vacuole, and this time it worked. She held her breath as the number didn't change, but then, "1%." She breathed a sigh of relief, and continued her task with a vigor. She watched as the bar slowly filled... She feared she might fall asleep, she hadn't slept since... "2%." The stone floor didn't look so uncomfortable... "3%. Activate express upload."
"What?" Was all Twilight had to say before two (2) large (tesla) coils extended out from the side of the wall, and started to charge up with purple lightning. Then they both shot at her horn, essentially creating a magical energy vacuum. "3%, 4%, 5%," it was going MUCH faster now. After about 85 seconds, Twilight heard the blast door leading here open. She began to panic, should she hide? No, she couldn't move! She strained to force her body to escape, but to no avail.
"So I guess this is it, I failed." She just watched as 7 of the alien soldiers entered the huge room.
"What the..? What is this!?" One cried, completely bewildered at the sight.
"Stop that mongrel!" Another shouted. In reply, one of the soldiers lifted its tri-barreled semi-automatic assault weapon, and aimed it right between Twilight's eyes. But before it could shoot, several javelin-like weapons launched out of the wall, and impaled each alien via the neck to the cave wall behind them. Unfortunately, the gun still fired, and one bullet pierced her abdomen. Twilight cried out in pain and shock, it hurt a lot! She could feel a hot liquid begin to run down her leg, she managed to look down slightly, and almost threw up. A long stream of blood was pouring out of the wound. She didn't know it, but the bullet had sliced open a vein or two, and survival was very unlikely. Already, her vision began to dim, and she felt very cold. "97%, 98% 99%... Fully charged. Please wait..." The coils deactivated, and Twilight slumped into the pool of her blood.
"Please wait?" She thought, not noticing more alien soldiers coming in.
"Wait for what?" She only had a few seconds to live tops, but then something happened. A flood of small black things washed over her and the ground. Twilight was already dead, but she saw them. Her dying thought, was only 3 words. "I did it..."
:\ END FILE