A Growing Chasm

by Qwertyquail

When a young stallion discovers a criminal detention facility on the moon, he is sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment because he found Equestria's best kept secret. But when he escapes five years later, he is a changed stallion waging war on the monarchy with an army of machines. Rated M for gore and violence.

7. Chapter 7

A/N. This chapter will have gore, violence and possibly some coarse language. Right then, now that I've got that over with I thought I might have a rant and a rave about typing, touch typing in particular. What is it with touch typing that is o crucial that you have to learn it as a lesson in primary school, I don't know about you but I had to and It was a useless waste of time seeing as I never got passed level one and so I type to you now by looking at the keyboard and doing grammar and stuff when I've finished typing. Rant over.

Chapter 7

The gates splintered and the bolts started flying from horns and crossbows alike at the surge of robots flowing like a river through the hole in the wall. Only about one in every two hundred projectiles did much damage to the robots and soon, they were upon the foot soldiers. They had no chance, anypony with any sense wanted to retreat up the stairs and hold them off their but the commanding officers told them to hold their ground. The first lines were killed almost mercifully quickly as they were decapitated or pierced by large weapons. Blood was tricking through the cobbles like drizzle on a wet morning, but before long, the trickle had turned to a stream that wet the hooves of all that stood. Every once in a while a robot would fall with an arrow sticking out of its eye or sizzling metal on its chest plate from a burst of magic but not many not often.

As soon as Falfrea got bored with playing in the air by chopping ponies to pieces, ripping them limb from limb and generally causing pain, he joined the melee that was the ground assault. This cleared the skies from danger and so the air-force got to work dropping rocks and stuff on the robots heads. Falfrea had only just landed before the first volley of arrows embedded themselves in the cobbles next to him. He put his wings up to shield his body whilst the nanomites hardened his skin. A lone arrow got through his defences and hit him just above the eye and broke and pierced his brain, taking a chunk out on the other side. "Damn, that hurts!" yelled the red pony, "I hate growing back brain." The skin and bone healed first so that the new brain wouldn't be damaged by contact with air and then the nanomites got to work. They copied the cell nuclei from the nearby brain cells and used them to form new cells, devoid of any data, ready to be filled with new memories, thoughts and feelings. It just so happened that the part of the brain that just got shot out was the part that was partially holding back the raw insanity that Inmate 73 had become in its 5 years of imprisonment. Let me now explain the last statement in detail. When Falfrea arrived, he was put through an operation that put a small brain implant into his skull. This contained an experimental AI that allows the subject to use advanced logic and mathematics within seconds rather than having to think about it. It can do a nine piece Tower of Hanoi in 8 seconds with seven of those seconds being the movement of the pieces. This is how Falfrea can do advanced maths within seconds. This AI was an experiment though and so, as all experimental AIs do, it went insane. Its programming didn't fail, only what it used it for changed. It killed every sentient creature on that facility in two days. It latched onto Falfrea's hatred for the Princesses and transferred that into a conquest. It dredged deep into Falfrea's inner thoughts and came up with the name Inmate 73 and so it took it. This thing was now set loose on the world. Within ten seconds, it had calculated the population of Canterlot and put a counter in its head and began the slaughter. The main thing going through its core processor was "how many ponies can I kill with one movement," and this was horribly efficient. Blood spurted from severed necks and drenched its host (that is the best word I can find to describe it) in the liquid. It was a shower, revitalising the stains of crimson the bodies coat had obtained. Inmate 73 didn't see, it just killed. Behind it lay hundreds of bodies in various states and phases of decapitation its wings had extended to about ten meters each via the leaking of nanomites from pores in its skin leaving it with very little amounts of oxygen flowing through its body. This was ridiculously tiring for it but it was horribly efficient, with a kill rate of about ten per minute. Soon, its blood spattered face came upon a catapult, firing rocks at Inmate 73's army. This took its mind off killing for a couple of minutes whilst it reduced the catapult to snapped timber. One of these sharp edges it turned into a weapon, using it like a kebab stick and impaling at least fifteen ponies on the end before it became too heavy to handle. When it put its front hooves back down, they were lying on a pair of swords and this gave it an idea. It reared up unto its hind legs and reducing its wing length, used them as its front legs, freeing up a pair of limbs. Out of its skin flowed the nanomites, creating a hand-like extension on the bottom of its hooves. It then picked up the swords and started hacking. They weren't as effective as the wings but they were more energy efficient, killing one to every thousand particles of oxygen rather than one to every million.

Princess Celestia watched from the balcony. It was a good thing that Inmate 73 was too engrossed in its massacre of her subjects. "We need to move to another city," she said to her sister, "before he finds us." Luna agreed and said she would get the carriage ready with an escort. Celestia left to catch her carriage and once inside she decreed that they needed to go to Manehatten to increase the army size and to fortify. She leaned out the window and yelled to one of her escorting guard, "can you get back to tell them to retreat to Manehatten!" before locking the door and the heavily tinted window.

A/N. Oooh, more back story, YAY! Anyway, the next 6 chapters will be focused on the lives of the Mane 6 during the war as a said on the last footnote but it might confuse you a little 'cus I'll be switching from 3rd to 1st person from chapters 6 to 13 and then back to 3rd on chapter 14. I hope this causes no confusion and I promise not to focus on Falfrea/Inmate 73 in these chapters but that's going to be hard seeing as he is the main character.

Vale (Goodbye in latin)