A/N. All righty then, I think I won't say anything and just get onto the story.

Chapter 16

The alarm rang, the klaxon booming around the solid walls of the complex that lay beneath the Pegasus city of Cloudsdale. The ponies that were lounging around in the many comfortable underground rooms jumped to their feet and their pounding hooves soon filled the corridors with noise. This was the first and earliest warning that they got and all were scared for they had been briefed on their tactics. They were to hold their ground and shoot at all running towards them. Kill and don't stop killing until all the enemies are dead. The warning had come from a Pegasus scout who had said that he saw a massive army marching in this direction, ETA: 4 hours. All ponies were armed with varying weapons, some got the old pistols and some got the new pistols, some got assault rifles and shotguns whilst others got high powered sniper rifles. Many didn't get a gun and were handed melee weapons; swords, maces, spears, war hammers, battle axes and various other things with spikes on them. All ponies were then marched out into the warm afternoon air and ordered to form defensive lines. All were surprised to see huge great vehicles roll out of the workshop contained in the facility; they seemed to be indestructible, their armour was very thick and a massive rotating turret on the top made all the effect. These "tanks" were to play a crucial part in the forthcoming battle along with the helicopters.

All of the six friends had been split up again after they had taken a day to catch up on some of the things that they had done after Rarity got back. She had been supervising the movement of a huge machine that looked rather dangerous and when she was asked what it was she said that she couldn't tell. When it was moved onto the battlefield they knew what it was instantly. It was artillery like all the other cannons lined up beside it. The differences were however that this cannon was huge and the wrong shape. When Applejack saw the inside of the massive artillery she was confused. It was blocked by the largest ruby she had ever seen. It must have been five meters across and at least that in depth. They waited for the inevitable, their deaths and the deaths of their friends and family. Unlike before though, families could die as families and friends could die in each other's arms. The ground began to tremble. The enemy's weapons of war became visible over the hill in front of them. The robots had gone, only to be replaced by huge hulking masses of armour and steel, bristling with guns. The top to the machines had one red photoreceptor and that lay underneath a massive turret that dominated the entire leviathan. They stopped, about 1 kilometre away and what happened next was the tensest part of the whole battle. Everything stopped. The pegusi remained motionless, no bullets flew, nopony charged. The two opposing forces lay motionless for many minutes, waiting for the other to make a move. It was Inmate 73 that made the first move; "Deploy the cannons," It said. The order was echoed across the entire battlefield and the mechanical monsters began to move. Not forward but on the spot. The tracks that they had once been moving on were superseded by a set of metal legs that lifted them off the ground. The back legs stopped growing but the front legs kept going until they were at an angle that was appropriate. "Set the range to 1.1 kilometres." The artillery ponies manipulated the many levers and buttons underneath the dials that informed them of the status of the machine. "Fire a warning shot," Inmate 73 ordered, "if they don't stand down, leave no survivors." The blank was loaded into the middle cannon and fired. The resulting noise could be heard in Cloudsdale, buildings were structurally damaged. "It's a warning shot, hold your fire," a general told the assembled ponies most of whom had jumped out of their skins. After five minutes had passed Inmate 73 became impatient, "they haven't stood down, level the buildings and kill all that defend them." The artillery were loaded on both sides and on the command of "FIRE.", all hell broke loose. The battle for Equestria had begun.

Both sided charged towards the centre of the field that they were in, shells flew over their heads and bullets began flying. Inmate 73 had joined the fight in the air and was taking out pegusi with its Mac-10s. It seemed distracted by this and was looked upon to be unaware of the helicopter trying to get a shot on it but this was all part of a master plan. When the heli started firing it moved with a surprising amount of speed and landed on the nose, tipping it down. It then shot at the engine with the GAU 13s, totally destroying them. This caused the rotors to slow and eventually stop and the heli fell. It hit the ground and exploded with a lot of shrapnel. This killed a further five ponies. "Good shot." It said to itself. It kept this up, taking out helicopters with very few bullets until it ran out of MAC-10 ammo. "Only one more thing to do," it sad to itself and scanned the sky for helicopter 001. It was strangely hard to find seeing as the skill the pilot exerted was huge, it barrel rolled and loops and things that helicopters shouldn't be able to do. It hovered over an artillery battery and dropped what appeared to be small bombs on it. These bombs totally destroyed the cannon, killing all in a large radius and the shell storage was engulfed in the flames. It was at this point that all of the uninformed ponies found out what the massive thing at the complex was. It was the laser mining machine. They charged it up and fired a large beam of super-heated light that melted artillery, shells, bullets and bones. This was a huge armament, possibly classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Inmate 73 turned its head away from the destruction and focused on revenge. It flew towards helicopter 001 and taunted them. Its presence agitated the pilot and she started to make mistakes. "I think it is time that I remove you all from this battle. Permanently!" it yelled to them before shooting out the swashplate and subsequently causing the main rotor to fly off the heli. As you may or may not remember, helicopter number 001 was the first helicopter ever flown and as you probably now remember this heli contained Pinkie Pie, Lyra Heartstrings, Sweetie Drops, Raven and Jim Beam. All of these ponies were now plummeting to their deaths. "Jump and some pegusi will catch us!" Pinkie shouted over the howling wind. All her crewmates looked at her questioningly. "Just do it!" Pinkie jumped. As she wasn't caught in the downward force that the helicopter was creating she fell slower because her terminal velocity was less than that of the helicopter. After seeing their crewmate fly upwards they lost their fear and jumped. They all joined Pinkie in the sky. "We're falling slower," commented Sweetie "But we are still falling." Pinkie was deep in thought about how to get out of this one. There seemed to be no way out. Then she came across an idea. "LYRA, can you do levitation spells?" she asked.
"Not very well," Was the answer.
"Can you do one to slow us down?"
"I can try." A yellow glow encased Lyra's horn and the group of falling ponies. Their decent slowed but they still dropped. "I can't do it," Lyra protested against Pinkie.
"Time it well and we won't die when we hit the ground," Was Pinkie's argument.
"When?" Lyra asked.
"NOW," shouted Pinkie and the yellow aura encased them once more. The ground rushed up towards them and they all braced for impact. Lyra was straining to stop the fall and she did almost do it. The crew landed with a thud but no squelch or crack to be heard. "Is everypony OK?" Raven questioned. There were groans but no screams and that meant that everypony could stand. Pinkie was first up, "We need to find weapons," she said because their fall had drawn a lot of attention. She walked over to a dead pony and took its pistol. "I need to find my friends," said the pink pony, "Stay alive, all of you. For our own sakes." And with this statement she galloped off.

The 5 friends that had stayed together had formed a sort of kill line, two at the front, one at the back and two defending each side and were taking down ponies everywhere. Rainbow Dash protected from the air, Rarity and Fluttershy from the sides and Applejack and Twilight from the front. It seemed rather strange for a princess to be on the front lines but Celestia in her current state ordered it and so it happened. Inmate 73 was observing this kill line with a strange fascination. It had never occurred to it that maybe this was the most efficient method for killing without being killed, but one aspect of the line caught its attention the most. The speed of the cyan Pegasus that it had tormented before, it had never seen anything move so fast except for itself. It was even considering that she may be faster that it previously thought, faster that it. There was only one way to find out. The many clones that stood around the kill line stopped and created a defensive circle that was almost impenetrable and stopped attacking. They just stood there. Inmate 73 called out to them. It said "I will hold off an attack on you, as I have control over my warriors, so that you will have time to restock on any ammo you can find. My only condition is that the cyan pony with the rainbow mane and tail races me. You will have the time that we create to do what you will. If any of you harm or kill any of the warriors surrounding you, your grace time will end and we will kill all of you." This was heard over the area that it was directed to and nopony else heard. "What happens when the race is over?" Twilight shouted back.
"We will try to kill you all, as per usual."
"May we converse?"
"You have 59 seconds." The friends came together and discussed. The main point thrown around was if they could trust this monster. It seemed as if they had no choice.
"Your time is up," Inmate 73 boomed, "What is your answer."
"We accept your proposal." The six said in unison.
"Then let us begin."