Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four

The giant skeletons of a whale and a dragon hung from the ceiling of a massive Manehattan museum. The Cutie Mark Crusaders walked down the spacious, lightly crowded entry hall, Sweetie Belle consulting a map of the museum.

Rainbow swooped down on them. "Hey! You girls ever been to a museum before?"

"No, we haven't," said Apple Bloom.

"Oh," Rainbow said in disappointment. "Well, I was hoping somepony could tell me what the heck is supposed to be interesting about all this history and science and stuff. It's not doing anything for me. Maybe I'll hang out with you three! Couldn't hurt to spend time with somepony as clueless as I am."

"History and science are cool, Rainbow Dash!" said Sweetie Belle. "I mean, look at this! What the heck is this…?"

At the back of the museum, taking up all three of its extra-tall stories, was a sixty-foot-tall immortal mare made of bronze plating, with wings of gold. Her flowing hair was made of a solid mass of silver, and her eyes were blue-tinted glass. The trio of fillies galloped toward it to get a better look.

"The Colossus of Talona," said Apple Bloom, reading the sign on the exhibit.

"Pfft, that ain't no colossus," Rainbow said dismissively. "Lady Kolassa is like four times that tall, and a lot more bulky. And she's a living thing, not some statue. Well, you could say she's a living statue, but still, bigger and cooler."

"This isn't a statue, Rainbow Dash," said Sweetie Belle, craning her neck to look up at its face. "It's a machine of some sort."

"That thing's mechanical?" Scootaloo said in a hushed voice.

"No way," Apple Bloom breathed.

Sweetie Belle scanned the exhibit sign for more information. "I guess… it's the last colossus. There were once a fleet of these things, created by the alicorn race… 'alicorn'? I guess that's an old-fashioned word for immortals… uh, but they created them during the dragon wars."

"Immortals were at war with dragons?" said Apple Bloom, punctuating it with a low whistle.

"Okay, that's pretty cool," Rainbow admitted.

"They used these machines to fight the dragons on even terms," Sweetie Belle read. "Each one was piloted by three immortals… neurally linked! Wow!"

She pointed to an illustration on the sign, of three immortal warriors inside the torso of the colossus, wrapped in complex metal skeletons wired to its internal mechanisms.

"This seems so familiar," Apple Bloom murmured. "But why? We haven't learned about these things in school, have we?"

"I don't think so," said Scootaloo, "but yeah, I feel like I've seen this before, with you guys."

Apple Bloom shook her head in amazement. "We gotta find out more about this. Let's look for more signs."

"You go ahead and do that," Rainbow said dryly. "I just spotted the cafeteria. Catch you girls later."

She spread her wings and rocketed up to the second floor, where the rest of the adults were already gathered outside of the cafeteria. Rainbow soared in an arc and landed draped across Derpy, so gracefully it was as if she had simply jumped from the first floor directly to Derpy in a single bound.

"Ooh, I love Derpy so much," she cooed, stroking her hair.

"We know, Rainbow Dash," Twilight smirked. "We love Derpy too."

Rainbow gripped Derpy possessively. "Well, you can't have her. She's mine."

The second and third floors of the museum were lined with balconies and catwalks overlooking the lower floors, and Fluttershy was admiring the view when her eyes suddenly widened. "Eep!" she exclaimed. "Uh… Rainbowjack? Appledash? I mean, um… uh…"

Applejack laughed. "We know who you mean, Fluttershy. What's up?" She and Rainbow approached.

Fluttershy pointed down to the first floor. "D-don't we know those two?"

"Who?" said Rainbow, scanning the crowd.

"Those two stallions there," said Fluttershy. "The skinny gray pegasus and the green unicorn."

Rainbow spotted them. "Hmm… I don't think so."

"Naw, we know them," Applejack said darkly. "The bar fight at the Bazaar where we met Earthwalker and Iron Throne."

"Oh, yeah!" Rainbow said sharply. "Now I remember. The unicorn had really bad teeth and a funky eye and tore the whole place up… and then he grabbed the other guy and disappeared."

"Sh-should we do something?" Fluttershy said frantically. "Maybe we should get the police? Or museum security, at least?"

"I don't think they're doin' anything, sis," said Applejack, shrugging. "All we know about them is that they got into a bar brawl that we started. Could be perfectly decent guys for all we know."

"I've just got a bad feeling about the way they're acting," said Fluttershy, flinching. "Their body language is a bit off."

"Ah, it's probably nothing," said Rainbow. "It's a weird coincidence that we're in the same place as them again, sure, but think about it: all we're doing here is hanging out at the museum. That's probably all they're doing too."

Fluttershy looked unconvinced. "I… I think I'm gonna keep an eye on them just to make sure."

"Suit yourself," said Rainbow, shrugging. "I'll bring you some food."

"Thanks," Fluttershy replied absently, having turned her focus back to the two stallions.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"A'right then," said the pale gray pegasus in a guttural voice. "This one ain't the Bazaar, mate. Even in Manehattan, you're gonna draw some odd looks, so stay casual, like."

He was tall and thin, his spring green mane short and slicked back. His eyes were a darker green, he had a tense, furious expression, and his cutie mark was a broad triangular dagger pointing downward.

His companion was a chunky unicorn stallion, his coat a dark and mossy green. His mane was stringy and dark gray, he had a huge chunk torn out of his ear, and a pattern of black dots was tattooed on his forehead. His teeth were gnarled and brown, and an identical set of teeth made up his cutie mark. One of his eyes was red, and the other was milky pink with no pupil.

His body and legs quivered as he walked, and he tossed his head wildly, twitching and occasionally unleashing an odd, raspy sound: "Hyahhh! Hyerrrr! Hnnnorf!"

Bystanders glanced at him and quickened their pace. The pegasus sighed and bopped the unicorn on the head. The unicorn's posture immediately became straight, tall, and firm, and his expression became calm and noble.

"There's a hole in the bucket, Momma," he said in a deep, rich voice with an elegant accent. "All the hot water is spilling out… spilling…"

The pegasus rolled his eyes. "That's a wee bit better. So… the Colossus of Talona. Three thousand years of history gone by the since the dragon wars and there's never been a feat of mechanical engineering to match her. I reckon it'll take us, what, twenty-five minutes to put an end ta all that?"

"I'm sorry, we don't serve spirits here," said the unicorn. "After all, booze are for ghosts."

"I… what? Ugh, forget it. A'right, we've gotta do this right quick. There's gonna be some outcry, security's gonna come after us, but… we'll have the colossus. Not much that security can do about that, aye? Heh heh. We'll have to pick a very precise moment to do this. You understand, ya maniac?"

The unicorn's magic, an acidic green, hummed and swirled around his horn rapidly, making the horn look like a whirling drillbit. Without moving his legs, he charged through the small fence around the colossus, shattering it; his momentum caused him to bounce off one of the machine's legs, but he quickly recovered and levitated himself up to one of the hatches on the colossus' flanks where its cutie mark would be, ripping off the door and hopping into the machine, all the while yelling, "Helicopters! Jam! Radioactive peanuts! Socks! And… spaniels!"

The entire first floor of the museum had broken out in panic.

"A'right, or we could do it that way," the gray pegasus said dryly. He took to the air and flew into the hatch, joining his companion amongst the dangling wires of the internal machinery and the three tiers of walkways within the colossus' torso.

"Fire it up, ya crazy bastard!" the pegasus whooped. "Let's see if this bucket o' bolts still runs…"

The unicorn's magic activated a spiraling Tesla coil located where the heart would be on a real pony. Soon, all the gears and pumps in the entire colossus were working.

"Ha ha, well done!" the pegasus crowed. "Now how do we interface with the bloody thing?"

The unicorn showed him an apparatus on the middle level, a spine-shaped chunk of metal covered in needles. Guided by his companion, the pegasus stood beneath the apparatus, and numerous needles were driven directly into his actual spine, painfully fusing the metal to him.

More devices were lowered down onto him: a visor which showed him the view through the eyes of the colossus, and a pair of metal wings which fitted around his. Metal shoes encased his hooves, and everything hooked up to him was connected through tubes to the colossus' spine.

"Nice," the pegasus said, grinning. "Looks like I take this station and you get the one on top, lad."

The unicorn levitated to the top level, attaching himself to an identical apparatus—though instead of the wing attachment, he brought down a helmet that hooked up to his horn. There was a third apparatus on the bottom level, and all three included the wing attachment, the horn attachment, and a third which appeared it would drive a long needle directly into the user's heart.

Outside, the colossus' eyes were glowing blue, as were an elegant series of lines between every panel on its body and every feather on its wings. It lifted its head, and a loud, metallic, feminine voice echoed throughout the entire museum from its mouthless face: "Colossus of Talona is online. Kindly state mission objective."

"I'll tell ya yer mission objective, ya stupid machine!" the pegasus said gleefully. "We're bustin' out of her and takin' ya to our boss!"

On the museum floor, the Crusaders stood still in slack-jawed shock.

"Oh my gosh!" Sweetie Belle finally managed to squeak. "Somepony's… hijacking the Colossus of Talona?"

"We… we…" Scootaloo stammered. "We've gotta get Twilight and the others! They'll stop 'em, right?"

The colossus was flapping its wings, its head turning back and forth slowly, but nothing else happened. The two ponies within, making these exact same motions, were growing increasingly frustrated. "Why can't we make the daft thing walk?" the pegasus bellowed. "Move, ya coppery twat!"

"Analysis reveals complete lunatics at the helm," said the colossus. "How unfortunate. Initiating fumigation process."

"Fumigation?" the pegasus said in horror. "Oh, bloody hell…"

"I am become death, destroyer of worlds!" the unicorn exclaimed.

"You don't 'am became' anything today, mate!" the pegasus said grimly, as nozzles began to emerge from all sides, pointing at the two of them. "She's fumigatin'! Disconnect us!"

With a flourish of the unicorn's magic, the two of them disconnected from the mechanism, as green gas started filling the colossus' interior.

"Now make a bloody run for it!" the pegasus bellowed.

The two of them rushed through the poison gas and out the cutie mark hatch; weakened and tired, they both tumbled to the ground.

The pegasus slowly stood up, and shook his companion. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here!" he urged. He got no response; the unicorn was unconscious. "No? A'right, just me then…"

He ran for the museum entrance, and attempted to fly, but the poison in his lungs soon caught up to him and he fainted as well.

"Initiating self-sabotage to prevent further misuse," the colossus announced. And with that, its joints—shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles, and all of the joints in its wings—exploded, sending bolts and rivets flying in every direction, and some simply falling to the ground. The Colossus itself collapsed, its legs buckling, its body tumbling forward, taking out the walkways on the second and third floors and sending the museum patrons scattering.

Its chin hit the ground mere feet away from the Crusaders, who stared into its eyes, enraptured.

"Don't forget to restore me," it said in its usual clipped, emotionless tone. With a sigh and a voice full of pain and regret, it added, "I am the last one, you know."

The Crusaders gasped as its eyes went dark, and all of its machinery shut down with a high-pitched, fading whirr.

The adults raced to the Crusaders' side, all of them frantically checking the girls' well-being.

"What happened here?" Twilight demanded.

"Those guys…" Scootaloo said feebly. She gestured to the unconscious stallions, who were being lifted off the ground by the museum's security pones. "They hijacked the Colossus, but… but she defeated them! All by herself!"

"She sounded so sad," Sweetie Belle peeped. "I thought she was just a machine."

"No," Twilight said solemnly. "The colossi were something more than just machines. Nopony really knows how. Excuse me, sir?" She approached a security guard. "Twilight Sparkle. I can speak for the princess of our nation. If there's anything I can do to help this case, let me know."

All eyes in the museum were on the two unconscious hijackers as museum security took them out the door. All but those of the Crusaders, who couldn't stop staring into the once again lifeless blue eyes of the colossus.