The second trip was a bit more pleasant than the first. The sun was shining and it had warmed to a little above zero. All of the supplies had been stacked during the first trip, which made it so much easier on the return. There were at least three to four more trips to make, a fact that left Daring Do in a rather pissy state.

Tarnish, who was even now slipping into a state of paranoia, began to try and think about how the mechanoids might operate. A scout had come out to find them, had found them out near the wreck, and the scout had not returned. For the sake of conservation of resources, Tarnish guessed that an attack was not forthcoming, not right away, but he could be wrong. The nighttime temperatures would be enough to kill most intruders into this valley.

But Tarnish and his friends were not most intruders, and neither were the ponies from the Grittish Isles.

So, he reasoned that after a few nights of bitter, horrendous cold, the mechanoids would come in force to deal with any weakened survivors. The Grits were all gathered in their mess hall, either because they were eating or making a final stand. Tarnish couldn’t tell, and this was all speculation anyhow. His many encounters with automatons had given him insight into how they worked, their mechanical logic, and Princess Celestia herself had mentioned him and Vinyl as the foremost experts on the subject matter of centaurian mechanoids.

To take them out, you had to hit them, hard, with as much force as you could muster, which is why Vinyl was fond of launching him at automatons. His shield was fine for smacking them, or bludgeoning them, but the extra added bulk of his body moving along at two miles a minute allowed him to make a solid first hit and knock those murderous bastards over.

It was like he was cursed, or something. He just kept running into them and anypony who went on adventures with him was bound to have a mechanoid moment sooner rather than later. Tarnish counted them as his signature enemy, in much the same way Daring Do considered mooks hers. Nopony liked mechanoid moments though, one of the many reasons why Tarnish was so feared in academic circles. If Daring Do hadn’t taken an interest in him, it would have been only him and Maud.

And he would not be here right now, in what he called the Valley of Skyreach, losing his mind with worry, fear, and doubt.

“Hey! Hey! I don’t mean to alarm anypony, but we have company!” Rainbow Dash shouted, jolting Tarnish from his thoughts.

Tarnish was wrong. The attack was coming now, right now, and in the distance, he could see them. The tall, spindly figures moved along atop the snow, jerking along like manic, murderous marionettes. Some were different though, and he didn’t recognise them. They were taller, heavier looking, and had a very different profile. One arm, the left, was much, much longer, and had a long thin protruding part, perhaps a spear or something. Maybe he was seeing what had caused all of those holes he had seen.

Something whizzed right by his head and Tarnish rolled out of the sledge, pulling Vinyl with him. He began moving for the trees, hoping to take cover. Vinyl had undone the ropes holding Daring Do and Rainbow Dash, and the two pegasus ponies had ducked down into the snow as more somethings went whizzing by, buzzing like bees as they passed.

Overhead, above Tarnish, a tree branch the size of his leg snapped off, and it fell upon him, covering him with snow. He wondered what had broken off the tree branch and what was flying past his head. Other than the faint buzzing sound, the valley was silent as the murderous mechanoids approached.

The roar of gunfire shattered the silence, and when Tarnish cleared the snow from his goggles, he saw that Vinyl had two revolvers out. Something buzzed over his head and splinters exploded from the tree behind him. He realised that the automatons were shooting at him, shooting guns that made no noise.

He pulled out his shield and held it out before him, not knowing what else to do. Vinyl took another shot, but Tarnish didn’t see the outcome. Knowing that she used targetting spells, he suspected that she was making each shot count and something had been downed. Daring Do and Rainbow Dash were down in the snow, burrowing beneath the crust, trying to take cover.

Tarnish blinked.

When he opened his eyes, a pale blue glow could be seen through his goggles, and a hazy blue mist began to seep out, unconcerned by such things as glass and solidity. He whimpered, fearful, and as his panic overtook him, he managed to say to Vinyl, “Help me, Vinyl, it’s happening again and I can’t make it stop! It hurts, Vinyl, it hurts! It hurts so much!”

Tarnish began panting as his body seized, and his teeth snapped together with a painful, jaw wracking crunch. His shield tumbled to the snow, leaving him vulnerable. Something passed through his hood, tearing a hole through it, and somehow missing his head.

The ground rumbled all around them, causing many trees to drop their snow. The four companions were buried beneath an avalanche of sorts, hiding them from view of the advancing patrol of automatons. The smell of pine was strong in the air and sunlight glinted from the thousands of snowflakes that had not yet fallen to be with their sparkling brethren on the ground.

A lone tamarack, a tree at least forty or fifty feet tall, began to move. It thrashed about, its branches flailing, and a horrifying arboreal roar filled the valley, the sound of splintering, creaking wood. The tree uprooted, pulling itself up out of the ground, and changed shape a bit, becoming gnarled, twisted, and distorted. Branches twined together to form dozens of makeshift limbs, and roots became tentacle-like legs that thrashed through the snow.

It advanced upon the mechanoids, a giant, a behemoth, an unstoppable force of nature. It moved with terrifying speed, for whom would believe that a tree could be fast, and it closed the distance in no time at all, roaring its terrible arboreal roar. It wound up one of its makeshift limbs, then delivered a devastating blow, scattering automatons and sending them flying.

Other mechanoids pointed their long, tubular arms at the tree come to life and a faint buzzing sound filled the air. The tree monster stomped and smashed, it clubbed and thrashed, and none of the mechanoids were capable of standing against it. The tamarack, an unstoppable juggernaut, dismantled the mechanoids and reduced them to scrap.

Gasping, Vinyl pushed her head up above the snow, hoping she wouldn’t be shot. It had gone quiet, too quiet, and the spooky silence was terrifying. She didn’t know what had just gone on, as she had been buried beneath yards and yards of snow. The valley was peaceful and quiet, and eerily so.

Where the army of mechanoids had once stood there was now a tall tamarack tree that appeared to have been decorated for the holidays. Bits of brass glinted in its branches, and broken bits of smashed automatons hung like haphazard Hearth’s Warming ornaments. Vinyl stared at it for a few seconds, then began to worry about Tarnish.

She dug back down a bit into the snow, but did not use her magic to melt it. She didn’t want Tarnish getting soaked, because then he would freeze to death. Feeling through the snow with her telekinesis, she found him and gave him a tickle. When there was no response, she panicked. Tarnish was ticklish and he was supposed to respond.

Wrapping her telekinesis around him, she yanked him up through the snow and laid him out topside. He was limp, but breathing. Whimpering, one of the few sounds she could make without vocal cords, she shook him, trying to rouse him, hoping that he was okay. A loud moan issued forth from Vinyl, the sound of mute panic, and she shook Tarnish a little harder as terror gripped her.

Some of the snow gave way beneath her as it settled, and she found herself sucked back down. Angry, frightened, she pulled her way back up and then hugged Tarnish’s neck, a never-ending stream of whimpers pouring from her lips. She slapped him a few times, because that worked sometimes, but when a response failed to manifest, Vinyl began sobbing, not knowing what else to do.

“Stiff upper lip,” Daring Do said as she clambered through the snow to join Vinyl. “Come on, it’s best if we get him back to the cave and we can get him sorted out there. Are you okay?”

Vinyl, still sobbing, nodded, and hugged Tarnish’s head closer to her barrel, wishing that she could feel him against her and that all of this clothing wasn’t in the way.

“What in Tartarus happened?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I have no idea,” Daring Do replied. “It’s probably for the best that none of us bore witness to nature’s fury.” The pegasus pointed over the tamarack tree decorated in gleaming brass mechanoid bodies. “Tarnish can’t always control the things he summons, and whatever just happened, we could be the ones decorating that tree right now.”

“Let’s get out of here!” Rainbow began bounding through the deep snow over to where the half buried sledge was, just a few yards away.

“Not so fast, Miss Dash.” Daring Do’s voice was commanding and confident now. “Go over there and fetch one of those strange automatons for Vinyl to study. We don’t need a whole one, just the left arm. I want to know how and why we couldn’t hear those guns being fired at us.”

“Right! On it!” And with that, Rainbow bounded away, off to obey her orders.

“Mrs. Scratch, buck up! Haul Tarnish over to the sledge. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Now is not the time to get all emotional and sappy! Hut hut!”

Knowing that Daring was right, Vinyl pulled herself together, sniffled a bit inside of her scarf, getting it all snotty, and then pulled her dropped firearms up out of the snow far beneath her. She also grabbed Tarnish’s shield, and then felt around for anything else. The entire time, she looked over the tree decorated in the corpses of their enemies, terrified of what Tarnish could do, and even more scared of what such things tended to do to him.

She hoped that he would be okay.

Author's Notes:

I think that's all for today!