Luna looked quizzically at Lieia “I’m sorry, but what sort of creature are you?”

“Human.”

“Oh! Are there more of you?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.” She seemed uncomfortable.

“Well, do you have a leader or something I could talk to? I’m sorta lost. I ain’t exactly familiar with this place.”

“Currently, you’re in the Everfree Forest.”

“A’ight. Go on.”

“If you wish to see Princess Celestia, you can just wait here. I notified her a while earlier when I saw you crash here.”

Lieia nodded “Makes sense. So, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

Luna opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a loud crash that rocked the trees nearby. Instantly, Lieia’s Seven-Ten’s canopy snapped shut and she pulled out her weapon, aiming it around “Better get to cover, lady. Shit’s about to go down.”

“But-“

“Now. GO!”

Luna decided to comply, dashing off between the trees, but turned around, trying to see what got the human so spooked.

Lieia looked around, aiming the ‘Backbreaker’ chaingun at the massive beast that just emerged from the freshly created crater, groaning as she recognized it. Marines called them ‘Maulers’, due to the massive amount of destruction they were capable of. Heavily armoured and terribly strong, the beasts wrecked everything in their path. If Vasari had decided to unleash one, things would go all the way to hell in a fancy paper hat. The beast roared, charging at her and she wasted no time to fill it with lead.

Hidden behind a tree, Luna watched, horrified as the human stood her ground, her massive weapon ripping chunks of flesh from the beast’s body. Heedlessly, the beast slammed in her, knocking the weapon from her grasp. Lieia tried to push it off her, but its huge paws kept raking across the armour plates, gouging them. Luna saw one of the hands hammer on the beast’s head relentlessly, forcing it to back away. Lieia stood up groggily “That’s it. The kiddie gloves are coming off.” Although Luna was confused by the remark, she clearly saw that the human was angered. She drew a massive knife from a slot on her armour, and charged at the beast as it tried to do the same. The clash shook the earth and Lieia slammed her fist in its throat. The beast responded by lunging at her, but she sidestepped, carving its side open with her knife, then kicking its knee in. The loud roar cause Luna to flinch, but she was more horrified by the casual act of brutality, and saw Lieia arm herself with another weapon, clamber on the beast’s back and unload a hail of projectiles at the small of the back of the beast.

Lieia cackled as the quad-barrelled shotgun roared, sending buckshot after buckshot in the pain train’s flesh. Blood was flying everywhere. The air shook with the beast’s pained roars. Finally, the shotgun ran dry and Lieia tossed it away, leaping off the grievously wounded thing as it tried to rise and strike back at her. She punched it, and again and again, never letting up, until the ground around her was slick with dark purple blood. The beast finally gave up, slumping on the ground with a pitiful groan. Lieia climbed atop its back again, calling to Luna “It’s all clear now, kiddo! You can come out now!” Cautiously, she walked out in the clear, speechless at the scene before her. Lieia grabbed the beast by its horns and twisted its head violently as it pawed at the ground feebly.

“Wh-what are you doing, human?”

“Breaking its neck, of course. This thing is too dangerous to be kept alive.”

“No! Why do you want to kill it? You have already defeated it!”

“Too risky to keep it on a leash.” She wrenched the head again.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, Celestia, thank heavens you’ve come! The human’s trying to kill it!”

“Leave that animal alone!”

“Yeah, how ‘bout no?”

“Do as I say!”

“Stop her! Please, Celestia!”

“I won’t repeat myself!”

“Almost there…”

Lieia doubled her efforts, and then, there was a dull crack, muffled by skin and flesh. The beast twitched once, and then laid still, its last breath issuing as a bloody gurgle from its lungs. Luna felt sick immediately, and emptied her stomach contents on the ground.

“Ugggg… What on Equestria possessed you to kill it?”

“These things are dangerous on their own, but even more so when wounded. Right then, now that that’s over with, I need to find out how the Vasari already got here.” She turned around, setting up a comms link, when she found herself turning back against her will. “What the…?” She came face to face with Luna, who was scowling at her angrily.

“Answer me! Why would you kill a defenceless animal?”

“Lady, you better let me go if you don’t want this to turn ugly.” Lieia could hear the servos whine in protest as she struggled to break the magical shackles placed on her, even as the one called Celestia landed lightly by her side and a number of other horses leapt out of a flying chariot that landed behind them, all of them staring at the massive exoskeleton with various degrees of worry and surprise. Lieia tried flailing about once more, and got lucky. Luna could no longer maintain the spell, and gave up, letting Lieia to crash on the ground.

“Ow. And thanks.” She hauled herself upwards, looking around for her chaingun and found it nearly buried in dirt. Shaking it clean, she reconnected its ammo belt to it, holstered it and turned to the ponies “Right then. So, what is this all about?” Celestia glowered at her for a moment, and then decided to respond “My name’s Princess Celestia and I rule over Equestria with my sister, Luna. May I ask what brings you here?”

“Well, I’m here on a recon mission. That’s all I can say.”

“Oh. But I must ask, why did you kill that poor animal?”

Lieia snorted “Poor? Those things can kill hundreds of troopers on their own. Takes a lot of effort to kill one of these, even if you got a tank squadron with you.”

“Even so, it was a terrible thing to do!”

“You really think that being nice to enemies on battlefield will help? That’s so naïve. You hesitate for one second, either someone dies or you do.”

Celestia scowled “I’m afraid I can’t just let you wander around. Please come to the Canterlot with us. I need to know more about you.” The words raised a red flag in Lieia’s mind at once.

“Yeah, right, I’ll have to say no to that.” She slowly reached for the chaingun, but Celestia froze her in place.

“I’m afraid it isn’t up for discussion. Please do not resist.”

“Princess Celestia? What’s happening?” A pony with lavender-coloured coat ran up to Celestia, breaking her concentration, and Lieia was finally able to grab her weapon, aiming it at the startled princesses “I’m pretty sure I’ve outstayed my welcome here. Overlord, do you read me? I need immediate teleport out of here!” The comms system hissed blankly.

“I say again, Overlord, I need evac right now!”

Ssssssssssssss

“Fiddlesticks.”

“Human, it’d be better in your own interests to surrender peacefully.”

“Name’s Lieia, princess. And no, I won’t just hand myself over to ya. That’s not the EXO way.”

“I insist that you stand down.”

Lieia took a step back “Not gonna happen.” She charged at the two princesses, trying to scare them.

“GET OUTTA MY WAY, THE TWO O’ YEZ!” The gamble worked, and the princesses leapt out of the lumbering machine. Celestia frowned, then turned to her lavender-coloured companion “Twilight, be so kind and retrieve her for us.” She nodded and teleported away at once.

Lieia backhanded a tree out of the way, and strode on further, trying to put as much distance as possible between the pony folk and herself, all the while trying to contact the battlegroup in orbit, when a bright flash filled the cockpit. Yelling something incomprehensible, she veered off, tearing down another two trees before she righted herself and saw she had a guest.

“You should have listened to the princess, you know.”

Lieia started to say something, but then Twilight teleported her out. The thing is, Seven-Ten is one of the most advanced pieces of equipment used by the TAC forces. To use it to its full extent, one must undergo surgery for a neural lace implant that grants the user a heightened sense of awareness, effectively uniting the user and the suit. If one were suddenly disconnected from it, one would experience severe pain. Such was the case when Twilight Sparkle teleported the obdurate human out of her Seven-Ten.

Luna looked around, still in a shock from the fight she’d witnessed, when she saw Twilight Sparkle arrive with the human. She seemed lost.

Lieia looked around her blearily, and then felt the pain she’d been warned of. It felt like someone was driving a white-hot drill through her head. She fell to her knees, clawing at the back of her head. A shrill cry of pain broke through her teeth. It felt like someone was pouring acid over her brains. Thankfully, she passed out from the pain a moment later, just as Celestia reached her, both surprised and horrified at her pained expression “Twilight, what did you do to her?”

“Nothing! I simply teleported her out of there! I’ve no idea what happened to her! We must get her to a hospital at once!”

“I concur, sister! Take care of her, while I transport her armour to Canterlot for studying.” Celestia nodded, lifting Lieia’s motionless body with her magic and carried her into the chariot and took off towards the hospital of Ponyville.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 39 Minutes