@Akamia
 
@T72B
 
A little more. I’m having to write this around work. No idea when I’ll come back to it, but hopefully soon. Let me know what you think.
 

 
“You really weren’t joking, were you?”
 
Try as she might, Twilight couldn’t quite see the walls or ceiling of the huge chamber outside the lift, nor could she clearly make out the distant hulking shapes in the gloom. “It looks like you could fit Canterlot Castle in there. With room to spare.”
 
They had descended for what felt like hours, from an elevator hidden beneath a storage chamber beneath the lowest level in the castle–she had been able to measure the distance by observing the speed by which the lift platform had descended, and by her estimate, they were at least five miles beneath Canterlot proper. At this depth, the air actually felt warm–Mount Canterlot was actually located atop one of the thickest and most geologically stable regions of the planet, ancient continental crust laid down when the world was young, but at this depth, it was beginning to carry a bit of the deep heat of the world. She could feel the thrum of woven nets of magic around her, and knew that it was the reason the tunnel, and the chamber beyond the dense crystal doors of the lift carriage, wasn’t completely uninhabitable. A working this colossal should have been detectable by any being with even the weakest ability to sense thaumic potentials.
 
That it apparently hadn’t, ever, was…troubling.
 
“You can.” Princess Celestia sounded grimly amused. “I helped build it. But, if you think that’s impressive…”
 
The crystal doors slid aside, and they stepped out onto a metal walkway. After a moment, the echo of relays throwing filled the space, deafening in the silence. Rank after rank of panels sprang into glowing, humming life. And in the sun-bright flood of light, she saw them for the first time.
 
She’d seen humans. She’d BEEN human, even, in another world both close at hand and a universe away. In its most basic form, it was like a human, but on a colossal scale, all blocks and angles and gleaming gold and white enamel. Two enormous, house-sized feet, surmounted by treetrunk legs led into a thick, barrel shaped torso, bulging with cannons and ports, two garganguan arms dangling straight down from massive, rounded shoulder pauldrons to either side, each ending in a fist that looked big enough to pick up and crush a locomotive. And above those huge shoulders, a head like something out of a nightmare, a skull-like visage that looked as if it were snarling. Or grinning sardonically. Behind it was another, nearly as huge, but stumpy and cylindrical, two stubby, boxy attachments to either side, in shades of midnight blue and violet. A third, very vaguely resembling a crab on digitigrade legs, bulked to the side, two club-shaped arms beneath its stubby torso and a massive cannon on a mount above it, in shades of crimson and black. Twilight’s human counterpart had a fondness for animated television featuring heroic characters and fanciful mecha, but these were almost nothing like the graceful, stylized forms of those machines. These were boxy, almost crude by comparison, but something about them told her that these machines were meant for practical use, with aesthetics as a complete afterthought, yet somehow that made them so much more real than those elegant craft ever could be.
 
She glanced back at the titanic lead machine. Was it her imagination, or had its stance changed very slightly? And that nightmarish, demonic visage seemed…softer? No…no, it couldn’t be, she decided.
 
“Hello, old friend,” called Celestia. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Too long, I think. This is my student…and my friend. She’d like to meet you.”
 
“That’s…just a machine. Isn’t it?” said Twilight.
 
“Well, I suppose she is.” Her mentor stood next to one of its feet, looking up, one wing stroking the metal almost reverently. “The Star League wrought very, very well. Even a few millenia standing around in a bunker isn’t enough to do any harm to–no, no, sorry! I’m not making fun of your age, old girl,” she said, chuckling and patting the foot. “I promise you’re as beautiful as the day you came to this world. And Twilight,” she said, glancing over her back at her, “I promise you they’re MUCH more graceful than they look. Especially in the right hooves. or hands. As for her being JUST a machine…well, when things exist for this long, the lines between ‘nonliving machine’ and ‘living being’ get a little…blurry.”
 
“Now I know you HAVE to be kidding me.” Nope, it wasn’t her imagination. The ‘mech definitely looked–amused? No, it couldn’t be. And yet…
 
“Alex wanted, as he said, ‘A ‘Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally,’” she said, as if Twilight hadn’t spoken. “But during the First Calamity, this became a symbol of salvation. Have you ever wondered, Twilight, why in the earliest texts of so many races of this world, the hieroglyphic symbol for ‘freedom’ and ‘hope’ was a stylized skull?” She touched the metal leg reverently. “This is the reason. There were other justifications, but it all comes back to this.”
 
She turned back to face Twilight. “I think she’d like to show off a little–she doesn’t get a lot of opportunity these days. Want to take a trip with me?”
 
There was a flash of light and a twisting of space, and when her surroundings stabilized, Twilight found herself in a metal chamber, sitting beside a seat that looked more like a throne than it had any right to. Celestia was sitting in it, and while it should have looked awkward and absurd, she looked as if she was completely at home where she sat. The interior smelled slightly musty, with undertones of metal and ozone, but the air was fresh. With a thrum of magic, she pulled an odd-looking helmet over her head, apparently modified to allow the horn of an Alicorn to pass, and fastened it down. “When I fire this baby up,” said her mentor, grinning like a schoolfilly, “You’re gonna see some serious shit.”
 
Switches threw, and suddenly the machine began to vibrate, a stentorian hum filling it from beneath. And in her mage’s sight, Twilight could SEE the ancient machine lighting up, suddenly blazing with color and life like a Hearth’s Warming tree, electricity and magic and the power of the sun itself capering beneath them both, like a happy puppy. Or an avenging angel.
 
And beneath it all, the pure, rainbow blaze of Harmony, enveloping her mentor and friend like a bridal gown.
 
“Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online,” said a dulcet voice that came from all around them. “All systems nominal.”
 
She felt, rather than heard, the machine’s amused greeting. Welcome back, Mistress. Where are we going?
 
And she realized she HAD been wrong. Whatever it might have been once, now, it was alive. Somehow. She could feel it around them, warm and happy and confident. She shivered in awe.
 
“This is incredible,” she breathed.
 
Celestia grinned. “You should try sitting where I am. I promise you haven’t seen ANYTHING yet.” The screens, dark until a moment ago, now displayed a panoramic view around them. Levers moved, and suddenly the machine began to move forward smoothly, and in seconds it had progressed into a smooth, effortless lope down the tunnel. “It’ll take us a while to get where we’re going. Which will give us plenty of time to talk. I can tell you about a part of Equestria’s history long lost. And how your princesses became a MechWarrior.”

@Podbeing  
thats an interesting scenario

@Akamia  
I’ve been rolling that around in my head.
 
My weird semi-headcanon is that there’s at least one Atlas down there, it belonged to either Kerensky or Williams, and it’s kitted out with a mostly-energy-weapons loadout. Every once in a great while, she fires it up and trots it around in the tunnels and remembers. She can fuel it when it needs it–Solar Diarch means exactly what it says on the tin, and suns are full of hydrogen, so she has command of that as necessary–but it hardly ever needs it. A few cupful of liquid H and it’s good for decades. If it needs repairs, she can probably handle that with some sort of mending magic, but there’s automated equipment there, too. She hasn’t exactly had much need to take it out for combat–which is not to say it’s never had to come out ofmothballs. History is long and not all of it is recorded. There’s also a Black Knight, and at least a couple of others. If Luna has one, it’s something built to put a lot of BOOM in one place, and the missiles have been enhanced with some kind of magical whatsis. Any ammunition can be duplicated by whatever magic does that kind of thing. There would have been other poner pilots at one time, but they’re long gone now. There’s probably a small cache of other weapons and equipment down there.
 
Farther down in the tunnels, under the Everfree, there’s a truly massive Castle Brian-type fortification, with a shitton of mechs and enough equipment and supplies to equip a gargantuan army, for years, if necessary, and a lot of really overbuilt automated equipment to maintain it all. At the center, and on the lowest level, there’s a ring of standing stones surrounding a floating sphere of black metal, which is the actual mechanism of the Lock. Surrounding it are defensive arrays, all slaved to something like a Casper-type AI, which does nothing but monitor the Lock for any indication of changes. Celestia ‘s peytral has an function that will alert her in the event that happens, and luna has the same setup. So far, nothing ever has. As a last resort, above and below the Locks are thermonuclear charges with hopefully enough boom boom potential to kill anything that comes through the Gate if the defensive emplacements fail. The detonation would produce something far north of Tsar Bomba yields, especially combined with the self-destruction of the facility’s primary fusion reactor system. Anything coming through it should be killed–emphasis on “should.” It’s not at all certain. It would also kill everything within at least several hundred miles, if not farther, but that’s a mercy if the Locks are breached by something unkillable. There’s also a secondary device that’s much, much larger in yield, enhanced by a group of images who literally died to create them, and salted with many tons of cobalt. Celestia has never told anyone else about it, and she holds the final key. It’s very hard to start the countdown, and very easy to stop it. It’s to be used only in the event of another invasion that can’t be stopped and it’s intended to kill every living thing on the planet. The Z’bri will inherit a dead, irradiated world. She will only ever tell her designated successor about it.
 
I’ve been rolling the idea of writing another bit with Twi and Cellie in the tunnels or the fortress, and maybe a bit with Cellie remembering the War to End Everything. But anyway, that’s my autism and welcome to it.

@Podbeing  
Ha…! That’s quite impressive for something you wrote quickly! I like it!
 
I wonder what Celestia’s ‘Mech was in this scenario… And is she implying she has Kerensky’s Atlas also? Or one of them, at the very least? Come to think of it, I’m not even sure if he used it after the Exodus… As I recall, he liked to take to the field in either an Atlas or an Orion, whereas his son Nicholas favored an Atlas II. Sarna claims Aleksandr used an Atlas II during the New Vandenburg Uprising, but I don’t have the cited sourcebook, so I can’t check for myself…

@T72B  
Thank you :)
 
Maybe the Exodus had some quadrupedal allies who tagged along. Or some of the clan founders had good memories of their Equestrian buddies…
 
Also: Cellie has a mech and she’s really anxious to have an excuse to take it for Sunday drive again :p

@Podbeing  
bravo!
 
i wont look at clan hells horses the same :P

My autism, let me show you it. I wrote this quick, and it probably shows
 
“Your highness…what do you know?”
 
“Oh, I know lots of things. I know this really killer recipe for a spanakopita I just read in the Canterlot Enquirer just yesterday…”
 
“No, and you know what I’m talking about.”
 
“Do I? I know a lot of things, but a mindreader I’m not. Well, not without the right spells, anyway…”
 
“Please, your highness…stop changing the subject. You. Know. Exactly. What. I’m Talking About. The things in the Everfree. The…underground fortress. The machines. The race who made them.”
 
“Oh. That thing.”
 
“Yes. That thing. They were human, weren’t they?”
 
“[Sigh] Yes…yes, human. But not exactly like the humans you’ve met. The ones on the other side of the mirror portal. Almost exactly, but not quite. And from much, much farther away. I was hoping that we wouldn’t have this conversation for a while, but…I can delegate my duties for the evening, and we can discuss this. And maybe I can show you a part of Equestrian history long lost. Sanitized, for a while, until we could deal with it responsibly. Maybe it’s finally time. What do you want to know? I’m not even sure where to start.”
 
“At the beginning, I guess. Tell me about them.”
 
“Okay…do you remember the ancient tales? The legend of the coming of the Mag’ne and the Sleeping Giants, from a time even before the true Unification of the Tribes? How the Mag’ne and the Ken’skry came to our land in a blaze of fire and sound in the time of the First Calamity, and stood with all of Ponykind and all the races of the world against the Night of Hel? How the Mag’ne and her allies rode great chariots of light and fire and thunder and steel, with the breath of dragons? ‘And in their fall, they saved us all.’”
 
“That’s a story for little foals. One of the oldest. I’ve read papers discussing it, but there’s almost no evidence–”
 
“It was destroyed, mostly. Deliberately. By me.”
 
“…But…Princess…why? Why destroy a part of our history? And how old ARE you?”
 
“Heh…it’s not really polite to ask a lady her age, is it? Let’s just say that Luna and I are old enough to remember a time when ponies didn’t have written language and passed everything down by word of mouth. I even remember the old stories, the ones Mother and Father told me and made sure we memorized. They lamented how those who started writing had lousy memories..”
 
“Ahem”
 
“Sorry. The stories, Twilight, are true. And this is what happened. Those humans came from another universe. We think. We don’t know for sure, and they didn’t either. But..Starswirl the Bearded and I worked with them to understand. They came to this place in vessels that traveled the spaces between the stars, but their method of propulsion…it worked by folding one piece of reality over on another place where the force of gravity is weakest. But reality fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, only one with many layers, and if you’re in the right place, you can pass through one of the joints into a new layer. And when they arrived, they came during a time when the gates of Tartarus had been opened, and the Old Gods of Hel, the Z’bri, roamed the land. They were creatures without form in their own realm, but as they entered ours, they became things from nightmares and sought to impress their sickness on everything in this world. So much death and destruction, entire species warped or driven to extinction, just to satisfy their bloodlust. We had fought them, and failed, and become slaves and food and amusement, and we had prayed in silence and in hiding. We prayed for a quick death, we prayed for an end to our suffering, we prayed for a savior. And…our prayers were answered. We got our saviors. And their names were Megan Williams and Aleksandr Kerensky. And so many others.”
 
“ Weird names. I can’t believe that’s what’s bothering me about this entire thing. This is…pulp science fiction. I can’t believe this.”
 
“Believe it. We were there. We fought alongside them, and we drove the Old Gods and their servitors back, all the ones we didn’t kill, and built the Locks of Tartarus to imprison them forever. They came here during the bloodiest war in their history, one that was swallowing the stars themselves, and yet they still had time to help us. They landed, in great shining ships, with soldiers and machines and knowledge we didn’t have then, and saved us all. We owe literally everything we are now to them. The land itself burned, but we survived. I fought with Kerensky alongside his armor at the final advance on the Spiral Citadel, where we drove the Despoilers of Flesh back through the Gates. And there, he and his forces held them at bay until we finished the final spells to create the Locks. They later found their method of egress from this world was two-way, and repeatable, and so we allowed them to build a fortress around and over the Locks where the Spiral Citadel had once stood–a way to protect Hel’s Gate from anyone outside, and with their mightiest machines watching the Locks, to make sure that nothing can come out. Ever. Because the Z’bri must never be allowed to escape their prison.
 
“The Despoilers of Flesh. The Faceless Ones. The Eaters of Foals.”
 
“Those are just nicknames. They don’t do justice to the true horror. The Z’bri raped this world, and forced us all to take part, even as they amused themselves with our pain. There was no point, they needed nothing from us, or from our world, save to experience what they themselves had never had before–bodies, souls, and an infinite number of ways to derive the maximum pleasure and pain from them. They ate souls and sculpted–warped–the bodies of ponies just to see how long they could prolong their victim’s agony. The Windigos were their creation. So many others, all coming from the time of the Z’bri, creatures of pure horror made solely because they could. And they forced us to take part in their sick little games. After our Liberation, there were madponies beyond counting, mares and stallions left hollow shells, catatonic if they were lucky, warped monstrosities at their worse. There was no healing possible. So many died, or were put out of their misery. But we live only because in our darkest hour, two humans and their allies came to us and gave us our freedom.”
 
“And…you chose to bury this. Keep it all secret.”
 
“Yes. I did.”
 
“Why?”
 
“I…don’t pretend that it was the correct decision. But you have to understand, Twilight, that after the war, our entire world was traumatized. And…so was I. And my sister. Our mother and father died at the hands of Z’bri, as we watched. As we took part. Tribe was divded against tribe, simply because the Z’bri found it amusing. Even after the war ended, we faced thousands of years of strife and suffering because of them. The Mag’ne–Megan, I mean–and Kerensky, we couldn’t even discuss them without also discussing the First Calamity. They left weapons and machines here, in case they ever needed to return, but the technology in that ancient fortress is beyond our understanding. We weren’t ready for it. Nopony–no ONE–was. Maybe we still aren’t. And nopony must ever again gain access to the Locks. All of their machines that could think on their own are still there, assigned to guard a gate to a nightmare prison realm. No pony must ever interfere with it. And so we left it alone, and buried the knowledge. We let the wild magic of the Z’bri warp the forest above the fortress into a deathtrap, and watched only to ensure it was never tampered with. And in all the time it’s been there, almost no one ever has.”
 
“Until me.”
 
“Until you. Until you discovered Kerensky’s and Megan’s redoubt. I hope that, wherever they went when they left here, they lived good, long lives. I loved them so much. I miss them every day.”
 
“This..this shouldn’t have ever been hidden. Censored. This wasn’t right. We need to know. We–all the races of Equestria, of this world–we all need to know. If you loved them, let their names be known again.”
 
“Perhaps…you’re right, Twilight. Maybe it is time. Beneath this Castle, beneath even the catacombs, there’s a tunnel, one of many, that connects directly to the fortress. The Silent Road, they called it. it’s almost five miles beneath our hooves. And it leads directly into the heart of the Fortress, their castle. I haven’t been down there in ages. Maybe it’s time for a trip. Would you like to come?”
 
“That…redoubt is over 600 miles away, your highness.”
 
“The humans of the Star League liked to build on a huge scale. You could fit a nation inside that thing. And maybe it’s time to see a wonder. Kerensky…he had a favorite machine. ‘As powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally.’ And my own is down there, waiting. I haven’t been there in a millenium, but I guarantee it still works. I could teleport, but…I really want you to see it firsthoof. So come with me, Twilight Sparkle. And let the names of Megan Williams and Aleksandr Kerensky be known to all of ponykind once again. Let’s go see some history.”

@T72B  
Praise Zorg, thank you.
 
Equestria could be deep, deep periphery. After all, there’s at least one actual sapient alien race out there in the galaxy that humans can theoretically reach…in that one book everyone hates, anyways
 
Or maybe a misjump landed humans there once upon a time and it’s not our universe at all. Or Star League figured out how to reach it for some reason and had a presence there once. If you wanted to create the ultimate survival stockpile no one could reach or assault except for a tiny handful of people who understood how to get there and back again, the universe next door isn’t a bad place to put it. Maybe Cellie and company actually know something about it.
 
Imagine what happens if Twitwi and SciTwi get their appendages on a functional Star League memory core…

@Podbeing
 
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Castle_Brian
 
ah there are so many places this could be. the places in the deep periphery are long lost to those still in the innersphere, and even to the blessed order. maybe a remnant of the reunification, or maybe abandonment after the amaris coup? who knows, maybe even somewhere along the exudes road or the pentagon stars themselves!

Looks like it’s been a while since the Succession Wars ended. Either that, or the Star League got around a little farther than anyone else suspected. Maybe there’s a Castle Brian somewhere beneath the Everfree.
 
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Castle_Brian
 
I wonder how much shit would be flipped if SciTwi got a look inside, assuming there really is one somewhere?
 
I can’t figure out how to make the link clickable. Copy and paste, y’all.

Yo my high ass thought it was a pile of fridges

Oh hey, a Centurion! Great stuff!

Poor Centurion :’(

At first glance, I actually thought it was an OZ-06MS Leo (from Gundam Wing).

more of this crossover pls