Karl had a smile on his face. "Ehem, one would wonder, how can a mere collection of bolts and screws be any threatening for a being of energy and light? I can't possibly think that the collection can make any real damage to the being." Karl looking at the robot as it walked around the group. "I see you as a inferior being, sadly. Now, i don't know if that upsets you or anything, but i find it quite funny how you threaten the one who manages Time so that you can... work." An eery smile was on his face. I wonder how much he can take before attacking me? was a thought traveling through his mind. Sure, his body was in a fragile state, but a clean hit would only make things worse for everypony.
The anger inside Snow was slowly building, getting slowly closer to that point of no return, when her emotions get too extreme. When she loses control of her essence, when things tend to go boom.
Karl walked up to Snow and put his hoof on her side. "Woah, easy there, mate. You are gonna explode, and i'm the one that's supposed to do that. Calm down." Karls iris was blue, something that rarely happened, usually only when he was using an unknown ability of his.
"And so it begins...Again and again..." Digital sighs. "I direct your eyes upwards." The blades above them began to lower itself down towards the floor, revealing the small arms they were attatched to. Large, metalic talons lower themselves like spider legs and land on the floor. They bend as they catch the weight of a large steel chamber with hundreds of entrance holes and pleanty of mysterious bottles and valves wealded to the side. Every iron mandible seemed designed to do nothing but shovel victims inside the chamber. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Right To Beauty Mark Two. Comply with my wishes or I will show you what this does." Digital demands as the large machine looms over them in the suddenly not so large space.
Dark glanced to Snow, who seemed to pay no attention to the giant machine above them, her coat seemed to be...glowing? Dark had seen Tremalion go essence enough to know what was about to happen. Dark knew that Tremalion had granted Snow the ability to use his essence magic, and now, he must have granted her the ability to go essence. No wonder he left! If he had stayed, the amount of power in the room between him, the Champions, Snow, and OPIAT, would have proabably resulted in the largest explosion this world has ever seen, and if OPIAT was still functional and with them, he would probably agree. Dark took a step back towards the door, she would not want to be in this room when all hell broke loose.
Digital smirks, watching the ponies ready themselves for an attack. The huge machine was oddly still for the second, aside from the occational jitter from one of the mandibles. He retracts into the shadows, vanishing away and out of sight. All he said simply was: "Begin." The machine's chamber sprung forth two claws on large metal tenticles. They seemed to sway in the air for a few seconds before darting forwards. They arced and curved as they headed straight for Karl. Apparently, that was the tactic here, aim for Karl. One claw snaps at his hind leg. The other winds around him, as though keeping a parimetre to keep everypony else away.
Snow payed no mind to the event, as she slowly glowed brighter and brighter, until it seemed like her very skin was flaking off her. Through the holes, extremely bright rays of light punched through, as the essence became alive. Soon, where Snow once stood, stood a being that was made of pure white light, "You have made a mistake coming here." it said in a voice that did not sound like Snow at all, but something entirely different, "And now you shall pay for that mistake."
Karls face enshadowed once again in darkness, but this time all of him enshrouded in darkness. "Itsy bitsy spider crawled the chimney down." Karl looked around him, at the "cage" the robot had made for him. He slowly walks to one side and puts his hoof on one of the legs, causing a black flame to erupt on it. "Out came the fire and burned it to the ground." The black flame started crawling up the robot leg. "Out comes the darkness and shuts off all the light." Suddenly, the light radiating Snow begun getting smaller. While she herself was still glowing, it seemed like the light shined in a weakening radius. "But the itsy bitsy spider crawled out the ash again." After he said that, he took the other hoof on the leg and tugged with immense force, ripping it clean off, along with any wire or metal connecting it. As the leg falls down on the ground, he tilts his head in an eary way, face not visible because of the darkness incompassing him. "I kinda got the last part wrong, but it'll do." He said with a low, rumbling voice.
As The Machine's leg slams into the floor with a loud clang while the lighting flickers back on, The Machine Barely stumbles. Instead, it appeared to be able to compensate for the lack of leg rather well. It also grabbed Karl by the middle with the speed and dexterity of a coiled viper. Having now caught it's pray, it reels Karl in off the ground and into the chamber along with the other claw. Before there's a protest or much of a reaction, the chamber doors snap shut on him. Computer monitors dotted around the room switch themselves on and start to run streams of code. The arms manipulating small tools poke into the chamber with a blurring speed and precision. At this point, a leak bursts out from one of the legs that now had to perform the job of two, leaking glass noisily over what was actually largely soundless processes coming from inside the chamber. At least from the machine. Anaesthesia would be fogging Karl's experience of inside this chamber. The occasional arm darting out and picking out computer components at will from the Databanks and various hardware raises many questions.
"What in the bloody- don't touch that!" Karl scolled the arms. They were doing something to him, but he couldn't figure out what exactly they were doing. He couldn't feel much, they've must've injected something to take dull his sense of touch. "When i get out of this, i'm gonna shove you into the 8th dimension! That's were they keep the giants!" He couldn't move especially well either. One thing he already knew was that, when he steps out of the chamber, he's gonna be half-robotic. He had been a cyborg many times when he was The 43rd Clockmakers servant due to going through all the different worlds, destroying them one by one. But this time he didn't know how robotic he was gonna become. He had experienced the ability to see with bionic eyes, carry more than a regular human amongst other things. He was prepared, but exactly what he was prepared for, he didn't know. He could only wait and see how he was gonna destroy Digital and The Machine. Maybe if i'm lucky, they'll install an EMP generator like that time on the Mojave. He thought to himself as the machine tampered with his body. (Forgot to say, i'm writing a fanfic, and i need permission from a few people about using their characters)
Arrows flew towards the mountains. "Where are they?!" He yelled, Trying to locate the other champions.
By now, the transformation from Snow to essence was complete, and it was brilliant. A little known fact about essences is that they are all Alicorns, and that they are extremely dangerous to even touch. The essence hovered off the ground before attacking the machine attack Karl, burning holes clean through it like a hot knife through butter. Soon the machine had been punched full of holes, which ruined the machine's structural integrity. It may be able to function, but probably wouldn't be able to move as a whole anymore.
"GODDAMNIT SNOW! You almost hit me, ya blasted mongrol!" Karls voice echoed from inside the machine. She had missed him by the hairstraw, and that was dangerous, considering that the machine was not done with the process. Alteast now, he could move a bit more harmlessly than before. "Don't focus your attacks on the machine, it's dealing with me! Direct your bloody attacks against the robot pony instead!" Karl flailed around a bit, but stopped when he felt a small pain in his stomach. "Oh, so that's a change." Karl said, nodding his head. He was probably gonna be more dangerous than before with the robotics. Suddenly, a needle went through his eye, piercing his brain. "Ow! Wait, why aren't i dead?" Karl said, trying to look around with his eye, only succeding in hurting himself. The needle injected a small silvery liquid and retracted, leaving Karl with a bleeding eye. "That- bloody- i'm definitely shove you into the 8th dimension after this, ya hear me!?" He cried out again. He tried to look with his eye, but flickering images were getting in his way, blocking his view with text. "Well, atleast it gave me bionic eyes." Karls said assuringly.
Of all the dreams of grand designs and dangerous hardware now graphted onto Karl's body, there was actually a surprisingly tiny amount of visible hardware on Karl's skin. In fact, all that you could see was a small plastic LCD display just above Karl's right hoof. No rocket packs or lasers or anything. Just what looked like a digital watch. There were odd lumps in his foreleg if you bother to check but otherwise nothing else. The text on Karl's eye blathered on about simple diagnostics. Nanites were running last minute checks. His eye was sown up in a matter of seconds as the machine slowly places Karl back on the floor. The claw flops uselessly to the side while the machine itself collases against one of the walls, knocking over a couple of servers. Whiring down noises suggeted that it was throwing in the towel and powering down. It finally collapsed against the wall as Tyro wondered in, sheepishly. "I, I....I'm sorry I didn't come in and help I was...er...I was....err....I....er....Wait..." Tyro said, looking towards Snow with concern. "Who's the Alicorn?"
"My sensors indicate that it's Snow Mark, although she is radiating a massive amount of energy. I would stay away if i were you." Karl scanned around the room, switching from night-vision, to heat signatures, to EM visor. "Just like before." Karl said in a more stale voice than normal. Then, he suddenly panicked. "Oh shi- Silly! Where are you!" He shouted in his normal voice, looking around him intensely. "I'm here, master." A small, light and raspy voice said, and the black flame appeared on Karls crystal hoof. "Whew, thought i had lost ya." Two small, cute eyes popped up through the small lump and looked at Karl with disappointed eyes, along with a neon-green ^ arrow displaying the mouth. "Really, Karl? The claws couldn't even touched me." Silly was clearly bored. Karl then switched his eyes to Tyro, and asked him, "Hey Tyro! Wanna hold Silly for me?" He rolled Silly to his crystallite hoofs tip, and lobbed him towards Tyro. "Catch!"
Tyro fumbles the catch, making rather more work out of catching the object Silly appeared to be contained in than needed. He'd managed to clasp it to his chest with his forelegs when he spotted the digital display above Karl's hoof. Placing Silly on the floor, Tyro darts towards him. He grabs the hoof and attempts to take as good a look at it as he could. The urgancy ought to alert anypony to Tyro's worried concern. "Karl, you don't feel woozy or drowsy do you? No buzzing in your ear or anything like that? Seeing any changing colours? Any weird lumps?" Tyro demands as he starts to throughly check Karl for....something. He pokes up and down his neck. "It's really important that you answer. We could be in some pretty big trouble as a result."
"No, not like you describe it. There's always the flow of Time rushing through me, but that's normal. There's the new HUD i've gotten through the bionic eye. It's shows my current statuses, like sleep deprivation, dehydration levels, hungriness and some other stuff." Karl looks at his hoof, then notices the new features. "Hey, there's some... some lumps here." He holds up the hoof for Tyro to see. Now, let's take a look in Karls thoughts. An idea rushed through his head. A splendid idea. He knew of a weapons manufacturer called The Tek Corporation. If he could create a uplink with them, he could ship armaments to Equestria through a simple click. It would take time, sure, but if he could get his hands on a BFL and some Tek Heavy Armor, he could take over Equestria in a day. The power he would have... still, it would probably take a long time considering the amount of technology available. Maybe if he could plug in to OPIAT and send a message through energy-code, he could reach them and set up a more permanent link. Silly rolls over to Tyro and latches on to his leg, starting to slowly implant himself to Tyros fur. It would take some time to establish a soul connection between the two, and considering Silly's already connected to Karl, he wouldn't stay on Tyro for long. (By any chance, are the lumps fingers? I planned for the crystallite replacment to have claws/fingers, but Snow denied me of my request. Also, Silly cannot live long without a active host to live on. He rolled to Tyro specifically because he's a good host.)
Tyro nods to Snow. "Good shooting, Snow. I'm guessing you took care of the big guy over there. Another minute and Karl'd be about as interesting to talk to as a coffee machine but he'd do as told if you hooked him up to a laptop. Lucky you didn't get the same thing." Tyro then turns on what Karl had told him: "HUD? Karl, no pony goes through one of Digital's machines an keeps their free will on the other end. He was trying to add you to his network as a drone. At least, that's what he normally does. All you seem to have is his numbing gadget thing from what I can tell. If that's the case then..." Tyro halts, looking downwards at his back leg while something cool slithers over it. He tears himself away from Karl to uselessly try and scratch at the patch of fur to get Silly off. "What is it doing!?" he growls at Karl.
The essence Snow merely walked over to Digital as this was going on, light blinding him it was so close, "Any last words?" the essence asked in a strange, multi-pony voice.
As it turned out, Snow was talking to the shadows. While the battle had raged, Digital appeared to have slipped away out of one of the exits, escaping into the rest of Equestria. However, there was one screen repeating the same message over and over. Help me. I have been cut off. Snow, please reply.
