Vinyl looked through the scope of her rifle, Twilight fitting silencers on her handguns and preparing a series of blades, as Emerald did the same. Spike was plugged in to Emerald through her forearm panel, which had taken a bit of coaxing and explaining, and was manipulating a portable version of his holographic computer. He was giving them active readings and scanning results. His readings and scans were through Twilight, which he already had a connection to, Emerald through the wired connection, as well as Vinyl through their connection.

“Looks like they don’t have much left in terms of guards. You guys really devastated them.” Spike said over their radio frequency.

“Unless you can hack into their databases directly and give us exacts, I’m still treating this like we’re not seeing them all.” Vinyl said.

“Agreed. We will actually be able to hack into their databases, I just need to find any kind of access point.” Twilight said. Emerald watched the two cautiously move up from her perch on the crest of a hill nearby.

“You got a silencer and flash guard, Emerald?” Vinyl asked.

“Already attached and working.” Emerald answered.

“Good, there are three drones ahead. Me and Twilight have the two outermost, you take the one in the middle. I’ll trust you with the timing.” Vinyl explained. There were a few moments before the two in front of the small facility acted and the timing was impeccable. An arrow ripped the head off of one drone, two small holes went through one’s head and the last’s lost a sizable chunk of the back of its head to Emerald’s shot. Their bodies hit the ground at the same time and the two were already moving, Vinyl on the ceiling and Twilight in the shadows.

“Switching you to scanner view, we’ve lost eyes on you guys now.” Spike said. Emerald blinked a few times as her scope’s view phased into schematic-like lines. She slowly began to make sense of it, able to read the moving lines and make out the shapes of everything in scanning range.

“What are those cones of static?” Emerald asked. The two froze where they were, about to turn the corner.

“Cones of sight for any kind of security cameras and observation devices. Uploading to yours HUD maps now guys.” Spike said.

Vinyl and Twilight now saw the cones, as well as what parts of the facility they had scanned, and looked at each other. There was maybe one blind spot in the next corridor and it was about the size of a rat.

“Are there any kind of ventilation systems around here?” Vinyl asked.

“I’m not to keen on the idea of crawling through the vents, Vinyl…” Twilight said.

“It’s too small for you guys anyways, but I’ll put them up anyways.” Spike said. They were very narrow indeed, maybe big enough for them to crawl into and hide but not maneuver at all. They’d be stuck in second.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any chaffee, would you?” Twilight asked jokingly.

“I doubt it.” Vinyl said as she notched an arrow into her bow and watched the arcs and cones of the cameras moving.

“See a pattern?” Twilight asked. Vinyl answered by, in the blink of an eye, loosing an arrow down the corridor and with similar speed ducked back behind the corner. The sound of rending metal and electrical equipment sparking told them that she hit and one of the larger cones fizzled out. This left a much more generous blindspot.

“Did you really just do that?” Emerald asked. Vinyl chuckled and took a few steps back. She had shot the arrow in the incredibly narrow blind spot generated by the camera’s arcs.

“I’m going to need you to hold on to me, Twilight, there’s only one way the both of us are getting past this and it won’t be gentle.” Vinyl said, holding her hand out to the girl. Twilight nodded and took the hand, to which she was practically tossed and held piggy-back style.

“You’re lighter than I thought.” Vinyl said with a little laugh before she shot forward and used her grappling hook to launch herself towards the ceiling. Before she hit it, though, she retracted the hook and shot it into the wall diagonally towards the end of the corridor, kicking off of the wall next to her, and repeated until she was standing in the one static blindspot.

“Do me a favor and plug into there so I can hack into them.” Spike said, indicating on their HUD a port that had the old connection ripped out by Vinyl’s arrow. Twilight, boosted by Vinyl still, pulled a disposable connector from a pocket and plugged it in. Within seconds the cones of view disappeared and Twilight dropped from Vinyl’s grip.

“Well that was fun, let’s never do it again.” Twilight said with a laugh. Vinyl chuckled in return as she drew her bow once again.

“I’m limited to all of their security, but looking at all of the security recordings and live feeds there really aren’t all that many. There’s a few blocks I’ll have to crack to get in deeper, but this place is a lot bigger on the inside…” Spike explained as their maps updated to reveal a massive underground section.

“Oh great… any idea on any personnel of importance?” Vinyl asked.

“All Seeker agents went down or haven’t returned, according to security databases, but there are a few independant drones that might still be here. One of them is under a bunker of blocks so I’ll crack it as you go and update you when I get through.” Spike answered.

“Sound important. Any idea where any servers we can give you easier access to what you’re restricted to?” Twilight asked. Spike answered by updating their maps with an objective.

“I’ll start using these objective markers and pathing suggestions as I find anything of importance.” He said.

“Thank you love.” Twilight said.

“Let’s hope they don’t have any more Ursa or Manticores anywhere…” Vinyl said lowly as the most recent wave of scans revealed Seeker agents in the next room. They were maintaining gear and making sure it all worked.

Vinyl and Twilight soundlessly prepared to take them out, but were interrupted as another entered the room. He looked troubled.

“Hey, I lost feed from one of the cameras. Can one of you go and check on it?” He asked.

“There’s at least five cameras in that one hallway, unless they can walk on the ceiling or something then nothing is going to get in here without you seeing.” One of the two retorted. THe newcomer grumbled but they all froze as the tiniest chunk of stone impacted the ground between them. They looked up and were too startled by Vinyl there to reach for their weapons.

Twilight put holes in the two that were there and Vinyl dropped down, forearm blade first, and skewered the Seeker.

“You’re covered in blood again…” Twilight said. Vinyl shrugged and they were both startled at the sound of metal colliding with metal.

“Guys we’ve got a big signature coming your way,” Emerald said.

“Looks too big to be an agent, but not as big as a Manticore… be careful guys.” Spike confirmed. A door opened down the corridor and there was a voice.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re acting like someone’s died in the next room.” The voice said. There was a Seeker agent leading what looked like a biometal lycanthrope, a Timberwolf. As they entered the corridor they froze. It was a split second before he was blindsided by Vinyl, the force of her strike strong enough to knock even a Seeker agent unconscious. The Timberwolf yelled in range and swiped at her, but staggered as the back calves of its legs were blown apart by Twilight’s handguns.

Vinyl put bullets of her own into the thing’s face, blinding it temporarily, and the two disappeared. Vinyl attached to the ceiling while Twilight made for the room where the third agent that had entered came from, attempting to establish a connection to the database for Spike. The thing screamed in rage again as its from legs were pinned to the ground by arrows and the torso was cut from the back legs with a plunging attack, earning a scream of pain and fury.

“If you can try and interrogate this thing, Vinyl. Timberwolves have been recorded as mobile databases and sometimes even officers.” Spike said. Twilight returned to the room to find the thing in the state that it was in, screaming and snapping at Vinyl, as the girl walked over to the unconscious Seeker agent.

“After him.” She simply said. Twilight was curious as to how Vinyl would ‘interrogate’ the man, but that curiosity turned into morbid fascination as a sort of black spike extended from the girl’s wrist and she impaled the man’s head on it.

“Is that a data leech?” Twilight asked.

“It’s more than that, by the readings I’m getting here. Anything useful, Vinyl?” Spike said.

“Useful to the Chasers, but not to my personal agenda.” Vinyl said, tossing the lifeless husk away and turning to the Timberwolf. She caught its front leg as it practically tore the thing from the arrow pinning it down and in one fluid motion stabbed the leech into the thing’s skull. This one had a visible effect on Vinyl. She staggered back after a moment, holding her head.

“Information overload?” Twilight asked, a little worried. The girl shook her head.

“It… It recognized me… It knew me from the collective Timberwolf database, and I know where to find the one I need to find the answers I want…” She replied.

“Well you might want to get the hell out of there, there’s what looks like a patrol returning. Seven drones, two agents and a Manticore.” Emerald said.

“Wait, what’s that?” Spike asked. Their communications, and their connections, abruptly cut off then and it scared the two.

“They must be jamming us… I can still feel Spike so they’re still alive…” Twilight said after a few moments. “We need to get out of here as quickly and as quietly as possible. When they see these bodies they’ll be looking for us…” She continued, reloading her weapons.

“Then follow me.” Vinyl said. When Twilight nodded they sprinted back to where they came. The cameras were active again, but Vinyl didn’t want to have to deal with them so she destroyed them with one sweep of her blade. She proceeded to kick at the vent grating they had noticed before and inclined her head to Twilight.

“They’re coming, stay completely silent no matter what.” Vinyl said. Twilight didn’t argue as she slid the dented grating off of its place, slid into the tight alcove and Vinyl replaced it. She lost sight of the girl then, though by the repeated noise and the sound of her grappling hook it sounded like she had entered one in the ceiling.

“It’s about to get really dark and most of our augments will be jammed so you won’t be able to see.” Vinyl’s voice came over their local radio frequency.

“Why?” Twilight asked.

“I’ll explain later, just trust me and don’t come out of there no matter what. Not until I say.” Vinyl voice came in response. Twilight said nothing, but she wouldn’t disobey the sudden commands as the lights went out and a dim glow revealed flashlights at the edge of the corridor.

“Someone’s definitely here. Spread out, our low light vision is being jammed. Keep the lights on everything you can.” A voice called. There was a very light clang in one of the walls, quickly followed by a hail of fire.

“Don’t be so jumpy!” The voice from before yelled. There was the clang again, and again. It was almost a rhythm. It started getting louder, and it sounded like it was coming from behind where Twilight assumed they were.

There was a screeching sound of rending metal and several yells of surprise. Twilight saw a flash of blood splatter on a wall, someone just got hit by one of Vinyl’s arrows. There was another hail of fire, but to no avail.

“What the fuck! What exactly are we dealing with here?” Someone yelled, apparently the blood spatter belonged to the one who talked before. There was the sound of a grate being smashed open, followed immediately by the sound of said grate impacting one of them and then the sound of rending biometal the blood spattering against walls. The hail of fire swiftly dwindled down as Twilight had to twist awkwardly to avoid lying in the blood that had started pooling in front of the grate- which was seeping through. It looked sickening, white and black in varying shades all mixed together.

“It’s safe now, Twilight.” Vinyl’s voice rasped. Twilight recognized that tone of voice, it was pain. She kicked the grate open and did as best she could to rush out of it to find Vinyl leaning against a wall. She was covered in gore, biomechanical or otherwise, but Twilight rushed to her side when she slumped down the wall. Some of it was hers.

“Why did you take them all out on your own?! I thought we were going to hide from them!” Twilight exclaimed, attempting to look the girl over, who was taking very quick rasping breaths. Her eyes were half closed, but she was alive.

“I didn’t want you getting hurt, and I just felt the need to deal with them… You didn’t see what I saw through those two Seekers…” Vinyl rasped, shakily getting to her feet. Twilight gasped in horror when the girl looked up to find that her hair was hiding the remains of what used to be the girl’s right eye. One of her arms looked to be in biometal tatters, too.

“Don’t worry, I can replace an eye, I was lucky it was a reflection and stopped before going into my head…” Vinyl attempted to assure her, but instead just stumbled and slipped on the floor now slick with blood. Twilight caught her and threw the girl’s unmolested arm over her shoulder. She felt her connections with Spike slowly return.

“Whoa… What happened while we were jammed?” Spike’s voice asked. “Emerald? Oh, right…” He continued. Twilight could hear Emerald’s horrified gasp.

“Spike, we’re going to need a medivac.” Twilight said.

“Quickly, if you don’t mind… Looks like you’ll get to play around with my augments after all Spike, I’ll need tuneups and replacements.” Vinyl said. Twilight started helping her back to where they came.

“Already on it!” Dash’s voice, surprisingly, came.

“Dash and a few of the Wonderbolts arrived right as the Chariot that was jamming us arrived, they tore it apart and we dealt with the rest of the patrols. I guess what went inside kind of tore you up, though.” Spike explained. Vinyl said nothing, now trying to concentrate on staying conscious. This scared Twilight, but not as much as the corridor. She remembered it being rather pristine, now it was literally dripping with gore and there were holes in the walls. These ranged from small arms fire to big enough for a person to leap out of.

“I don’t know what you did, but whatever it was I’m glad you’re alive…” Emerald’s voice came over the radio softly. Vinyl gave a single breath of a chuckle.

“Hey, it probably looked pretty cool at least.” She said. She was silent after that.

“Vinyl?” Twilight asked.

“Is she alright?” Emerald asked, scared. Twilight didn’t answer, she wasn’t sure.

“Guys her vitals aren’t looking too good.” Spike said, getting his scans back online.

“Vinyl?!” Twilight exclaimed when the girl tumbled from her grasp. They were at the doorway into the facility. Vinyl’s remaining eye was closed and it was always hard to tell if the girl was breathing or not.

“They just dipped a lot.” Spike informed them.

“Give her here!” A surprisingly authoritative voice nearly commanded over the radio. Twilight looked up to see Dash and another flyer in formation with her. The second one dived down, quickly landing and kneeling down on her bat. There was a pod big enough to hold a person along the front of the Bat there and there were prominent red crosses painted on the thing.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. The medic nodded and Twilight didn’t hesitate to hand Vinyl up to be secured in the pod.

“Hop on.” The girl said. Twilight nodded and stepped up into the thing’s arm, which returned to its place in the wing where she was secured. Spike and Emerald were similarly secured on Dash’s and with a brief feeling of inertia they were in the air shooting towards Ponyville.

Author's Note

I know the pacing is kinda shoddy in the last half, and it's not all intentional and I'm sorry, but I just needed to get this part out of the way.
I know, a lot of people who know me probably saw something like this coming.
But don't worry, this is where I start the super evil plot twists...
beware
bewaaaaarreeeee