Chapters Octavia and Vinyl Scratch were thankful their power-armored savior showed up when he did. Plenty of creatures had poured out of portals and slaughtered everything they came across. The human in power armor was the only thing keeping them alive, and he was doing a rather impressive job of it by killing demons. And zombies.
Both were crawling out of the portals in droves. As the group came close to another one, both mares stopped and recoiled at the sounds some of them made. “You're going to put 'em down, right?” Vinyl asked. He nodded, but didn't step forward. Instead, he opened a door and pointed inside the room it led to. “You want us to wait in there?” Octavia asked. He nodded. Vinyl ducked inside and Octavia followed her. He closed the door behind them and locked it for their own safety. A Revenant screeched at him from the end of the hallway.'Now the fun begins.' he thought. He cocked his shotgun and brought it to bear on the Revenant. Two Imps joined it, growled at him, then charged. They shot fireballs while they charged and the Revenant shot rockets at him. He managed to dodge them and blasted both Imps with his shotgun. They were knocked back in a heap of their own blood with holes in their chests and heads. He pulled out his plasma gun and held the trigger down. Blue-hot plasma burned bone and melted skin. The Revenant only fired a couple of shots before it crumpled.
He advanced and came around a corner to find a group of shotgun guys and what were called 'Pinky' demons. He switched to his chaingun and opened fire before any of them saw him. Two shotgun guys managed to squeeze off a blast before they bit the dust. The marine groaned in pain on each hit. A door on the side of the room opened and Imps walked in.
The marine shifted his fire onto them. Some of them got off fireballs, but he dodged them. He switched to his shotgun and kept moving. He found a zombie and another demon and blasted both of them apart. He went up a flight of stairs and found a door that required a yellow keycard to open. 'Fucking keycards. Why can't one of them open all the doors?' he thought. He backtracked into the room with plenty of demon, Imp, and shotgun guy corpses, grabbed the shotgun shells and looked behind a barrel in the corner. He found a dead scientist with the keycard he was looking for dangling from his neck that didn't have a head on top of it. He picked it up, went back to the door and opened it to find more shotgun guys and Imps waiting for him. One shotgun guy saw him and alerted the rest. They made an assortment of growls as they faced him.
The shotgun guys actually stayed put and shot at him for the most part while the Imps charged at him while shooting fireballs. The marine returned fire with his shotgun and dodged the fireballs, but he couldn't dodge all of the shotgun blasts. He fell back to try and lure the Imps towards him and get out of shotgun guys' line of fire.
All the Imps except one took the bait and followed him past the door. He kept moving back and fired as he went. When there were only two of them left, one of them shot a fireball at him which hit him. He blasted the other one, then tossed his shotgun in the air, caught it close to the barrel, and whacked the last Imp in the groin. It cried out in pain and clutched at the gun, trying to remove it. He yanked his gun back and kicked the Imp in the chest. Then he did something that he didn't think he would be doing since he got tooled up with his arsenal: he drew his pistol and fired several rounds into the chest of the Imp at close range, sending small spatters of blood onto the floor.
He switched back to his shotgun and fired off several shells, each one aimed at their heads, save for the last one. He aimed at the knees and fired twice. It howled in pain as it fell to the floor. He flipped it off before blasting it in the head at point-blank range, causing bits of skull and blood to drench his armor. He didn't even wipe his helmet clean as he brought his super shotgun out and took aim.
He went back into the room and found that the Imp had been joined by more shotgun guys. He aimed at the shotgunners first, then squeezed the trigger. Even at range, if enough enemies were in the path of the pellets, the super shotgun could still perform multi-kills. Four of the shotgun guys dropped, each one with an even uglier face and soaked with their own blood. The Imp shot a fireball that hit the marine while he was reloading. He grunted in pain and stepped back. The Imp seemingly chuckled as it moved closer, it's razor-sharp teeth bared. The marine one-handed his regular shotgun and fired. The cloud of shot was distributed between the neck and jaw of the Imp. The brown skin was quickly mixed with red, and it's jaw was torn to wet, bloody pieces. The teeth were turned to a white powder that made the marine chuckle as he thought that it kind of looked like the Imp had done a bunch of cocaine and suffered a horrible overdose.
He blasted each of the shotgun guys with his own pump action shotgun. Their chests were given a new red hole with each shot. After looting what he could from the corpses, he went to go check on Vinyl and Octavia. He hadn't heard anything from them, so he assumed they were okay. Corpses were in the same places were he had made them, so everything seemed normal. But then he heard something.
It was a low growl. And he was only two rooms away from Octavia and Vinyl. He pulled out his chaingun and kept moving.
Vinyl Scratch and Octavia were both glad that the walls of the room they were soundproof. It gave them a break from the loud screaming and growling they had heard over the last couple of hours. They both knew that demons could tear things apart at lightning speed, but the facility they were in was quite large. Many ponies and a few humans had been slaughtered quite fast within the first few minutes.
Octavia shut her eyes and tried to block those thoughts out. She looked over at Vinyl and envied her just a little. She still had her shades on, and they were clean for the moment, but Octavia remembered that blood had covered them at one point. Although, there was still blood on her shirt and in her mane. The DJ was sitting in a corner and she wasn't looking forward to getting up for more than one reason. Octavia sat down next to her. "It's going to be fine." she said, trying to comfort her. Judging by the look she gave, Vinyl was not convinced.
Her belief was given more reason when something large left a dent on the wall. Octavia saw that it was the same wall that the door was on. She would have cursed a blue streak, but fear had left her mouth silent. The monster outside hit the wall harder, and caused the dent to become more severe. A third hit almost made it give way. Octavia could feel a fearful cry coming up her throat. It almost escaped, but then they felt heavy footfalls thudding away from them. The door opened, and Octavia almost screamed in terror, but Vinyl quickly placed a hand over her mouth. The marine who had saved them stood in the doorway and was waving them out. The ponies could hear the monster far away. It sounded like he was munching on something. The wet crunching sounds made their skins crawl, but the marine pulled Vinyl by the hand, who pulled Octavia and made sure to keep her quiet.
They went up three levels and found more corpses. Most of them were missing at least one limb, but several of them had their chests ripped open and their internal organs were no longer internal. The marine actually looked up and saw bodies, organs, and limbs hanging from the ceiling, all dripping blood. Octavia shut her eyes and almost puked. Vinyl led her into a nearby room with the marine following close behind. No sooner had he shut the door did Octavia puke into a trash can. Vinyl did the same, and the marine went back outside to keep watch.
Octavia crawled to the other side of the room on her stomach and didn't try to stand up. "Remind me to never visit a place that experiments with summoning demons ever again." she said. Vinyl nodded. "Do you think you could just cast a sleeping smell on me and wake me up when this is all over?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood even a little. Vinyl smirked. Right when she was about to say something, the marine walked back in. He nodded to them, indicating it was clear. "Oh, please tell me we don't have to go through that." Octavia pointed in the direction of hallway filled with corpses.
The marine walked up to them and showed them something that was written on his PDA: sorry, yes. "I hope you don't mind if I try to avoid looking at or smelling anything. It's all so rancid and horrifying." said Octavia. The marine nodded. This was the first time in their lives that they had been exposed to something like this, and they were not prepared for it in the slightest. He knew that they would probably want to block it out as much as possible.
Octavia nodded in defeat. "Okay, do you think we could just wait here for a moment?" she asked. The marine walked over to the walls, and started feeling around on them. Vinyl just stared at him as if he was doing something weird, but Octavia knew what he was doing. "You're looking for a secret, aren't you?" she asked. The marine nodded and kept at it, going from one side to the other until he found what he was looking for. The wall that Octavia and Vinyl had been next to opened up.
A dark corridor stood in front of them. Neither of the ponies could see what was inside, but the marine fished a small flashlight out of one of the compartments on his armor and attached it to his shotgun. He aimed into the hallway and saw only a couple of corpses. Both of them had been decapitated. Octavia gagged as if she was going to hurl again.
The marine frowned under his helmet. He showed both ponies something that was written on his PDA: 'I'll go first. Stay behind me.' then he advanced. He didn't get too far before he came to an intersection. He saw that the left side was blocked, leaving only the right, the front, and back the way they came. As much as Octavia didn't want to go on, she kept at it. Vinyl was right with her. "If I get out of this alive, I'll make sure you're praised as a hero of Equestria." said Octavia. The marine gave her a slight nod, then took the path on the right.
As much as he would rather be slaughtering demons, the marine knew that the ponies wouldn't survive in a fight. He had already seen enough dead ponies to make their rulers openly weep. That is, if what he had found out about them was true. He wasn't able to get very much data about Ponykind from the terminals he found. He did know that Princesses Celestia and Luna were in charge, but he didn't know the names of two other princesses. The data had been corrupted.
He came to a stop and the other two ponies froze. A dip in the ground ended in a pool of water that the marine saw was radioactive. He turned around and pointed behind them. Both ponies made way for him, and he led them back to the intersection. The path that was previously blocked had been unblocked. He didn't see any bodies, just more murky water. He had a feeling that whatever had moved the blockage might be down there, so he led them down the other path they didn't take.
Vinyl kept watch behind them in case something came up to attack them. She didn't see anything, but she had a feeling in her gut that told her they weren't alone. Octavia's ears had been drooping since they walked into the water, but they perked up when she felt something slip by her leg. She quickly tugged on the arm of the marine and pointed down. The marine looked down as well and saw that the water had been disturbed. At first, he thought that Octavia had just stepped in something very unpleasant, but then Vinyl pointed down and nodded.
The marine activated the Infrared(IR) vision mode for his helmet, and saw there was indeed something in the water. It was swimming too erratically for him to shoot, so he stowed his shotgun and pulled out a knife that he hadn't yet used. The blade was half the length of his forearm and almost as wide. Octavia and Vinyl shrunk back at the sight of it. The blade was sharp enough to punch through elephant and buffalo hide with ease. If whatever was with them was made of skin and bones, the marine would be able to stab through it. Provided he could catch it, of course. He actually got lower towards the surface of the water and waited.
He stayed still until the creature stopped, then shot out of the water straight at him. His lightning-fast reflexes allowed him to catch it with his free hand, and his other drove the knife deep into what he thought was its' neck. It reminded him of a worm, but it had a mouth with sharp teeth, and it cried out in pain when the knife pierced its' skin. Octavia shrieked as well and scrambled to try and get away. The marine underestimated how long the thing was when it used it's tail to grab Octavia by the ankle. It flailed around and sent water all over both ponies and even hit Vinyl in the face twice. The marine wrenched the knife around, causing the large worm to scream out in pain. Blood squirted out from wound and landed on both ponies in addition to the water. It wiggled to try and escape from the death-grip the marine had, but to no avail. the marine kept squeezing tighter and tighter to try and crush its' windpipe(if it had one).
The marine pulled the knife out and shoved it back into the open wound, driving it a little deeper each time. Vinyl cast a spell to set the thing on fire, essentially turning it into a living torch. The mouth of the creature stopped moving, but the marine started cutting. The rest of it started having small death spasms which ended when the marine finished cutting the head off. He then nodded at it and threw it into the water. Vinyl set the head on fire as well, and the marine led them away from the burning remains so they could use what light they could before they had to resort to the flashlights the marine had on some of his weapons.
The marine managed to get them out of there without further incident, but then they found another hallway that was partially destroyed. They saw a corpse rammed through a wall, and most of the lights that was still on were dangling from the ceiling like chandeliers. Only most of them had blood on them. "If I had anything left in my body, I might be sick." said Octavia. The marine switched back to normal vision and saw that Octavia and Vinyl were covered in blood and filth. He had an idea, but he knew it would be violating the horror movie rules. And for them, this whole ordeal might as well have been a living horror movie. He led them past the corpse, up a flight of stairs, and he took the first left he found. He wrenched the door open with his hands and let both ponies hurry inside.
He took one look at them and knew that they would want to get cleaned up. The room they were in had another door that the marine found out had a shower and a bedroom. 'I am not going to break one of the horror movie rules. Not when civilians are around.' the marine thought. He opened the door and gestured that they step inside, but he didn't follow them.
Octavia stood in the doorway. "You'll wait for us, right?" she asked. The marine pointed to a terminal on the other side of the room. "Okay. We'll try and find to get cleaned up and slip into something. I'm glad I didn't wear heels when I came here." she said. Vinyl let a snort. "It's normal for you." Octavia replied. They stepped inside and closed the door.
The marine decided to see if he could find some useful information while he could. He sat down at the terminal and was relieved when he saw that it was still unlocked. He opened the file explorer and looked around the personnel files. He saw a bunch of human scientists, a few marines that were most likely dead by now, one expected guest that didn't show: princess Celestia. He found out that she was supposed to make an appearance for a demonstration, but didn't show when she found out that things had gone to shit. He also found out that a group of ponies had brought him here because they had been told of his skill as a warrior. At least, that was the official reason. The real reason was that the devil decided to shift his attention from earth to Equestria because he thought that it would be an easy conquest. The humans thought that if anyone would be able to stop it, it would be the marine commonly known as Doomguy. 'Not the worst thing I could be doing.' he thought. He was allowed to be summoned, but the process still left him unconscious until only a few minutes before the demons began their invasion. 'If I catch a break after this, it might be too soon.' he thought.
There was still a bit more. He noticed that Celestia would give him a reward of some sort after the ordeal was over. He opened another file and found that the reward was the chance to retire from fighting demons. It said that he would be able to retire anywhere he wanted, with whatever he wanted. 'If that's true, Celestia seems to be quite the kind pony. And Octavia would mention me to her as well.' he thought. Then he found something that made his jaw drop inside his helmet.
It was another file that contained for a 'final solution' of sorts to the demon problem. When the army was defeated, Celestia would be able to cast a spell that would permanently prevent the forces of the human Hell from harming them again. That, and she would assign important ponies to assist the humans in refining their portal technology. The marine thought that the break he was looking for might within grasp after all.
He checked the security systems and noticed the facility had gone into lockdown. That was the normal, but he saw that demons were more or less milling about the place trying to find a way out. The power was also fluctuating. In some places, almost all the lights were out, but others were lit pretty much like normal. Then he viewed the external cameras and saw something that was sure to relieve Octavia and Vinyl: ponies and humans that were waiting for them to come out. Like Vinyl and Octavia, they were fairly humanoid, but they stood out enough on their own, especially with their heads. If the marine hadn't been used to fighting monsters and demons of varying shapes and sizes that continuously tried to kill him, he might have felt a little weird with their eyes being bigger than those of his own species and the variety of colors. 'For a species that calls themselves 'ponies', they don't seem that much like them to me. Seem closer to humans.' the marine thought. They shared hands, feet, fingers and toes, but the marine didn't know how he felt about their wings and horns. Or tails. Or about Equestria, but he hadn't learned much about it, and the terminal didn't have much information about it. 'Shit. Gonna have to find another one.' he thought with a frown.
He didn't recognize any of their faces, but he did see a pony with a white coat, light purple eyes, a multicolored mane and tail that moved like the wind was blowing, and a horn longer than Doomguy thought possible. She was wearing armor that reminded him of plate armor worn by ancient knights, but it was primarily gold and had icons of the sun on the shoulder plates. He saw she had a longsword slung on her shoulder. 'I think I might do better here than I thought.' he thought.
He also saw marines waiting outside. Some of them didn't have sleeves on their armor. 'Probably trying to mimic what I used to do.' he thought. One thing in common with all of them was that they wore helmets. Some of them carried weapons that he didn't recognize. If only I had some of those guns.' he gave a slight smirk.
He started searching for any logs that could help him piece together what led up to the attack. He found one that said something about a "VIP" being delivered to a "Sector three" for awakening. 'Why do I get the feeling that's me?' the marine thought. He clicked on it and found video footage along with a report that contained medical information, all about him.
The first video showed him lying unconscious on a table. Two scientists, one pony, one human, were in the room with him. Both of them were females, and the human looked like she was trying to remove the gauntlet on his left arm. The marine probably would have removed it himself, had he actually been awake. He saw that he wasn't in chains this time, and he heard the human talking about how peaceful Equestria was. The unicorn put on a smile and said that it usually is, but sometimes monsters would come and disturb the peace. 'Feels like the opposite is the story of my life.' the marine thought.
He found a few more files. One of them said that they were trying to work with ponies to try and solve their problem with portals. A group of scientists found out that ponies apparently had that problem worked out thanks to a magic mirror, but humans couldn't quite say the same so far.
Octavia was glad to be clean and wearing clothes that weren't covered in blood and filth. Vinyl agreed with her. The cellist tried to step lightly as she approached the marine. She could tell he was heavily invested in whatever he was looking at. Vinyl decided to forgo subtlety and placed a hand on his shoulder. The marine bolted up and wheeled on her with his shotgun raised. "It's just us!" Octavia cried and raised her arms in front of her face. The marine recognized them and lowered his weapon. He held up his PDA for both ponies to read. "Sorry. I thought you were a demon." it read. "It's alright." said Octavia. The marine went back to looking at the terminal. He decided to show them the external camera feed featuring Celestia. "That's princess Celestia! We're going to make it!" cried Octavia. She looked happier than the marine had ever seen her. Then again, the marine had yet to see her happy, since he had only met her while inside the wrecked facility swarming with demons. She held Vinyl in a tight hug, one that the DJ happily returned. The marine knew that something was about to go wrong. Even though he was not versed in these kinds of situations, he knew that demons were assholes that were not above trying to ruin a happy moment.
Rather than try and open the door, the marine aimed his shotgun at it and waited. He knew that some of them could somehow open doors and waited for one of them to try. Vinyl and Octavia soon noticed what he was doing and quieted down. "What is it?" Octavia asked. The marine didn't say anything.
The door slid open and a Pinky demon was standing in the hallway snarling at him. He fired twice. Once in the chest, once in the stomach. Both blasts knocked the demon back. The marine walked up to it, shoved the barrel of his shotgun down the Pinky's throat, then pulled the trigger. Blood, chunks of skin, and bits of bone blew out of its back and splattered onto the wall behind it. He kicked the corpse off his gun and wiped some of the blood off the barrel. He heard a roar that was quickly followed by what he thought was a stampede of boots and claws on the steel floor. Octavia and Vinyl got as far back as the room would allow them. The marine decided to bring out one of his big guns, a chaingun to be specific.
He could hear that they were all coming from the same direction. He also knew that the hallway he was in would serve as a good funnel. Then he decided to try and use something that he never thought he would: land mines. Sometimes he forgot he had them, but he decided that it was a good place to use them. He threw two of them on the left wall of the hallway, close to the corner. He would focus on the right side first, then sweep left after the mines went off.
They were getting closer. He recognized shotgun guys, Imps, and more Pinkies. He looked into the lower right corner of his HUD and saw a notification. 'New enemy contact detected. Threat level: very fucking high.' it read. He smirked. Ever since his return from hell, he had modified what his armor would say for certain situations in an attempt to give it more personality. At least, that's what someone recommended him to do. He had a feeling that he would make more changes to it later.
The demons walked right into the mines he had placed. Several of them were blown to pieces which were thrown all over their comrades as the marine opened fire. Chaingun rounds ripped into flesh and some of them blasted off limbs. As more of them filled in from the left, he swept his fire onto them. Thanks to the loud noise from the chaingun and dying demons, he barely heard the door to the room where Octavia and Vinyl were hiding open. As much as he wanted to look, he couldn't. Some of the Imps were trying to stay back and launch fireballs. Most of them were just hitting the charging Pinky demons in the back, but a few of them were getting by and almost hitting the marine.
He managed step out of the way, but they were getting closer, even going so far as to attempt short leaps to close the gap. 'Just do me a favor and die! I have company to look after!' he thought. A pinky actually jumped off the shoulders of another one and aimed straight for his face. The marine brought his chaingun on it and filled its face with lead. Before he could bring it back on the others, one of them grabbed his gun and shoved it towards the ground. The marine actually let it go and kicked the pinky in the crotch. It let out a howl of pain that marine silenced when he pulled out his shotgun, jammed the barrel upwards underneath its chin, then fired.
Blood, flesh, and bone sprayed up onto the ceiling. He looked to the other demons was about to fire right as three Imps all shot fireballs at him from close range. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't dodge all of them that time. One of them hit him in the left arm. He grunted in pain, stepped back returned fire with his shotgun. He blew the head off the first two, then both arms of the third. It fell to the ground crying out in pain, blood flowing from where its arms used to be. The marine took a step back, then kicked it in the chin hard enough to break its neck. 'Some might not agree, but their whining gets annoying to me.' he thought. He resumed firing as Pinkies started trying to close in on him. Getting around their melee attacks was easy, but he thought that they were trying a little to hard to form a line to block his vision. 'Shit, what the fuck has the devil planned?' he thought. His gut told him that something bad was happening, and he was going to have to act fast if he wanted to stop it.
He whipped out his double-barreled super shotgun, a weapon he had picked up a while ago which had come in quite handy. He was planning on saving it, but thought this was enough of a special occasion. He waited for the Pinkies to cluster together before he pulled the trigger and blasted them all into bloody chunks. He reloaded, then did the same for two groups of Imps that decided to stick around.
After blowing apart a Pinky that was waiting for him around a corner, he looked around and saw the hallway and intersection littered with body parts, blood, and gore. 'Clear.' he thought with a smirk. He went back to check on Octavia and Vinyl, then grew enraged when he saw they weren't where he left them. 'Son of a bitch, what the fuck did you do? What the fuck did you do!?' he punched a wall in rage. It was a diversion meant to keep his attention elsewhere while some other demons slipped by and took them.
He took off on the warpath. He wasn't about to let sentient beings that weren't trying kill him get killed by demonic assholes. Especially when one of them actually talked to him on a regular basis. He went back out, picked up his chaingun, and went looking for a secret door. He didn't even know if there was one, but he was going to look for one nearby.
Luckily for him, he found one that had a rocket launcher and boxes of rockets on the other side. The marine grinned. 'If this results in making friends, I won't mind.' he thought. The first thing he figured that he had to do was find where they went. Finding a trail was going to be difficult, considering all the blood and gore. The marine had heard of a 'detective mode' used to help said detectives solve crimes, but his armor didn't have that kind of software or hardware. He opened up his automap and found a room that might have something like that not too far from his position.
The hallways were far too quiet for his taste. Not a single growl or screech. Just blood dripping. He looked at his left shoulder and saw that there was some scorch marks. 'Damnit.' he kept moving and slid around a corner with his shotgun ready, only to find nothing. 'What the fuck, I get swarmed by demons, and now there's fucking none of them? What the fuck gives?' he frowned under his helmet. He went down a flight of stairs and didn't find anything except for a few dead ponies and humans, most of them with at least one of their limbs ripped off. He saw that one human had bruises all over the left side of his face, the same arm ripped off and tossed a few feet away from him. The marine saw a keycard next at his feet. 'Why the fuck can't I just pick up one keycard that unlocks all the doors instead of collecting a fucking rainbow? And same thing for skulls, whenever the fuck they show up.' he thought. As he reached down to pick it up, he thought he saw the body twitch. He instantly stepped back and aimed his shotgun directly at his head. He ordered his armor to run a bioscan that came up surprisingly positive. A message popped up on his display that summed up his thoughts exactly: 'Wow, someone actually survived this one. That's a fucking new one.'
The man wore a white lab coat indicating that he was a scientist of some sort. If the marine could actually help him, he had a feeling that he might get some answers. Information wasn't often something he needed, but he would accept it if it was helpful. He saw his right arm twitch and he tried to flex his fingers. Aside from the obvious bruising and missing arm, the results of the bioscan told the marine that he had some cracked ribs. 'Shit, you're fucked up. Whoever you are, you must be really strong, or those fuckers are getting soft.' the marine thought. He went into a nearby room and found a first aid kit. Normally, he would use them to keep his face looking pretty(even though he didn't show it) and the rest of his body in working order, but this time he would use it on someone else. Or at least try to.
After a bit of a struggle and some assistance from a V.I., the marine managed to patch the doctor up. He was still unconscious, but the marine managed to put him in a room with a terminal. While waiting for doctor to wake up(if he was going to), the marine decided to see if the terminal could help him out. He started looking through more video feeds from the security cameras and found a gore nest with a Mancubus standing next to it. He saw several Revenants walk into the room, two of them carrying Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. 'Motherfuckers should have worn their brown pants.' the marine thought as he balled his hands into fists. He could see that both of them were terrified and shaking. Their eyes were shut, and they kept their heads down.
He found a few more files, including a message from the outside. They were trying to see if anyone was still alive. The marine sent a response through his PDA and established a link. He soon heard a voice of another marine. "Alright, marine. If I've heard right, you're the only one combat effective in there. We need you to get the fuck out so Celestia can work her magic." he said. The marine sent a message with his PDA: "Not yet. Friendlies need evac and zone is still hot." then waited for a reply. "Okay. Do what you have to, but get out soon, we have word they're trying to break out through the lower levels and the roof." he said.
The doctor stirred on the nearby table. Doomguy looked over at him. 'You better not be possessed.' he thought. The doctor looked around and saw the marine. "Oh, you have no idea how glad I am you're here." he said. He tried to sit up, but fell back down and looked where his arm used to be. His eyes widened and he screamed. The marine didn't try to stop him, he knew that losing limbs wasn't a pleasant experience. Neither was looking at where it used to be and finding a bandaged stump.
After the doctor stopped screaming, he decided to try and introduce himself. "I'm doctor Louie Hayward. Thanks for bringing me back to the land of the living." he said. The marine nodded. "Do you have a plan to get us out of here?" he asked. The marine pointed to the screen of the terminal. Doctor Hayward got up and walked over to stand right behind the marine. He looked at the terminal in disbelief. "No fucking way." he said when he saw Vinyl and Octavia. The Mancubus was looking at them in a way the marine didn't like one bit. He was going to enjoy blasting his guts all over a wall.
The doctor looked at the marine and thought that he understood what he wanted to do. "You're gonna get them out first, aren't you?" he asked. The marine nodded. "Should I just wait here?" he asked. The marine led him behind the table and pointed on the ground. "You want me to wait?" he asked. The marine gave him the thumbs up, then made the shushing gesture. "I won't leave the room. But if it means getting out of here sooner, I'll help." said Louie. The marine gave him the thumbs up, then made to leave the room. Louie looked through some drawers and found a headset. He plugged it into the terminal and started talking the marine Doomguy had talked to earlier.
The marine didn't even try to be quiet as he ran through the hallways. Occasionally, he would run into a Pinky or an Imp, and he would blast them with one of his shotguns, or knock them off their feet and curbstomp them. Each of their skulls made a satisfying crunch as he brought a boot down on them. He thought about removing an eyeball from the bottom of his boots, but left it for him to crush and grind it into paste. He thought it might add character.
As he went down several levels, he saw a notification on his HUD saying that he had a new message on his PDA. He pulled it out and read: "If what I have heard is true, then you are trying to rescue two ponies from the clutches of demons. Know that I appreciate the gesture, and you will be rewarded for your efforts. I know you can do it." before he could confirm who it was from, he heard growling form the flight of stairs directly below him.
He readied his super shotgun, leaned over the railing, then shot the Pinky in the head. The head and a good chunk of its shoulders splattered onto the the floor and wall, vertebrae exposed and going limp with the rest of the body. The marine reloaded, then attempted to jump down and use the railings as hand holds.
He almost missed the first one, got the second one, and was attacked by a Revenant in mid-air. It fired rockets which hit the marine, then jumped to try and grab him. He grunted in pain, then threw the demon around him. His armor barely compensated when his back slammed into a railing and bounced off. 'I need to slow the fuck down.' he thought. The Revenant didn't give up and had jumped after him. The ground was coming up fast, and he was sure that his armor wouldn't be able to absorb the impact. 'This might hurt.' he thought.
He reached out a actually managed to grab a railing. He heard a crack and gritted his teeth to stifle the groan of pain. The Revenant started to scream, but it was interrupted when he landed at the bottom of the stairs face-first. The marine could hear bones crunch and wet flesh smack into the steel. 'Or whatever metal this place is made out of.' he thought.
He pulled himself up and grunted in pain as his arm protested. His armor told him that his arm had pulled out of place and would need to be put back in. 'This is gonna suck.' he thought. Rather than pull back into place like other people might do, he decided to half-punch, half-lean on a wall hard enough to shove it back in.
It worked, he reloaded his super shotgun, then continued on his way.