Borderland: Friendship is futile

Sloth’s arena is literally an flying gladiator ring ship, in which abducted ponies fight to the death with the dream of becoming the grand champion and be able to return back home, and all for the amusement for the leader and sin, Sloth. Once abducted, she herself personally brands you to signify you becoming one of her “toys”. Even if you was to escape, you would be returned immediately after somepony sees you with such brand.

A fleet of shuttles descended from the low-hanging ice and landed in several locations. Each shuttle began to unload its cargo of captured victim ponies and storage chests. The chests were on hovercarts and could easily be pulled to the holopad location. From above, a group of rats, observing the operations, waiting for the order to begin. Hyperion guards covered the whole area, looking over the transfer of goods onto the holopad in order to be beamed up. Buzzard drones flew around, acting as an extra security measure.

Moon Shadow dashes forward, leaving a glittery blur to the naked eye. She hides in the shadows, waiting for her target to pass before taking them out in the quietest and cleanest way possible. She hides the bodies before pressing forward .

When she deems it safe, she gives a signal for Sky Skipper to fly past. Heart throb takes out everyone else with her silenced pistols before motioning for both me and Daring to move forward. However, my body tensed, unable to move forward.

“Hey.” Daring says, pressing his shoulder into mine. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I snap, turning to him. He booped my nose.

“You’re tense.” he says, leaning in.

“I..I...I..” i’m hyperventilating.

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not…” i shouldn’t...can’t... be scared. I have no right to be scared. But i can barely move...my chest is tight...i...i...i can’t...

“It’s okay. So am i, but i tend to throw caution into the wind. It’s good for the nerves.”

“Good for you, but…” i’m not you….

“Trust me.” he says, whispering in my ear now. My breathing stops. Hell, it felt as if all time had stopped at that moment, heat brazing my cheeks. “Can you do that?”

“I can try.” Though i don’t see how that will help.

Boom!!!

A barrage of bullets is sent out our way, a loader bot stomping it’s way past, alarming the guards of our presence. Daring glances at me before running forward, taking flight and taking out the loader bot. I take a deep breath before forcing myself forward.

“Intruders! Sweep out the area!” yells the guards, shooting at us. The buzzard drones went into defense mode, shooting skin-melting lasers at us, alerting any and all in the area.

Sky Skipper zooms up and causes an blinding cloudy burst, like a rainboom with mist instead of rainbows, blinding enemies long enough for me to make some sniper shots and Daring to shoot some guys between the eye.Moon Shadow dashed forward, dodging the crossfire, making her way to the control room.

Bang! A loud crack went off, buzzard falling out of the sky and crashing.

“You’re welcome.” Clever says, over our intercoms.

For a moment, i wondered how good his sights must be if he could see the buzzard from over a mile away. And taken it out in one hit...

Moon Shadow sneaks up on the one mole behind the whole operation...well, the rat more like it. Guarding the panels to all the cages was a tall rat-man at the controls, monitoring all the ponies.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty pony?” He says, turning to her. Half his face and his right arm was cybernetic, glowing red. “Did she send you?”

“She…?”

“You don’t know? Then never mind. It would have been more interesting if it was her, but oh well.” he says. With a flick of his cybernetic hand, he sculpted a deathbot to do his dirty work. It locks onto Moon Shadow.

Meanwhile, intel on the raid had been sent to the higher up, activation torrents from the arena, planning on shooting Daring and Sky Skimmer out of the sky. I was running low on bullets for the messenger, having to scavenge guns from my victims to keep up.

“Watch your flank!” Daring calls out, catching an unclipped grenade that was aimed at Sky
Skipper before throwing it at one of the arena torrents

Clever picked up any threats that we couldn’t see from the distance, watching us all very closely.

“Uh...guys, you might want to hurry, i see something big coming…” He says, shooting another pony.

Moon Shadow dodges the heavy gunfire and shield burst that the DeathBot aimed at her, luring it out the room, leaving the ratman to his work. She wasn’t going to give up yet, but she needed space to fight. She ran quickly waiting for the deathbot to be out of range.

“Uh...guys, i have a problem.”

“I got it.” Heartthrob beams, doing a backflip over the ponies she was fighting, creating a double of herself to shoot them in the back of their heads, before running off to aid Moon Shadow. I rush forward, using a hyperion shotgun.

Adrenaline wrecked my nerves, telling me to keep fighting. My shield was low, my body heavy, my ears ringing with the sound of gunfire. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, as if i was going to cough it up at any moment.

Daring takes out another turret before doubling back to check on us.

“You okay?” he asks.

“What?” I blink, my vision turning red.”Yeah, i’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Daring!” i push him out of the way, the Deathbot throwing Heart Throb back.

Meanwhile, the ratman starts to pack up for his escape.

“I wasn’t paid enough for this.”

Bang!

“If you know what is good for you, you are going to turn around and deactivate your DeathBot.” Warning Shot threatens.

The ratman smirks.

“And why would i do that?” he says. “Even if i could, what makes you think-”

Warning Shot shoots him in his hoof, making him hiss in pain.

“You little….”

She shoots him in the leg.

“If you can’t deactivate the bot, surely you can release the siren powering this whole operation…”

“Not on your-”

She shoots him in his shoulder and forearm.

“I’ll get you for this…”

“I doubt it.”she says, turning him toward the controls. “But we’ll see after you do it.”

Meanwhile, we dodged for our lives as we thought of a plan.

“If we heat up the metal, we should be able to pierce it better.” I say. “I got fire bullets, but after that, I’m out.”

“I’m low on bullets too.” Heart Throb says.

“We can use that turrent to deal your share.” Daring says. “Sky Skipper and I will bait it to shoot. Moon Shadow, i want you to get back in there and figure out where the others are. We got this.”

Once agreed upon, Moon Shadow grabs the Death Bot’s attention immediately while running back to the control block. I quickly aim at it’s back and legs. Heart Throb shoots at the legs, hoping to weaken them while Daring and Sky Skipper fly around the DeathBot, shooting it where it glowed red from the remaining fire magic. The DeathBot caught on quickly, shooting an EMP blast, knocking us all off course.

I cough up blood, my health dangerously low and my shield destroyed. I weekly raised my gun, shooting again before ducking behind crate. Daring noticed my hastiness, but said nothing. Sky Skipper swirled around the bot, shooting it wherever she can, trying to keep it confused so it doesn’t lock onto us.

Heart Throb shoots the newly cold metal, the bullets piercing its shell. It sends out another pulse, making everyone jump back.

A loud gun blast goes off in the distance, a bullet hitting the robot, sending a frag and electric bullet into the robot.

“It’s weakened and offline for 30 seconds, give it hell.” Clever says over the intercom. Hemospec screeches, swooping in with REgen potions.

“Couldn’t have done that sooner?” Daring hisses.

“Didn’t have a clear shot till now. Most of those was lucky shots.”

Daring groans but wasn't going to give up this opportunity.

“You heard him.”

We release all our ammo out on the Deathbot, it’s whirring and requests for repair from sustainable damage being the only thing heard over the gunfire. After 30 second, the gunfire was ceased, the DeathBot restarting.

“Shit. I’m out.” Heart Throb spats, throwing her gun.

“Me too.” I sigh, putting the messenger back.

“Daring?” Sky Skipper says, concerned looking around.

The Deathbot locks onto the stallion, zoomin up to it with the but of his gun, pulling back at the last second. The turret sends out several shots, hitting the deathbot at the last second, a bullet grazing Daring’s wing. He hisses in pain, falling to the ground and skidding to a halt. The DeathBot blows up, the flames licking Daring as one last EMP blast breaks his shield as it rings out.

Meanwhile, Moon Shadow comes back to the control room to find large pools of blood on the ground. She raises an eyebrow, seeing two trails, one looking like a body being dragged and the other being a pony’s footsteps.

Trotting up to the control panel, she opens the guide, seeing that during all the commotion, it seemed that Firestone had been moved to a safer location and the beam up had been abandoned with the order to kill all the prisoners. Luckily, no one got such demand, the message being blocked by the Doctor.

She takes a minute to crack open all the cages and downloading all the data about where Firestone was being taken. She shakes her head with distraught.

“Oh no.” she says.

In the fleet in which the cages, the guards was becoming a bit concerned of the silence that has come over the intercom. Every now and again, they got a message of absolutely nothing but static, but now it was dead silent and no one knew what was going on.

On edge, they snapped at the prisoners and even resorted to violence. Their resolve crumbled quickly, so badly that they didn’t seem to notice the first cage’s defense being disarmed and it becoming unlock. They didn’t even realize that the cage was empty until it was far too late.

One by one the guards was picked off, their corpse being placed in the cells that the newly escaped prisoners was put in, left to rot.

A gray pegasis lead the rebellion, attacking the soldiers with the element of surprise.

Though her wings was strapped to her sides so that she couldn’t fly, she was just as bad as without them.

She was greeted by Sky skipper as she opens the hatch, preparing to lead and attack on the people who had trapped them in here in the first place. To rebel against Sloth’s lackey’s, To find a way back home.

“Daring...Daring...Daring!?!” I cry out at the unconscious stallion, shaking his body. Heart Throb trots over.

“We got to go.” she says, throwing one of Darings arms around her neck. I nod taking the other one.

We meet Moon Shadow escorting the captured ponies outside where we find Warning Shot and her brothers in what look like bandit...buses?

“These used to be trolleys. Until they was derailed. Thought they would be useful.” she says. In the darkness of the night, you almost couldn’t see the blood splatter on her hooves and flank. “There’s enough room for the at least 4o captives on each bus and still have room for any cargo you want to loot.”

As we rode away, a message came out.

“Hey, Handsome Jackal here. So I just heard that you took away Sloth’s toys. You know that she isn’t one to mess with, but don’t worry, Daddy got her a brand new toy, one with fiery purple fur and mane. She is going to be so excited to play with her, so you can keep the other ones.”

And then the transmission cuts off.

However, no one expected the explosion that went off afterward, destroying the fleets and transmission hub and holopad. The flames reached the bottom of the arena, licking its bottom with its large red flames.

Warning shot and her brothers laughed maniacally, bro-hoofing as if they accomplished something. I look at her with concern, only to get a smile in return. Later when we reached the Stronghold for the night, a transmission came in.

Congratulations! You reached Level 19!

You have now improved you critical damage accuracy!
You also now have 15% better chance to find ammunition and goods to any and all guns you hold in your inventory.
You also have upgraded you shield, earning the perk 20% cooler, allowing your cooling down and regeneration to happen 20% faster.