Fallout Equestria: Clockwork Precision

Gearing snorts and grumbles as he starts walking faster through the complex maze of halls and rooms, even though he’s in completely unknown and uncharted territory. He knows it’s absurd, but he’s getting really annoyed again. The itching is constant, even as faded as it is compared to before, but at least the screaming is gone from his mind. He glances at his wings and finds that, unfortunately, they still aren’t recovering from the damage that had been done to them by the ghouls and the turrets. But at least as far as he can tell, he’s not getting any worse. Though the sting he’s feeling in the left side of his face has returned. And as odd as it sounds, he actually sees that as a good sign.

He follows the signs through the hallways a bit longer, in the area that’s in the section of the map that he doesn’t know about. Even his PipBuck is no help as there are layers and layers of floors blocking everything at once. After making a sharp turn he sees another set of double doors. And these had been security doors. Or, at least, they still are. But judging by the damage on them, they aren’t going to stop much anymore. At some point the doors had been bucked repeatedly and almost, if not actually, been kicked in despite what the mag locks had tried to do. The mag locks themselves have been ripped out of their reinforced casings, and the right side door is barely hanging on by the bottom hinge while the door on the left is warped in a variety of directions and is as wide open as it can be as the metal along the bottom actually grinds into the concrete floor.

But the worrying part is, the damage that had been done, had been done on both sides. And the damage on the side facing the massive room Gearing is stepping into also contains signs of weapons fire damage. Especially laser and, in a couple cases, Gearing’s sure some kind of explosive. Like a rocket or a missile judging by the blast pattern. It doesn’t take Gearing long before he confirms his own suspicions and fears. Not far from the door is a destroyed Sergeant class hover bot, with its body a mangled mess. And scattered out in a semi circular pattern are entire groups of protectaponies that had been destroyed and left where they fell. But there are corpses as well. In several instances, the corpses were obviously ponies. Ones that had the misfortune to run into an area where they weren’t supposed to be, and security didn’t take kindly to that. Among the bodies are a few ghouls. Ranging from various levels of freshness.

Tick

Tick

CLICK

Gearing groans as he says softly, “That’s why they kept taking the maps off the walls… it had the safe path to go that security wouldn’t chase after them… Fuck!”

‘Snake eyes,’ the little blue pegasus says as he folds his ears down angrily and snatches the dice back up off the mind clouds.

Gearing starts walking around as he stares at the storage facility. Unlike the area he’d been in earlier, these don’t have massively high ceilings. Maybe fifteen feet. Twenty tops. But there are boxes everywhere and line of sight is cut down to pretty much a few paces in any direction. All across the floor there are markings with different codes and lines and arrows. And the boxes all seem to be stacked neatly within bounding boxes that have codes written at the bottom. An interesting system that Gearing can’t help but looking at and wondering about as he walks past them. But the tour gets cut short when he starts hearing the metallic hoofs of automatons.

Very close to him.

He zips over behind some of the crates, and does his best to play keep away as he keeps the stack of boxes between himself and the protectapony as they both simultaneously walk clockwise around it, but on opposite sides of the stack. And, as soon as Gearing’s in the next walking path, he quickly scoots away as he tries to find the next door that he should be going through. It doesn’t take him long before he realizes he has several options, and none of them are particularly helpful. There are markings and codes along the doors, but there’s nothing for a normal pony to decide which way to go. And all of them are labeled as exit, except the one he came through.

To make matters worse, he can clearly see where there have been weapons fired and impacted along the various walls. Despite the repair and clean up attempts by some of the bots. And that just increases his anxiety by the second as he mentally pictures the various doors and tries to figure out which one he should go through.

‘The one furthest away would be what would make the most sense, at least for what we want, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the actual exit is that way either,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments as it looks around and rattles the dice. ‘Shall we roll for it?’

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, getting fucked any way I go,” Gearing mutters singsongy as his eyes dart around. He quickly zips to another lane of boxes, and hides behind them as he hears the tell tale sound of a hovering bot’s talisman keeping it aloft and approaching. He again plays keep away with himself, but as soon as the hovering bot has its line of sight obstructed, Gearing slides over to the first door he sees and he looks around as he says, “I’ll just peek in and see which way I need to go…”

He looks around with a quick shake of his head before he grabs the door and pulls it open. A smile breaks across his muzzle as it easily opens and he slips in and spins around as he backs up and tries to make sure nothing saw him. “Okay now I just gotta make sure not to be seen while I look this area over…”

Gearing turns around as he still has his eyes on the door, but after a couple seconds he brings his gaze back forward to see where he’s going, and instantly stops in his tracks in the short hallway that he finds himself in that T’s only a few paces away.

Not far in front of him are several boxes moving around as they are carried and carted off. Gearing stays perfectly still as a couple bots walk by a short distance away from him going both left and right down the hallway perpendicular to the one this door leads to. They are busy going about their own business, walking straight and not turning their heads because they have no real reason to do so as they transport the crates back and forth. Gearing’s not even sure how many are in that hallway, but considering he can see two or three at any given time the answer is ‘too fucking many’.

Gearing very slowly starts walking in reverse moving as slowly as he can as he tries to pretend to be invisible. And, after he’s taken a step backwards, and is starting on another one, a protectapony transporting a box comes into his field of view, and wipes the smirk right off of his face as it starts to turn into the hall with him, but then stops as it sees him.

Gearing and the robot stare at each other for a fraction of a second before the bot starts beeping a communications code. The moment it does, several other bots turn and look at what it seems to be talking about.

Gearing grins widely and waves with his forehoof as he says, “Uh… hi guys… is this the way to the bathroom? I really gotta pee.”

The robot that’d seen him lowers its crate as it says out loud, “Event logged…”

“No, really, don’t stop what you’re doing. I don’t wanna interrupt; you don’t have to show me.”

“Unauthorized individual detected in restricted area. Alerting security,” the robot finishes and starts walking towards Gearing.

“Awww come the fuck on!” Gearing bellows as he starts scrambling backwards.

Then the hallway beyond begins cascading with a series of monotone voices as they repeat and pass along the message in a verbal confirmation.

“Intruder detected.”

“Intruder detected.”

“Intruder detected.”

“Intruder detected.”

“Intruder detected.”

“Intruder detected.”

“Can’t we talk about this?!” Gearing asks as he looks over his shoulder at the door behind himself. A beam shot at him by the closest bot, and only missing him because he’d already set his legs far enough apart to sway and dodge it, answers the question. “Ahhh piss on you too!” Gearing yells as he jumps back through the door and starts running along the wall as the robots start marching down the hallway and into the main storage room.

As the robots open the door, and continue beeping and sending out their alert message, a hovering bot changes direction and charges as quickly as it can from the nearby maze of containers as it screams, “I can’t wait to find you so I can kill you as a personal favor to Princess Celestia!”

As Gearing is getting near the next doorway, the door opens, and a group of protectaponies come in, all looking around and beeping and, most annoyingly, declaring the same, “Intruder detected,” message the ones behind him had started. Word spreads throughout the bots in the room rather quickly as the room becomes a loud din of activity that makes it hard for Gearing to even figure out what’s going on. He starts looking over his shoulder and instantly starts jumping and skipping around to dodge the laser fire from the bots coming out of the side doors and following from behind. He’s faster than them, no problem, but the amount of fire coming in starts getting concerning especially since he knows there’s more within the maze of delivery crates.

Deciding that a diminished visibility distance would hinder them even more than it would him, he jumps down one of the side foot paths as soon as he can and starts zigging and zagging between the boxes and stacks. He figures that if they can’t see him, they can’t shoot him. So he’ll have the advantage even if he stumbles across one at point blank. Given that more protectaponies seem to keep coming in from the doors on the far left, he’s pretty sure that entire thing is connected and is just chock full of problems for him at the moment. So, instead, he aims for the far end, the ones that are in the direct path that he actually wants to go in, and hopes for the best. To get there he has to take a longer stretch of walkway than he’s comfortable with, given the number of bots trying to find and shoot at him, but he doesn’t run into any others even though he can hear them running around.

At least until he turns the corner and runs straight into the side of a protectapony that was in the middle of setting down its cargo into its designated spot. And was, objectively, minding its own business at the time.

Gearing jumps at it, deactivates his implant, and simply stampedes over it as he continues down the way he’d turned.

Mass Augmentation Matrix: Deactivated

The protectapony gets knocked over onto its sides, and then ends up getting kicked and partially dragged as it rolls over and over like a barrel under Gearing’s hooves as he runs over it. As soon as it slams into a stack of crates, and is no longer an obstruction for him, he reactivates his implant and redoubles his efforts.

Gearing looks back and down at the robot as multiple limbs are bent at awkward angles and pieces are scattered around it. The transparent guard that goes over this model of protectapony’s face has been broken and shattered, exposing the bare circuitry underneath. The robot flails and kicks its limbs feebly as it squeaks and squeaks in alarm in code before it starts yelling, “Alert! Assistance requested! Alert! I have been assaulted! Heavy damage received!” It flails around a bit with one of its legs falling off with the attempt and it screeches, “Emergency! I’ve been assaulted! Help! Maintenance required! Alert! Violent intruder discovered!” It flops over on its side, staring in Gearing’s direction, and yells, “Warning! Damage to government property is subject to fines, imprisonment, a stern lecture, and or death by the authorized use of lethal force!”

“I’m sorry it was an accident! I’m just trying to leave!” Gearing yells before jumping to the side and breaking line of sight with the distraught robot.

‘Did that robot just threaten to kick our flank and kill us for that?’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head asks with an amused smirk.

“Pretty much,” Gearing chuckles as he zips through the stacks of supplies.

When he goes through an intersection, where he can clearly see a door on the far side near him, a hovering bot nearly crashes into him as it charges down its own lane. But as it sees him, it raises its flamer and starts spewing a large corona of fire at Gearing. Gearing, seeing the trail of fire quickly catching up to him, jumps up and grabs one of the boxes as he’s passing it and spins around to use it to block the waves of flames coming after him. He’s not so much worried about getting burnt, as painful as that is, but he doesn’t want his equipment to get trashed. Because then he’s sure he’ll really be screwed. The box is a lot heavier than he was expecting, but it’s big enough that it mostly blocks what he’s worried about as he continues backwards. He tosses it up in the air with a flick, spins around, and apple bucks the box at the bot as it keeps spitting fire at him.

And in this case the box’s mass was certainly useful as it crashes into the bot and they both go tumbling backwards as fire shoots in a variety of directions. The wooden crate had already started burning, and was well on its way to a full blaze before Gearing chucked it at the hovering murder bot. But with the mindless automaton shooting off its flamer in wide arcs, other boxes start catching fire too. As Gearing is running, the alerts the robots are spouting off start changing to warnings about the fire. And as he gets to the doors he can see that several of the bots have actually stopped pursuing him entirely as they try to put out the fire that one of their own had actually started.

Gearing quickly heads through the door, and quickly makes it to the hallway that runs perpendicular to this door’s entry, as he tries to listen for anyone else in this particular area. But he hears nothing.

However, with his ears as damaged as they are, that’s not saying much.

He zips around the corner and arbitrarily decides to go to the right. For one thing, that helps him put even more distance between him and whatever hallway it is father back the other way that is full of protectaponies. And another it seems to be a little different with panels on either side of the walls that he hopes means this is more of a maintenance area. But that old cold feeling starts showing up between his shoulders the further he travels and the more attention he pays to the large panels. Because, they seem to be just a bit too big to be maintenance access panels.

And then the area rocks from an explosion powerful enough to throw the doors open that he’d run in through and sends super heated air rushing down the hallway in a shockwave towards Gearing. As the wave is passing over him, Gearing snuffs at the air, and his eyes go wide as he yells, “Boom?! That was ordinance?! Why the hell are those bots using flamers in explosive ordinance storage?! Who the fuck is running this place?!” Gearing starts running even faster as a few more smaller explosions take place. Because he’s not sure what’s all in there. On one side, he’s sad that he didn’t take the time to check the boxes. To see if anything was useful. Because some high grade explosives would be amazing right about now. But, now he needs to get his distance. Another explosion rocks the area, and this time a white fumed smoke exits into the hallway with him as he’s running. And the alerts spread as the sirens wail about the explosion, the fire, and an intruder in the area.

After a few snuffs he rolls his eyes as he yells, “A bit late for the fire suppressant gas to be released, ya think?!”

But as he’s looking backwards and making his snide comments a panel on the left side opens up in front of him by popping backwards into the wall just slightly before rising up and out of the way. Gearing catches just the tail end of this, and his mane starts to bristle as the occupant starts to exit into the hallway with him.

“Status report: Green. All systems within acceptable operating parameters… Beginning standard patrol pattern.”

‘It’s a fucking sentry!’ the little blue pegasus screams inside Gearing’s head as it starts zipping around in a panic.

If robots were considered related to each other through some kind of arcano-technology family tree, the standard sentry would be the meat-headed big brother of the protectapony that’s high on Stampede and extra Buck. They are only vaguely equine in shape using the loosest definition possible. Yes, they move about using four legs. But they don’t have metallic hooves. The four limbs end in balls that track around in pretty much any direction allowing them to spin around in a circle at a moments notice and giving them an excellent turning radius. And then there’s the additional two limbs coming from the sides of it’s vertically extended torso that are basically built in weapons that a normal pony would wear on a battle saddle. And then their head is something else entirely and doesn’t even look remotely equine. The head portion sits down into the torso section, with the red glowing ‘eyes’ peeking out through horizontal slits in the ‘helmet’ it seems to be wearing. But it has no muzzle, or anything else to make it look personable. Its very design is meant to be a menace, right down to it’s lack of a mouth. Though the pair of heavy weapons it totes around, one on each limb, doesn’t hurt the intended look at all. Especially since they are live and the destructive capabilities of it are no act.

As Gearing is closing the distance, and is mere feet away, the bot finishes exiting its station and turns to face him with its pair of miniguns.

Gearing picks up speed, jumping and even using his wings, as useless as they actually are, to flap and give him every extra bit of momentum as he jumps at the robots left side.

Mass Augmentation Matrix: Deactivated

Gearing impacts into the robot hard enough that it rocks sideways, onto just two wheels, and its torso spins around as it yells out.

The sentry’s especially robotic even toned voice reverberates with an echo that seems like a deep grumble as it declares, “Engaging hostile target. Weapons free. Noncombatants are advised to stand clear.”

Gearing pushes off the wall a bit more with his hind legs as the bot tries to regain its balance while at the same time trying to spin its miniguns up and shoot him. The two crash in a heap, with the right side of the bot rather dented from the heavy weight impact. The bot tries to turn its torso, and Gearing holds onto its minigun arm with his forelegs as he wraps his hind legs around its torso and begins applying torque. The sentry bot starts firing off bursts from its miniguns as it can clearly see him, but can’t quite acquire a target lock as its been bashed so hard and it’s in a sub optimum position. Gearing twists his torso as he grunts, and then screams in rage as he’s completely had it with this day. The right minigun starts sputtering and sparking as he rips the weapon arm off by bending it against the joint and creating an opening. After peeling the gun back like a can opener, Gearing starts raining down hoofblows on the sentry bot’s head. But, despite the added mass, and the considerable dents each strike creates, it’s not really doing much in terms of slowing it down as he’s having to focus a considerable amount of strength just to keep it from turning and shooting him.

‘The turpentine!’ the little blue pegasus yells as it starts waving around a giant ‘flammable’ flag.

Gearing uses his sorting spell on his PipBuck by tapping out commands with his tongue, and then quickly grabs the small can from the top of his bag. He tries to use a wing to hold the can, but it simply can’t and he ends up dropping it to the ground. So he has to scoop it up again with a hoof, and in the process the bot starts thrashing around as it starts rotating its torso to try and get an angle on him while still laying on its side, and Gearing’s having to use the whole of his mass and strength to keep it from simply flicking him off and shooting him. Gearing chomps on the top of the cap, and simply bites the entire can open. After getting it open he changes his position and starts pouring the turpentine into the hole that leads into the bot’s circuitry, and all over the weapon, before simply cramming the can into the hole where the right arm had been attached. Then he grabs the head portion of the torso with his forehooves, and starts using his hind legs to kick the inside of the remaining minigun. It keeps shooting, but after a few solid hits the joints loosen up enough that it’s wobbling and not acting right. However, with Gearing changing tactics, the bot is finally able to start spinning its torso around and start getting up. Or trying to anyway. Gearing’s weight is still a problem and the speed at which it gets up is massively hindered. Gearing keeps knocking it off balance as he keeps hitting it in close melee and working on the minigun. After a few more strikes the minigun sags and starts aiming to the ground as the vertical supports have broken entirely and its control system has been damaged to the point of near uselessness.

Having done enough of a job on it, and being worried about more coming out of any of the dozens of panels around him, Gearing jumps off of the downed robot and starts running away as he reactivates his implant. Gearing doesn’t get far before the bot starts spinning its torso again and aims its minigun at him. However, and exactly according to Gearing’s plan, the calibration is off on the mini gun and as it pulls the trigger on him, the mingun fires impotently at the ground far behind Gearing. Regardless of the robots ability to track him, the weapons themselves simply aren’t doing the job.

Seeing its target getting away, the sentry bot gives chase as it keeps shooting. But between the sparking of its damaged limb and the bullets firing, the fumes coming from the turpentine catch fire and the sentry bot turns into a rolling inferno as it chases after Gearing at full speed.

‘Maybe we should have busted up its legs too!’ the little blue pegasus groans as it holds onto its muzzle in disbelief at what’s taking place right behind them.

The bot chases Gearing through the next set of doors and into a new area full of robots and storage again. Shooting at him the entire way. But shortly after getting through the door, the bullets start discharging sporadically and start sounding like popcorn. And they start zipping out at various, unpredictable angles as the sentry bot’s ammunition boxes start overheating and the rounds start going off on their own. A couple of them even impact into the side of the security bot itself. And the sparking and colors of the fire change as the circuitry inside starts burning and very sensitive components start getting the rough treatment. The bot veers off, crashes into a stack of supplies, then keeps on. But the entire time the bullets in its magazines are discharging, as it seems to have forgotten how to let go of the triggers as well. The other bots in the rooms converge on the ruckus and the fire suppressant system kicks on above. But while the protectaponies in this room try to contain the fire, Gearing scrambles up a set of stairs on the right side and tries to get up and away from them as quickly as possible while they are distracted. He no sooner makes it to the to the next level before the remaining ammunition detonates and blows up the majority of the torso of the bot while it sits there and burns, damaging multiple protectaponies and other crates in the process.

Gearing slinks around and spends a tense time trying to find his next area. He’s pretty sure he’s gone the wrong way, but he’s going the right general direction: Away from The Core. But at least with as many bots as there are, they have seemingly lost track of him as he starts trying to back trace to where he’d come in originally. The green line’s practically a death trap. The Core is a death trap, so his only hope is the one way he didn’t want to even try which is just finding a way out randomly. Although he knows it’s not completely hopeless. At some point he’s bound to find another emergency exit trail or something else that’ll lead him out. For now he just needs to stay out of sight and endure.

The bot patrols have picked up and, strangely, he’s found several other robots that have been damaged and destroyed. A good portion of them are so fresh that they are still sparking. Gearing keeps wandering and sneaking through one hallway, office, or work area after another as he tries to find some kind of lead. In one of the rooms that seems the least guarded, he finds a treasure trove of supplies. Scrap electronics. Wire. Fasteners of all kinds. And shelves full of all kinds of adhesives. The maintenance hall is the perfect place for him to simply enjoy existence itself.

Except he’s behind enemy lines, can’t use any of this currently, and the items would simply slow him down if he tried to take it with him. And, again, the medical box in the room provides him with a collection of medical supplies. And, again, the healing potions inside are as putrid as the rest, from prolonged exposure to enervation, but he simply grabs everything and takes it with him this time. Whether he uses it or not is anyone’s guess. But at least it’s something. And he bids a fond farewell to the exceptionally well stocked maintenance bay as he really wishes he can take everything with him. He walks over to the door and gives it one last sweep before he starts heading out.

But then he about faces, runs over to one of the shelves, and grabs a brand new can of turpentine and the couple Wonderglue packages and tosses them in his bag as he grumbles, “I just used the last bit, I might need more later…” Then he turns around and slinks out of the maintenance bay.

The little blue pegasus in his head stares at him with his eyes narrowed and asks flatly, ‘Really? More glue?’

“Shadap,” Gearing mutters as he exits into the hall and continues on his way. He gets excited when he finds another sign saying ‘Emergency exit’ and starts following it. Turn after turn he follows the green glowing signs and the arrows pointing him through the turns, up and down stairs, and through narrow hallways. As he’s trotting through a brightly lit office space, he can’t help but noticing how there’s been a lack of robots recently. He wonders if it has anything to do with getting further away from The Core and if he might be getting close to actually getting out.

The lights flicker over head, and the entire room has a brown out as it fades to dark momentarily. Gearing stops walking, and slowly looks over to his left across the office he’s passing through as a glow caught his attention.

A hiss and a gush of wind reaches his ears as the glow intensifies as the green glowing unicorn rears up and slams down its forehooves. Instantly the group of ghouls that were huddled with it in the office conference room join in with the inequine scream and start scrambling to their hooves as the dome of green magical radiation energy floods over them.

Gearing starts off at a sprint again as they start spilling out and chasing after him around the various tables, and low cubicles. There’s going to be no hiding from them in here. And even if he did, they’d be on him in seconds if he even tried. As he’s reaching the door, only to find it ripped off its hinges, he finds why there are no robots in the room.

They’ve all been destroyed and lay in crumpled heaps in the hallway. The protectaponies. The maintenance hover bots. Several combat variants of the hover bots. And some of them completely unidentifiable because they’ve been converted to magical glowing goop.

As he’s running down the hallway the ghouls are quickly after him. All howling and screaming as they chase after him. Yet, this time it’s different. There seems to be an extra added twisted sneer across their muzzles. A glow in their eyes. Not simply the magical radiation bathing them from the green one that’s keeping up with them. But apparently a kind of hellfire burning hatred. They don’t simply want to kill him, they want to utterly destroy him. And the snapping snarling maws give testament on their chosen method of execution as they keep up with an unending endurance.

Gearing keeps running as quickly as he can, jumping over one crumpled robot wreck or another and leaping over damage that had been done. He keeps looking for more signs of the exit, but again they have disappeared. Again he’s left to his own devices. But this time he has a clear path. A path of death and destruction to follow.

The same one that the ghouls had apparently created on the way in.

And he gets a good look at their handiwork as he charges through a sorting center, and starts scrambling up the stair cases he finds inside. As soon as they cleared the doorway, and resumed a line of sight with him again, the green unicorn threw another ball of green death at him. The staircase near him melts into slag as it misses, but the stairs themselves seem to have their integrity compromised. So he runs up even faster. But in the process of looking down and watching for the next ball of doom to be thrown at him, he sees the other ghouls swarm the protectaponies that had been working in the area and Gearing hadn’t even seen yet. In short order they’ve bashed in the metal and in a couple cases ripped them limb from limb. The protectaponies weren’t exactly helpless. They had inflicted many wounds. In fact, several of the ghouls had gone down.

But then their tactics become clear to Gearing as the green unicorn ghoul simply walked through the group of injured, sent out another dome of green radiation, then continued casually on as the ghouls on the ground picked themselves up off the ground as they knit back together and continued the assault.

‘You know… being on the receiving end of seeing that, I gotta say… that’s really… really… really… unfair…’ the little blue pegasus in Gearings head says as he stares at the ghouls exasperated. ‘How are we supposed to kill shit that can just heal at a rate faster than we can damage them because of their cheating horn headed bullshit?!’

Gearing chuckles aloud as he replies, “The same way anyone with means would take my ass down… Go for the head… And enough times to make sure.”

The little blue pegasus sticks out its tongue in disgust as it groans, ‘We’re going to have to be digging rotten grey matter out of our legs for a while again, like with No Shoes, aren’t we?’

“Can’t be helped.”

‘Oh yes it can, and you know it!’ the little blue pegasus says as it glares at him and waves its forelegs indignantly. ‘Now’s as good a time as any!’

Gearing stops running as he gets to the upper platform, and watches as the ghouls perform a running riot on the robots down below. The bots seem to do little more than slow them down. Even the Sergeant that sprays its flamer in one direction, while sawing another practically in half gets overwhelmed and destroyed. Only for the ghouls to get bathed in a ridiculous amount of radiation and pulling themselves back together again.

“Fuck this,” Gearing says as he lays down at the edge and swings his rifle around. He looks down at the crowd and watches as they clash with the next row of bots. Fearlessly. Like they know they are going to win. They have their own tricks. They are invincible.

With a pop from the rifle, one of the ghouls that had jumped on top of a protectapony collapses in on itself and falls off to the side.

The green unicorn looks over and spews out another wave of radiation. And again, their companions pick themselves up and pull themselves back together.

Except for the one that fell off the protectapony’s back.

The green unicorn hisses and screeches and walks over calmly as it looks at it while the others around it continue fighting. It stops over the ghoul and looks down, gathering up another pulse and sending it out in another display of brilliant green. But, again, the ghoul Gearing shot doesn’t get up. The ghoul reaches out with a foreleg, and pushes it, then grabs it and pulls it near it, and that’s when it sees the gray matter splattered out behind it. It stands frozen as it stares at this, trying to make sense of what’s going on.

Pop. Pop. Pop. More ghouls go down around it, one falling and crashing into it as its body is thrown away from a protectapony that was in the middle of clashing with it. The green glowing ghoul looks over at the protectapony and screeches before it grows brighter and blasts the protectapony nearly point blank with the same green orb it had been using against Gearing earlier.

The protectapony instantly explodes in a shower of molten slag as the ghoul continues to scream at it. The green ghoul looks down at the others around it, and sends another burst of green domed energy out as soon as it can. But this time most of them aren’t getting up. The other ghouls with it, that haven’t fallen, look around and seem just as confused as it is. Then one seemingly sharing eye contact with the green glowing ghoul jerks and flops over to the side as the side of its head explodes outwards.

The green ghoul jerks its head over to the side and up, following the direction of the splatter, and makes hard eye contact with Gearing as he’s sighting down his rifle again. The green ghoul starts glowing brighter and brighter, even more brightly than it had before, and it leans its head back in a massive scream as it rears up. Gearing quickly takes the shot, aiming at its head while its focus isn’t on him but anticipating the head coming back forward soon.

The ghouls head whips forward and though the glow coming from it dims considerably from the expenditure of energy, it sends a massive glowing green ball of magically super heated air right at him. The bullet, heading true to the target, hits the green ball not far from the green glowing unicorn itself. But what comes out the other side isn’t so much a bullet as it is a chewing gum sized blob of molten metal that splats against the ghoul’s side. It hisses and screams as its already burnt and glowing flesh is burnt further and it gets branded by what was once the bullet.

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he sees the ball of energy coming that’s volume is multiple times his own.

‘Oh nutter,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head whimpers as its ears flop down and its lower lip quivers at the sight.

Gearing rolls over to the side, hops up, and jumps clear through the plate glass on the side of the observation deck as he leaps for dear life towards the stair casing he’d come up on. He impacts into the staircase, flips over the top set of railing, and falls down to a lower level set of stairs before rolling over and off the edge of the staircase. He manages to get a grab onto the railing where it had been warped and damaged from the last magical strike, but this does little more than let him get his hind legs under him before he drops straight down the entire length to the floor.

The observation deck, the whole thing, flashes with a brilliant greenish white light as the ball of green glowing energy impacts into and continues through it. The destruction is immense as pretty much everything in its path is either incinerated, melted, or turned to green glowing goop that starts pooling and dribbling down. And there are few exceptions and of those are scorched stone. And the ball had continued on in with the impact like some sort of magical meteor before it detonated and sent a shower of molten metal and green goop flying back out of the hole where the observation desk used to be.

Trying to lessen his impact, Gearing curls up and then kicks the last section of stairwell as he’s passing it. This sends him shooting off away from it, as he basically bucked it, but this gives him the opportunity to tumble with the fall by hitting the ground at an angle and with a considerable amount of horizontal momentum to help offset the fall. Even so, Gearing’s left shoulder strains and screams as he hits the hard concrete. He stows his rifle the best he can before he turns and starts running for the nearest door. He doesn’t like this at all, and the growing developments are becoming an all consuming concern for his ability to last much longer. Like how his left foreleg groans and creaks with each step as he runs.

The ghouls don’t even wait for Gearing to stop tumbling before they begin their pursuit with rage filled inequine screams. The remaining four, glowing green ghoul included, charge after him as he disappears through the doorway and quickly start gaining on Gearing as he’s struggling to get down the hallway.

As he’s being pursued, Gearing keeps looking over his shoulder to see where they are and, more importantly, if that unicorn ghoul is going to throw any more annihilation orbs at him. As Gearing is getting to another sorting room, the lead ghoul gets close enough to jump and grabs a hold of Gearing’s mangled wings. Gearing bursts through the door screaming with the cannibalistic monster on his back as it twists his wings in unnatural shapes as it clamors up for more purchase. As the ghoul bites down on the back of Gearing’s neck, he hears a sound nearby that gives him mixed feelings

“Do you have no respect for government property, you slimy little striped bastard?!”

Gearing glances sideways, then stats spinning around and bucking counter clockwise before suddenly changing direction as the ghoul’s hind legs come off and trail behind like some kind of macabre cape. He grabs the ghouls torso with one leg, and pushes it up and away from him, while it’s still clamped onto his neck and gnawing on him, as the saw blade from the hover bot comes down to strike at Gearing. But he holds the ghoul in between and gives the robot the satisfaction of eviscerating the ghoul and nearly cutting it cleanly in half.

With a good portion of the body no longer holding onto him, Gearing is able to scrape the ghoul off of him the rest of the way by jumping into the hover bot as it slashes wildly at the pair. And after the ghoul has been knocked off of him, by an overly zealous strike to the head that takes off a large portion of its skull while it’s still trying to bite through Gearing’s neck, the other ghouls start closing in. Gearing ducks and rolls passed the hover bot, dodging the flame it starts unleashing as well as the additional slashes of the quickly whirring saw. One of the other ghouls jumps on the hover bot, drawing all of its attention, and learning the unfortunate lesson that the tactic that it was used to isn’t nearly as effective with so few numbers. The bot grabs hold of the ghoul with its pincer, mostly severing its foreleg in the process, hits it point blank with its flame, brings its saw up from underneath and starts opening it up like a bloody letter for its insides to get thrown on the floor, as its magical weapon fires into the side of it. The creature becomes the unfortunate demonstration dummy for why these models of combat drones can be so dangerous, especially to unarmored opponents.

And, wanting to make sure the party doesn’t start cooling down anytime soon, as the bot is ripping the ghoul to pieces, Gearing apple bucks the robot towards the other two still standing ghouls. He can already see the growing amount of sickly green light and he’s not sure which the ghoul is going to throw out, but Gearing figures whichever it is, it’s better for the bot to take the brunt of it than for him.

And because he’s had quite enough of this whole situation, as soon as the bot’s body gets knocked towards the ghouls, Gearing takes off at a run again. And because cool ponies don’t look at explosions, he doesn’t bother looking back as he hears the fighting pick up and sees the growing green glow illuminate the walls around them all.

As he’s running, he finally realizes that he’s in some sort of small package sorting facility, almost like a mailroom, and that in all likelihood there’s going to be a lot of areas for him to get to and hide. But, for now, he’s got to get away from that green glowing menace and the murder bot. It doesn’t matter which one wins. Either way, it’s going to be bad for him. Especially if the fight is decided too soon. So he beats feet as quickly as he can. His left shoulder starts tweaking and he actually has to start watching how he’s running as the shoulder itself seems to want to simply come apart at the seams.

He lowers his speed down to a trot, and pushes his way into another storage area, this one seems to be where skids of smaller boxes are put together and either sorted out from here, or packaged up and shipped elsewhere. There are stacks of small boxes sitting on wooden pallets all over and they are laid out in a variety of grids. Again, there’s some sort of sorting system with numbers painted onto the ground at their base. But most of the boxes are wrapped up tightly with shipping plastic that helps keep them safely together during transit. However, there’s so many he ends up walking into another maze.

He hopes he can sneak by, and maybe find another way to get out of here, but his options are quickly evaporating from him. This one doesn’t seem to have as much bot traffic, so hopefully it’s low enough security that they won’t bother. Or, perhaps, they are all off dealing with other concerns. Gearing hears what sounds like conveyor belts running on the far side of the room and starts working his way that way. Hoping that there will be an exit around the conveyor belts. As he’s walking that way, one slow step at a time, his left leg gets worse by the second. It’s not simply sliding and moving like it should normally, but shifting outwards like it’s trying to fall off on its own. He even uses his right foreleg and pulls the shoulder in towards himself, and grunts and groans as it does indeed shift. After enough pressure something gives and breaks, letting the shoulder sink into its normal position.

Gearing stumbles and leans against a skid of boxes as he rests his head against the plastic sheeting. “My shoulder’s not supposed to pop out of sprocket like that… damn this is messed up…” He steps around the pallet he’d been leaning against and starts walking further towards the sound of the moving conveyor belts.

“Alert: noncombatants are advised to leave the area… security sweep in progress… Lethal force may be used without warning…” an echoey robotic voice states from the same direction of the conveyor belt noise.

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he freezes solid. However, the conveyor belt noise continues, and, as he’s looking down the hall, he sees a familiar set of limbs come into view that are held aloft by roller balls. Gearing quickly steps back and zips around the stack of boxes on the pallet right next to him as the Sentry bot comes into view. Gearing peeks around, and watches as the bot turns the other way, and starts slowly going away from him. He breathes a sigh of relief as he realizes it’s just on a standard patrol and nothing more. If he watches it long enough he’ll figure out the pattern of its movements and will be able to slip by it without any problem.

A sound like a deep sucking in noise draws his attention behind him; and Gearing turns around quickly to see what decided to throw a wrench in his plans. And he instantly recoils back into the stack of boxes.

The green glowing ghoul starts slowly walking down the foot path, staring right as him, as its mouth is twisted in a rage filled snarl. The ghoul’s body is increasing in its green glow as it seems to be charging up for something. Something malicious.

Gearing steps to the side, away from the boxes and more out into the walkway as he stares down the green glowing ghoul. After side stepping into the hallway, the ghoul seems pleased by the apparent challenge and almost seems to smile.

Time practically stops as Gearing activates SATS

What the fuck you got against me, you horny bitch?! What the fuck did I ever do to you?! Gearing mentally bellows. Who pissed in your Sugar Apple Bombs?!

‘The same thing we’ve ever done: exist,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head groans as it quickly looks between the green glowing abomination in front of him and the sentry bot behind him. ‘Stuck between a rock and a hard place…’

Well I’m tired of playing around!

The little blue pegasus starts casually tossing a couple of the cube dice before he asks with a sinister smile, ‘Shall we play a game?’

Only if they’re loaded…

‘Like you can’t twist it to more suit your needs in the first place.’ He tosses the dice up in the air and sits down as he manically grins, ‘Let’s see how they fall!’

Gearing uses his sorting enchantment to use a thrown weapon, like he would a fragmentation apple, but this one’s no grenade. He queues up the target.

Target Select:

Select Attack Point:

Ninety percent chance of success.

Confirm. Confirm.

While under the effect of the spell, and still mostly looking at the ghoul, a small glass bulb pops out of his bag as he grabs it, and in slow motion he turns and whips it towards his chosen target. And the moment the glass strikes the surface, it instantly shatters and Gearing drops the remaining charge of SATS and quickly pulls back to where he’d been standing originally.

The rancid potion vial that Gearing had thrown strikes the back of the sentry bot with a resounding clang. Sending the disgusting liquid all over its back and making quite the racket.

As Gearing is turning back around and getting into position, he turns to look at the green glowing ghoul and his ears flop down as he sees the growing energy amassing around the ghoul’s head. At this distance it’s become quite clear. She’s pissed at him. She’s lost all of her friends. Her whole herd. And she’s going to make him suffer with magical death. Her color grows and grows as she starts tilting her head back, but keeping an eye on him to make sure she doesn’t miss this time. He’s close enough, and boxed in because of all of the supplies, so his movement options are limited. And they both know it.

“Alert: Hostile detected, commencing neutralization… Weapons free.”

The sentry bot starts rolling down the walkway, coming back the way it had come. The broken glass got its attention and when it spun around to see what had hit it, the only thing it could see was the ghoul as Gearing had made sure to use the boxes to stay out of its line of sight.

The ghoul’s head turns slightly as it takes its eyes off of Gearing, to look in front of it. It snarls as it sees the sentry bot closing in and, just as the sentry bot starts shooting with its miniguns, the green glowing ghoul thinks better of who is the more dangerous threat at the moment. She whips her head forward and hurls the massive energy it had been building up straight down the lane towards the security bot. Gearing stumbles to the side, and scampers over and around more to get as far away from that green ball of death as he can. And his panic is instantly vindicated as the cardboard boxes instantly burst into flame as the orb passes. They don’t even have to touch the orb for them to be incinerated, burnt, or warped. And the orb, while not as big as the one she’d thrown at him after he’d shot her friends, is still large enough to fill the entire width of the walkway.

The robot, having already started shooting, and having no reason to stop, continues to unload with both of its miniguns at the ghoul as it slowly rolls towards her. But the bullets are all mostly incinerated from the heat as they pass through the ball’s dead center with only small bits of slag making it through and doing little more than annoying her.

And just like last time, as soon as she unleashed the energy, her body grew considerably dim. The ghoul lets out a shriek of rage as she grows dimmer and her attack is on the way. And then, before the orb even strikes the sentry bot, because she obviously already knows what’s going to happen once it does, she starts turning her head to pay attention to Gearing, and to finally finish him off.

And her eyes go wide as she stares right down the barrel of Gearing’s rifle.

As soon as she’d unleashed her spell, and he was sure where the ball was headed, Gearing activated SATS again and used it to not only pull out his rifle, but aim it at the ghoul. And just as she started turning her head to look at him, Gearing fires his two shots. The first one actually misses his intended target, despite his high probability of success, and instead hits the ghoul’s horn, blowing a huge semicircle out of it as the bullet partially bounces off the bone but still continues through it. The damage causes a burst of green energy coming from it as she had obviously already started building up another charge to unleash on him. But the second bullet strikes true.

Right into her left eye socket.

As time resumes the sentry bot is consumed by the magical ball of death, instantly exploding as the circuitry is melted and burnt and the temperatures rise rapidly to the point that the ammo detonates and blows molten slag all over the sorting department, the ghouls head opens up and sprays the pallets of cargo behind her with green glowing chunky material as her hiss gets cut off mid tone. Then her body slumps over to the side.

The dice fall flat from the sky with their predetermined numbers showing straight up. ‘Double box cars, two for one…’ the little pegasus in his head comments as he looks at the dice. ‘If you can’t find an opening… make one.’

“Nothing like making your enemies help you kill them,” Gearing comments as he walks forward and looks over the ghoul’s corpse.

‘Think it’s dead? Like dead dead?’ the little blue pegasus asks as he starts rattling the dice around again. “Wanna roll the dice on that one?”

“No… I really don’t” He lifts his leg as he aims it over the ghoul’s head, but pauses. “Wait…” He kneels down and starts looking the glowing ghoul over. The radiation coming from the corpse is steady and ridiculous, even with it down and apparently out. So he’s not sure if that’s an after effect, or simply another sign that she’s going to be back up soon. He uses a hoof and gently lifts her face up to look at him. As he’s staring at her, he starts carefully looking over her features. Even as misshapen and cracked as they are. He tries to imagine it like some sort of weird caked on makeup, picturing the outer part as just nothing but a disguise.

‘Oh don’t tell me,’ the little blue pegasus practically moans as he drops the dice.

His mind jumps to a picture of a mare dressed up as a cow, with a happy little cowpony colt next to her. And after staring at her for a few more moments, the comparison and likeness is unmistakable. Especially with the cheekbones and eye brow ridge. “Yeah… it’s her…” He gently lays her head back down as he groans. “Fuck, and here I was worried about smashing her coffee cup.”

‘She was probably mad that we hurt her family…’ the little blue pegasus says as it decidedly tries to avoid eye contact with anything.

“Yeah, that’s probably the reason. And the reason they got hurt in the first place doesn’t even matter… family is family… and I made her watch as I slaughtered hers right before her eyes.” Gearing slaps a forehoof over his face as he groans. “I’m a real bastard to caring mothers, aren’t I? My own… this lady…”

The little blue pegasus, whether in agreement, or attempting to disagree via disregarding the question, doesn’t even reply.

“Yup, a real fucking piece of work, that’s what I am,” Gearing grumbles before stepping over, and delivering a quick downward stomp that caves in her skull completely and makes his PipBuck squeal from all of the rads he’s just been exposed to. He quickly starts walking away as he groans, “It’ll catch up to me eventually… Finally… It’s got to…”

‘Everyone’s reckoning comes eventually, and we’re waaaay past due for ours,’ the little blue pegasus in his head says with a sigh as he rattles around the dice. ‘Eventually it’s going to be our number coming up.’

“What’d I tell you about that hope shit?” Gearing grumbles as he starts angling towards a door frame he sees in the back corner. But before he gets too far he hears a mechanical grinding from nearby, and looks over in time to see one of the panels set into the walls pop out and start lifting up. And he turns his head the other way in time to see yet another panel open.

Footnote: !!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

Please Stand By. . .

--=ERROR=--

Please Stand By. . .