Author's Note

Decided to rewrite chapter 1&2, not sure if I’ll do more or leave the rest

New chapter art drawn by V-nuz, please go shower them in upvotes and favorites https://derpibooru.org/images/2996649

First story i've ever written, likely to maker a few mistakes, but it should be fun.

Discord where I post updates and art
https://discord.gg/uuB6jjM9hA

Chapter 1: The Ranger (rewritten)

Ash slowly opened her eyes and stared up at the gunmetal gray ceiling of her “cell.” The closet that was emptied out for her to stay in. As she lay on the floor and stared up she went over in her mind how she got to where she is, she went back to when she was a scribe and decided to change to a knight. She remembered how she towered over everyone else, she had always been a big mare. The scribes had to build a whole new Type 45 suit for her, then eventually Type 51 when she became Paladin.

She then remembered how she became a Paladin. It had taken her years to finally get an above ground mission. She was tasked with helping a scribe and a paladin get to an old factory so they could get some above field experience.

***

“How long till we get there?” Ash asked while looking along the ditch.
The Paladin beside her sighed
“You can see the building we are going to if you would look up.”

Ash looked up from the ditch to see an old, crumbling Ironshod Factory. As they got closer she could see the concrete crumbling away to reveal rusted metal rods which once held the concrete together.

As they neared the front doors the Paladin told them to stop
“There will be security robots and turrets inside. Scribe stay behind the Knight, Knight you stay behind me. Got it?”
“Yes Paladin!” Ash replied excitedly.

The Paladin kicked open the doors and leveled his missile launcher and minigun forward for any resistance. When none came he lowered them and looked back.

“Must not have activated yet, careful with what you touch or you will activate them”

He turned back and started to walk inside. Ash followed while looking at every bit of the factory. The cracked tile floors were once a beautiful shiny grey, now nearly black from years of dust. Her eyes traveled up the walls following the many cracks in the drywall and paint. The paint was once a lively white, now turned yellow from age.

“So what are we looking for Paladin?” Ash asked while looking at the walls.

“We’re not looking for anything specifically. You two need more fieldwork before you can get promoted.”

They make their way into an assembly area where a
Mister Handy floated over to them.

“Welcome, do you have your Employee ID?” The Handy asked with a claw stretched out and open.
The Paladin walked forward
“No we uh.. lost them. Yea lost them.” He said as he started spinning the barrels of his minigun, ready to fire.

“All employees have been warned to wear Employee IDs at all times or it could be fatal.” The Mister Handy stated as it raised an arm which carried a miniature flamethrower.

Alarms started to go off and sections of walls slid out of the way around then revealing Robronco Sentinels. The sentinels started to power on and roll forward out of the hidden sections of the walls as the Paladin’s minigun began to fire. Most of the lead just bounced harmlessly off their frontal armor and into the walls around them.

Ash shoved the scribe back through the door they came from. The Paladin started backing up while still firing his minigun. His minigun clicked and he slammed the door shut then started running alongside Ash and the scribe while reloading the minigun’s drum.

They ran up several flights of stairs and through the office section of the building, dodging more Robronco security robots as they went. They reached a door marked CEO and went inside then barricaded the door with whatever they could move.

“So much for not angering the bots.” Ash said between pants.
“Shut up. Scribe check the terminal on the desk, see if you can shut everything down.” The Paladin said while checking his ammo reserves.

The scribe walked over to the desk and moved a body off of the terminal using magic and set it on the ground.

“Terminal is busted, might be one where the bots go to recharge.” The Scribe said while pulling out every drawer.
“That’s a good way to die.” Ash said as she went through some books on shelves which went along all sides of the room.

The Paladin took off his helmet and rubbed his head.
“No other way out of here unless you want to jump out the window.”
Ash looked over at the Scribe.
“Doesn’t our armor protect us from falling? If the Scribe can levitate himself we can get out.”
The scribe looked down nervously and kicked at the worn and faded red carpet.
“I uh.. can’t levitate anything bigger than a terminal.”
The Paladin rubbed his eyes and muttered to himself.
“Goddesses damnit.”

The Paladin puts his helmet back on and checks his weapons.
“Then we have to fight our way out, make sure your weapons are loaded.”
Ash looked over her weapons before saying.
“I’m loaded, I don’t think the scribe should go with us out there.”
The Paladin looked at the scribe then back to ash before speaking.
“It’s the only way out. Before we do, what are your names, I am Paladin Fire Hoof.”
Ash looked to Fire before saying.
“Ash Blossom.”
She then looked to the scribe.
“I’m Shadow Mane.”

Paladin Fire went to the door and tried to look through a dirty window in it.
“Cant see anything but the alarms are still going.”
Scribe Shadow pulls an energy pistol from his flank and floats it close to his head while keeping the emitter towards the ground as he goes to the door.

Paladin Fire fully opened the door and went out, Fire and Ash could see a lot of red ticks on their EFS, the compass was almost completely red.

The Paladin and Knight went down the hall, Scribe Shadow stayed behind them. They checked doors as they walked but the offices on that floor were strangely empty. They made their way back to the stairs, an orange light was rotating on the wall, a speaker was below it blaring the alarm.

Fire let off a short burst from his minigun until the speaker stopped emitting noise. Ash spoke up as they continued their way down the stairs.

“Are we just leaving or are we still trying to find the schematics?”

“We will look in the manufacturing floor, if nothing is there then we are leaving.” Paladin Fire replied as they got to a door.

He opened it and was greeted with a large robot who spun to look at him. He shouted and jumped back through the door as the robot fired a minigun mounted to it’s arm.

“Fucking Sentinels!”

He backed up enough for Ash to have a clear shot of the door for when it tried to come through. The giant robot rolled through the doorway, knocking the door off its hinges. Ash and Fire let loose with their miniguns before it had a chance to fire it’s own. It exploded in sparks after they hit it’s talismans somewhere inside it’s middle section. Scribe Shadow looked inside the robot's middle then it’s arms, pulling ammunition out, as well as a spark battery. He gives a missile to Fire and some 5mm to Ash before pocketing the battery.

Fire goes through the door and looks around, he signals it’s clear then Ash follows him though, Shadow following close behind.

“We should look for a security terminal and see if we can shut down the alarms.” Ash suggested while looking through a broken door into an office.

“Unless you have a map it’ll be easier to just grab what we came for and go.” Shadow said behind her

Ash went into an office and started to go through drawers looking for anything important. Shadow went in after her and sat in the chair and started trying to hack a terminal, fire stood by the door while looking out into the hallway.

“Is this really the time to be reading emails scribe?” Fire asked while making sure nothing snuck up behind them.

“There’s nothing around here and there could be something important since it’s a work terminal, besides I’m already in.”

Fire stayed quiet as he read, Ash moved onto another desk after only finding some old papers that were not important.

“Hey Fire, there’s a hidden file here.” Shadow said excitedly.

“Well what is it then?”

Shadow skimmed it before replying. “This place was selling shit to the zebras, the pony here was talking with someone else about reporting to the MoM about it.”

“Hmm could explain why there are sentinels here, usually it’s just Handies and Ponytrons, anything else?”

Ash came back to them with a folder on her back.
“Found a technical document, no clue what it is.”

Shadow took it with his magic and looked through it.
“Eh it’s one we have but we should take it anyway.”

Fire went back out into the hallway and looked down the row of doors. “We aren’t searching all these, we’ve already wasted enough time.”

“Yea yea but the email mentioned a managers office on floor two, said there could be zebra items there and they were going to try and sneak in.” Shadow said while he checked the energy cell in his laser pistol.

Fire made his way back to the stairway and went down, he skipped floor three and went straight down to level two. Ash stayed beside him while having her armor reload her weapons.

Alarms got louder as they got to the door for floor two, Fire went up to the door and as he reached for the handle it bursts open and a Handy smacked a buzz saw to his helmet, Fire ducked below it and shoved it up and into the ceiling as his minigun spun up.

The Handy hit the floor then floated back up to eye level and spun to point it’s flamer at him but was thrown against a wall by a shower of lead.

Fire and Ash went out into the hallway to find two Sentinels staring them down. Ash fired 40mm grenades at them while Fire let loose a missile, both fell and a third fired their missile launcher at Fire’s back, sending him across the hallway, ash spun and saw bolts of red laser flying at the giant robot.

The sentinel started to fire it’s minigun at Shadow who was hiding in the stairwell, while it was distracted she let loose with her 5mm minigun.

The robot turned to look at her and she finished it with a grenade, Shadow ran past her and to where Fire was thrown to. Ash turned to look at them, Fire was getting up despite the scribe’s protests.

“You need to stay still till your armor can fully heal you.” He said while he opened his rear panel and poured a healing potion into his medical unit.

“We don’t have the time for this shit, there’s going to be more of them and I can run off a Med-X.” He grunted through the pain.

“Do you know how much that can ruin your muscles and nerves?” Shadow said while trying to push Fire back to the ground but failing to.

He started to walk down the hallway again and around a corner, Ash noticed he was limping. She rounded the corner with him to see a door at the end of a hall, more doors lined the hall, probably more offices.

They made their way to the door and went inside. The room looked a lot like the office they first ran to get away from the bots. Ash wondered if every floor had one of these rooms.

Shadow went to the desk and started going through a terminal that sat on it.

“More hidden files on this one, a few include how much they were getting from dealing with the stripes.” Shadow said as his magic went across the keyboard.

“I can shut down the lockdown but for some reason only on this level, nothing else important here.” He clicked a button and the alarms stopped blaring outside the room.

Fire went out into the hallway while talking. “The manufacturing floor likely is multiple stories, if it is connected to this floor maybe it also stopped in there.”

Ash followed him out of the room. “Doubt it, why are we going there? Wouldn’t anything important be in a higher up’s office?”

Fire made his way to the stairs while he replied. “There might be some ammunition there and spark batteries, both are important.”

Shadow ran up to them as they just left him in the office. “I think we should just leave, we haven’t found much so far other than a schematic we already have in our collection.”

Fire looked back, he sounded annoyed. “We are not going back with nothing, do you know how bad that would look for us?”

Shadow’s ears folded back and he looked towards the ground. “Y-yea sorry.”

All three made it back to level one, they could hear alarms again. Ash and Fire went into the hall looking for more bots, after seeing nothing signaled Shadow then they made their way towards an industrial sliding door.

Fire went to the door and pressed the button to move it, with a hiss the door slid into the ceiling and floor. An explosive hit him in the chest sending him into a wall, the ceiling above him collapsed.

Ash started firing grenades into the doorway, they bounced off the frame before exploding. Shadow ran over to Fire and started pulling rubble off of him the best he could without armor.

Ash went to the door and smacked the control panel to close it then went to Fire, she got under a large chunk that was pinning him and lifted up. Shadow pulled Fire out and pulled his helmet off.

Ash lowered the rubble slowly so more wouldn’t fall onto them. Shadow looked up at her.

“He’s gone, we need to go back.”

Ash went to him and crouched down so Shadow could get him onto her back, some of her servos whined from the extra weight.

The sliding door Ash sealed exploded out of it’s track and a Handy floated through the smoke and started firing it’s 10mm gun at them. Ash shoved Shadow towards the reception area and fired grenades at it then retreated.

They rounded a corner and a Ponytron smacked it’s hoof into Shadow's chest, Shadow flew back into Ash, she heard a loud crack and he let out a loud wheeze as air escaped his lungs.

Ash spooled up her minigun then fired it into the ponytron’s head as it walked to them, it’s head exploded and dorks went everywhere as it’s internals were destroyed.

Ash stood up and tossed the injured scribe onto her back and went out the door.