Back to the Past 01: Grave New World

The stillness of the night was shattered by the roar of engines and screech of tires as a convoy of vehicles surrounded the warehouse headquarters of Iggy's Army. Armed gnolls and minotaurs poured out, weapons brandished with savage glee.

But it was the dragon that presented a new threat. Though not a large specimen among dragons, it was easily a head taller than any of the minotaur bulls when it stood upright on its hind legs. Its gray scales were like brushed steel, its eyes red-orange with vertical pupils, and wisps of smoke escaped from its long and toothy muzzle.

Inside, the alarm was spread quickly. "To arms!" Heftig bellowed, rallying the rebels.

Caught sleeping, Cloud jolted awake, flailed for a moment before getting on her feet, then struggled into her armor, fitted her stunner and joined the others rushing to barricade doors and windows. Before they could fully secure the entrances, syndicate enforcers started firing shots into the building, smashing windows and lobbing crude explosives inside.

"Take cover!" Topaz yelled amid the blasts and bullets. The rebels ducked behind makeshift barriers as shards of glass and wood flew.

At one of the warehouse's loading bays a roll-up door suddenly glowed red, then bright orange and disintegrated in a burst of dragon fire. The improvised barricade meant to reinforce the door was dispatched just as easily. Pressing the attack, syndicate goons swarmed through the breaches, firing pistols and swinging spiked clubs.

The battle raged, with the Iron Syndicate's initial shock tactics giving them the upper hand. Iggy's Army found themselves facing a terrifying new foe in the form of the dragon, its presence alone causing many to falter. "Where did they even get a dragon?" Topaz wondered out loud.

The dragon, with a voice like grinding stone, taunted them. "You'll all burn, fools!" It breathed gouts of flame, setting parts of the warehouse ablaze and forcing the defenders to scatter. Several of Topaz's throwing stars bounced off its scaly hide, but the dragon seemed not to notice.

Cloud tried to dart in and attack with a stunner, but a blast of fire breath forced her to turn aside, then she was brutally swatted away by its tail. Heftig grabbed her and pulled her back a safe distance.

Nitro, spotting his chance, yelled out, "Throwing grenade!" He lobbed it directly at the dragon's feet, where it exploded with a bright flash and a deafening bang and knocked the dragon back a couple of meters.

The dragon roared in irritation, momentarily blinded and disoriented. "Dung! That won't save you!" it bellowed, shaking its head to clear the spots from its vision.

"Heftig, we need to focus our attacks on the dragon!" Cloud shouted, picking herself up and rejoining the fray.

Heftig nodded and rallied the rebels. "Concentrate fire on the dragon! Walter, hit it with foam to slow it down!"

Handy Walter wielded the sticky foam gun with surprising skill, aiming a stream of the cream-colored substance at the dragon's legs and belly. The foam expanded on contact, hardening and restricting its movements.

The dragon growled in frustration, flailing. "What kind of trick is this? This won't stop me!" it snarled, trying to pull through the foam with raw strength, but it was slowed.

"Topaz! Hit the dragon with spells!" Cloud shouted over the chaos.

Topaz, with a determined look, conjured a unique spell she had developed over years of hazardous work. Her horn glowed electric blue as she called out, "Circuit Bind!"

Shimmering electrical circuits materialized in the air, darting and weaving around the dragon like serpents. With a flick of her horn, the circuits snapped tight around the dragon's limbs, glowing with an ethereal blue light. The beast roared, smoke curling from its nostrils as the circuits sent jolts of electricity through its massive body, causing it to flinch and shudder.

The dragon struggled, its movements growing sluggish and disjointed. When it tried to breathe fire, the circuits tightened, sending even stronger jolts that made its breath sputter and falter.

Topaz grinned fiercely. "Let's see how you handle a short-circuit, big guy!"

As the rebels concentrated their efforts on the dragon, the Iron Syndicate thugs continued their relentless assault. A few defenders were struck by bullets on their body armor, leaving painful welts but thankfully not penetrating. The rebels returned fire with their own weapons, slowly whittling down the attackers' numbers.

Handy Walter continued to wield the sticky foam gun, waving its stream almost like a magic wand, and some of the thugs appeared quite fearful of the bizarre weapon they'd never seen before. However, its ammunition canisters were limited, and he would have to make every shot count.

Cloud leapt into the fray, her stunner crackling as she engaged the syndicate enforcers in close quarters combat. Her agility and skill allowed her to evade most of their attacks while delivering precise strikes of her own. Nearby, Nitro and Heftig fought back-to-back, their teamwork and determination keeping the enemy at bay.

Despite the rebels' valiant efforts, the Iron Syndicate's numbers seemed endless. For every thug that fell, two more seemed to take their place. The dragon, though tired and wounded by the electrical attacks, eventually struggled free from the foam, its roars and flames adding to the chaos of the battle.

Cloud darted out from cover and stunned two thugs before a club grazed her shoulder. Hissing in pain, she spun and bucked the attacker back. "Fall back to the central room!" she shouted to the others.

The rebels retreated as instructed, defending the hallway against the invaders. A minotaur thug charged Nitro, who rolled aside and zapped him with his stunner. The minotaur staggered but kept coming, forcing Nitro to continuously shock him until he finally collapsed.

Reaching the central room, the rebels took up positions behind stacked crates and machinery. Heftig barked orders, directing their defense as the enemy pressed their assault. Cloud and Nitro flapped up to the catwalk. Although the warehouse had a number of internal partition walls, there was no real ceiling. Instead there was a high roof with exposed ductwork, conduits and a metal catwalk from which much of the building's interior could be observed. From here they could track intruders and lob grenades freely.

A gnoll charged in ahead of his squad firing a pistol, most of the shots going wild, but Briar yelped with pain and lost his footing. Topaz dragged the earth pony to safety then returned fire with a magical bolt, her aim precise as always.

From their loft Cloud and Nitro lobbed stun grenades strategically, disrupting the attacks of the invaders. Nitro scramble down the catwalk and dropped a grenade on some gnolls that tried to get behind Heftig. "I've got your six, boss!" she called to the griffin.

"Appreciated!" Heftig replied, jabbing her weapon at another foe.

Some attackers tried to fire weapons or throw crude projectiles upward at the catwalk, but their aim was terrible. Aside from Topaz's magic, Cloud reflected, standards of marksmanship were atrocious on both sides of this battle. She was sorely tempted to drop her pegasus disguise and unleash her own spells, but things didn't seem that desperate just yet.

The initial frenzied assault started to wane as the rebels held their ground, felling more syndicate attackers with stunners and gas pellets. However, ammunition was dwindling.

"We can't keep this up forever," Nitro said worriedly. "We need a plan."

Cloud surveyed the room, eyes settling on a suspended cargo platform. "Nitro, help me lower that platform on top of the doorway to block them. Heftig, have everyone fall back to the sleeping quarters and barricade it—we'll make our stand there."

Heftig nodded. "You heard her, move it!" The rebels disengaged and retreated further while Nitro and Cloud lowered the platform, barricading the doorway. They rejoined the others in the sleeping area just as a fresh wave of attackers reached it, pounding against the closed metal door.

"Here they come again," Topaz said, taking aim at the doorway with Heftig and Walter, who by this time had dropped his empty foam gun and taken a pistol from a downed gnoll. The pounding stopped as muffled voices could be heard outside.

Suddenly a thunderous crash came as the syndicate thugs rammed the door with a makeshift battering ram, deforming it. A second crash followed and the hinges started giving way.

"Brace yourselves!" Heftig shouted. At the third crash, the door burst open and enforcers poured in, opening fire indiscriminately. The rebels returned fire, dropping several while taking cover behind bunks. Walter yelped as a shot grazed his leg. Topaz pulled him to safety and continued firing, dropping two more foes.

An enforcer targeted Nitro, forcing him to dive and roll to avoid the barrage. Coming up behind his attacker, Nitro zapped him with his stunner, then battered with his hooves for good measure. "Scratch one more!" he called out.

The rebel's accurate fire kept the attackers at bay, but they were out of grenades. Even Cloud's stunner had become weak, its battery running down. Heftig picked up a club dropped by one of the attackers and flung it back at an enforcer, knocking his weapon away. Cloud battered two more with her wings while kicking a third back through the doorway.

"Fall back to the showers!" Cloud instructed. As the rebels disengaged, Topaz telekinetically dumped bunks and debris to barricade the doorway. The rebels took up positions in the shower room, listening to the syndicate thugs struggling to get through.

"Nice work Cloud, but we're down to our last few shots here," Heftig said.

Cloud nodded grimly. "When they break through, we go hoof-and-claw and use whatever we can as weapons. Fight smart—target their weapons first. We can still win this!"

The rebels tensed as the barricade started to give way. With a final crash, the enforcers burst into the shower room with a roar. Dodging gunfire, Cloud closed into melee range and disarmed one thug, yanking his weapon away with her teeth, then battered and zapped another with a wing-stunner. Around her, the other rebels followed suit, grappling enemies and turning their weapons against them.

Heftig clawed the face of a minotaur enforcer then wrenched away his heavy club, using it to bash other attackers. Nearby, Topaz magically plucked a pistol from one attacker and fire it back at them, while Walter, sitting on the floor with his injured leg stretched before him, emptied his own pistol at another.

The Iron Syndicate had enough. Their numbers finally depleted, they began to pull back, and their retreating forces took most, but not all, of their fallen with them.

Soon the rebels stood panting amidst the carnage. They were battered and worn, but victorious.

"We… We did it!" Nitro exclaimed.

"You all fought bravely today," Heftig said proudly. She turned to Cloud. "And you proved yourself a warrior—and a leader."

Cloud smiled wearily. "We all stood together. That's what it took." Her smile faded as she looked around, though.

They'd survived, but there were more than a few injuries among the crew. Briar's bullet had been stopped by armor, though it left a nasty bruise. Some others were in no condition to fight anymore. Walter's leg injury didn't look too serious, but it was bleeding and needed attention. Topaz was already casting basic first-aid spells of the sort that most unicorns could do. I should do that too, Cloud thought to herself. Yet, she'd made it this far without revealing that she was an alicorn, or her true identity.

Her indecision was resolved when Heftig said, "We've got some fires burning, thanks to that plucking dragon. Everybody who's able, let's get on that now! It'll be a pyrrhic victory if our HQ burns down."

Cloud nodded and moved to join the impromptu fire brigade.

When the fires were extinguished and the battered gang were binding their wounds and securing the Iron Syndicate gnolls who'd been left behind, Heftig strutted. "We've broken their power tonight," she asserted. "After this, you better believe the toughs, like those gnolls, will see which way the wind is blowing, and they'll start defecting to us. We'll only grow stronger, and the Iron Syndicate will fall apart. Pretty soon we'll be running the lower levels. Iggy's Army will be running the rackets down here, and raking in the kopins."

A few ragged cheers went up, but then Cloud said, "Wait, what? What do you mean, we'll be running the rackets?"

Heftig looked at her and shrugged. "What did you think all this was for?"

Cloud took a step closer and said, "I thought we were going to get the Iron Syndicate off the people's backs, not take their place as the new crime lords."

The griffin seemed taken aback for a moment. "What, you mean out of the goodness of our hearts? Risk our necks and take our lumps for a warm fuzzy feeling and the gratitude of the gutter trash? That don't pay the bills, hon!"

For a moment Cloud gawped, staring as though seeing Heftig for the first time. "What about…? What about the Empire? What about Sceleste?"

Heftig waved her arm dismissively. "Empress Sceleste ain't got nothing to worry about. We'll see the Commissars get their cut from the take, and nobody causes trouble with the spaceport and the aliens. That's all Sceleste cares about down here, and we'll see that she gets it."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this. What about Insane Iggy? He wanted to rise up against Sceleste."

Heftig squawked a laugh. "Yah, and that's why he was called insane, I already told you that." She took a couple of steps closer to Cloud and said, in a softer tone, "Kid… It's clear to me that your mama never explained to you the basic facts of life." The griffin held up a pair of talons and went on, "There's two kinds of people in this world. There's givers, and there's takers. Takers get the honey, and givers sing the blues. That's how things work in the real world, not in fairy tales, you dig?"

The unicorn, Topaz, chimed in, "And we're all sick and tired of being givers and singing the blues. That's why we're here."

Cloud glanced around the room for a moment, trying to reconcile the comradery she'd known with this group and her own fundamental misunderstanding of their motives. "What about your friends and neighbors? Remember them?"

Heftig chuckled. "After this, everybody's gonna want to be our friends. You just wait and see!" But during this moment her ears perked up, and she frowned, puzzled, and looked up toward the ceiling. "What's that buzzing?"

The others paused what they were doing and followed her gaze, looking at the ceiling. "Those sound like chopperoids," Nitro opined. "Lots of 'em."

"Let's get some eyes up there!" Heftig growled.

"On it!" Nitro said, and flapped his way up to a high window and peered out into the darkness. He called down, "It's pretty murky out there, but I can hear 'em for sure. Are they trying to keep anyone from flying outta here? Wait, there's something else going on!"

After a few moments a faint mechanical sound was heard, but it quickly grew louder. It sounded like dozens of giant shears or scissors continually working.

Heftig took a reflexive step back. "No! It can't be. They wouldn't… Why would they bring those things?"

Cloud had never heard any sound like this before. "What things?" she wondered.

"Those sound like the Empire's destroyer beetle drones," Heftig clarified. "I've seen them before, and I hoped I never would again. Get ready, everyone! If they're here, they intend to wipe us out."

The buzzing sound of the chopperoids hovering outside was punctuated by the shearing of metal as the destroyer beetle drones began cutting through the exterior walls of the warehouse. Shrieking noises of rending metal echoed as the drones started carving large holes to breach the building.

"Get back!" Heftig yelled. "We need to fall back to the living quarters, it's the most defensible spot!"

The rebels retreated, doing their best to avoid falling debris as more chunks of the outer walls were sliced free and crashed inward.

When the first drones broke through they immediately oriented on the nearest obvious target: Heftig. Two drones charged straight toward the griffin. She raised her shock stick but the crackling tip glanced off the drone's armor plating without any effect.

"Weapons are useless against these things!" Topaz cried while hitting the drones with a spell that seemed to merely disorient them for a few precious seconds.

Cloud was just getting her first good look at these machines, aside from the one she'd seen out in the wilderness in a ruined state. They were glossy black, shaped like a rhinoceros beetle with horn-like spikes jutting forward, faceted blue eyes and a grille that looked like a shark's mouth. Most menacing of all, however, were the metal blades like scythes that served as their front and middle pairs of legs.

More drones poured into the warehouse even as others continued cutting new breaches in the walls. The rebel's few remaining weapons, already badly depleted by the Iron Syndicate's assault, proved utterly ineffective. The drones shrugged off every attack.

One of the beetles scuttled toward Cloud with chilling speed. She backpedaled and instinctively lowered her head, aiming her invisible horn at the machine.

"Look out!" Nitro yelled. The pegasus tackled Cloud, knocking them both out of the path of the oncoming drone. It's scythe-legs instead slashed into a storage shelf, slashing and spilling fluid from large storage jugs.

Cloud looked up to see a drone looming over her, ready to impale her on its forward spikes. She thrust out her hoof instinctively, and a shimmering magenta-colored magical shield materialized, deflecting the drone's killing blow.

The drone reared back as if in surprise at the magical defense. Cloud got to her feet, horn now visible and sizzling with magical aura, and shouted "Get behind me!"

The rebels retreated to cluster behind Cloud as she expanded the magical shield to create a barrier protecting the whole group. Two drones charged forward but rebounded off the shimmering, magenta shield.

"It's about damn time!" Heftig exclaimed when she saw the exposed alicorn's horn sparkling fiercely with magical aura.

That was not the reaction Cloud had expected, but she had no chance to question it. "We'll talk about it later, let's just focus on getting out of this alive!" Cloud responded. Although the shield held for now, keeping it large enough to protect everyone while maintaining it against the repeated impacts was testing her magic.

More drones poured into the warehouse, two dozen or more now. Cloud winced each time the beetles slammed against her shield.

When a momentary lull came, Nitro said, "I think if we fall back to the sleeping quarters we can barricade the doors. That might hold them off."

Cloud thought that was very unlikely to hold them off, but she dropped the shield and they all sprinted toward the living area. She threw up another shield across their rear just as a trio of destroyer beetles trampled after them.

The group shoved furniture up against the flimsy doors of the sleeping quarters, then piled mattresses and other debris to try and barricade themselves in—using much of the same debris that they'd blocked the Syndicate with earlier. This time Cloud reinforced it with another shield.

They heard the drones approaching. The barricade began to shake as the destroyer beetles started hacking into it from the other side. Then they started to appear at the top of the barricade, climbing over the walls and each other to get past the obstacle. Cloud and Topaz both gave telekinetic shoves to push them back.

Cloud gritted her teeth as the impacts on the barricade grew stronger. As soon as the first drones broke through she would need to be ready.

With a final crunch of splintering wood, the first beetle drone broke through the barricade. Cloud immediately erected a shimmering magical barrier, and the drone rebounded off it, scythes clawing angrily. Two more forced their way inside, but Cloud's shield held them at bay.

The drones scuttled back and forth, seeking a way around the magical obstacle. Behind her, Cloud heard Heftig growl, "Alright boys and girls, looks like we've got no choice but to fight our way out of this one. Grab any makeshift weapons you can find!"

As the rebels frantically searched for pipes, boards, or any junk they could use to defend themselves, Cloud racked her brain trying to formulate a plan. Her shield could only hold out so long, and then they would be overwhelmed.

She was struck by inspiration. The next time a destroyer beetle charged forward, instead of just blocking it, Cloud focused her magic and grabbed the drone telekinetically. With a grunt of effort she hurled the beetle back into two others that were trying to advance. The drones collapsed in a heap of flailing metal legs.

"Hey, not bad!" Topaz said. "Keep that up and we might just get out of this mess."

Bolstered, Cloud began striking out more aggressively with her telekinesis, seizing drones and bashing them together or flinging them against the walls. The rebels cheered her efforts. Cloud found that by focusing on one drone at a time, she could manipulate it much more easily.

"Alright, let's push forward while she's got 'em distracted," Heftig ordered. Gripping their makeshift weapons, the rebels advanced behind Cloud as she continued bashing drones left and right with her magic.

Soon they had cleared a path back into the central warehouse. But with the walls breached, more drones were flooding inside. Cloud couldn't possibly grab them all. As she deflected two more beetles, she spotted a metal pipe lying nearby. On instinct she magically snatched it up and hurled it, spearing clear through the drone's body. With a loud electronic "SQUEEEEE!" the bot veered off course, crashing into its counterpart. The dying robot inadvertently speared its comrade with its blades, and in a moment both machines burst at their seams with internal explosions.

"Hey, nice shot!" Nitro cheered. And yet, the flaming junk had hardly hit the floor when more beetle drones started climbing over it.

Cloud began grabbing any loose debris she could find to magically fling at the drones: chunks of concrete, twisted metal, even splintered sections of furniture. Each projectile she launched damaged or distracted the drones enough for the rebels to slowly fight their way toward the exits.

Cloud suddenly called out, "New plan! We're going to the junk room." She turned and used her magical shield like a giant bulldozer, smashing a path through the flimsy partition walls and ranks of beetle drones. Nobody argued. They raced into the path Cloud had cleared.

She'd left herself open to drones attacking from her flank, though. One of them slashed with a scythe, and she didn't dodge quite in time to avoid a gash. Her reflexive kick smashed the drone's metal shell and flung it back with a loud "SQUEEEEE!" before it burst apart.

She magically twisted a scythe-leg off the wrecked beetle and whirled it around, severing limbs of two more drones and buried it in the head of another, then released the weapon and made a mighty leap over them to catch up with her friends. Flailing beetle legs nicked her flanks and wings, but couldn't stop her.

Flapping to a landing in the junk room, she found the rest of her comrades backed into a tight group surrounded by robotic beetles, which had taken to scuttling around them in a circular pattern: one rank running clockwise and the other counterclockwise.

"Nice going," said Heftig with a dose of sarcasm. "We had an escape route, but we're cut off now. Trapped like rats!" She glanced upward wistfully, perhaps thinking of flying. However, even if she'd been willing to abandon non-flying friends to their fate, it didn't look like an option. Chopperoids had already infiltrated the building through the walls that the beetles had torn open, and now were buzzing around the upper parts of the warehouse. These didn't carry any weapons as such, but their rotor blades were sharpened metal. Flying through the swarm of drones would be like flying into a blender.

On some mysterious cue, all the destroyer beetle drones stopped, turned to face inward toward the defenders, and rose up on their hind legs so that their scythe blades were free to strike.

Cloud snorted and scuffed the ground with her hoof. Several large steel pipes sparkled with magenta glow and levitated.

A pipe launched forward with cannon force, spearing two drones like a shish kebab. "SQUEEEEE!" They toppled, limbs flailing helplessly.

Another pipe flew. "SQUEEEEE!"

Another. "SQUEEEEE!" Triple beetle skewer!

Despite their losses, the remaining beetles surged forward, blades swinging to attack. There were cries of shock and pain from the crew as some of those blows connected, including one that grazed Cloud's flank.

"No!" she shouted, and formed a sudden expanding shield that flung back the attackers, buying a respite for a few seconds. She made good use of the time, as she now levitated a large piece of metal from the junk pile. Upon coming free, it turned out to be a 1.4 meter circular sawmill blade. Cloud used her magic to fling it toward the enemy. It rang like a gong as it bisected a destroyer beetle drone. To Cloud's perception it almost seemed as though the robot's halves were falling apart in slow motion, and thick, black oil gushed like blood out of severed hose lines.

"Oohhh!" Cloud breathed, starry eyed as she contemplated the blade floating before her. "Where have you been, darling?"

Grinning maniacally, Cloud sent the blade spinning around the room like a frisbee from Hell, cutting through beetle after beetle. The top halves tumbled away, emitting the now-familiar piercing SQUEEEEE while the bottom halves gushed fountains of black oil before collapsing.

While this was happening, flying chopperoids swooped down to harass the group, their rotors cutting like lawnmower blades. These drones, however, were smaller and more delicate than the beetles, and Cloud's companions held their own against them. Any solid piece of junk could be used as a crude shield to deflect the spinning blades.

"We need to move that way," Heftig pointed.

"You got it!" Cloud acknowledged. She fell into a pattern, alternating between big shoves with her shield to throw the beetles back, then attacking with the saw while they were disoriented. The rest of the group advanced step by step, fending off chopperoids as they went. Topaz by now had figured out which of her spells were most effective, and disabled a number of beetles long enough for her comrades to slip by.

The numbers of beetles were dwindling, though the remaining ones climbed over their own casualties to attack as aggressively as ever

After intense minutes of struggle, the group finally reached a collapsed section of wall that led outside. Panting and feeling dizzy as her magic reserves ran low, Cloud maintained her magical shield behind them as the rebels slipped out into the alley. They could hear the buzzing of chopperoids patrolling nearby. Glints of red and blue lights flashed in the distance; their glare was visible down every street.

"We've got to get off the streets, the Commissars have this whole block surrounded," Topaz said.

"I know where we're going," Nitro said. "Follow me!"

The pegasus led them down a winding route through back alleys and tunnels. Cloud cast a cloak of darkness above the alleys, foiling any view from above, while Topaz cast her own magic light, just enough for the group to see where they were going.

At last they reached an alcove with a doorway and stairs leading down, much like the one where Cloud had first climbed up from the tunnels. One by one they slipped into the darkness, descending deep underground. Only when they were sure they had escaped pursuit did the group stop to catch their breath and take a head count of who'd made it out.

Cloud looked around at the battered and beaten group, and then closed her eyes and collapsed in a heap and knew no more.