//------------------------------//
// Vinyl VS The Upper Class (Part 1) 
// Story: Equestrian Robot Combat 
// by QuilliamPenn 
//------------------------------//

Vinyl VS The Upper Class(Part 1)



The normally bustling town of Manehattan was completely and totally devoid of life, Taxi cabs and city buses sat motionless as stone in the middle of ghostly-silent streets. Trash flew out of overturned wastebaskets and fluttered out into the air, food carts and corner stores sat empty and barren. The tall skyscrapers that normally were filled with thousands of ponies at any given time were empty and devoid of all life, not even a measly fly hovered over the land in search of food.

This particular part of Manehattan was situated near the water. It was rather close to the Bricklyn Bridge and coincidentally, this part of the island was the part crowded with the largest concentration of tall buildings. Massive skyscrapers and gleaming glass-sided buildings rose above it all, towering over all below them like giants over ants.

Rising higher than any of the other buildings, was the Equestrian State Building. A massive feat of architecture made up of ornate stone and glass, amongst so many other materials that only made it look even more regal and magnificent, it lorded over all other buildings by multiple stories and it was said that if you climbed all the way to the top you would be able to see for miles around.

And all was silent.

All was silent, until a dozen, massive, ten-ton robots with ponies inside of them, came hurtling out of the sky on either side of the city, broken into two groups of six. Each side adopting either red or blue bands on their armor plating, making it clear what team they were on.

Vinyl, however, was too busy screaming in horror to even realize there were five other mech suits falling beside her, and kept her eyes fixated downwards as the ground grew closer and closer, almost mocking her as if it were eagerly awaiting her impact, until finally…

There was a series of earth-shaking thumps, one after the other as each robot impacted on the ground; landing very much on its feet, bending its knees automatically and absorbing the impact so as not to jar the pilot. Vinyl had expected a bone breaking “Crunch” followed by a message that said “You suck at this game” or something, but no. Instead her landing was relatively soft and without much trouble.

As Vinyl opened her eyes, she found she had landed inside of; or rather, smashed through the top floor of, what appeared to be a parking garage, the occasional carriage sitting here and there amongst the so many empty parking spots.

“I-I’m alive…?” She said softly, yelping as a Heads up Display flashed to life in front of her, fluidly following her wherever she looked so she could always see it.

“Ha, of course you’re alive!” Came a voice that sounded painfully like that of some slimy sales pony, you know...the slimy kind, The voice came from behind Vinyl, and shortly after she was knocked face-first; or rather, cockpit-first into the concrete floor. This was the result of what was intended to be a friendly slap on the back by one of her teammates.

“I say, are you alright?” Came another voice, this one sounded more refined and “Upper-class” so to speak, whoever this pony was, they were from Canterlot for sure.

The sound of hydraulics hissing, mingled with that of gears and other mechanics, accompanied by a soft thumping sound, and she was suddenly yanked to her feet by the classier sounding teammate. Once on her metal feet, Vinyl managed to hold her balance long enough she could get a good look at the robot and catch a glimpse of its pilot.

The robot that had aided Vinyl in righting herself was a stark white color, a splash of dark blue adorning the shoulder pads and knee armor, and an image somewhat similar to three crowns adorning one shoulder. In addition to this, a mustache had been painted onto the cockpit so that it looked like the robot wore a fancy mustache. Upon looking into the cockpit; that coupled with the name “MrFancyPants” and the level indicator of “9” floating above his head, only confirmed it was who Vinyl thought it had been.

“Fancy Pants?” Vinyl said with an expression of both shock and amazement; she hadn’t ever expected somepony like Fancy Pants to be indulging in such…violent frivolities.

“Hold on…Vinyl? Ah it’s good to see you!” Fancy Pants responded, his voice slightly computerized.

“I didn’t expect-“

“To see me in such a game?” He finished for her, his giant metal shoulders shrugging with a whir. “You know about a week ago I would have said the same thing, but now…I say if this isn’t a great way to blow off some steam after a long day!” Fancy pants finished with a flourish of his metal hands, a weapon resembling a large revolver materializing in one of them as he did.

“The Game Begins In 5…”

“Alright Ladies, enough chit-chat, we got a game to win.” Came another voice, this one was more feminine sounding, it came from a salmon-pink colored Racer class robot; heavy blue stripes covering the mech to identify its team, the only other feature being the image of some sort of flower printed on the chest of the tiny little mech. It was equipped with a recently materialized shotgun and a knife on its waist that would have made Crocodile Dundee cry in out in rapture. The name “Bl0ss0m4th” Hovered above the mech, right next to the number “3”

As the computerized voice counted down, Vinyl got a quick look at her other teammates.

There was Herself, Fancy Pants and this Bl0ss0m4th character.

In addition to this, there were two heavy class robots, each colored crème and bearing faded red stripes that barely showed through the heavy blue stripes that barred across it. The two heavy robots were perfectly identical, save the images on each of their chests. 

One heavy-class bore an apple with a slice out of it, and the other bore an apple slice that appeared to have been cut out of the other apple. They each carried their own heavy machine gun; or at least that’s what they looked like to Vinyl, massive drum clips the size of truck tires sticking out of the bottom of each gun.

Vinyl wondered if maybe they were a gay couple or something, granted she didn’t have anything against gays but the way they were bantering to each other was surely not helping her think otherwise, The names “Salespony1” and “Salespony2” hovered over their heads respectively, in addition to the number “4” indicating their level.

Then there was one more robot, a Warrior class like Vinyl, but unlike the other, more talkative ponies, this one was totally and completely silent. It held what appeared to be a massive sniper rifle with bullets that were most likely the size of a 2-liter soda bottle, in addition to what appeared to be a twin pair of machine-guns clipped to the waist. The mech was a total black color, dark as the night itself. The coloration was only interrupted by the blue bars adorning the armor of the robot to show which team it was on. While the mech was the same class as Vinyl’s, it very obviously bore heavy aesthetic modification. Sharp spikes protruded from the shoulders and what appeared to be some sort of giant metal utility belt was attached to the waist, along with fins that protruded from the forearms and ended in rather evil looking spikes. The name “Bringer Of Night” hovered above the mech, with the number “15” floating next to it to indicate the level.

“The game begins, good luck, ponies.” 

The mechanized voice announced the beginning of the game, and Blossomforth zipped out of the parking garage; leaping over the edge and disappearing from view. The two sales-pony mechs followed close behind, shaking the very foundation of the parking garage as they took off after their companion. Upon reaching the edge of the parking garage, they leapt off and disappeared from view, leaving Vinyl, Fancy Pants, and this strange and mysterious-

Oh wait, no that one was gone too.

Fancy pants seemed less quick to jump out into the inevitable crap-storm that he knew would start up once the fighting began, and decided to stay behind with Vinyl; he had taken careful note of the “1” hovering next to her name.

“So, my dear, I assume you’re rather inexperienced at this then?” He said; posh, slightly computerized voice echoing throughout the parking garage.

“I…I uh, just got the game today.” Vinyl replied sheepishly, motioning to rub the back of her neck and only managing to dish out a heavy metal backhand to Fancy Pants’; staggering him back and knocking him onto his armored rear with an unpleasant sound akin to that of a carriage being crushed.

“Fancy pants!” Vinyl cried, turning to go and help her acquaintance, only to stumble and fall flat on her faceplate due to not being used to walking on two hooves; she hadn’t exactly spent much of her time practicing, so this was understandable.

Fancy pants let out a hearty laugh and promptly righted himself, waving a robotic hand dismissively to assure Vinyl it was nothing to worry about.

“So from that, I take it you decided to skip the piloting tutorial, hmm?” He asked, pulling her upright before bending over to pick the weapon up she had dropped; she hadn’t even known she had it!

“Possibly.” Vinyl said slowly, holding out balled metal fists to and accept the weapon. “Uh…I can’t…”

“Think about opening the hand.” Fancy Pants said in a rather fatherly manner, holding the weapon out in front of Vinyl for her to receive. The rifle itself bore resemblance to an AK-47 she had seen in Call of Cutie, except it was about ten times bigger, had a clip that was about five feet long, and was all black. Despite this, the relative familiarity of the weapon did just a little to sooth her uneasiness at piloting this monstrosity of metal.

The DJ-turned-mecha-warrior did as asked, and to her surprise found the hands opening slowly, allowing her to accept the weapon.

“It will take a few minutes for you to acclimate to the whole ordeal, but you’ll get it my good fellow! It takes a bit of practice! The game will assist you to an extent, but not too much; this is hardcore mode, after all!” Fancy Pants said encouragingly, patting Vinyl on the shoulder with a good amount of force; though to her it didn’t feel like much at all.

“Now, I’m terribly sorry but I must be taking my leave, in case you haven’t noticed, the songs of automatic weaponry and explosions have begun, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on any of the fun!” With a polite mechanized bow, Fancy Pants took off past Vinyl; shiny revolver in hand, and leapt over the edge of the parking garage with a level of grace a robot that size shouldn’t be able to achieve. 

Vinyl was now alone, in the garage, willing each individual finger to move for a good while until she deemed she had good enough control over these strange things appendages. Wondering what exactly was meant by “Hardcore Mode” all the while, was it like Call of Cutie, with limited HUD and no health regeneration or something?

She took a moment to absorb everything around her, the sound of the gunfire in the distance beginning to pick up. The “Thunk, thunk, thunk” of large rifles reaching her ears and echoing off of the vast buildings that stood just on the outside of the parking garage.

The smell of dust was in the air and clouds of it wafted up from the rubble that had been made after Vinyl and her teammates had crashed through the top floor of the parking garage, Small particles of dust clearly visible in the sunlight shining through the newly created holes.

Vinyl carefully turned to look at the edge everypony had leapt off of, sighing softly to herself and then taking a clumsy step towards it. Vinyl’s entire form shuddered uneasily a bit from lack of balance, she wobbled her massive metal arms a bit to try and regain composure before cautiously taking another step. The feeling of the game assisting her walking was now very obvious, but whilst obvious it was also slight.

“Maybe I should have tried singleplayer…” She said, beginning to regret just leaping straight into multiplayer without learning the basics first. Although at this point she assumed it would be slightly rude to just leave, normally she would have just left the game and gone to singleplayer or something, but Fancy pants was here and he had a habit of getting her booked for good parties and DJ gigs in Canterlot every now and then, the last thing she wanted was to look like a poor-sport; especially after he had lingered behind to help her.

Vinyl silently decided she would just stick around the game until it ended, maybe find somewhere nice and safe and take potshots at everypony with the rifle she now held. It most likely wouldn’t even take too long to find a place to camp, after all, the map was most likely small. How hard would it be?

“Oh…my…” 

As Vinyl lumbered over to the edge of the parking garage, she was able to take in just exactly how staggeringly massive the map was. As far as she could tell from here it looked pretty darn similar to the real Manehattan. The tall skyscrapers, smaller apartments and shops looked absolutely spot-on, there was even this one club that she had visited and DJ-d at a few years back; right where it should be, situated on the street corner of 2nd Ave and Sandwich Street.

“Wow…they really meant it when they said this was realistic.” She said to herself, gripping the ledge with her mechanical hands and leaning cautiously over the side. She barely had but a few seconds to take in the view before she found herself looking down, her stomach churned a bit as she found she was easily six stories above the ground.

“Oh, damn…”

Vinyl found herself wondering how the others had managed to bring themselves to leap off that ledge, however her thoughts were interrupted as an unfamiliar sound of a bell tolling rang out inside of her mech, the words “Sp33dysoarin was put down by MrFancyPants” lighting up in the top right corner of her green, glowing, Heads Up Display.

“Get ‘em Fancy Pants!” She cried out with a chuckle, bringing her hooves up from inside the cockpit in an effort to amplify her voice; and amplify it she did. However, Vinyl had forgotten that motion inside the robot, translated into motion the robot made, and so upon lifting her hooves/hands the robot lost its grip on the ledge and tipped over, rapidly plummeting down towards the ground and impacting with an earth-shaking “BOOM!”

Gee, the sky sure did look great today.

Once the sound of gravel and dirt plinking against her visor died down, Vinyl let out an annoyed groan and wiped some of the debris off of her visor; luckily the fall didn’t appear to have hurt her or anything, as the small image of her robot in the bottom left corner had all limbs glowing green. 

As she righted herself, Vinyl found she had landed on what used to be a tree, however, now it was no more than a bunch of large splinters and mulched leaves. There was a small dent in the ground where she had landed.

“Jeeze…this place is massive!” She said in awe twitching her ears from inside the mech as she looked up at the towering buildings not too far in the distance. She was beginning to wonder if there was a way for her to get up there on top of one; it would be a good place to just kind of chill and maybe pick somepony off from a distance.

Just then, the ground was shaken by a teeth-rattling explosion, followed by the words “SalesPony1 was blown up by SirDragonZilla” appearing in her HUD.

Vinyl winced and let out a soft chuckle, gazing at the plumes of smoke now floating up from behind one of the buildings a little ways down the road in front of her.

“Better luck next time Mr Salespony dude…” She said, before it dawned on her that the plumes of smoke now billowing out from behind one of the buildings were actually only about four blocks away; and maybe she should get to cover lest she wanted to be slaughtered next.

Fueled by this thought, Vinyl clumsily scrambled over to the nearest building; managing to kick a trash can through the window of the building in front of her in the process; wincing apologetically, as if the owner of the building would be mad and as if he was actually existent here in the first place.

Slowly starting to get more comfortable piloting this robot, Vinyl inched over to the corner of the building; peeking over as slowly as she could. Peeking around corners wasn’t exactly easy however, due to the fact the cockpit was situated in the robot’s body and it didn’t actually have a head.

The street she looked down was completely devoid of movement; all save the smoke still billowing out from behind a building four blocks down; which now that Vinyl looked at it, the building was actually a fifteen story apartment building.

She was just about to make her way out from her hiding place when it walked out, only then realizing the presence of heavy footsteps.

It was a heavy-class robot; a deep purple tint covered the entirety of its form, only interrupted by the red bars over the armor and the occasional spot of grime or debris; the last two it most likely had earned upon slaughtering “Salespony1”. The large cockpit was a deep green tint and had spikes protruding from the top, its smaller pair of hands were idly tucked to the chest and it held in its larger pair of hands some sort of rectangular device, it had eight holes in the end and was held much like one would hold a chainsaw, the name “SirDragonZilla” hovered above the enemy in flaming red letters along with the number “8”

With a soft gasp, Vinyl jerked her body back behind the building, only barely keeping herself from falling onto her behind and alerting the enemy.

She found herself suddenly regretting her choice to skip the tutorial.

Despite the slight terror-inducing presence of the thirty foot tall metal monstrosity that would most likely lay waste to her as soon as it would look at her, and despite the fact that said monstrosity was currently only a few blocks away and around a mere building corner. Vinyl couldn’t help but find herself wearing a stupid grin.

This was extremely thrilling, the realism, the immersion, the sounds and the smells. The smell of the smoke was extremely real; she barely held back a small laugh as she thought about it. She felt this way about it all and she hadn’t even killed anypony yet!

Vinyl now weighed her options; did she want to go up against this enemy alone? She could try climbing a building and attacking from above, but that would probably fail horribly due to the fact she could barely walk properly in this suit, let alone climb. Maybe she should try and find some teammates and take it down, Of course, it was just one enemy and it couldn’t be all that hard, right?
Of course, the thought of feeling such a massive enemy alone was something that would surely level her up, on top of the fact she would get the bragging rights…

Silently making her choice, Vinyl readied herself.

She was gonna take this big hunk-o-junk down and nopony was gonna stop her!

With a battle cry containing a mixture of joy, fear and excitement, Vinyl stepped out from her hiding spot and held her rifle at her hip, actually managing to smoothly step out before pulling the trigger to let loose a hail of bullets upon SirDragonZilla.

“Click.”

Wait, bullets didn’t go “Click.” Bullets went “Boom, boom!” That was like…first grade stuff for Vinyl. So why weren’t her bullets going “Boom, Boom”?

“Oh come on!” She cried bitterly, hissing through her teeth and shaking the weapon in her metal hands; as if that would make it work.

There was a spine-chilling; slightly computerized, roar, not terribly unlike that dragon snore she had heard when one of the monstrous beasts and decided to sleep near Ponyville.

Vinyl froze, looking up through her cockpit window and unknowingly making eye contact with the pilot. 

The purple-green robot  wascurrently swinging its strange weapon to aim at her; the smoke billowing out from the building beside it creating a rather dramatic effect; like something you would see used as a screensaver or the like.

“Ponyfeathers.” She deadpanned, just before she discovered exactly what the weapon was.

Four consecutive hissing noises followed, one after the other. They were not unlike the sound made when one opened a bottle of shaken up soda, except this wasn’t soda and there were now four rockets zooming towards her at frightening speed; leaving white trails of smoke behind them.

Vinyl let out a frightened yelp and dove back over towards her previous hiding place, now resenting ever leaving it. Sparks flew as the metal of her robot collided with the concrete and the four rockets whizzed past her head and impacted on the parking garage she leapt from earlier, exploding in a fantastic display of fire and debris. A massive chunk of the portion that had been hit was now totally gone, along with just about everything else within a fifteen foot radius.

Vinyl sat on her metal rump, propped up on one mechanical elbow as bits of debris plinked on her visor, watching the plume of black smoke grow ever higher with each passing second.

Another deep, thundering, mechanized roar.

If Vinyl could have looked pale; she did have white fur you know, she would have been as pale as could be. She whipped around as quickly as she could and found the hulking form of SirDragonZilla to be lumbering towards her; the small pair of robotic arms on his chest feeding fresh rockets into his tool of death.

“Heh…I think I’ll uh, be going!” She said with a sheepish chuckle, waving briefly at her enemy before scrambling out of the line of fire and back over to her building, shakily righting herself once she was out of the way.

Her actions were rewarded with yet another angry roar, followed by the unsettling “Fizz” of rockets being loosed.

“Wait…I’m out of his sight, why would he waste-“

Vinyl never got to finish her train of thought; it was derailed with a rather explosive force as the corner of the building she hid behind exploded in a mixture of glass, concrete and so many other building materials. The force of the blast knocked Vinyl down on her back and stunned her slightly. She hadn’t been fully expecting the environment to be destructible, despite witnessing it on the parking garage just seconds beforehoof.

Vinyl brought her hooves up to her head and tried to rub the ringing in her ears away; her mech mimicking these movements and doing the same to its cockpit. She blinked her eyes in an attempt to make the world stop spinning, somehow managing to gain enough composure to push herself up so she could watch as SirDragonZilla rounded the corner, unable to see into his cockpit due to the deep green tint.

SirDragonZilla let out a roar eerily similar to an evil laugh, leveling his rocket launcher to Vinyl and stopping at the intersection a few feet away from where she currently was.

“Freaking noob-tubers…” She said to herself, groaning and preparing for her inevitable doom.

Four seconds later, instead of a fiery and explosive end like she would have expected, Vinyl’s ears were hit with the sound of gunshots. They were deep and heavy, but slow. Whatever or whoever was shooting now had a big-ass gun and was enjoying making use of it.

As it turned out, the shots were not being dealt by SirDragonZilla, in fact they were actually being dealt to the massive robot. The rocket-wielding mech staggered backwards and brought a heavy arm up to block its visor, only to be rewarded with two bullet holes in said arm.

SirDragonZilla let out an unpleasant roar and without aiming, loosed four rockets past Vinyl and in the direction of her unidentified savior, then made use of the distraction his rockets created to turn and jog as fast as he could back down the street and away from the scene of battle.

Vinyl sighed with relief, lying down in the street with a metal “Thunk.” This position unintentionally gave her a good view of the stark white robot that leapt over her, stopping a few feet away and holding she found to be a large, golden revolver-type weapon; from which three more rounds were fired down the street, the result being another unpleasant roar from who Vinyl assumed was SirDragonZilla, yet no indication that he had been killed appeared on her softly glowing HUD.

A moment later the sound of hydraulics hissing and gears whirring was heard, followed by a large shadow being cast over Vinyl.
“Oh…hey Fancy Pants.” She said with a sheepish chuckle, grabbing his giant metal hand with her own and getting to her feet with a mechanical whir.

“I say, Vinyl, tell me you didn’t try to duel with such a massive brute all on your own?” He asked with a tone that betrayed the fact he already knew the answer.

“I couldn’t get my gun to fire! I pulled the trigger and all I get is a dead pony’s click!” She replied with an annoyed gesture of her mechanical hand.

“Did you cock the weapon?”

Vinyl straightened up a bit; or at least as much as was possible in her suit.

“Do what now?”

Fancy Pants let out a hearty laugh and patted Vinyl on the shoulder; the metal impacting resulting in a “clang”

“Vinyl, this is a hyper-realistic video game, you have to actually ready your weapon before you can shoot it!” He said with a laugh, holding a giant mechanical hand out and motioning for her to relinquish said weapon.

Vinyl silently gave him the weapon, feeling slightly foolish for not thinking to cock the weapon so it would actually fire; she was so used to it being automatic, she hadn’t even thought she would need to do it and just assumed it would happen on its own like in other games.

“Like so, dear.” Fancy Pants turned the weapon over so that Vinyl could see the charging handle on the right side, as effortlessly as one would breathe he grabbed onto the charging handle and pulled it back, releasing it a second later with a familiar “Click.” He then handed it back to Vinyl, who felt like an utter fool for forgetting something so simple.

“I knew that…” She said half-heartedly, taking her rifle and glancing at the charging handle in annoyance, as if it should have told her it needed to be used.

“Right, right.” He replied without a hint of sarcasm, his metal feet crunching on the concrete as he gently pushed past, slowly making his way down the street and away from the direction SirDragonZilla had gone.

Vinyl glared at the giant rifle in her mechanical hands a moment longer before realizing Fancy Pants was on the move, and promptly turned around and went after him; actually managing to do so with a minimal amount of stumbling.

“Hey, shouldn’t we like…go after that guy?” She asked, pointing a metal finger back in the direction the rocket-wielding menace had fled.

“Indeed, but I would suggest a rendezvous with our remaining teammates first, our chances of successfully felling the fair “SirDragonZilla” on our own is rather slim and I suspect causalities will result regardless, on both sides.” He said without ever turning back to look at her.

“Ah…” She said, unsure if what he had just said was insulting or not. “Hey wait a minute, what do you mean ‘remaining’ teammates, you say that as if-“

“As if they won’t respawn, yes. We are playing hardcore mode, my dear.” He stated nonchalantly, flicking his revolver open so he could load more rounds into it.

“Oh. So that’s what makes it Hardcore.” She said softly, turning to look back at the pillars of smoke still floating up from the scene of a battle she had barely survived.

The pair were silent for a while, as was the air around them; the only noises being the rhythmic “Chunk, Chunk, Chunk” of their mechanical feet as they traveled; only interrupted by the occasional distant sound of shots being fired or some explosion.

Yet despite the sounds, Vinyl’s HUD never lit up to show anypony else had been eliminated from the game.

“Say, Fancy Pants?” Vinyl inquired softly, turning back and realizing for the first time that the smoke pillars were well behind them, the parking garage almost completely out of view.

“Yes?” He said calmly, his heavy mechanical gait never faltering.

“I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“Well, actually, I have two.” She said, picking up a bit of speed; and feeling a bit proud of herself for not stumbling once as she walked next to him. “First, how come I’m not seeing anypony else getting killed on my little screen thing, and second, how is it you managed to find me?”

Fancy Pants let out a hum, his robot tilting back slightly as he walked so as to gaze up at the rooftops before speaking.

“Astute questions the both! I presume the reason we are not receiving any indication of our foes nor allies being slaughtered, is due to the fact they may have deigned it best to take a more…safe, course of battle.” He said, making a motion of uncertainty with his metal hand.

“How so?” 

“Well, you see, in ‘Hardcore’ mode, the player only has one life, so therefore a respawn is nonexistent until the game ends, which in turn means that smart players may have taken to keeping themselves somewhat concealed as they search for their enemy, rather than simply charging out into the middle of it all ‘Guns Blazing’; I believe is the term.” 

“Except for that big guy, apparently.” She said with a soft hint of disgust, the fizz of the rockets playing in her head as she thought about the near-game-death experience.

“And, to answer your second question, I was able to find you because of the plumes of smoke that big fellow created with his weaponry, you can see those things all across the map if you get up high enough. I will admit, I hadn’t known exactly who had been causing said plumes, but I did know you were last to leave the garage. I thought it safe to assume you were in some sort of predicament and decided to lend a hoof.”

“Thanks…” Vinyl let out a slight chuckle of embarrassment and rubbed the back of her neck; the robot mimicking these movements perfectly despite not having a neck.

“This way, hurry!” Fancy Pants said abruptly; almost in a commanding tone, practically turning on a dime and jogging in the direction that led further into the city.

Vinyl let out a small yelp of surprise and took off after him without even really understanding what was going on; she hadn’t quite mastered running yet so her gait was clumsy to say the least.

The road Fancy Pants was currently leading her towards was lined with apartment buildings on either side. As they had traveled the buildings had slowly changed from small shops and outlets into larger apartments and more reputable shopping outlets, the buildings noticeably higher than the shops farther back but never taller than a few stories. The apartments were made out of what had originally been red brick, now however it was blackened and dirty from being exposed for so many years; just like the real Manehattan! 

Other than this, the street was empty; save the occasional carriage parked here and there.

Fancy Pants strode over to one of the corner buildings with noticeable haste, pressing his metal back against the brick wall of an apartment before beckoning Vinyl over.

“Hurry, Vinyl, unless you want to get shot!” He hissed, somehow managing to maintain his “classy” accent whilst doing so.

“I’m coming, hold on!” She replied softly as she could, nearly tripping over a carriage as she made her way over to him; the crunch of her metal feet on the concrete being the only other sound until she arrived next to him.

“Why are we hiding, is there a bad guy?” She asked with a hint of excitement, holding her rifle up at an angle in eager preparation for a fight.

“Bad guy, indeed…” Fancy Pants replied, his voice trailing off as he leaned around to peek over the corner, inhaling sharply almost instantly afterwards and pressing himself back against the brick wall; unknowingly shattering a window in the process.

“Is it that SirDragonZilla guy? I want some revenge!” Vinyl said excitedly, nearly succeeding in jumping out from cover and unleashing bullets in the enemy, had Fancy Pants not stopped her with a giant, armored arm.

“No, it appears to be somepony else, a warrior class like us, and he happens to be merely two blocks down.” He said in a hushed computerized tone, checking to make sure his revolver was ready for combat as he spoke.

“Did they see you?” Vinyl asked, her excitement almost uncontainable. She gripped her rifle firmly, eager to get into a fight.
“No, but I suggest we devise a plan of action, lest we-“

Fancy Pants was cut off by the all-too-close sound of gunfire, a heavy “BOOM!” ringing out and being followed by the sound of a round being chambered.

There was a distinctly masculine cry of despair followed by a rapid “Pop, pop, pop, pop.”, then another cry of shock; this one more feminine.

Both Vinyl and Fancy Pants looked out from their hiding spot to find two robots; one adorning blue stripes and the other adorning red.

As it turned out, the red team robot was Bl0ss0m4th, her distinctive Racer-mech was instantly recognized by Vinyl. There was a second robot however that she didn’t recognize, it was totally grey, and bore an image of a pink teacup on the shoulder; in addition to the blue stripes it adorned. The name “EarlofGrey” hovered above the mech in flaming red letters along with the number “6” 

EarlofGrey was currently unloading what appeared to be some sort of Sub-Machine Gun at Bl0ss0m4th; who was frantically scrambling behind a nearby carriage in a desperate search for cover.

“Ha, foolish ruffian, a mere carriage will not serve to protect you from me!” EarlofGrey said with a cry of excitement, aiming his weapon directly at the carriage and unleashing a seemingly endless stream of bullets towards it, the flash of gunfire lighting up his visor. His manner of speaking instantly giving away that he was from Canterlot.

The sound of the automatic weapons mixed with that of the flimsy carriage being ripped apart, and the faint clinking of large shell casings clattering onto the ground, filled the air. This “Earl” character’s almost maniacal laughter was totally drowned out as he unleashed Tartarus.

“My dear fellow, don’t you know it’s rather impolite to bother a mare in such a fashion?” 

EarlofGrey ceased his firing and whipped over to where Fancy Pants was now standing; whose revolver was aimed directly for the SMG wielding mad-pony.
“Oh, Fancy Pants! How good to see you my friend, how is the missus?” Earl replied, swinging his gun around to aim at Fancy Pants.
Vinyl stepped out as Fancy Pants replied, rifle held low at her hip and ready to fire. It was now she realized that EarlofGrey only had one arm, the severed one lying on the ground a little ways away with sparking severed wires.

“Fleur is doing wonderful, how goes the tea business?” Fancy Pants replied, noticing Bl0ss0m4th slowly peeking out from behind her badly damaged source of cover.

“Oh, tea is good as usual. However I didn’t come here to catch up old chap, I came here to-“

EarlofGrey never got to finish his words, the hail of bullets Vinyl unleashed just then did well to end his stream of banter.

Her maniacal laughing drowned out by gunfire, Vinyl unleashed all she had on her enemy. Earl cried out in surprise and tried to raise his weapon to fire, but was only met with said weapon being blown apart; along with a good amount of his remaining robot hand; courtesy of a skillful shot from Fancy Pants.

Earl stumbled back, glancing briefly over at where his remaining hand should have been and was no longer. 

Then Bl0ss0m4th joined in. She hopped out from behind her mutilated cover and fired her shotgun at Earl, the shot-pellets quickly blowing out the left knee of their heavily outnumbered enemy. 

The cacophony of gunfire that ensued was the loudest thing Vinyl had ever heard. Revolver, Shotgun and Assault Rifle all unleashing their own brand of pain upon EarlofGrey. A revolver round was dealt to his shoulder at the same time five assault rifle rounds punched through his visor. As if that weren’t enough, his other knee was quickly dispatched by a shotgun round. With a cry of both anger and frustration he collapsed to his knees with a heavy “Crunch!” Making a futile attempt to block the hail of lead with what remained of his arms before his robot had taken too much damage to continue functioning.

“Bollocks.” Earl said angrily. His Heads up Display flickering and promptly displaying a red pony skull and crossbones both in his visor and over his head, just before he collapsed to the ground with an earth-shaking mixture of metal and glass colliding with concrete. The smell of gun smoke filled the air, the last few spent bullet shells clattering onto the concrete and tumbling off in their own direction before they too faded into silence.

The trio of teammates stood silent, weapons smoking almost as much as the robotic corpse now lying on the ground before them. The silence was broken seconds later by Vinyl, who let out a triumphant whoop upon the words “EarlofGrey was decimated by VinylScratch, MrFancyPants09 and Bl0ss0m4th” appearing on her HUD in flaming letters, along with the resounding death bell that rang out over the entirety of the map.

“That…was….AWESOME!” Vinyl cried out, unable to keep from grinning like a fool whilst pumping a giant metal fist into the air in triumph at their accomplishment. 

“Yes, well done indeed, the both of you.” Fancy Pants said simply, the slightest hint of a smile on his face as he reloaded his weapon.
“I thought I was toast for sure, thanks you two!” Bl0ss0m4th said with a faintly computerized sigh of relief, making her way over to the smoking corpse and beginning to search through the remains; not really bothering to pay much attention to her saviors aside from her thanks.

“What’re you doing?” Vinyl inquired, walking over to her teammate with the whir of gears and the hiss of hydraulics.

“Scavenging, here.” She said simply, promptly detaching what appeared to be a single grenade from the waist of her fallen foe and tossing it to Vinyl.

“Gah!” She let out a yelp and quickly grabbed at the grenade mid arc; silently thankful she hadn’t crushed it or something when she caught it.

Vinyl inspected the grenade once she had a firm hold on it, it was identical to your average grenade, except for the fact it was the size of her head and could most likely rip an entire robot apart. The question of where she was going to put it was just dawning on her, when Fancy Pants clunked up next to her and said in a hushed, computerized tone.

“It will attach automatically once you bring it near your waist.”

Vinyl gave him a grateful look through her visor and did as suggested, as expected once the grenade was almost touching her robot’s waist, it automatically zipped over and attached into a small socket with a faint “Click”

“So, Miss Blossomforth, are you going to be embarking out on your own once more, or shall you stick with Vinyl and I?” Fancy Pants asked, clunking over to her and watching as she pulled the last of the ammo from the metal corpse; apparently not feeling like sharing anything else.

“I’ll keep on flying alone, thanks.” She said flatly, taking one last look at the wasted remains of now picked-clean robot lying on the street.

With nothing more than a half-hearted salute, Blossomforth had taken off down the street once more, looking more like she was rollerblading as she moved, a feat made possible due to the tiny yet extremely powerful thrusters that were built into the end of each leg in place of a foot; strong enough for fast movement but not quite enough to fly.

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” Vinyl asked, striding up next to Fancy Pants after getting tired of fiddling with a four foot long combat knife she had found on her waist.

“Yes, probably, I don’t know her too well but I gather she can be rather…impetuous, sometimes.” He replied with a soft sigh, watching as Blossomforth leapt up onto the side of a building and began scaling it, disappearing onto the roof a few seconds later.

“Eh, oh well.” Vinyl replied with a hydraulic-powered shrug, turning her gaze down to EarlofGrey’s remains and giving them a not-so-gentle kick.

“We should be going too, there are only four enemies left and I doubt they will all be as foolish as the poor Earl.” He said, walking off down the street, machinery whirring with each step he took.

“Do we have an idea of where we’re going or…?” She trailed off, clunking off after him without a second glance at the late Earl.
Fancy Pants stopped at the intersection a few feet away, gazing down it and letting out a contemplative hum as he did so.

Vinyl stopped next to her companion and followed his gaze; or rather the way his visor was pointing. Before her now was a road with red-brick apartments on either side, just like the street over, however the next block down from where she was facing, held not only apartments, but had shops, restaurants and a menagerie of other businesses. Even farther down the road, these buildings seemed to get fewer and were replaced by numerous different office buildings, varying from being made of marble to looking like they were totally made up of glass. The buildings only got taller as they went closer and closer to the center of the city; other than the occasional taller one that would stick out like a sore thumb.

“Our Earl friend came from down this way, so I assume that we may discover more of our adversaries down that way.” Fancy Pants pointed a robotic finger down the way that led deeper into the city as he spoke.

“Wait, what happened to that whole ‘safe’ thing you were talking about earlier?” Vinyl asked apprehensively.

“There is a difference between playing it safe and sitting in a corner waiting for our foes to come to us, dear.” He replied, his voice laden with condescension.

“Yeah, yeah, shut it.” Vinyl said with a hint of annoyance, waving Fancy Pants off before clunking down the street, further and further towards their enemy.

And boy would she be surprised when she figured out exactly who the remaining enemies were.