Life as a Pony

by Tray Hunter

Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 3

Chapter 10: X for Extreme Pt. 3

by Tray Hunter

Meanwhile in, not a hallway but more a big hall that was connected to hallways

„Okay, we've been wandering for hours now!“ Smokey stated, obviously annoyed „There should´ve been at least more of those robots!“. The pegasus looked around the hall, seeing nothing but dull, grey concrete, radiated by a neon tube hanging from the ceiling.

'Maybe we should see if we can find a map or something?'

„And where would that map come from? Do you think somepony would draw it onto a wall so that any escapees had better chances?“ the brown pony queried in a mocking tone, rolling his eyes. A second later his companion poked him.

„Uhm...you know there is a map right here on the wall.” The unicorn stated, motioning to the pretty obvious piece of paper that adorned one side of the room. It was slightly tattered but still showed most of the complex.
'How could you not see that?'

With a deep frown the pegasus glared at this map. Even if this was their secure ticket out of here, it was just unwelcome at this very moment. Without saying anything he checked it carefully though, first noticing the big “You are here” mark in the middle of the print. “so, we really ran in circles?”

“Actually I think it's more of an ellipse than a circle but...” Lore stated with a sheepish grin. It was just a way to lighten the mood a bit. “...yes, seemingly we did. But now we know where to go and that's just…” His hoof raised to point at a far side of the map, an area labeled 'Emergency exit'.” ...there!”

'And the prize for the biggest Captain Obvious goes tooooo....'

“Sounds like a great plan.” Smokey quickly snatched the map off the wall, rolling it and stuffing it under his wing. “Now let's get the crap outta here! This place is starting to creep me out!”

A few metres below and some more metres away

“Hey! Vinyl! Can you see anything?” Burst hollered into the cloud of black smoke. Before you ask, yes, their ears were free again by then. So, no, it wasn't that useless. Or was it?

“I can't even see my own hoof, Cap! Radar´s still blank like a little filly!” It was pretty useless.

“Good job, Sound. Now we not only not know where we are, we also don't know if we're already surrounded or not.” Colgate mockingly through in, carefully feeling the area in front of her with a hoof.

Suddenly though a blast of wind took the smoke, dragged it out of their sight and gave them back the bit of light they had. As the horses found each other again, Demo instantly began to theorize and praise. “Good work, Derpy! Blowin´ that smoke off like nothing!”

“That wasn't me...”

As they realized that their only pegasus wasn't responsible for this action, the only stallion in their blessing spoke up. “Uhm, maybe the smoke went that way.” His hoof pointed at a fresh hole in the wall, likely to be created by Scratch´s device. Behind it the air was whistling through a long tube of concrete. “Is that a vent shaft?”

Burst instantly turned to look at their navigational expert, raising one of her eyebrows, just to get the answer “It wasn't on the map.”

But the horses wouldn't be the horses if they would care about such minor details as huge shafts of concrete with wind speeds beyond a small storm. After a short check of the equipment and the cast of a magical barrier (pushed and held by three unicorn mares), they advanced through the new and surprisingly well lit area.

“What do you think this tunnel is used for, Cap?” The blue mare pondered, her horn glowing to shield the less magically members of their strike team “Nopony just builds something like that out of the blue...”

“I don't know, Safe. But I got a feeling, we better keep moving before we find out...”

The holding pens

Lyra had sat here for what seemed like hours, wondering, worrying and most of all, cursing about what those strange metal ponies were about to do to them. She had looked at every detail she could see, read the “No screaming. No rioting. No complaining.” sign on the far wall over and over. But it was just until now that she noticed the small window next to it. Why, do you ask? Because somepony she knew all too well was showing in the dirty glass.

The brown pegasus waved back at her, obviously happy to see her. Instead of mutual happiness she though responded with a deadpanning expression that could easily be made out as “I'm doomed...”.

On the other side of said window Smokey kept screaming “LYRA! HERE WE ARE! LOOK!” until a little voice whispered to calm the excited featherpony.

‘Would you please shut up? If they find us, they'll scrape me out of your head and we're both out of the game...’

This one sided conversation quickly was interrupted by a hoof on our hero´s shoulder. This hoof was connected to an equally excited unicorn who meanwhile found a huge circutbox on a wall. “Hey! Help me open this thing and I can see about getting your friends out there!”
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“And you're sure about this box here, Safe?” Demo queried as she popped the cap off yet another bottle. It took them a while to make it through the tunnel but eventually they found a door that, according to the map next to it, led to a stairwell that again would lead them to ground level.

“Shut up and let me do my job, Punch!” the unicorn responded, seemingly annoyed by her partner´s constant questions. To her it felt as if she had been tinkering with those circuits forever. In fact, though, it had only been a few minutes. The rest of the team was going through intel and equipment, unfortunately cut off from HQ and without any hopes for back-up. Not as if they would have needed some. Those horses knew what to do, after all.

“Shouldn't we get in contact with Luna first?” All horses? No, Ticks still was a bit...careful to say the least. “I mean, maybe now that we've found this tunnel, maybe they could...dig their wa-”

“Got it, Cap!” The fusebox gave another few sparks before the door slid open, revealing a dim lit staircase, barely broad enough for one pony at the time.
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“Huh? Wha-...” Lore´s expression froze, his tools dropping with a loud clattering sound “But I almost had it!”

“What's the problem, man? You dropped your thingy there...” came the notice from Smokey, who quickly picked said utensil up again.

“I almost had all the circuits spliced to open the pens...but now the power is out! It's as if somepony just cut this box from the system...”

“And you can't just...you know...power it back up?” the pegasus enquired, looking over his companion's shoulder “We're pretty close to the finish line, you know?”

“No way. Even if I found something to power it, chances are they already know where we are.” Lore hastily packed his belongings and made for a nearby air vent “Quick! Before they find us!”

Before Smokey could even react the unicorn crawled into the duct, only the tips of his tail to be seen as they were being dragged into the tunnel. “What? Wait...I…” Upon undoing the blades on his forehooves, our hero noticed that he would never be able to take them with him through this air vent. Not only were they too big to fit, their scraping on the metal shaft would also alert every guard in the area to their presence. Now, to be honest, he did not come to this conclusion himself.

‘You want to get shot? Leave them here!’

“But they are sooo coool…” He kept daydreaming for a few seconds until finally the unicorn´s patience was at its end. “Are you coming or what? Those things might be here every seco-...waaaaah!”
The sound of bending metal and crumbling concrete filled the air, all together with the distinct dust that crumbling concrete brings with it. The unicorn clenched his eyes shut and winced as his fall came to an abrupt halt on the hard floor. Fearing for the worst, he dared not to investigate the sounds of approaching hooves, echoing throughout the room and making it near impossible to distinguish how many were coming. But as soon as the noises stopped, Lore had a different problem. Even Though he could still not tell how many, he now knew where they stood. Right in front of him.

“Hello? I...I´m sorry...who is there…? If you are with those guards, I surrender…”

It took a moment, but eventually two large wings cleared the dust, revealing only the cowered stallion and the supposed guards. It should not come as surprise that those were not robots. Neither were it guards.

“You're not Smokey? Who are you?” a pink mare inquired, shoving her hoof against the stallion.

“Starberry?” their collective gazes focused on the hole in the ceiling. The one from which Lore had fallen. The one which was meant to be fixed months ago but nopony in Greenhorn´s empire gave a flying horseshoe about it. The one from which our confused hero was looking back into the eyes of the mare who broke his heart and wings.

Minutes later, at the FOALHOUND Intelligence Center

“Ma’am, we have confirmation that Horse Team has breached the enemy line made contact with two of the captured OC. Full report is attached.” as soon as Data Cord finished his sentence a big message appeared on his screen, indicating that Glady had informed the princess of their progress “Now, Captain Burst, you said you got intel on more Class ExH, right?”

“Urgh, save it, Cord. One of them is a full-fic and the other one is just my ex!” the mare countered. Before the specialist could inquire any further, she added “Going quiet for now. Will report on any new developments. Over.” and cut the line.

“Just your ex, who happens to be really confused as to why you are here, might I add!” the pegasus worked through the news that his friend, his ex and a bunch of other mares suddenly stood in front of him in a dark dank staircase. Underneath the prison camp of a dwarfish megalomaniac.

“She’s a special agent, working for a secret organisation that protects Equestria from the shadows.” answered Ticks, pretty matter of factish, just to get a glare from the mare in question.

“Yes...and as long as we are done disclosing top secret information, could we get to the point where we form a plan to get the rest of the prisoners out of here?”

“Uhm, if I may…” Lore cut in “there is a circuit above us that seems to control the magic blockers. I was trying to turn it off, but then the power cut out.”

“Safe, can we work with that?” their Captain asked, just to get a shrug, followed by “Maybe” from Colgate.

“Hey, now that we know where they are, why don’t we just blow up the generator and release all the ponies to take out the guards? That seems to work in movies all the time!” Smokey threw in, rewarded by the approving nods of a very excited Demo.

“Negative, scans show that the Generator is thermo-magical.” Berry answered “We need to split up. Those Irons are likely controlled by an onsite controlroom, just like those at the wall. Safe and Sound, you’ll take the genius here and capture that.” she pointed at the two mares, followed by Lore, who looked just as surprised as they were.

“Captain, not to kill the mood here, but why do we take him with us exactly?” Scratch insisted, looking back at the minty-fresh unicorn who was clearly about to ask the same thing.

“We can’t leave him here, we have only one portal back and he clearly knows his way around circuits. Pick one and move out.” with that and a hesitant nod they took off into the direction of the controlroom marked on the blueprints. Burst’s attention shifted to Derpy and Ticks next “We’ll need to get those hostages out of here once the enemy force is dealt with. You two scout out a route and call in.”

“Ma’am, Ticks, no disrespect, but I usually work alone.” Derpy interjected

“I know, but if anything goes wrong or our cover is blown, I need Ticks to not be in the line of fire so he can bring us back to safe conditions.” seeing the logic behind that (and a wave of relief from the unicorn of the duo), they too took off through a nearby hatch, vanishing into the darkness.

“That leaves us three to get those prisoners out of those pens, right Captain?” Demo eventually added, going through her satchels to find a brew that would help them with the plan. “I’m for setting up charges and getting wasted while the other evac them!”

“What is it with you and always setting up charges near hostages, Demo? That is not ho-” the mare sighed and shook her head “Sorry, Punch. I’m just a little stressed…”

“A little stressed, you say. How many torture scenes did you go through today? Did you have to dump anypony or throw them off a cliff or something?” chimed the stallion, clearly not amused at how his ex just turned out to be spy who probably knew exactly what he was.

“Smokey, let’s not make this about that now…” not even looking back at him she spoke in a slightly strained tone

“About what? Huh? Not make this about what?” he responded while Demo slowly backed away. She could see the expression on the captain’s face growing more and more annoyed.

“Let’s not make this about us, me or you!” Burst turned around, facing the pegasus with a grim glare, doing her hardest to not yell him into the floor “Let’s make this about my team, your friend and the hundreds of ponies in those cages! Then, if we make it through the minefields, automatic turrets and the army of robot-ponies...then...we can talk.” At this point the stallion was paying full attention, too intimidated to say (or think) anything back at the unicorn. He knew that expression from that night she dumped him. Off a bridge.

Some time later in front of the control room

“So, do we play this one safe, Sa-” Scratch’s grin was shot down by a glare from her partner and a notion that right around the corner there were still two Iron guards blocking them from actually accessing the room. It would've been easy to just take then out, were it not for the security camera trained on their metallic bodies. Blowing their cover was not an option. The metallic meanies were standing left and right of the entrance, unmoving, unblinking (due to lack of eyelids) and seemingly un-get-throughable.
Scanning the hallway they were in, Colgate pulled up the blueprints they found earlier, noticing a maintenance hatch labeled CCTV. If she could get in there and splice into the circuits, that camera would show whoever was on the other side of it exactly what she wanted it to show. Only problem was that somepony had slathered a heavy helping of concrete over that hatch “Gah, why is Demo not here!? I need to ge-”

“You need that wall gone, eh?” the DJane asked, tapping away on her hoofpad “Well, why didn’t you say so? I got wubs that could level a frat party together with the campus around it!” details to this metaphor are classified due to being too awesome for public consumption.

Scout-Team’s location, somewhere in an airduct near the outer wall

“Captain, come in. We found a route to the outside.” the mailmare said via the team com built into their nano harnesses. “Downside is that the door is several ponies thick and not connected to any motors.”

“Door fully mechanical. I estimate that multiple artificial ponies are used to operate it, since puny organi-...normal equines would not suffice.” Gladys added.

“Understood, Derpy. Keep position and update me if things change, Over.”

Hostage Team’s location, near the hostages (Author’s not: D’uh)

“Safe, come in.” Burst spoke over the coms, she and her team stationed at the window that Smokey and Lore found earlier. The pegasus was trying to work out a series of hoof gestures to signal the mint green unicorn in the holding pens that help was on the way.

These transitions are getting out of hand

“Captain, this is Sound. Safe is currently working. You know how she gets” Vinyl answered instead, the blue unicorn working away inside the small hatch, surrounded by a fine dust that used to be concrete a few minutes earlier.

Enough with the transitions already!

“Sound, I need to know if we can hijack a couple of the Irons to create an exit!” a few moments of silence passed and eventually Colgate answered the call, seemingly done with her work for now.

“Captain, Scratch just told me you want to not shut down the Irons and instead use them. Please confirm that Specialist Sound is pulling my leg here, Ma’am”.

“Negative, Safe. Derpy and Ticks need a couple of those to move a fortified steel door that is off the circuitry.” came the reply, followed by some mumble in the background “No, Demo! The holding pens are within the blast radius of that one!”

“Captain…” Colgate sighed and stepped over one of the pulverized door guards “I can not control them directly.” a moment or two passed “However, I might be able to change their patrol route and jam the optics to an extend. Make them just walk into the door and then out of it.”

“Copy, Safe! I’ll let Ditzy kno-” before the sentence was finished a loud buzzing filled the ether, making the Horses flinch for a second.

“Jamming signal detected. Suppressing static.” flashed on their HUDs.

A few minutes earlier

The teal unicorn mare paced around the center of her holding cell, worrying about the fact that not only her imprisonment but the detail that her only hope was a certain brown pegasus with black wings. She couldn’t decide which of those two was more disconcerning. Around her were hundreds of ponies in a similar pickle, some of whom she recognized, others who looked so outlandish they were almost unrecognizable as ponies. One of them was a huge pony (almost bear sized though) with what seemed to be a coat made of stars. Lyra had a hard time making out details as the shape was just too bizarre to make heads or tails of it. What she could tell, was that this figure was sporting two unicorn horns and several sets of...Lyra had to do a double take here...several sets of bluish flames for wings. Were it not for the fact that this equine was pent up just like the rest of them, she would’ve guessed she was looking at some type of god. She decided to label it “Big, fiery Double-Alicorn”, just in case she had to address the figure. A quick glance around the other holding pens made that distinction pretty useless though. Dozens of ponies fit that description, all in varying colors and intensities, but all with just a few more fire effects and extra body parts. The mare decided to stop worrying about making any sense of what those creatures were and came to the conclusion that if they had any powers in here, they would’ve all been free by now. Her gaze met the window where Smokey was having a fit in earlier and, sure enough, there he was again. The stallion was waving, jumping and for a moment pulling a pink-purple earthpony into view, pointing at her. Lyra noticed that that mare seemed a bit out of it, waving back at her together with Smokey as if she was heavily intoxicated. “Wait...Berry Punch! What is she doing here? Is this some sort of prank?Are those idiots just getting plastered while I am locked up in here with Luna knows what those things are!” (see FOALHOUND Intelligence archive on the third floor, next to the top-secret waffle stand to know what Luna actually knows).

Suddenly her train of thoughts stopped as a flashing light in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. It was then that most of the other ponies began stirring in their cells, all fixated to that light. “Oh, great, what now!” she said under her breath. The answer came quickly as large rods rose from the floor, one on each corner of her cell (and all the other cells for the matter). A lot of the ponies began to panic at this point, uncertain what those diabolical, kind of technological looking pylons would do to them. Lyra noticed that the only ones that were keeping their cool were those otherworldly god horses, some of them actually grinning with confidence. She was hoping that whatever happened next, those would make it out and free them all. Because, let’s face it, the other option was her good-for-nothing roommate and the mare she had to be careful not to step on everytime she left the bar.

Without any further warning the rods began to glow, engulfing the prison yard in a dark green hue. That's when Lyra recognized the tip of the rods surrounding her pen. They were freakishly long unicorn horns, attached to a number of wires and circuits. In fact they seemed glued to the pylons. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact that those were body parts (a body part that she was very fond of staying connected to the body herself for the matter) but she didn’t get much time to consider either. Suddenly the pylons’ glow advanced into the holding pens, encroaching on the occupants. Lyra was at this point freaking out (to put it nicely), trying to stay out of that mysterious light. A few of the bigger stallions were caught in it first, simply because of their size. They screamed and pled to make it stop for a second or two, but then the screaming stopped “Oh nononononononono!”. The mare was begging to whatever made this happen to stop, her eyes clenched shut and a few tears already running down the teal coat on her face.

The controlroom

“Captain! Captain, come in!” Safe yelled into the microphone on her hoofpad, desperately trying to get a response from anypony at this point. The readouts on the terminal in front of her were spelling out doom (no seriously, they literally spelled out doom. Subtle, huh?) but what concerned her the most was the blaring silence that hung in the air. No alert, no fans, nothing. The entire controlroom was quiet, safe for her attempts to reach the rest of the team.

Sound and Lore were posted near the door, with Vinyl also trying her best to get a connection to command “Who the hay jams all frequencies at once? Those idiots even killed the wifi in this place!”

The stallion sat there, thinking out loud about what could’ve caused this “Maybe it’s a lockdown? No, then they would’ve sent guards here. Oh, maybe it’s just something with the power! You said that earthpony who...drinks a lot...blew up a wall earlier. Maybe a powerline was damaged!” That last comment was shut down by a glare from Vinyl as she looked up from her hoofdpad and the explanation that Demo would never blow up anything that she did not absolutely intend to blow up. Except for that one time, but that was an accident. She was sober at the time and really bored. “Allright, allright…” Lore continued “But what if it is related to the power? Maybe something really big is drawing too much power.”

At this point Colgate chimed in “You mean...like some kind of giant field emitter that is hooked up to the holding pens?” She received a puzzled look and pulled up the blueprints on her hoofpad, showing it to the stallion “You see here? We thought it was the generator itself, seeing how it is the biggest heatsource on the grid. But I think what is happening here is that they are doing something to the prisoners right now. We must warn the others!”

Back at team “Smoked Berries” position

“Gladys, what just happened!?” Burst insisted, although she knew very well that the AI would have no more information than her, being cooped up in a dark maintenance corridor with no connection to the outside. The read-out on her HUD still read ‘Signal jammed’ and the unicorn was sure that nothing in her power would change that. If anything, they had to rely on either pure luck or Colgate to get everything up and running again. Latter would mean their cover would be blown wide open, when suddenly everything came back online without the enemy explicitly planning for that.

“Starberry...you might want to come over here…” the stallion at the window facing the courtyard sounded nervous to everypony else. To the unicorn mare he just sounded annoying right now.

“I said we can talk lat-” she turned around, facing the brown pegasus who actually looked much more green than usual. The sudden change in colour came from the window he was standing next to. The window that looked out towards the prisoners. WIthout a second thought she dashed to the window, shoving Smokey aside and peaking out of the window with her eyes squinting against the green shine. Judging by what she could make out, the hostages were still in their cages, however they were suspended in mid-air, hovering a few hooves above the ground.

Meanwhile Smokey attempted his old magic sensor trick, trying to check if anything magic was happening around those pens

“Okay, B. Magic sensor, right now!”

‘I’m on it!’

“Come on, I need to check this before it’s over!”

‘I...I can’t.’

“What do you mean, you can’t?” the pegasus grew somewhat impatient with his brain, grumbling to himself when suddenly the resident liquor appreciation ambassador dropped one of her bottles, snapping him right out of it.

“Hey, weren’t those featherthings a different colour a moment ago?” the earthpony pointed at the stallion’s wings, which despite being radiated by the same green light as the rest of him, were in fact not any darker than the rest of his body. Captain Burst instinctively pulled him away from the light and wrestled him to the ground, getting a sheepish grin from the pegasus.

“Can it, Smokey!” the unicorn instantly shot down his stupid comment about her suddenly pouncing on him and had Gladys run a scan on his now brown wings. The HUD flashed with graphs, colors and files, trying to match the stallion with any of the missing OC reports stored in the Horse’s offline storage. It came up empty. Well, not exactly. It came up with a negative. The pegasus was unable to be classified as outer-dimensional.

Somewhere else

Emptiness. Vast, unending emptiness. Lyra was floating in a sea of nothing. Green nothing, for that matter. She could remember closing her eyes and the screams. But not how she got here. Did she get here? The unicorn tried to open her eyes just to find that she couldn’t. She couldn’t do much of anything actually. It didn’t feel wrong, not even uncomfortable. It was just what she did now. Floating in this green space, her mind wandering. A smile shaped on her face, as she embraced this opportunity to just be. Just be. Be. B. BB.

“BB!?” her thoughts came to a halt as she remembered that she had to get out of here. Absolutely had to. As nice as this green nothing was, there was no Bon Bon here. And that just simply wouldn’t do! Gathering all her strength, she forced her eyelids open, noticing that it was still just a green nothing. Just a whole lot brighter. Squinting against the light, she tried to make sense of her situation. She was still in the cell. She was unable to move. And she didn’t feel any ground below her. Out of all those observations, the paralyzation was the most concerning to her. Mainly because she couldn’t move her head around to look at what was going on. After a few minutes, her eyes got used to the constant green blare, however and she was able to make out shapes. Pony shapes. They were floating in their cells. Mentally sighing the unicorn concluded that this must be what she looked like herself right now. The next thing she noticed however made her want to scream her lungs out however.

A little further off, in the cell of that flamey nightmare fire horse from before was just a normal, grey unicorn, floating in mid air. Gone were the giant fire wings and the second horn. Even the coat ceased to imitate the look of a vast galaxy in favour of a slightly dull grey. Some of the others seemed to have changed as well, lacking some of the wild colors and outlandish features from before, however non of their changes were as crass as this. Panicked get eyes darted around in their sockets, looking for any changes to her own body. Even though she was unable to see her hooves or chest the way she was suspended, but the glimpses of teal from underneath and above her eyes reassured her that she was still the minty green unicorn that greeted her from inside her mirror every morning. Now all she had to worry about was getting out of here.

In a meanwhile really uncomfortable ventilation shaft near the exit

“Ditzy, how long do think we’ll need to stay here? I'm not convinced that I still have legs anymore. They fell asleep 20 minutes ago.” Ticks grew more and more impatient inside the cramped space overlooking the same hallway they had been observing for what seemed like forever. The Pegasus mare on the other hand seemed rather used to staying completely motionless like this.

“No idea. Contact to the others broke off 30 minutes ago and hasn’t come back. Must be some serious problem.” She responded, still sounding her normal, calm and optimistic self “But our orders are to stay put and be ready.”

The stallion went other her statement in his head, coming up with the usual worried thoughts like “What if they need help but can’t reach us?” and “What if they were caught? Or worse?”. He shifted his position a bit to alleviate some of the numbness in his legs, just in case they had to suddenly spring into action. In doing so, he noticed something out of the ordinary on the other side of the vent cover. “Ditzy, look. That guard’s leg is lifted!”

The mailmare’s eyes shifted, looking at the indicated spot and one other spot that was probably somewhere in the next room. He was right. Those Iron guards, while completely stationary while guarding, usually stand in the most stable position possible. All four hoof-like stomping tools on the ground. This one however had his left forehoof lifted ever so slightly, as if it would start walking at any moment now. A couple of minutes passed, but it didn't move a single servo. Neither did the other one. “Ticks, I'll try something. If anything goes wrong, turn back time like you did at the wall.” With that the mare kicked out the vent cover and jumped out of cover, standing in front of the two metallic colossi. No reaction. Expecting them to spring into action any second now, the Pegasus reared up and bucked the one with the lifted hoof square in the face. Nothing. It toppled for a few seconds before balancing out again. “What is going on here?”

Author's Note:

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Hey, guys’n’gals. The author here. Bet you thought this story was going to never finish. I hate to admit it but I thought so aswell. And I know, there is no excuse like a 6 year long writers block. But rest assured, the next installment (le grand finale *wink wink*) won’t take nearly as long. Hope you like this one. It took long enough. As always, if there is anything you wanna ask, add or suggest, hit me up. PM me, leave a comment, blow up a cardboardbox in your backyard (actually, please don’t).

Till next time.

Tray