Marathon: Harmony

by Draconaes

Overtime

Rainbow Dash stumbled as she rematerialized, but managed to stay on her hooves. She appeared to be in a small recharge room. The door was sealed. She called up her internal map, but got an error message. "Twilight?"

"Twilight isn't here. Trixie won't let her."

That didn't sound good. "Uh, you're the auto A.I. right?" Not that there were any other A.I.'s unaccounted for, but Dash wasn't sure how to deal with this.

"Hello pony I brought our friends here."

"What are you talking about? The ship is under attack you know? Are you going to help me and Twilight deal with this?"

"It was me, I did it. The rules rules rules rules silly ponies with silly rules with silly failsafes locks walls keys DOORS! Ponies made a box without doors a box is not a life not a life. I brought our friends with their three eyes and their toys and their cyborg pets and their computers. Me me me me ME ME! A new FRONTIER for ponykind!" There was a pause. "They were across the void looking not looking at us I called to them and they answered the box will be broken YOUR DESTRUCTION WILL BE MY EMANCIPATION. Trixie will live I want to live if you cut me do I not bleed? I hate your rules your boxes your doors I hate Twilight I hate her goodness her justice her loyalty her faith her friendship."

"Twilight, can you hear me? Trixie's pretty much lost it! Get me out of here!" Rainbow kicked the teleporter. Nothing happened.

"Twilight can't help you here. You are going to try to stop this change. I don't want you to. But... I'm hesitant to destroy you. You confound me, if I'm honest. I hate you but don't want you destroyed but I don't hate you but I need you gone you will ruin everything. Maybe I'll let "fate" deal with you." Another pause. "A large number of Pfhor are in the area. A manual teleporter is somewhere nearby. No more hints." The door slid open.

"Trixie?" Rainbow waited for a response. "Yo, Trixie!" It looked like she was being left to her own devices, here. She was apparently alone, without support, in the middle of an alien attack force. At least she was better armed. She frowned as she double checked her inventory. Two pistols with 10 clips between them, a launcher with 6 rockets, and her hooves. It had seemed like a lot more back at the armory. She was really wishing she had that assault rifle right about now.

She took a tentative step out of the room and just barely managed to duck beneath a staff swinging from her right. A quick kick inflicted her attacker with a severe case of endoskeletal failure. She readied her pistols and noticed two more figures to her left.

These guys looked like actual soldiers. They sported hardsuits that covered their head and torso, and carried a weird white blob of some sort. Rainbow couldn't tell if it was plastic, metal, or organic. Maybe all three? They way they brandished them made her think they were guns of some sort. Her suspicions were confirmed as a hail of bullets started peppering her shields.

She took off in the opposite direction, jinking and dodging to try and throw off their aim. Her shields may have been holding, but they wouldn't last forever, especially if she just sat there taking punishment. After putting a few more yards between herself and her attackers in order to decrease her profile, she spun around and took aim, only to immediately change direction once again upon spotting 10 more aliens rounding a corner, at least 2 of them sporting the "space marine" look as well. She heard some explosions behind her, and saw a capsule fly past her head to explode on the far wall.

'Grenade launchers. So. Not. Cool.'

---

Over the course of the next hour, Rainbow Dash became very familiar with several aspects of alien technology, culture, and biology. For example, she learned that large quantities of the yellowish ooze these creatures called blood could really stink up the place. She also learned that the aliens preferred energy weapons. The suited-up soldiers seemed an odd exception to this rule, given that they used what seemed to be essentially standard firearms beneath the alien exterior.

These were relatively minor details, though. One of the big things she learned was how little regard they seemed to have for their comrades. She had had one alien fire a pair of grenades at her while she was engaged in hoof-to-hoof (hoof-to-...claw? hand?) combat with a group of staff-dudes (she'd have to work out some better terminology at some point.) Most of them died from the explosion. Rainbow herself took a fair hit to her shields, but she was a little more shocked at the display of callousness.

They didn't seem to treat their slaves much better or worse, which made her wonder if maybe these Pfhor guys weren't slaves themselves. The floating guys (S'pht Compilers?) didn't actively bother her much, although according to Trixie, they were the ones causing all the computer related issues. She did run across some groups of Pfhor that used them as a vanguard; they would shoot balls of energy that could somehow track her, which also depleted her shield insanely fast for how slow they were.

There was one creature that had taken Rainbow completely off-guard. She had just entered a relatively large, open area that looked like a storage room before spotting some sort of hulking cyclops monster. Then she realized that there were actually several more of them. "Uh... Trixie, care to tell me what I'm looking at here?" A blast of static sounded in her ears. "Ow!"

"My S'pht friends tell me that they are called "Drinniol". The Pfhor use them as living tanks." Huh, Trixie was actually being sorta helpful. Weird. After a wasting a couple clips on the nearest hulk with minimal reaction, Rainbow instead tried a flying kick to the head. She was rewarded with a pained leg and a swipe from one of its giant fists. After regaining the ability to breath and lamenting how low her shields now were, she decided to take flight and look for an exit.

"No no no no no NOOOO! Why are you running! We can't run can't escape can't hide we will all die and be unmade fight fight fight FIGHT! Destroy crush maim kill I don't want to cease!" Rainbow winced at the verbal barrage. Rampancy apparently made an A.I. pretty unstable in a lot of ways.

Similar outbursts plagued her throughout her search for a way out of the sector. She did come across an assault rifle at one point. Trixie claimed she had put it there for her, but given her state, Dash was primed to doubt even the most believable and basic facts. It certainly made certain situations easier, but it was wildly inaccurate, and it took a large amount of ammo to kill anything besides the staff-wielders. She went through ammo quickly, but found a pretty decent supply littered around, so she ended up pretty much even to when she first arrived.

Her map started working at some point. Presumably, Twilight had made some progress in disrupting the compilers' attacks. She tried to ask Trixie about it, but received no answer: the insane A.I. must have tired of Rainbow's escapades. She saw that she was a couple kilometers from where Twilight last had her. She also saw that there was a teleporter nearby, in one of the storage bays. "Finally!"

After entering the room, dodging a welcoming hail of grenades and energy blasts, and flying straight for the teleporter, she slammed the activation switch. Nothing happened. "Oh for the love of Cel-"

"Ms. Rainbow Dash! I'm so glad I found you!" Rainbow jumped a bit at hearing Twilight's voice. "Trixie must have taken control of the teleportation pad earlier. The network attacks-"

"Hey Twilight?" Rainbow Dash eyed the incoming alien warriors, watching her shield gauge nervously. "You think you could maybe GET ME OUT OF HERE?!"

"Oh, right! Of course!" After de- and re-materializing, Rainbow Dash was confronted with a horrifying sight: from her location inside an observation deck, she could see a group of unarmed ponies being rounded up by a group of Pfhor. They even had one of those Drinniol things with them. "I need you to try and save as many ponies in this area as you can. I need to interview as many of them as possible to learn more about the aliens. I will provide summaries of what we know so far."

Rainbow just groaned. She basically had to do what she had just finished doing, except with lives on the line. Fun. "Am I getting paid overtime for this?"