Whitefang, a lone Diamond Dog is forced to help a lost Earth Pony get back to her community what could possibly go wrong?
Whitefang has spent most of his life alone, isolating himself from others. But, this all changes when he meets a technologically adept Pony named ChipSet. The two of them share a strained relationship, but they're gonna need to get along in order to survive the perilous world they are trapped in.
"Aaarrgghhh!" a large muscular Diamond Dog pounded against his egg-like containment cell, letting everyone know in the Airship that he was not content with being imprisoned. He was menacing and terrifying, with a literally red face and white fur that could knock anypony off their hooves. However, in his current state, he wasn't in any position to hold a threat. He continued to pace and grunt and thrash, much like an irritated animal, waiting to be set free. A mechanical voice, female, sounded above him and explained the journey he was taking as well as other accommodations. He honestly couldn't give a damn.
"Slaves 4875, 9045, and 9874, attend to Priority One," the voice broke its monotonous cycle of instructions and he saw three Ponies run past his cell with haste, "Priority One has broken sleep cycle, enforce compliance without fatality." It caught his interest for a second, but he had more important things to worry about, such as his own enslavement. He continued to hit the door with his paws, although he had a rather calmer approach, understanding that this wasn't something he could easily get out of. Another interesting event occurred, however, and the Diamond Dog noticed the containment cell across from him had opened spontaneously, a young Filly with a red mane stepping out of it cautiously at first. Wait…no, it was a Mare, indicated by her physique. He saw her immediately run over to a control panel once she knew the coast was clear. If a small thing like that could get out, surely he could! He continued to pound the door with a bit more insistence, but no use.
"Warning: temperature critical," the voice again stopped its instructions, "Structural integrity, thirty percent." The Diamond Dog looked at the Pony who ran away from the console, obviously the perpetrator of the malfunction. He looked up at the camera that peered down at him.
"Hey! Hey!" he shouted at it, understanding that now the Airship and any containment cell was a bad place to be. He looked out of the dingy cell window and saw sparks and jets of hot steam puncture through walls and pipes.
"Alert! Alert! Hull breach!" the mechanized voice only served to put more panic in the Diamond Dog.
"HEY!" he yelled again, louder, as he began using his shoulder to break down the door. Suddenly, explosions joined the sparks and steam, fire bursting out of various areas around the containment cells. The explosion behind the large Diamond Dog's cell was larger than the others and it flung his containment cell across the floor, throwing him about with it. It took him a second or two to get his bearings, but once he realized the door was no longer being enforced electronically, he merely gave it a punch and it went flying. Carefully, he climbed out and surveyed the damage the ship was taking, landing with a definitive thump. With no time to lose, he ran towards the nearest door he could find. It didn't take a genius to figure out that what the mare did was fatal and that at any moment this ship could be crash landing with everyone else in it.
"Priority One is breaching its cell, all slaves report to Priority One's cell immediately!" the voice rang out despite all the horns blaring out its inevitable death. It still had time to worry about that? He shook his head and continued to run, but halted when a slave got taken out by an explosive containment cell. The Diamond Dog couldn't waste time on contemplating how close he was to having the same fate as he ran towards the door, but another slave was on the other side.
"Prisoner loose in carriage nine, prisoner loose in-!" the slave had a similar fate to the previous one, dying in an explosion of flames and steam. The Diamond Dog recoiled from the destruction, shielding his face.
"Affirmative, slave nine-four-nine," the Diamond Dog grimaced at the voice, thoroughly hating it, "Spider-bots activating." Ah hell. There went the easy way out. As he continued to jump and run to the next door, Ponies who were still trapped in their cells were reaching out to him, their hooves waving about trying to get his attention. Continuing to ignore them, he spotted the young Mare who had started all of this. She was able to get the next door open, which certainly caught his interest. Maybe she knew a way off the ship? However, before he could reach her, the last section of the platform broke off as he landed on it, dropping him to the floor below. Still alive, he glanced back and was glad none of the other grated floors had dropped, else it would have landed him in hell-fire. The Pony had escaped to the next room, so he continued to follow her. The trail of open doors was his only hope to get off of this death trap. Once he got back up and into the next room, another series of explosions went off, the Pony running quickly to avoid them and ended up safe on the other side, beginning to work on the door again.
"Alert, hull breach, alert, hull breach!" the Diamond Dog was starting to get annoyed by the computer, but he had no time to rip off every single speaker in the slave ship. Besides, he also needed his gear, something that was vital to his survival and a precious gift from a friend long ago, so he needed all the time he had to search for it as well as finding a way off the transport. He continued to run through the doors that the Pony had opened for herself, screams and shrieks of pain coming at him from all angles. The Diamond Dog saw the Pony again, her back turned to him.
"Hey!" he caught her attention, "Where are you going? How'd you get off this thing?" The Pony ran off, terror clear in her eyes. The Diamond Dog couldn't blame her, he knew he wasn't exactly the easiest to look at, but come on! He tried to run towards her, but the platform in front of him exploded, again separating him from the Pony. Trying to reach her, he dropped down and again was pelted with sparks as the cells exploded. An odd creaking sound was the only warning he had when he turned around and saw the ship literally disintegrate, Ponies and pieces of machinery flying out while the Diamond Dog struggled to hold on. He had almost fallen out of the plane but luckily managed to grab onto a secure iron beam that was still attached to the ship. Quickly, he used his superior climbing skills to make his way back onto the ship, his heart beating a mile a minute.
"Fire in sector 6. Containment measures failed," he could still hear the ship's computer, annoyingly, "Priority One has escaped, secure Priority One!" Whatever this Priority One was, it was causing a lot of trouble now that it was up and about. He continued to scale up the ship, trying to get to more secure surroundings when the computer again spoke.
"A-graded prisoners report to escape pods," it said and he smirked, "Slaves rated B and below, await further commands. Priority One's safety has been secured."
"Escape pods? Now you're talking," he began racing towards the escape pods, no doubt where the Pony was going, so he again followed her. Suddenly, as he approached two disoriented slaves, a Sentry came out and instantly began firing at them, killing the slaves and narrowly missing the Diamond Dog. He dived to cover and waited until the Sentry stopped shooting.
"I can't fight this thing…I gotta get my weapons back!" he reasoned and began scaling the walls, outside of the Sentry's visual range. He got up to the next floor to avoid it and found a sane and calm slave trying to manage a console, most likely to try and save himself and the ship, despite the futility of it. The large Diamond Dog ran to the slave and grabbed him.
"Where's my stuff?" he asked when he pushed the slave against the console.
"What?" he asked, the slave sounding like a young Colt, probably younger than him.
"The stuff! Where's my gear? The stuff you took away from me!" he demanded, the slave's face covered so he didn't know what expression he was making, but he was sure he was terrified.
"I can't talk to you, it's against the rules," he replied scared, but the Diamond Dog punched the console behind the slave, leaving a very convincing and persuading mark, "Item storage, in the lower hull." However, once the slave had spoken, the computer turned on him.
"Slave 6B58 is assisting escaping prisoner," more alarms sounded around them, "Level 1 infraction. Command: terminate slave 6B58." Immediately, the slave's hooves went to his neck, a glowing red light appearing on his slave collar. He cried out in pain as the collar began to generate power and in a single flash fried the slave.
"Termination complete," the Diamond Dog could only stare at the dead body, confirming what the computer had said. Again, he had no time to waste on his actions and the death of the young man as he began sliding down a pipe to the item storage.
"Escape pod eight launched. Seven pods remaining," the Diamond Dog knew that there was little time to lose and ran to the crates, recognizing his vehicle. However, it was pretty locked up in that crate and again, escaping the dying ship was the prime objective.
"My ride! At least I can get my gear back," he reached inside and managed to knock the storage compartment, accessing his gloves and a few choice items. A mechanical voice whirred when he knocked the heavy gloves together.
"Shields active," he grinned, now protected somewhat against the Spider's bullets. The Diamond Dog whipped out a small circular device and tried to open it.
"Stratus inactive," the voice answered to his actions and he grimaced.
"Damn!" the Diamond Dog still slipped it in his vest, now reaching for a small baton-like item. However, when he flicked his wrist, it extended into a formidable staff-like weapon. It shrunk back on his command and he stuck it on his right arm, a slot made just for it. He felt satisfied with his find and concluded that, although it didn't sit right with him, to leave his bike.
"Okay…let's deal with that Sentry," he was breathing heavily, relieved that he had at least found the essential tools to his survival. He clambered back up and advanced on the Bot.
"Here we go, come on!" he ran towards it, avoiding some of the bullets by ducking behind machinery, but when he was close enough, he continued with abandon, his shields taking most of the damage. He whipped out his staff and began beating it when it ran out of bullets, destroying the Sentry easily with a few hits. However, once he got to the next room, he began to sweat a little.
"Spider-bots!" he surveyed the vast amount of Robots that were hanging from the ceilings," At least they're not active." He walked calmly and slowly, to make sure that they wouldn't take notice of him. However, it was for naught when they began to drop from the ceiling when he reached the middle platform.
"Activating Spider-bots," this computer was really getting on his nerves. This time, a melee-type Bot faced him and he whipped out his staff to deal with it.
"C'mon!" he yelled, charging it and again winning, fighting one more after, "That all you got?" Of course, his mouth always did happen to get him into trouble and this time two came at him at the same time.
"Aah, shit…" he proceeded to battle them with a little more difficulty, sliding under one and jamming his staff through its body while eliminating the other with a ferocious lunge at its head.
"Escape pod seven launched. Six pods remaining," the voice reminded him in a cruel, taunting manner.
"Crud! Six? Better get a move on!" he ran towards the door, again open probably due to the Pony earlier. However, he encountered another Spider-bot hangar bay.
"Oh no, you've gotta be kidding me!" he groaned, proceeding to run towards them and jumping up, swinging his staff with enough force to extend it even farther. It knocked both the Spider-bots into a vulnerable state and he smashed through them. Another Spider-bot dropped down from the ceiling and he growled, charging the staff with blue plasma energy before releasing it on the Bot and stunning it. The Diamond Dog didn't have time to waste with the Bots, but they just didn't stop, so he beat that Bot viciously until he swung the staff through the midsection of the entire Bot. As soon as that was done, he raced for the door before anymore could drop down and saw the Pony again, closing the red door behind her this time. He slammed his paw on the door hard to get her attention, to which she turned back and stared.
"Hey! Hey! Open the door!" he yelled, but she continued to stare, "OPEN THE DOOR!" The Pony began to walk backwards away from him and he bared his teeth.
"You mother-" the rest of his words were drowned out in the noise of the aircraft and the alarms from the Pony's side, but it was clear he wasn't happy with her abandoning him to his fate. He continued to pound the door, but to no avail, she left.
"Oh great. Now what?" he muttered. Calming down, he looked up and around, finding that there were scalable surfaces that he could work with. The ship was getting closer and closer to land when he looked down, and there were explosions near the front of it as well. He couldn't afford to cuss or rant and ran up the sides of the section of ship and the wings to get to the next carriage. However, Spider-bots again appeared much to his exasperation.
"Not here!" he nearly screamed, getting tired of all this bull. He proceeded to fight his way across the wings and finally made it to the front carriage of the ship. However, just as he reached a certain wing, the wing in front of him slammed into something, and as he looked back on it, noticed it was a giant statue that held what was once a flame of some sorts, a crown fashioned on her head and holding a book. They were getting too close to the ground now, so it was inevitable that they would have hit something by now.
"We're gonna crash," reiterating his thoughts, "I gotta get to one of those pods!" He quickly turned his attention back to jumping to the next wing and noticed that the escape pods were nearly in his reach, but another one launched.
"Escape pod four launched. Three pods remaining," that damn computer kept reminding him very irritatingly of his dwindling chances of surviving this. He reached a door panel that was structurally weak under all the damage the Airship had taken and began prying it off, but when he did so, the wind carried the panel into one of the ship's engines.
"Oh no," he managed to utter before the engine was blown to hell and the ship, now with only one engine supporting it, turned sideways. Now, he was hanging off the wing with most of it beginning to fly apart with help from the large Diamond Dog. The wing in front of him hit what looked to be like a large rectangular mountain and it flew apart.
"Holy Buck!" the Diamond Dog saw another strange mountain and knew that if he hit it, there was little doubt he would die, "C'mon, c'mon!" So, without further ado, he climbed up the wing quickly, just enough so that when the wing did hit it, he wasn't on the section that was strewn across the rectangular mountain. Without that immediate threat, he continued to make his way to the escape pods, and saw another eject, his heart dropping when he heard the computer announce that it was the second one, meaning only one was left.
"Only one remaining? Ohhh crud!" he continued to climb faster and faster, his life depending on it, "Come on! Come on you mutt!" The Diamond Dog almost lost his grip on the next pipe but held on, grimacing again when a blast of fire streamed against him.
"Move it! Come on!" he told himself, but the computer heightened his panic.
"Warning! Impact in 20 seconds," he yelled in frustration at the damn thing, but kept his focus on getting to that last escape pod, "Warning! Impact in 10 seconds!" Finally, he gripped a small bar that was on the escape pod and sighed with relief somewhat, but when he moved to open it, he found that the young Mare was inside. They were both surprised to see each other, but after shouting at her and threatening her, she didn't really feel any sympathy or compassion as her hoof hovered over the eject button.
"No! No don't do that!" he yelled at her from outside, seeing that the position he was in, despite being on an escape pod, was definitely almost equal to staying on the ship, "NOOOOO!" The escape pod ejected and rocketed them off the ship with speed that had him actually plastered to the pod. The ship crash-landed as expected, but he couldn't tell where since he was more worried about dying on the escape pod. They continued to rocket around the once-vibrant city of Manehattan until the pod hit a stone arch. It separated the Diamond Dog from the pod and the Mare finally and flung him through a window, slamming the Diamond Dog against a fallen stone pillar. He stayed awake for a moment, watching debris and leaves flutter around the disturbance he caused. After everything he survived, he knew that laying here would leave him vulnerable, but he could feel the darkness creeping into his mind and allowed it to take over, his vision going black and his head lolling to the side as he fell unconscious. He may have escaped, but he would soon discover that he was far from being free…
Meanwhile, on the Ship
"Pri-priority One…" the computer's voice crackled on the broken console and a figure stirred next to it, in a giant bubble-like containment cell, "Ch-checking vitalssss…" A blue light scanned the figure in the cell and they cracked an eye open, showing that where white would have been there was black, with yellow pupils.
"Priority O-o-one stable," the computer managed to screech out, the figure awakening completely and sitting up in their prison, "S-s-sending distressss beacon." A small light started blinking on the cell, the figure staring up at it. With that, the computer completely turned off and the one last prisoner left alive on the Airship was left alone. That shadowy figure stood up and looked at their cell before flexing slightly, eyes staring up at the beacon in slight disappointment. Even if it was destroyed, the signal would have been sent already, so it didn't do any good to waste energy on the annoying device. The best thing to do would be to escape the cell and escape, thus leading to the recovery Bots finding nothing but an empty wreck that smelled of death and destruction. While trying to figure a way out of the cell, the figure's eyes spied a certain crate that contained a surprisingly undamaged small aircraft. It was familiar and the figure's mouth opened slightly in wonder, but closed a few seconds later in a small smile.
"So…he was here with me…the entire time," the figure sat down in a meditative pose and closed their eyes, "I'll be waiting then…Whitefang…"
There was sunlight…and grass…that much he was certain of. What he was lying on was hard, warm, and forgiving. Probably why his head hurt so much in the first place. The large Diamond Dog tried to get up and as soon as he at least propped himself up by his elbows, he saw the Pony staring at him like some child, again thinking that she was more Filly than Mare. She looked at him like he was a strange creature, uncertain of him. He was pissed off at her, for sure, since their best interactions were slamming the door in his face, leaving him to die, and ejecting the escape pod while he was on the outside of it. Needless to say, seeing her again wasn't a welcome sight.
"You…" he managed to get out, despite all the pain that assaulted his senses, "Aarrgghhh…oh Goddesses! My…my neck feels like it's broken." He sat up for second then fell on his back, groaning in pain.
"It's the collar," the Mare finally opened her mouth to speak and surprisingly she didn't sound like a small weak child.
"What?" his face was contorted in pain and disorientation, trying to sit up again only finding that the pain increased tenfold.
"The slave Collar…" her eyes were wide, watching his reaction, "The one I fit on you." Now, one can imagine the surprise and rage that the Diamond Dog felt when he heard those words. He had just survived an exploding containment cell, fought several heavily armed bots, and avoided a gruesome death by crash-landing by hopping on an escape pod. All of this so that he wouldn't get enslaved by slavers and transported back to their base of operations. What's more, he's done this since he was a pup, surviving on his own, fighting bots, even Ponies, and to be taken down by this…this…Mare? The face of pain was dropped and switched with one of serious disbelief. His paws came up to his neck and he felt the cold, rigid steel that would keep him prisoner. He leaned forward, pain forgotten.
"You put this on me?" he asked quietly, yet the Mare could feel the rage building in those words.
"Let me explain!" she began in a hurried breath, her eyes going even wider if that was possible. She knew the consequences, but she still seemed scared. He narrowed his eyes. If there was one that was ever going to be explained, it would be why he was not…and he meant, not messed with…ever.
"Get this thing off, or I'm gonna bite your head off," he promised her. Not telling her, promising it. His eyes were serious and they flashed with barely contained anger, understanding that if she was the one who put it on, she was the only one within a 100-mile radius who could take it off immediately. If he had to scare her and threaten her into compliance, so be it. Law of the jungle, and he took that saying to heart.
"No," she replied determined and he looked up suddenly.
"No?" he questioned loudly, grimacing. Was she insane? She was half his size, probably couldn't even hold one of his gloves without dropping it in five seconds. A weakling. Someone who had to depend on others. And here she was, acting like Royalty when she had nothing on him except the power to take off the damn collar. And even so, he could just kill her and look around for other survivors to threaten into agreeing to do it for him instead. He began to get up.
"Do you think I'm screwin' with ya?" he yelled at her, pushing off the pillar and running at her like a maniac, the Pony's eyes wider than ever. She gave a garbled and scared noise before she hid behind her own resting spot.
"Slave: stop!" she yelled in defense and to his surprise, a sudden pain flared around his neck, causing him to actually halt. A bright red light pulsated from the collar, signaling that it had hacked into his pain receptors and was giving him a severe jolt. He screamed out in pain, his mouth open and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. It was excruciating. Again, her eyes went wide.
"Oh Goddesses…it works," she said breathlessly, now confident in her power, "Slave: move away from me!" And another flare of light came from the collar as it responded to her voice, the large Diamond Dog giving even louder screams of pain as his paws flew to his neck and moved away from the Mare. He fell back to his original place on the pillar, trying to lessen the pain. It worked, and the Pony stood up from her hiding place to stare at him with her mouth wide open.
"What are ya doing?" he demanded, pain written clearly on his face. The collar had stopped shocking his pain receptors and he was left with what felt like his head being split open by a rock. He continued to groan in pain.
"I hacked a Slave Collar," she explained, ducking behind her place again, in case the collar failed, "So it could be activated by my voice commands." The Diamond Dog had fallen down and she gained courage once more as she came out to stare at him. Always watching him, making sure that the device was working. He felt like he was going to throw up, but he certainly didn't want her seeing that. His pride as a warrior, as a survivor, was already being wounded by having been enslaved by her.
"Activation triggers a systemic pain response," she took a few breaths, calming herself; "It's what controls the slaves." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye when he also began to feel the effects subside. Her eyes were just so freaking huge, like they were going to pop out of her head! And admittedly, that's what he wanted to do: pop her head like an overinflated balloon.
"I'm gonna kill you," he grunted at her, still struggling to gain control over his body. However, his brain suffered so much trauma from the headband that it was messing with his nerves.
"You can't…" she gave a smart-ass nod with her head, "If my heart stops beating for any reason, the collar will discharge a lethal dose." He stopped grimacing again, understanding her words, yet not believing a word of it. Just when things couldn't get worse!
"If I die, you die," she told him simply, her power over him absolute. The Diamond Dog groaned, closing his eyes in disbelief. Did she understand how much bullshit he had to go through today, half of it being her fault? Did she know how much crap he had to deal with before, just to avoid this kind of predicament? These questions continued to cycle through his mind, along with one just for her.
"Why?"
"I need your help. I come from a wind farming community," she nodded her head to the right, "It's about two hundred miles from here. I'll never make it on my own. If slavers don't get me, bots will. That's the deal. Get me back to my home and you can go back to yours." He finally was able to get to a kneeling position since the pain completely dissipated. Breathing heavily, he stared at her with less ferocity and hate. He still couldn't believe that he had been enslaved to such a weakling, but as he learned in his travels, it was better to roll with the punches then to take them outright. Besides, he was a reasonable Diamond Dog, when the time called for it. However, when she took off his collar, and he would hold her to it, he promised never to get near Pony settlements ever again. Once he sorted out his thoughts, he glanced back to her again, his eyes having drifted away during his pondering.
"Looks like I don't have a choice," he responded heavily and somewhat defeated.
"Neither of us do," it surprised him that she was actually apologetic, "I'm sorry." She wasn't quite such the bad manipulative Pony that he thought she would be. Admittedly, even he understood that nothing less than a strong warrior could navigate this place, and he was one of the very few who could do so alone. However, he wasn't letting down his guard around her. After all, it was her fault he was in the collar in the first place.
"Okay…" he was somewhat resigned in this and shrugged, "Let's go." He fully stood up and this caused her to back away a little, even sit on her flank. He looked around and tried to pull together the pieces of his mind that the collar had assaulted. When it looked like he wasn't going to throttle her anymore, she stood up as well and walked past him while he shook his head in an attempt to gather his thoughts.
"Slave: stay with me!" he was about to tell her that she didn't have to command him, but he was tired and just followed. He also hadn't noticed it before, but her words echoed in his mind. It was rather distracting and it certainly didn't make the transition from being free to enslaved any easier. Then, something even more bizarre happened: lights and readings appeared in front of his eyes, as if he were wearing a helmet, but he knew that all that adorned him was the collar around his neck.
"Hey! What the hell is all this stuff I can see?" he asked, groaning a bit as it did tweak his headache here and there while fiddling with his optical nerves.
"I've hacked the collar to give you visual feedback," she responded, entering something into the digital readout on her front leg, "It's patched into your shield system and my biometrics."
"And your voice," he finally approached that subject, gripping his head as the echoing became too much for him, "It's like it's…it's inside my head."
"It is," she replied, continuing entering data into the readout, "We have a continuous audio link now." He was a reasonable Diamond Dog, but this was just too much.
"Great…" he grunted sarcastically, still holding his head. She went silent after that last comment, apparently not used to being talked to in that manner. The Diamond Dog smirked a little, having finally shut her up. Again, he was a reasonable Diamond Dog, but that didn't mean he wasn't below getting payback while he could.
"You got pretty beat up when you landed," she again spoke and he nearly groaned with the sound of her in his head. Well, what the hell was he supposed to do about it? She pointed to a Healing Potion that was lying conveniently there, probably scattered around the entire city from the Airship that crashed. He walked over to it and stepped on it, not really showing finesse with the delicate machinery, but it did the trick as he felt the healing energy course through his body, repairing any damage the landing and the collar had done. The ringing in his head was gone and the blurry vision went away with it, giving him at least an easier time controlling his body.
"Shall we keep going?" as if she really had to ask, he continued to patrol around the area, understanding that an open area was a dangerous area. Bots enjoyed large open spaces, mainly because there weren't any obstructions such as stone or metal that would get in the way of their sensory range. This was also not a great place to stick around because it looked as though the earth had cracked and several fissures had raked the land here, making it easy for bots to hide. They came across a stone monument that had the faces of many Ponies displayed on them, old school paper style.
"Who are all these Ponies?" the Mare had asked, but the Diamond Dog just turned away.
"Who cares?" he replied, continuing to survey the area, but found that the posters were not only just on that stone but on others as well, covering nearly the entire vicinity. Ignoring them in favor of finding a way to get them to a safer place, he found a strange vertical platform that had a twin on the others side of the ravine.
"I think this must be a drawbridge," the Pony had come up behind him, joining him in staring at it.
"Must be to keep bots out," he surmised, glancing at a red and rusted sign.
"There are some controls here," she told him as she went to his left side, pulling down on a lever. It lowered their half of the vertical platform, now horizontal.
"The other side is blocked," she remarked, seeing as how the other side failed to move, "Can you get around and clear it?" He almost laughed at the casual exchange between them, a captor and her slave. To even be so unguarded towards him, her manner and tone said so, despite the professional air about them, it almost seemed like a joke. However, to focus back at the task at hoof, he nodded and looked around for good footholds. She looked with him, although he didn't see any point to it. He was a master climber, so even dubious places were scalable for him. He grabbed onto a metal pipe on the side of one of the stone buildings and crossed some metal beams to the other side. However, a metallic groan echoed around them in the concrete jungle and he knew that they weren't alone.
"What was that?" she asked quickly, suddenly feeling insecure and scared. He could tell by the elevated heart beat that he was monitoring from the heads-up display.
"Bots," he responded as loudly as he could without alerting the machines, "Keep your voice down. They could be close." As if to enforce what he said, a shadow of a bot passed by, another metallic groan sounding around them. He was almost to the other side, just a little more…
"What are we going to do?" she asked, again in a hurried tone, but it was a little louder and he cringed as he fell to the ground on the other side of the ravine. Both from the fact that it was loud in general and also because he could also hear her inside his head, so it rang for a while before his ears started working.
"Not make too much noise," he told her, and she replied with a bashful, 'oh'. He reached the lever that would lower the second half of the bridge, but the damn thing was rusted in place. As carefully as he could he jerked the lever into obeying, but it broke it and the bridge fell down with the loudest clang he had ever heard in his life, magnified by the fact that they were most likely surrounded by a large number of bots.
"Oh great!" he muttered under his breath, hearing the bots screech in joy at having located their prey. The Mare shouted out behind him, drawing unnecessary attention to herself.
"Keep out of the way," he told her from his side, "Let me deal with this." He stood directly in front of the drawbridge to keep them from passing him to attack her. There were three that vaulted over pillars of stone and vegetation and began their assault. With his trusty staff, he attacked the first with a strike straight through the head, the stupid thing actually flying towards him wide open. With one down, he turned his attention to the other two, dodging their flying metal blades and attacking their joints. When he struck through the last one in its middle section, he sighed.
"Okay, it's all clear. Get over here," he called and heard her voice.
"Coming," she replied quickly, the nervous little thing crossing and sticking to his side like glue. Already she had begun to depend on him. However, once she spotted a movable object, she pointed to it.
"We could get out from here. Can you move this?" she asked, and he looked at it, assessing it. He shrugged and moved forward, grabbing an edge and hoisting it up, displaying his full…or at least half of his full strength as he lifted it completely up, enough for her to get to the other side without having to crawl, but just bend a little. Needless to say, she was impressed, her eyes actually stuck to the muscles that rippled when he used them, probably too worried about him killing her to actually notice the Diamond Dog's physique. She glanced back at him when he got through without so much as a scratch. He actually had a good body, but she trained her mind to more important tasks at hoof. Such as, why was the Diamond Dog actually leading now? Seriously, where the hell was he going? He was jogging, so she had to run to catch up with him.
"Do you think you could tell what the…plan…is…?" she trailed off when he stopped and noticed that he was staring at a gigantic black cloud that looked like a snake coiling in the sky. Her mouth dropped open and her green eyes became ridiculously wide again, but it wasn't just the smoke. The entire area looked like an old city with Mother Nature retaking it inch by grassy inch, covering it in a lush green and vibrant scenery. It was beautiful.
"To get you home as fast as possible, so that you can take this thing off my neck and I can bite your head off," he listed, the Pony pausing in gawking at the breathtaking scenery to address him.
"I meant-"
"Yeah, I know what you meant," he retorted a bit irritated, having hoped that she would've gotten the humor of it, "See that smoke over there? That's where the Airship came down. First thing we're gonna do is head for that, hoping my ride survived the crash."
"What's your ride?" she asked, still staring at the smoke and scenery.
"Ah, it's the only way I know how to cover two hundred miles," he turned to her again, "Two wings and an engine." He proceeded on without her, but she caught up quick enough.
"Look at this place," she remarked, taking in the immense statues and tall buildings, "There must have been thousands living here."
"More," he corrected her, making her turn back to him.
"Tens of thousands?" she asked, intrigued by how he would know that.
"Maybe," he replied, "Someone once told me that this place…used to the heartbeat of a whole culture. This city used to be known for art, music, literature, and it was enough to give the population an identity that was unique." Her eyebrows rose up, surprised by his knowledge.
"And…who was that 'someone'?" she asked, but he waved it off.
"Forget about it," he told her, and she decided not to push him on the subject.
"It's so sad, though," she continued, hoping to at least generate more out of him, "I wonder what happened to them all." He didn't reply and she sighed, completely dropping the topic. However, they soon encountered another bot, this time a Sentry who began shooting as soon as its laser located them. The Diamond Dog instantly dove to the side, but the Mare just stood there, almost getting hit until he startled her by yelling at her.
"Get down!" she immediately did as he said and went for the nearest shelter, "When I give you the signal, you get back, okay?" He had figured she wasn't the fighting sort, so he was going to have to hold her hoof like a child would and guide her through the more dangerous situations. He felt like he was going to die any second because she didn't even learn the basics, seeing as how she didn't move when the Sentry first ambushed them.
"No, no, no, no, no," she babbled and he looked back at her, "I can't! I can't!" Goddesses, of all the times-
"Hey!" he interrupted her self-confidence-shattering mumblings, "Do as I say!" She immediately replied with a 'no', only making him further irritated with the situation, seeing as how he couldn't protect her with her being stuck in a corner raving like a lunatic.
"I gotta find a way to take him out," the Diamond Dog grunted to himself, seeing as how the Mare wouldn't do anything he said so he had to do it the hard way. Using the various objects around the bot as shields, he made his way over to the Sentry and attacked swiftly, taking it out so it wasn't a threat anymore. However, it gave one last mechanized cry that alerted nearly six others, all of the Spider-bots. He groaned and continued to fight, but he was fatigued, the amount of stress piled with the amount of injuries he had sustained before and running on Healing Potions only was draining him. He received a small puncture wound on his right pectoral before slamming his staff into the bot's chest, making sure that it would be superficial instead of fatal. Then, as he was fighting the last bot, it sliced across his abdomen, the Diamond Dog not jumping back enough and a ribbon of blood streamed from it, staining his stomach. Finally, after it was done, the Mare was there, staring at him with those almost abnormally big green eyes as usual, like he was some sort of monster. He was pacing much like a wild animal, eyes somewhat wide and roaming, nostrils flaring, and his chest heaving.
"If we are gonna get through this," he yelled at her from across the way, "Then when I ask you to do something, you need to do it! Immediately!" She continued to watch him with those terrified child-like eyes and nodded.
"Okay…I understand," she responded shakily and softly. This made him start to calm down and he stopped his pacing, which also helped the Mare to relax a little.
"Let's go," he tested and she answered with an 'okay', following him immediately. They continued through the city, reaching another blocked archway to which she looked at him expectantly. He rolled his eyes and again grasped the edge of the debris, lifting it up enough for her to get through, but once he glimpsed what was on the other side, he yelled at her.
"Watch out!" again she had been watching him instead and found herself face to face with a Spider-bot, screaming as she slid down to her butt in an effort to stop her momentum. The bot closed in on her, hovering over her and then grabbing her head with its claws, the sheer terror she exuded probably making the bot even more blood thirsty. However, just before it brought her face to its blade, she jammed a small device into its optics, releasing some sort of shockwave that stunned all the bots in the vicinity.
"They're stunned, but it won't last!" she warned him, running away to the stair well. He understood and smashed them while they were completely vulnerable, taking only a few seconds or so. He looked at her cowering on the stairs, still in shock and her eyes wide with fear. The Diamond Dog picked her up and she nodded to him once she had recovered, showing him that she was alright.
"What the hell was that you did?" he asked, honestly curious but also wanting to help her ease back into a state of calm.
"It's an EMP pulse. My father gave it to me," she replied as she trembled slightly while climbing the stairs, "It knocks out small bots for a few seconds, enough to give me a chance to get away." The tremor in her voice almost dissipated when she talked of her father, as if the thought of him soothed her. The Diamond Dog ran up to her, easily catching up and watching her breath heavily. Then, she noticed the bright green electronic door in front of them.
"This security door is still functioning," she observed, almost in disbelief, "There must be live power cells around here!" She rushed to it, decrypting the locking mechanisms and trying to find a way to open it.
"Doesn't matter," the Diamond Dog immediately replied, "We shouldn't get sidetracked. We just need to get to the crash site." She glanced up at him as if his opinion was the one that didn't matter before getting the door open. Running through, she instantly dropped down on her flank again. The Mare was doing that a lot lately…
"Bots!" she explained in a loud whisper, but he slid over to her and covered her mouth.
"Shh…" he peered over the edge of the metal and concrete wall, "We can't sneak past them." They were Sentry's that could seriously ruin their chances of getting even near the ship. He looked to the other side.
"I'll get across and draw their attention. Then you make a run for it," he told her, the Mare nodding and he pulled his paw off her mouth. The Diamond Dog glanced around then ran, letting his shields take the brunt of the damage before getting safely to the other side. He distracted the bots and let her cross without being shot, sighing in relief. However, it was far from over as the Diamond Dog soon found out…
-Location: Airship-
"…Whitefang?" Priority One looked to the horizon, distant echoes of battle slowly making its way to the ship. Priority had escaped their prison cell with little effort after resting for an hour, stretching after being cooped up for so long, and was now watching for any bots that could be approaching the site. There were already several of them posted around, probably securing it, but none of them were climbing up yet.
"Waiting for more reinforcements, I see," Priority looked down at them before glancing back at the city, "There's little time to lose, my student. And you'll soon find that Manehattan has become an unforgiving place…"
The Diamond Dog was finding the same situation nearly everywhere they went. Sentries, Spider-bots, all in manageable numbers, but he was getting concerned. It had to be because of the ship, bots' first instincts were to destroy or surround disturbances in their sensor fields. With the magnitude of the crash, it must have wakened every bot within a 100 or so mile radius. The Diamond Dog was deciding that it might be too risky to bring the mare along and contemplated on forcing her to hide herself somewhere until he got to the ship and brought back his aircraft. However, she held all the cards and he couldn't force her. The Diamond Dog helped her past the last few bots, destroying them after she got to the security door, and sighed with relief. Finally! They had caught a break when they found an ancient tree that towered nearly as high as the stone buildings.
"Look at this tree," the mare remarked, "It must be hundreds of years old." She stared at it in wonder, again, like a filly. The Diamond Dog shook his head and looked up with her, mechanical Spite-bots whizzing around in the air and the branches. His blue eyes scanned the tree's curves and growths, calling him back to a time when things were much, much simpler. When he didn't have to deal with having to protect some Pony who was holding him against his will. She proceeded on to a path around the tree, advancing towards a colorful field of flowers. However, he dashed towards her and held out his arm, preventing her from taking one more step.
"Wait!" he told her quietly. Something wasn't right; he could feel it in the air. There were several sparking bots that laid in ruin around the flowers, but they couldn't have been defeated in combat, the damage was too severe.
"The road ahead's mined," he deduced, watching as the flowers swayed gently, belaying the awaiting death that came with disturbing it, "We need to find another way."
"I think I might be able to do something," the mare replied after a few seconds of thinking, "Follow me." The mare was excited, smiling, and touched his arm to get him to follow as she turned around and headed back towards the tree.
"Hey!" he called after her, shaking his head again at the recklessness she showed. This wasn't some game, he thought, it was a dangerous world, with dangerous bots and dangerous Ponies. However, he still had to follow her as the collar wouldn't allow him to wander far from her or her objectives. He came up next to her and saw her pointing at the mechanical bugs.
"See the Sprite-bots? I need you to catch one," she told him, and he looked at her incredulously as she wandered away to stare at them.
"What in Tartarus are you talking about?" he asked. She was asking him to catch bugs…seriously?
"I'm not commanding you, I'm asking you," she had come back to him and was looking him straight in the eye, something she wasn't able to do until now. The Diamond Dog stared back at her for a second, then closed his mouth and looked up at the tree, watching the dazzling greens, reds, and blues of the robotic bugs. He knew he was going to regret this, but since she finally decided to ease up on the parole measures…
"The branches are up pretty high," he responded, the mare smiling with delight that he agreed. He honestly couldn't believe he was doing this. She walked over to a side of the building where an iron bar outcropping caught her eye.
"What about that ladder? If you lift me up, maybe I could drop it down for you," she offered, and he came over, throwing her up to the top.
"So, you want me to catch one of these Sprite-bots?" he asked, just making sure since it seemed like such a random and meaningless thing to do. He didn't hear an answer from her until she figured out how to get the ladder to go down, grunting out her answer.
"It might be difficult…" she told him as he climbed up, "They frighten easily and they're quick." The Diamond Dog decided not to tell her that he already had experiences with Sprite-bots, seeing as how he just wanted to get this over with. Trying to catch one had frustrated him before, he was sure it would do so again.
"There's one! Right there!" she began fiddling with the digital readout, "I'll put it up on your display." He saw the Sprite-bot light up and nodded, beginning his ascent towards it. However, just as he predicted, it was tricky and frustrating just getting near it.
"It's just…it's-it's right over there! It's just-" he knew that she was trying to help, but this was getting him even more pissed off if anything and wanted her to shut up.
"I know, I can see it. I'm not blind," he grumbled, using his expert climbing skills, "Will you stay still?" He remembered the last time he had to catch a Sprite-bot, and it was just as ridiculous now as it was back then. Not being told why was another similar factor. The Diamond Dog just hoped that the mare had a good explanation other than that they were 'pretty'. He saw another opportunity to grab the darn thing and latched onto a pipe, scurrying up it to reach the robotic nuisance.
"Come on…" he swung his large paw at it, trying to snatch it out of the air when he shook the pipe too much and it fell down, almost slamming him into the grates had he not let go of at the last second, "Oh, God damn it!"
"Be careful!" he heard the mare say and he grimaced again, glancing down at her position. However, with her hooves cupped around her mouth and her eyes wide again, he couldn't bring himself to snap at her despite her authoritative tone. What was wrong with him?
"Thank you," he replied, somewhat sincerely and mildly. He didn't catch the surprised look the mare gave him and a slight blush as she watched him run across to the other side of the stone building. Again, she couldn't help but admire the Diamond Dog's form, even though they were on a mission. He was just so…honed, something she had never really seen before in her community. Sure, there were strong Stallions, but they were burly, slow moving, and kind of on the heavy side. This Diamond Dog was lithe, flexible, even the stronger Stallions in her community didn't have the strength and stamina to beat off the bots like he had and certainly not the skill. She couldn't help but gloat over her decision to enslave him, but a large piece of her heart sunk every time she thought about the fact that she had enslaved him. It was one thing for Slavers to do it, but for a Pony to a Diamond Dog who wasn't involved in her struggles…she'd keep her promise, she swore it. Even if it meant he'd bite her head off.
"You worthless ! I'm bug gonna kill ya!" his words snapped her out of her reverie and she saw him finally sprinting across the tree and his long and agile figure caught her eye again. Did she mention that his height, tall, was another factor she liked about him? The mare knew she was drawn to him physically at this point, even though they had only known each other for several hours. She didn't know his name, age, where he was born, or even if he had killed a Pony, although that might have gone without explanation. However, to her, it didn't matter. As dramatic and somewhat overly-romanticized as it sounds, she was a young filly at heart, and what little filly doesn't wish for a handsome and buff prince to whisk her away from this world only filled with bots and death?
"Oh, what a day…" he remarked, and the mare looked back up at him, but then noticed he was showing her his backside.
'Wow, that is…really nice,' she thought, instantly blushing when she thought of it.
"Hey…you okay? This thing is beeping like crazy in my head," the Diamond Dog looked down at her, eyes cringing as he touched his collar. She shook her head and told him she was fine. He continued on his epic quest to get the Sprite-bot and she stayed there, watching him. She'd have to reprogram the collar to only recognize dire stress, but for now, she was content to watch him. It was also nice to know that he worried about her like that. A smaller, darker thought was lurking in her mind. Once they reached the community, she knew that once the initial appearance was over-looked, he'd be swarmed by the other young mares that were there. Her delicate eyebrows knitted together in a small jealous twinge. The mare knew she wasn't a bad catch either, but in the presence of this Diamond Dog, was she good enough? Then, she remembered what they were doing and she looked up, wanting to distract herself from the 'what ifs'.
"Did you catch it yet?"
"No, no, not yet!" he yelled back to her, the frustration entering his tone of voice once again. She backed off and let the Diamond Dog do his thing, deciding that it was unwise to make him any angrier than he probably already was. Sprite-bots were hard to catch if one were to rely on athletic ability alone. Strategy and a calm mind were needed to get one, and even then it was hard.
"Got it!" her eyes widened when he shouted it.
"That's great! Bring it back down here!" she was glad that he had caught it, but again her mind wandered and whirled out of control as she wondered if he had ever lain with anyone, seeing as he was an exemplar example of a Diamond Dog. She was sure that his category of Diamond Dog: chivalrous (when he wanted/needed to be), handsome, strong, flexible, and even somewhat of strategist, was dying out or perhaps that he was the only one left. Yes, when she examined and weighed his negatives and positives, he was certainly someone with a ton of benefits. Sure, he could be uncouth and his manners were somewhat below expectations, but it was tempered with an ability to be reasonable and a willingness to learn. A flicker of movement caught her eye and saw the Diamond Dog slide down a pipe to her. She met him with a smile and bright eyes, but all he did was give her tired glare and throw her the Sprite-bot. Her face fell and the childlike and wide eyes looked at him again, the mare's mind focusing on the task at hoof now.
"I used to play with Sprite-bots all the time as a filly," she squatted down to set the delicate machinery on a stone in front of her, "My father said that somepony he knew from a long time ago helped him catch Sprite-bots too. He said that they built character and made you think, so he encouraged me to figure out how to catch them on my own. I always used to admire them because they could fly and had such beautiful wings. Didn't you?"
"No, I used to squash them," he replied, pacing and irritated, "Was too busy figuring out how to catch them and their color is made by those lights on the inside of its body, so when I squished 'em…" He looked to her and saw her eyes wide again, causing him to shut up. The Diamond Dog didn't want to scare her into incompetence. He turned away and waited until she had started working again to observe what she was doing.
"They evolved some simple sensors to help them sniff out energy sources," he continued to watch her as she fiddled with the damn thing that took him so long to catch, "Hmm…they're pretty basic, but…for our purposes, they'll do the trick…" Again, she was lost in her ramblings and he took the opportunity to just assess her. The mare was a pretty enough thing, but the environment wasn't doing anything good for her. Although it probably contributed to her slimness, seeing as how the out-of-shape were the first to die in this bot-filled jungle, but besides that, it had somewhat greased her mane so that when it fell out of her bun, it fell in ropy groups. Her face and entire body was dirty too, although he supposed it was similar to the pot calling the kettle black when he hadn't washed in a while either. However, her body was pretty nice, long legs, thin waist, and a nice-
"Done!" she exclaimed, and she opened her hooves to let the Sprite-bot have some room to flit around. It rose and shook its robotic head before flying toward the Diamond Dog, observing him for a second before squeaking in terror and flying towards the mare. It settled on her head much like an accessory and walked up to him.
"Keep still," she told him, and he did, watching the digital readout on her leg appear in front of him. The mare was sifting through data, pictures of things like his collar and the Sprite-bot whizzing by his eyes before he focused on the mare through it. He looked at her eyes which were darting here and there, trying to do…whatever it is she was doing, and found that they were indeed a nice shade of jade. They were…pretty. He almost smacked himself when he thought that and was glad that the collar only received and didn't send any wanton information back to her.
"There," the wall of data and symbols disappeared between them and they both stared into each other's eyes for a few seconds, the atmosphere becoming tense. The word she uttered was ended with a catch in her breath and she suddenly seemed shifty, nervous, and uncomfortable. However, the Diamond Dog continued to look her in the eyes, as was his custom when dealing with Ponies. He was taught that whenever dealing with a Pony, their eyes would be telling the truth, not their mouths.
"It's now set up to send a live relay to your collar," she spoke again after the small awkward moment, "It has a camera setting, and a sensor setting."
"So?" he replied in a soft grunting voice, eyebrows lifting. Her mouth opened, but she still seemed uncomfortable. It closed for another second before opening.
"Try it out," she told him, then turned away, "Here, follow me." They traveled back to the minefield of flowers and she took the Sprite-bot off her head, sending it up to fly and hover over the area in front of them.
"You should be able to see the mines on your headband display," she informed him, the Diamond Dog's eyes widening as small orange circles with blue spheres in the center began appearing in his vision everywhere the Sprite-bot went, "What do you think? It's pretty cool, huh?" He had his paws on his hips and was continuing to look at the mines before turning to her, seeing that she was watching him intently to observe his reaction. Needless to say, he was mildly impressed.
"Yeah…" he replied and she gave a smile, one that caught his eye, "Yeah, it's pretty cool." She continued to smile, her heart soaring as she realized that she wasn't just a burden to him anymore. Not that she considered herself to be one, but she certainly couldn't fight the bots and maneuver around the terrain like the Diamond Dog could.
"Can you take me through the mines?" she asked, the Diamond Dog turning to her again, "I can't see where they are…" She was planning on him holding her hoof or something, but he nodded and then turned his back to her, crouching slightly. The mare looked at him in confusion and the Diamond Dog looked over his shoulder at her impatiently.
"C'mon, haven't got all day," he grumbled at her. She understood what he was going to do now and she was surprised, yet happy. Being carried around by him was even better than she expected, although she knew the gravity of the situation would be dire if he happened to fall right into a mine. So, she tried to be professional about it and just clung to him. He didn't even have to support her legs, his hips and butt easy resting points for them, which made her somewhat blush as she felt them shift and the muscles in his back brushing against her chest and stomach. Goddesses, was he just made of muscles or what?
"You all right?" he asked her, and she nodded as they began walking through the mines, "You need to fix this then, 'cuz your icon is going nuts in my display." The blush on her face increased tenfold as they moved along the minefield. Once they had reached a more open area, she tapped his shoulder and he looked at her, nodding as he put her down. She put her hands on her hips and breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was easy," she remarked, the Diamond Dog's eyebrow lifting in turn, "Well, for me anyway." She wanted to groan, she didn't mean to say that! The mare was about to walk off to cool her head, but the Diamond Dog outstretched an arm again.
"Wait a minute," his eyes scrutinized the area once more, "Something's not right here…maybe you should do another scan." She complied and flung her Sprite-bot up again, watching the Diamond Dog's face grimace as even more mines appeared in his vision.
"We've got a problem. There are mines everywhere," he told her, his eyes closed to see through the Sprite-bot's own, "Let's head for that building!" The mare looked at where he pointed and put a marker there for him, the small blue diamond clear in his eyes. He swung her on his back again and began to make the ascension, traversing broken down vehicles and stone outcroppings before realizing that he wasn't going to be able to carry her the entire way. He looked around for another route when she pointed at a ledge.
"Throw me up to that ledge, I'll look for a way through," she assured him, and when he had gotten to where she wanted him, "Up there!" He obediently threw her, giving her a rather large heave so that she could reach it. Once on top of the ledge, she waved at him.
"I can get across up here!" she shouted down to him and he nodded.
"Okay, I'll find another way," he told her, going back, but once he crossed under the bridge of stone outcroppings, a Spider-bot, cleverly hidden, attacked him. It surprised him as it sprung from its spot, lunging at him.
"Watch out! Slave: duck!" she yelled at him, unfortunately using the power of the collar to make him fall to his knees in pain. However, it worked as the bot accidentally flew onto a mine, blowing it up and causing the pieces to rain down around him.
"I could've handled it myself!" he angrily retorted at her, grabbing his throbbing neck.
"Sorry, but if it had tackled you …" he glanced back and saw the awaiting mine nearly half a paw behind him, "You would've ended up like the bot." He looked back at her, his paw still holding the back of neck. He jerked his head up in a rushed thank-you, dropping the paw rather grumpily. She then made a cough and he turned back.
"Are you okay?" she asked in a more concerned tone.
"I'm fine," he assured her curtly, and she sighed.
"Good…because I can't get across. Can you help me?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes a little before he jumped on a rusted and broken down vehicle, the name of the contraption finally surfacing from his memories. When he reached her and threw her to it, she almost fell down and he had to jump back to help her, grabbing her front legs and dragging her to her hooves, which wasn't all that hard to do.
"Thanks. That was too close," he nodded to him in thanks and they both continued on the connecting stone pillars and rusted vehicles to a small island with a barrier.
"There's a sentry turret over there," he observed and pulled her down with him, "We won't be able to get past." She put a hoof on her Sprite-bot.
"I'm gonna scan," she threw it up in the air and he watched it fly off, the small recon unit becoming a routine occurrence now. He closed his eyes and watched through the Sprite-bot's own optic as it surveyed the area, spying the giant metal sign it was looking at.
"I'm detecting a structural weakness," she told him, putting small crosshairs on the areas where the metal was rusting, "If you could get close, you might be able to knock that down and crush it." He nodded and immediately set off, using his shields and the mare's own decoy to reach a building where he'd be able to cross above the turret without begin shot at. He surveyed the ground and he frowned once more, several Spider-bots resting there and obscuring his way.
"I need another scan," he told her through his link, and he closed his eyes and watched through the Sprite-bot.
"Looks like you might be able to sneak past them," she told him, and he nodded as she showed him the way. The Diamond Dog wasn't one to complain, but he was growing weaker by the minute. And every time he moved made it worse, but he wasn't going to reveal that to the mare. Once they had made it to a safer point in the city, they would take a break and then he would treat himself, but for now, healing potions were his only hope besides rest. Speaking of which, he was in need of one because they hadn't had time to search for anymore due to the constant interference of the bots and the wound he got across his stomach wasn't exactly getting any better. He spied one behind the field of bots and their sensors, but he couldn't afford it. It would only work against him, so he took the path that led him above and across the bots, reaching the other side with little difficulty.
"Okay, I got past," he told her quietly, and grinned when he saw a healing potion just waiting for him as if it were a reward for deciding to go stealthy. He stepped on it and he felt the gash on his stomach disappear without a trace, although replacing his blood wasn't as easy. Rest and time were the only things that would restore it, so he hoped to get through this as quickly as possible. He clambered up the building with the metal billboard and finally reached the top. He stared at the metal beams and groaned slightly, he certainly didn't want to have to manually knock the supports down.
"Okay, made it," he told her tiredly, preparing to jump when he found some plasma cells, the ammo he needed to power his staff, "Plasma cells! Now we're in business! I hope this thing still works…" Using the staff blast mode, he shot down the supports with ease and it fell on the turret, actually creating a safe bridge to his position from hers, conveniently enough. However, as usual, sound and tremors alerted the mechs to their location and he saw her running for her life once more.
"Ahh! Help me! They're coming! Quick, do something!" she sprinted towards him, sliding and ducking when she saw an arm come down and one Spider-bot barreled past her into a mine. He quickly jumped down the building and preceded to just swat them towards the nearby mines, figuring it'd be easier to blow them up instead of fighting them directly head on. As soon as the last one had stumbled into an explosive, he put leaned against a pillar while she ran towards him, having hid in the shadows as usual.
"Are you okay?" she asked, kneeling down as soon as she was near him to look at his face. He was breathing hard and he desperately needed rest, having fought nearly a whole armada of bots, ranged and melee. The mare seemed to take notice of his tired and irritated demeanor, his face now pressed against the cool stone column in an effort to regain some composure and calm. She honestly did feel bad about his current state, and she would have offered to stay somewhere to rest had he not claimed that the crash must have alerted nearly every bot in the city. So resting was not an option at this point. She looked between him and a downed bot at his dewclaws before pulling up the scanner, the green-blue wall of data again rising from her arm.
"Every time you kill a bot I can download its schematics," she told him, hurriedly flicking through the data, "Figure out what makes it tick." She slowly rose from her position, all the while her hoof working in a flurry of motion while her eyes kept darting between the data and the Diamond Dog. The mare knew that he was having a rough time protecting her, so she was trying to share the burden as best she could: technology and data.
"It will make life a lot easier for you," she told him after she was done, approaching him carefully. He looked up as she came closer and continued to breathe somewhat heavily. He had his eyes closed, which made it less intimidating, but once he opened them fully to show her the pent-up rage, anger, and frustration that swirled within its debts, she halted. In the shadows, they almost glowed with a surreal quality.
"If you wanna make life…easier for me," he breathed, he pointed to his collar, "Why don't you go ahead and take this thing off." The Diamond Dog walked away from her, a disappointed look souring her face. She had tried…as best she could, but even then, it wasn't good enough. She didn't put the blame on him, however, most of everything she did was made possible only by his doings, and his doings alone. He had caught the Spritebot that had become a major contributing factor to their group and she couldn't even dream to download the schematics if he hadn't been there to beat them. Most bots she had found in the field were old, their data cores completely rusted or melted by their comrades in an effort to keep Ponies like her from building a defense against them. And the Diamond Dog was giving her the very thing she had craved most when she was still with her community: the inner workings of a bot. The mare felt a darker side awaken in her heart, something she didn't want to admit. She was using him, in every way possible, and she was beginning to get used to it.
"Hey, we going or what?" the Diamond Dog called from the building where they were going through next. She shook the thoughts from her head and focused on getting back to her community as fast as possible. No more thinking, not right now. She could sort through them when they had a chance to sleep and regain their strength, but in the corner of her heart, she knew that what she was taking from this Diamond Dog wasn't something to laugh about or forget. She was taking his freedom, his life, his strength, and his tactical knowledge. Everything that he was, everything that he fought for, could be torn asunder with a word if she wished…
-Location: Slaver Ship Crash-Landing Site (The Bridge)-
"A hundred fifty years of ravaging and death," Priority One looked from their perch atop the slaver ship, the bots below still holding their position, "And yet so beautiful…" The sun had risen to almost the center of the sky and Priority was fanning their face gently. It was hot, making the metal under Priority's hooves scorching, but with a little help from the plastic containment cell and clever placing of strewn scraps of metal, they had fashioned a roof and a small chair to sit in.
"Balance is being restored to the land we had once taken for granted…" Priority looked up to the sky, "Whitefang…you must hurry my boy, the sun is almost at its peak. Be wary if you wish to continue on walking during the dark, for bots are not your only concern when the sun falls…"
-Location: At the End of Park Tunnel and near Manehattan's Mane Fair Hotel-
"If we're going to be traveling together," the mare offered, "Maybe we should exchange names." She had left her thoughts and worries behind for now, but she was still curious on other subjects. After getting through that bot-fest, she decided that if they did die, she at least wanted to know his name, and perhaps he know hers. The diamond dog had lifted the wall of debris for her and she slipped through, finding that this area was rather safe and secure, with walls around them and clear easy-to-see access points that would make it impossible for a bot to come in and attack them undetected. So, she brought the suggestion up to distract herself from her 'what ifs'.
"My name is Chipset, but I often get called Chip," she told him, grunting when she jumped off a ledge and landed firmly on her hooves, "I mean pretty much always. Ponies call me Chip." Well, that was lame. She wanted to go ram her face in a wall until it was numb.
"How about you?" Chip asked, trying to divert attention from her dull introduction.
"I don't have a name," he replied in his gravelly voice, gaining her attention.
"You must. Everyone has a name," she retorted, putting her hands in her hair and staring at him.
"Not everyone," he responded as he walked past her into another room of the stone building, Chip almost missing the cheerless tone in his voice. She blinked, trying to figure out what he meant before she followed him and grabbed his arm to get him to stop.
"Well, what did your parents call you?" she inquired instead, the diamond dog stopping in his tracks. He didn't look at her, just stood there for a moment or two before yanking his arm out of her grasp. She was a bit confused when he didn't talk for a while, pacing about the room.
"My real parents were killed in a bot attack when I was a pup," he finally told her, Chip's eyes going wide, "And the last good parent I had…abandoned me. After that, I grew up in the wilds…alone." Once he had informed her of his past, he walked into another room, not waiting for her. She looked down somewhat ashamed before running after him again.
"Well, what do the Ponies call you then?" she decided to continue, to distract him from the painful memories she probably stirred.
"Whitefang," he told her, and she smiled when he actually talked to her again, "That last parent I told you about gave me it and when we got around to other communities, they learned to call me that, too. Soon, when I was on my own, in the communities that I trade with, some of them stuck to calling me Whitefang. If you wanna give me a name, you can use that."
"Okay…" she liked how they were progressing so far, "Whitefang…" She tried it out and he turned to her. They were on a pile of metal containers shaped like a staircase, so he helped her up the last step when she started to climb. He nodded to her and she smiled again. This was nice…it felt like they had bonded somewhat in that minute or so. Maybe Whitefang wouldn't bite her head off at the end of all this, provided she gave him food, water, and other supplies to appease him. They found a hole in the wall of the building and gazed out. This new area was much more open and less crowded with vegetation. There seemed to be a bridge between a couple of buildings once, but some sort of cataclysmic event had torn it asunder and cast pieces of it aside. Perhaps an earthquake, he surmised. Whitefang went first and sprinted over to a stone barricade, glancing up from his position. Chip poked her head out, but Whitefang turned to her and furiously waved her over as discreetly as he could.
"Get down!" he yelled at her in a hushed tone, "Before that turret sees us!"
"Scanning," she automatically told him and threw her Sprite-bot up in the air.
"I don't think we can get through here," he observed, seeing as how most of the terrain combined with mines would make it difficult for Chip to go anywhere. Sure, Whitefang could probably get through this just fine, but without superior climbing skills, Chip was stuck since he couldn't afford being thrown off balance while carrying her. So, no clambering with her on his back, much to his frustration.
"Wait…I'm detecting a fuel source," Chip reported and Whitefang turned to look at her.
"A power cell?" he asked, interested.
"No, this is from the old days," she corrected him, "It's in that container. Looks like it's microspark cells." He nodded to her and she turned the Sprite-bot around to stare at the turret.
"You know, Whitefang, if you could actually get up to that turret, you can take control of it," she turned to him and he set his mouth in a firm line. He understood what she was hinting at, and he couldn't find any real reason to protest since he could take out the turret and the blockade at the same time, but they just got out of bot territory. Or at least found a neutral zone where they could get a breather for once. Now, if he did happen to make it up to that turret and blow up the tanker, he knew that it would just draw more attention to them. However, time was of the essence, and the longer it took them to get to the crash site, the more bots there may be surrounding it. He wrestled with the pros and cons and decided that it was better if they got the blockade out of the way after all. Whitefang nodded to her and began leaping across the debris and wreckage of the bridge that once was, Chip distracting the bot every time Whitefang called for it. Once he reached the turret, he raised his staff and slapped it, making it shrink inside its metal shell like a snail. Whitefang hopped on it and when it arose again, he grabbed the auto-targeting system wiring that was around the barrels of its guns and tore it off. This gave him full control as Chip had briefed him before and braced himself for when the tanker would explode.
"All right, you ready?" he asked her, Chip giving a nod from her position and he fired. It blew the tanker sky high after the gasoline ignited and a mechanical and guttural cry rang out from the forest surrounding them.
"I'm detecting bots…lots of them!" she shouted, and he grimly hunkered down to take them out. He knew this would happen, but he supposed it was the path of lesser evils or trying to trek around it and be ambushed by the bots that were apparently close by.
"They're coming straight towards me!" she told him, continuing to hide behind the barricade.
"Can you climb up to my position?" he asked in a loud yell, but she shook her head, "Didn't think so…okay, just stay there! I'll take care of them!" Whitefang noticed the first wave of bots rush towards her and shot at them, accidentally shooting one of the barrels that were lying on the island and causing it to blow up the entire wave of bots that came.
"Whoa…now that's what I'm talking about," he smirked and as soon as the next wave got near another stacking of barrels, he shot at it and it exploded just as the other had. With a few strategic blows, Whitefang had destroyed a whole squadron of bots, but his eyes narrowed as he saw one lone bot advance on Chip's position.
"That bot is broadcasting!" she yelled, Whitefang cringing at the ringing of her voice in his head, "It's calling for reinforcements! Take it out!" His eyes darted everywhere, but he had used all of the explosive barrels during the beginning of the fight and growled in frustration before training the gatling-gun plasma rounds on the Broadcaster. He was able to take it out not a few seconds before it released its signal, Whitefang leaning back and relaxed slightly, breathing in and out slowly to calm himself.
"I think that's the last of them," she told him, rising up from her position, "Let's get out of here." He nodded and got off the turret, giving it one last look before extending his staff and driving it home into the support, leaving it broken. Then, he wrecked the barrels of its plasma gun, effectively rendering it useless. He put his staff away with a grimace. There were more than just these standard bots in the city and he had seen firsthand what sort of consequences arose from leaving dangerous and heavy-duty weapons around. With that, he began to swing towards her position by traversing the wall of the building next to him. When he reached her stone island, she stopped him from continuing forward.
"Hey, wait up! I've got an idea," she held up her front leg and the digital readout appeared once more, "I think I can upgrade your equipment." He looked at her in slight confusion before she held before him some schematics.
"I pulled these from all the bots you've destroyed," she flipped through a few images, "And a few artifacts that were lying around from the old times. From them, I've been figuring out how to update your gear, not that you need it, but it'll make things easier, like I said." Whitefang looked to the staff strapped to his right arm and then at her.
"You can improve this?" he held up his arm and she put her leg next to the retracted staff.
"Yeah, although it's already an amazing piece of machinery on its own," Chip glanced at him while she improved the staff's abilities, "How'd you come by this anyway?"
"It's called the Golden Rod…I got it from my master," he managed to get out before looking away, knowing that she'd look at him surprised.
"Master?" she asked, "You mean you've been enslaved before?"
"No, not that way," he waved off her misinterpretation, causing her to blush, "I meant like a teacher…also the last good parent I had, but…" She understood why he trailed off, but she was still curious.
"What happened?" Chip asked as she continued to multi-task, but just as he was about to answer, Whitefang heard a strange noise and he grabbed her, hiding behind a derelict Sky Bandit, "What is it?" He held a finger up to his lips, not looking at her. He slowly looked over the head of the Bandit and saw what looked to be a scrawny pony, with clothes torn in several places, running for his life. Whitefang noticed that his clothes were similar to that of the slave-guards from the ship, but his Slave Collar had been taken off. Whitefang was about to shout at him, get his attention and maybe confer on how exactly he got his own Collar off when the pony turned around and looked in the direction he was fleeing, eyes wild with fear.
"No! No, stay back!" he yelled, his back pressed up against a stone building, "Stay-!" There was a flash of silver that hit Whitefang's eyes and he closed his eyes, blinking several times to shake off the effects before looking back at the man. He stood there, swaying for a moment and seemingly fine. Of course, that was before the upper-half of his body slid off his lower-half, Whitefang's eyes widening at the grotesque scene from him. A figure moved towards the pony out of the shadows of the trees and approached the corpse as the pony's legs buckled and fell with the rest of his body. It was Minotaur-like in its appearance, but the way it moved was predatory and animalistic. Whitefang looked closer at the abomination and narrowed his eyes as he saw tattoos marking his entire body. The flash that Whitefang had seen was explained by the two coiled whips at the figure's hips, one stained with freshly-spilled blood. And without the pony's screams and thundering footsteps, it felt as though the entire forest had quieted in the presence of the killer. Whitefang knew what this Minotaur was…one of the A-rank prisoners. He noticed the flash of red light that came from the Minotaur's neck and he knew that he had been enslaved, now hunting his fellow captives and chasing down any escapees from the wreckage.
"Whitefang…what's going on?" Chip asked in a loud whisper, startling both Whitefang and the Minotaur, his head jerking up and towards their direction. Whitefang cursed and grabbed her hoof.
"RUN!" Whitefang flung her to a nearby ledge to their right, Chip screaming through her descent in surprise. He jumped after her, not bothering to look if the Minotaur was chasing them as a silver flash blinded the spot where they had been hiding behind the Sky Bandit. An explosion occurred and gave them cover, but Whitefang didn't stop. The most important thing currently was to get Chip to a safer location, only then could he deal with the killer.
"Whitefang! What in Tartarus is going on?" she screamed at him, Whitefang swinging her onto his back, "Why are we running? And from what?"
"What else, a bucking slaver!" he yelled back at her, climbing the stairwell quickly to reach the top. Once they did, he looked behind him and saw the smoke ominously approaching them. Whitefang wasted no time in jumping through the hole in the side of the building and onto a ledge that lead to an open area. He cursed as he surveyed the area quickly, seeing that there weren't any surfaces where he could climb with Chip on his back, and there weren't any that he could throw her onto either. He dropped down with her under the ledge and let her down, pushing her into the corner and covering her with his own body, making her shrink into the concrete.
"Whitefang…" she whispered as softly as she could, understanding that talking now would be deathly, but she couldn't help it. This was scaring her. A normal slaver wouldn't have fazed Whitefang, she understood that from seeing him fighting bots.
"Shh…" he told her, his eyes going to the ledge above him. Just as he thought, the slaver had followed him through the smoke, his hoofsteps heavy and silence-inducing. Chip closed her eyes and hugged herself into a small ball, Whitefang bracing himself and gritting his teeth, eyes narrowed. The slaver took a few steps forward, some dust and rubble falling on the pair that was just below him. However, instead of investigating the area like Whitefang believed the slaver would, the Minotaur retreated. 'Retreated' being an accurate word because the Minotaur ran away, his steps alarming and somewhat fearful. Whitefang didn't quite understand it, but it seemed they were safe for now. He got off of her, Chip blinking her eyes open at the sudden light that assaulted her eyelids. She looked up and he nodded to her, a paw held out to help her.
"Is…is he gone?" she asked, taking that paw.
"Yeah…" he replied, dragging her to her hooves and observing the area that they had landed in. There was a statue of a stallion holding the world up, strange dots and lines carved into it and the stallion seemed to be in a rather painful position. He darkly chuckled, likening it to his fate: lifting a heavy burden with no say in the matter. Besides the archaic statue, there was a glass tank filled with fish and algae. He was surprised to see that anything besides a few sparse animals to be living, especially in an enclosure like this.
"Whitefang, mind explaining what in Tartarus was that?" she asked, breathing heavily. Whitefang turned back to Chip and looked up at the ledge.
"A-Rank prisoner turned slaver," he tried to keep it as short as possible, but her eyes were narrowing in an attempt to understand and he sighed, "Sometimes, the creatures they capture aren't just survivors. Sometimes, they're killers, creatures driven insane by the loss of loved ones or just by being alone for a long time. Heck, they could've been messed up from the beginning, and believe it or not, slavers have a justice system."
"Wait…how do you know this?" Chip asked, eyes closed now as she tried to process the new information.
"My master," he uttered and Chip nodded, accepting it, "My master believed that the bots still have some sort of old code still programmed into their circuits. It's barely there, but the Slavers are going along with it. Back in the day, those who killed, maimed, and murdered were punished."
"Those who kill, maim, and murder still get punished," Chip corrected him, but the dark look in his eyes made her pause. Whitefang closed his eyes, reflecting on the words that had been uttered to him in the darkest days of his youth.
"When our world ended," Whitefang began, Chip's eyes widening, "Their world began."
"Who's world?" she asked quietly, Whitefang looking back at her.
"When I was a pup, I thought my master meant the bots, but…" he walked over to the statue, "After what I've seen, they ain't the only thing to worry about." Chip understood what he was talking about. She had seen what ponies would do to survive, but it still gave her chills. Whitefang continued onward, circling the statue, observing it.
"My master was talking about the primal side, the chaos that was unleashed when bots took over. The things that our laws and rules were meant to keep locked up, like caged animals," Whitefang put a paw on the edge of the stone slab that the statue was placed on, "'The loss of morality and the blurring of the line between what was right and what was wrong', that was what my master was talking about. Because to you…nothing is worth more than your life." Chip shook her head, trying to keep out the darker elements of his speech.
"Stop it!" she yelled at him, hooves over her ears, and he felt the familiar and agonizing pain searing his brain as he stopped talking. He was clenching his teeth in pain as he fell, paws on his neck just as before. Trip calmed down after a few seconds and realized that she had inadvertently hurt him. She knelt beside him as the pain died down, Whitefang breathing heavy.
"I'm sorry, it's just…I can't believe that," Chip told him, a hoof on his shoulder as he got up.
"You can't…but I can," he replied in a grim manner, grunting as he stood up, "And so can my master." Chip was feeling more and more resentment against this master of his. What in Tartarus was this guy teaching him? And more so, he abandoned Whitefang when he needed him the most. Why? Didn't he realize that perhaps Whitefang's outlook on life was more pessimistic and devastating than any diamond dog should ever have because of it?
"It's not just what my master said," he quietly remarked, drawing Chip's attention back to reality, "I've seen it with my own eyes. So don't go thinking with that head of yours that I came out the way I did 'cuz of my master." She cast her eyes down, unable to look the diamond dog in the eye. Chip glanced to the fish tank and stared at it in wonder. She hadn't had the chance to look at what was in the fish tank because she was so focused on the slaver and Whitefang, but now…
"Oh, they're beautiful," she had jogged over to the fish tank and pressed her hands against the cool glass. Monkey, dropping the dismal subject, came over with her, already having seen the fish.
"Yeah," he replied, almost smiling at the breathlessness of his mare companion despite the harsh topics being discussed beforehoof, "That don't make any sense. They should be dead." Again, his bleak attitude about life was brought into play and she decided to rebel against it, hoping to at least give him second thoughts about it.
"It makes perfect sense!" she retorted immediately, "The sunlight feeds the plants. The plants oxygenate the water. The small fish eat the algae. The big fish eat the small fish." She had been circling around the tank all the while and finished her explanation absentmindedly and happy.
"It's a closed ecosystem," she pressed on, Whitefang joining her in pressing his paws against the glass, "Just like my home. My father designed our community to work in exactly the same way so that we'd never have to leave the outer compound walls. We grow our own food, condense our own water, create our own energy. We have everything." Chip hoped this was generating some sort of positive, if not hopeful, feeling in Whitefang, seeing his eyes chasing the fish.
"Except a future," he countered softly, Trip looking back at him in surprise to see his eyes on her. Those eyes were almost pitying, but his words were stated factually as if they were true.
"What do you mean?" she asked, disconcerted by the fact that he hadn't been at all affected by her proud speech about her home and even disputed on the matter that her home was perfectly safe.
"This is what I was talking about," he turned his head forward for a moment before looking back at her, "Oh, I've seen it all before. Scattered tribes coming together under one visionary leader. It's never long before they attract the attention of the slavers which…obviously has already happened."
"It was just one slave ship," Chip's words were dangerously soft, daring him to continue, as if his words decided her home's fate, "It only got a few of us."
"Think more won't follow?" he defied her own optimistic thinking and she turned to him in disbelief, Whitefang's eyebrows lifting in a manner that begged her to punch him in the face, except that it would be more likely to conclude that it'd hurt her hoof more than his face. Instead, Chip made a final stand against his attitude and beliefs.
"If these fish can survive for two hundred years against all the odds," she smiled gently, "So can we." Her strength and faith was admittedly surprising to someone like him who had seen many who carried on just by surviving, which wasn't the same as living. Whitefang himself was a survivor. This mare, however…lived. She had beliefs, she had a moral code, which he had seen despite having himself fitted by her for a Slave Collar, and more importantly, she had hope. Hope was something that crushed people. It was dangerous and better left alone, like a raging fire that could keep you safe and warm, but would most likely burn you and kill you if it got the chance. Yet, Chip carried hope like it was natural, confident that it wouldn't harm her. Whitefang felt something stir within him, a sort of protectiveness for this mare and the burning hope that she carried. However, before he could delve more deeply into his thoughts, a creaking noise captured his and Trip's attention and a gigantic ball of steel erupted from the glass in front of them, repelling them away from the fish. Whitefang and Chip rolled away in different directions, and when Chip regained her senses, she screamed. It was a bot, but it was an older model, as shown by the amount of rust it had been collecting at the bottom of the fish tank…
"The fish…" she whispered, her eyes wide and threatening to spill over with tears as she watched them flop around on the ground, searching for water. They were doomed to die. Whitefang got up and saw Chip stagger over to a corner of the room, already having gone through the routine a couple of times to understand that just being out of the way and safe was the best. He extended his staff and prepared to beat the behemoth, observing its size and the round steel fists at the ends of its arms. It was a slow-moving, hulking thing that would undoubtedly have trouble with targets that were faster than it, but that didn't give Whitefang the right to underestimate the bot. Whitefang saw it move aside the pieces of debris, as if thinking his prey had been crushed under the rocks and glass. After making sure that they weren't there, it zeroed in on Whitefang. He saw the monster look up and then roar at him in a mechanized bellow, stalking after him one thunderous step at a time and dragging those lethal metal weights.
"Whitefang, be careful," Chip cautioned him, Whitefang's mouth forming a firm line in determination. The golden bot before him was no ordinary one, to be certain, and he vaguely tried to remember what kind of bot it was. He made sure he was a good distance away, but drew its attention so that it wouldn't run after Chip. After staring at the bot's most obvious features, he remembered that it was a Kaboom-bot. Its attacks were comprised of launching those metal fists at him like a cannon, chains attached to those fists so that they could always be brought back in time for another strike. With that small bit of knowledge, Whitefang charged in, rolling out of the way of the first attack then marking the bot's side with the first blow of the struggle. At first, the exchange between the two combatants went well, Whitefang was able to stay ahead of the bot's attacks while simultaneously slamming his staff into various parts around its body. It also helped that the bot needed to rest after throwing its metal fists around, making it easier for Whitefang to strike. However, Whitefang was also affected by the length of the battle and it wore on him, his stamina fading fast as he retreated behind a pillar to get a breather.
"Whitefang!" Chip shouted out, the only warning he got after he was struck for the first time. The monster-bot rammed a gigantic metal fist through the pillar he was resting behind and blasted through it to reach the diamond dog. The blow to his back nearly paralyzed him, pain blossoming up his spine as he was slammed against the wall of the buildings that surrounded the enclose, grunting as he felt a rib crack. He got up, however, and persevered, getting out of the way after the Kaboom-bot decided to rest again. Whitefang decided that there wasn't a way to win with this thing until he did one last final hit to the bot's head, somehow knocking loose a coolant wire that kept the bot's systems from overheating which in turn lead to overloading.
"His systems are overloading!" she yelled, Whitefang able to hear her over the heart beat that was pounding in his ear, "He's-he's losing control!" Whitefang swore when it began exhuming red fumes and sparks, its speed increasing tenfold as it seemed to fly into a rage that smashed anything within its distance. He heard Chip scream when the bot swung a fist into a boulder near her, sending pieces flying towards her area and striking her enough to cause her distress. Now, coupled with his own heartbeat was that of Chip's. The bot was a bigger threat now, since the rage it flew into made everything its target, no longer just focusing on Whitefang and possibly killing them both. This had to stop. NOW.
"Chip, hang on! I'm coming!" he yelled, enduring the pain by taking a healing potion and regenerating, bone knitting together along with precious spinal nerves, "HEY! Bolts for brains!" The enraged bot turned to him, having heard the insult, and rushed at Whitefang. He dived out the way and it hit the wall, causing a small tremor to travel through the entire area. Chip looked up after having dodged the debris and noticed the statue with the gigantic Globe on its back wobble, she got an idea.
"Whitefang! The statue!" she pointed to it and he nodded, understanding what the plan was. He noticed that the bot had cooled its systems manually and began its slow lumbering walk towards him again. Whitefang, having healed the break in his rib and the damaged nerves in his spine, easily enraged the large Kaboom-bot once more. He drew it over to the statue where it ran straight into it and again the globe threatened to come loose from its place.
"It's working! Do it again!" she shouted to him, Whitefang slamming his staff into the bot's head again to loosen more coolant wires, "He's out of control! Use it to your advantage!" This time was a little more difficult because the bot's rage continued to grow as its systems became more and more overheated. The bot now focused completely on Whitefang in its anger, red optics like two coals burning in a fire place. It swung and crushed anything between it and Whitefang, until Whitefang began taunting it once more and it charged the statue again.
"That's it! Get it to hit the statue again!" Chip called out and Whitefang stood directly in front of the statue, the metal from the statue's hooves crumbling under the duress it was enduring from the bot. The bot itself had stayed in its enraged state and charged towards Whitefang, the diamond dog leaping out of the way just in time for the machine to slam into the statue. It's arms completely gave way to the globe and it fell on the bot, the machine looking up in confusion as it was crushed. Once the metal ball had done its job, it rolled away, leaving the bot's broken husk laying there for all to see. It groaned in an almost sad and tired way. Whitefang walked back to the bot, knowing that it wouldn't put up a fight any longer, and grabbed the back of its head, lifting it up and grabbing the core processor that was at the base of the head. With that, the terrible fiery eyes of the machine died out, leaving it empty.
"The fish…" Chip's weak sobs caught Whitefang's attention and he carried the core processor to her, "The fish…" Chip had confidence that these fish would survive, as her community would survive, but in an instant, their fragile glass world broke and everything in it would die in a matter of minutes. An entire ecosystem destroyed by one act. It was an almost foreboding feeling that had intensified her sadness at the loss of such beautiful creatures.
"Hey Chip. Chip, come on," Whitefang finally spoke to her, having squatted down to her level while she kneeled to mourn the fish, "Come on, you've gotta scan this thing." She looked at him almost offended and disbelieving that he wasn't feeling the same sorrow as she was, but she understood what he was trying to do. He was giving her a mission, something to do besides focus on the fish. She took the paw that was offered to her and she got up with a sobbing whimper. He even gave her the core processor, which he figured was important. After looking up at the sky and seeing it turn red with the setting of the sun, they set up camp, tired, hungry, and a little wet because of the fish tank having exploded on them due to the bot's interference. Whitefang had scouted out a building that seemed to once hold multiple ponies in it at the same time, which he guessed was a 'hotel', another lesson from his master from long ago. They decided to share a room, but there was only one bed. Whitefang decided to sleep on the floor on the grounds that he'd be fine sleeping anywhere, having gotten used to it during the time he lived in the wilds. Chip agreed to the arrangement, mostly because she'd gotten used to sleeping on a bed herself. However, she couldn't help but turn her head to look at the one who was her protector, her guardian, and smile. She was touched by the way he held her hoof while she cried for the fish, which now seemed a little silly looking back on the moment, but he had comforted her as best he could in his own way, and that was enough for her.
"Thanks…Whitefang…" she whispered to him before turning away from him, unbeknownst that he was still awake. When he knew she was sleeping, he got up and walked over to the balcony of the room, leaving the door open so that fresh air could flow in and to make sure that nothing could sneak up on Chip without making a sound. Whitefang needed time to think. All the while, he'd been going along with Chip, doing as she said mostly because she would use the collar if he ever disobeyed, but despite that, they had some personal moments that made him rethink completely cutting himself off from pony life save for the occasional supplies. Whitefang then thought of the one pony who had been haunting his dreams lately, before the slaver ship had caught him and this whole mess started.
"Master…it's been ten years since I saw you…" he was leaning against the railing and looking up at the moonlit sky, "I need your guidance. And as much as I hate it, I wish you were here…Master…" With that, he closed his eyes and rested his head on his arms that were crossed on the railing. So deep in thought was he that he didn't notice the small green-blue Sprite-bot he had caught was escaping the open room and flying over his head. It met with its brethren back at the massive tree and seemed to converse with them in an odd and funny squeaking language. Some of them had been watching their journey across the mine-ridden fields, others observing the battle between Whitefang and the behemoth. Then, the Sprite-bot Whitefang had caught flew in the direction of the slaver ship with the other Sprite-bots in tow.
-Location: Slaver Ship Crash-Landing Site (The Bridge)-
The small group of Sprite-bots accompanied Chip's Sprite-bot as it flew over the waters and above the guard bots, flying to where Priority One was resting and meditating in a pose. An eye opened at their arrival and they stood up, holding their hooves out to greet them.
"Welcome, welcome," Priority murmured, their hooves glancing over their wings in a gentle gesture and the small bots gave little trills of delight, "Yes, I've missed you, too. Now what news do you have for me about my pupil?" They answered in mechanized whirs and squeaks, to which Priority's eyes widened.
"Captured by a ginger-haired beauty you say…" Priority looked back in the direction where the Sprite-bot came from, presumably where Whitefang had decided to camp for the night with Chip, "Perhaps I should have had that birds and the bees talk with him when he was younger…" The Sprite-bots shook their heads and beeped at Priority, making their head turn.
"Ah, with a Slave Collar…" Priority sighed and sat back down, "Quite a situation he has on his paws…I thought I taught him better than to leave himself unguarded like that. Although, I do admit, having to escape a crashing ship is a rather hard factor to predict…" Priority One cocked their head and closed their eyes, thinking. By no means was Priority a cruel and unfeeling master, but Priority did demand responsibility for their students' actions and consequences. After listening to the rest of the Sprite-bot' observations, Priority nodded. The master was proud, having wished they could have witnessed such an event as the destruction of a Kaboom-bot by Whitefang's paws. Then, when the news of the silver whip slaver came into the report, Priority One's lips set into a deep frown. Well, as far as they had heard, the Minotaur knew of the dangers in Manehattan. A dangerous adversary had stepped into their midst, and it wasn't likely that their most recent encounter would be their last.
"I see…very well, continue your investigation. And continue to report any other mishaps. It will give me time to prepare for their arrival," Priority One let the Sprite-bots run off, flying back towards Whitefang and Chip, "Oh Whitefang…I am always there. Even when you can't see me I am always there with you…just trust in what you feel and what I've taught you, silly dog. And you can do no wrong…"
