“Team one is halfway done Rarity so get ready to work quickly, we have lots of company and they aren’t good house guests.” Pulling her ever beloved boxy looking murder machine up to her shoulder, Ember waited for either Clog Spiders or Ant Heads to pop out of one of the nearby pipes. Of the eight pipes she knew two were definitely unsafe to be near, those being pipe six southwest and pipe seven to the west. They had come in through pipe four southeast and Rarity climbed the ladder between it and pipe three which led eastward. The others pipes were a tossup for what to aim for as Ember didn’t know what direction the Ant Heads were coming from because Droll didn’t specify, he just said that they were coming. “Droll which pipes did you say the Ant Heads were approaching from again?”
“All pipes we didn’t take to get here, very bad situation yes. We ‘might’ be surrounded.” To punctuate his statement and with a show of incredible accuracy, Droll pointed his material pistol towards the pipe nearest the ladder to the immediate right and fired three times. The first shot arrived just as the Ant Head came out of pipe three and small holes were formed in its skull by the bits of metal that perforated it before it knew what hit it. “Take pipe two then one, I take five and eight yes?”
Ember snapped her rifle towards pipe two as the Ant Head bounded out and fired several times lodging several high velocity rocks in its body. Some of the shots even broke and pushed its bones into its vital organs dropping it quickly. She turned her rifle on the one that bounded out of the north pipe not a second before; it quickly loped across the room trying to reach out to Ember with its claws. She put it down with two shots where it skidded to a halt before Ember missing most of its mulched head. Stepping on top of its corpse to use it as a small platform, Ember turned to pipe eight to watch as that Ant Head absorbed five metal needles before toppling.
Looking over her left shoulder slightly towards pipe five, Ember saw another dead Ant Head with several holes in its chest at the mouth of the southward tunnel, the direction they absolutely needed to go once they were done here. She might have to try using paperclips sometime in the future since it would work well with her rifle’s shotgun fire capability, as for right now she’d stick to shooting rocks with single shot or burst fire. The problem with the shotgun fire mode was that it was ammo expensive and her gun could only carry so much ammo, which was dependent on the size and shape of whatever she picked up and threw into her gun.
Speaking of limits, Ember quickly turned her rifle towards tunnels six and seven to let off several quick jets of fire causing the spiders that were slowly inching out of those pipes to quickly retreat with shrill screeches. A few even caught fire to lifelessly fall into the sludge; they were getting braver by the second.
“Are they done yet? Don’t they know they’re making a lady wait? Especially with how bad these conditions are!” Rarity was watching all the action from above and was glad she wasn’t down there with them; she didn’t exactly feel fortunate or safe in the control room for pipe station two. She’d definitely feel less safe if Ember and Droll weren’t around.
Putting a hand up to her helmet Ember nodded and let out a relieved sigh.
“Team one is done, we can now start.” Saying this Ember turned her rifle and fired at an Ant Head Droll didn’t see coming from; the fact that it had arrived from pipe four was disheartening as it had almost clawed the distracted looking alien jellyfish. He cowered slightly and climbed up the ladder a bit and clung there, Ember didn’t blame him as he was probably detecting more trouble than he could keep up with. “We have to make this quick, because fighting our way out is looking more and more likely by the second here. You need to hit them in this order Rarity, if the console lights up at all after a switch is flipped wait a few seconds for the light to go off to hit the next one. Now hit the switches in this order: A twenty seven, B twelve, C thirteen, C four, D sixteen, A nine, B two and finally D two. One that’s done we can get out of here, we’re not leaving until you’re down here with us.”
“Right I’m on it, okay let’s see ah-ha here we are!” Rarity flipped switch A twenty seven, then B twelve and when she hit the switch for C thirteen it lit up. Hearing clicking sounds, she looked up from the panel and wished she hadn’t when she saw hundreds of large spiders crawling out of the tunnels below and Ember was busily trying to push them back into the pipes with her flamethrower. The light went off on the console; she believed the next one was… C four, right, this one also lit up. She waited until that light went out and was about to hit D sixteen when a horrifically ugly looking mutant spider slammed against the glass cracking it, she could see its madly clacking mandibles, its spindly horrid legs that started smacking against the glass and she could tell its four glowing red hunger filled eyes were looking directly at her. It then exploded into a shower of gore before Rarity’s eyes, said gored covered the viewing window in its splatter. Who wouldn’t have been shaken up by that? “Is everything alright down there Ember darling?”
“Just peachy, the Clog Spiders are going after the dead bodies and are making attempts on us at the same time. Not to mention Droll is sensing more Ant Heads incoming, he’s getting distracted and it’s not helping things that he is.” It sounded like Ember was physically scuffling with something, Rarity heard something crunch and make wet sloshing noise afterwards. “Please tell me that we can leave soon, because it’s getting a bit too hot in here for Droll.”
“Well I’ll have you know I’m going as fast as I can Ember.” Rarity hit D sixteen and heard a distant clunking noise. Shaking her head as it was an unimportant noise she hit A nine, another light to wait out. “Please respect the fact that I am and keep them pushed back or else I might have another heart attack inducing moment like that one.”
“Damn it Droll, get your head in the game.” A shockwave of energy was the end result of Ember’s words and from what little Rarity could see from her position it filled the room below and then some. “Thank you!”
“You are the welcome; focusing on powers and here now at the same time is hard under duress yes.” Droll sounded a bit off and now Rarity knew what a panicking parascine sounded like. “Danger is ever increasing; mental blast was quite draining. Clog Spider disorientation will not last long at all yes.”
Another light went off and Rarity flicked switch B two, only this time the light started flashing.
“Ember what does a flashing light mean? It’s B two by the way, if you could get me some tech support here that would be nice.” Looking over the panel, Rarity couldn’t see what to do now as the flashing light was different; she wasn’t a technician nor was she told what to do in such an occurrence as this one. “I’m not exactly a sewage worker; goodness knows I wouldn’t be down here if lives weren’t on the line otherwise.”
“Can you please do it yourself? I’m kind of indisposed at the moment.” The calm words were punctuated by a snapping sound. “Just, be glad you can’t entirely see what’s going on down here.”
“Ember is being great fighter right now yes. I may personally run out of ammo at this rate.” It sounded like Droll was okay at the moment, if he could talk loud enough for Rarity to hear him through Ember’s helmet.
“Well alright then, excuse me but can team five or anyone else tell us what a blinking light means?” The communications Rarity flipped to immediate got her a response as she was pinged. “I hit switch B two and its flashing, should I just hit D two?”
“No don’t do that! You better hope we’ve got this right, the water in your area might go up a foot or two and it might bother you and team four a bit, but the fix for this shouldn’t be catastrophic. Your teams will just have to suck it up.” A gruff voice spoke up, it sounded like Minotaur to Rarity. “You’re already in the thick of it by the sounds we’re hearing here, team one is halfway to reaching team three and they need you to finish to even start on the third set of pipes. Now listen carefully, hit these switches as fast as you can when I list them off. If the flashing for B two stops at that time then hit D two and book it out there like yesterday! B three, A six, D seven, A thirteen and C one, did you get that?”
Rarity had hit the switches and the flashing of B two stopped, she had no idea what she was doing or what these switches did exactly, but she hit D two anyway and loud clunk was heard in the distance and she could hear a gurgling.
“Guess you did, now get out of there!” The voice didn’t need to tell Rarity twice.
“We’re done here Ember!” Jumping out of the seat for the door on the left, she opened it and something slammed into her chest putting her on her back, it immediately dropped on top of her pinning her. The cackling, clacking spider opened its mouth and oddly enough it wasn’t a normal mandible mouth like a normal spider would have, instead it had four mandibles and they were covered in jagged little teeth. She could feel her heart rate jump and she blindly grabbed for her right flank energy pistol with her magic as she wiggled under it and moved her head out of the way of the advancing mouth that slammed to the floor next to her face. They were definitely scarier up close. “Holy mother of-, Luna please save me now!”
Her magic grabbed the pistol and flipped it around the air to angle it down at the spider and now Rarity thought of the horrific logistics of shooting at herself while this monster was on her, she fired wildly anyway as she was panicking and didn’t care if she hurt herself. She wanted the horrible Clog Spider off of her right that instant!
The spider leaned and maneuvered out of the way of the blasts as she fired several times at its back and it continued trying to clamp its horrific mouth on her face for whatever reason. She grazed it a few times, but she wasn’t in a good position to get clean killing blow.
“No, no, no, NO, a lady such as me is not supposed to go out like this, not in the belly of such a horrid beast!” The spider kicked out one of its rear legs knocking the energy pistol out of the air and slammed two of its legs into Rarity’s sides winding her, it reared back only to be hit with what looked like lightning bolt that fried it and made it squeal loudly as it rolled off of her and onto it’s back.
“Is becoming big problem yes, we are to be running now!” The glowing of Droll’s nuclei dimmed somewhat and two of his tentacles went to what amounted as his head and they rubbed it in slow circles. He was clinging to the top of the ladder and after a second he started firing his pistol downward and then he stopped, as there was a large bright blast of fire coming from below that made him shy away. “I am getting very weak; I will not be able to continue life sensing if I have to use any more of my strength. It would now be best if we make our escape before the sewage rises too far yes!”
“You poor dear, are you telling me you’ve been keeping that up constantly all this time?” Rarity got up and ran by the spider that looked like it was slowly coming around and made for the ladder that Droll stayed at. She stopped momentarily to smack herself in the faceplate where her forehead was with a hoof and lit her horn. She pulled her errant energy pistol from the room and got her other one out as well as she got to the ladder.
“It is very tiring to keep it up constantly yes. Is very good power, but costly.” Looking down they saw Ember glance up at them before she continued shooting Ant Heads, there was a pile of their bodies aimlessly floating around in the sludge. “I know that this is forward of me to be asking, but can you please carry me?”
“Are you that tired? If you are, then of course I will.” The answer to Rarity’s question was Droll nodding and slowly climbing onto her back. He carefully wrapped several tentacles around her barrel and once he was gently attached to her back she got onto the ladder and slid down a foot at a time. Droll certainly didn’t weigh very much and Rarity could carry the weight easily, he seemed so very small on her back. “Ember we need to get moving!”
“Right cover me; we need to go down pipe five.” Ember twisted her body and lashed her tail out to shred an Ant Heads neck as she ducked underneath it’s lunge, while that happened she fired her gun three times only hitting a single Ant Head once, it survived. She continued her twisting motion and started blasting out fire in a wide swinging arc setting multiple things ablaze around her. A spider landed on Ember’s shoulder and despite how big and heavy it looked, she stayed standing and rammed her left hand claws into it. She proceeded to bodily hurl it at the Ant Head that was just about to claw her, this distracted the Ant Head that had survived her one hit earlier. “We’ll break off when we get a chance; you go first and try to clear a path if there’s any trouble in the pipe, I’ll be right behind you!”
Rarity and Droll opened fire on anything that was moving and not a bipedal dragon, said dragon that was currently bashing an Ant Heads skull in with the business end of her rifle. She rapidly backpedaled towards them firing as she went, she wasn’t killing the aggressive numerically gifted cannon fodder quite as quickly anymore. Several more Ant Heads flooded into the circular area and just kept coming.
As she provided cover fire, Rarity noted that the sludge was getting deeper on the opposite side of the room and it was start to get higher coming towards them in a gentle wave that was hobbling every monster’s ability to move quickly.
Turning around Rarity went straight into the pipe and almost got her face clawed off when an Ant Head swiped at her. She fell back onto her rump and fired both her pistols point blank, riddling it with energy blasts up close and personal as it tried for another swipe and just dropped dead before it could. After that she started forward into the pipe without a clue as to which way she was exactly supposed be going if they should come upon an intersection. She looked back and Ember caught up with her as the Ant Heads and the Clog Spiders started fighting viciously with each other, clawing, biting, webbing immobilizing, red ant headed mandible dogs ripping off numerous legs in a bloody fashion and generally violently brawling all out with each other.
“I really hate it down here, just how could this even get any worse!” Of course Rarity was talking about the rising sewage, the horribly virulent native spiders and the Ant Heads, her shouting led to a small sewer squid falling on top of Ember making an audible squeaking noise, she froze and looked back to see Ember standing completely still. “Sorry, I really shouldn’t have said that… is our path straight or do we need to take a few turns?”
Droll went very still and tilted his nuclei at Rarity as if expecting her to magically make the situation even worse by spooking the dangerous wildlife; they watched the squid wiggle around on Ember’s helmet before falling off of it onto her shoulder since it didn’t seem like it could get very comfortable.
The squid wiggled around a bit more on Ember and didn’t act violently; it just simply crawled out onto the armor on her left shoulder where it settled down in a comfortable position clinging to it. Ember looked rather uneasy about it making itself comfortable on her and pulled out the map as she moved forward. This set of movements did not upset the squid in the slightest and it didn’t seem like it was going to immediately attack her anytime soon.
“We need to keep moving, according to the map we need to take the next left and then a right after passing straight through another junction and then we’ll be with group four if we keep going straight from there. This is team two; we’re on the move for team four’s location and we’re possibly dragging bad news along with us.” Hesitantly motioning to the sewer squid on her shoulder Ember was hoping that someone had an idea as to how to get it off her as they moved forward, she put away the map trying not to jostle the squid too much and Rarity started leading the way. “Hey Droll, could you maybe help me with this?”
“I cannot concentrate to use any more power than I already am. Our safety may require forewarning yes.” Droll’s voice sounded strained and muffled again Rarity’s EVA suit. “I can only advise you, mean no harm to it and you will not be hurt. This I swear to you as a truth yes.”
“Yeah, that advice worked better when one was not directly perched on me.” Muttered a scared dragon, the squid seemed small and harmless but Ember knew exactly what it was capable of doing to her. The selective acid was powerful and no joke, it’d eat through her armor and then her scales in seconds. While dragon scales were notably quite tough, that didn’t mean dragons were entirely impervious to injury external or internal. Internal injuries were more likely for a dragon as blunt force trauma could do a number on them.
They continued at a quick pace and the water was now up to the base of Rarity’s neck, she almost wished she hadn’t volunteered for this as she started pushing through the sludge all the harder. The hospital didn’t have any triple P officers as they were all out fighting in the city, even including the injured ones. The hospital didn’t have anyone else or many options aside from volunteers that could fight for entering these pipes. The volunteers were thankfully ones that were taking shelter in the hospital and not infirmed patients like Gabby and her broken wing.
They came up to the four way intersection in the pipes they needed to take a left at, only Rarity slowed down when she felt Droll squeeze her roughly as if something were wrong.
“Stop right now yes!” Droll’s voice had Rarity come to a halt and then a Vasp bounded from around the right corner and would have pushed them both down if Droll hadn’t given her an early warning.
Rarity started backpedaling immediately firing both her pistols at the Vasp in conjunction with Droll firing his material pistol, but it proved to be far tougher than the Ant Heads they’ve been dealing with. She really should have asked if Vasp could feasibly fit down here, given that one sat on her before she even got to the hospital. It charged forward with intent to kill all of them.
Ember was still in the midst of contemplating about bringing her gun about to shoot the Vasp. She really didn’t want to set off the sewer squid on her shoulder and as such she was rather hesitant. She needn’t have worried about being the one to set it off as it squealed and raised its two largest tentacles and it lifted its body upward to unhinge its beak wide open, then it made a gurgling choking noise before vomiting up large sphere of light brown fluids that sailed through the air. It struck the Vasp on the head and ended up splattering all over its body.
The sizzling Vasp only continued its attempt at a charge in the murky sludge for all of three seconds, before its flesh, its muscles, its bones and everything else about it started to liquefy and by the time it felt any of this it was too late to scream. The fact that the Vasp even had bones didn’t garner nearly as much attention as the small sewer squid did when it started making itself comfortable again.
The group continued moving taking the left turn and silently passed by the quickly forming slurry mixing in with the nearby sewage that used to be a flying insect that apparently had bones.
“Okay, I can certainly see why you’re hesitant to have the squid on your shoulder now.” Acid like that would have probably been rendered useless against breach gel, but Rarity figured it would have still destroyed the outer layer of her suit on contact and imagined taking a blast of acid like that to the face plate. Okay now she really wanted to throw up at the thought of have her face horribly melted, she was having enough problems with killing things already and did not need that mental image purveying her mind.
“Oh that’s not even the worst it can do, I’ve only read up on these things and apparently Droll is the real expert here.” In fact Ember always read up on native zoological beings at every planet she visited, mostly because bounties had a horrible tendency to hide in very dangerous locations nobody would ever want to go to. Said locations usually either had deadly creatures, lethal terrain or both in exorbitant amounts. As the saying went, lethality knew no size, so constant caution is always advised. “Trust me when I say that it can do lot worse than that to me if it wanted to.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Being as close to throwing up as Rarity was, she didn’t think it’d be a good idea to ask the question of what was worse than acid that quickly liquefied everything. Then again the Vasp didn’t look like it felt any pain and couldn’t scream because its throat melted before it could even register the pain it was in, okay thinking about it was really making her stomach churn. This was not a situation to be curious about the sewer squid, even though Rarity would admit that there was something existentially beautiful about its unassuming peaceful nature and appearance even if she didn’t like the colors it came with.
“If you wish to hear about the wonders of sewer squids, maybe ask later yes?” If only Droll knew Rarity didn’t want to do just that, because she was definitely better off not knowing.
The three made it through the next intersection and at the one after that Ember gunned down a single Ant Head and the sewer squid didn’t even make a single movement against Ember for it. Though the squid did sadistically purr and made Ember wary of what that meant as they all made the right turn safely. They eventually came upon a group with a male Cacceran that looked mostly like a fox except for having the face of a cat, a puny (for his species) looking Minotaur and a stallion who all sighed in relief upon seeing the four of them, the male pony noticed the squid.
“You, uh… have a sewer squid on your shoulder.” The stallion received an intense flat stare from Ember and he started to cower slightly when even the squid started to give him the same exact stare with its small dark purple eyes. “Right, I’ll call it in! Team two is at rendezvous point pipe station four, holding position now and doing mostly okay.”
-
Things from the point of them reaching team four had been relatively quiet as all the groups were to meet up and seal off the remaining pipes, the sewage was halfway up Rarity’s next by the managed to reach shallower parts of the sewers. Groups one and three had run into a few bits of trouble and there were quite an amount of injuries among them, though nothing more permanent than just leaving bad scars. At the last pipe station they had a lot of Ant Heads to shoot and enough firepower between them to keep the monsters at bay, aside from that everyone was just plain tired and happy that they succeeded in keeping the hospital safe.
The only trouble to note after the fact is that Ember couldn’t get rid of the sewer squid, mostly because it decided that it really liked her shoulder and nobody else was willing to make the attempt to do so either. It did assist Ember somewhat when they were at the last pipe station, aside from that it appeared to have nothing but benign intentions for its perch.
“Well things were a bit hectic, but at least the hospital is safe thanks to all of you. Except for the fact that Miss Mcflame currently has an incurable chronic case of shoulder squid, you all came back alive and that’s what matters. The squid itself is a particularly healthy specimen, but it could use some water and when it eventually starts to dry out it might come off for a fresh tank of water. We really don’t want to appear threatening to it nor do we want to upset it either.” Being a rather busy pony, nurse Red Heart bustled about the room examining everyone and giving each person a diagnosis for various injuries or in Droll’s case mental strain. There were several other doctors or nurses seeing to them as well, she took particular interest in Rarity. “Okay Miss Belle, you’re bruises have worsened, you heartbeat is still running too high and I would like for you to relax before you get a conniption.”
“I’m afraid I’m well past conniptions and I have a problem relaxing knowing that that particular squid is still attached to my friends shoulder. That thing melted a Vasp, so please excuse me for still having an adrenaline high born of worry Miss Heart or do you prefer Red?” Having a slightly high heart rate was nothing to bad from Rarity’s point of view, she was tired and her EVA suit smelled really quite horrid when Red Heart had her shuck it off. After all was said and done her hair positively needed primping after being stuck in the EVA suit for most of the day and she needed to clean the suit with fire. “I could really use a long hot shower, my mane is in positively a dreadful state so I could use a brush as well after I’m done and the one last thing I need is food. I’m practically starving after all the running around I’ve done today, on top of being quite sore. Thankfully said bruising is mostly unnoticeable; I need to keep up appearances after all.”
Red Heart snorted and trotted off while rolling her eyes, she guessed Rarity deserved a hairbrush at the very least. Everything else was already a foregone conclusion for the volunteers. Now the question was, how long would they be stuck locked up in this hospital for? It might have been safe where they were, but people were still dying out there in droves.