//------------------------------// // -62- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Excuse me and pardon my language as I know it’s not ladylike to curse, but are you seriously bucking kidding me?!” The five others were suddenly on alert at Rarity’s particularly shrill scream, Chrysalis looked kind of calm. “This has got to be the most horrid situation I’ve ever been in yet!” “I was inside this thing for three days… no wonder it wanted me dead so badly.” Ember mumbled off to the side as she crossed her arms, her weapons vertical against her back. “Nope, no kidding you whatsoever, though I don’t see what little Changelings have to do with this and I’m kind of sure that impregnating you without your knowledge would be a really bad idea.” Now there were five sets of lights pointed at Chrysalis and she could feel several deadpan stares directed at her through them. “Anyway, I want us to be back on the subject at hoof or claw in Ember’s case. As soon as we enter through the entrance to the city's door we all entered its body which has clearly swallowed this city whole. There’s going to be a lot of trouble if we kill this thing.” “Trouble how? Better yet, what makes you think that anything is still alive in here aside from us?” Saffron turned about and looked around for any threat; they couldn’t all pay attention to Chrysalis in this dangerous environment. “Well I’d surmise that all the captured people will fall from the walls if we kill the main cause of the infestation… provided the fall doesn’t immediately kill any survivors we’d have to shut off the gravity almost immediately after it’s killed.” Pausing Ember started to glance around as well doing the same thing as Saffron, they didn’t want to drop their guard now. “We’re not going to split up, to have someone go deal with the gravity generator. At this point things are bad enough that we should just kill the infestation outright and damn the consequences! Nobody can blame us for it.” “That and the infestation has a lot of the civilians in stasis while it drains them of their life, every breath is another second of survival and feeding this monster. So people are dying while we’re sitting here talking.” Chrysalis turned her light to the dilapidated corpse Ember dropped. “This is making me realize what the Changeling race might have become had we not been stopped, kind of an ugly existence and there isn’t an infinite amount of ponies in the world. It is clearly an inefficient means of survival just to capture everything and feed like a glutton, eventually it’ll die of starvation.” “Can I volunteer to take a detour to stand by the gravity generator while everyone else goes and kills this thing?” If it were up to Saffron she’d do it alone if she had to; she wanted to save as many lives as she could. This situation was rather dire so she’d be willing to do just that by herself even with how deadly the situation has gotten. “I would love to do so as well, but I prefer we kill this thing as fast as possible and hope for a miracle that people can survive suddenly striking the floor at terminal velocity.” Even Rarity had to draw the line somewhere and she had a line right now. They couldn’t save everyone and the people they did save would probably try to use them as scapegoats for their anger, Rarity could live with that provided they survive their injuries from falling. “I’m quite terribly sorry Saffron, but we can’t spare people to sit in one location where they’ll be swarmed constantly by Dusks or Screamers. Where’s the brain or the heart of this thing Chrysalis?” “It’s in one of the buildings at the top layer, we’ll have to go into said building and use the stairs. It’s either that or to make it easier on us we go turn off the gravity and get many people killed more quickly by diverting energy away from this thing. Thankfully I know which building it’s in, as for its heart… it doesn’t exactly have one.” Setting off towards one of the bridges into the city Chrysalis was going to lead them to where she felt the brain was. It was big enough that it couldn’t have been moved easily and they’d have to pass through a high rise. She was quickly followed up by the others on the road. “We blow the brain, we solve the problem… we just have to get past the Screamers first. Like that one coming right at us for instance.” The scream let them all know it was definitely a Screamer and they all focused their lights on the monstrosity that was flying at them. It was a cross of a crow and a dragon that had a mouth at the tip of what amounted to a tentacle for a tail. It was quite large at twenty five feet in size, its humanoid stature had four curved bladed talons ending on each of its four limbs. What’s more was that it opened its beak and its black beady eyes seem to focus on them as its beak clacked shut sending a blast of fire at the group. Everyone scattered diving out of the way of the fireball as it exploded on the bridge sending everyone rolling even further. The large beast dropped to the middle of the bridge creating cracks in the ground from its weight and its large dragon style wings spread out threateningly. Chrysalis and Coco were on the city side of things, whereas Rarity, Saffron, Lightning and Ember were on the bridge side. It quickly turned and lashed out with its talons and missed grabbing Saffron who ran under the claw and nearly got bitten by the tail as she made her way over to Chrysalis and Coco. The Screamer turned to track Saffron and incidentally slapped Lightning off the side of the bridge when the side of its long snaking tail slammed into her chest, it winded her terribly to the point she didn’t even scream as she fell down out of view. “Oh my goodness Lightning!” Rarity screamed in panic, but Ember was already moving as she ran towards the edge of the bridge. “It looks like we’re splitting up after all, nobody dies on my watch!” Ember yelled as she leapt off the side of the bridge after Lightning. “We’ll catch up, take care of this Screamer and quickly find that brain!” With that Ember was gone and after Lightning, while that was happening Saffron quickly chucked a grenade at the head of the monster as it opened its beak to launch another fireball. At the same time Rarity quickly backed away from its tail as the end of it began snapping its mouth at her, it forced her back far enough to notice Dusks forming around her. The monstrosity snapped its beak shut on the grenade which exploded with a bang, a good seventy percent of the blast was directed back towards Coco, Saffron and Chrysalis while the rest of it blew out of the side of the creature's beak. Saffron, Coco and Chrysalis had all moved to the side of the explosive blast as it covered the floor in a powerful glowing material that lit up the entire area. “Do you think it planned that?” Yelled Coco who was slightly deafened by the cacophony the explosion caused, she along with the other two next to her were quite disoriented. Looking beyond the monster she could see Rarity bucking at some Dusks and used a pistol to blast several of them into dust clouds. “Possibly, I caught Lightning; I think her ribs are broken or at least cracked.” It was apparent that Ember was still within contact range. The sounds of materials could be heard hitting something below over the collective communications. “We need to keep moving Lightning!” “What I need is medical attention!” Lightning groaned out, she grunted from some sort of exertion. “Can’t you just leave me here, I’m slowing you down.” “Not a chance, I’m not leaving you to become Screamer food or another casualty in the miasma.” It sounded like those two were having fun, they might have even heard Ember curse quietly. “Just be happy your suit isn’t compromised.” While they were all listening to two of their lost people, the monster hadn’t been waiting idly as it attacked both Coco and Saffron with two broad sweeps of its talons while stomping forward. Chrysalis had been hitting this Screamer with round after round from her material rifle. “I don’t have nearly enough stopping power and I need to reload soon…” Her gun ran out of ammo and Chrysalis just sighed, frustrated that she ran out at that moment. She ran forward and rolled between the large monster's legs while pulling one of the ammo pouches from her side to reload as she got further behind the monster that swung outward with its left arm trying to hit her with a nasty backhand. Having avoided the attack Chrysalis turned around and fired a ton of rounds into the dragon monster, each shot pierced mottled grey flesh and it bled yellow gunk. “Before you say anything I’m saving the rocket launcher ammo for the brains behind all this.” The monster chased Chrysalis back onto the bridge and towards Rarity who was still having trouble with Dusks when several twisted torso scythe wielding Screamers popped off the wall running towards Rarity at full tilt as she pulled out her other pistol while reloading the one she had been using. Using the loaded material pistol to hold them back, she pulled a grenade and launched it at the two Screamers and the multitude of Dusks forming in the air over the bridge. “At this rate we’re all going to be out of heavy ordinance by the time this is all over!” The grenade went off and Rarity saw that the forming Dusks ceased forming and the two scythe Screamers were blown apart and the dragon Screamer behind roared in what had to be pain when two explosions went off against its back. The entire area was lit up with all the sunlight grenades going off, there was a shout of triumph. “Yeah, we got the zombie’s wings and I think all the light is disrupting the Dusks ability to form!” The joy Saffron felt at being able to make it incapable flight was soon halted when the wingless crow monster turned about and started to stomp toward the two ponies opening its beak wide open. “What’s a zombie?” There was confusion on Chrysalis’s end as she followed Rarity in pursuit of the monster going after Coco and Saffron who started backing up into the city proper and away from the bridge. “We don’t exactly have the time or breathing room to…” Ember started when an explosion went off somewhere several layers down from where Rarity and the others were. “Damn it Lightning we were almost caught in the blast!” “It worked didn’t it, if you’re not leaving me behind then… I might as well be useful instead of being almost dead weight because of my agonized ribs.” It sounded like Lightning’s breathing was strained. “More of those one armed scythe Screamers are crawling out of the woodwork. How many of these bucking things are there?” “Well at least you’re not dealing with one of the big ones!” Coco nearly got grabbed by the wingless dragon Screamer and when it changed. It had propped up on its front legs and beady eyes popped up out of the base of its tail which was now it’s front end where the rear legs were now the arms, one of which tried to grab Coco as she ducked into an alleyway only for three Dusks to form, all of them little colts. “We’re being attacked by flesh monsters, ghosts made of raw energy and we still have little clue as to what the real problem looks like!” The claw reached into the alley grasping at Coco who backed up and felt something trying to grab her from behind, she lashed out with a rear hoof and was met with a dust cloud, she turned around reared up and smashed the other two Dusks into nothingness. She dove forward as the trunk that was once a tail entered the alley after her snapping its teeth loudly at her rear end, she was caught in a dead end and the Screamer dragon was making it impossible for her to go anywhere and even more Dusks were starting to form around her. “A little help here guys?” Coco squeaked out in fear, as she put her hoof through a Thestral Pony whose bony wings looked horrific without the skin, she pressed her back against the wall. “Hold on Coco, Chrysalis can’t you use a few of your grenades? I know you’re unwilling to use the rocket launcher right now and I agree that we need to save the big stuff for the brain, but I’d rather we live long enough to even attack it!” Saffron was busy with her own problem as a Griffon Dusk had grappled onto her back and she positioned a knife in held her magic to stab it in the side without hitting herself. She successfully got it off her back and spun around to jam a knife she held in her hoof into another Dusks throat. “We’re kind of falling apart here and getting swarmed by endless amounts of Dusks! I’m also trapped in my alley because it has its forward facing eyes on me and I think it might be preparing its beak for another fireball, my situation is a bit worse than Coco’s at the moment!” “I know, I know, give me a second to get my bearings please.” Rarity was holding a grenade in her hoof and looking indecisive as Chrysalis clubbed the Dusks forming around them with both the as of yet to be loaded rocket launcher and the material rifle. “If I throw a grenade the blast might hit Coco and you Saffron. Remember that I have grenades too, Greta and Gilda made plenty and I thank the stars and Luna’s moon that they did.” “Speaking of problems, I think we’ve run into the giant scorpion thing you saw before Rarity and it is...” Ember was cut off by a loud scream echoing throughout the mostly empty city. “Ugly and right on top of us! Excuse me us if we don’t talk for a few minutes, I’m running for both our lives!” “Okay then, change of tactics. Rarity keep these Dusks entertained, I’m going to get that Screamer off of them and deal with it personally!” Chrysalis Charged forward while settling the rocket launcher and material rifle on her back and she leapt into its slowly opening beak and forced herself into the things mouth. The monster started making choking noises and changed its stance so that its rear legs became its arms once more and started clawing at its throat and looked like it was trying to scream. “Yeah that’s it, choke on me! Incidentally I think I might now have a thing for being swallowed alive, is that so wrong given I’ve been eaten by a Hydra before?” “Rarity, I would like to have Chrysalis’s sanity evaluated again, I don’t think Vera did a good enough job the first time.” Coco spoke loudly in a flat tone as the Screamer thrashed and clawed apart its own flesh in a fountain of yellow goo spilling from its body. “I would like to second that even if she did just save my life by doing that.” Saffron made her way out of the alleyway after stabbing a Dusk Minotaur in the brain, she barely avoided getting hit by the thrashing monster that was occupied with a Changeling Queen in its throat and over to Rarity who was just pistol whipping Dusks to save on ammo. “I can still hear you, you know! I’m not crazy even if its guts are quite nice and squishy… cuddly... too bad I’m about to ruin this, I could get some nice Feng Shui going on in here.” The sound of a pin being pulled could be heard after Chrysalis’s disturbing words, the sudden bulge in the monster stomach swiftly moved towards its tail. “I’m coming out soon, get clear everyone!” “On second thought Rarity, make sure to schedule another round with Vera for all of us if we survive this.” There was no objection to Coco’s suggestion. The bulge moved to near the base of the tail and monster started clawing at what was now its front as it switches what were acting as legs and arms again to start clawing at that. Suddenly a circle of small holes and the rebounding of materials off of the surroundings started up and the base of the tail trunk mouth thing eventually separated from the rest of the body and Chrysalis fell out just as an explosion engulfed her and the monster. The area ceased having Dusks and the blast knocked the three ponies down; Rarity slowly staggered to her hooves and helped Saffron onto hers. “Chrysalis, are you alright?!” The light had been blinding and as soon as it died down they saw that the dragon Screamer's innards were everywhere. Rarity quickly moved towards the epicenter of the blast and was already looking around for Chrysalis. “I’m a teapot that loves to spout, about my sexually conclusive routes, but my butt is a handle that no one ever touts~!” A section of the innards twitched and Chrysalis rose from out of them shaking off pieces of what used to be organs belonging to a male griffon and other exploded bits of flesh, she stumbled about dizzily almost dancing. On top of that she was completely soaked in the strange yellowish pus colored fluids as Coco ran up to her to steady her movements. “I think Chrysalis was knocked senseless by the explosion.” Reported Coco as she started to shake off and wipe away the exploded flesh she and Chrysalis were absolutely covered in. “Tip me over and spill my guts out, for I enjoy the pain without a pout~!” Chrysalis sang in a silly tone and Coco kept a good grip on the wobbling Changeling Queen who leaned against her smaller frame. “No kidding, she’s really acting all loopy after that and I’m surprised she got out of that with only light scorching.” Saffron followed Rarity forward while looking at the lit air. “At least we’re all still alive after taking care of that thing and that’s at least a good thing right?” “I’d think not, Chrysalis was the only one who knew exactly where the brain was and I wouldn’t be surprised if she gained amnesia from a blow like that!” Who would blame Rarity for losing her calm in this situation and begin to violently shake Saffron back and forth. Coco was busy supporting Chrysalis and Rarity didn’t want to jumble Chrysalis up any more than she already was in her slightly scorched suit. “Sorry Saffron dear, I’m a little stressed out at the moment. Though I seem to keep finding myself in situations like this, it doesn’t get any easier as I’m a lover of fashion and not exactly built to be a fighter.” “Well this is just going to take a little bit longer then, at least until she gets back to her senses. In the meanwhile I’ve still got a giant scorpion thing, small scythe Screamers and tons of Dusks on my ass down here. I’m not about to die before I meet my little brother!” Ember was breathing quite profusely from what they could all hear; she seemed to be exerting a lot of effort in whatever she was doing. “I’m glad to even still be in contact range, I am going for the closest spiral ramp between city layers. Also I’m the one carrying a one hundred pound metal spiked bat, a specially designed material rifle and the body of an out cold Pegasus while being chased by a number of horrifying things! So it would be good if you could hurry up and get a move on finding that brain like yesterday or at least help me out here with this huge Screamer. I think none of you have a good reason to complain at the moment while you’re all able to catch your breaths!” - Ember stomped down on the back of one of the many Dusks in front of her and bounced off over the crowd in a manner that left a small cloud of dust streaming in the air behind her as she continued running with Lightning thrown over her right shoulder. She was glad that she could still feel the Pegasus breathing if barely at that. She lashed out and dusted a few Dusks with her left claw as she moved forward, she personally modified the claws on her EVA suit to be as tough as her own and after catching Lightning, she had managed to grab a wall to slow down her fall before she fell into one of the lower levels of the city. She took the brunt of the impact for the both of them and didn’t stay down long, because the lower levels were positively swarming with Dusks. She was almost to the ramp and she looked behind to see the creature rearing back and taking in air behind her to let loose a deafening screech, before it turned around and started to leave her alone. She didn’t stop moving as she made it to the ramp that lead to the upper levels. These spirals were used by civilians and to move supplies around the city, in particular the cargo ones were a bit wider than the civilian ones and Ember was already charging up the spiral as quickly as she could. “When I started doing bounty hunting, I never thought I could get into a situation quite this bad.” Ember was halfway to the next floor and wondering why the Screamer backed off and then it occurred to her. “Guys I think the Screamer that was chasing me is after you now! Can you tell me if the rocket launcher Chrysalis has is still in working order?” - “Thanks for the warning Ember, after we check the rocket launcher we need to move into the city and away from the bridge girls. Now let’s see…” A crashing noise was heard and Rarity paused. She turned around to see a huge crab like left claw that was in the shape of an Equestrian cow ripping into the damaged portion of the bridge breaking some of it away. The monster with skull encrusted pointy legs pulled itself up into the city layer they were on. It took her a moment, but Rarity realized that claws were actually bloated beyond all reason enlarged cow corpses, corpses which split horizontally between the neck and chest to reveal rows of teeth on the inside the cows body precisely where teeth shouldn’t be. This was the same monstrosity that was bigger than the Caravel Boutique and Rarity was immediately running for the nearest spiral ramp to head for the top layer of the city. It was definitely a lot scarier up close and Rarity tossed a sunlight grenade behind her without looking as she put away her pistols. Said pistols which would do nothing against something so large and galloped past Coco like a demon just crawled out of hell. That wouldn’t be far from the truth as to what they were dealing with. “Go, go, go, so help me get Chrysalis moving or we’re all going to die and I haven’t become the most famous fashion designer in any galaxy yet!” Coco threw a part of the still quite dazed Chrysalis over her back and followed after Rarity not looking back at the explosion or the horrible angry sounding scream that followed it as she dragged the Changeling along with her at a full blown gallop. She only took one look at the monster that looked like it was cobbled together out of the many corpses and the stretched skin of dead beings that previously lived on the station. Suffice it to say fear was a proper motivator for getting as far away from it as she could. “Sometimes love doesn’t feel like it should, because it hurts me so well~!” Chrysalis cackled randomly as her rear legs bounce against the ground with Coco carrying her at an impressive clip in keeping up and then surpassing both Rarity and Saffron to run her way straight through a flock of half formed Dusks that didn’t get a chance to finish forming. “My blood runs cold and my memory can’t be bold; I’m going to be the Changeling of the centerfold~!” “How long do you think it will take for Chrysalis to get her head back in the game?” There was an explosive sound and Saffron looked back and saw that something come out of the right claw of the monster. She ducked that thing narrowly avoiding the scythe that almost ripped through her head and helmet. The blur rolled after hitting the ground in front of her and Rarity, before it popped up revealing it was a twisted body Screamer raising its one bladed arm. It lashed at the two mares that had to stop and avoid it. “Ember I think we found out where all these one armed scythe monstrosities are coming from!” Whipping out both her pistols Rarity unloaded every round she had into the twisted bodies shoulder, eye and center mass. It went down under the hail of fire as Rarity charged it with Saffron following close behind. “I need to reload Saffron. Do you think you can stop the next one?” Saffron was too busy watching as the creatures left cow claw dug into the miasma wall in the distance and clamped down on a mass of flesh and bones. It snapped its claw several times and then aimed in their general direction before snapping its claw shut harshly then opened it just as quickly sending three twisted body Screamers flying after them all at once. “Nope not fighting three at once, but we still have a few grenades to keep them off of us.” Saffron telekinetically pulled the pin on a grenade and kicked it in their direction with her magic and caught all three of them in the blast mid flight. Looking ahead of them they could see Coco effectively using Chrysalis as a makeshift flail and Chrysalis seemed to even be enjoying it in her state of mind. It was a good thing that Coco was hitting the Dusks with the rear half of the Changeling Queen, because she certainly didn’t need any more head trauma at the moment. “And I’ll be your hive, because I’m going to make everything alright, I’m going to make everything alright yeah~!” Chrysalis’s singing would be better if it didn’t sound so horribly off key in her state while her hind legs were used by Coco as a weapon. “Doesn’t matter if you’re feeling insecure, doesn’t matter if you’re feeling so unsure, all that matters is my love for you, yes my love for you sexy babe yay~.” “Is it me or are all those lyrics from love songs she’s singing? Oh my goodness Saffron, duck!” Rarity threw herself into Saffron and they both fell prone to the street and two scythe Screamers hit the street hard enough to kill them on impact at the distance it had to travel and left huge splatters of bone and gore all over the place. “You know it says something about how horrified I am to see that mess. I think I’ve lost the ability to feel even more scared than I already am at the moment in fact. I’m being way to calm at seeing destroyed corpses just splattered across the ground like that after being launched at us. Yes, Vera certainly has her work cut out for her and I hope Luna doesn’t mind the nightmares we’ll all be having about this if we can even survive this. At the rate things are going, we’re not going to make it to this so called brain and my suit is going to be positively dreadful to clean after this even if we do.” - “Get it together Rarity! You were tough on Ewesen and you can be tough here, no time to let prissy get in the way of survival. Now reload those pistols and protect Chrysalis until she comes back to her senses and directs you towards the brain!” Hefting the slightly limp body Ember continued onward. Maybe the distinctive deafening roars that echoed throughout their skulls was messing up their hearing? They sure were yelling a lot and it was beginning to make Ember a little hoarse. “I’m going to be a bit busy down here pushing through a swarm of Dusks and more of those scythe armed Screamers. Oh think of all the joys of having to do all that, especially with a bunch of dead weight making it really hard to fight.” “Hey… who are you calling… dead weight.” They were going to need a lot of medical attention by the end of this, if Lightning was correctly picking up on the current way things were going. She felt somewhat glad that someone came after her sorry butt, she wasn’t exactly in the best health leaving Equus and now that has caught up to her with a single injury.“I’m okay… enough to be awake at least. Just how… screwed are we?”