//------------------------------// // -64- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Opening a crashed car's left hand door Rarity leapt through as the right crushing cow claw clamped down on it and ripped apart the left half of the car. The scorpion Screamer’s claw spat the wad of metal and upholstery out onto the street and glanced at it. The flaming monstrosity turned back to the car to see the right hand door slam open into a pony Dusk’s face and Rarity jumped out to gallop for it past the resulting dust cloud. The creature gave off what was becoming a rather infamously scary roar that would haunt Rarity’s nightmares for quite a while and continued to give chase. “For once in my life I think being generous is going to literally bite me in the flank.” Rarity had slowed down and thrown another grenade at the Screamer, which is why she was currently alone and with the Screamer right on top of her. She assured her friends that she had plenty of stamina left… that couldn’t have been further from the truth. She was running on fumes and needed a break from using her magic as her horn was beginning to burn and she didn’t want a blow out, especially not now of all times when imminent death was everywhere. The left claw swept forward the toothy mouth open wide and aimed for Rarity. The pony leapt forward into a roll underneath and through several lunging Dusks, she was immediately up and galloping with her breath being far shorter than it previously was at that near miss. Her voice got very shrill and she had reason to be as that had narrowly missed the tail compression pouch of her suit. “Or maybe my entire body if I’m not careful!” She had been pistol whipping Dusks out of her way in the nonstop onslaught as they surged all around her trying to cut her off and possibly pin her down. She couldn’t afford to expend ammo on anything other than the small Screamers and she was running dangerously low. She preferred her energy pistols because it was rather hard to run out of shots for them, material weapons were slightly different and even if they were useful here, her preference would always be the energy pistols. Rarity was tired, her body was battered and she was slowing down, barely able to stay ahead of the slowing mass of cobbled together flesh that was not burning away quickly enough. Rarity’s only hope was to outlast the damn thing. At least to the point that the fire would eventually wear it down so that it could no longer threaten her, of course there were still the Dusks to deal with as they had been forming almost endlessly since Chrysalis slammed the door to her hive mind in the infestations face. Rolling to the side Rarity saw the haunting face of the dead griffon put a hole in the street with its beak, when the tail pulled back she saw a strange sickly purple goop and didn’t need to be told twice to keep going. She did not want to know what that stuff would do to her, but if it was any indication as to what the claws did, then she’d become a Screamer herself if she was struck with the Screamer’s stinger. Rarity was barely staying ahead of the scorpion styled Screamer when a scythe lashed out and ripped into Rarity’s side catching her off guard, she hadn’t seen it coming and the street was splattered in breach gel and blood. - “I hope Rarity knows what she’s doing.” Saffron slashed through several Dusks, sending her knifes out in two wide circular arcs while running full tilt with Coco away from the distracted scorpion shaped Screamer. “Concussion… is almost gone. Also… nobody ambushes a Changeling…” Chrysalis happily intoned, Coco stopped dragging her and she slowly started to stand on her own four hooves. Whipping around her material rifle in her magic, she gunned down a stealthy twisted body Screamer missing ten out of the eighteen shots fired. It fell off the wall of the nearby building and splattered on the ground. Ignoring the sickening splattering sound it made, Chrysalis stumbled a bit when she tried to walk and started a slow trot in the right direction around a street corner. “Nobody… it’s just a bad migraine now and at least I’m not singing anymore, with a slight problem to my aim. Those grenades pack quite a wallop, come on then, we can’t stand around gawking at each other. Do you want to live forever? I know I do, I’m not dying a virgin queen damn it!” Coco and Saffron nodded to one another and followed Chrysalis to protect her, she knew where the source of the infestation was and it was good to see that she was finally back on her hooves. “Wait a minute, where’s Rarity?” It took Chrysalis long enough to notice that Rarity was gone. She also noticed that the flaming demonic looking wall of flesh wasn’t currently breathing down their necks. She had been out of it a few minutes ago, so she couldn’t be blamed for missing the fact that Rarity was no longer among them. “She’s hopefully not too tired…” The noise Coco made could sound between upset whine and distraught hopelessness at the thought of losing what was one of her best friends. It was bad enough that they almost lost Sassy back on Equus and now Rarity their leader, the boss lady, the beloved belle of a baroness was definitely left in dire straits with facing that thing alone. “She led that thing off on her own?! Is she… no, don’t answer what I was about to ask. Of course she would, the altruistic jerk. I’m supposed to be the meat shield here, where does she get off doing my job!” Shaking her head Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and continued forwards, she led them down several streets and alleyways while gunning down every single small Screamer that came at them. She just bashed the Dusks when they got close. At one point she exited an alleyway and stopped, she didn’t stop fighting she just stopped to take in the sight in the distance. She point her right hoof and then kicked out with her rear left catching a lunging griffon Dusk in the jaw without looking to see what she had hit. “That would be where it is… again nobody.” The light could hardly penetrate the darkness of the city, but they all looked towards the building that Chrysalis pointed out and saw strange fleshy tendrils poking out from the base of the building and several stretched a good distance into the ceiling of the station out of the top of the building. The fleshy bits looked like strings of solid grey matter, the stuff that went between the ears of any intelligent being. Chrysalis probably hadn’t been lying when she said it was all brain and no heart. “When you said the thing had a brain, I didn’t think you meant it was literally a giant brain and I’m just taking that as an educated guess from what I’m seeing here. So it was in a stadium this whole time, why is there a stadium in the administrative district?” The large cylindrical building was probably a Zero Gravity Hoof Ball stadium, Saffron knew the rules of regular Hoof Ball requiring a team of at least a Pegasus Pony, Earth Pony and Unicorn Pony all working together. The fact that the stadium was more vertical than wide lent to the credence that it was a ZG Hoof Ball stadium, the game itself was something like what humans called space soccer. It took a moment, but Saffron realized the importance of the main source of the infestation being in the stadium. “The stadium has a gravity generator, if the infestation is here it’s probably been feeding on the stadiums generator if it’s active. You did say it reacted to Rarity’s Pinpoint Puller when she used it, so there must be a similar effect to that near it with the counter gravity the stadium would be creating.” “Well let’s go break this things spine then, my rocket launcher needs to make happy exploding noises.” Chrysalis took a step towards the stadium and stopped with her eyes narrowed. “Well isn’t that just great? I don’t think I have quite enough ammunition for this.” There were at least forty one armed, twisted body, scythe Screamers crawling out of the stadium from various entrances, from windows, doors and along the brain like tentacles poking out from the stadium. Coco pulled a grenade and hefted it; they looked towards her and nodded. They still had a few grenades left and would have to use them sparingly and to great effect. Nobody would ever say that Gilda and Greta didn’t make enough explosives. They all waited for the small one armed Screamers to group up and get closer before Coco let the grenade fly. It took out at least thirty of the things that were coming at them with one blast. Chrysalis followed up with a wobbly launched grenade picking off the stragglers and then they made for the entrance while avoiding the tendrils poking out of the building. They were on the lookout for anything and everything, every shadow was a threat now that they were closing in on the infestation. - Rarity pulled the material pistol towards her, she lifted it and fired two rounds; she was trying to fire at least four only to find out that the pistol was completely empty. She really needed to stop the scythe wielding Screamer bearing down on her. She had just shot out the reanimated flesh monsters eye and damaged it shoulder hardly slowing it down. She watched as it stumbled forward and then dug its scythe into one of the nearby walls by wildly swinging its limb around and it was stuck. The flaming scorpion Screamer started shoving away large portions of the two buildings off to the side as it did. It was determined to get at her in the alleyway and tried to grab her with its creepy looking elephant styled tentacle which Rarity managed to crab crawl away from. Rarity checked her side and saw that the breach gel had finally sealed her compromised suit off; she slowly got up and staggered away as fast as she could into the street while opening up both the material pistols. She only had enough ammo for one last reload for both the pistols, at least she had grenades to spare for all the usefulness they had against the hellish arachnid that had taken all the previous explosions quite well. This was much to the detriment of Rarity’s continued survival. Several Dusks formed in front of Rarity and she quickly spun about and started to buck them away while she hastily loaded her pistols when she got a breather. She quickly put the pistols away and stopped channeling magic to her horn so that it could cool down. The right cow claw ripped away the building behind her as the giant monster seemed to be struggling to get between the buildings to keep following Rarity. It was destroying rooms, furniture and all kinds of other various items as it slowly made a bigger hole for itself. “Oh there’s an idea~! Is everyone doing alright?” Rarity called out as she pulled out a grenade with a hoof and looked at the base of the building and the surrounding destruction the deranged scorpion was causing in plowing a hole between the two buildings. She used her other hoof to pull the pin and lobbed it, not at the scorpion, but the corner of one of the buildings it was currently ripping through. “I’m wounded, but I’m not down yet.” “Rarity, where are you?” The sound of Ember’s urgent voice cut off when the grenade explosion caused the upper damaged portions of both buildings to come toppling inwards onto the demented looking scorpion, Rarity’s eye for detail had been particularly useful in spotting structural weaknesses to use to her advantage. She had hopefully crushed the thing into being incapable of being dangerous anymore. “Yeah, I saw that, I’m on my way Rarity!” “The main source of the infestation is located in a nearby stadium Ember. If you can get Rarity and regroup with us quickly, that would be just great. We’re getting closer to it and it’s getting more dangerous as we do.” There was a squeak of fear and Coco’s voice was whimpering. “We have visual contact of the infestation and it’s really, really big. Oh and that bladed octopus things you mention once, yeah I can see why you were constantly alert now during those three days as I can see what you described right now.” “It’s taking up most of the stadium and it’s a giant freaking brain… doesn’t look like it can move very, oh crap its creating tentacles!” There was a thudding noise from Saffron’s communication line. “Yeah the brain isn’t exactly defenseless even if it is apparently immobile; Chrysalis this is what you’ve been saving those rocket launcher rounds for. Now would be a good time to use them!” “Are those three ponies fused together with… are those worms for eyes? Wish I had a girlfriend that can spew deadly acid out of her eye sockets like that.” Apparently Chrysalis’s group was running into a whole lot of trouble. “Is it me or does the long shaft like bits motif seem kind of a like a thing, also it looks kind of cute for something that’s trying to spew its guts all over me.” “Shut up about your ridiculous fixations Chrysalis and do something!” A rather hysterical sounding Coco shouted. What followed were two explosions back to back. Coco’s whimpering continued. “Please tell me we have enough grenades between us?” Something shifted behind Rarity and she saw a cow shaped claw dig itself out the mess that Rarity collapsed on top of it. The monster was no longer on fire thanks to the falling debris and sadly it was apparently still capable of moving. She also saw something else running towards her as she made to move away from the Screamer slowly digging itself out of the rubble, while smacking away any Dusks coming at her with her bare hooves in a manner that said she definitely wasn’t trained to fight in a melee or brawl or even at all. It was a good thing Dusks weren’t capable of holding themselves together very well. Rarity was mentally wondering, what in the world would it finally take to put that particular Screamer down? They’ve squashed it, shot it, blown it up and set it on fire and it’s still getting up. Flesh forged zombies weren’t supposed to be this resilient! “Are you okay Rarity?” Taking a moment to nervously look at the shifting rubble, Ember turned her attention back to Rarity after having cleared away the Dusks surrounding her by bludgeoning them with her rifle. The surrounding area was now oddly empty of Dusks and they seemed to have stopped forming when previously their numbers seemed endless. “I’m mostly okay, I have a deep gash in my right side and I was stabbed at least once just as deeply in the same area, I don’t think anything vital was hit. The injury has thankfully been sealed off by the breach gel. I however am completely tired as it were and can’t do much more running in my bruised and battered condition, my injury has taken all the winds out of my sails and I’m on my last load of ammunition unless you can spare me a rock pouch… what happened to your suit darling?” At least Rarity knew she wasn’t going to die now and her voice grew deadly calm as she had noticed that Ember’s once fabulous EVA suit was quite damaged now. Her anger was quickly silenced when a pouch full of rocks found its way into Rarity’s possession almost immediately without question from Ember. “I swear this is not something a lady of my delicate stature should really be going through; though I did generously volunteer my services and aid so I shouldn’t complain really. How in the hell do you do this as a job Ember? I mean that rhetorically, because the answer is obviously you do it very well, even though I do have to wonder how you manage stay sane or coherent through stuff like this! Wait, where’s Lightning? Don’t tell me…” “Let’s worry about the damage to my suit and my sanity later; we have to catch up with the others. I evacuated Lightning from the station for medical reasons. She’ll live; don’t know about the rest of us though.” Ember crouched down and carefully scooped up a wincing Rarity before she set off for the stadium. She cradled Rarity in her right arm and looked over her shoulder to toss a grenade at the slowly rising scorpion monster with her left claw. The blast knocked it back down, but that wouldn’t stall it forever. “That won’t stop it for long, if at all. Now we need to go protect everything else that is mine.” “What do you mean by protect everything else that is yours darling, did you lose something?” A confused Rarity curled up against Ember’s arm as she was carried away from the creature that was once again set on fire, speaking of fire her side felt like it was burning and would be another medical bed trip after things were done with. It felt nice and cozy being able to relax and catch her breath, as well as gain some strength to continue fighting, which admittedly she wasn’t very good at without a weapon. Ember was quite a courageous and strong individual for someone who had a rather dubious history, carrying her like this was rather chivalrous of the dragon, but she felt slightly awkward about it. “Remind me later to thank you for allowing me to catch my breath with some free clothing or at least a fresh EVA suit.” “Don’t worry about it Rarity… it’s not that important right now.” It was the truth because Ember had other things to worry about; even if she could tell her cheeks were heating up at claiming Rarity as being hers like that. It certainly wasn’t a blast of fire building up in her throat. She shook her head and focused on keeping an eye on her surroundings. At least everything visibly within the light expanding out in a wide cone from her helmet anyway, alongside her peripheral vision taking in the shadows for anything that so much as twitched in her general direction. It didn’t take Ember long to reach the outside of the stadium building and cover Rarity as an explosion rocked the building, a mutilated body fell before the two and it looked vaguely like an octopus. There was also a loud and quite horrifying alien screeching echoing throughout not just the city, but all of Antilur Station accompanying the explosion and it caused both Rarity and Ember to clutch at their heads in pain. Nobody in the station would have been able to miss hearing that noise. “How are things going in there?” Yelled Rarity who began a slow trot towards the building and giving the bladed tentacle thing a wide berth, with Ember following and readying her rifle. “Well the good news is that we got the stadium lights turned on and Chrysalis has just managed to hit the brain once.” There was a subtle tone in Coco’s voice that said she was in distress. The voice became slightly more strained. “The bad news is, it is creating more Screamers…. and it’s got me, don’t let it take me don’t let it take me!” “Hold on Coco, I’ll be right there!” Announced Saffron as Rarity and Ember ran through the entrance and down a corridor towards the light. The sound of a knife sinking into flesh was heard and it would soon come into view as to what was happening. When Ember and Rarity came out right next to the stands from one of the many entrances around the circle of the stadium, they were in the stadium proper and the entire place was, surprisingly enough, brightly lit. Looking towards the center of the air in the stadium they saw a massive brain that had a large chunk missing from it, there were a lot of small tendrils acting as anchors keeping it in the center of the stadium. The tentacles were different and far larger, like the one growing from the brain that was tightly wrapped around a struggling Coco and slowly squeezing the life out of her while retracting itself back into the brain, nobody wanted to know what would happen if it succeeded in pulling her into that ugly fleshy mass with the flickering bolts of energy jumping between the wrinkles. Death would probably be the best outcome for Coco, because it seemed like it wanted to do something even worse to her. There were several tentacles slapping at the one Coco was trapped in, on top of said tentacle was Saffron, busy trying to sever the tentacle by hacking away at it with one knife and she was holding tightly onto the other jammed deeply into the brain tentacle. She changed positions using the knives as if she were climbing a mountain with them to avoid the tentacles trying to swipe at her. Chrysalis was running away from several Screamers while attempting to load her rocket launcher on the far side of the stadium, she was also busy unloading her material rifle into them as necessary. There were thankfully not any Dusks around and that was oddly comforting to know that they weren’t present even if the Screamers were. “Ember go help Chrysalis, I’ll go help Saffron and Coco.” Rarity didn’t notice Ember’s attempt at a protest because of her injuries. She was already running for the edge of the rail that overlooked the field below and above. She stopped and wondered how Saffron could have possibly gotten up to the tentacle that was retracting towards the brain and then figured it out. She jumped on to the railing and kicked off towards the tentacle and flew straight at it, apparently defying gravity in doing so. The zero gravity field of the stadium was currently active as previously surmised by Saffron; in the case of a match there would be an energy barrier that was called a safety guard to prevent players from flying out of the zero gravity environment. In fact the safety guard was part of the playing field itself and players bounced off it all the time. The cylinder the playing field took place in had no gravity currently and no safety guard, so if they fell out of the gravity field at the wrong place they’d take a nasty fall to the floor when gravity reasserts itself, if the fall didn’t kill them then they’d at least be seriously injured. Rarity saw a tentacle coming for her and pulled out her last grenade and tossed it towards the base of the tentacle and into the brain itself. The resulting explosion kept her from being grabbed, but it slowed her momentum a bit as she continued on a collision course for Coco and Saffron. The monster screamed loudly and again it caused some mild discomfort in everyone’s heads. - Ember wanted to follow Rarity, but she went after Chrysalis by jumping straight across the gravity zone, the brains tentacles were a bit distracted by whatever Rarity was doing judging by the painful scream the large brain gave off. She safely made it clear to the other side. Once she fell down out of zero gravity she ran up the stairs gun blazing, before she came to a stop next to Chrysalis and started taking aim as she splattered more one armed wonders, acid spewing horrors and what looked like a spider shaped octopus with bladed tentacles. She shuddered violently at the sight of the octopus things in memory of the toilet incident; they were quite hideous but not as much as the giant scorpion monster was. “About time I got some decent help around here, though I don’t appreciate the feeling of ownership you’re giving off all of the sudden. Normally I would appreciate it, but there’s just something off in how it feels.” Rolling her eyes Chrysalis slammed the rocket launcher shut and started taking aim at the brain; she crouched down and steadied herself getting ready to pull the trigger. “Cover my poor ass; I need to get a better shot than that poor show I made of the first one. This one will make things a lot easier.” “Already doing that, also what could you possibly hit to make things easier?” Ember blocked a scythe with her rifle lit the second barrel and swung it outwards cutting the twisted torso in half with her blazing bayonet, she leapt forward and started to mow down every Screamer that came at her and stopped to shoot the acid spewing ones with magma rounds. She stuck near Chrysalis who was taking her dear sweet time. “You know you can fire that any day now!” “Why rush perfection? Besides this thing knocks me on my back every time I fire it, this particular model is quite lousy with the recoil, but it can launch a damn good payload.” With a calm flick of her right hoof the rocket flew out of the barrel and the recoil knocked Chrysalis on her back against the stairs with a grunt. “They made this particular model affordable for a reason, also if I’m right a lobotomy will definitely help.” Seconds later the rocket impacted the brain high on a specific part of its frontal lobe and the screech was just as deafening as the last two it made, but the effect of said explosion was far more noticeable. All the Screamers trying to attack Ember and Chrysalis started stumbling around and looked like they lost the ability to move in a straight line and their limbs became a bit floppy. “For you maybe… what exactly did you just hit anyway?” Ember’s job certainly became a whole lot easier, as she started clearing out the stands much more easily with the suddenly neutered Screamers. “It certainly caused an interesting reaction, talk about brain damage.” “Oh you know... I just destroyed a little thing called its motor control cortex… nothing too big or important really. Probably wouldn’t have hit it if I didn’t take my time, those tentacles could have blocked my shot if they weren’t so busy trying to grab Rarity and the others.” Chrysalis was only acting humble, as she waved off Ember’s glance in her direction with a toothy grin. “Give me two more rounds to see what else I really can do and then we’ll try to finish it off with grenades. Incidentally I think I accidentally destroyed the part of the brain that allowed it to generate Dusks with my first shot.” “I have a plan; hold off on firing anymore rockets or throwing grenades!” Rarity’s voice came in loud and clear and Chrysalis started helping Ember clear out the surrounding stands with her material rifle instead, the Changeling Queen looked to the ceiling. “Whatever you say Bossy Lady, if you think you have something then get on it!” Chrysalis’s attention was swiftly drawn away from what she was looking at by the hellfire covered scorpion Screamer busting through the walls of the stadium and it was moving quite erratically. Even then that particular Screamer was still quite dangerous, far more so given it seemed to be having less and less trouble with its ability to move around by the second, while the small Screamers didn’t seem to be getting any better all. “Oh that is some grade A Minotaur crap right there… which is actually pretty tasty come to think of it. Tastes strongly like oranges and cabbage. Anyway we got company down here; let’s see if we can play keep away and keep its attention entirely on us!” - A minute or so ago… “Saffron, Coco, I need you to grab a hold of each other and then me as I pass by!” Rarity levitated out her pistol and fired it three times; one shot went wide hitting a different tentacle. The other two finished severing the damaged tentacle allowing Coco to get free. Saffron grabbed Coco in a one hoofed hug and then in turn had Coco reach out her hoof and hooked it around Rarity’s as Saffron pulled her knife free from the free floating tentacle, the stump of which was now spewing small streams of purple colored floating blood into the air as it wiggled shrinking towards the damaged brain. Rarity’s momentum was carrying them all towards the ceiling and several tentacles stretched out from the brain, pulling her other material pistol out she started firing both of them wildly at the incoming danger. Only to stop when another screech was unleashed and its synaptic sinew started flailing out of control when the second rocket hit it. She was not physically holding the pistols, her direction didn’t change but her momentum slowed down thanks to the added mass of two ponies. This had all three of them going at a relatively safe speed. The tentacles seemed to have a maximum distance to which they could stretch, because Rarity and the others safely made it out of range and to the metallic ceiling where Rarity had them magnetize their suits to it after having grunted in pain as the impact made her side flare up. Taking a few quick glances around, Rarity’s eye for detail started to pick up on a few things and her mind took a keen interest in the nearby immobile tendrils. “I have a plan; hold off on firing any more rockets or throwing grenades!” A calculating look crossed Rarity’s face. They’d need whatever grenades or rockets they had remaining to pull it off. The sordid affair with the aftermath could be worried about afterwards when it becomes pertinent. She would generously aid in that if there was any generosity to be given, because Rarity knew this whole awful affair was just about over if her plan worked out.