Rarity just sat there staring. One second Ember was there and the next she was blinded by a corona of raw energy as it burned a large hole through the entrance of the room and out the back. She opened her eyes and looked to the right and saw the large hole at the back of the frozen storage space. It created a dark tunnel and it kind of gave her the idea as to how the tunnels around the facility might have been dug. Ember was just gone, the only trace of her left was just rocket launcher and the one round she tossed off to the side and her Trailblazer Rifle. The rifle was glowing slightly on the floor from the heat of the beam that melted the stairs leading up the two nearest blocks at the entrance.
That was another thing added to the list of horrific things Rarity had ever seen, who would need a weapon like that? The firepower behind it was insane enough to rip a pony to atoms and she had lost the sight of the two low flying Pegasus Ponies, they had been busy knocking humans from the staircases with quick hit and run tactics. Those two had obviously been caught in the beam and their bodied were gone within seconds. Rarity closed her eyes and thought of a prayer, at least their deaths were quick.
Rarity let tears fill her eyes as she tried to come to grips with a sudden disheartening fact, Ember had been caught in that beam and had been too tired and injured to make an effort to dodge it. She did at least leave them with a rocket launcher and one round of ammunition for it. Whoever had launched that attack, they had a pretty powerful and upsetting message to deliver. The message was clearly received, from whatever had fired that.
Hearing a noise that made her left ear twitch, Rarity turned and saw it approaching. The vehicle that had fired that oppressive beam of raw energy and she had to say that the black and yellow color scheme was quite gauche as was the hazard symbol. Shaking her head she tried to focus more on dealing with this problem than the aesthetics of said problem, it was a large four legged walker. This thing had more features than the previous walkers and far more weaponry.
Rarity’s eye for detail could tell her a lot, the large device at the back of the machine was the energy cannon that had fired that blast that ripped through the room. She could only guess at how much energy that thing could use, between it and the main portion of the walkers back was what had to be a shield generator. The best angle to attack it was from the sides of the upper torso, however she didn’t know how powerful the generator was or what it was capable of. Aside from that the weapons were fairly obvious and lethal, possibly powerful enough to shoot through the floor of the blocks that everyone was set up on. The shoulder mounted weapons at least had to have a limited amount of ammo right?
The four legged machine walked through the entrance and stopped, it was blocking the entrance and there would be no getting by it without being attacked.
“None of you are leaving this place alive.” The voice calmly stated, sure that it was speaking the truth.
Rarity wasn’t hopeful, but she narrowed her eyes. She had survived worse and this wouldn’t be the end of her as she would persevere with the best of them. This was the callous person who took down Ember and was a part of all this, she was going to see her cousin Sugar’s wedding happen.
-
Perja Rensada had caught up with Saffron’s team slowly pushing through the human defensive line by taking several rooms along the corridor heading towards the command center. She was angry and a little more than ready to deal with the nuisances, only she ran into the problem of having to deal with a rogue walker blocking her path and it was surprisingly holding its own and performing above normal operational specs. Under Greta’s command the machine was putting up quite a good fight and none of Perja’s weapons were heavy enough to deal with a walker that was moving as if it were being safely overclocked.
“Guys we need that command center, I can’t keep the commando off of you forever!” Greta had almost got caught the last time she hacked the system, Rarity was in trouble and Ember was… well it wasn’t a good idea to think about at the moment. Focusing past the mental trauma, she had to really deal with an agile and fast acrobatic human that can dodge in an inhuman manner and actually do damage to the walker she was in control of with her bare hands. It was ridiculous how powerful Perja Rensada was. “I hope Gilda gets their soon enough to save the Boss Lady.”
“We’re doing the best we can Greta, but we’re meeting a lot of resistance here.” Saffron’s armor was slowly getting mangled from all the pressure she was putting it under, even then it was still operational. Well operational as far as the skate and forward blasters were concerned.
There was some dossier information on Perja Rensada, it was an incomplete file but it was a quick enough read. Perja from a young age had discovered her ability to control every ounce of her body with a thought and was ousted as a biofeedback psychic, government took her in and eventually she was given military training. She was eventually dropped due to increasingly aggressive tendencies. She had some commando training and was quite accurate with firearms, incredible physical strength and reflexes. This on top of the ability to heal from most injuries provided she ate a lot more food, she couldn’t regenerate very well without nutrients in her body to help the process along.
Greta made the walker swing for Perja who slapped the arm away and she managed to leave a dent in the arm, only for Perja to get blown backwards by a shot by the other arm. The woman just wouldn’t stay down and Greta didn’t think she could put her down even when remotely controlling a walker through Viral.
“Rover is thinking situation is getting progressively worse.” The others, if they had the time, would agree with Rover’s sentiment that things were in fact getting worse. He was having a hard enough time wielding the rifle or pistol he had on him with his working paw.
“I’m going to have to agree with you there partner, things are getting hairier than a Puffle around here!” Turning back to the walker fighting the crazy Human, Applejack took a potshot at Perja forcing her into a position where Greta managed to grab her body and violently electrocute the commander. Despite this the commander thrashed about and managed to break the hold of the mechanical claw, her body was slightly fried and twitching. It took the Human a few seconds to get up from that and she looked more determined than ever, she was damaging the walker with her bare hand and doing a pretty good job of slowly ripping it apart. “Also I’m almost out of ammunition here, unless we can find something for me to shoot my material rifle is going to be firing air and everyone knows how useless that it unless you can compress it well enough.”
“We’ll think of something Applejack.” Leaping up to punch a Human in the sternum Saffron took a few looks around and watched as Rover poked out from cover of a nearby doorway to fire several highly inaccurate shots. Saffron figured Rarity probably had it worse, but they were being swamped from all sides and she couldn’t protect everyone. “Wait don’t we need Viral when we get to the command center Greta!”
“Oh right…” Greta mumbled out loud from the walker she was guiding to hold off the Perja who was taking each attack from the slightly modified and stolen walker. That Human just kept coming at them, sure she was slowly losing strength, but it wasn’t darn near fast enough. The longer she kept pushing her limits, the more likely it was they could take her down in a more permanent fashion. “Yeah, that’s is going to be a bit of a problem. Just clear a path while I hold tall, dark and psychotic off of you.”
At least Rarity had the chance of reinforcements, taking the command center was becoming harder by the second. At least they weren’t taking casualties as badly as the Humans were. The Humans didn’t seem to have very many well trained people, because they would have stopped their small group by now.
-
“Rubis… try to get the rocket launcher.” Rarity had gone down the stairs and approached the crouching flightless humanoid bird with a machine gun pressed against her chest. She moved near the edge of the block with the express idea of keeping the pilots attention on her. She looked down at the machine and warily cleared her throat. “Well I have news for you! You can’t leave the exit unguarded or some of us will escape! So chances are pretty good that not all of us are going to die!”
Rarity ducked as hundreds of rounds sprayed the general area around her and tore through the floor beneath her, thankfully out of all the holes slowly forming around her curled up form none of the rounds hit her. Each block had several pillars along the aisles of the frozen with staircases leading up to solid metal flooring above, there were several levels and Rarity was currently one floor up from the walker and wished she were still two floors up. The blocks were wide rectangles and had scaffolding and bridges connecting them to each other and covered several aisles worth of frozen people, nobody was on the bridges between the blocks because they didn’t want to be blown away by the powerful machine cannons.
After the cannons stopped chewing through her surroundings and expending a good seventy rounds apiece, Rarity scrambled away from her spot and fired a shot or two at the walker. The energy pistol ember gifted prove less than useful, given the shield on the walker didn’t look like it was weakening under the constant stream fire which was coming from the opposite direction. A Pegasus and three Griffons were currently drawing its attention off of her with machine guns. They dropped back as it started firing on them and one of them took several shots through a leg and looked like they would be crippled for life. Even after attracting it’s attention the machine didn’t move away from the entrance, Rarity was right in the fact that it couldn’t move from the entrance or it would give a chance for several people to escape.
“Lady Rarity, you are very brave for pushing forward even as sadness takes your heart.” Muttered a tired looking Rubis who stayed away from the railing or the edge of flooring, she was going to search for the rocket launcher and the one round and work her way over to the needed weapon in question. She was up and moving for the far end of the block away from the machine, as Rarity and the several other Pegasus Ponies unloaded on it from above on various floors of their particular block.
Reaching the edge of the block and looking over the rail to the floor, Rubis got up on it and started to hang from the rail. She wasn’t in a very fit condition, but being frozen solid hadn’t caused her any form atrophy. The food she had managed to get a while ago was enough for her to make a decent drop from this height, Parrotes were never afraid of heights and could fall a very long distance without injury providing that they were in good health. Like the Macropussians, alien kangaroos that they were, Parrotes were good at acrobatic feats. Though Parrotes weren’t nearly as physically strong as a Macropussian, they could feasibly jump and maneuver like one. Most of a Parrotes strength for maneuvering was in their legs, not to say that their arms were weak, but a Parrote could kick someone harder than they can claw someone with their hand talons.
It was thanks to her aerodynamic body Rubis was capable of dropping down to the floor safely one aisle over from where the walker had any clean visibility, she made sure to drop down with a pillar between her and it because she didn’t want to be made into cheese by those nasty weapons. Even with her feathers all damaged and or mangled by her time spent frozen as they were, Rubis landed solidly on the floor with nary a stumble to show for it. Mind you she was also naked exept for the coverage of said ruined feathers, they were still functional in creating drag and her landing was good.
Moving over to a large column trying not to focus on the large hole behind her and to the right, she peered around it just in time to witness a Pegasus get mulched in a quick burst of fire from the machine cannons and winced. That walker's weapons were quite loud and they ripped through everything including the flooring of the blocks. Her sharp eyes looked about for the rocket launcher Ember tossed away as a last act to at least give them some hope of dealing with this thing. She moved down the adjacent aisle and avoided open spaces while moving swiftly.
Eventually she stopped and moved to a wall to get another look at the fighting going on and poked her head out to nearly get it blown off by a huge blast of electrical energy that had her backpedaling.
“Sacré Déesse!” Rubis cursed out, that had almost hit her. She poked out again and more carefully looking around and spotted Ember’s rifle down the aisle a bit and on the opposite side from her. She noticed that the walker’s shields were as strong as they had been a minute ago, the machine guns and the energy pistol Rarity was using from her late friend were doing nothing to that thing.
From her position, Rubis could see the rocket launcher round which made her heart leap with hope, but not the launcher itself which she hoped was not the nearby pile of slag. She could not run down the furrowed aisle without getting killed. So she continued down the adjacent aisle and stopped at the next opening between the two. She confirmed her fears there, the rocket launcher was gone, but the rocket could still be useful. There was also the rifle which looked to have cooled down, whatever Ember made it from it was still perfectly fine despite the hits she saw it take from the walkers and a beam that was powerful enough to kill humans from the raw heat it gave off.
Rubis darted out and quickly grabbed the rocket, she pulled back quickly and looked around the corner. She had thankfully gone unnoticed during the few seconds she ran out to get the explosive, but she didn’t think she’d go unnoticed if she tried to get Ember’s rifle. The fact that the rifle might give off enough heat when using its special features to be dangerous to a user that wasn’t equipped to handle it was a bit daunting. Still though, she could feasibly use the rifle as a shield if she could get to it and she didn’t have to use the weapons intended purpose. She traced her beak with her tongue and clicked it once or twice, could she even make it across the aisle?
An explosion of energy happened nearby, Rubis had a front row seat to an Earth Pony pulling a Pegasus with a bloodied twisted mess where one of her wings used to be. He managed to escape the trail of energy blasts following him and he ducked into nearby break in the aisle. The walker wasn’t leaving its position to chase them and why should it? Like Ember said, the worse thing they could experience right now as a siege and a really slow and painful death. That was what was happening, the guy in the walker could easily wait them out. All they had were weak and hungry volunteers for the slaughter.
What could she do from her position? The thing was shielded so powerfully that just throwing the rocket at it would be a waste. That and it was taking a huge lightning bolt right now and its shields didn’t look to be fading very fast despite that. If a focused lightning bolt like that couldn’t stop the walker what could? This was quickly becoming a lost cause, if they could deal with the shield then maybe they could actually do something to it.
She hefted the rocket in her hand and the started looking for a nearby staircase, she ducked when she came under fire and saw a human trying to shoot her and a shot or two grazed her side and face. She carefully deposited the rocket on the floor, as apparently not all the infantry had been caught in the ice storm and some were still around. She swung her machine gun around on the strap and then quickly gunned the guy down, his or her body erupted in a bloody mess trailing from the left hip up to the right shoulder under her fire. She quickly picked the rocket up and then started making her way towards any place to climb back up onto the blocks. Maybe Rarity would have an idea of what to do with it.
-
Commander Quelk hated to admit it, but the Pony that had spoken up had a point. He couldn’t abandon his spot at the entrance or else someone would have a chance to get by him and cause more trouble. He had to keep the thawed stiffs contained and the one who let them loose and then freaking armed them. He had heard the winged ponies could be dangerous, but he never believed it until the indoor icicle storm skewered his men, men he really hadn’t cared much about to be honest. He wondered how a bunch of frozen stiffs could be so much trouble, they lost a number of infantry trying to take the room back and it spoke of a brewing problem that said that they couldn’t do this kind of crap anymore.
The information of their operations hadn’t gone beyond the point of no return, but he was pretty sure that without their cloud cover their facility would be quickly found out and soon. Even if they did blow it, someone was bound to notice the human technology strewn about among the other technology they were using. They couldn’t just keep this quiet until it blows over, the facility was absolutely compromised. They would have to deal with the thawed out and the ones who started this whole mess, but even then they were incapable of rebuilding the towers without people taking notice of their activities.
A flicker of red and he fired a blast of energy at something that moved away from it, John was slowly getting rather paranoid about how many of the frozen had been successfully thawed out. They were in the aisles and taking cover up in the blocks, at best he was saving his walkers shoulder mounted machine cannons ammunition for things he could really hit. So far his opponent hadn’t managed to damage the shields and they were holding up without an issue. This was another reason to stay at the entrance, as long as they couldn’t get close enough or around him to damage the shield generator he was in a good position where they could never bring enough force to damage Hazard Spider.
He saw a bright beam fire out overhead and wondered what kind of weapon that was, nothing happened except the beam shrink out of existence above him starting from the point it was fired one floor up from the block on his right. He figured it was nothing to worry about.
-
Several seconds earlier Rubis reached Rarity by crawling up to her with the news that the rocket launcher was kaput, but she picked up the last rocket at least.
“Well that’s good news then, great news actually now that I think of it.” It was during the lightning bolt that Rarity saw a point of weakness in the shields system, her eye for detail came through for her. The major detail being that the shields didn’t cover the system that generated them. She still had her pinpoint puller and aside from the broken and shot legs, she was still capable of pulling off a plan. She had enough magic for it at least and her EVA suits magnetic clamps were fully functional. “Just give it to me and I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you planning?” Rubis didn’t like the idea that both of the people that came here and thawed her out were going to perish here trying to help the people that were fighting for their lives.
“I’m just going to take care of those shields, I’ll be right back!” Levitating the rocket, Rarity cast a light spell and bent the light around her and the floating rocket. After disappearing in front of the surprised blinking eyes that Rubis was expressing, Rarity fired her Pinpoint Puller towards the entrance. It was unfortunate that the grappling devices beam was still visible because it went beyond the bent light around her. Nothing for it, she hoped the guy in the walker didn’t figure it out before it was too late.
Rarity zipped across the space between and clung to a spot above the entrance, she stayed there for a second and waited to see if she had been noticed. She had went unnoticed and that was this Human's big mistake, even if she didn’t think the rocket would take down the walker, it would certainly cripple or hamstring it at least.
She had to get the shield generator, but how would she blow the rocket? She didn’t exactly have fire breath like Ember did to set it off and the best she could do would be… maybe that would work. She dropped onto Hazard Spider with a thud, the reaction immediately and she was already moving in a three legged gait across the top of the machine for the back and to the shield generator. Hazard Spider was effective in combat with anything approaching a battlecruiser in space, provided it had its one beam shot to shoot down said battlecruiser. It had a weakness in that if someone were to get close enough to climb onto it, it couldn’t get that person off of it without outside assistance or the pilot physically opening the canopy to shoot that person off.
The Hazard Spider’s armor was thicker and tougher than the general walkers around the facility and could take several rockets hitting it at once even without the shield generator. The pilot was completely safe from small arms fire, what the pilot wasn’t safe from was shockwaves, but in essence John Quelk was impossible for Rarity to hurt directly even after what she was about to do. What was possible was that Rarity could damage the walker and she started off by wedging the inert rocket between the bulbous beam cannon apparatus on its back and the shield generator.
After dropping her invisibility field, Rarity forcefully wedged the rocket into the best position she could get it, the next part was going to be hard. She had to detonate the rocket and doing that safely wasn’t going to be easy as her grappling line was very visible. She lit up her light spell and made herself invisible, she fired her grappling beam and then quickly turned her head to let lose a well-aimed magic missile. Her timing couldn’t have been better as she was jerked away from the machine thanks to the grapple.
The large explosion went off and sent a piece of metal cutting through the grapple dropping her to the floor in a painful tumble, she lifted her head and saw Hazard Spider was down and the shield generator was destroyed and it’s beam cannon had fallen off.
Without the shield generator operational from the start of the explosion, the rest of the explosion dealt the maximum damage it could possibly have and Rarity’s eye for detail helped her find the best structural point to set off the explosion. The walker faltered badly and fell forward on limp legs and the back of it was left a sparking mess of wires, but there was a sense of dread in the air as aside from the destroyed shield generator and scorched back the main body of the Hazard Spider was completely undamaged by the explosion.
Rarity tried to stand up and froze when she noticed movement, she rolled so that she was facing the walker and saw that it was slowly getting up on its four legs.
-
“Perja, Hazard Spider lost its shield generator and John’s forces are decimated.” Thomas Itterstin was a sane man, well sane in that he worked for a shadowy organization and worked in an underground base. He however could see the writing on the wall, they had somehow divined a method for breaking Hazard Spider’s ridiculously tough shields.
“I’m a bit busy here, I have pests to kill. Get someone else to help John!” With what sounded like a grunt of effort and the sound of something being destroyed, Perja could be heard giving off a sinister laugh. “Besides you don’t want me to break off my pursuit, they coming your way to the command center after all. I’m almost even done dealing with the stolen walker and just ripped one of its arms off!”
“Damn it, all our other forces are currently being wrapped up with killing the Gillamonks and trying to deal with the Puffles. Heck the Puffles are even more dangerous and they’re not even predatory!” Yeah, Commander Itterstin was going to have to set up base destruction protocols, considering the fact that everything already went to hell for them. Perja was going nuts with her personal hunt of the prey that got away from her and thus insulting her pride, John was known for fighting losing battles in a pyrrhic manner and he himself was a dirty coward.
The lower levels of the base were already flooding and the real problem here was that Thomas was too terrified to do much more than seal the door to the command center. He hoped that the trouble would be dealt with and go away, because all he had on his person currently was a computer and a hand gun. He wasn’t a combatant, he was a computer expert and apparently the invaders had a better one than he was, as whoever they were had been running circles around his efforts to find them or stop the system intrusions. He didn’t want to set off the self-destruct as he was too afraid of dying. Getting far enough away from the base in a timely manner was all but impossible thanks to all the collapsed tunnels.
Hundreds of personnel were dead, fighting Gillamonks, trying to deal with the intruders coming towards the command center, trying to prevent the thawed out people in the frozen storage section of the laboratory from getting any form of egress or momentum, getting killed by Puffles, getting caught in accidents caused by Puffles and or were too busy running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to fix the constant stream of damages the facility was undergoing.
So really, how the hell could this possibly get much worse in the next few minutes that would make Thomas willing enough to set off the self-destruct system? He could stay safely tucked away in this room where nothing could reach him or even get to him.
There was a squeaking sound and Thomas froze, slowly he turned his chair to the right and found himself face to face with a big bright smiling wall of purple fur and glowing happy green eyes. There was a Puffle in the room with him and it oh so slowly and torturously stuck out its tongue and blew a quick raspberry. In the language of the Puffles it just said, ‘Clever Girl’ about itself.
A scream erupted from the command center, which was followed by the sound of a gun being fired.
-
The Hazard Spiders shoulder mounted machine cannons whirred to life and aimed at Rarity, they spat hundreds of bullets at her and she quickly shut her eyes expecting imminent death. Only to hear the sound of ricocheting fire. She opened her eyes and saw Rubis standing over her with Ember’s rifle, she was gritting her beak and using it as a shield for the hundreds of high speed bits of metal that were now grazing her shoulders, sides and head.
Rubis stood tall and kept the rifle planted against the ground and propped her body against the wave of fire power straining to hold up under the onslaught, she was started to bleed badly and she lost a large amount of her matted and destroyed feathers. She tried to give Rarity brave look, only to grimace at her growing list of injuries.
The machine cannons stopped firing, and one of the energy blasts struck the ground with a heavy blast that sent Rubis sprawling over Rarity and rolling along the floor. Still she clutched at the bulky rifle and propped herself up with it trying to stand back up.
“You’re just delaying the inevitable you fucking horse, you’ll never break through the armor even if you did destroy Hazard Spider’s shields.” The walker took several steps forward and the machine cannons start to whir to life as a two legged walker rushed towards it from behind. Commander Quelk didn’t think much of it other than reinforcements, another mistake on his part in as many minutes. “I must commend you though, most don’t even get this far. Now…”
“Incoming!” That gruff feminine voice sounded rather familiar to the injured Unicorn currently in the line of fire, within a second the Hazard Spider was knocked out of the way of the entrance and onto its side. The other walker had been moving at full tilt and hit it with a shoulder tackle. Gilda was a much needed relief to the desperate battle, most of the injured and weary thawed out were practically out of ammunition. “Sorry I’m late Boss Lady, don’t you dare die on me!”