//------------------------------//
// 20. [Rarity] Pipes and Wells 
// Story: Deep Rock Equestria: Into The Abyss 
// by The Atlantean 
//------------------------------//




Full Mission Roll:
Refine Liquid Morkite, 25 Hollomite, Haz 2, Dense Biozone
Warning: Lethal Enemies, Anomaly: N/A
Machine Event: N/A
Encounters: Lost Pack, Golden Loot Bug
Extra Resources: N/A
Mission Special Beer: Red Rock Blaster
Roll System in Final Phase




“Welcome to the Dense Biozone, girls,” Rarity said as the Drop Pod’s doors opened once again. “Watch for Glyphids. This cave may only be Haz 2, but the bugs here are more lethal than usual.”
The usual marching order established itself once again as Rainbow charged down the ramp and Applejack leaped to the left. Sunset grappled somewhere in the darkness, leaving Rarity to take the right of the Drop Pod and check for minerals and enemies.
“Liquid Morkite, Team,” Mission Control said. “We’re sending you a heavy-lift refinery to process the stuff. Call in a pump once you’ve located a well and connect it to the refinery with pipes. Good luck!”
Rarity blanched.
Seconds later, a large machine with a similar basic setup to the Mine Head drilled through the ceiling nearby and crashed to the floor. It unfolded its grated ramps and powered up with a whir. Instead of turrets and spotlights, however, it sported a large refinery array, a bulbous holding tank, and three pipe heads.
“I’ll get Nitra,” Sunset volunteered. “Rarity, there’s some near the ceiling if you could give me a platform.”
Rarity nodded and aimed her platform gun to where Sunset indicated, compensating for the distance, and fired. Goop flew across the cave and solidified exactly where she wanted it. She mined some more easily accessible gold and dumped it into the refinery’s mineral crusher while Applejack searched for Liquid Morkite wells and Rainbow started working on the pipes.
“Say, Rarity,” Rainbow prompted.
Rarity took a deep breath to calm herself. “If this is about the Dreadnought again, I don’t want to hear it. I already told you, I’m going to ask Greg for advice.”
“It’s not.”
“Then, by all means, continue.”
“Did you feel any connection to the Ommoran Heartstone? Like your geode was trying to talk to it?”
Rarity sat on the grated platform with her chin resting on her hand. “Now that I think about it, I did feel something. I decided it was my imagination. Why? Did you feel it, too?”
“Yeah. I thought I was the only one.”
“I’ll ask the others once we return to the Rig, but for now, we should focus on the mission.”
“Hey, Ah found one of the wells!” Applejack called. Her laser pointer indicated a spout of flame near the other end of the cavern.
“I’ll get it,” Rainbow said. She began building one of the pipes in long segments to snake around various columns and go up and down.
Rarity finished the pipes from Rainbow’s framework, meeting Rainbow somewhere in the middle as she worked her way back to the refinery. Applejack moved on to look for the other two wells, and before long, Mission Control reported deployment of all three pumps. The team met back at the refinery once all pipes were built.
“Are you ready?” Sunset asked. “I’ve gathered as much Nitra as I could find, along with any gold, Bismor, and Umanite around.”
“I got the Hollomite,” Rainbow said as she dumped the contents of her suit pockets into the mineral crusher just below the large spherical holding tank at the top of the rocket.
“Well done, Team. you’ve secured yourselves a nice bonus,” Mission Control stated. “All Pumpjacks are connected to the refinery! Start the pump sequence whenever you’re ready.”
“We’re ‘go’,” Rarity said. “Sunset, hit the button. Let’s get this started.”
“Bad news, Team. A swarm of Macteras have caught your scent. Better prepare yourselves.”
“What are Macteras?” Applejack asked.
“Flying bugs,” Rarity answered. She called down a resupply near the bottom of one of the ramps to the refinery. “Watch your heads!”
“Contact! Take ‘em out, Team!”
The bugs crawled out of the walls as one of Sunset’s flares arced into the ceiling. Most of them had yellow fleshy bits on their bottoms like the Praetorians’ green abdomens, small, thin legs, and mouths poised to shoot. One of them had a much smaller fleshy bit and long, segmented legs, and its eyes held more malice than Fluttershy’s rabbit Angel. It let out a high-pitched screech as it flew toward them.
Rarity’s ears pricked at the noise. Something told her it was coming for her, and she aimed her shotgun high. She pulled the trigger just as its legs reached out to grab her.
The bug screeched in pain and retreated. Rarity smiled at her handiwork, then looked for the others. Everyone had scattered to dodge the yellow goop being projectile vomited at them by the other bugs, but they were working as a team. Most of the bugs lay dead on the ground. Sunset targeted the long-legged bug with a quick succession of shots, downing it on the pile.
With the swarm done, Rarity checked her bestiary. Two new entries had been added: the Mactera Spawn and Mactera Grabber. Seconds later, the Mactera Goo Bomber appeared as well with the echo of Rainbow’s revolver.
Sunset activated the refinery, and Mission Control announced, “Pump sequence starting! Be aware, the noise will draw in the locals, so keep them off the pipes, and we’ll have that Liquid Morkite refined in no time!”
Rarity set up her turrets near the resupply pod and lobbed a grenade at a group of Glyphids gnawing at one of the pipes. Sunset disappeared to deal with a different section, and Applejack and Rainbow rode the two other pipes to protect them. It wasn’t enough, however, and the refinery abruptly ground to a halt.
“The pumps have stopped! The refinement process won’t continue until all pipes are fixed.”
Rarity saw one of the broken segments nearby, so she lobbed another grenade to kill the bugs around it and jogged over. Oily black Liquid Morkite splashed all over her armor rig when she approached. She started wrenching the pipe parts back into place and hammering them together, and the liquid streamed into her face.
She backed off, blinded, and spat out whatever bit had gotten into her mouth. It tasted disgusting. She wiped her face clear. Her stomach churned something awful, but she managed to hold it.
“Stop playing with the pipes, Rarity,” Sunset playfully chided.
“Have you gotten a mouthful of Liquid Morkite?” Rarity angrily sputtered.
Sunset laughed so hard she tripped on a rock and fell on her back.
“Thought not.”
Rarity finished repairing the pipe, but not before Mission Control reported the other two fixed. The refining process continued until the comms crackled again.
“Hmm… this doesn’t look good. We’ve just picked up a group of Glyphid Praetorians heading your way. Dig in, Team.”
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow yelled.
Although the cave’s Haz level wasn’t too bad, the Praetorians proved to be a challenge. Their acid-spitting attacks wore down shields quickly, and their armor was tough. One of them, though, was even bigger than the rest with a crown of armor. Rarity’s laser pointer said it was a Glyphid Oppressor.
“My gun’s not doing anything!” Rainbow cried. “Its armor’s too tough!”
“I see a weak spot in the back!” Sunset called from behind the beast. “Rainbow, can you get around it?”
Rarity lobbed a grenade at the Oppressor. “I’ll distract it!” she yelled. “Applejack, find a way around it! Rainbow, follow her!”
Applejack’s drills whirred to life, and she disappeared behind a rock wall. Moments later, Rainbow Dash ran after her, leaving Rarity to back into a corner as the Oppressor stomped closer. She fired again.
Rainbow’s minigun sounded from behind the Oppressor. It roared and slammed its forelegs into the ground, sending shockwaves rippling through the air that pushed Rarity against the wall. She groaned as she collapsed to the ground. Disoriented, she tried to push herself to her feet, but another smack from the Oppressor overloaded her suit, and her vision went black.


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“Rarity?”
The voice was familiar, but it didn’t belong to anyone on her team. It wasn’t Rainbow’s tomboyishness or Sunset’s determination, and it didn’t have Applejack’s country accent. It was soft and fluttery like a kind, caring mother.
Rarity opened her eyes and pushed herself to her knees. Her arms ached, her legs were scraped, and she felt a bead of blood dripping down her cheek. She brushed it with her hand and pulled her ponytail out of her face.
Checking her surroundings, she saw that she was in a swirling pale nothingness. There was ground but no surface. There was sound, there was light, but nothing to create them. The air felt fresh and clean, but there was no world from which it came.
“Fluttershy?” she asked warily.
The yellow-skinned form in front of her focused, and Rarity saw her friend’s long pink curls and big blue-green eyes. She wore her Camp Everfree geode around her neck as she knelt to match Rarity’s eye level.
“But… we left you behind. We lost you.”
Fluttershy tilted her head. “No, you didn’t. It was my choice, Rarity. I stayed here so you could go home. Now go home. You’re needed there.”
Rarity grasped Fluttershy’s hand. Tears streamed down her dirtied, bloodied face. “I’m not leaving you behind. I’m gonna find you, and I’m gonna bring you home.”
“You must leave me, Rarity. Your family needs you. Your friends need you.”
“No! I won’t! They can wait.”
“Rarity--”
“No. I don’t care what it takes. You’re my friend, Fluttershy, and friends don’t abandon each other when it gets tough. When I go home, you’re coming with me.”
Fluttershy morphed into a broken, twisted version of Rarity. Her hair was torn short, her skin was even dirtier and damaged than it was now, and one of her eyes was covered in a patch. She wore the tattered remains of her undersuit under a destroyed armor rig. Her left arm had been replaced with a cybernetic one, and her combat shotgun looked used and beaten.
“This is what you face, Rarity. You risk everything. Your very identity is at stake!”
Rarity recoiled from the warning but regained control of her mind before it went into panic mode. If what this shapeshifting Fluttershy said was true, she could lose her shop. Her skill. Her livelihood. That was a lot to lose.
But Fluttershy was a lot to lose, too.
“My friend is at stake,” she said. “And she’s worth more than anything I could lose.”
Suddenly, the mystical anti-world around her began to crumble and turn to black, and her mind rocketed to the physical present.


---------------------------------


“Hhnnnnnnnnngggggg.”
“You’re gonna be fine, Rarity,” Sunset said. “The Oppressor’s gone.”
Rarity felt herself be lifted off the ground and propped on the refinery’s ramp. The refinery itself clanged away amid the Glyphid screeches that echoed through the cavern, but her friends were more concerned about her than they were the mission. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw that she was completely and utterly drenched in Liquid Morkite.
“The revival juice wasn’t working, so we had to do something,” Sunset continued. “Rainbow said you hated Liquid Morkite, so we, uh, borrowed some from the pipes.”
Rarity’s mind cleared, and she shook her head. “Why didn’t it work?”
“Well, for one, you were surrounded in a magical aura the color of your geode,” Rainbow said. “The juice just rolled off you instead of soaking into your suit like it’s supposed to.”
“That’s odd, but we should focus on the mission. How much longer do we have?”
“Holdin’ tank is just about full,” Applejack reported. “It took a while to get the Oppressor, and Sunset had to go out and fix the pipes once while Rainbow and Ah fought it. We’ll be faster next time.”
“Don’t sweat it. We haven’t encountered one before now. Just be glad it wasn’t a Dreadnought.”
“Oh, I’m glad, all right,” Sunset said. She held down the rocket launch button, and the launch sequence started before Mission Control could report that the tank was full.
Once the cargo rocket had been secured, the Drop Pod came down to retrieve them. The extraction went smoothly. As they ascended, however, Rarity wondered if their perceived connection to the Ommoran Heartstone was only scratching the surface of Hoxxes’ subterranean mystery.