“It feels alive.”
“What?”
“The machines. They feel alive.”
“‘Kay… How exactly? They’re just a buncha metal parts. These stupid things can’t even talk.”
“But they do, Scoots. When they make wrong noises we fix them. When they sound right we use them.”
“That’s just basic maintenance and repairs, Royale.”
“They’re fed oil and release smog in return. Just like a normal digestive system.”
“That’s how machines work. That doesn’t make them—”
“They’ve devoured us.”
“...”
“We’ve greased their cogs with our blood. We tend to their every need. We’ve been left to die in their stomachs, rotting away until the machine inevitably breaks us down into scraps.”
“...Get to the point, Royale.”
“Don’t enjoy the discussion?”
“You only go on your damned tangents when ya got somethin’ you haveta tell me. Somethin’ I won’t like. What is it?”
“A little patience goes a long way, Scoots.”
“Why do you— Ugh, fine. Keep goin’ with yer stupid talk.”
“Thank you, I shall. Now where was I, ah yes. The machines are living organisms that function just the way we do, but… they’re better than us aren’t they?”
“And how do ya figure that?”
“We tend to their every need. We ensure they are properly fed. We even make sacrifices to them with our time, our sweat, and our lives.
“They are more akin to gods than people.”
“‘Kay, that’s the last straw, they aren’t—”
“I’m being moved to repairs.”
“...”
“Lumos got caught in one of the belts and was crushed to death by the pistons. I’m to replace him.”
“...Don’t say goodbye like this. Being in repairs don’t mean you’ll end up like the others. Yer smart.”
“Intelligence means nothing in the face of the machine’s maw. We both know my fate has been sealed. Without change, it is inevitable.”
“...Please don’t.”
“You ask this of me as if I have any choice in the matter. I truly am sorry, Scoots. I just want you to know that I’ve really enjoyed our talks. But, alas, all good things must come to an end.
“For I am to be the next offering to our mechanical gods.”
Scootaloo struggled against the grasp of the Deviant. Her shoulders were pinned down under the armpits by the abomination’s legs, thankfully through her clothes and not her flesh. Less thankfully, she was unable to reach her blades and thus ineffectual against the metal monstrosity. She had managed to maneuver her legs to be underneath the chassis of the creature, and used her leverage to keep it at length away from her, but the Deviant was both persistent and strong. Inevitably, it would overtake her.
If she could grab her knives, she could end this immediately. She’d already identified its heart within the central appendage: a small red dongle sticking out of its torso. A single stab would kill the Deviant instantly, but required an ability to do so.
She had regrets about letting her fear control her. With her death impending, she realized that even if they had to continue, it was better to stay with the group. As much as she wasn’t particularly fond of any of them and even if it was mostly out of obligation, at least they would have ensured she wouldn’t end up in this situation. If she had a future past this moment, she really hoped that she would learn these important lessons before she was about to die.
Well, at least she could reflect on this in whatever afterlife she ended up in.
“GET OFF!”
Crunch. The Deviant was smashed in the side of its body by the flat edge of a hammer. Salinger came into view as the monster went flying off into a mass of pipes. Bradbury raced by in the background, axe in hand and a murderous look in her eyes.
“Break the red thing inside its main body!” Scootaloo shouted after her.
Bradbury didn’t acknowledge she’d heard her, but still swung her axeblade through the noted dongle. It broke into pieces, and the Deviant spazzed with sparks of electricity shooting off the core. It collapsed against the wall, twitched for a few more moments, then died.
“Are you hurt?” Salinger asked, now beside her.
“...No,” Scootaloo muttered.
“Good. NOW—” Salinger raised a finger, his face twisting into fury “—we need to discuss—”
Bradbury charged in and swung her axe in an arc, slicing through another copy of the Deviant that had launched itself at Salinger’s back. It clattered to the ground, cleaved in two.
The clatter of metal and chitter of whirring gears filled the small area they were in as more appeared.
“I know you’re mad Salinger, but you might wanna save the lecture until we’re somewhere safe.” Bradbury gave him an apologetic smile.
Salinger bit his lower lip in frustration, then released it with a sigh. “Fine. Destroy the riff raff, return to the group, then lecture.”
Scootaloo flicked her daggers into her hands, ready to fight. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad to see ya both.”
“Aw, me too!” Bradbury replied. She swung her axe back, ready to slice through their foes.
“...You’re still getting that lecture.” Salinger hefted his hammer over one shoulder.
Then the machines were upon them.
Salinger smashed his way through the throngs while Bradbury and Scootaloo finished them off with a slice of their weapons through the creatures’ red weak points. They mowed down the pests one-by-one, making slow progress back toward the rest of the team.
Though Scootaloo would never admit it aloud, she was happy to fight alongside them. There was a budding camaraderie between them that she had missed from her days with Pipsqueak and the gang. She trusted Salinger and Bradbury to have her back, and in turn she sliced through whatever threat tried to get them.
She’d missed that feeling.
After killing what had felt like hundreds of these abominations, they finally managed to reach the rest of the Rail when the last Deviant was shot by a bullet. Definitely Hinton’s work.
One more turn, and their trio were reunited with the rest of the team. Scootaloo noted that they too had been ambushed by throngs of the Deviants based on the piles of corpses surrounding them. Weirdly, she noticed Brabury and Salinger tense up, then move out of the way. The strangeness was immediately understood when Golding approached her.
He was furious. Not in the dopey frustrated kind of way that she was used to, but the kind any pegasus would recognize. He snarled as he approached, his wings flared behind him, and his fists were clenched tight. There was an energy around them that meant his unique signature was ready to explode at the slightest provocation. She’d screwed up.
Golding stopped just short, towering above her.
“...I’m sorry,” Scootaloo said. “I got scared and ran off. I shouldn’t ‘ave done that.”
“...Never, ever do that again,” Golding hissed. His voice was only just above a whisper, but the rage in his tone couldn’t have made it more louder. “Keep with the group, unless told otherwise. It’s safer for you and the ones who end up chasing after you.”
“I understand,” Scootaloo replied.
“...As long as you do.” Golding held onto his anger for a moment longer before he released it with a weary sigh. He turned on his heel. “Let’s keep going.”
Half-committal affirmatives rang out amongst the group. Scootaloo fell in line with the rest, Golding at the front. Salinger and Bradbury came up next to her.
Bradbury laid a hand on her shoulder. “Glad you’re okay, buddy.”
Scootaloo nodded.
“I hope this will serve as a lesson that should you become overwhelmed again, you would at least let us know before running off,” Salinger remarked. “We’re mostly a gaggle of idiots, but hopefully there is one person here you trust enough to talk to.”
“Hope you include yerself in that gaggle, ya knob,” Scootaloo shot back.
Bradbury cackled as Salinger grumbled about ungrateful brats.
Scootaloo smiled.
“...London, what is that?” Golding asked.
“What do ya mean ‘what is that’?!” Scootaloo said. “How am I supposed to know?!”
“This Trauma is supposed to be connected to you, so… I don’t know,” Golding said. “Is there some part of your past that would bring this thing to your Trauma?” He gestured at the Deviant before them.
The Deviant in question was a metal sheet that took up the entirety of the wall embedded with a hodgepodge of nonsensical pipes, buttons, and lights whose only purpose seemed to be to make noise. It had a massive mouth of sharp, jagged metal teeth that chomped at regular intervals. Whenever it opened its mouth, Scootaloo could see the interior of a stomach leaking some oily black substance onto the floor that hissed as it dissolved the metal flooring underneath.
Those smaller machines they had been destroying earlier delivered the corpses of both people and small animals into the mouth. They would be heaped into corners of the abomination, where they would then be slowly broken down by the dripping black liquid. Occasionally, one of the smaller Deviants would be caught by the mouth and devoured just like the rest.
Pointless. Utterly pointless. Scootaloo knew machines, and this machine worked for the sake of working. Was fed for the sake of feeding, without any end product to be made. The bloody thing just sat there puffing out more smog as its little minions scavenged food for it to continue uselessly chugging away.
And when she thought about it like that, she had a few guesses as to what parts of her subconscious might have attracted a monstrosity like this.
“Wow, gross,” Wilde remarked. “We should absolutely kill it.”
“Yeah, smash its stupid face in!” Poe added, tapping his bat on his shoulder.
“It may be more prudent to avoid it,” Hinton said.
“And let those nasty little spider machines chase after us all the way? No thanks,” Shelley said.
“Yeah, but we can’t let ourselves get exhausted from useless fights and I’m not sure how we’d even be able to beat it,” Grahame said.
“Ah! Truly a conundrum befitting an intrepid and dangerous adventure!” Verhoeven added.
“I won’t be much help for this,” Andersen remarked. “I don’t think punching that thing would be wise.”
“I for one would be happy to have you as far away from the front as possible, darling.” Shelley tossed her hair back.
“Wow, priss.” Poe sneered.
“Excuse me?!” Shelley exclaimed.
“Ya heard—”
Scootaloo tuned out the conversation as it descended into insults and arguing. Even if she’d resolved to listen to and lean on this group more, they were still a bunch of morons. Instead, she surveyed the Deviant.
It was a giant metal wall, but it was also a machine and, as stated, Scootaloo knew machines. A switch was most likely off the table, but a power source was not. Those smaller machines were definitely feeding something to keep it powered on, and no deviation from the natural laws of physics was gonna change that.
She squinted as she looked closer at the interior of the Deviant’s maw. There was something inside. It looked like a heart. If someone could keep the mouth open, she might be able to cut it open with her knives.
Scootaloo yanked on Bradbury’s and Salinger’s sleeves. They both regarded her in surprise.
“Ya think you two might be able to keep that thing’s mouth open for like a minute?” She asked.
“Yeah, definitely!” Bradbury said with a wide grin.
“There is a high chance of success with the two of us,” Salinger added, his tone apprehensive. “Though, I am worried about what you have in mind.”
“Don’t be. I got a plan, and it requires you both to do that,” Scootaloo said. “While you keep its mouth open, I’m going in and stabbing the thing it's stupid heart.”
“Ooh, okay!” Bradbury replied.
“Rather risky, but if you think it’ll work, it's worth a try,” Salinger said.
“...I’d thought you’d at least be more against this, Salinger.”
“I had just told you to rely on us more. It would be hypocritical to go back on something I told you not an hour prior.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Though, admittedly, I was hoping for more emotional support than anything. Plus, this argument is going to go on for a long while and I’m already sick of it. Shall we?”
Scootaloo nodded, then called out to Golding, “keep the pests off of us!”
“What?!” Golding shouted. Scootaloo, Salinger, and Bradbury charged forward. “London!”
She heard behind her rushed orders from Golding to keep the smaller machines occupied, then tuned it out in favour of focusing on the big abomination before her. One of the smaller machines tried to leap at her, but was shot through its core.
Bradbury and Salinger rushed ahead and, as it opened its mouth, brought their weapons up and used them to keep the toothy orifice wedged open.
“Hurry up!” Salinger shouted.
“Yeah, this thing is heavy!” Bradbury added.
Scootaloo ran inside. She immediately saw the organ from earlier, confirming it was in fact a beating heart held up by a mass of nerves and muscle tissue. She winced as a splotch of that black substance dripped onto her. It was warm crude oil and, from the heat emanating from below her feet, she presumed it was gonna get hotter when she started killing it.
She leaped onto the heart, stabbing it with her knives as handholds. The monstrosity shrieked, a sound similar to a rotating saw through metal. She stabilized her grip, then proceeded to shank the heart over and over with her knives.
The Deviant shook. Oil splattered over her, but she ignored it. With each stab, a little more of the organ gave out until it began to tear itself.
Scrambling onto the top of the heart, she managed to avoid the splash zone when it dropped from its moorings and fell to the floor.
The mechanical monstrosity whirred for a moment more before it stopped.
“That was reckless.”
Golding had entered the creature’s stomach, the rest of the Rail just behind him. There was a mix of emotions on everyone’s face, from concern to awe.
“But good work,” he continued.
Scootaloo grinned.
“And her stunt has opened the way further into the depths.” Verhoeven gestured toward the back of the monster’s maw, where a corridor of flesh lead deeper in. “We have our new course, everyone!”
Hopping off of the dead organ, Scootaloo said, “so, we headin’ in?”
“Yes,” Golding said.
He trudged forward, the rest of the group following suit. Scootaloo waited until Salinger and Bradbury joined before falling in between them.