//------------------------------// // Eight Robot Smashers // Story: The Arising Cartoon Pony // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// (Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme) All of the gathered characters were sitting at a table with a holographic display above it showing all the information Goombella had done from moving around in her disguise. Why she had this information in the first place is because she thought it would be useful to have the ability to escape from any place in the city, but now that information was going to be useful for their purposes. “Okay, I have a good plan and first I would like to thank Khronozooie for acknowledging me and my intelligence in this endeavor.” Goombella and a bunch of Met’s were sitting on one couch themselves. “Okay this is going to be a huge operation and I’m not going to lie, this will be kind of a daunting task especially for one of us who aren’t a gaming character like the rest of us.” All eyes turned to Screwball, causing Lyra to wonder why they were looking at her like that as she had no clue she was a fantasy based cartoon character. All she knew was that she had met creatures who knew humans and was dropped smack dab in the middle of something she wasn’t prepared for, but she was in good hooves at least. “Okay first off we’re going to need an eight pronged attack plan; two of these attacks are going to be stealth missions, both mine and Screwball’s. I’m going to be bound for taking out the jamming array on the far side of the city. Screwball you’re in charge of sneaking into the main building and finding your mothers backpack, then you are to get it to her as quickly as you possibly can. You’re going to need to not draw any attention to yourself for as long as possible; nobody in that building is going to be a friend of yours except your mother. Remember to watch out for even the smallest change in your environment as the walls literally have eyes in this realm, your entrance is going to be at this corner of the building into the duct works locating the exact location of the backpack will be a tad difficult.” (Music Chrono Trigger Zeal Palace) Screwball was having an easy time crawling around a rather clean duct as things in the video game realms hardly ever got dusty or covered with rust unless they were already designed that way. She had on a HUD device and could see the entire buildings layout especially the layout of the ducts she was slowly maneuvering through; she was given a quick tutorial by Goombella in the use of the device she now had on. As if the obvious benefits are better aim with projectile attacks wasn’t already a given for her, it did help her identify enemies and security devices. Meanwhile across the city a disguised Goombella and quite a few Metool’s were sneaking their way through the jamming facility. Goombella bit her lips slightly as she waited at the corner of a hallway and when she was given an all clear sign from one of the Mets, she quickly jogged down the passageway into a waiting elevator. Two floors up and through three doors and she’d be that much closer to placing the charges, they just had to watch out for any scrutiny because eventually she was going to get scanned as a biological creature. (Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme) “My reasons for taking out the jamming device are several fold, it is to give Khronozooie open access to her incoming support forces she told me about and for Screwballs mother to give us help from the inside since she can do a lot to screw up the security systems if given a single chance to do anything from lockdown. Don’t worry Screwball, once she’s out and if you have the backpack at the time she’ll definitely make a beeline straight for you as she can tell where it is at all times like a phantom limb. Now as to what the rest of you will be doing… we’re going to have you guys making some noise.” (Music Chrono Trigger Zeal Palace) I was worried that I might have been spotted but luckily I had managed to avoid the detection zone, the backpack was ridiculously guarded by all kinds of easily circumvented security measures, I wasn’t sure why Goombella thought I could do this. Mostly, I think it had to do with my need to see my mother free and I was told before I left that a determined cartoon character is really something amazing to watch in action by Khronozooie. I wanted to prove her right in the very least having already crawled up a duct fifty feet straight up. I popped off the vent next to me with a quick buck and poked my head out into the hallway and ducked back as a red zone swept towards me. These HUD devices were really hoofy and it allowed me to see the security systems visual range allowing me to circumnavigate them, all I had to do was avoid touching the color red. I just hope everyone else was okay. From what the waypoint says and given Khronozooie’s feeling out where my mom’s backpack was, it was on one of the upper floors. There wasn’t as much security as I expected there to be. After the red zone disappeared of my visuals I crawled out of the duct and charged down the hallway and slid underneath the camera into its blind spot. I would like to think my baseball slide was coming along nicely if my back didn’t feel like a rug burn right now, if only I could just as successfully avoid whatever else was in this building without running into trouble. Knowing me, trouble always found a way and I didn’t even have an interesting times curse on me. I felt silly about worrying over being in any form of danger, but to Cadence if I was going to let an army of evil metal things stop me now. As the camera swept back to the opened grating I quickly got to my hooves and making as little noise as I possibly could dashed down the hallways and stopped at the next turn to see some strange disk like things on the walls. They were reading as inactive drones, I skirted past all of them carefully and then continued on my way with haste. (Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme) “While Screwball sneaks her way around the building, Banjo if you will take my backpack I want you to watch out for Lyra here by locking her into it. You’ll be doing something incredibly dangerous but she’ll be a lot safer in your paws then sitting around here all alone just in case this hideout collapses. You’ll be hitting the energy field generator; it’s a humongous undertaking but from what I did to the Cerberus Alpha’s transformation systems… it won’t be a huge problem bringing it down. You will need to clear the area immediately after telling it to mode change, it will attack everything within its vicinity including you so you’re going to need to do some of that fancy footwork you got going for you even without a breegull’s help. This is what will undoubtedly set Screwballs mother loose and if I know her she’s expecting us; she’ll be out of her cell before the backup power can replace the shields stopping her from leaving.” Khronozooie looked over to Goombella to continue. (Music SSBM Mach Rider) Lyra meekly poked her head out of the backpack she was locked into and watched as the front end of the bike launched skyward and then they veered around the corner with those large ride armor things on their butts as they were heading straight for the energy field generator, the thing was massive and they were supposed to destroy that? There was no freaking way they’d pull this off. She wondered why she was forcibly shoved into this backpack anyway; wouldn’t she have been safer sneaking around with Screwball? Banjo looked back at the pony poking her head out of the red backpack. They were burning rubber down the roads on the Cerberus Alpha as it fired missiles and the occasional high power beam cannon. “Guh huh! Don’t look so worried, you’re safe with me. I’ve done tons of crazy stuff worse than this before, not sure how we’ll escape the Cerberus Alpha when I transform it though. I promise we’ll make it out alive.” His goofy tone of voice didn’t really establish the seriousness in his eyes or how he knew things were going to be alright. He was a video game hero and heroes were nothing if not resourceful. Lyra didn’t feel nearly as convinced they’d survive this as they neared the building and Banjo set off the transformation. If she ever lived to see a true human she would never dimensionally travel again. In fact if she could ever see Bon-bon again she was going to propose outright to never leave the mares side ever, even if she had to awkwardly follow her into the bathroom. (Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme) “Now this is going to seem like an odd request, Curly, Quote, I need you two to operate independently of each other. While your skills are complementary and you have a great synergy, I need you both to seriously wreck the places I’m sending you to. Curly you’ll be dealing with the Clancers Barracks spawn point along with the Mechanized Clancer weapons spawning factory and Quote will take the Reploids Barracks spawn point. Should either of you feel like you’re ready to bail out, you are to go aid banjo because goodness knows he’s going to need it.” Goombella watched as Quote tilted his hat that read ‘Curly Brace’ on the metal plate to her and Curly Brace hefted her Machine Blaster while holding a thumb up. (Music Cave Story Labyrinth Fight) Piles of dust were flying into the air everywhere, Curly quickly swapped out for her nemesis weapon and laid into the Clan-Walker that had a missile launcher and after it blew up she hefted it’s rocket launcher up on to her shoulder and charged the evil Clancers as they fell back screaming in terror as Curly laughed melodically as she gunned them down. Curly Brace was having a great time and she was going to prove that she could operate just as well without Quote and that he didn’t need to worry about her safety all the time, even if he did save her life multiple times in their game. Hopefully after this was all said and done they’d be able to get some snuggle time in with Chaco their cuddly Mimiga. After her pod rockets ran out she threw it harshly into one of the Clancer crushing its body painfully against the wall of a building, then she brought out her machine blaster and leapt high into the air and then fired downward to propel herself up to the roof of one of the buildings to start spraying at the now praying evil Clancers in the street. In another part of the city a huge beam ripped through several Sniper Joes and Quote leapt high into the air and fired downwards as he flew over a few Pantheon Reploids, they were also relatives of the Sniper Joe series of one eyed robots. Quote took them by complete surprise and had a great advantage because they weren’t programmed to aim straight up and he could aim straight down at them. Quote took notice as some ride armors made their presence and he flash switched to his blade throwing it. Immediately afterwards he swapped back to his Spur to start charging it up for a level three blast. All the while King’s spirit of the weapon Kings Blade gave him the breathing room to launch his most damaging attack, the Spur when fully charged did massive amounts of damage that would almost total anything caught in its fully powered shot. Only boss characters could take a few fully charged shots from it directly, but the charge time for the third level was a bit brutal. (Music Cave Story Plantation/Main Theme) “While they are handling most of the infantry, Sparkster will handle the Rider Armor spawn factory. He’s quite proficient in dismantling heavy machinery and what that factory produces is more dangerous than the laughable Clancer mechanized forces. We’re going to need it crippled like yesterday. Ristar will launch an attack on the air forces they have in this city. Chaos is going to be attacking the central building to draw as much attention away from Screwball’s infiltration for as long as possible. As for what Khronozooie will be doing during all this, she is in charge of destroying the cities entire defense grid as what I’ve recently done to it has been fixed.” Goombella had a slight impish smile on her face as she looked to the save file two Breegull just standing there with a slow smile working its way into her beak. “In any case when each of us finishes our tasks we are to meet up and support the others who need it, I’ll be able to finish the earliest so I’ll try to get to Screwball when I finish taking out the jamming signal. Now any questions?” (Music Chrono Trigger Battle Music theme 1) Sparkster pulled out his sword and blasted forward using his jetpack, he spiraled into the ride armor and straight through it with little resistance, he followed this up by performing a mid-air rapid spin destroying the one behind it. Several more ride armors started to approach and one launched a spinning cylindrical drill at him Sparkster just flew up at the roof at a forty five degree angle and bounced off and straight into the kangaroo model ride armor destroying it. After a moment to charge his jetpack he jumped and blasted downwards at a forty five degree angle rebounding off the ground into the pilot of the nearest chimera ride armor. The pilot destroyed Sparkster quickly jumped into it and took control of the ride armor. He quickly made it swing its fist around to slam into the third one stunning it and then followed it up by punching several times until it exploded. Looking around the factory Sparkster started to steer the slow lumbering machine to take out some key parts of the facility, he had a grim set look on his face as he still had an army of ride armors to fight through. It was a good thing video game heroes never tired unless they had a stamina bar. Standing underneath a street light with his right hand above his eyes looking to the sky Ristar narrowed his eyes and he stretched both his arms above his head grabbing the horizontal bar of the street light. Now hanging from the street light in the distance he could hear the sounds of explosions and battle, his friends were depending on him and he had a wish to fulfill. Swing back and forth he started rotating at incredible speed counterclockwise around the street lights bar, he released it at the right moment and shot into the sky with his arms and legs trailing behind his face as he glowed brightly turning into a shooting star. The defense grid activate and tried to shoot him down, thankfully he had plenty of invincibility frames at the moment making those systems pointless against him. He struck the bottom of one of the airships and opened up a hole in the top of the thing and landed on his feet running. He was already in the process of stretching his arms to grab the first thing in sight and he slammed himself into it with the power of a rubber band releasing its tension. His skill set was limited but that didn’t make him any less of hero as he continued on slamming into the hawk ride armor destroying it in three full on strikes from his body. One from the front, one from a forty five degree angle slightly above that and then directly above it for a final strike. Ristar stretched out his right arm and grappled the Sniper Joe. Reeling his arm back to himself instead of reeling his body to his arm, he whipped around and released the reploid into a giant flying bee shaped helicopter transport that was about to open up on him with its front mounted machine blaster. The ship he was on started to capsize and he grabbed on to the edge of it and started to stretch his arms out by pulling himself back and then he released launching like a shooting star to another flying battleship. On the ground Khronozooie had watched Ristar go up in a blaze of glory and already he had wrecked one of the ships sending it falling towards the ground. Looking down the street she saw a tall metallic figure dash out and look up at the sky where Ristar was already flinging himself to a battleship, it started to stomp it’s foot angrily. Khronozooie frowned before a smirk crossed her face and opened her beak releasing a battery egg striking the tall figure in the back knocking him to the ground. He was quickly back up on his feet with kick up maneuver and was staring her down, he roared at her and thus Khronozooie had entered a boss fight with Overdrive Ostrich! (Megaman X2 boss theme) Khronozooie vs. Overdrive Ostrich He ran at her and leapt so that the bottom of his left foot would collide with her head; Khronozooie dodged out of the way and struck out with a dagger held in her left wing scoring a strike against him in a shower of white sparks. Overdrive Ostrich turned around and fired several energy boomerangs at Khronozooie who deftly brought out a scepter held in her right wing and struck the shots with it causing them to fly back at the large flightless robot. Khronozooie watched as the Maverick Ostrich deftly dodge her chronoscepter altered counter shots waiting for the right moment. Overdrive Ostrich leapt up and opened his mouth to fire an energy boomerang and would probably follow up with a running charge to spear her with his beak, if she hadn’t already put a grenade egg down his throat. It happened after a brief flash from her dagger. Overdrive fell to the ground stunned by the explosion and Khronozooie ran up to him and quickly enveloped him in a seemingly innocent hug and his invincibility frames suddenly stopped working. Noticing the evil smirk on the birds face Overdrive frantically shook his head no as he quickly figured out what was about to happen to him. Slowly with an evil smile on her beak, Khronozooie nodded that yes this was going to hurt… a lot. The sound of a banjo riff playing was heard and after a few seconds the sound of multiple rather painful sounding explosions were heard and then light spheres were seen flying away from the scene. (Music Sonic Adventure 2 Lost Colony) Ponderously Chaos slowly trudged forward thinking about things ignoring all outside distractions. He ignored that he was being shot at by plasma rounds. He ignored the missiles and just threw up his arms to block the force of explosion as to not be splattered across the ground. He ignored the fact that all these machines were fighting a losing battle against a really tough creature, that he didn’t stop stalking towards them in a slow methodical manner to slowly rip anything close enough to shreds. Chaos was only distracted by a single thought, why was he so inexorably drawn to the ponies? Seeing Lyra had sent a shiver of a strange feeling through him, there was something so inherently right about the ponies he couldn’t help but want to appreciate their presence even if they were not of the video game realms naturally. Still he felt some form of contentment, like when he shared a thought or two with Screwball. It was not love, no he knew what love was and his mother Tikal would always love him so he continued to ponder why he felt odd around the ponies. He’s seen three of them thus far, each different from the last. Was there some purpose for him to find in these friendly creatures that reminded him of the Chao? He had eternity to find it if there was something to look for. Step after sloshing step the sounds of violence around him slowly started to deaden and when he actually looked away from inside himself he saw his surroundings. The area in front of the building was barren of any enemy forces and he saw more coming his way from inside, coming to greet him. He blinked, he had destroyed a large number of reploids in such a small amount of time and he vaguely recalled one saying something like ‘rainbow devil’. He knew that all life ebbed and flowed; good and evil were always fighting for a cause whether it was right or not, darkness and light was a constant swirling vortex, in all that ever existed and everything that ever was… there is chaos! A flash of green in Chaos’s eyes and he was on the forces within seconds after having turned into a puddle to surge forward engulfing the first five enemies in seconds. He would be an even greater distraction if he made his way to free Kazooie who lived and breathed his name. (End music) I could hear the explosions, what in the world were they all doing out there? It sounded like a war was going on, then again with video game characters I guess that wasn’t far from the truth since they always seem to be at war with something. Not that they left any bodies of their enemies behind given they always disappear upon destruction. Even when the changelings invaded Canterlot nobody had died, well I think the changelings that were blasted away had survived. Suddenly the alarms were blaring and I looked for the nearest air duct and worked my hooves around the frame of the vent and pulled hard sending me backwards into the wall. I immediately bounced straight back into the duct. “All forces on high alert, the main entrance has been breached. Close all shutters leading to the lower levels immediately. All security drones are to be activated immediately. We can’t let that thing reach our captive.” Well whoever that was sounded to be panicking. I smiled; Chaos must have been doing really good as a distraction. Only now things were a bit more difficult for me as I saw the disk shaped objects on the wall suddenly drop to the floor and popped up on four legs and had a single elongated banana shaped head ending in a red glowing eye. Their eyes swiveled around and I ducked out of sight and started moving quickly down the duct, as I heard them moving towards the ducts. After a certain amount of time traveling through the expansive and confusing network of ducts I stopped and popped another vent and slowly looked out, as soon as I had finished crawling out I decided to check my surrounds I was in some kind of laboratory area. I heard something and turned around to see two robots turning the corner and after a moment they stopped and seemed to stare at me. After a moment one of the one wheeled robots identified as a Roadkill Rodney by my HUD spun around and launched a long metallic tentacle at me, causing me to fall backwards just out of range of it. The other one popped out a laser emitting array and fired. I ducked the beam leaving my hat floating in mid-air and quickly grabbed it after the laser passed by. “Oh great, now the security drones are telling me we have an intruder on the upper floors, someone get up there and stop whatever it is immediately! They must be after the backpack!” Well the voice was certainly sounding bedraggled now. Screwball quickly ran and as soon as she turned the corner of a nearby corridor she pulled out her bat and as soon as one of the Rodney’s turned the corner she slammed her bat into it as hard as she could without having charged it up first. It fell to the floor in three pieces and exploded, the other one turned the corner to fire a laser at her causing her to roll out of the way and run as more showed up. So many doors, so many places to look how would I ever… wait was that my mother? She motioned for me to follow her and I did until it got to a point where she stopped and pointed towards a door. I had no time to think as more Rodney’s were coming down the hall towards me along with things that were identified as Mousers and those security drones I saw earlier, they would have overwhelmed me in minutes had I not been led here. Kazooie didn’t say anything as she showed me what numbers to hit on the thing at the doors side. The door slid up and I quickly ran through the open doorway and into a room where the blue backpack was floating on a pedestal surround by a wall of protective energy, the door slammed shut behind me in this relatively large circular room. Well that wasn't good, soon my mother walked solidly through the door and pointed to the backpack and made several motions with her wings. I asked her why she wasn’t talking and she pointed to her throat and shook her head that she couldn’t at the moment. She pointed to the backpack and motioned to do something with it, she then dove into the floor disappearing. “Just be safe until I get there Screwball, that RT-55J is a real piece of work to deal with. Anytime now…” Kazooie snapped her eyes open and stretched her legs out and held them stretched glowing green sparkles constantly, she stared at the shielded opening in the ceiling. That old shaman spirit walking technique, it helps that she has explored the realms of Geist, Shadow Man and Prey before all this.