Cassandra Smith sat behind her desk, quietly splitting her time between a dozen or so screens, she was doing what she always was. Running New Vegas. However, at the moment she was unable to fully devote herself to that pursuit. Instead, her mind was once again with her oft missing husband.
The Courier had long ago come to accept that her husband would never be the type of man who could be expected to avoid hair brained schemes and insane adventures... to be honest, she would prefer it be that way then to have married a logical stick in the mud kind of man... but still; Cassandra wished Ethan could go a damn month without someone kidnapping him.
It had stopped being a source of real stress to her a while ago, but in the back of her mind she always worried that maybe one of these days he wouldn’t come back. There was a knock on the door, and Cassandra looked up from her work to see her son, Ash, standing there.
The boy’s well kept red hair fell slightly into his green eyes and he puffed it out of the way with a slight frown of annoyance. He was wearing a much smaller duster that befitted his ten years of age much more then one of Ethan’s or Cassandra’s would and beneath it he wore a black undershirt and a pair of clean jeans. Sheathed at his side was a thin long sword and at his other hip was Maria.
“Hey mom, I’m going to go to Equestria for a bit,” Ash announced, the boy had a small frown on his face. “I’m going to do some research.”
“On what?” Cassandra inquired with a small smile as she looked over her son.
“Runes,” Ash answered. “I want to see about inscribing some in my duster to make it a little more durable.”
Cassandra raised an eyebrow at that. “Is it not holding up? If you want, I could always add more armour to it” she asked him, a small affectionate smile on her face.
“Umm... no mom, it’s fine,” Ash said, his little cheeks blushing a bit. “I just want to... experiment a little.”
The woman got up from her chair and walked over to her son before kneeling down beside him and giving him a kiss on the forehead. “Okay Ash, you can go. Just be careful please. Remember our rule; no cybernetics until you’re older, and if you blow your hand off then I’m making you live with it,” she told him, lying through her teeth.
Ash’s smile could have illuminated the room. “Thanks mom!” he said before running out of the room. Cassandra chuckled at the enthusiasm, her son was certainly as passionate about dangerous things as Ethan was, even at the humble age of ten.
Before she could get back to work though, her other child walked into the room. Shade smiled at her mother.
“Hey mom, heard anything about dad yet, or is he still off in wherever it is he’s been taken this time?” Shade inquired, though there was a slight hint of worry in her voice. No matter how much the elder child, by all of a few minutes, hated to show it, she was still worried about her father.
“Still gone I’m afraid,” Cassandra answered with a slight sigh. “But knowing your father, I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough.” The woman held out her arm and Shade, dressed similarly to Ash, walked over and gave her mother a hug.
“Yeah... I hope he gets back soon... he was supposed to take me and Ash hunting,” the girl said with a slight sigh. “I’d ask you too... but I know how it is.”
“I’m sorry sweetie,” Cassandra said, tightening her grip on her daughter. “I’d love to take you both hunting.... but someone has to keep Vegas running.”
Shade nodded her head slightly and leaned up to give her mother a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks mom,” she whispered before squirming out of Cassandra’s grasp. “Now, I think I’m going to go for a walk... I’ll be careful.”
Cassandra smiled. “Good, please don’t leave the city though... I don’t need two missing family members to worry about.”
“I will, bye mom,” the girl replied before making good her escape.
“Yes Man,” Cassandra said.
“Yes Mistress Cassandra?” the A.I. inquired in a cheerful voice.
“Make sure that Shade doesn’t get into any trouble,” the woman answered.
“Affirmative,” Yes Man stated. “You can count on me Mistress Cassandra!”
Cassandra smiled as she walked back to her desk. “I know I can Yes Man, I know I can,” she said before her smile faded and she found herself looking into Ethan’s smiling face, projecting at her out from the small picture that she kept on the desk. The woman scooped it up and held it up to her face for a moment before slowly putting it back down. “Be careful Ethan...”
Ethan watched the fight currently going on through one of the screens as he and Glen awaited their breakfast. At the moment a red scaled female dragon, who was capable of shifting between a dragon form and that of a naked red haired woman, was in the process of killing her opponent after having first immobilized it with venomous fangs. Ethan watched for another few seconds before turning to Glen.
“So, you feeling better now?” he asked the mare, a touch of concern in his voice. “I know that it’s probably not that big of a deal for people to break limbs here... but that’s my job and I don’t like my friends doing it too.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied cracking her neck. “It’s not the first time I got some bones broken in here or back home.”
“Good to hear,” Ethan mused as his gaze returned to the match playing out above. The dragoness seemed to be enjoying herself and taking her time to kill her opponent. “Wow, whoever that is sure knows how to play the crowd... almost as good as me,” he added.
“Yeah, she’s one of the tournaments favorites,” Glen informed him.
“I can see why... never seen scales as sexy before,” he said with a slight chuckle. “But in this case... I think I’m willing to experiment.”
“You and the thousands of others who want to,” the mare stated with a chuckle.
“What can I say... I like redheads,” Ethan replied shrugging his shoulders. “I’m sure Cassie would agree...” he trailed and shook his head, looking at his Pip-Boy for a moment and then sighed. “So, you have any family Glen?”
Glen glanced down. “Well...I wouldn’t call what I have as a family...a family,” she replied. “More like just...very distant acquaintances.”
Ethan nodded slowly. “So, when I get us out of here... would you prefer to come to the normal non-destroyed Equestria?”
“Hmph...maybe, but you first got to have a plan to escape,” the mare commented.
“Look, I’m already assuming that I’m going to escape,” Ethan replied. “I don’t know how, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually, always does. So I’m just focusing on the important things. Such as what I’m going to do with you.”
“I just want to get out of this hellhole,” she replied. “Into either a nicer hellhole or into something completely different, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
“Alrighty then,” Ethan said with a small nod. “I’m sure you’re just desperate to get out of here.”
“I think everyone here has the same idea, it’s just really hard to do so,” she replied. “Drek is a bastard, but he’s crafty in keeping his ‘toys’ under his control.”
“Eh, just give me time, I’ll get him,” Ethan told her with a light chuckle as he flipped off the nearest ‘invisible’ camera. “Just wish he wasn’t watching me when I sleep, probably stays up all night touching himself to my face.”
Glen shook her head and chuckled. “Or counting his money he made because of you while rubbing it all over his body,” she commented.
“Yeah, that’s a possibility too,” Ethan agreed. “Also, everything in here is bugged, so there’s no point in me telling you anything specific Glen... word to the wise, I wouldn’t talk about it,” he added with a slight shrug. “Also Drek, if you’re listening to this conversation through the mini speaker in this table top to my right, go suck a dick.”
Glen glanced at the spot Ethan pointed out, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Well... I doubt Drek listens to every conversation personally, probably got some robots to do that for him.”
“Or Kharon,” the man agreed. “Speaking of the merc, what do you know about him?”
Glen shrugged her shoulders. “Not much...there’s rumor of how he was once a top gladiator and was later brainwashed to obey Drek’s every word. Other than that, he’s mostly the reason why many of us are here now.”
Ethan nodded slightly. “Not brainwashed, he’s a merc,” Ethan replied with a slight shrug. “And one that Drek’s got leverage over.”
“Well whatever he is, he’s one tough son of a bitch,” the mare stated. “A high ranking member once challenged him thinking if he won he would get his position...hard to say but Kharon floored him down...literally.”
“Huh, neat,” Ethan mused. “Any idea how strong his regen abilities are?”
Glen shrugged her shoulders. “I think I’ve heard some other competitors compare how he took a sword to the gut and got up like it was nothing to your stunt back in your first round.”
The man frowned. “Interesting...” he then shrugged. “So, can I request weapons? I miss my shotgun.”
“I think so...” the mare replied with a small frown. “You just have to ask for it from the computer lady as you geared up...I think.”
“Great, because like I said, I miss my Terrible Shotty,” Ethan said with a small chuckle. “Nothing beats that baby, even if I use the riot more because it’s faster firing. Got her from a raider who I killed, still has a smiley face imprinted on the butt.” The two lapsed into silence for a bit until Glen broke it.
“So...do you have family?” she asked. “Outside your wife that is...”
“Two great kids,” Ethan answered with a smile. “Ash is going to be the best swordsman in the universe and his sister Shade is going to be the most badass girl ever,” he said with an affectionate smile. “Beyond that... I spose Sparky is my family too.”
“Sparky?” the mare inquired.
"Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Princess of Equestria, fuck buddy of Princess Celestia... and probably my best friend in the multiverse,” Ethan replied. “Didn’t I mention her before?”
“Maybe...probably slipped past my mind,” she replied with a shrug. “Also...she’s an alicorn?”
“Yep, used to be a unicorn, then she and Tia got really freaky one night and out popped a pair of wings,” Ethan answered. “Cute purple mare in case you’re wondering, six pointed star on her flank. Element of Magic too.”
“She’s the one always telling us to read books in those pre-war posters!” Glen nearly shouted as she finally clued in on who Ethan was talking about.
“Yep, that sounds like Sparky,” Ethan nodded. “Anyways, she got sent to my Wasteland by accident and we took down an army of super mutants together with my awesome power armour... I don’t use that suit much anymore come to think of it... I think I lost it somehow.”
“Power armor, never could quite understand it,” she stated. “Never figured out how someone could stay cooped up in that walking metal casket for more than a day.”
“It stops bullets and plasma,” Ethan answered practically, shrugging his shoulders slightly.
“Yeah, but they’re a bitch to keep working if they get damaged too much,” Glen added. “Parts for working power armor is rare enough as it is, so you’re screwed if something happens to cause you to be trapped in there forever.”
Ethan shrugged. “I don’t think that ever happened to my Brotherhood pals,” he mused with a small frown. “Besides, I’ve got hundreds of the suits in my house thanks to taking down the Enclave.”
“Hundreds?” Glen asked with a raised eyebrow.
“If not thousands, though I keep most of it on Zeta,” Ethan answered. “Add probably millions of plasma rifles and such lying around not to mention all the alien tech.”
The mare gave the man a queer look at the numbers Ethan was giving but shook her head. “Yeah, well not in my world. You’re lucky to find a working piece of power armor that isn’t in the Steel Ranger’s grubbly hooves. Luckier if you actually use it.”
“Rangers... I’m just going to assume that they’re like the Brotherhood on the West Coast? Or at least before the NCR killed all of them?” Ethan inquired. “Only caring about tech and such?”
“Pretty much; once had to smuggle my magic rifle out of their sight. Not an easy thing to do, but I did it nonetheless,” she stated.
“Good for you,” Ethan congratulated her with a smile. “So, any more questions about me?”
Glen pondered for a bit. “Yeah...where did you pull that grenade from? It wasn’t on your belt and it sure as hell couldn’t fit so easily into a pocket.”
Ethan shrugged a little. “A good magician never reveals his secrets Glen,” he replied with a chuckle. “Learned that from an act in Vegas.”
The mare frowned a bit at the reply, but shrugged her shoulders. “I can respect that.”
“Thanks,” the man said with a smile. “No offense to you Glen... but I’d rather keep some things in reserve.”
“I understand, everyone needs to have a few aces in their hands concealed now and then,” Glen commented.
“Yep, and up their sleeves and in their pants too,” the man agreed with a nod. “Also, where the hell is our food?”
“Don’t know,” the mare replied. “But I’ve been wondering that too...” she muttered.
“Think we’re going to be thrown into our next match without getting any nourishment?” Ethan inquired, raising an eyebrow at her. “Make us easier to kill?”
“I don’t know...never heard of someone getting their meal skipped,” Glen stated. “Then again...I never heard or seen a meal take this long to be dished out.”
Ethan looked over his shoulder at a nearby service droid. “Hey, tinny, can we get some service over here?” he called. The droid turned to them and hovered over.
“How can I be of service?” it asked.
“Can we have our food?” the man asked it flatly. “We’ve been waiting for at least fifteen minutes here.”
The robot ‘stared’ at them for a moment before saying. “Apologies, there has been a glitch. Cake. Will return shortly with your food.” it then hovered off promptly.
Ethan frowned for a moment and then turned to Glen. “Just our luck eh?”
Glen chuckled lightly. “Yeah, guess even Drek’s money can’t buy a system that doesn’t have a few bugs in them.”
Ethan smirked. “Told you.”
Glen shook her head. “Just a very dim light coming from a very small crack in a still huge wall.”
“And a small crack can be turned into a wide canyon if filled with enough dynamite, and I am living dynamite,” Ethan replied with a chuckle.
“Maybe...but I don’t think you can hack Drek’s network from in here,” the mare said flatly.
“My point went right over your head didn’t it?” Ethan asked her with a raised eyebrow.
“No...it’s just this isn’t a physical wall...it’s a digital one too,” she replied.
“Glen... I’m not talking about the glitch and the robots,” Ethan said with a slightly exasperated sigh. “You said it yourself, even with all his money, he can’t buy perfection and there will always be cracks. It’s our job to exploit them, or in my case widden them.”
“Ah...” Glen said with a small nod. “Still, that’s the only screw up I’ve seen during my time here. So I doubt there that many cracks for you to exploit.”
Ethan smiled knowingly. “Oh Glen, you just don’t know where to look,” he said before giving the nearest ‘invisible’ camera a wink.
“Man, am I glad I brought my shotgun,” Ethan mused as he looked around the rusting ruins all around them while his hands glided over the Terrible Shotgun’s stock. The man’s breath steamed out of his mouth and snow flurries streaked across his vision. “And man am I glad that this thing’s first outing was when I had to kill Sombra...” he added, patting his duster slightly. “Keeps me warm. How’re you doing Glen?”
The mare’s teeth where chattering and her whole body was shivering. “It’s fu-u-c-cking cold,” she replied.
Ethan frowned. “Think you can still work that mouth trigger?” he inquired.
“I sho-o-uld,” she answered. “Just don’t stand in my way,” she added.
“Not like it would do much to me anyways, but I’ll keep that in mi-”
“COMPETITORS!” The announcer announced, interrupting Ethan in mid sentence. “YOUR GOAL FOR THE DAY IS TO GET OFF OF THIS INDUSTRIAL DUMPING GROUND TO THE OTHER SIDE OVER A DEEP CANYON!”
Ethan looked over to Glen. “You ever seen anything like this before?”
Glen looked around over the snow covered buildings as well as the dozen of snowy hills scattered all over the field. “N-o-o, not really,” she replied.
“Oh goodie, we’re going in cold and blind, just the way I like things,” the man said with a chuckle before he patted her on the side. “So, want to get things moving?”
Glen nodded her head. “Yeah, let’s get off of this bl-l-oody cold planet,” she stated.
The man chuckled a little at the pony’s distress, but also frowned faintly before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pony sized scarff. “Here, I keep it around on the off chance that Twilight ever uses up all her magic in the middle of a snowstorm.” He then reached over and wrapped it around Glen’s neck and a small feeling of warmth spread through her body, it wasn’t enough to kill the feeling of chill, but it was enough to keep her from suffering from hypothermia.
“Thanks,” she chattered out.
“Anytime,” the man replied as he began to walk down the ‘street’ before them. Glen followed, her eye glancing all around for the look out of anything suspicious.
“So...whatcha think they have in store for us?” she asked Ethan.
“Who knows, yetties or something? Evil snowmen? Ice monsters? Evil ice monster yetties?” Ethan guessed with a small shrug. “Yeti ice monsters of evil?”
The mare glanced over at Ethan with a skeptical look. “Now you’re just making stuff up.”
“I’ve been accused of worse,” the man said, shrugging slightly.
Glen rolled her eye before her ears suddenly perked up. “You hear that?” she asked as she faced toward her left at a small pile of snow covered rusting metal, her ears scoping out the area.
Ethan paused in place and then turned in the direction of the pile and glanced down at his wrist. “Hmm... not picking anything on my HUD... but I did hear it,” he whispered.
In the silence that had suddenly settled over them a new set of noises was easily discernible.
*Twing*
*Clank*
*Crunch*
It was the walking of metallic feet and as he listened Ethan reached into his pocket to pull out several pulse shells and fit them into the shotgun’s barrel.
“Robots,” he whispered to Glen.
“Yeah...lots of them,” she whispered back as her ears continued to turn in all sort of directions. “They’re approaching from...everywhere.”
Ethan frowned for a moment. “So, find a high place and shoot at them until they’re all dead?”
“Or until we run out of bullets,” Glen replied.
“So we run then?” he inquired, a small look of eagerness coming to his face at the prospect of the upcoming challenge. It had been a while since he’d gotten to flee in terror from something instead of the opposite.
“That’s sounds like a good plan,” the mare stated with a quick nod of her head. “Like let’s run to the other side shall we?” she suggested with a small unease cold chuckle.
Ethan smirked. “I was waiting for you to ask, think you can keep up?”
“I might be half blind, but I’m still a pony,” she told him as the noise of metal feet crunching in snow became louder. “Let’s go,” she urged.
The man rolled his eyes but began to jog. “No need for the urgency, I’m sure that we’ll be fine. I’ll keep ya safe Glen,” he told her confidently as he increased his speed.
“I’ll believe ya once we off this world!” she replied as she ran beside him.
“Trust me,” he told her, his voice softening a slight bit and despite the speed he was running at Glen still heard him perfectly. “I’ll die before anyone hurts you, I promise.”
Glen glanced at the man with a puzzled look before she glanced back at the path in front of them and saw something was in their way. Robots....dozens of them. However, something about them was a bit off.
All of them were missing parts in some way or another, legs, arms, even a head. Some were even rusted beyond belief, yet they were still working and slowly lurching towards them. Ethan’s shotgun roared four times as they came into range with the robots and eight of them fell to the ground, blue pulse energy running over their frames. Glen also opened fire, biting down of the right side of her mouth trigger letting her magic rifle to spat out hot bolts of pink plasma. The bolts hit several robots legs, making them stumble to the ground.
The other robots continued their stride towards the two, not caring about their fallen but instead walked over them.
“So, are these guys an actual threat?” Ethan inquired, his shotgun roaring again, felling another two of the robots walking towards them in twin piles of twitching metal.
“If we let them gang up on us, yes,” the mare replied, her rifle cutting down a robot with each shot.
“So we keep running and don’t stop for nothing,” the man nodded as they leapt through the gap they’d created in the oncoming group of robots and continued through.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Glen stated as she followed the man.
They continued running, mostly focusing on either avoiding or killing the robots which had begun to surround them no matter how fast they ran or how many turns they took. Ethan frowned as he kept looking around them for their goal, but saw nothing. It was a good thing that he’d had so much practice running, otherwise he’d have been out of breath long ago.
Glen for her part was keeping up with man easily, her rifle firing almost continuously as she help mowed down robots. “Agh, where the hell are we going anyways?”
“Wherever the wind, and the shrieking groaning robots, lead us,” Ethan answered nonchalantly as he reloaded his shotgun.
“They could led us to a bloody dead end!” the mare shouted out in protest.
“Duh,” Ethan replied with a shrug.
“Do you have a death wish or something!?”
“No, should I?” he inquired innocently, turning a corner.
Glen’s only reply was grunting out in irritation at the man.
Ethan chuckled. “You sound a bit like Sparky when you do that, Glen,” he told her, ducking beneath a robot who had decided to leap at him from atop a stack of metal.
“I bet you do that to everyone with your bloody logic,” she replied as she continued to follow him.
“What’s wrong with my logic? My logic works fine,” the man replied with a laugh, blasting away a robot which had been about to land on Glen’s head from behind. “After all, you’re still alive aren’t you?”
Again, the mare just grunted out more in annoyance as she continued to fire upon the robots. “Let’s just get the hell to the other side already.”
“Yes, let’s,” Ethan said.
The two continued to fight their way across the snow covered field as more and more robots popped up from the ground and strode towards them. They fought and fought until they reached the edge of the canyon that they’d been told to cross. The canyon was at least a mile deep, as well as a hundred yards wide.
Ethan glanced over the edge, frowning when he couldn’t find any suitable edges to climb down from, knocking the hope of a quick climb get away. However, as he reeled his gaze back up he spotted something further along the edge. It was a drawbridge, retracted, but looked to be in working condition by the hint that that it was barely covered in snow and didn’t look to be majorly rusted.
“So, how much you want to guess that thing is our way out of this hole?” Ethan inquired with a small frown as he glanced over the drawbridge, backhandedly smacking away a smaller robot who leapt at him.
“Consideringly how conveniently it’s placed, highly,” she replied.
“Well then, let’s not waste any time, all this snow is messing up my hair,” the man said with a chuckle, running a hand through his soaking hair.
As he said that, there was a loud whirling behind them and he suddenly stumbled forwards as several dozen large holes appeared in his chest, apparently unhindered by the armour. Blood squirted out of the wounds and some of it splashed down onto Glen’s face. Ethan didn’t fall, he only winced.
Glen only blinked as the man’s blood rolled down her face. She turned around to see half a dozen of robots with miniguns as part of their arms. One turned to face her and she shouted. “FUCK!”
Before it could fire, Ethan stepped into the way and took the bullets for her and more of his blood splashed across her face.
“Glen, get to the bridge please,” Ethan said, his voice calm and decidedly deadly.
The mare’s eye widened a bit, but she didn’t question as she turned and ran towards the bridge, occasionally shooting down robots in her way. Meanwhile, Ethan let out a loud cackle.
“Come get some you metal sons of bitches!” the man shouted as he charged towards the robots. Their bullets impacted into him, some but not all penetrating his armour as he did so. He closed with them and the shotgun roared four times. Four of the robots staggered back underneath the assault and Ethan fired another four shots into them for good measure.
The bots fell, jittering a bit as the last of their power seeped away. However, another volley of bullets hailed down on Ethan as a different set of robots assaulted him. Ethan snarled through the pain, holstering his shotgun and drawing his red bladed sword. He charged the bots and as he reached them he and the bots became a veritable blur of red and black as he slashed into their oil filled bodies.
“Locked on,” a male voice spoke out, catching the man’s attention before he felt a huge amount of force impacted into his back. Ethan felt his spine snap in half and was sent flying a couple of yards before falling face flat into the snow and scraps of metal.
Ethan grunted as his spine knitted back together and he flipped onto his stomach to see a four legged mech, as big as three roboscorpions (thankfully the relatively small kind) stacked on top of each other. It had one long arm that looked like an extremely enhanced railway rifle, as well as missile compartments resting on it’s head, and another arm that was holding a gatling gun.
There was red glowing ‘eye’ that was looking at him. “Zarian trooper sti-i-ill alive, initiate pha-a-a-ase two,” it said in a clearly glitchy voice.
“Oh, well you can go straight to hell,” Ethan grumbled as he rolled to his feet. Also, what the hell is a zarian? he added as an afterthought as he began to straff towards the thing.
The mech’s gatling gun roared to life as a stream of bullets stormed right at the man. Ethan straffed around the incoming bullets and felt their hot wind growing steadily closer and closer to his face as he got closer and closer to the mech. Luckily, he managed to close the distance before he could be hit and his blade lashed out, slashing through the nearest leg before a blast of bullets crashed into his chest and sent him skidding away through the snow.
The mech stumbled a bit under the sudden loss of support, but it didn’t fall down. Instead, it just lowered it’s broken leg to the cut off part and in mere seconds the two ends merged back together. Good as new.
Meanwhile Glen fought her way to the drawbridge’s control room. She frantically looked around for the switch to make it lower down. She grinned a bit when she found it and closed her teeth around it before yanking it down.
*Click*
The mare let go and glanced out a window. “Fuck!” she cursed when she saw the bridge stubbornly staying upright. She glance back at the console of buttons and switch. “What the hell did I do wrong?” she muttered to herself. Glen study the set up for a bit longer. “Ah to hell with it, I’ll just pull switches until it works,” she said as she started hastily pull different switches.
Ethan grumbled under his breath, cursing incoherently at the large walker which despite his best efforts appeared to still be perfectly fine.
“Alright you overgrown fuck-bot, I’m gonna turn you into a god damned desk lamp!” he shouted at it as blood rolled down his chest.
“You zar-ar-ar-ins will not win,” it replied. It lowered it’s head down a bit, and its missile compartments started to glow a faint hue of blue as the hum of energy building filled the air. Then before Ethan could question what was happening, dozens of glowing blue orbs shot it the air and streaked towards the man.
Ethan looked up at the orbs for a moment before letting out a ‘war cry’, though it may have sounded a bit closer to the noise a dog makes when kicked, a short yelp, before charging headlong at the mech. The orbs continued to streak at the man, some missing him and hitting the ground, creating small explosions everywhere they hit. Ethan didn’t fall and adjusted usted to the exploding ground, instead he continued forwards until he yet again reached the mech. This time, he dove beneath the legs and brought his blade stabbing up into the center of its ‘ass’.
However, it did nothing except make the sound as if the sword was eating through rock solid stone. The red eye on the mech turn a full 180 and glared at Ethan.The man looked up at it with a slight blush on his face.
“Hia... this isn’t doing much for you, is it?” he asked it.
In response, it’s gatling gun bent around and pointed towards him, quickly whirling to life.
Ethan, and his sword, were sent flying away, rolling end over end with a bright flash of blood. He came to rest several meters away, his body soaked in blood and his organs shredded. The man’s chest began reknit itself and he achingly got to his feet.
“Yeah... that’s not happening,” he muttered as he looked at the completely unharmed robot. Then there was the faint sound of big gears grounding and excited voice of Glen shouting.
“FUCKING FINALLY!”
Ethan glanced back to see the drawbridge was slowly beginning to descend. The man let out a sigh of relief through his still healing lungs and looked back at the mech.
“Hey robot, look, zarians!” Ethan shouted, pointing behind the mech.
“You’re par-ar-ar-lor tricks won’t work zarian,” it said as it lowered its railgun at the man.
“Umm... look pretty robots!” he shouted after a second of thought, pointing in the other direction.
Its railgun began to hum as it pulled up power, still pointing at the man.
“Fine, you know what?” Ethan called to it.
“Wh-wh-what?” the mech asked glitchially.
“Suck on this!” he shouted, pulling a plasma grenade from his pocket and launching it into the rail-gun’s barrel. The gun went off, causing a huge explosive of red and green to sprout from it’s arm. The mech stumbled away from the blast, it’s whole left arm missing, yet refusing to go down. The man could see it’s arm already began to regenerate, but didn’t stay any longer as he took off towards the drawbridge at a sprint.
“GLEN START RUNNING!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Glen was holding her ground from a couple of robots but took a glance at the bridge that was still in the process of lowering. “IT’S TOO STEEP!” she shouted back.
A blue orb went off beside Ethan making him stumble a bit but he kept his balance and continued running. Unfortunately, one of the blue orbs also slammed into underside of the still lowering bridge. The drawbridge shook violently, but thankfully it didn’t collapse; it did however stop lowering and at an angle too steep to climb by foot.
“Oh fuck you!” Ethan shouted over his shoulder at the mech, giving it the finger.
“Now what?” Glen asked as the man ran up to her.
“Well, I can’t kill it,” he confessed. “So... we either face death with dignity...” he continued as he scanned the area... his gaze settling on what appeared to be a motorcycle like machine of some kind... though it lacked wheels. In their place were two blue discs parallel to the ground. “Or we improvise!” Ethan exclaimed, running towards the bike.
Glen looked at the bike then at the steeped bridge. “Oh...I’m not going to like this,” she grumbled. She let out a small sigh. “Is it even working?”
Ethan didn’t bother answering, instead he was too busy scraping snow off of ‘bike’ and running his hands over the controls. It took him only a matter of seconds before the bike jumped off of the ground and started hovering in place. He grinned and grabbed Glen around the waist before throwing both of them onto the bike, her behind him.
“Do you even know how to drive one of these things!?” the mare asked nervously.
“Fuck no!” Ethan replied with a grin as he gunned the throttle. “Want to find out?”
“N-” was all the mare got to say before the hover bike roared and shot forwards.
It took Ethan a moment to learn how to steer the beast, and in that time they almost shot over the edge of the cliff, causing Glen to scream loudly while Ethan let out a laugh of excitement. He pulled the bike away from the cliff at the last moment and caught sight of a blue orb falling towards them. He did a 180 spin, and launched in the other direction causing the bike to roar happily as the blue orb exploded in the background.
“THIS IS AWESOME!” Ethan shouted over the noise.
Glen didn’t say anything as she tightly clutched her hooves around the man’s waist.
“Come on Glen, it’s like being on a giant vibrator! This should be awesome for you!” Ethan added, lowering his voice a little.
“Just get over the bloody bridge already!” she said with her eye firmly shut.
“Fine,” he replied as he ducked beneath a string of automatic fire and gunned the hover bike towards the bridge.
The bike climbed the steep angle with ease and before long they shot up and over the gap between the two bridge while Ethan shouted with excitement. In fact...Ethan was going so fast, he overshot it and missed the other half entirely, instead landing ‘softly’ on the snowy ground. The back half of the bike hit the ground first, the hoover disk barely keeping it from smacking right into the ground as the front half shortly followed.
The two were thrown off the bouncing bike, and Ethan landed on the bottom as Glen landed atop him, the man was laughing outrageously. Glen however was shaking, more from the adrenaline withdrawal rather than the cold.
“Let’s hopefully never do that again,” she said shakily.
“Are you kidding me?” Ethan asked her with a wide grin as he pushed her off of himself and walked over to the bike, quickly climbing back on. “That was so much fun!”
“For a manic,” the mare whispered to herself.
“Hey, I’m crazy, remember?” he inquired, patting the seat behind him. “Oh please let me keep her, she’s so sexy,” he added, looking beggingly at the nearest hovering camera.
“YOUR WISH IS GRANTED!” The announcer shouted in response. “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR VICTORY; PREPARE FOR TRANSIT!”
“Whose idea was it to give him a hovercycle?” Drek mused to himself, then he smiled. “Oh my... think of how marketable his action figure will be now...” He tapped his glass for a bit before taking a sip. “Hmm… But now I need to amp the difficulty to compensate his new toy… hmm… death races anyone?”