Chapter 4: Ms. Frosty Winds
“If you have any loved ones, say goodbye to them now.”
Date: December 15th, 1971.
Time: 13:52, Local time.
Location: mvm_mannhattan_advanced1
“Now find an Upgrade Station.”
Something was different this time. I felt, I breathed, I moved all of my own accord, completely unlike the previous times. First problem being first, I couldn’t actually see because of the helmet drooped over my eyes.
“What in tarnation is that?” That couldn’t be Cabbage Stew. It had better not be him.
“Looks t’me like a small horse, mate.” A different voice, equally as drawly and rough. “Oi Scout, found ya one of ‘em anthro horsies from your bloody porn mags.”
There was the sound of something blunt smacking into something made of meat. “Yo, you want dis much Mad Milk from me, ‘course I’m gonna bust out the frickin’ furry porn. What are ya? Stupid?” This one was younger and sounded like an asshole.
Something was tickling my face and I brought up my right hand— oh boy, hands again— to pull at it. After sparing a moment to bask in the confusion, I finally asked, “Why am I wearing a fake beard?” I pushed the helmet up slightly so I could see past it, immediately being confused again at the sight of my muzzle as well. Huh.
“Hehey, pony girl. Name’s Scout.” The youth sidled up to me and wrapped his right arm around my depressingly wingless back. “What’s your name, hot stuff?”
I was a little too distracted by his right hand on my chest to actually look at him. “...Are you feeling me up?”
“Uh… ‘course not.”
Not exactly teats, but it did feel like this dimension’s equivalent were being handled in an unsatisfactory manner. “Seems like it.”
“Don’t know whatcha’ talkin’ about.” He had the nerve to gently squeeze, and I got a feeling I definitely was being violated.
“Wanna stop?” This time, I glared at the colt— er, boy in question. He was just a smidge shorter than I was, and he didn’t look as old as anyone that I’d seen from my previous trips to similar dimensions. He wore a cap flipped the wrong way around, some sort of long-sleeved shirt device underneath his red shirt, and an entire cooler full of ice and soda strapped to his back. And he had the nerve to look me right in the eye, cocky grin in place, and squeeze again.
Suddenly, both of us were bodily lifted by our collars and forcibly pulled apart. “Leetle baby man leaves pony woman alone.” With a scream and a thud, Scout was thrown across the room and into a reinforced window.
Still being held aloft by my collar, I was turned to face what could have easily passed as a large shaved bear dressed as a… lumberjack? “I am Heavy Weapons Guy.” He smiled, so at least I knew he wasn’t going to eat me.
Yet.
I held out my teal-furred hand in greeting and warmly smiled. “Frosty. Wi-” Catching my mistake this time, I withdrew my hand and took a breath to compose myself before trying again. “Winds. Frosty Winds. I’m, uh, Air Horse.”
The giant shaved bear named Heavy Weapons Guy took my hand and engulfed it with two fingers and his thumb. “Is good to meet you.” Once he finished shaking my hand, which I gratefully retrieved from his massive hand, he put me back down on the ground.
The other five non-ponies in the room suddenly began to argue about their lack of a “demoman” and something about “fast fix”. I took this lapse of attention on me to investigate my predetermined outfit. Torsowear- red trenchcoat, a bit tight around the chest even with the collar open a bit. The shirt under it didn’t really help solve that problem, neither did the grenade-laden bandolier across my chest. From what I could gather, it seemed like lower body wear consisted of military slacks tucked into military boots. And for some impractical reason, there was some sort of antiquated armor strapped to my left arm.
“Howdy, pardner. Name’s Dell, but y’all can call me Engie.” The one that sounded like Cabbage Stew held out his rubber-gloved hand, but I couldn’t stop staring at what looked like a chessboard tied to a red hard hat on his head. “Short for engineer.”
Wordlessly, I took the rubber glove and halfheartedly shook it.
I only stopped staring when Engie waved his hand in front of my face. “Say, you ain’t no bluebell Ah’ve ever seen before. Where you from, ma’am?”
“Would you believe magic?” I lifted my helmet a bit so I could comfortably fold my ears down since there weren’t holes in my helmet for them.
“That ah would.” Unfortunately, his goggled eyes betrayed no hint of whether he was joking or not. “Big damn army robots are comin’. You know how to use that thing?”
Engie was probably referring to the rectangular black device slung over my left shoulder that I hadn’t had time to check properly. “Uh, sure. Why?” I very obviously lied through my teeth.
I didn’t know whether he bought it or not since he consulted his PipBuck, pressed a button, and a toolbox materialized in his hands. “Ain’t gonna argue with someone wearin’ a ‘beams Kabuto. We’ll need all the help we can wrangle up. Git your gear sorted and ah’ll see you on the front line, pardner.” He tromped on out of the room before I could ask him where I could get one of my own.
That meant I had to figure out how to use this rectangular thing— Black Box.
I blinked. What? How’d I know that?
“Holds three rockets, health on hit.” I muttered to myself, still confused about where all this knowledge was coming from. The next object in question looked a lot like a seashell tied to my waist. “Concheror, speed and health on hit on buff.” I shifted the wooden backpack attached to the back of my bandolier and realized that the two objects were considered one item. And then there was the sword attached to the opposite side of my waist, tied to the other side of my belt. The Half-Zatoichi— Full heal on kill, Honorbound.
“Soldier pony needs upgrades,” The shaved bear rumbled.
Which explained the “UPGRADE” kiosks built into either wall “Just getting my bearings, Mister Guy.” I stopped ogling my equipment and decided to not think about it any farther.
“I am Heavy. Just Heavy.” He strode beside me to the upgrade kiosk and slammed a brass minigun as large as I was onto the tiny counter.
I followed suit, dropping my weird rocket launcher onto the counter. A little pamphlet appeared in my hands, listing what I could improve my Black Box with. “Fill in the dots, leave no stray marks,” read the warning on the top of the paper. A second later, a pencil appeared in my hand as well. I scanned the list of upgrades- damage, rocket specialist, clip size, and more— so many to choose from.
“Nine hundred ain’t enough for what I need,” Drawly voice, apparently unsatisfied, grumbled on his way out.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Heavy, who was feeding his little paper into a machine behind the counter.
The giant man shrugged. “Long shoot baby man. Is Sniper.” A few little plates of metal popped out of a different box on the wall behind the counter and he shoved them under his vest.
These people didn’t have names, as so much job titles. “Hm,” I simply replied, then returned to deliberating on my upgrades. Even if I wanted all the clip size and all the fire rate, I settled on buying two points of damage boost to be on the safe side.
I mirrored Heavy’s action and gave the machine my paper. The pouch mounted on the back of my belt suddenly felt lighter, then a crate stuffed full of what I assumed were rockets appeared with a ‘vworp’ noise beside my rocket launcher. Logic dictated that this new ammo went into my butt-pouch for storage.
Once all twenty of my rockets had been stored, I hefted my Black Box and wandered out of the room. The area right outside of the upgrade room was somewhat similar to a warehouse with most of a wall missing and a vault door built into the floor. Ignoring it due to my lack of caring at the moment, I tried to make my way to the front lines at a brisk trot.
“What even is the purpose of this bridge, anyway?” I wondered to myself as I left the warehouse area and crossed the bridge in question. “There isn’t even water down there.”
Ignoring yet another question that couldn’t be answered, I walked up a ramp and failed to make sense of all the haphazardly placed shipping containers everywhere, not to mention the giant death grinder spinning away. At least my path seemed to end at an even larger warehouse where everyone was located.
Engie waved at me as he stood next to a deadly-looking sentry gun. This thing had two guns and a rocket launcher! “Howdy. Aw darn, ah forgot the teleporter, didn’t I?” It even beeped menacingly as it rotated!
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but teleporting seemed like a cool thing. “Maybe?”
“Lemme go fix that right quick.”
Whatever amount of preparation wouldn’t have saved me from what happened next. Engie took out a weathered-looking pistol, put it to his head, and shot himself on the spot without another word. A yellow-striped gray box materialized on his corpse and a little person-shaped light appeared over it, as some kind of consolation.
I couldn’t process what I’d just witnessed. Why would he even do that? He’d just—
“Alright, teleporter’s up on that there container.”
When I turned around, there he was in all his hatted glory like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Engie sauntered over to his sentry and gave it a few hits with his wrench, completely ignoring his own dead body at his feet. He even turned and waved at me.
The scene was surreal enough to make me have a mini panic attack. “Be cool, Frosty. Be cool. You’re in another universe where maybe death is irrelevant. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out,” I hissed to myself, pulling my helmet back down over my eyes so I didn’t have get perturbed looking at him. Instead, I stumbled to the nearby railing and hopped down to the lower floor.
“What coward is not ready to fight?”
“Let’s go, mate!”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
If memory served me right, I had caught a glimpse of Heavy and Scout standing next to a storage tank slightly to my left, so I began to amble off in that direction. That is, until I ran into someone.
A warm, tingly sensation began to warm my heart and I began to inexplicably feel a lot better than I should have. “Hello zere, fräulein.” I lifted my helmet and met face-to-face with someone I didn’t recognize. “I will be ze attending physician today.” The strange man bowed, and the warm feeling dissipated for a second.
The first thing I realized was that this guy looked suspiciously like Doc. Lab coat, check. Large bladed instrument? Check. Funny mane? Check. Evil-looking grin? Check. “You… you’re a doctor?” I hesitantly asked.
“Was ist los?" He asked in another language, cocking his head. When I blankly stared at him, he elaborated with, “Vell, yes. Ze healing does leaves little time for ze hurting, after all. I am ze Medic, and you are… not ze Soldier.”
I sighed and simply stated, “Just… magic.”
“Ah, zat would do it.” Medic clipped the strange little cannon he was holding to his equally strange backpack and immediately tugged on my barely-protruding ears. “Tell me, do zese actually receive sound?”
“Ow, yes!”
“Fascinating.” Now that his curiosity had been temporarily taken care of, he adjusted his scarf and unholstered his cannon again. “So zis does work on you, ja?” I wasn’t really expecting an almost liquid beam of light to extrude from the gun and attach to my torso, which brought back the warm feeling again. “Wunderbar.”
“Pony up, boys!” Engineer peered over the railing. “Uh, no offense meant, ma’am.”
Even with all this dimension-jumping, my unquestioning demeanor could only be stretched so far before I needed something sort of information. “What are we doing, exactly?”
“Robots, mein dear fräulein.” I knew a crazy, creepy look when I saw one. “Zey take our jobs, we kill ze robots for zem back. For money, of course.”
“I hope you have your affairs in order. Incoming robot battalion in three-”
A minigun spun to life and its user roared with laughter.
“Two-”
I followed Medic to the end of the building and waited with the others on the front line. Out there, through the giant warehouse door, a gargantuan vehicle began to regurgitate bipedal machines that marched toward us. He turned his gun onto Heavy and waited.
“One."
The thundering of footsteps became louder and louder as a tall, lanky robot leapt off of the loading dock and into the warehouse. Impossibly fast, it began to sprint toward us, brandishing a massive tree-sized bat.
“Giant baby man!” Heavy shouted, unloading rounds into the huge robot. Likewise, the others had also begun to fire on the huge robot as well.
I brought my rocket launcher to bear and received a baseball to the face for doing so.
As I stumbled in confusion, the baseball-flinging robot managed to run around the tank we were standing behind and up the ramp toward Engineer and his sentry. Unfortunately for the robot, its immobile counterpart proved to be too much. “Bomb’s clear!” Engineer cried, after the smoke and wreckage cleared.
My face hurt a little, but I didn’t have time to whine about it just yet. More robots— these looking suspiciously like Heavy— charged forward at a leisurely pace, constantly firing their shotguns. I managed to land one rocket in the midst of them, to little effect. Right as I fired the follow-up rocket, all six of their heads spontaneously exploded into scrap metal and wads of green smouldering paper. I was a little more annoyed by not getting the kills, but at least my face stopped hurting.
Another one of the bat-wielding giant robots— which I realized looked a lot like Scout, dropped into the field and made a mad dash for the bomb that its predecessor had dropped. Its first and second baseballs hit Heavy and Medic, which left me in the way. I managed to land two hits, the third hitting the wall behind it, and cursed when I had to reload. Above, the sentry plinked away at the giant robot, but it managed to get under the overhang and sprint up the ramp.
Something exploded, but the thundering of robot feet didn’t stop. “Sentry down! Big robot’s got the bomb, boys!” The giant Scout robot was running down the path along the side of the warehouse and past the grinder of safety ignorance.
Scout dashed past me and yelled, “Gimme a hand here, pony girl!” He leapt twice, somehow not touching the floor the second time, and climbed his way out of the warehouse’s entire missing side window.
The fastest way out was up, and trajectory appeared in my mind. If only I still had the power of flight! A gut feeling made me believe otherwise, so I let instinct take over as I shoved one last rocket up the barrel of my Black Box. I leapt, twisting my body in midair and pointing my launcher at the ground behind me. Then I pulled the trigger, making sure to tuck my legs up under me as the rocket whooshed away and exploded against the ground.
Then I flew, smoke and debris trailing from my boots. I landed and groaned in pain- doing that really injured my legs. The giant Scout continued to thunder right at me with his bomb and fired another baseball, not caring that I was now in his way. Undaunted, I retaliated with another rocket and grinned in satisfaction when it exploded.
The large piles of paper that exploded out of the robot were quickly vacuumed into Scout’s pants. “Hehey, thanks.” He chuckled and dashed back into the warehouse to combat the next rush of shotgun Heavy robots and what looked like smaller Scout robots. I jumped back in as well and ignored the first wad of buckshot that dug into my upper leg.
A second and third shot quickly followed the first, and I was already finding it harder to breathe and run without stabbing pain. I fired a few more rockets into the growing crowd of robots, giving me a bit of relief thanks to its magical— or whatever— properties.
Two Scout-ish robots closed in on me, brandishing their metal bats. I had no rockets loaded and loading to fire another— which would probably kill them— would also seriously injure me as well. That left one last alternative.
I’d seen it in a cartoon once. I dropped my rocket launcher and in one smooth motion, I drew the Half-Zatoichi and coup de grâce’d the crap out of the two robots trying to club me to death. As my wounds vanished, I felt the need for a witty one-liner. "Never bring a bat to a battlefield, war is not a game." I quickly flicked the oil off the end of my blade, picked up the mysteriously smouldering currency, and stowed the sword for the Black Box again.
“Yo, Sniper! Get those meds ‘fore they pop!”
Why did I hear fire? I didn’t like the sound of a flame-spewing robot. Fire and I didn’t get along too well from past experience.
“Big robot!” Heavy was still sitting next to the funny-looking little box that he’d started at, still firing and still being angry at everything. “Yaaaaaaah!”
“Sniper!” Engie shouted over the sounds of his sentry firing at the giant robot.
The four smaller robots behind it abruptly had their heads simultaneously turned into nothing while the combination of me, Heavy, Engie’s sentry, and Scout whaled on the giant, flamethrower-wielding robot. Peculiarly, the Scout decided to hit the robot with what I could only describe as an aluminum fan, then immediately smash a bottle of… “white liquid” over its head before hopping away to poke at it with a scattergun.
Of course, I tempted fate by being anywhere near something that shot fire, and I found myself burning to death when the robot focused its fire on me. “I. Am. On. Fire!” I screamed, turning tail and proceeding to, uh, put out my tail. It sounded like the others had it under control, anyway. “Medic!”
He heard my call and turned around, pulling his healgun’s focus off of the toasting bear. I stopped running away and turned on my heel, just as a little blue laser appeared between us. It hesitated for a second, then focused on me. Next thing I knew, I heard a crack, a boom, a curse, then I collapsed on the ground and bled out from the gaping hole in my shoulder.
I died.
Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
The spell didn’t wear off.
And now I was bored.
Dying here was a lot more boring than I’d thought.
But with a strange pulling sensation, I wasn’t. I was back in the midst of the fray, launcher in hand and helmet back on my head. “Hello again!” Was the only thing I could come up with at the time.
Medic was focusing his beam on one of those strange boxes that Engie had dropped when he’d died- and that I had, I noted when I tripped on it. A second later, Heavy appeared in a burst of light. “WHO KILLED HEAVY?”
"The robots are poundin' the bloody gate! Help me!”
Klaxons began to blare, and I had a feeling that something was going horribly wrong.
“Security alert!”
Medic latched his healgun’s beam onto me. “Rocket jump to ze dispenser, fräulein! We must regroup!”
I nodded and got a running start, but this time I simply jumped, tucked my legs in, and fired- giving me height instead of distance. Unlike last time, my legs didn’t hurt nearly as much since I was being healed the whole way. I landed beside the crate that was hiding what I assumed was the dispenser from view. Medic hit the ground a second later, yelped, lost his footing, and stumbled into the wall of the shipping crate across from us with a resounding clang.
Sniper jogged past us, chuckling, “That’s a Quick Fix, doc. Thought you would’ve learned to surf by now.” He retreated a bit farther back and bumped into Scout.
“This is your frickin’ fault, buddy.”
“Sod off, wanker. Sniperbot made me flinch.”
Heavy charged up to us at lightning speed, boxing gloves on his hands. “Incoming! Giant Pyro robots are moving! Cowards must get in position.”
There were now three of the giant flamethrower robots, two of which still had a few one-wheeled robot Medics attached to them. Engineer was set up on top of a dirt pile near the death grinder, feverishly swinging his wrench at a much smaller, single-gunned, version of his sentry. Simultaneously, they turned on the man and torched him to the ground.
“Engineer down!” I yelled, and I fired a rocket in retaliation at the robots that had finally demolished the sentry.
Scout rushed in and threw more “milk” at them, which slowed them down to a crawl. As fast as he was, they still managed to turn and ignite him. “Fiyah! I’m on fire! Gimme a hand here, fatty!”
We couldn’t really help any more than we already were. My rockets weren’t exactly putting a dent in them, and Heavy’s bullets weren’t helping either, since he was actually a lot more busy shooting down the robot Scouts running up the ramp behind the giants. I wasn’t really sure about why until a few of them managed to get away.
“Aaaugh!” Sniper’s bludgeoned corpse fell past me and I nearly wasted a rocket shooting at it.
One of the giant Pyro robots exploded, dropping its payload of cash. Unfortunately, the other two instantly immolated Heavy as he tried to destroy one of them. One more of my rockets reduced the other damaged robot to scrap, leaving one giant flame-spewing robot.
We were four teammates down and it was just me and Medic. “Ugh, this can’t get any worse.” I groaned. Medic stood behind me, healgun focused on me as I kept firing rockets.
“Vell, it could be-”
For some reason, Medic didn’t finish his sentence. “Could be what?” I yelled between reloads. Huh, the tingly healing feeling had stopped, too. “Oh.” I turned around to the sight of the man on the ground, flaming arrow lodged in his skull. “Well, shit.”
"It's all up to you now."
A wave of robot Snipers and smaller versions of the giant robot trailed behind the remaining giant robot and its entourage of robot Medics, which explained the arrows. Really, who even fights with a bow and arrow if there are guns at your disposal?
One versus an army. Fair odds. "I am not trapped in a facility full of robots. You are all trapped in here with me!" I taunted, emphasizing my point with a rocket that reduced several bow-wielding robots to piles of scrap and money.
There was no way I was going to survive without a little help, but I had one of those feelings. I unclipped the seashell from my belt and violently blew it, which caused a banner to spring out of the side of my pack. “Last one alive, lock the door!”
I sprinted into the robots, fueled by rage and desperation. Two more of my rockets decimated the last of the giant robots, causing the robot Medics to scatter. A few arrows managed to find their mark, but the pain would vanish as I destroyed more robots for health. But then they started to hurt quite a lot when I ran out of rockets and had to fall back to reload lest I get slowly get punctured to death.
As I retreated, I wasn’t ready to deal with yet another giant Scout Robot rushing past me with their bomb. Something wet and meaty hit me in the back of my head and nearly dislodged my helmet, and I had an inexplicable moment of confused shame. Wait, it had the bomb!
The alarm sirens began to blare again. "Alert! Do not let the bomb get to the hatch!"
Something abruptly flashed across my vision then vanished. “Engineer used an UPGRADE BUILDINGS canteen!” Okay, whatever that was…
I needed to take a shortcut over the containers, so I pointed my rocket launcher at my feet, jumped, and fired again to take flight. Too bad I didn’t get enough horizontal distance. The giant robot was about to start crossing the bridge as I landed on top of the containers, and I wasn’t close enough! I fired another rocket a bit ahead of it and used the edge of the container I was standing on as a surface to launch myself again, which felt like I’d just shredded my lower legs.
The others were just running out of the left and right doors of the upgrade room just as the giant Scout made it to the giant hatch in the ground and stopped. With a bone-crunching crack, I heavily landed on the bridge and charged forward, only to find I had no rockets loaded.
Heavy’s minigun was still spinning up.
Engie’s sentry was trying its best, the man himself desperately shotgunning the giant robot.
Right next to the door, Sniper was still trying to get a bead on the giant robot’s head.
Medic had a strange little gun that fired syringes in his hands, ready to be fired.
And unsurprisingly, Scout was nowhere to be seen.
“The robots are planting their bomb!”
The giant robot’s torso spun around, placing the bomb in front of it, then swiveled its arms to cover it. I managed to launch one last rocket into the giant Scout, but it just wasn’t enough to kill it. It simply hopped into the air and crushed the hatch with its weight hitting the center of it, sending it into the depths. The bomb detonated, then everything went white.
“You failed! Perhaps I should just hire them.”
Date: December 15th, 1971.
Time: Unknown.
Location: Unknown.
“You failed! Perhaps I should just hire them.” Somewhere from inside the cloud of smoke, an old wrinkled hand tossed the microphone it held away in disgust. “Incompetent fools.”
The rest of the figure slowly emerged, slowly moving her chair closer to the banks of monitors and computer equipment before her. In all the years she had worked in the shadows of Mann Co., The Administrator hadn’t faced a more dire threat than Gray Mann and his hordes of robots. The mercenaries that Redmond and Blutarch Mann had hired before their unfortunate demise— the same ones now fighting the robots— had been a mixed bag.
The Administrator picked up a phone and dialed a very long number. She put out her cigarette in a nearby overflowing ashtray and patiently waited for the other end to pick up. After several rings, her contact finally picked up.
“It’s Helen. I’m about to send you some very interesting footage of a mercenary I haven’t seen before. No, it’s not a newfangled hat. No, it’s not a full moon.” She groaned and rubbed her temples. “Yes, I’m sure. I want you to find out where this mercenary came from. If she returns, we may have a problem. Yes, she. Thank you. Get to work.”
The Administrator hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair. Another variable had come and go, making this robot war marginally more interesting. And speaking of which…
A red light began to blink among a sea of unlit lights. She unplugged the microphone from its original place and plugged it in under the blinking light. After sparing a second to pull up the remote camera feeds to the main monitor, she lit another cigarette.
Microphone in hand and a cigarette in the other, she was prepared for a display of mechanized carnage. “Mann Up mode activated. What were you thinking? Five. Four. Three. Two. One…”