"Dark" and "Light" won't matter for this chapter's "Formatting".
Properties in this chapter belong to their respective owners.
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Burst Lightning Round
Here, the fights are held without holding them up with analysis.
Two fighters!
All action!
No research!
Lightning Round!
Start the clock and... GO!
(Pony Wasteland Wanderer vs. The Copycat)
It's a fairly cloudy day. But then again, that's normal for a deserted town. Most of the pegasi closed the cloud layer a long time ago. Even if the sun is high, it won't offer much to the land-walkers and Dashite deserters. The silver lining is that the harmful UV radiation can't get through either.
The camera follows a stray vulture, flying around the dark sky. It searches for any prey that hasn't been turned to dust yet. Pan down a little, and you can see an obscurely prominent golden number "2" on the back of a jumpsuit. Though, that might be difficult to see around the patchwork of rotting armor. What might be even harder to see is the small pony wearing the getup and looking down the scope on a zebra-crafted rifle.
"Hmm, those raiders might be a bit of trouble," she mutters to herself. "Maybe it's best if I take 'em down one at a time while the rest aren't looking."
A stray cylindrical canister plops down on the enemy camp. This confuses the potential sniper... at least until half of the camp she's observing is blown sky-high in splinters of wood and various pony parts. She looks up from her scope and tries to locate the source of the grenade. She doesn't have to look far as somepony flies in, covered from the chest down in black metal.
This newcomer has all the necessary limbs to be considered an alicorn. However, the proportions are all wrong if that is the case. If the little pony is not mistaken, then she sees a horn that isn't any larger than the average unicorn's. It's kind of hard to miss the white head amidst the darkness of the rest of the body.
"What the *eff* is she?" wonders the little one.
After some noises that resemble turbines, the cyber-alicorn flies down. She lands with a lot of force. Though, the ground seems to suffer the brunt of any potential damage. Even from a few feet away, she looks down at the original pony.
"This is the 'Stable Dweller' that everypony's so worked up about?" she scoffs. "You don't even look old enough to carry a gun."
A layer of magic surrounds the alleged Stable Dweller's horn. The newcomer in front of her is making her Eyes-Forward-Sparkle spell glow as a red dot.
"Listen, I don't want to hurt you," she tries to reason, as her aura also permeates some of the contents of her inventory.
"Aw, that's cute," mocks the cyber-alicorn with a smirk. "Little baby Stable Dweller thinks she can hurt me." Her own horn charges up magic.
Nobody blink!
Fight!
The screen splits briefly between the two as both Littlepip and Blackjack activate the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting spell in their respective Pipbucks. There are a lot of clicking noises as they take aim at various body parts. Once they're done, time resumes at an extremely slow pace.
Three different firearms pop out of Littlepip's bags and aim forth. The same could be said of Blackjack, but in a red aura. Blasts emitting from the floating guns are elongated and show off all the kickback that could probably snap an earth pony's neck. Bullets sail through the air.
But due to the simultaneous aim-cheats that they have in place, all of the shots are colliding with each other in midair. While it is hilarious to watch this fire fight going nowhere, neither one of them is laughing out loud. Instead, they just keep firing and firing. It's a pepper job on the guy in charge of the sound booth as he tries to minimize the ear-piercing resonance of all the blasts.
*Click* *Click* *Click*
Eventually, the six guns currently in play run out of ammunition. Littlepip drops her guns around her. Blackjack practically chucks her weapons into the burning remains of the raider camp. The cyber-alicorn levitates out... of all things... a police baton, and gallops forward. Littlepip pulls out an exotic machete and does the same.
Blackjack jumps up and does an aerial loop before coming down hard. Her baton clangs down against the machete. Littlepip adjusts her weapon's angle, trying to push back. The melee weapons slide off and bash against each other at several different angles.
*Clang* *Ding* *Dong* *Clang*
Littlepip growls out, using gravity to help her next downward strike. The attack is super effective and shatters the baton into a mess of broken pieces. She spins around, swinging it from the side for one more blow.
*Pow*
The little pony gasps as she looks at her big knife. A red hole in it is smoking before the weapon falls apart into just as many pieces as the baton. But from where did that shot even come? Her opponent didn't even pull out a- Is that smoke coming out of the alicorn's horn?
Blackjack chuckles as she shoots a second magic bullet. It's by sheer luck that Littlepip jumps out of the shot's path to the ground. Heart racing, the little unicorn gallops away. Blackjack's red magic shots pepper after the path that she takes.
"*Eff*! *Ess*! *Eff*! Mother*eff*er!" cries Littlepip as she dives into a building's doorway.
Blackjack blows some air from her mouth upward. Her horn simmers down in both smoke and aura. She turns around and notices a couple of boxes that weren't destroyed by her pre-fight grenade. She hums in delight as she trots over.
Meanwhile, Littlepip tries to scour the old desks and lockers for something... anything. Aside from a few small ammo boxes, all she can find is junk. Sure, there are a few drugs in the mix, but she's not willing to risk so many addictions for the sake of one alicorn. Though, she silently wishes upon Luna to condemn her bad luck for not bringing a memory orb with her on this trip. Those have helped her bring down alicorns on more than one occasion.
Her reminiscing is interrupted by a red, curved arrow appearing in her eyes. She tenses up as she knows what that indication from her Pipbuck is telling her. She immediately leaps away from two desks. A grenade's blast scatters the metal and wood around where she just was. Suddenly, three red arcs are closing in on her tail.
"*Ess*."
She jumps out the back window just in time to avoid a fairly large explosion. Blackjack's most recent plan of attack causes some cracks and dents in what remains of the building's old walls. The cyber-alicorn tosses a few more of the explosives at the other floors for good measure. The resulting blasts set fire to whatever isn't already ash. What little remains to support the building's top floor collapses entirely.
Blackjack's wings help her fly up to admire her destruction. She playfully dusts off her shoulders.
"And that's what you get for being a little-"
*Ba-ba-boom*
She opens her eyes wide. Her wing is sparking with a new hole in it that isn't supposed to be there.
"...*ess*."
The camera pans down and around at a nearby rooftop. Littlepip takes a couple seconds to reload her zebra rifle. She aims through the scope and fires again. The triple shot nicks the tip of Blackjack's other wing. The unicorn moves to levitate the ammunition in for one more round. But Blackjack is having none of that, and fires her magic bullet spell straight at the gun. It looks mostly intact, except the chamber that can actually hold a round is completely cracked.
"D**n it," grunts Littlepip as she heads for the stairs.
However, Blackjack needs to drop down as well. Her wings are damaged and she doesn't have the tools in her immediate vicinity to patch them back up. Spitting to the side, she aims for the ground just in front of the building and lands in a gallop before stopping completely.
The camera pans to the staircase. Littlepip pants as she descends.
"*Eff*ing hell," she mutters. "I was really hoping I could save this for a more desperate situation, but..." A small tin floats out in her magic aura.
Back outside, Blackjack waits a few feet away from the entrance. She charges up her horn, holding a magic bullet at the tip. As soon as she sees that little pipsqueak, she's going to fill her up with as many shots as she has magic left.
The door bursts open with a squeal. Blackjack lets her magic shot fly. However, there's no pony at the door to eat it. Confused, her eyes race around the doorway and the windows. Her eyes stop looking briefly at the sound of something like a hardware store's drill. Just as suddenly, Littlepip is standing in front of her. The little pony has a big grin on her face and a screwdriver in her green magic aura.
"What the-?" Blackjack's legs suddenly give way underneath her own weight. "How the *eff* did you-?"
"Know exactly which joints to detach so that the hydraulics would yield?" finished Littlepip rather lively. "Silly Blackjack. Mechanical tinkering is what I've been doing for a living."
Blackjack growls as her horn charges up.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Littlepip pounds away at Blackjack's horn with the broad side of her screwdriver. "None of that! You could poke sompony's eye out and that wouldn't be fun to deal with."
The spell seems to cut off. Blackjack's horn looks like it's bent at a very uncomfortable angle. Her growling isn't doing much to deter that conclusion. Meanwhile, Littlepip puts her screwdriver away. She slowly pulls out the trademarked revolver: Little Macintosh.
"Before you shoot, could you at least let me have one last beer?" pleads Blackjack.
Littlepip tilts her head. "What kind of idiot do you think I am?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Nope." Littlepip smiles and turns to look at you. "To any children that are somehow reading this, please look away now." She then turns back and spins Little Macintosh's chamber.
*Pow*
Blackjack's left eye blows out.
*Pow*
Blackjack's other eye is split open.
*Pow*
Blood and bits of skull splash in all directions. With the resounding gush of cranial pieces, the cybernetic body is left without a head to drive it. The blood spills into the circuits.
K.O.!
Suddenly, the revolver drops. Littlepip holds her head against one hoof. All of the answers that she thought she had are quickly fading into an unnavigable ocean within her mind. Truly, there is no crueler mistress than a Party-Time Mint-Al's side effects.
"Wait... what's two plus two again?"
This round's winner is... Littlepip!
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