Red Cell dodged out of the volley of magic bullets, keeping her healing beam trained on Heavy at all times. Heavy for his part was returning fire and Archimedes was nowhere to be found.
“Ah told you!” Gear shouted as a few magic bullets pinged off of the machines shell, “I’m not the Canterlot wizpony for nothing! You think I’d really forget the only ponies that truly pissed me off? I made this especially to deal with you all when you came around!” He hit a control and the tail swung down, barely missing Heavy.
“Oi! What Heavy do to you?” He shouted as he shot another stream of magic bullets at the machine, searching for a weak spot.
“Ya darn near killed me for touching your gun!”
“Nopony touch Sasha!”
“I had to touch it to get that damned upgrade in so we all wouldn’t go to jail!”
“Bah! Was not first time in jail! Was not last!” Heavy looked back at Red Cell who gave him a wink. With a small shudder he turned back towards the machine. “Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure this will work?” He asked timidly, a stark contrast to his boisterous nature.
A sadistic smile split Red Cell’s face as she flipped a switch. “I have no idea!”
Both Red Cell and Heavy shone with a brilliant red light and the tail swung down again, landing on Heavy’s head.
“Gotcha! Pesky rat!” Twisted Gear shouted in glee. But his newfound happiness was replaced by fear as he saw the tail flying back at the machine, sending it smashing into a wall. He heard Heavy’s laughter and saw the bullets flying at the machine, fired from a now glowing, lustrous, red form with yellow eyes. It matched Heavy's proportions but now resembled more a red demon. To add to his horror, the bullets now tore through it like paper. But just when all seemed lost for him, the glow vanished and the bullets bounced uselessly off of it again.
He wiped his brow in relief, he could still win this. He hit the controls and the machine pulled itself out of the wall and with a quick flick, the tail sent Heavy into the wall. A yellow blur shot off of Heavy's back and started darting around. Despite the efforts of the machine, the blur dodged each tail and claw strike making its way closer and closer before another hit nearly crushed it. The impact just sent it flying to the side from the wind. As he turned his attentions back to the main fight... He failed to notice a lance of lightning boring a hole into the side of the machine.
As Archimedes climbed in, he took the time to send small overdoses of power to the different nodes, causing different effects. Like a claw starting to spin then shutting off, bullets randomly firing from a turret, and his personal favorite when he found out, the machine started dancing for a few seconds and stopped. During this time, Twisted Gear had no idea what was going on. This was quickly rectified when he felt a small tap on his shoulder and heard quick steps backward.
He turned around and saw Archimedes, sitting right behind him… right next to the power generator and the fake self-destruct button. Archimedes raised a paw over the power generator and another over the button, then quickly put both over the generator and shot a massive amount of electricity into it with the cheekiest grin possible. “Oh horseapples…”
Outside the machine Heavy and Red Cell were watching carefully as the machine sparked, smoked, and right before it exploded Archimedes dove out of the front onto Red Cell’s back.
“Pity… I would’ve liked to get his assistance… Heavy do you know any other inventors?” Red Cell said, not at all upset.
“Nyet! Gear was only one!” Heavy was upset, having considered Twisted Gear an actual friend before this.
“Back to square one zen…”
Both Heavy and Red Cell turned around to leave, stopping only to stare at Big Boom.
“Boom?”
“Yes?”
“Were you just sitting there the entire time?”
Big Boom smiled amiably at them over his bucket of popcorn. “Of course lass! Best show in a long time! And it’s not over yet!” He pointed with a hoof towards the trembling wreckage.
“You… You think you’ve won? No way… I’m just getting started!” Twisted Gear pulled himself free from the wreckage, glaring at Red Cell and Heavy. He cracked his neck, pulled a small button from the scrap metal and grinned at them.
“You think that was my only trick? You really think I’d stop at just one? No. You haven’t won! Not by a long shot!” He slammed his hoof onto the button and the floor under him sank, depositing him into a room filled with even more machines.
“Somepony’s been busy,” Red Cell muttered, flipping the switch on again for the medigun. Heavy began spinning up his minigun and Archimedes began using Charge.
As they moved forward, a platform rose revealing a castle-like machine. It was gold for the most part with the towers, which were spinning, having green where the windows would be. It stood on four legs with a glowing red eye in the center. As the platform finished rising, the eye gave an ominous glow.
“Well I’ll be a scotspony’s uncle. He actually did it,” Boom said, taking a swig of his bottle.
“Did… vat?” Red Cell asked, preparing her medibeam.
“The lad called it Project Manipulator. Said something about it being his best combat bot ever. He was gonna use it for something he called Project Alexander but the guard shut him down before that blasted out of the concept stage.” He took another swig, a bite of popcorn, and pulled out his weapon.
“Well lass, lad, rodent- OW-” He got a slight zap for that one, “-looks like you’ll be needin’ me help! Let’s take this thing down!” He tossed his bottle behind him and laughed maniacally.
Meanwhile - The Lab
“Map?”
“Check.”
“Extra gear?”
“Check.”
“Thinker is an idiot?”
“Che- Hey!”
“Alright, what are you two up to now?” Jackal called out, looking up from the book he’d picked out from the living room.
Experiment and Thinker peered over from a table filled with assorted items, finally catching sight of Jackal.
“Well, Experiment says that his sister is trying to reunite some team and there’s another apparently here in the lab,” Thinker said.
“Team?” Jackal asked.
“My sister was a part of a now disbanded mercenary group which disbanded upon the death of one of their members,” Experiment said, not looking up from his map. “Damn, what was I thinking making it this labyrinthian… Gotta remember. Two left turns, go right, straight for a while…”
“Er… what?” Jackal tilted his head.
“Experiment? Should I explain this?” Thinker turned to him.
“Go ahead. Creating this plan is going to take a bit.”
“Alright… Can I have a cookie?”
“No.”
Thinker sighed and turned towards Jackal. “As you’ve probably noticed, Red Cell and Heavy take up two different roles that work well together.”
Jackal nodded. “Yeah. Heavy would be a… tank right? And Red Cell’s obviously the medic.”
“Precisely. Now what if I were to tell you that they actually did fit their roles in a much larger team?”
Jackal took the time to think about it, grabbing Thinker’s tail when he tried to sneak past.
“Yeah you get the idea,” Thinker grumbled, seeing Jackal’s pale face. “According to Experiment, the pony she went to see was a member of that team as well. He created the tech they use… most of it. The medi-gun was still her own design and Experiment helped her build it.”
“Wait how did he-”
“She threatened to geld him.”
Jackal instinctively covered himself at that.
“There’s also four more members for them to find. One of them goes by the name of Big Boom. He runs a slightly successful demolition company but… given the fact that he’s perpetually drunk, nopony trusts him.”
“He actually makes his explosives while drunk and he does it extremely well!” Experiment called over, writing down a couple things.
“That’s even scarier,” Jackal muttered, "And who else?"
“Then there’s Twisted Gear. He was the mechanic and apparently their weaponry was built with his help-”
“And my own!” Experiment interjected.
“He was the one who would likely bear the most ire towards them,” Thinker continued, sending a glare towards Experiment, “Most of his gear was destroyed by the guard when they were caught as the majority of the team tried to claim they wouldn’t be able to do anything without it… All except him who tried to just take the normal sentence so he wouldn’t lose it. He spent years building it apparently.”
Jackal winced, “So… what should we put on their tombstone then?”
“I wouldn’t underestimate them,” Experiment walked over, with his bags bursting with gear, “Who do you think destroyed them originally? With the majority of the stuff fighting back in fact. Gear apparently programmed self-preservation protocols into them. Despite everything he’s a savant mechanic. Pity his reputation wound up destroyed after that.”
"After that there's Camo. Once again, no one really knows his real name but him and that's because he managed to hide his face extremely well. He's an earth pony but one with a knack for disguising himself. In fact it's completely capable that he's in any town at any point and no one would know it. In the team, he was simply called Spy," Experiment continued.
Thinker walked over and hopped onto Experiment’s back, curling up to nap in the process.
“Uh… Where are you guys going?” Jackal asked.
“One of their team is here. He goes by the name of Sarge though that isn’t his real one. In fact his real one hasn’t been used for so long that he’s forgotten it,” Experiment said, “During the aftermath of Fleet Hoof’s unfortunate demise-”
“Fleet Hoof?” Jackal interjected.
“Their scout. Unfortunate incident that caused the team’s disbanding and the imprisonment of the member who caused it… Who is also batshit insane. I’ll let Red Cell tell the whole story. She… She’s the one who would be better suited,” He broke off a little there, but quickly shook himself out of it and continued on.
“In any case, during the aftermath, he asked me and Gear to create a training room for him. One that was self-sufficient and was locked so that he could only be disturbed if he was needed. We were confused and did so but the instant we did and confirmed it was ready… He locked himself in there and hasn’t been seen for three years. The only reason I know he’s still alive is because his combat record on the system keeps updating. His only solace from his friend’s death was to immerse himself in combat it seems. Well… He’s needed now so I can only hope he’s in his right mind.”
“Let’s get goin’ then!” Jackal walked over to Experiment.
“You’re coming with?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Given what you’re saying you’ll probably need that extra hand otherwise you might get killed!” Jackal chuckled.
“That… is actually very possible. He and Boom are the only ones that couldn’t have their weapons altered to make them safer to the populace,” Experiment mused.
“Wait I was kidding. You’re saying he could actually kill us?” Jackal began panicking.
“Grab a blast shield from the room prior to the training room, you’ll need it.” With that, Experiment began walking down the lab halls, humming quietly to himself.
"I will not ask again," A slightly prench accented voice said, "Where is Red Cell."
"I'm telling you! I don't know! She left town a few days ago and no one's seen her since!" A panicked voice answered.
"Good colt. Here's a candy."
"Huh?"
"And a boot to the head." -thump!... thud-
"It seems my colleague is actually fulfilling her promise. Well little one. It looks like we shall have to track her down before we can find your friend that she has."
"Pika!"
"Ah don't worry. She wouldn't have killed him... Merely opened him up to see what makes him tick."