Chapter 17 - Annihilation
“They all fall down.”
===~+~===
“I can’t believe you actually made me carry your armor all this way,” Thunder complains for practically the hundredth time.
“Oh please,” I tell him. “You’re the strongest and toughest, of us,” I say. “If you couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have suggested it. Besides, you could have asked Arrow or Lightning to carry it for a while, you didn’t have to carry it this whole way alone,” I inform him.
I stares blankly at me, well, I think. It is hard to tell with his helmet on. “You never told me that!” He yells. “You told me to carry your armor and not to drop it, that’s what you said,” Thunder declares.
“Well, yes, I did say that,” I tell him. “But I never said you couldn’t give it to someone else for a bit,” I say with a shrug. “Regardless, we are here now,” I point out. “There is no need to argue about what’s already done.”
“Yea, fine, whatever,” Thunder grumbles. “So, remind me why we are on the highway we scoped the building out on before and not at the front door?” He asks.
I roll my eyes. “I told all of you before, remember? Since it will be close quarters, Arrow and Cygnus will stay up here and provide us with sniper support where they can. Meanwhile, Lightning and the two of us will clear the building floor by floor,” I remind him.
“Alright. But why leave Cygnus up here? He doesn’t have a rifle...oh yea, he can do that whole summoning thing he does,” Thunder mutters.
“Indeed. Not only that, but leaving Arrow here alone doesn’t sit well with me. Raiders or creatures could sneak up on her. Cygnus can help cover her if that should happen,” I inform him.
Lightning chuckles. “You’re finally getting the hang of this whole leadership thing, aren’t you, Ratchet?” He says.
“I guess,” I mutter. “But really, it is just logical thinking. It is like chess, you want to use your pieces to attack, while also keeping them safe from your opponent. In this case, Arrow would be a queen, and Cygnus a knight,” I state. Cygnus nods, but the other three just stare at me blankly.
I facehoof. “Chess? You three don’t know what chess is? Really? You rangers didn’t have a chess board in that Stable of yours?” I ask. They shake their heads. “I’ll explain that latter, then…” I grumble.
“So, if Arrow is a queen, and I a knight, what does that make you three?” Cygnus asks.
I think about it for a moment. “Well, Thunder is strong but not very mobile, so a rook? And Lightning is mobile and can get around opponents, so a bishop?” I suggest. “I would be a...pawn, I think. Given my inability to really hit anything,” I mutter.
Cygnus laughs. “Of course you think yourself a pawn. But, I suppose it does fit. Though, I think it would be better to call you the player, than an actual piece,” He tells me.
“Well, chess comparisons aside, are we ready to begin?” I ask them. They all nod. “Very well, Cygnus, Arrow, you two get set up, Thunder, Lightning, let’s go knock on the door,” I say, walking back down the highway’s slope.
The three of us make our way to the edge of the plaza that surrounds Tenpony. No ghouls appear to be outside, but through the glass doors I can see quite a few of them staggering about. “Well, at least they don’t appear to be intelligent,” I mutter.
We walk though the plaza and reach the stairs. “Let’s try to do things quietly for as long as we can,” I suggest. “No point having them swarm us, and there don’t seem to be many on the first floor. We should be able to take them out without guns,” I think.
“That’s great and all, Ratchet, but what do you want me to do with your armor?” Thunder asks, shifting under the armor weight.
“Just set it right inside the doors for now,” I tell him. “I don’t want to use power unnecessarily,” I say. He nods and we walk though the first set of doors, and then the next, being as quiet as possible.
Thunder sets the armor on the floor as Lightning and I stab the two closest ghouls in the head. Luckily, they aren’t aware of us yet. “HELLO NEW TEST SUBJECTS!” A gravely, buck’s voice calls out. The voice seems to be playing over a PA system. It is causing the ghouls to get stirred up. It seems like our luck is out.
Ghouls begin to rush at us and Thunder and Lightning start shooting. I dash for my armor and start to get in. “My name is Doctor Hearty, and you might be thinking, ‘Doc Hearty, how did you know we were here?’ and that is a good question!” The buck continues.
“Sensors, my dear visitors, sensors rigged to the doors and every other entrance to my tower!” Hearty explains. “My subjects seem a bit hungry, but if you surrender now, I’ll stop them from devouring you! Not only will it save you from a gruesome death, but I will be able to run tests on living subjects!” he proclaims.
My armor seals and I join Thunder and Lightning in dispatching the encroaching ghouls. Mixing in with our bullets is Raptor Blood’s red beam, blowing holes into the ghoul and dismembering them. “No, no, no! My precious subjects!” Hearty screams out. “How dare you! Fine, no holding back then, get them, kill them all!” He shouts.
The ghouls that until now seemed to be hesitating begin swarming towards us with vicious ferocity. My miniguns whirl to life and cut a small group down. “I’ll just run my tests on your dead, rotting flesh! Either way works for me! Die, die, die!” Hearty curses at us through the PA system.
After a minute or so, the lobby is empty of ghouls trying to attack us. “What!? You’re still standing? I might get to experiment on your living tissues after all!” The doctor laughs at us. We spread out and check the rest of this floor, but all the ghouls appear to be dead. “Here, here, let me welcome you up to the second floor!” he calls out, and I hear the sound of an elevator ding.
The three of us gather around it. “This seems like a complete trap,” Thunder mutters. I wholeheartedly agree with him, but…
“I didn’t see any other way up,” Lightning says, echoing my own thoughts. “The stairs are barricaded and it would take far too long to clear them, even with explosives. Not to mention, we should try not to do too much damage to the building,” he adds.
I nod. “So then, into the Doctor Hearty’s elevator, I guess…” I mutter, stepping inside. The brothers file in behind me. I stand near the front of the doors, my armor being the strongest.
“Excellent! Excellent!” Hearty proclaims as the elevator doors shut and it begins to rise. “Now, try your hooves at floor two! Do me a favor and die fast, I have tests to run!” He says, and the doors begin to open. I spin up my miniguns, but as the doors fully open, no ghouls are on the other side.
I stop my guns and hesitantly walk out into the second floor. The hall I walk into is empty of ghouls. Before we leave the elevator, we try to go further up, but it seems to be locked out. We begin walking down the hall at random. Shortly, we emerge into a large, open area. A lounge, of some sort it looks like.
It is dusty, but well preserved furniture is placed around the room and on the walls hang a few paintings, most of which aren’t too badly damaged. One side of the lounge has large ceiling to floor windows. Still no ghouls. We reach the center of the room and look around. “Now my minions! Kill them, kill them all!” Hearty’s voice yells out.
Suddenly, I hear the beating of hooves from all around us. After a moment, I see ghouls approaching from the various halls branching off from the lounge. The three of us waste no time as we begin to put them down. The number of ghouls appears to be greater than those on the first floor, and they seem more organized.
It is almost as though Hearty is somehow controlling them, having them focus on us. My miniguns make short work of a group charging down a narrow hallway, and Thunder cover another hall equally well. Lightning is taking the remaining hall we came from, but I can tell he is getting overwhelmed.
With more ghouls pouring from the halls, Thunder and I are unable to help. A few ghouls make it into the room and near Lightning, but before they can get too close, one of the windows shatters and two of the ghouls drop immediately. Seems like Arrow and Cygnus can see us now. I really doubt those stuck up ponies are going to like the fact we broke a window, but that’s an acceptable loss.
Ghouls continue to come at us for a few minutes, but they eventually stop completely. Hearty let’s out an irritated growl. “You bastards! How dare you kill my minions! Just die already! Do you have any idea how long it took to get this many minions?!” He shouts. “Get back in the elevator, the next floor will finish you off!” He commands.
We ignore him and search the second floor for anymore ghouls or another way up. When we discover the stairs once again blocked, we reluctantly return to the elevator and ascend to the next floor. We progress up the tower in a similar fashion. The number of ghouls increasing at each floor along with their ferocity. All the while, Hearty talks over the PA system.
Third Floor: “The stray scavenger would wonder in every so often, and I would experiment on them. Years and years passed as I continued my tests!” Hearty explains. “Soon, mercenaries began to show up trying to kill me and my minions,” he adds. For whatever reason, Hearty was rather chatty. But we mostly ignore him and kill the ghouls. “Blast! Curse you lot, the next floor will get you!” He calls out as we proceed to the fourth floor.
Fourth Floor: “Most mercenaries found themselves in over their heads, and my ghouls managed to kill them without too much damage to themselves. As a result, my minions have grown in number exponentially!” Hearty yells in triumph as we kill the last ghoul on the floor. “Ack, again!?” He curses as we enter the elevator once again.
Fifth Floor: “As time went by, my tests yielded results, but not what I wanted. The first of my ghouls grew more powerful! Thus the mercenaries and scavengers began to shy away from my tower,” Hearty says with a hint of sadness in his voice. His voice quickly turns to anger as we clear the fifth floor and use the elevator to go up to the sixth.
Sixth Floor: “With new flesh to experiment on dwindling, I sent my ghouls out to abduct ponies for my tests! And so I spent years experimenting while my ghouls would bring me new subjects,” The doctor says with a crazed laugh, which cuts off abruptly as his minions on the sixth floor stop moving.
For the next few floors, Hearty is rather quiet, only ordering us to the elevator when we finish killing the ghouls on the current floor. Undoubtedly, he is getting nervous with us encroaching on his position. We file into the elevator to proceed to the next floor.
“Well, this is going smoothly,” Lightning mutters as the doors close. “Though, with each of us covered in armor, it is hardly fair,” He adds.
“I guess none of the mercs before were Steel Rangers,” Thunder chuckles. “What can ghouls really do against us? Beat themselves to a pulp on our armor?”
I look us over. A few dents here and there on our armor from when the ghouls got a bit too close, but nothing major. We are covered in quite a bit of blood, ichor, and bits of flesh. “Cleaning our armor is going to be a pain,” I mutter, thinking about all the small parts of my armor that I’ll have to painstakingly look over.
The elevator stops and lets out a ‘ding’ as the doors open. “Alright, let’s get this one done,” I say as I take a step out of the elevator. Like the rest of the floors, nothing. Hearty will probably wait for us to fall into his ‘trap’ before we see any ghouls.
We wonder around and eventually Hearty springs his trap on us. Like the other floors, the ghouls swarm at us. CORA and I dispatch any that come our way, but I hear Thunder mutter, “What the fuck?” I turn to see what he’s looking at while CORA keeps the ghouls coming towards us.
A short distance from Thunder is a ghoul like the others, but emitting a slightly glowing aura. It has numerous bullet holes in it already and Thunder focuses fire on it. The ghoul barely reacts and continues charging towards him. It lunges at him as I spin up my miniguns. Thunder dodges to the left and the ghoul lands on the ground just beside him.
It seems dazed for a second, but quickly gets back up as my guns start hitting it with lead. The ghoul gets closer to Thunder, and I stop my guns to avoid hitting him, but the ghoul grabs onto Thunder despite his minigun hitting it point blank in the abdomen. Thunder headbutts the ghoul and punches it with his hooves, but it clings onto him tightly.
After about a minute, the ghoul’s body rips in two and the rear half falls to the ground limply. Just seeing it with the entrails hanging from the front half is enough to make me gag. “Not in the armor Ratchet!” CORA yells at me. I fight down my urge to vomit as the ghoul hangs around Thunder’s neck trying to bite his armor.
“Damn it, get...off...of...me,” Thunder yells at it, punctuating each word with a punch to its head. After a second, Lightning walks over with his knife and stabs the ghoul in the head. The ghoul lurches a bit and attempts to bite Thunder weakly a few more times before it slides to the floor with a thump.
Thunder stomps on its skull. “That one just refused to die,” He says, breathing heavily. I look around us, and it seems that all of the ghouls are dead.
“Ahahahaha!” Hearty laughs. “How did you like fighting a Reaver? It is one of the more ferocious and durable ghouls. Enough radiation, and some unknown factors, and ghouls get a whole lot more powerful!” He declares, laughing some more. “Quickly now, into the elevator, let me turn the tables on you!” He shouts.
As usual, we ignore him and search the rest of the floor. Finding it empty, and the stairs blocked, we reluctantly get into the elevator once more. We quickly clear two more floors, encountering even more Reavers. It also seems like Hearty has realized we have snipers outside, as the last few floors we’ve been ambushed in rooms without windows.
“I must congratulate you,” Hearty says as the doors open to the next floor. “You’re the only ones who have reached this far. Since I blocked up the stairs, anyway. But this floor will spell your death! No escape from this nightmare you foals!” His laughing punctuates his point.
“Is it just me, or does it seem like he is getting cocky?” Lightning asks.
“Oh no, he definitely is,” I agree. “Ever since those ‘Reavers’ of his. Are there Reavers elsewhere in the wasteland?” I ask them.
“First time I’ve seen one,” Thunder answers. “But, we have had reports of some ferals being stronger than others. Just never really a name for them,” he explains.
“I see. I really hope new kinds of ghouls doesn’t become a thing, those Reavers are difficult enough to deal with. What’s next? Ferals that can use guns, or breath fire?” I mutter.
Lightning chuckles. “I’m pretty sure they can’t use guns anymore. Feral unicorns don’t seem to have control over their magic, and the others sometimes lack jaws and the like to work them,” he says.
“Good point, I guess,” I agree as we continue walking. We pass by a locked door that seems to lead into a hall with stairs at the end of it. I can see though the glass that it seems to lead to the upper and lower floors. There also appears to be windows on one side of it, and I think the others are on that side. I’ve gotten sort of turned around since entering the tower.
“Hey,” I say as I stop. “I don’t think he blocked these stairs, maybe we can get up from here, without having to deal with his elevator business. If we can sneak around and take him out, the ghouls might lose their organization,” I suggest.
Lightning inspects the door. “We might as well try,” he agrees. “But the door looks pretty sturdy and the lock is pretty complex. Unless you can pick it, we won’t be able to get through without blowing the door, and I doubt our clients would like that,” he tells me.
“Yea, let me try the lock,” I say as I fish out a bobby pin and begin to work my magic. “Cover me, this might take a bit.” We are standing in a hall, so there are only two directions the ghouls can come from, if they do at all. I begin working on the lock.
“Hey!” Hearty suddenly calls out. “Stop that! That is against the rules, don’t open that door!” He yells. He sounds panicked, which must mean that the stairs really aren’t blocked. I chuckle a bit. Did he only block the stairs up so far, expecting no one to get this far up?
“I mean it! Uh, er...Minions, get them!” He yells. In moments, ghouls begin swarming down the halls towards us. Thunder and Lightning start shooting and CORA helps out with Raptor Blood when any of the ghouls get too close.
“Anytime you’re ready, Ratchet,” Thunder calls back at me. “You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you let me use my rockets,” he adds.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lightning cuts in. “That would make an even bigger mess of the place,” he explains.
“Almost...almost…” *snap* “Whoops,” I mutter as I float out another bobby pin and get back to work. I’ve narrowed things down a bit, but I’m having difficulty getting it just right in the lock. I adjust the bobby pin and twist the lock with my magic and…*snap* “Oh come one!” I yell as I pull out another pin.
“Third time’s the charm,” I mutter as I carefully turn the pin and then slowly twist the lock. Nope, not there...I release the lock and move the pin a smidge to the left. “How about…” *click* “Ah ha!” I exclaim as the lock opens. I put the bobby pin away as I open the door.
“It’s open, let’s go!” I tell the others as I head inside the hall and trot over to the stairs. Lightning is the first to follow, and then Thunder. The hall is so narrow, Lightning can barely shoot around the mass of Thunder’s armor. The brothers slowly back into the hall and to the stairs as I check to make sure they are unblocked.
“Looks like the Doc didn’t barricade up any further,” I tell them. “But the stairs going down are blocked up,” I add. I look back from the stairs at the ghouls that are continuing to pool into the hallway. Thunder’s minigun cuts them down only for more to enter into the room.
“You two keep going,” Thunder tells us. “This hallway is narrow enough, I can keep them from getting past. If we all go up, they will just start coming up behind us,” he explains.
“He’s got a point,” Lightning adds. “The number of ghouls and their ferocity is increasing. Our armor is keeping us safe for now, but if we start letting them come up behind us, we might get overwhelmed.”
I think about it for a moment. They do have valid points. “Alright, hold them back here Thunder. Hearty might also try to send some down in the elevator to come up behind us. Lightning and I will clear out the rest on the upper floors. I don’t think we have far to go,” I tell him.
Lightning and I start up the stairs, but I pause and call back down, “You can use grenades if you have to, but no rockets!” I hear him laugh as we reach the next floor and open the door.
We are immediately set upon by ghouls and shoot our way though the doorway. After killing six, nothing else is moving. The two of us start exploring the floor, being extra careful since it is now just the two of us. We find a few more ghouls, but none are Reavers so things go suspiciously smooth.
As we walk back towards the stairs, I ask CORA a question. “CORA, we’re near the top now, right? That crazy doctor has to be in some sort of security closet where he can see cameras and what not. You recall anything about Tenpony’s construction that would tell us what floor he’s on?” I ask.
“It would make sense, but I’m not sure where he would be exactly. I think Tenpony has a few security rooms, but the ones we’ve passed were empty. The top floor is the broadcasting station, so he’ll be somewhere on the next three floors,” CORA suggests.
I blink. “We are that high already? Only three floors left, excluding the roof and radio floor?” I ask. CORA mutters confirmation. “Alright then, let’s finish this up!” I say with enthusiasm as we enter the staircase again.
I can still hear Thunder’s minigun shooting ghouls. Were there that many ghouls on that floor, or did Hearty send more down after us? “Thunder!” I call down. “The next floor is clear, we’re moving up!”
“Sounds good, I got this covered!” Thunder’s voice returns from below. I nod and we continue up to the next floor. The door to this floor isn’t even locked. Seems like Hearty never expected anyone to make it up this far. We exit the stairway and begin searching the floor.
The lighting on this floor seems to have gone pretty bad. Dark spots are all over and only a bit of light illuminates the halls. Fading light comes through the windows we pass, it seems like the sun is beginning to set. If we waste anymore time, Arrow and Cygnus won’t be able to provide us with support. Not to mention my suit’s power is starting to get really low.
We check room after empty room, but find nothing on this floor so far. When we reach the elevator lobby however, the room is pitch black aside from a green glow. For whatever reason, no windows are in this lobby. Unable to find the source of the glow from the hall, we enter the lobby cautiously, our lights cutting into the darkness.
Nearing the center of the room, I hear a faint, but frequent clicking. “Is that...the geiger?” I mutter, and look at my HUD’s radiation monitor. Something is causing the needle to rise almost halfway up the meter! I look around for the source and my eyes fall on a glowing green lump along the wall.
Despite my light on it, I can’t make out what exactly it is. “GET THEM NOW!” Hearty yells suddenly. Instantly, I hear snarls and guttural sounds all around us. I quickly look around and see ghouls surrounding us. Were they hiding behind the furniture and along the walls? Lightning and I flank each other as the ghouls slowly circle around us, as though they are waiting for something.
I can see a few Reavers in the group of ghouls as well. “Open fire!” I yell as I spin up my miniguns. I hear CORA and Lightning begin shooting, and a moment later lead starts flying from my guns. The ghouls instantly charge at us, the only thing illuminating them is our headlamps and the flash of our guns.
The normal ferals go down easy, but as usual the Reavers are the issue. Raptor Blood punches holes through them, and my minigun tears off their limbs, but they keep coming. “Ratchet, we are running low on ammo,” CORA informs me. “Spark batteries are also nearly exhausted, using the lamp isn’t helping,” she adds.
Just as the words fade away, the lump of glowing radioactivity suddenly moves. It stands up and I am able to see the outline of a pony, a glowing, ghoulish pony. It stares directly at me, takes a few steps towards me, and then lets out a loud, horrible scream. At the same time, radiation seems to explode from it, causing my needle to spike even further.
“What the hell is that?” Lightning says in surprise from behind me. I’m about to reply, but stop as I notice the dead ghouls start to move again. Most of them are lacking limbs, but they start to pull themselves across the floor towards me.
I let out a scream as I open fire at the newly revived ghouls, tearing their bodies to shreds before focusing my guns on the glowing ghoul. It takes my hits like a Reaver would, and I even see it’s body slowly healing the bullet holes. CORA stops shooting the other ghouls, and focuses on my target.
One of her shots takes the ghoul’s right legs off mid charge, causing it to fall and skid to a stop directly in front of me. I keep both my guns on it as I get closer to get better accuracy and keep pouring more lead into the monster. After a few moments, it’s head bursts into a spray of blood and brain and it seems to go still. I keep shooting for a few seconds to make absolutely sure.
While I’m distracted shooting the hopefully dead ghoul, CORA shoots a few of the other ghouls around me. When I finally stop firing, everything is silent except for my heavy breathing. I slowly look around the room. Dead ghouls are everywhere, torn limb from limb with blood and gore sprayed all over the walls.
Lightning is covered in even more gore, and I assume the same of myself. “What the FUCK, was that?” Lightning yells. “Did that thing somehow revive the ghouls we already killed?” He asks.
“I...I think so,” I mutter in shock. “It was even healing itself as I was shooting it…” The light around the glowing ghoul dies down and along with it so does the chirping of my geiger counter. “Radiation…?” I question.
“I hear ghouls can heal with radiation,” Lightning says. “Did that ghoul absorb so much radiation that it could heal others around it though? Even bringing them back from the read?” He stammers.
“I have no idea, I just really, never, want to fight another one of those,” I say with a sigh as we step over the bodies and start to check the rest of the floor.
Our search turns up nothing, so we head back into the staircase. I don’t hear gunfire from below. Did Thunder finish them all up? “Thunder, are things alright down there?” I call down as we start to walk up the stairs to the next floor.
After a moment, he calls back with, “Just fine! They’ve stopped coming in a bit ago. I’ll keep guard here, you two keep going!”
“Alright, be careful!” I reply as we reach the next floor’s doorway. “Let’s do this, just three more floors and then the roof and we’ll be done,” I tell Lightning as we open the door. Two floors, the broadcasting station, and the roof. We got this. I’ll have to be extra careful around the broadcasting equipment.
“Let’s,” Lightning agrees as we walk into the hall. It looks pretty identical to the last few floors and we begin going door to door like usual and checking all the rooms. Empty, one after the other. “Seems that doctor has run out of things to say,” Lightning mutters.
“Yea. Either that, or he left and ran away,” I say with a grin. I let out a forced chuckle as I realize Lightning can’t see the grin through my helmet. Still not used to wearing a helmet. We finish up one room and step back into the hallway. Immediately, hoofsteps approach us from both sides of the hallway. “Oh,” I mutter.
Ghouls have us surrounded, trapped in the center of this hallway. “Ambushing us in a narrow hall? He realizes that our guns will tear through them since they can only come at us from two directions, right?” Lightning says as he begins shooting at the ghouls the way we came from.
“Looks like he is getting desperate,” I say as I spin up my miniguns and start cutting down the ghouls in front of us. “You know, this carpet is going to be really gross once we’re done,” I yell over the roar of my guns.
“No kidding,” Lightning agrees. “Maybe they’ll pull it all up and just use whatever is under it?” He suggests as he takes out another ghoul. “Hey, Ratchet, a thought occurs to me. Why are these ghouls coming up from behind us?” he asks. I can tell there is a hint of worry in his voice.
“Maybe Hearty sent them down a floor using the elevator and they came up the stairs behind us without Thunder knowing?” I suggest. “If Thunder saw them, he’d have put a lot more holes in them than these have.”
“Good point,” Lightning agrees. “I hope they aren’t attacking him from two sides then,” he mutters.
“He’ll be fine, Arrow and Cygnus are cover--Reavers!” I yell as two appear in front of me. I push myself to the left side of the hall as CORA swings Raptor Blood at the nearest one. Lightning spins around and the three of us quickly dispatch the two Reavers before he spins around again.
“They seem a lot more desperate this time,” I say, as empty 5mm casings rain down from my guns.
“Perhaps Hearty is on this floor then,” CORA suggests, taking a ghoul’s head clean off with her gun. “He might be pooling his resources in a last ditch effort to take us out,” she explains.
“Well then,” I begin, as I cause a ghoul to lose its right legs, “let’s go say hello.” I begin walking down the hall and Lightning walks backwards after me. “Careful of the bodies,” I tell him as I carefully step over them.
We make our way down the hall, pausing to occasionally open doors we pass to check if Hearty is lurking inside one of the rooms. The empty rooms continue as the ghouls keep coming at us from both sides and we reach the elevator.
The elevator opens and a glowing ghoul steps out of it. It looks at us curiously as I turn to shoot at it. “Ratchet!” CORA yells just before the glowing ghoul screams, sending a shockwave of radiation towards us and the ghouls. The already dead ghouls begin to rise once again, and those we’ve hit begin to heal their wounds.
“Ratchet, your…” CORA tries to say again, but the sound of my miniguns firing drown out the sound of her voice. After a few seconds her face appears on my screen along with a flashing phrase, ‘LOW AMMO’. I read the text and glance down at my ammo readings right as both of them reach zero and my miniguns start spinning without shooting anything out.
“Fuck,” I mutter, taking a step back from the glowing ghoul as CORA shoots at it. This is bad, I don’t think I can get a gun out through the armor, like I could a bobby pin. With the ghouls getting close to us and only CORA and Lightning shooting, I start to panic.
I clench my eyes shut and reach out with my magic. I grab a ghoul missing its lower body that is crawling towards me and throw it at the glowing one. The glowing ghoul is knocked over and the other one can’t seem to get off of it. The glowing one bites at the other, trying to pull it off.
I look at the room of ghouls and find a severed leg. Picking it up in my magic, I start smacking the closest ghouls and beating them back while the CORA and Lightning finish them off. Before the glowing one can recover, we manage to dispose of most of them.
“Quick! Kill it, kill it now!” I yell as I start hitting the glowing ghoul on the head with the severed leg. The other two shoot it and eventually it stops moving. I keep hitting the ghoul with the leg for a bit longer, just to make absolutely sure it won’t be getting up again.
“I HATE THESE THINGS!” I yell as I drop the leg from my magic. The rest of the ghouls are dead and no more seem to be coming for us. I clear my throat. “Ok, now them. Let’s find Hearty,” I say as I continue down the hall.
“Uh, Ratchet, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…” CORA starts to say, but is interrupted when a message flashes up on my screen, ‘insufficient power, ejecting pilot’. A moment later, the armor stops moving mid-step and opens up.
“Oh come on!” I shout as I get out of the armor. “Seriously, we are so close to being done! Damn glowing ghouls kept us too long…” I growl angrily. I grind my teeth. “Fuck it, let’s just go,” I sigh.
“I’ll take point now,” Lightning says, stepping up in front of me. “If anymore ghouls come, you’ll be vulnerable now, so just stay behind me if you can.” I grumble, but agree and let him take the lead. We search a few more rooms before we reach the end of the hall and the last door.
The door seems sturdier than the others, and is made of metal instead of wood. I try the handle, but it is locked. I float out a bobby pin and knock on the door. “Hearty! Just open the door and give it up!” I call through the door. “Make this easier on yourself!”
No response, so I begin picking the lock. After a few moments, the lock lets out a satisfying *click*. “Alright Hearty, we’re coming in!” I say and begin to open the door, but Lightning stops me.
“Let me go first,” He mutters and pushes me aside. “Armor, and all, you know,” he explains. I nod and he opens the door. As soon as the door is fully open, I hear the sound of a shotgun fire, followed by the buckshot hitting Lightning’s armor. “Bad idea,” Lightning says, and another shot is fired at him. “Come on in Ratchet, he’s out of ammo,” Lightning calls back.
I enter the room, it is little bigger than a usual closet, but contains a desk with a terminal on top of it, a microphone, and numerous monitors. The room itself has plain walls and a linoleum floor. Sitting with his back against the far wall, clenching a double barrel shotgun, is presumably Hearty.
“S-stay back!” Hearty orders us, waving the empty shotgun between us. “I’ll...i’ll summon more...yes, more minions! Stronger, more ferocious!” He yells, grinning sheepishly.
“You’re out of ammo, and if you had more ghouls, I think you’d have already summoned them here,” Lightning says, walking over to the ghoul, taking the shotgun in his mouth, and throwing it across the room.
“My friend has a point,” I tell him. “This is checkmate.” Lightning looks back, probably wondering what I just said means. I roll my eyes, “We win,” I explain. He nods and turns back to look at Hearty. “So, you’re a ghoul too?” I ask him.
“Y-yes, of course! How else would I control and experiment on the others?” Hearty replies. “You fools, you ruined all of my research, decades of tests, ruined!” He yells. “What’s a few lives in comparison to my research!? You could have just left me in peace!” Hearty says with a snarl.
“No research is worth the lives of innocents,” I tell him. “No matter what you were doing.” He gives me a nasty look, then laughs.
“Even if it could reverse or prevent ghoulification?” He asks. “My research could have stopped it, perhaps. At the very least, it might have stopped us from going feral!” Hearty explains. “Mr. Tenpony is going to be quite upset with you lot,” He grins at us.
“Mr. Tenpony? So, someone else other than you is still alive?” I ask him. Mr. Tenpony, the owner of Tenpony Tower. He was still alive? If he was, he would have to be a ghoul.
“Of course! I’m the Tower’s resident doctor, it is my duty to serve Mr. Tenpony and he wants a cure to our ailment,” Hearty explains. “He will be quite cross with you, might even kill you himself because of the trouble you caused,” he laughs.
“If that army of ghouls didn’t get us, what makes you think he can do that?” Lightning asks. Doctor Hearty only laughs. “I’m pretty sure the doctor is losing it, Ratchet,” Lighting says, turning to me. “Shall we take him out and finish up?” he asks.
“No, we shouldn’t kill him, he isn’t a feral. We can have Friendship City punish him or something, we aren’t here to kill unarmed ponies. Do you have any rope? We can tie him up for now,” I suggest.
“Of course,” Lightning says and brings out some rope from his bags. “Now then, stay still Hearty, or I’ll have to hurt you,” he says as Hearty backs further into the wall. After some grunting and swearing, Lightning gets Hearty tied up to the desk in the room. While he does that, I take a look at the terminal, and return manual control to the elevator.
“Alright, let’s make sure the rest of the tower is clear, and then we can leave,” I say. We exit the security closet and make our way back to my armor. “And get my armor before we leave, of course,” I add before continuing on.
“Sorry we couldn’t get the power working better, Ratchet,” CORA says, popping up with a sad face in my vision.
“No worries, I was working on it too, after all. We’ll have time to tinker with it once we get back,” I tell her. We reach the stairs and walk up to the next floor. Once I open the door, I can immediately tell this floor is different than the others.
“Wow, this floor is pretty swanky, don’t you think?” I ask. The other floors weren’t unimpressive or anything, but this floor is a lot more posh and high-class looking. Fancy red carpeting, numerous portraits, occasional busts or vases on marble pillars. Even the doors appear to be elegantly carved wood.
“Indeed, it is like stepping into a completely different world,” Lightning agrees. We check the first few rooms, much bigger than the rooms on the lower floors. They also look mostly untouched due to the dust, almost like no ghouls have wondered into them.
The next room we come to, I faintly hear something on the other side. I signal to Lightning, and he carefully opens the door and enters through first. “It’s fine,” he calls back. “You might want to see this,” he says as I enter the room.
It is another apartment like the rest of the rooms, but multiple times more extravagant, even compared to the other rooms on this floor. On the bed on the far side of the room, is a fancy dressed ghoul, chained to the bed with a collar. It stares at us, growling and making sickening noises.
“That looks like…” I walk closer to the bed. His skin is rotting, a lot of his hair is missing, and he lacks any form of manners, but… “Mr. Tenpony?” I ask. The ghoul tilts its head at me, before lurching forward and snapping his jaws. The only thing keeping it from biting into me, is the chain keeping it on the bed.
“Someone important?” Lightning asks, as he approaches the bed.
I nod. “He was rich, back before the war. He is the one who owns and built this tower. In the past, he was an influential member of the Manehatten social elite, and held sway over various decisions and businesses. But…” I trail off.
Lightning looks at me for a moment, and finishes what I am thinking. “Why wasn’t he in a Stable? If he was that influential, shouldn’t he have been high on the list of admittance to one?” he asks.
“That’s what I thought. But, given the state of the tower, I don’t think the Megaspells even damaged it. Time did this, not any sort of attack,” I say, scratching my head in thought. “But how? As far as I knew, it was just a normal high-rise building. Could he have done something to it that saved it?”
“Hmm. Well, never mind how the building still stands, we should probably, you know,” Lightning says, nodding his head at the ghoul of Mr. Tenpony.
I blink a few times, but then nod. “Yea, yea. Of course,” I say and pull out Forgiveness. “Sorry, Mr. Tenpony,” I mutter and pull the trigger. Mr. Tenpony’s head jerks and he falls limp on the bed. I put Forgiveness away and turn back to the door.
“Let’s finish this floor, then make sure the broadcasting equipment is good,” I tell Lightning and we exit the room. The rest of the floor is uneventful. It seems that Hearty kept the other ghouls off this floor in respect for Mr. Tenpony.
I wonder if Hearty knows Tenpony is feral, or if he is so far gone himself he can’t tell the difference anymore. Either way, Hearty is insane, using innocents to conduct research. I understand his want to help others, but that isn’t the way to go about it.
Lightning and I reach the final floor before the roof, the broadcasting floor. We enter into a large lobby with a huge fountain in the middle of it. The water has stagnated, the fountain looks magnificent. This floor looks just as untouched as the previous, and after searching through the rooms, my assumption is confirmed.
“So, that’s it then,” Lightning mutters as we look over the large switch board in the recording room. “All this looks is good condition, it should function properly,” he tells me.
“Good, let’s just make sure nothing is on the roof, and then we can head back down,” I tell him. After making our way to the roof, we discover the roof is empty of hostiles. We turn around begin to head back down to my armor.
“I should tell Arrow and Cygnus we’re done so they can meet up with us at the entrance,” I mutter as we walk. “CORA, tune the radio, would you?” I ask her. She nods and switches the radio over. “Hey Arrow, Cygnus, you two there? The tower is clear, you can meet us down at the entrance,” I say over the radio.
Static greets me in return, and I can faintly hear something within it. Breathing, but heavy and jittery. “Arrow, Cygnus, are you two alright?” I ask again, worry welling up within me. I wait a few moments, and say again, “You two there?”
A second later, Cygnus’s voice comes over the radio. “We’re fine, Ratchet. We’ll meet you at the entrance,” He says in an odd voice. Nothing else comes over the radio. I shrug and we continue to my armor.
Lightning picks up my armor, and we make our way down to the floor Thunder is on. We hit the landing and I announce, “All clear Thunder, let’s…” but I trail off when I don’t see him in the hall. Dozens of ghouls litter the hall, including a few reavers and a glowing one.
Countless bullet casings are on the ground and I can see a number of holes in the wall across from the windows where Cygnus and Arrow were shooting into the hall. I can tell a few explosives have gone off in the hall and the attached hallway to this floor.
“Where do you think he went?” I ask Lightning. But he doesn’t respond, instead he stares at a large hole in the windows. He slowly walks over to it, and after a moment's hesitation, he peeks over the edge down to the ground.
“No...no, no, no, no, no,” Lightning mutters as he stumbles away from the window and falls against the wall. He sits with his front hooves clenching his head.
“Lightning, what’s the matter?” I ask him, as I look out the window. I see a few ghouls laying dead on the ground, and the setting sun is reflecting off of another object. I squint at the object, “What is…” My blood runs cold. “No way…” I mutter.
I take a step back from the window. The image flashing into my mind again and again. Steel Ranger armor, crumpled and broken. “It can’t be…Maybe he, got out and used it as a decoy?” I mutter.
“No, I saw the blood coming from his armor, he is inside,” Lightning says as he stares blankly. “My brother...Thunder...He’s gone…” He stammers. “I’m going to...I need a bit, Ratchet. Just let me...think...for a moment,” he tells me.
I nod. “I’ll be in the elevator, take your time,” I tell him and leave the hallway. I walk to the elevator deep in thought. What happened? Did the ghouls rush him and force him out the window? Could I have prevented this? I sit in the elevator, and cry, as undoubtedly Lightning is as well.
After a few moments, I get angry. Hearty did this, he is the one who sicked his ghouls on us. It is his fault, his, that Thunder is dead. Forget having Friendship City punish him, we should do it. I glance at the elevator buttons and press the one for Hearty’s floor. The doors close and the elevator rises.
The elevator stops and the doors open. Immediately I shoot out of the elevator at a brisk trot towards the security closet. My anger and determination rising with every step. I kick open the security door and draw Forgiveness from its holster. Hearty’s eyes fly open and stare at me as I advance towards him, pressing the barrel against his head.
Hearty begins to make noises through the gag we put in his mouth and attempts to move away from me to no avail. I stare into his eyes with hatred as I start to pull the trigger. But I stop shy of fully depressing the trigger. Forgiveness trembles in my magic as I feel my eye twitching.
“No,” I mutter, pulling the gun away from his head. “You don’t deserve it,” I tell him with a sigh. I put Forgiveness back in its holster. Hearty seems to relax a bit and his eyes go back to normal. I dig through my bags and pull out my shotgun.
I put the shotgun to his head. “You don’t deserve Forgiveness,” I say as I glare at him expressionlessly. His eyes start to go wide again, but with a pull of the shotgun’s trigger, any expression he makes is wiped away forever. The wall is painted with his blood and brain, and I feel something wet hit my face.
I place the shotgun back in my bags as I wipe my face with a hoof. “Forgiveness is a courtesy,” I say to his corpse. “Something that you don’t get to have.” I turn and head back towards the elevator, closing the door behind me.
===~+~===
Level Up!
-Level 9
+15 Big Guns
+10 Lockpicking
+3 Repair