Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 1)
Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 1)
Once again, Vinyl found herself plummeting through the sky; earthbound. Wind whipped around the outside of her mechanical shell like ghostly screams from souls long tormented, it was almost deafening. She had done this so many times now that it wasn’t really all that frightening. She had stopped counting how many times she had dropped into combat, how many times she had charged forth into the enemy with rifle raised and cries of war.
Though she hadn’t ever gotten over the rush of it, the adrenaline it sent soaring through your body as you plummeted downwards towards the ground. She had about fifteen seconds before she and her teammates hit the ground, so she took time to check all of her gear and equipment as they materialized in her mechanical hands and on her body.
She was a level ten now, and had upgraded and unlocked a fair amount of neat gear. Her Assault Rifle sported many upgrades. It bore an extended clip and red-dot sight. As for her armor and equipment, she had a pistol, grenades, even a combat tomahawk. Her outer shell was still painted white with blue accents around her visor, and on her forearms and shins, but her armor plating was more angled and sharp-looking than the default option; it had been one of the first armor-styles she had unlocked and she had quickly become fond of it.
The ground suddenly came into view, and the map along with it. This was a new map; the area looked frozen and cold, resembling a giant, icy city in the middle of the arctic plains. It was a giant square. Old, frosty-looking buildings and factories sat around the outskirts, and in the middle of it all was a towering power-plant that spewed smoke into the sky like some giant metal dragon. The game was Hardcore Big Brawl, 10v10, one life, wipe out the entire enemy team to win.
Seconds later, Vinyl hit the ground. The legs of her massive mechanical marvel bent and absorbed the shock, then quickly extended back upwards and allowed her full control of the machine. As the clouds of fresh snow flew up around her, Vinyl took a deep breath. The air was chilly, though not entirely unpleasant; it whipped against her hull in short, strong bursts of snow and sleet. She had landed in a field covered with snow and sparsely populated with massive pine trees. She stood in the middle of an icy road that lead into the city only about a hundred yards away.
“Right…” Vinyl said softly, raising her rifle up and cocking it. The weapon made a satisfying, metallic ‘Click-Click’. “Are we sticking together, or…?”
As she turned around, Vinyl found that well over half of their team had already begun making their way off into the city. She didn’t bother catching their names or trying to wave them down, they’d do what they wanted to do anyway. She had learned that usually it took repetitive destruction before ponies understood that sticking with their team was the most life-preserving solution.
There were three ponies that remained in the spawn-area, though. Two Warrior-Class and one Heavy Class.
The Heavy Class was painted a soft brown color, and had tan accents on its shoulders, back and legs. The giant robot carried a massive machine gun with a heavy ammo bag slapped onto the bottom. In addition, a massive hammer appeared to be strapped onto the robot’s back. On its back shoulders, was a painted image of a hammer crossed over a thunder bolt, The name “MjOWNa” hovered above the metal behemoth in burning letters, accompanied by the level indicator of ‘12’.
She could only see one Warrior-Class clearly, and the one she did see was painted a crème color with blonde accenting on the shoulders, forearms, lower legs and around the visor; which had an image of a steaming coffee cup painted on each side. It carried a long, sleek, Marksman Rifle in its metal hands, and the name “MarchyMarch” hovered over it in burning letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘18’
They certainly weren’t noobs. Vinyl figured that her best bet was to throw in with these guys, they probably knew each other and she didn’t mind playing the role of an order-taking soldier. She rested her rifle on her shoulder and clunked over to the group. They were chatting softly, probably making battle plans, which was good. Organized teams were good teams.
“Hey, you guys?” Vinyl called, sauntering casually over beside them.
“MjOWNa” and “MarchyMarch” both turned to face her, and in the process revealed the third member of their group. Who it had turned out to be couldn’t have surprised Vinyl more. She knew exactly who it was the minute she saw that username.
“StarSwirlFanGirl”, A.K.A, Twilight Sparkle, stood across from Vinyl. Her armor itself hadn’t changed too much; it still held that same purple-hued coloring with the very same chest markings. Though, this time she carried a much larger rifle and was now level 21.
Vinyl stopped in her tracks. A small grin grew across her face, and she cocked her hips to one side and rested a hand on them. “Hey...I know you.” She crooned, snickering softly to herself as she took two more steps and closed the distance between herself and the group.
“You two know one another?” ‘MarchyMarch’ said curiously, swinging her rifle around and resting it on her shoulder; like Vinyl.
Twilight took a brief moment to give Vinyl a good look, it didn’t take long before it all came flooding back to her. It was obvious that it all came flooding back, as evident by the “Oh.” That soon left her mouth in a mixture of surprise and humiliation.
Vinyl laughed, shaking her head a bit. “Not really. The Princess and I met a long time ago, in battle. I seem to remember nailing her to a wall with a stoplight…”
Twilight snorted, clawed feet scratching at the frosty pavement. “Right. Yes. I remember you. You fought…well.” By the end of her words, Twilight seemed to have shoved aside and buried any sort of remorse towards the DJ, at least for the moment. “And, you can just call me Twilight, please.” She said with a meek smile.
“Right then, Twilight. I assume you three know one another and have some sort of a plan?” Vinyl inquired, turning slowly to look out at the dusty city in the distance.
“Actually, yes we do, and yes we do.” Twilight said, “The big one is Mjolna, and the other is March, March Gustysnows!” As she spoke, Twilight had pushed her way up beside Vinyl and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And I know you already know who I am…” She said cheerily, though not without giving a strong squeeze that knocked Vinyl’s shoulder armor down to 99%.
Vinyl flinched a bit and pulled out of the grip, turning back and looking at the other two mares. “Gustysnows…aren’t you a politician out of Whinnyappolis?” She asked, giving March a curious glance.
“Ah, I just so happen to be her!” March said happily, stepping forth and extending a mechanical hand. “Pleasure to meet ya!”
Vinyl nodded and gave a half-grin, shaking March’s hand and giving Mjolna a nod, before turning back to Twilight; who was staring out at the city in the distance. “A plan, you said?” She asked.
“Yes. A plan. We need to get somewhere up high, but not in the center of the map. It’s too obvious…” She paused for a moment, placing a clawed, mechanical hand on her hip. “That building, there.” She said, raising up her hand and pointing out to a tall building on the left of the map. “We get there and set up shop atop it. If nothing else, it’ll give us the high-ground.”
“Yeah, but it’ll also put us in a really exposed position…” Vinyl suggested, clunking up beside Twilight. The DJ gave her a brief glance through the visor-plate, before looking back out upon the city. “Easy targets, and easy to sneak up on.”
“True.” Mjolna interjected, “But if March and I watch the perimeter around the building while you and Twilight get up there and scout the area, we could eliminate at least some of the danger, and we wouldn’t have to go into this completely blind.
There was a distant explosion just then, followed by multiple bursts of gunfire from various weapons.
“No more talking, let’s get going, yeah?” March said quickly, clunking forward and pushing past Vinyl and Twilight. “I don’t wanna miss the fun!”
Vinyl nodded and turned to Twilight once more, giving her a pat on the armored shoulder. “Well, looks like you get the pleasure of my company atop the building; aren’t you just blessed!”
“Oh, I’m just bursting with enthusiasm…” Twilight said with a sigh, slumping a bit before clunking off through the snow and after her teammates.
Vinyl snickered softly to herself, shouldering her rifle and aiming it low as she moved off after the group.
As they moved into the city, the four of them moved surprisingly stealthily even with a Heavy Class. They had all done this plenty of times; it was evident in their movement. The group had fanned out across the street, one of them always checking behind so as to avoid an ambush. The rooftops were checked frequently, mostly by Vinyl. She had been dropped down on from the roof of many a tall building; she didn’t intend to let it happen here.
Snow whipped against her metal form as they moved, and frost had begun to form around the edge of her visor plate. She couldn’t feel the cold though. Her cockpit was warm and pleasant, the hum of a built-in heating/cooling unit was a constant, though not annoying. Her clawed feet did well to break through any sheets of ice on the street and prevent her from slipping, so that wasn’t much of an issue. The temperature gauge on her HUD said it was a chilly ten degrees outside, and warned of an oncoming snowstorm that would be upon them within the hour.
Vinyl kept her rifle low, but ready. She scanned the buildings on either side of their group. Ice-covered skyscrapers stood tall and proud, mixed in with shorter buildings that looked like they held some sort of purpose for science or research, though of what she wasn’t sure. The sound of gunfire in the distance was sporadic. It would occasionally pop up for a little while, and then die off. So far one player had been eliminated; One “Junebug01”, from Vinyl’s own team. Though all of said carnage had come from the other side of them map.
This wasn’t uncommon, for the majority of both teams to gravitate to one side of the map. Either they would both go to the same side and hunt one another down, or each go to one side and eventually one team would circle around onto the other, but of course there was always the times when everyone just ran out on their own and it was a complete mess, Vinyl had experienced so many different ways these things could play out, and she was confident there would be countless more.
Luckily for her, it seemed to be going some way that kept the enemy out of their way for the time being, not that she had any issues with head-on combat of course; It was just nice to do a little bit more as far as tactics were concerned.
“This building, up here on the right.” Twilight’s voice suddenly broke the vocal silence that had carried on for the past five minutes.
Vinyl turned her gaze and watched as Twilight waved over in the direction of the skyscraper they had originally picked out. It was only half a block away now, and the whole group broke into a short but quick jog to close the distance between them and their destination. Once they arrived, Twilight began to give orders like a regular military general.
“Right then, March and Mjolna, set up down here, but stay out of sight. Patch Vinyl and I into a group comms channel, if you run into trouble, well…start shooting. We’ll get down here as fast as we can.” Twilight said with a shrug, watching her two friends nod and move off to either corner of the building.
“Vinyl, I hope you can climb…” Twilight said uncertainly, giving the DJ a sort of ‘This’ll be interesting’ type of look.
Vinyl scoffed, swinging her rifle around and clipping it to the magnetic plates on her back. She stepped up to the building with heavy, mechanical clunks. The walls were mostly concrete and stone, with long glass windows here and there. Ice and frost coated almost the entire surface; it certainly wouldn’t be helpful.
“Yeah…I uh…I’ve got this.” She said, chuckling sheepishly to herself and giving Twilight a less-than-confident look, before leaning back a bit and gazing up at the top of the skyscraper. It was easily eighty stories to the top, and it was a long, long drop if you fell even halfway.
Vinyl reached out and gripped firmly onto the side of the building as high up as she could; her claws broke through the glass and dug into the more firm, stable structure of the building. It held her weight easily, now it was just a matter of keeping a good hold. She flashed a quick glance over at Twilight; who was quickly scaling the front of the building in a manner much quicker than she. This seemed to spur Vinyl on a bit, and upwards she went.
The climb wasn’t all that long; she was up at the top of the building in the space of about four minutes. Though it was nothing if not an event, at these heights the wind was stronger and more intimidating. At one point Vinyl had slipped just slightly, and let a strong gust of wind catch her just right; both her feet had been swept loose from their grips as a result of both her own movements and said wind. She hadn’t been too interested in doing that again.
The top of the building was almost like a gift from the gods themselves. Vinyl scrambled up atop the roof and rolled over onto her stomach. She breathed heavily, more out of relief than physical exhaustion. Her heart was racing, and she trembled ever so slightly. It didn’t matter how many times she had played this game, she had never dealt with climbing large buildings very well. She wasn’t too fond of the realism the game used when it came to the heights, not at all.
“Are you finished?” Twilight deadpanned from across the roof.
“Hey. That’s pretty scary, alright? Video game or otherwise, It’s not every day you free-climb nine hundred feet up in the air.” Vinyl said breathily, crawling a small distance from the edge and pushing herself upright. She took a deep breath, placing a hoof on her chest and keeling over a bit, trying to slow her frantically-beating heart down; the robot mimicked her every move of course.
After taking a moment to recompose herself, Vinyl turned and looked over at where Twilight was laying. She was near the edge of the building, on her stomach. She looked intently down the scope of her rifle at something far off in the distance, and a thin layer of snow and frost had already begun to grow over her now motionless back.
“Come take a look at this.” Twilight said softly, raising an arm and motioning for Vinyl to come over.
Vinyl raised an eyebrow and slowly made her way over, shying away from the edge of the building a bit and then laying down next to Twilight, propping herself up on her elbows. “Uh, I don’t have a sniper rifle, so…”
On queue and without looking away from her rifle, Twilight reached down to her thigh and tapped a finger against it. A compartment opened up and pushed out what appeared to be a large, intricate magnifying glass. She gripped it and held it out to her side, setting it beside Vinyl before returning her hand to her rifle.
“On your…11 o’clock, between the twin, short buildings.” Twilight said softly.
Vinyl flashed a curious look as she collected the scope. She brought it up to her visor and turned her head up a bit to look through it. This wasn’t difficult, of course, due to how the cockpit wrapped around the tip of the body just slightly, but looking through it just like this wasn’t going to exactly be easy. Just as she began to wonder why the ponies who had built this game hadn’t given all the robots heads, a large square on her visor flickered to life and showed the world through the very scope she now held.
“Convenient.” She said to herself, slowly moving the scope around in the direction she had been told. It took her a few seconds, but eventually she did spot some distant movement through the scope.
“I see movement…but, it’s still far off. How do I zoom?” She asked curiously, pulling the scope away and causing the image in her HUD to disappear.
“There’s buttons on the top. The red one turns on infrared and the little dial zooms you in and out.” Twilight said with a soft sigh, annoyance lacing her otherwise calm and concentrated tone.
“Alright, alright…jeeze.” Vinyl grumbled, looking at the top of the scope and fiddling with the buttons before bringing it back up to her visor. As the image flashed on screen, and she brought the scope back around to its previous location and zoomed in, she found it now much easier to see what was going on.
In the distance, easily over a mile off, there were three…no, four different robots; Two of them on each side of the street. The two closer robots were Warrior and Racer class, she couldn’t make out their details or colors because of the infrared on the scope, but these two particular robots flashed with a blue friendly-tag when viewed through this scope.
The other two robots, however, flashed with red tags. They seemed to be making a great deal of trouble for the two robots on Vinyl’s team. They were both Heavy-Class and bore heavy, loud machine guns; their thunderous pounding was faint, but audible even at this distance. The two heavy classes moved forward slowly, firing constantly at the poor ponies on the other end. Just as Vinyl had begun to wonder why they weren’t falling back, she caught sight of two more enemy robots, another Heavy class and a Warrior class. They closed in from the sides, moving from cover to cover and closing in on their enemies.
Things weren’t looking good for their friends.
“You gonna take a shot?” Vinyl asked, somewhat surprised Twilight hadn’t already done so.
“Soon. I wanted to wait and see what was keeping our friends there. It wouldn’t have done me any good to shoot at one of the two Heavy-Classes in the middle of the street now would it have? Even with this gun it won’t take them down, not in one shot. I’ll take out that Warrior-Class, give them an escape route.”
As she spoke, Twilight had shifted just slightly to get a better angle on the robot that was moving down the street over a mile away. Now that they were staying still, Vinyl had a chance to get a good look at the rifle Twilight held.
It was currently the most powerful sniper rifle a Warrior Class could attain. The BAARR, or “Bolt Action Anti Robot Rifle”. A major step-up from the rifle she had carried last time; bigger, stronger, louder. The body was all black, sleek, not overly blocky or square. Everything was rounded, curved, and shiny. It was one hell of a weapon.
“You know, Vinyl, a bullet from this gun moves at 1500 feet per second …” Twilight mused softly as she began to line up her shot. “The speed of sound is exactly 1,126 feet per second. At this distance, with this caliber, it would take roughly 5.28 seconds for this bullet to travel and hit its target. The target would feel it before they heard it.” Her voice was calm, collected. It seemed to compliment the cool, frigid air that slithered past their metal bodies. The sight of this giant robot, covered in a thin layer of snow with a backdrop of an entire city…well, it looked like something out of a movie poster.
“Why are you telling me this?” Vinyl asked, flashing Twilight a curious gaze.
Twilight chuckled briefly, flicking the safety off of her rifle with a faint ‘Click.’ “So that you can be impressed when I make this shot.”
Seconds later a noise that could only be described as ‘Like thunder’ filled the air, a noticeable shockwave blasted past Vinyl and kicked up the snow around both her and Twilight into a white cloud. Though Vinyl didn’t pay attention to it, she was too eager to see what would happen to the warrior class on the other end.
Twilight had waited until the robot had been standing still and firing. Moments later, Vinyl watched as the massive round impacted on the enemy robot with enough force could heard it from here. The bullet slammed directly into the Warrior-Class’s chest. Fire and flame exploded out from gaping hole that was torn through his visor, as he was thrown backwards. Bits of metal and armor flew out from either side of the robot’s body just before he hit the ground, and moved no more.
The words “StarSwirlFanGirl obliterated ShootingStar99” Flashed across the HUD’s of each and every player.
“Yes!” Twilight let out a small, triumphant laugh. She sounded more than pleased; as she should have been, that had been one hell of a shot.
Vinyl watched as the two friendly robots looked over at where an attacker had once been standing in what could have been shock, before beginning to quickly move in that direction and try to make an escape.
“Nice.” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Thanks! I pride myself on shots like this. The math that has to come into effect when you take a shot, the bullet speed, the distance, the rotation of the planet, the wind-“
“Alright alright, I get it, you’re smart and all. How about you try taking a shot at one of those Heavy’s, yeah?” Vinyl said with a chuckle, scoping in on the Heavies who had been in the middle of the street. She could swear they looked familiar…crème with red accents. She just couldn’t place where she had seen them before.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess I can take another shot…” Twilight said; excitement lacing her voice as she chambered another massive round into her rifle.
The two Red-crème Heavy-Classes in the distance seemed visibly annoyed at this point; they had begun charging down the street, to the T-Intersection they had previously pinned their enemies down into. Though, upon converging with the third Heavy-Class, they all looked at one another and then down the street. At the sight of the smoking corpse of their comrade, they panicked and began moving as quickly as they possibly could to whatever cover they would fit in.
The only issue was that there wasn’t really any solid cover they could get into, not fast enough to avoid another round from Twilight. She had led her target, anticipated where he would be moving. As another round was hurled forth, it took a solid five seconds before it struck right into the lower arm of one of the red-crème Heavy-Class robots. The arm ripped to shreds and exploded at the elbow, knocking the robot over into its twin and sending them both down onto the street.
“Gah, he moved!” Twilight spat, quickly chambering another round and taking aim once more.
There was a sudden static in Vinyl’s ear, like radio. It startled her slightly, she hadn’t ever heard it before, not so close to her in the cockpit. It took a brief second for her to realize it was the Communication System that her teammates had added her to. This was new but, certainly handy.
“Twilight, Vinyl, This is Mjolna, Is that you guys shooting?” Mjolna’s voice crackled over the radio, only slightly staticky.
Vinyl turned her head slightly, towards the direction of Mjolna’s voice in her cockpit and a little red light flashed on; she guessed it signaled she could talk.
“Uh, this is Vinyl…?” She said curiously, wondering if she had actually gotten lucky and made it work for her on the first try.
There was a brief static crackle, and then Mjolna’s voice popped up once more. “Uh, go ahead, Vinyl.”
“Yeah, that is us shooting. Twilight knocked out a bad guy and wounded another, so, it’s going pretty swell up here. You guys doing good?” Vinyl said, squinting as she turned back and gazed through her scope again, just as Twilight took another shot; missing by only a hairs breadth.
“Uh…Yeah, things are kind of boring down here. To be honest I knew it was you guys shooting because of the kill message in my HUD, I was just wanting to…I dunno, check in I guess.” Mjolna said with a sigh.
“Yeah, we’re good, glad you’re having fun on guard duty. There were four guys across the map, Twilight wasted a Warrior-Class, and is currently making the lives of three Heavy-Classes rather unpleasant, so…” Vinyl said with a soft chuckle, wincing a bit as another round exploded through the air.
Mjolna popped up on the radio again just as the round exploded into the back of the already-wounded Heavy-Class, but didn’t quite kill him. His twin friend was trying to help him out of the line of fire and into cover, while the third heavy had been trying to figure out where the fire was coming from.
“Yeah…well, try and take some of those Heavies down…three of them is going to be a bit of an issue, especially if we have to fight them at once, so…I mean I’m good but…” Mjolna chuckled softly as she spoke.
“Yeah, I concur. Three is three too many.” March chimed in, causing a small crackle as her radio connected.
“Alright well, I guess I’ll keep you all…posted, uh…I need to go.”
With that, Vinyl shut off her radio and zoomed her scope in on the third heavy-class in the distance. She could just make out the details, but the Heavy was mostly grey with tan accents, and it bore splotches of red here and there that almost looked like blood. Though what was more disconcerting was the massive, rectangular device it was currently unhooking from its back. Vinyl watched as the Heavy quickly slammed the box down onto the ground. Legs sprouted out from each side and dug into the pavement, metal shifted and moved to reveal a massive, thick cannon.
“Twilight, what’s the one on the left doing?” Vinyl called worriedly, looking over at The Princess as she reloaded her rifle, and the scoped back in; just as a distant ‘Thump’ was heard.
Twilight was silent for a moment as she sighted in. She audibly gasped, “What? No! You aren’t supposed to have that until like…level 28!” She spat, chambering a round into her rifle and loosing a quick shot.
Vinyl watched through her scope once more, watching the bullet explode into the building behind the operator of the strange device. He was already packing it up, and shoving it back onto his back.
The realization of what had happened when she looked away, hit her almost as hard as what then hit the side of the building atop which they sat. Vinyl let out a loud yelp as the entire skyscraper shuddered and shook. Her heart leapt to her throat as the explosion filled the air louder than anything she had ever heard, it was near-deafening.
The building continued to shake violently, until Vinyl could notice a very obvious slant in the part of the roof upon which they now laid. She flashed Twilight a fearful look, the realization of what was happening right at that moment, and what it would end up leading to, hit her in full.
This building was coming down, and they were going to either jump or go with it.
“Move, now!” Twilight roared, her voice barely audible over the awful cracking and crunching noises made from the building far below.
Vinyl let out a worried groan and rolled over onto her back, quickly pushing herself onto her feet, and then nearly toppling backwards over the edge of the building as it convulsed violently. The ground beneath her mechanical feet shuddered and crackled, the thin layer of gravel that covered the roof began to roll backwards very slowly.
With another disconcerted whimper, Vinyl kicked it into gear and scrambled across the roof. It appeared to have split down the middle, so all she had to do for the moment was get to the stable-looking flat part upon which Twilight now stood. Though as Vinyl began to move over in that direction, the angle in which the roof was sitting at began to rapidly grow steeper and steeper, she quickly found herself scrambling on all fours over onto the edge of the break.
Twilight quickly moved over and grabbed her by a piece of armor plating on her shoulder, hauling her over onto the stable half of the building as the other side fell away onto the ground hundreds of feet below.
Vinyl collapsed onto the roof, once again finding herself breathing frantically. She rolled over onto her back, placing a clawed hand on her stomach and letting out a frustrated yell, and kicking her feet, rather like a pouting foal.
“Are you finished?” Twilight said softly; though she too sounded a bit startled.
“I am. So. Done. With heights.” Vinyl spat, pushing herself backwards and away from the edge of the building.
“Well, we got lucky…” Twilight mused, peeking over the edge of the building and down below.” It looks like that missile only knocked out half of the building, about halfway up. I guess this side is stable, though I wouldn’t recommend we stay-“
There was another, thunderous ‘Crack’ that shot through the air just then. It shook both Twilight and Vinyl to the core and sent chills into their hearts. Vinyl felt her heart leap into her throat and her stomach do backflips.
“You just had to open your big purple mouth, didn’t you?” Vinyl barked, slamming a fist on the gravel-covered roof beside her and quickly pushing herself upright just as another rumble shook the building, followed by another heavy ‘Crack!’
“We’re going to have to jump, or fall with the building.” Twilight said, sounding afraid of the very words she spoke.
“WHAT.” Vinyl spat in return, turning to Twilight and giving her a look of disbelief. “Do you seriously expect us to survive-“ Another loud cracking interrupted her, followed by the ground beneath their feet beginning to slowly tilt and slide downwards, it was beginning to collapse upon itself.
“Just…jump, try and catch onto one of the buildings across the street!” Twilight cried out, breaking into a sprint straight for the edge of the building.
Vinyl whined and followed after her. Snow whipped by her face, pattering against the super-reinforced glass like raindrops as she moved so fast. Her heart pounded in her chest, every single atom in her body screamed so wholly against her leaping off a building from over nine hundred feet in the air, but her body itself seemed to be acting of its own volition, a need to survive and make it out of this whole ordeal in as much of a whole piece as was possible.
“I don’t wanna do this!” She cried out, as she threw herself off the edge of the building with as much force as she could muster. She didn’t even know where Twilight was at that point, it didn’t really come to her as a current issue either. The building collapsed behind her almost as soon as she left it, and the DJ suddenly found herself; and her massive robot, plummeting downwards at a rate that she found extremely unpleasant. This was different than the drops into the game, those were controlled, and the robots were set beforehand to not take any sort of damage until the start of the game. It was a theatric to make it more fun when you started, the robot itself couldn’t actually take a drop from that height, especially not face first.
She was flying at an angle at least, so that was something. Even over her own terrified screaming she could put together a thought cohesive enough to try and reach out for the building across from her. Though her flight began to become less of an arc and more of a straight plummet down, and she the building was still just out of her reach.
The building she had leapt off, collided with the building she was trying to grab a hold of just then. Glass and chunks of concrete glittered and flew through the air above her, though they hadn’t reached down to her just yet.
Vinyl figured that at this rate, she had a matter of seconds before she hit the ground, and by some miracle that she dared not try and explain, she managed to come within grabbing distance of the building. Frantically, arms extended out to smash through the frosty glass windows. Her descent was brought to an unpleasant, jarring halt as she buried her metal, clawed hands through the glass and into the building. The rest of her body stopped moving downwards and swung around, slamming into the side of the building and shattering more than a little bit of glass.
Vinyl just sort of hung there for a moment, taking the briefest of moments to try and gather herself and recompose. She was still about five hundred feet in the air, and the whole ordeal with falling had all taken place in the space of about eight to ten seconds, though it had seemed a great deal longer.
Her brief moment of peace was made even briefer, upon the sound of many chunks of concrete and glass clattering and plinking onto her upper hull. Vinyl’s eyes went wide and she shot her gaze upwards, out the top of her cockpit.
“That’s not cool.” She deadpanned, glaring up at the rapidly-closing sight of the collapsing building, grinding its way down the side of the more-intact building to which Vinyl now clung. Though for long she could not stay attached, lest she be crushed by the oncoming danger, and so, much to her dismay, Vinyl released her grip of the building and began a more controlled plummet downwards. It was a terrifying, but easier-to-stomach drop. She would fall for a few seconds, and then grab hold of the building and slow herself, and then drop again and repeat. Though she could never stop for very long, for the sound of the crunching, grinding building, shattering glass and crumbling stone was ever present above her.
The eventual sight of the icy, snow-covered pavement beneath her was something that came as an ironically warm relief. Vinyl leapt from the side of the building, fell a few feet, and hit the ground with a ‘Clunk!’
“Ohthankgod.” The DJ breathed heavily, taking a very brief moment to steady herself, before giving a quick glance upwards and resuming her evasion of the incoming building-turned-robot-squasher.
She moved as fast as she could, even as debris rained down around her in massive clusters. Office chairs, desks, paper, entire windows, walls, appliances, all rained down from the building above and smashed down around her and onto her hull as if a tornado swept up an entire Office Supply store.
She came to a gradually slowing halt, as soon as she had cleared the immediate area upon which the building would fall. When it finally hit the ground, it shook the very earth and sent out enough of a force that it forced Vinyl to stumble back a few steps. Dust and debris flew up in massive, thick clouds, mixing with heavy smoke and snow to create a rather unique mixture of air. Vinyl coughed a bit, feeling some of the thick dust seep into her cockpit. She waved her mechanical hand to ward some of it off, just as the fans in her cockpit kicked in to vent the dust out.
The thick clouds of dust rose up into the air almost as high as the building had once been, creating a thick wall of zero-visibility between Vinyl’s position and the other side of the street. She stood there in awe for a minute, taking a heavy breath and placing her hands on her hips; deciding it was best to maybe give herself a moment to recompose.
She looked over at the comms unit in her cockpit, and cleared her throat. The unit lit up, glowing a faint red, and she began to speak. “This is Vinyl…uh, are any of you guys still alive after that, or…” There was nothing but static for a solid twenty seconds.
“Guys, are any of you alive?” She spoke once more, a bit more intent in her words this time.
The radio crackled to life suddenly, and Twilight’s voice came through clearly.
“Uh…yeah, I’m alright. I think we ended up on opposite ends of the building though. March, Mjolna, you guys okay?”
Radio silence for a few seconds, and then Mjolna’s voice came through the radio.
“Uh, I’m fine Twilight. Miss March here took a hit from some falling rebar though, her left arm is pretty much…well, it’s actually totally gone. Otherwise she’s fine.” Mjolna said, giving a sheepish chuckle.
“I’m fine. I can still shoot. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it one-handed.” March said assertively, voice now coming in over the radio.
Vinyl stepped back a bit, letting the three of them get their bearings for a moment as she drew her weapon and scanned the area before her; putting her back to the rubble behind her. She raised her weapon, making sure it was loaded and ready to go. Lucky for her, it hadn’t sustained any damages besides a few scratches here and there. The DJ turned her gaze as far down the road as she could, and held her breath for a moment.
Just then, as she looked far, far down the road, she saw a robot walk out into view. Vinyl let out a soft gasp and quickly scrambled forward and into the nearest alleyway, she scooted in and pressed her back against the wall. She was hiding between another skyscraper and a smaller, twenty-story office building with red-brick walls.
“Uh, Mjolna and March, which side of the building did you guys end up on?” She said quickly, a certain intensity about her voice. She hadn’t even really realized they had been talking to one another over comms up until that point, and had met up.
“Uh…we’re all together on the other side of the building, why?” Mjolna said curiously.
“Well, I’m not over there with you, and I currently have…” Vinyl paused for a moment, peeking out from her cover and down the street. “Two guys, Warrior-Class and Racer-Class...I’d say that unless there’s some other giant skyscraper that’s fallen onto the street, they’re headed for me, and will be here within a minute or so.”
“Can you handle it until we get there?” Twilight said, her voice followed by a brief bit of static.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just get here before the rest of their team does, I have a feeling this is going to turn into one hell of a warzone, pretty soon.”
“Got it.” Twilight replied, and then after a short pop, the radio went completely silent.
Vinyl peeked out of her cover once more. The Racer class and Warrior class weren’t really too stealthy, nor did they seem to have very much interest in being so. If nothing else it made it easier for her to get a good look at them.
The Warrior-Class was colored a light, sandy color, with dark brown accents on the shoulders, elbows, knees and around the visor. An image of three tennis balls was painted onto either side of his visor and onto the shoulders. Some sort of melee weapon was attached to his back, and in his hands he held what appeared to be an energy cannon. Above his head, the name ‘Ace’ floated in burning red letters, along with a level indicator of ‘13’
The Racer-Class beside this “Ace” character, was painted much more colorfully than its partner. The robot’s armor was primarily a light blue, with darker blue accents on the shoulders, forearms and shins, and a steel-tinted visor. Images of hourglasses were painted onto the shoulders and onto the stomach. In its hands were two small, but powerful-looking energy cannons, and it too had a weapon of unknown use or design across its back. The name ‘BrushyBrushy’ floated above its head in burning red letters, along with a level indicator of ‘13’.
Vinyl sighed softly, pressing her back against the wall once more and bringing her rifle up before her visor, giving it a quick look-over, making sure everything was in order. She could faintly hear them talking to one another now, one male, and one female. Vinyl poked her upper half out just enough to see them.
“I’m just saying, Minuette. If my toothbrush was shaped like a tennis racquet, well, I’d be brushing my teeth a lot more! Plus it would cover a lot more surface area too! And it would look like a tennis racquet!” Ace said, his voice strong and somewhat commanding, like he though highly of himself.
The Racer-Class, ‘BrushyBrushy’, now known as ‘Minuette’, gave a simple shrug in reply. “I mean I guess that’s true, but the engineering isn’t there yet. I mean if you wanna go that far, why not just make a toothbrush that you just put in your mouth and it fills the whole mouth and brushes each tooth individually….” Minuette’s voice was a bit smaller and certainly female, but just as confident and loud as Ace’s.
Ace shrugged. “Well, I still think it needs to happen.”
“I think you’re just too obsessed with Tennis, Ace.” Minuette retorted with a soft chuckle, shaking her head and sighing softly as they both stopped in the middle of the road, surveying the rubble before them.
Vinyl could see almost see them, even with her back pressed up against the wall of the building behind her. It wouldn’t be long before they saw her, she knew it full well. The DJ slowly raised her rifle, aiming it for Ace, the closer of the two. She figured that dealing with a Racer-Class wouldn’t be a difficult, so she would wound the bigger and more imposing of the two so as to make it easier on herself.
“I’m surprised that when Cratus brought this thing down, he didn’t get any kills…hard to believe anypony could survive that, especially if they were on top of the darn thing.” Ace mused, clunking up to a large chunk of concrete on the street and giving it a nudge with his foot.
Vinyl didn’t waste any more time, she pulled the trigger of her assault rifle and unleashed a hailstorm of lead onto her enemy. The weapon thumped and kicked rhythmically, spitting out smoking, empty brass shells at the DJ’s feet as she kept her fire focused on the center of mass.
Ace let out a surprised, frightened howl as the sheer kinetic force of the rounds stumbled him backwards. At such a close range, they tore into his armor with relative ease. Sparks flew with each hit as bullets tore into his hull. After about fifteen rounds, he couldn’t keep his balance and had fallen onto his back with a loud ‘Crash!’.
By now, Minuette; the Racer-Class, had leapt into action. She had figured out where the fire had come from and was lobbing orbs of bright, crackling blue energy towards Vinyl’s position. The DJ ducked out of the way, narrowly dodging the projectiles as they whizzed past and exploded into the wall above her head. She rolled out of cover, coming to a knee and raising her rifle, firing for the smaller robot.
Her target took a hit to the right shoulder that sent her weapon flying from her hand. Minuette yelped and boosted to the left with startling speed. She leapt and spun mid air, kicking and boosting off of the side of the building. Vinyl couldn’t do very much to evade in time, and the smaller robot grappled onto her shoulder, swung up over her head, and latched onto her back.
Vinyl; more than a little taken by surprised at this, desperately tried to reach around and grab at the pesky enemy on her back. The sound of an energy cannon charging up, came as an unpleasant surprise, and Vinyl suddenly found herself in a more desperate need to get rid of the robot on her back. She turned and ran for the nearest building as quickly as she could, hurling herself up against it and slamming against it.
There was a quick, annoyed growl. Minuette could be seen flying from atop Vinyl and through the air. She spun around, boosting a bit to get a bit more distance before landing on the pavement a few yards away. She raised her one remaining cannon and fired off a trio of energy-rounds at her foe.
Vinyl managed to dodge out of the way of all but one round; which caught her in the right shoulder, and caused her to stumble and fall onto her back. As her armored back slammed into the concrete, the sound of Minuette charging forth for another attack could be heard. Vinyl growled softly, quickly trying to right herself, only to be met with the sight of the blue-hued Racer-Class leaping up onto her chest; hands replaced with long, sharp blades.
“Think you’re slick, think you can out-battle Minuette! I’ve seen cavities that look nicer than you do!” She roared out.
Vinyl found herself both trying to process exactly how she had just been insulted, as well as trying to fend off the arm-blades of her foe as they were slashed and stabbed into her armor with startling speed; sending sparks out into the air like tiny fireflies. Vinyl swung an arm out and grasped firmly onto the Racer-Class’ arm; managing to halt at least one of the blades for the time being. Though it didn’t do her own arm much good, because Minuette began slashing and swinging at the arm clamped around her own.
Vinyl spat out a long string of rather colorful curses, and swung her other arm around and connected a heavy-metal fist with the lower abdomen of Minuette’s armored body. The plating dented in and crumpled, sending sparks flying out onto the sidewalk.
“I am getting…” Vinyl growled, digging her fingers into the crumpled plating. “Really tired!” She pulled hard, ripping the plating off along with some of the machine’s inner-workings. “Of you!” She brought the scrapped armor up and slammed it across Minuette’s head. The small robot let out a shriek and went tumbling over into the street beside Vinyl.
The DJ sighed heavily, rolling over onto her side and pushing herself up onto all fours, chuckling softly at the sight of Minuette trying to right herself and zip away. Vinyl swiped a hand out grabbed at the leg of her enemy, dragging her closer and pinning her to the ground.
“Ah! No! Let go of me!” Minuette shrieked.
“Good. Bye!” Vinyl roared, raising a fist up above her body, with the intention of flattening Minuette’s head between her hand and the road.
Though as it would turn out, her fist would never meet the intended target, Vinyl was dealt a sudden and powerful kick to the stomach that sent her over onto her back once more. She lay there; motionless for a moment, groaning softly and taking a brief note of her Armor Integrity Display over in the corner of her HUD. Her right shoulder was at 80%, various bits of her stomach and right arm hovered at around 68% and 72%, respectively. The situation was less than ideal; this little Racer-Class was proving to be more of an issue than expected.
Vinyl groaned softly as began to push herself upright, only to then be met with a strong claw to her chest. She let out a gasp and shot her gaze upwards, finding the enemy Warrior-Class; ‘Ace’, to now be looming over her. He dug his clawed feet into the armor of her chest, crumpling and denting it inwards as he raised his energy weapon and aimed it straight for her visor.
“Ha! Try picking on Minuette now, you talentless fool!” He barked out.
“Talentless my ass!” Vinyl roared in reply, bringing her mechanical fist hard into the side of his leg and sending sparks flying, but Ace stood firm. The cannon he held finished charging and the barrel began to slowly rotate and expand outwards. It would be a mere moment before a massive ball of blue energy blasted into her faceplate and killed her instantly. Though, just before the energy-orb would discharge into her body, a massive, thunderous ‘Crack!’ was heard. Ace’s body convulsed and flew backwards. His visor-plate smashed inwards as a massive hole was punched straight through it. Flame and smoke belched from each end of the hole, and his mechanical form went limp and fell hard onto its side, on the street beside Vinyl.
The words “StarSwirlFanGirl Eradicated Ace” popped up in Vinyl’s HUD, and she found herself letting out a sigh of relief.
“The little one, stop her!”
Twilight’s voice called out from behind where Vinyl now lie, and the sound of gunfire ensued, mingling with the frightened shrieks of Minuette as she scrambled off to wherever crazy blue robots scrambled when they were outnumbered and wounded.
Vinyl groaned softly, rolling over onto her side and pushing herself up onto her clawed feet. Sparks popped and flew from her badly-wounded stomach, and the DJ let out a pain-like wince. She briefly gazed up at where Twilight stood; on the corner of the street, before giving her stomach a better look.
The armor was all but removed. There were more gashes and holes than actual armor, and she could both feel and hear the inner workings of her robot grinding and snapping faintly as she moved ever so slightly. This wasn’t good at all. She wasn’t sure how these things really worked, but she was sure that smoke and sparks coughing from her stomach was a bad sign.
“You two! Go after her; don’t let that robot get back to her team!” Twilight’s voice cropped up over the gunfire, then said fire ceased, followed by the sound of Racer-Class boosting rapidly away.
Vinyl looked up to see Twilight slowly clunking up to her. She spotted two friendly Racer-Class jetting off into the distance, but couldn’t make out their details before they disappeared around a corner.
“You’re lucky we showed up when we did…” Twilight mused; throwing a glance at the DJ’s various injuries.
“Yeah, right.” Vinyl deadpanned taking a shaky step forward. Her machine rattled and clanked, and her right leg quivered violently. The blades had really done a number on her. “If you had shown up sooner maybe I wouldn’t look like swiss cheese…”
Twilight only shrugged. “You did say you could handle them, though…”
Vinyl shot The Princess a half-hearted glare, and limped slowly over to the building to her right; stooping over to pick up her rifle from the sidewalk.
“Well, regardless, you’re in luck. We picked up some teammates on the way over to get you, and one of them has a healing ray…” Twilight said softly, turning and waving over one of the robots that still stood over on the corner. “Hey! Felix guy, can you come patch up our teammate?”
The ‘Felix Guy’; named ‘LuckyHorseFelix’, turned at the sound of his name being called. He was a Warrior-Class. His armor was painted a dull grey all throughout; clean, black accents were worn on his shoulder-pads, elbows, knees and around his visor. An image of three, four-leafed clovers was painted onto either side of his visor. In his hands he held a healing-ray that gave off a faint blue glow; Beside his name, floated a level-indicator of ‘9’ above his head in burning blue letters.
“You look like you had a good time.” He said with a soft chuckle, taking a knee an aiming the healing ray towards Vinyl. The many tubes and devices on the outside of the device hummed to life and gave off a soft blue light, from the end of the barrel a long, snake-like tendril of blue energy shot forth. It latched onto Vinyl’s stomach; jarring her slightly, and soon the repairs began. The metal and armor that had been damaged was pushed outwards onto the ground, and the holes and damages were filled as the metal and armor rebuilt itself.
As she was healed, Vinyl turned her gaze past the teammate healing her. Mjolna and March stood on either end of the street; they were in the process of grabbing whatever they could find around them to make a sort of barrier. Trucks, carriages, even a large trolley were drug out into the street and pressed together to make a makeshift wall. They were boxing the group of them in?
Though she hadn’t realized it at first, Vinyl and her team were in a spot that was less than ideal. For all intents and purposes, if they were to be ambushed right then and there, they would be boxed in. The alleyways for the rest of this block just dead-ended, and the fallen building behind them cut off any hope of an easy, or viable escape from that route.
She sighed softly, looking up at the still-present, but fading pillar of dust, debris and smoke that rose up into the air from the massive pile of rubble in the street. Vinyl felt an uncomfortable chill run through her body just then. Those other two robots had obviously been sent to scout out what had happened, and if Minuette had gotten away…well; no doubt there would be trouble upon them soon.
As soon as Vinyl felt the last bit of armor on her shoulder snap back into place, she pulled away from the beam and turned to Twilight; who was set up with her back to the rubble, watching the road carefully. She was leaning up against a massive chunk of concrete twice as big as she was, and looking down the scope of her rifle.
“Twilight…” Vinyl said softly, rolling her shoulder a bit before placing her rifle onto her back. “We probably shouldn’t stay here…we’re boxed in, if they come down that road it could be trouble. “
“They most likely will!” Twilight said in a rather chipper tone. She lowered her rifle and looked over at Vinyl, “I mean, why wouldn’t they? Due to the lack of Kill-Notifications, I would say that the enemy Racer-Class escaped, and that right now the two Racers on our team that I sent after her are currently scrambling back to us as we speak; probably with the whole enemy team in tow.”
Vinyl simply blinked, taking a moment before speaking again. “So…why aren’t we moving?”
“Well, I have a plan!” Twilight exclaimed happily, waving a metal finger up in the air in exclamation. “You see, Vinyl. When we were coming around to you, not only did we find that Medic, and the two Racer-Class I sent after the enemy, but I also found two other ponies; A Heavy and a Warrior-Class.” Twilight paused, slowly lowering her extended arm until it was level with one of the office buildings about two blocks away. “You see, as we speak, they are scaling the buildings on the opposite sides of the street. Our enemy, though great in number, will come out into this road here in full force, expecting us to be boxed in, easy kills, or so they think!” Twilight made her way slowly over to Vinyl as she spoke, swinging her arm around and resting it on the DJ’s shoulder; leaning up against her as she swung her rifle up onto her shoulder.
“Then, the other two on the buildings will attack from above, swooping in atop our enemy when they least expect it and think that victory is assured! At which point we will all rally together for a good, final charge! Victory will be ours!” Twilight said confidently, letting out a long, happy ‘I’m very pleased with myself’ type of sigh.
“Right. Well…good plan, I think.” Vinyl said slowly. She couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at The Princesses’ demeanor, it was quite something to see the ever-pleasant, Princess of Friendship to be piloting a giant killer robot and making battle plans; but wasn’t that the point of the game, to bring out the fighter in the average pony?
Just then, there was a loud explosion, followed by bursts of gunfire. The noise came from about four blocks down. Smoke and fire billowed out from around the corner, into the street; creating one hell of a backdrop for the sight soon to come.
The two Racer-Classes that Twilight had mentioned prior burst from the smoke. One of them was painted a faded white, with dark-brown accents painted onto various bits of armor. Vinyl couldn’t see a weapon, but the robot bore the name “CameraClick” over its head, along with a level indicator of ‘4’. Behind this robot, was another Racer-Class, Level ‘7’; named ‘DoubleD’, this Racer-Class bore a white coloring like Vinyl, but with icy colored accents and an image of three snowflakes printed on the shoulders.
Though, it wasn’t these robots that really dominated this scene. It was what then came looming out of the smoke behind them that really stole the show. There were robots, a lot of them. Probably more than Vinyl had seen at one place since she had that run in with the crazy Apple-Farmer; however long ago that was.
Eight robots came clunking out of the smoke. Three Heavy-Class and five Warrior-Class. Vinyl didn’t even bother to try and take note of their names or ranks at that moment, though she did notice a trend of high-leveling among them.
“This’ll be fun…” She said with a soft grin, pulling her rifle from her back and clunking forward and hefting the weapon up into her shoulder. As Vinyl moved forward, she could hear Twilight moving up behind her, then proceeding to pass slowly by. Her HUD lit up in the bottom corner just then, flashing a faint red and displaying an image of the sudden, incoming snowstorm.
“Alright, everypony…” She called out, loud and commanding. “This is it! We make our final stand here!” Twilight struck a pose, angling her rifle up in one armored hand, and extending the other out towards their oncoming enemy. “Let’s show ‘em some good old Equestrian ass-kicking!”
Might not have been the best impromptu speech, nor the most appropriate one coming from someone of such royal status, but, hell, it would do. So as Vinyl took up a position beside her comrades, and raised her rifle up to fire…she already felt the excitement begin running through her veins. As she felt the snow begin to fall faster, and the winds begin to pick up and whip hard against her hull…Vinyl felt ready, she felt confident. She was going to come out of this on top, she was going to win!
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Is this a crossover?
4767712 What does the writing in your avatar say?
4967240 Who is the girl in your avatar?
6947629 No it is not. The robots and everything within this story (Aside from the characters. All of which come from the show and/or the MLP wiki) are original.
It's finally back
Hehehehehe, the way this chapter ended... makes me think its all going to go to hell in a handbasket next chapter.
Hahahaha.
NIce going! :D
I feel sad. Sad that this doesn't exist.
Actually... I'll probably only have to wait for about five or ten years. Then I'll be happy.
Also, I recommend listening to this song while writing this story:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jWWzxPmzJ5g
Or perhaps you'll like the original better:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HM2M37uEzfo
Either way, these songs fit perfectly with this story.
And maybe a side story or sequel or spin-off or something.