Coarse Diamonds

by Darkonshadows

-90-

“Greta, I need you to give me a damage report. If what I saw was correct the robotic animals are down, but those security drones were still flying.” There were warning sirens blaring inside the Centaur-pede, Gilda felt the entire machine come to a sudden stop for a second when they finally stopped falling, she hit the lights and noticed that they had just started sliding down a slope into a dark icy tunnel. “Okay, we’re sliding and I really need to know what we have…”

“I’m worried about the others Gilda, all their life signs have split off from us and I’ve lost Viral’s signal!” Greta was already trying to process what had happened and was rubbing at the bump on her head as she sat up, she had been badly knocked around in the lower torso. To think they were ready to investigate the freshly destroyed tower when this happened. “She’s just an innocent little VI; she can’t do big girl things on her own like Opal can!”

“Calm down Greta, I think we have bigger problems to worry about than your pet robot or our friends.” The upper torso turned to face the rear and saw several combat drones flying down the hole behind them and the centaur-pede was slowly picking up speed. Gilda wondered where Rarity, Rover, Applejack, Saffron and Ember were, their life signs were still going strong a few seconds ago before they slipped out of range. It was concerning that it might have been them literally slipping away on the ice. “Such as keeping ourselves alive in the meantime…”

“Yeah, my head isn’t exactly in the game at the moment. Hold on a second… okay, the left arm and all six legs are heavily damaged. Some of that damage to the legs was my fault, probably should have calibrated those extraneous leg shields better.” Lifting her data pad up to her eyes, Greta read off the diagnostics and the last thing she saw made her breath hitch a bit. She was still a bit woozy, but even she recognized a major problem when she saw one. “Oh and… we’re not getting our shield generator back. It’s completely beyond repair, as in it had a thankfully quiet meltdown. If it had been a noisy meltdown we wouldn’t be alive right now. So there’s absolutely nothing to stop those drones from ripping us apart. I’m quite sorry about my modifications helping damage the legs to the state they are in now.”

“Oh come on Greta, it’s not like this is the worst thing you’ve ever done. This isn’t even close to being bad enough to be on my list of the top five worst engineering mishaps caused by you. It’s also not the worst situation we’ve ever been in. Back to the situation at claw, we need to swap out the limbs when we can get a chance. Provided that you didn’t do anything to mess up our spares, we still have plenty to work with.” As cool as an ice cube under pressure, Gilda raised the right arm of the Centaur-pede and fired immediately at the drones. Her shot nailed the central drone and the other four joined it quickly in being destroyed when the Centaur-pede’s turrets ripped into them. “I also wouldn’t say that there is absolutely nothing stopping them from ripping us apart, we’ve still got the turrets and an armory stocked with weapons on board. So we just need to find a safe spot to get some breathing room and get our bearings.”

-

“Whoa, what the hay is going on?” With a grunt Applejack found herself on top of the so called armored Mare-Do-Well and they were angling to head down a tunnel. Seconds ago the entire machine fell out from under her and she had become weightless for a few seconds.

“We’re underground, that’s what’s going on!” Saffron tried to keep them both level, her armored suit was made for big jumps and gliding, not for flying or carrying passengers. The weight of Applejack’s body was making it hard to keep upright and maneuver it so that she landed on the ice safely; she somehow managed to keep herself upright. Looking over her shoulder at Applejack she saw two drones following them down the tunnel they were in. “Now hold on, this might get a bit bumpy. If can you can get yourself situated correctly, then maybe you can help us by shooting down those drones on our butts while I try to concentrate on what’s going on in front of us.”

-

Back at the top of the various underground tunnels there was an innocuous hole in the floor in the middle of various branching underground tunnels. It was just the right size and shape for a Diamond Dog to have dug and there was a small mound of displaced snow and ice heading off in a specific direction. It was not in the direction of the Centaur-pede that slammed into the ice and left skid marks behind.

Seconds later Ember flew into the tunnel system and saw the large skid marks created by something heavy, she followed that because it had to be the way their vehicle went and logically where everyone else was.

Next Viral skidded to a stop and dropped down into the tunnel network and looked about before choosing one of the tunnels to go down, the mechanical fox went slip sliding away. It was also not the tunnel that the Centaur-pede went down.

The Puffle fell into the tunnel system after Viral and slid three feet with joyous laughter and then she came to a sudden stop. The puffle scooted a bit, but her fur was so thick she couldn’t really slide because of all the friction. She started to get angry and blew a raspberry; she wanted to do the happy fun thing that other more mobile four legged thing she followed down here did!

The Puffle was too fluffy to actually lose friction on the ice, it jumped once and then twice trying to get sliding, only for it to stop a few feet away. For once in its life the Puffle stopped to actually think about something, which hurt its tiny little love filled brain as it started walking forward. It tripped and went rolling down tunnel, it giggled joyously at how fast it was going. The Puffle didn’t exactly feel the sheer mortal dread that it should have been about where the tunnel it was going down ended up. It was getting kind of dizzy through.

-

The Centaur-pede fell out from under Rarity and she was panicking, to think things had been going so well. Greta had managed to wrest control of most of the wolves before they grew wise to the fact that they were being hacked. The ones that did had problems coordinating their efforts against them without being capable of communicating with one another to form a far more effective response. Gilda had positively wrecked the large robotic snow sharks. Everyone else had done moderately well against the drones, up to the point they were beginning to exceed their ability to handle through sheer numbers.

Ember had been pretty amazing when she came up with that bottle of alcohol. Rarity would have commented on her drinking habits, but she remembered what happens when a dragon imbibed and those flames were ridiculously powerful. It was quite clear the dragon would never have a drinking problem unless she needed to deal with large threats. It had been mostly Greta, Gilda and Ember’s show up to this point, where everything suddenly went absolutely pear shaped. Maybe even Durian shaped, because it was that bad.

Rarity slapped against ice harshly and started sliding down a tunnel, what little she could see of it in the quickly dwindling light. She grunted and thanked the stars she hadn’t landed wrong as this was going to bruise horribly. She was thankful for the breach gel in her EVA suit that was currently wearing under her parka. Besides Ember everyone outside the Centaur-pede had their EVA suits and parkas on… except Applejack didn’t have an EVA suit or the same breach gel cushion. She silently prayed for the farmer’s safety. Looking up, Rarity started up her head lights and frantically looked about to find something to grab on to.

Scrabbling with her hooves to try and find purchase, there was none to be had for Rarity as the tunnel was full of ridiculously smooth ice. Wherever the tunnel inevitably leads, she had ended up sliding down it backwards and facing upwards. It took her a moment to realize that she had lost one of her energy pistols; she had been in the middle of stowing them when the world suddenly fell out from under them.

Rarity’s ears twitched as she heard something coming down the tunnel after her. She hoped that it wasn’t the Centaur-pede, she didn’t want to be crushed underneath it.

It didn’t take ten more seconds of uncontrolled sliding before she saw what was coming; she wasn’t going to use her material pistol as it was her emergency weapon. With one energy pistol she had to make her shots count as five lights fell on her. The drones immediately started firing at her once they caught sight of her and Rarity tried to roll or at least veer out of the way of the five twin streams of energy bullets from the five drones.

One round smacked into the ice next to her and she yelped still trying to scramble sideways out of the path of their shots. Only to bounce when she hit a horizontal piece of ice that sent her flying until she hit the tunnels floor and went tumbling, she tried to keep a strong death grip on her energy pistol with her magic and was being remarkably stubborn about not letting it go. As she turned her head to the right to start shooting at the chasing drones, she was now sliding on her belly sideways down the tunnel.

“How do I keep getting myself into these situations?” The uncontrolled slide down the tunnels was starting to get on her nerves; she fired several times only for the drones to avoid each of her shots. She used her eye for detail to take notice of something and fired twice; the central drone flew into the path of the second shot avoiding the first and it took two other drones with it when it exploded.

The two remaining drones shifted positions, that’s when they started to spiral towards her and pick up speed and started flashing. Did that mean what Rarity thought it meant? They were going to blow up on her! Just as the drones were closing in with her and avoiding her frantic shooting, well you’d have to see how well you could shoot something in this situation. She couldn’t hit them and they were getting dangerously close to her as their shots passed by her sometimes putting a small hole in her parka. Nothing she couldn’t fix, but it was quite worrying.

As the drones closed in there was a sudden right curve in the tunnel that sent Rarity sliding high up the wall and then she was going in the opposite direction on her back watching the explosions above her as the drones couldn’t turn fast enough to make the same hairpin that Rarity involuntarily did.

Rarity found herself drifting back down to the bottom of the tunnel from the wall, she had to figure out how to slow down and fast. She did not want to hit anything at the speeds she was going right now. Oh right, she still had her pinpoint puller!

Putting her gun away, Rarity aimed up the slide with her hoof she fired her pinpoint puller, realizing that the problem was worse than she had previously thought; she was sliding too fast for the pinpoint puller to slow her down for more than a few seconds.

She started panicking again, this was worse than the fact that this was ruining her parka… which wasn’t a big issue as she could always make another one. She was likely going to die if she hit a wall… she fired her pinpoint puller towards the wall ahead of her and managed to flip and spin her body around before the grapple beam broke.

Thanks to a bit of maneuvering Rarity was mostly upright looking down the tunnel. If she was going to die, then she might as well face that wall head on.

Well it wasn’t exactly a wall, more like a bunch of icicles jutting from the floor that would have skewered her had she continued her path into them. She fired her pinpoint puller off to the side and managed to skirt around the left side of the sharp pointy bits of ice that ripped into the front right leg of her EVA suit and parka. She lost a large amount of breach gel before it hardened enough to seal off the damage, it left behind a large colorful streak on the slide that could probably be found years later if someone actually went looking for it. That wasn’t exactly a comforting thought if she got trapped down here with no way out.

Rarity was glad that she had decided to wear her parka over the EVA suit; the more breach gel she lost the colder it would be even with her thermal layer. It was a good thing she could actually fix tearing damage on her parka with magic. She slid back and forth until she centered in the slide once more and heard a sound from above, turning her head upwards she saw a different tunnel above her and ten drones came down out of it firing as she passed by it.

Today was just not Rarity’s day, she curled up into smaller target as the ten drone swept down into the tunnel behind her firing blasts of energy everywhere. Chips of ice flew off the walls and floor of Rarity’s surroundings as she cowered while sliding down a tunnel to who knows where and she was all alone.

She felt an abrupt change in her momentum when her body went off a ramp and she suddenly found herself uncurling with shots flying around her as she fell, she let off a long drawn out scream as pain erupted in one of her hind legs as a shot ripped through it. She was now falling down a widening shaft into nothingness.

She tried to spin herself in the air so that she could at least look upwards at the drones still chasing her down; she wondered if these machines realized that if they just left her alone she would probably die anyway. She could see they got her thigh and quite badly with the barest of a glance out of the corner of her eyes in her helmet's lights as she fell upside down, the pain was quite agonizing and making her head fuzzy, hopefully the breach gel would take care of that. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she hadn’t realized that she had stopped screaming at some point… why was she narrowing her eyes at the drones and why was she thinking of doing something crazy?

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m still going to try!” Talking to no one in particular was the first sign that she was going insane from the danger that she was in, either that or it was the pain in her rear leg. Rarity wasn’t exactly coping with this situation well. She aimed her pinpoint puller at the arrowhead shaped drones shooting at her and pulled her energy pistol out. She fired her energy pistol once and then fired her pinpoint puller.

The grapple beam lanced out across the space between Rarity and the drone and actually connected when the drone moved into the path of the beam, her fall slowed down and after feeling weightless for a moment she shot straight up towards the drone through a wall of energy bullets grazing her parka and suit, doing even more damage to both before her tether got intersected by one of the blasts. She threw here hooves out, managing to actually grab onto the central drone while she still had some momentum and flipped herself onto it.

“Sorry, but I really don’t feel like dying today!” She ducked to the side of the drone as a several rounds of energy started attacking her and the drone she was clinging to. The drone started to automatically dodge the friendly fire from the five drones behind it. The four other drones around them exploded and Rarity was lucky enough that none of their bits hit her. The lead drone Rarity was clinging to for dear life was swerving and twirling wildly trying to dislodge Rarity, this was much to her benefit.

Rarity aimed her pistol upwards and fired off several shots and managed to destroy a single drone in the last fifteen rounds she fired off in desperation, she was under a lot of pressure and that they were still traveling downwards was starting to freak her out. How far down were they going exactly?

After ten seconds of being unable to dislodge Rarity from itself, the drone started beeping and flashing, Rarity put her pistol away and kicked off it towards one of the walls. It exploded violently sending its parts flying everywhere, some of the shrapnel piercing Rarity’s EVEA suit. That caused Rarity to yelp. The explosion also bounced Rarity off the wall and sent her tumbling into an uncontrolled fall. This caused her to grunt and grit her teeth. Her body was being quite badly battered, especially by that sudden jarring impact. Rarity didn’t know how much more of this she could take… then the shaft opened wider into a large lit cavernous area.

The floor was quickly coming up to meet Rarity and she didn’t think she was going to survive hitting it at terminal velocity like this. She closed her eyes before she hit the floor and then didn’t stop, but felt herself ram through a thick layer of ice in painfully brutal manner that caused a loud snapping noise. One of her legs had to be broken, that or something just set her entire body on fire and then she was dipped in acid in an attempt to put said fire out. She was going to scream herself hoarse now and she didn’t feel like stopping until she was unconscious and then eventually dead.

The drones circled above the hole in the ice, they couldn’t go underwater and just sped off to go after other targets currently invading the tunnel systems.

Had anyone been around, Rarity’s agonized screaming would have been muffled by the suit suddenly being underwater and the temperature dropping by a large magnitude; Rarity didn’t struggle when she found herself being propelled by a powerful current. She didn’t want to be trapped in an underwater stream, but it wasn’t like she had a choice in where she was going now as she was nursing her broken leg. She had to find a way out of this, she just had to. She still had so much to live for and Opal would be absolutely distraught if her friends went back up without her, provided they weren’t in a similar situation to her.

Rarity looked up at her HUD through the tears in her eyes and winced, her front left leg was broken. She had multiple pieces of metal embedded in her suit and she had internal bleeding, very bad bruising in several places. She stopped screaming and started whimpering instead as she held her left leg.

Feeling the current growing faster, Rarity had a sinking feeling as to what that meant and then she was spat out of a hole where the water was spewing into something akin to an aqueduct. The mare didn’t exactly have time to focus on the oddity of the way the manufactured tunnels were moving the water around, she was too busy biting her lips and tasting copper as she slammed into another ice slide.

Rarity was thankfully going at a good angle when she hit another downwards slide and didn’t land as poorly as she could have. She could have broken another leg; she was already in dire need of healing as it was. The tunnel suddenly straightened out and she found herself going horizontally and for some odd reason there were lights in the ceiling of the tunnel here. Was she going to heaven? It seemed more like hell at the moment. At least she was no longer going down and she was slowing down, something to be even more thankful for at least.

What she wasn’t thankful for was the strange machine that dropped into the tunnel with her that looked like a much larger version of the robotic wolves and it was looking right at her sliding prone form. If there was an alpha wolf of those robots, this thing would have to be it.

“As my sister is so fond of saying about the unfairness of it all… OH COME ON!” Rarity screamed hoarsely at the machine galloping after her, it would soon catch up with her. “What did I ever do to deserve any of this-his-his?”

Despite her whining, Rarity tried to focus and blink the tears out of her eyes. The large machine was running on the ice and after a moment it crouched down, skidding for a few hundred feet before it lunged forward to try and bring one of its large paws down on her. Rarity aimed her right hoof at the underside of the machine and fired her pinpoint puller.

The large wolf came down with a thunderous crash on all four of its legs and then it looked behind itself and then looked forward, it didn’t see its quarry anywhere. Rarity slowly climbed up to the side of the machine, her magnetic clamps keeping her on the giant robotic wolf. She stopped and convulsed a bit, she was cradling her left leg to her chest as she crawled on top of the machine as it looked under itself.

Rarity fired at a joint in its neck, attracting its attention to her on its back, it growled at her and she responded by blowing out its left eye with five shots. It apparently didn’t have shielding like the other wolves. That worked for her, because she was already blasting the light out of its other large yellow eye.

The large wolf robot roared and then crouched; Rarity looked at the lines of lights and sharp pointy icicles above her. She fell to her right side and rolled for all her worth as seconds later the giant robot wolf slammed it’s head and back into the ceiling.

Rarity, having managed to narrowly avoid having her body pulped, took aim at the head with her pistol and tried to fire, only for a number of exponentially worsening arcs of energy to start travel along her pistol. That wasn’t a good sign, none of what was happening was a good sign either, but Rarity wasn’t about to be stopped now.

Rarity’s pupils shrunk and she put all her magic into kicking her damaged energy pistol away from her, and into the broken sparking eye socket of the wolf robot. The gun soon blew up and caused a chain reaction as several other explosions went off in the thing’s head and it toppled to its left side where its head blew apart into tiny pieces upon hitting the floor.

Looking ahead Rarity saw the tunnel suddenly just ended and she could see metal walls. Where was she? The destroyed metal wolf she was on slid out of the ice pipe and started a slow fall towards a large amount of snow below and what little she could see before the inevitable stop when the large wolf machine hit the floor with her still on it. It was some kind of strange facility, who had the time to build all of this and so far below ground?

Rarity consciously detached from the falling machine by turning off the magnetic clamps, the large mangled wolf shape machine hit the snow send a large plume of it up to catch her and slow down her fall. She finally struck the snow and tried to stand up after a few minutes, but everything was so cold. She could hardly move and her vision was starting to fill with spots.

Rarity slowly managed to stagger up to her three hooves and started to limp forward and away from the destroyed machine, she didn’t want to be near it if it exploded on her. She was so very tired now, she could see that at the edge of the snow was a floor and structure leading to a door. Surrounding it were boxes with what were obviously supplies… but to what end? Nothing made sense and she was trying to distract herself from the mind numbing pain and the fact that she was started to lose feeling in her limbs.

She fell down upon reaching the metal flooring and couldn’t scream or cry anymore. She started crawling for the boxes, looking for a place to hide, maybe even warm up a bit. She made it behind the crates and found an opening she slowly dragged herself through. She turned herself around and looked out the opening at the large pile of junk she left behind, she was kind of horrified by the things she’d go through for friends and family. She’d probably do it all over again if she had to, she was surprised that she was still breathing.

“Crap, they told you it wasn’t ready yet boss! The intruder managed to take it down with nothing more than an energy pistol and whatever that grappling thing was!” A human ran into view and he sounded like he was on the radio with someone, he was wearing a blue uniform with two silver stripes and a depiction of a tilted cyan cube on its back. His helmet was a bit angular and somewhat reminded Rarity of a snowflake. He and several other arriving humans were wearing fully decked out military gear. Machine guns, grenade belts, armor that covered every part of their bodies and they were all searching the perimeter around the machine Rarity had trashed. “Yes, it was a pony that destroyed it!”

“A pony did all this damage… really?” A second suited figure that walked into view seemed to be expressing disbelief as if the very thought of it merited nothing but skepticism. He was also male from what Rarity could tell from their voices alone as she tried to breathe and relax. Obviously these people were part of the group behind all this. “It was just one pony; they’re complete jokes when it comes to fighting on foot. Sure, their space force is nothing to sneeze at and they did somehow manage to stop the planned attack on the depot cold. Even so, they never exactly had a powerful presence on the ground before, except for those fucking creepy Changeling things. Maybe they know about our operations here and sent a bunch of Changelings to scope us out first before sending in their forces.”

“Apparently this pony didn’t get the memo that ponies are innocent, cute and should be a slave race to humanity. Whatever this small task force is that they’ve sent, it has breached the perimeter topside and managed to get into the tunnels. They’re causing all sorts of havoc everywhere and two of them even got into the base, before this one did. We haven’t been able to find them yet.” A third suited human walked up, this one was female. “We’ve got some kind of black ops unit thing going on here, it’s the only explanation for all the things they’ve pulled off when they hit the tower. Of the two already in the base, one’s a robot or a heavily decked out armored pony, but I’m leaning robot as I doubt there’s a pony alive that could really fight that well or even come close to causing anyone harm. The other mare is a local and must have gotten through our blizzard grid somehow and led them right to us. The little shits can’t really possibly have gone on the offensive to save themselves, they are too pacifistic! Though I wouldn’t entirely be surprised if our whole operation was compromised and this was their strike force or what they could make that would pass for one.”
“Like those little horse bastards can even cobble together a strike force that could fight its way out of a card board box.” The second suited man stated. “The griffons are the real dangerous ones; they’re tearing up the tunnels in that machine of theirs.”

“Now the griffons I would believe… only this is specifically an equine colony! One mostly made up of those pathetic dirt workers.” The first suited man stated with something akin to curiosity. “I also heard they had a bounty hunter among them, I believe her name is Flamethrower. She’s supposed to be a top rater in the pony sectors, which probably doesn’t mean much considering how pathetic ponies are to begin with. She has got to be on the griffon’s payroll, the ponies are probably here for different reasons, maybe as distractions. It’s either that or they are working on their own and know about the captured ponies we’re going to sell into slavery. If only the pirates would break that god damned blockade already! It can't be that hard.”

“It’s a good guess at what those four legged multicolored freaks are here for at least, they rescue their people and the griffons get the planet. It would be no skin off their noses really, except for the fact that we want this planet ourselves. So whatever cute little thing those ponies are doing, we’re not going to let them pull off one of their last minute save the day in a cutesy way routines they are so fond of.” The woman started pacing back and forth holding two fingers up to her helmet. “Be on the lookout we have another intruder, they couldn’t have gone too far! Shoot to kill; we cannot afford to capture any of them alive.”

Rarity stayed as quiet as she could and was trying not to moan in pain. Her eyes were starting to droop and she tried to stay awake, but she couldn’t possibly keep them open for much longer. The last thought that passed through her head before she blacked out was simply, who were all these horrid people?

Author's Note:

GIR: Yay, a group of pro-human racists! No wait... isn't that a bad thing. Like a piggie that didn't get hugged? I'm going to sing the doom song now!

Comments

[Razzy]

Are we sure Rarity isn't related to that one changeling, with how often she gets messed up badly?

Never split up the party, a rule to live by in rpgs.

Changelings aren't creepy, they're cute! Better not let Chryssie hear that... Though she might take it as a compliment. Not that it would stop her from making them wish they were never born.

Welp, some racist scum are about to have their expectations shattered.

'it’s not like this is not the worst thing you’ve ever done' - this is the worst

'Rarity aimed up the slide with her hoof she fired her pinpoint puller and realized' - with her hoof and fired her pinpoint puller, realising

'ripped into her front right leg of her EVA suit and parka' - ripped to the front right leg of her EVA suit and her parka

'wear her parka over her EVA suit' 'over the EVA suit

'tunnel above her and the ten drones' - c ten dronez

'target as ten drone swept' - as the drones

'look upwards at the drone still chasing her' - drones

'in her helmets light' - helmet's

'arrowhead shaped' - arrowheaf-shaped

'and pulled her energy pistol out she fired her energy pistol once and then fired her pinpoint puller' - out, firing it once and then firing the pinpoint puller

'parka and suit doing even more damage' - suit, doing

'she threw here hooves out and managed to' - the he threw her hooves out, managing to

'some of the shrapnel pierce Rarity’s EVEA suit' - piercing Rarity's EVA suit

'screaming would be muffled' - would have been muffled

'started whimpering instead, as she held her left leg' - remove the coma

'it crouched down skidding for a few hundred feet' - down, skidding

'Rarity slowly climbs up to the' - climbed

'joint in its neck attracting its attention' - neck, attracting

'head and it toppled to its left side and the head blew apart' - left side before its head blew apart

'started slow fall' - started a slow fall

'with her on it.' - with her still on it.

'the large mangled wolf shape machine' - wolf-shaped

'hit the snow send a large plume' - snow, sending

'was starting to become filled with spots' - was starting to fill with

'Rarity slowly managed to stagger to her three hooves' - Rarity managed to slowly stagger up to

'she could see at the edge of the snow was a floor and structure leading' - see that at the edge of the snow was a floor and a structure

'crawling for the boxes looking for a place to hide' - boxes, looking

'She made it behinds the crates' behind

'depiction of a tilted cyan cube on the back of his uniform' - cube on its back

'and reminded Rarity of a snowflake somewhat' - c somewhat reminded

'Sure their space force' Sure, their

'attack to the depot cold' - attack at he depot

'The first suited man stated with something of curiosity.' - something akin to curiosity

“they working on their own and knows about' - they are working on their own and know about

'Rarity stayed quiet as she could' - as quiet as he could

'but she couldn’t possibly stay awake for much longer' - she couldn't possibly keep it up much longer

'Like an piggie' - a piggie