The Stuff of Legends

by Harvs

Chapter 5 - Menn vs Machine

Chapter 5

Menn vs Machine

A huge red robot circled around the block, the three blades spinning extraordinarily fast. It vigorously searched for its targets in all corners of the enormous city. After searching the perimeter and finding nothing, it continued on to the next.

Silence flooded the area. The scenery in this area was much different than that of the housing district. This one seemed much more industrial with almost everything being built out of metal. There was an upper-level highway to the city leading to more areas, but it too had been mostly destroyed. Craters and vehicles still covered the city but other than that, the streets were completely empty.

A sewer lid from the ground suddenly lifted up, and a gloved hand holding a potato peeped out. After scanning around the area, it spoke. "It's all clear. The robots are gone."

The hand was pulled back in and the six emerged from the sewers where they had been hiding.

"I don't like this constant hiding." Vinyl Scratch said, quickly fetching her amp she had laid against a wall. She was reluctant to leave it behind, but it was too big to fit in the sewer.

"We don't have much choice." Sephiroth answered, scraping the muck off of his boots. "As long as that mechanical menace is out, we can't do anything else but hide."

"Mm hmmph mmph hmmhmmphmm?"

"Like Dan said," Sephiroth replied, frightened that he was beginning to understand the Pyro. "There's a computer room somewhere in this district. We find it, we find answers."

"He couldn't have narrowed down the search a little bit more?" Yakko asked, moving the metal lid back onto the hole.

"We just have to keep looking. Although, he did say it was on the second level."

The six looked around, also keeping an eye out for any red robots. "Look. Over there." Vinyl pointed her hoof to a ramp just to the right. It was in bad shape like the rest of the city, but it appeared to be in good enough condition to walk up.

They made their way to the second level, Vinyl having to levitate her bass cannon to get it over all the debris that littered the ramp.

"So what? Are we just looking for a big neon sign that says 'Computer Room'?" Yakko asked sarcastically.

"We're just looking for something. Anything." Sephiroth responded, keeping his eyes forward.

"Would it even still be in one piece? I mean just look at this-" Vinyl stopped. "Do you guys hear that?"

They stopped in their tracks and listened. Soon after, they could hear the sound of metallic footsteps growing louder.

"Hmm mmphmm!" The Pyro exclaimed, pointing to a door to the right.

"Come on!" Sephiroth agreed, rushing to the door. As he approached the small steel door, it slid open allowing the six to enter.

Confused and cautious at the automatic door, Sephiroth hesitated a bit before rushing inside. The other's followed right behind him and tried to force the doors closed. The Pyro and Yakko struggled and strained against the heavy metal doors, before finally sealing off the entrance.

They remained quiet however, listening anxiously for the robots. The footsteps grew louder and louder, the six becoming increasingly worried that they would be found out. They all let out a heavy sigh of relief as they could hear the bots continue on as the sounds of metal feet became more faint and finally disappeared.

"That was too close." Vinyl Scratch sighed, her heart still racing.

"It's not safe out there." Sephiroth said keeping his ears open for anything. "We'll stay here for a while."

They turned around to see where they had ended up. They stood on an elevated platform with gears and circuitry beneath them. They walked down a narrow bridge and ended up in the center of the room, surrounded by glowing blue screens and keyboards. There was another bridge off to the side with a strange circular device at the end, but none of them knew what it was. "I think we just found the room." Yakko commented, gazing up at the two enormous monitors.

"Well, Dan was telling the truth." Sephiroth agreed. He moved toward one of the keyboards. "This technology is different from my world, but I think I can figure out how it works."

He began typing some words into the console to try and find the main files. He tried searching for 'location_directive' but nothing happened. He tried a few more specific searches, but each time it yielded the same results.

"It's no use. I can't figure this machine out." He said, getting up from the keyboard. "It runs on a key specific code we probably aren't supposed to figure out."

"Maybe we should try whacking it a few times." Vinyl suggested preparing to buck the technology.

"Ah! Don't do that!" Sephiroth yelled.

Vinyl stopped right before her hind legs made contact with the computer. "Well then what do you suggest we do?"

"Hey, why don't we plug Spuddy in?" Yakko gestured to the potato.

"I'd prefer to be called Ms. Spuddy." GLaDOS replied.

"Hmm... that may work." Sephiroth said, noting the adapter he placed in his pouch. "GLaDOS, do you think you can work this thing?"

"I was designed to be perfect in every way and to control any and all technology. So sure, why not?"

The angel pulled the adapter out and picked up GLaDOS. After a bit of searching he located the outlet and connected the hardware.

"Now if you would kindly plug me into that giant contraption."

It took some time to locate the second outlet on the computer, but after a while, GLaDOS was plugged in and began speeding through all of the files on the computer.

"Let's see what we have here. 'Six Easy Steps to Baking a Cake'. Oh, I'll have to remember this. Would any of you care for some cake?"

"Focus GLaDOS." Sephiroth said. "We need to find answers."

"Oh alright." GLaDOS said, but not before saving the file to her Starch Drive. "Well, here's a video file. There is no name, just 'watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4.mp4'."

"Hmm... well let's see what it is." Vinyl said.

GLaDOS opened the video, pulled it to full screen and after a quick loading bar...

"What is this? I don't even..." Sephiroth said, unable to comprehend what he was witnessing.

"Aaaaaaaah-" Yakko struggled to find his words. "I don't think this is entirely important."

As the video continued, Sephiroth looked at the Potato and asked, "Why is this still playing?"

GLaDOS simply replied with, "I find it enjoyable, and so does Mr. Pyro."

The others turned around to see the gas jockey bobbing his head and tapping his foot in rhythm. After a moment or two of his happy dancing, he noticed the others giving him strange looks, and responded with a thumbs-up.

"GLaDOS, please, focus." Sephiroth begged.

"Oh, alright." She said, pausing and minimizing the video. She then proceeded to type a long series of characters into the console at the rate only a super-computer could achieve. Numerous windows opened and closed on the screen, much too fast for any of the others to see what they were. "Haven City." GLaDOS broke the silence.

They all looked at the monitor to see she had stopped on one particular window. It was filled with tons of folders and files named by a confusing code of numbers and letters. "What?" Vinyl asked.

"The name of this city, Haven City." She opened numerous files and said, "And apparently, Captain Planet is planning on removing this place from the rest of the planet."

"Well I can't say I blame him." Yakko commented. "This doesn't exactly seem like the proper piece of a perfect planet."

"Well why did he choose it in the first place?" Vinyl piped up.

"That information doesn't seem to be in these files." GLaDOS replied. "But this might be of some use." She clicked on a file named 'PP.chi'.

"Uh... Captain Planet does know there's pp on his computer screen, right?" Yakko rather inappropriately joked.

A few seconds later, a blue planet hologram appeared in the center of the room. Beware the walrus. There were several chunks of the planet missing, leaving the core exposed.

"This is his planet-in-construction." GLaDOS said. "And he's still not finished."

"Hmm." Sephiroth said, examining the hologram. "Now look for who was behind those robots."

"You called?" said a mysterious voice that seemed to emanate from the computer.

Silence. Sephiroth turned to GLaDOS and asked, "What did you say?"

GLaDOS replied. "I didn't say anything."

Suddenly, all of the windows that cluttered the console's screen abruptly closed. But when they had all been shut down, they didn't see the desktop, they instead were greeted by a a hideous purple monster. He looked as though he was wearing a mask sporting long horns on both sides. His arms and legs were long and unprotected, though the rest of his body was covered by a thick layer of armor. He had long yellow hair, though his anatomy was more like that of a spider than a human.

He stared at the six, his soul-piercing green and yellow eyes looking at each of the heroes at once. Finally, Sephiroth stepped up. "Who are you?!"

"My name..." He started, pausing for dramatic effect. "is Diaboromon."

"Then it was you who was controlling those robots!" Vinyl shouted at the monitor. "You tried to kill us!"

"And I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that you're working for Captain Planet." Yakko added, crossing his arms and glaring at the screen.

"You're both correct." Diaboromon said, a grim smile on his face. "And though I failed to kill you when you first entered the City," There was a loud pounding on the metal door, startling the six. "You're all fish in a barrel now!"

Sephiroth drew his masamune and ran to the door, joined by Yakko and the Pyro. "Great! Just what we needed!" Sephiroth sighed, preparing for the onslaught of robots.

"It's no use!" Diaboromon boasted. "You're no match for my KG Death-Bot army!"

"He's right." Yakko solemnly agreed. "There's no way we can fight them all. We've got to think of something else!"

"If we could get to Diaboromon himself, then..." Sephiroth stopped. He quickly turned to the console potato. "GLaDOS! You have to fight him!"

"Actually, we were just about to go out for lunch." GLaDOS replied dryly. As soon as she said that, she began zooming through the console, searching for the villain. "It feels so good to be all-powerful again."

She scoured the computer, scanning every data file and internet link looking for Diaboromon. At last she found him in the Paint program.

"Ohai. So, how are you holding up?" GLaDOS cordially asked. "Because I'm about to kill you." Using various tools in the program, she created a six-gauge shotgun, fully colored, cocked back, and aimed for his skull.

Though he was far too quick and dodged every single bullet. As he jumped all around the program, he shouted, "Web Wrecker!" And a red ball of energy fired out of his chest and destroyed the drawing.

On the other end of the line, the Pyro, Sephiroth and Yakko did their best to hold the door shut, but it was apparent that the robots were breaking through. Vinyl then bought them some time by keeping the door sealed tight with her magic. "GLaDOS! Hurry!" Sephiroth called back. "We can't hold them forever!"

"Perhaps you would like to trade places?" GLaDOS asked, trying to corner the digital monster. He jumped through numerous programs, evading the supercomputer's wrath. Diaboromon opened up a window and instantly disappeared.

GLaDOS followed him into the program. It took a few moments for the window to fully load, but eventually GLaDOS saw what appeared to be an entire world made up of blocks. She looked at the corner of the window and saw the word 'Minecraft'.

The world had a very lonesome atmosphere, as if GLaDOS was the only one there. There was wildlife however, very odd looking pigs and sheep wondered aimlessly through the fields of grass. She moved the camera of the window back a ways and saw she was controlling a man, also made of blocks, wearing a blue shirt and pants.

She walked along, looking for the villain in this colorful pixelated world. There was no sound other than the occasional animal noises and her own footsteps along the dirt. In the distance she could see mountains, forests, and what appeared to be a large body of water.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the distance. "Web Wrecker!" A square of red energy barreled right toward GLaDOS at an alarming speed. Thinking quickly, she jumped out of the way, though the blast knocked her to the ground. "Oof!" She said.

On the other end of the console, the robots were finally pushing through the door. Fighting against Vinyl's magic, they managed to open it enough to fire some shots into the room.

Sephiroth deflected the lasers and with one swipe from his sword, destroyed the robot on the other end. "We don't have time for this! GLaDOS, hurry up!" He yelled, another robot firing shots through the doorway.

"This may be a shock to you," GLaDOS replied, "but this isn't exactly easy."

Diaboromon approached the wounded character and laughed. "You are a supercomputer? Ha! That's a laugh!"

As he continued bragging and boasting, GLaDOS opened her inventory to see if she could find a way out of this one. In her backpack she found sticks, some sand, wool, an ink sac, and... a diamond sword.

About the time he was rambling about tacos and certain parts of the Geneva Convention, she reached into her backpack, got a firm grip, and threw the sand in his eyes.

"Ah! What are you-?! AH!" Diaboromon cried, trying to wipe the sand out of his eyes.

In his moment of disorientation, GLaDOS grabbed the diamond sword and swung at the spider. The sword severed one of his arms.

Rather than yelling 'ouch', Diaboromon instead said "Cable Crusher!" And his still attached arm extended, pushing GLaDOS' character into a tree with great force. He then jumped out of the window and fled to another part of the console.

The potato followed as best she could, but he had evaded her once again. Even worse, the others were not faring too well. The doors were almost completely open, and some of the smaller bots were able to get inside. The Pyro swung his Postal Pummeler at the smaller bots, crushing them to pieces. While Latisha could only stare in shock and awe as her friends fought bravely and valiantly.

"Where'd that over-grown insect run off to?" GLaDOS asked to herself, searching through all of the fires as quickly as possible. She opened Skype, Photoshop, Movie Maker, and ITunes, but he was still nowhere to be found.

"Go back..." A voice whispered.

"What? Who said that?" GLaDOS asked.

"I didn't hear anything!" Vinyl said, levitating some of her records and launching them at the small walker bots.

"Go back..." it said again, a bit louder this time. It didn't sound like Diaboromon, in fact it was quite the opposite. It was distorted, making it sound both intimidating and friendly.

"Go back... to where?" GLaDOS asked.

She waited for a minute for an answer. Just as she began wondering if it was gone, the voice spoke again. "Go back... to the beginning."

"Back to the beginning?" She repeated. Suddenly, it all made sense. "Back to the beginning!" She opened up a program on the computer she had neglected before; Steam. And there he was, hiding out in the games library. The only problem was he had spent this time multiplying himself, as well as regenerating his arm.

"He's multiplying!" GLaDOS called out. "I can't tell which is the real one!"

"Can't you just run a search for the real Diaboromon?" Yakko asked, backing away from a robot.

"That would take too long. There must be over nine thousand of them."

She looked for any means of destroying the thousands of spiders cluttering the screen, but it seemed like a hopeless endeavor. That is until she caught site of a familiar logo: The logo for Aperture Science.

Suddenly, she had a brilliant idea. "Oh Diaboromon?" She called out, not expecting them to pay her much attention. "There's someone who would like to meet you."

As soon as she said that, the screen outside of the Steam window filled with walls covered in spikes.

"Mashy-spike-plates!"

The walls moved in, crushing hundreds of Diaboromons, killing them instantly. the Steam window began to clear, more and more until only a few thousand were left. And then only a few hundred. And then only one.

"Well, it's been fun, but I don't like you." One of the plates lined itself up with the last Diaboromon. "Goodbye."

Just before he met the same fate as all of his clones, he jumped out of the way just in time. GLaDOS raised another plate to hit right where he landed, but again, he was too quick and evaded the wall.

"No wonder I never used these, they never work." GLaDOS said to herself.

"GLaDOS, we're out of time!" Sephiroth yelled, the robots finally breaking through the door and storming into the room. "Finish him, now!"

"He's too fast, every time I have him in my sights, he jumps somewhere else!" She said back. "I need to find some way to slow him down- wait, that's it!" GLaDOS went back to the Aperture Science logo and clicked on it.

Slowly, a greenish-yellow gas flooded the screen and she continued the pressure with the spike plates. Diaboromon continued to dodge each one, but eventually, the gas got to him and he began to slow down.

"Wha- what is this?" He said with a cough.

"Oh, it's just a little thing I like to call deadly neurotoxin." One last time, she raised a spike plate up to the villain. "But you can call it I-really-hope-this-doesn't-kill-me." The wall sprung toward the arachnid, crushing him into the Steam window.

"Connection," he struggled to say from behind the spiked plate. "terminated..."

Sephiroth prepared for another wave of robots to storm the room, but just as they entered, they deactivated and fell to the ground. The group sighed in relief, catching their breath. "Is everypony alright?" Vinyl asked, breathing heavily.

"I think so." Sephiroth said, sheathing his sword.

"Hmm mmphmm hmmhmmph hmm." The Pryo agreed, putting away his mailbox.

"Yeah, Captain Planet sent him here to deal with us." Yakko said, placing his hands on his hips. "But how did he know we were here?"

"Somehow he's watching us." Sephiroth said, moving toward the computer. "GLaDOS, is there anything in the computer that can tell us who his scout is?"

"Sure. I'll just run a search and-" She stopped. She continued clicking on a file for a few seconds, but nothing happened. Finally, a message popped up saying that the file had been corrupted. "Oh this isn't good."

"What is it?" Vinyl asked.

"Diaboromon was able to corrupt all of the files on this console. I can't do anything."

*BOOM* A loud explosion just outside caught their attention.

"What was that?!"

"It seems that right before he died, Diaboromon set up us the bomb. This place is about to blow!"

"Then we have to get out of here!"

"Hold on," GLaDOS said, frantically searching the console. "I think I've found a way out." After searching through the sub files of sub files, she managed to activate the circular structure in the back. The device turned out to be a portal, as it lit up with a rippling blue essence, emitting a low hum.

"The portal is activated." GLaDOS called. "Would anyone care to specify a destination?"

"Who cares?" Sephiroth asked, running to the portal. "Just get us out of here!"

"Alright, alright. There. Would someone pull me out of the computer so we can go. I don't feel like becoming a baked potato."

The Pyro quickly pulled the potato away from the keyboard and bolted for the portal. With the explosions becoming more violent, the rest of the group had already entered the portal. And as the room fell to pieces in the fiery explosions, the Pyro leapt for the portal, barely making it in before the entire room was destroyed.

Comments

[RagingDemonSlayer]

Freakin hilarious wasn't expecting diaboromon to make an appearance on this. MOAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tadpole]

I think I said this before, but...

I love it! But I want more!

[Elzipper7]

Oh god, the references! Hilarious!

[Harvs]

Thank you Slayer, Pyro, and Zipper. Means a lot to us that you three are enjoying the story thus far. We also apologize for the delay on chapter 5, but we are in the middle of another smaller project. It will be ready this Saturday, then chapters will start being posted regularly again.