Catacombs
Chapter 140
Catacombs
Fluttershy gazed across the chasm that separated them from the old Castle in the Everfree. The drawbridge they had used years prior in their tracking down of the Elements of Harmony gently swinging in a calm breeze.
“Ah don't see nothin', ya sure this is the place?” Applejack whispered from behind Fluttershy. They had not ran directly into any further geth but the tracks they had found clearly indicated the two they'd taken out were not alone.
“Looks can be deceiving, I'm going to check if the bridge is being watched before you three cross. Stay here and keep watching.” Fluttershy activated her active camo and silently glided over to the other edge, her movement nearly soundless as she checked the bridge and surrounding area.
So you bastards are here...
Shy spotted a cable running through the grass from one of the outer ruined buildings to the main keep. Further inspection of what was in said building revealed a heretic hub with four armatures attached to it.
They're not active yet… I might be able to get away with leaving them, lest I alert every single one of them in the area…
With her decision made, Shy stealthily flew back over to her other friends. “Coast is semi-clear to cross, just avoid making loud sounds.”
“As silent as a mouse, darling,” Rarity answered as she was the first to cross, AJ after her, and Pinkie, who had somewhere along the way procured a black bodysuit, closed the way. Fluttershy motioned for them to remain real quiet as she pointed at the ruin that held the geth, sneaking past it and through the inner wall of the castle.
“Ah checked this place out before, it has a lot of nooks 'n crannies in the catacombs below. Ah'd go check that out,” Applejack whispered as she pointed at an entrance of the castle, one of the heretics' cables running into it.
“That'd be really close quarters, if we get caught there'd be no way we could fight our way out,” Fluttershy said, looking at the entrance too. “But you might be right…”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?” Rarity smiled.
“Getting shot doesn't gain us anything either,” Fluttershy countered but her curiosity was nagging at her.
What would the heretics be doing out here… did they not set up in the badlands?... No, we'd seen geth vessels if that were the case. They must be looking for something else…
“Alright, just a peak,” Fluttershy relented, leading along to the door and walking into the depths. Faint sounds of steps echoed through the underground tunnels as the group followed the laid out cables deeper and deeper into the underground. More of the cables bundled up together across the floor as Rarity lit up the hallways with a light spell.
“Cutting these would Instant knock out most the processing strength of the heretics above, if we get found out destroying these might disorient them long enough for us to get out.” Fluttershy tapped the cables so the others would know what to do if she was forced to act as rear guard.
“That's good ta know, Applejack whispered back. “Wait, what's that up ahead?” The cables took an abrupt turn at the end of the hallway where light was faintly flowing into the long corridor the four ponies were walking through, sounds of moving machines up ahead.
“I'll check it out, get ready to run if this goes south.” Fluttershy again cloaked and went ahead, not noticing the twitching and bouncing from Pinkie Pie. At the end of the hallway where the cables lead the hallway opened up into a large space, the main hub they had been looking for was stationed at the center of the room while dozens of heretic platforms were walking about. A group of them were moving rocks while others were working on digging a hole into the wall, Fluttershy unable to see what they were digging out from where she was at tried to get a better view.
What are they looking for...
Fluttershy’s train of thought was broken by a burst of assault rifle fire followed by two more bursts. Every heretic in the room froze along with Fluttershy, the fire having come from the corridor where AJ, Rarity, and Pinkie were. Fluttershy felt a cold chill run through her body followed by a feeling of dread. She immediately dropped out of cloak and lit up her wings with biotic energy, roaring as she flung a singularity at the main hub and ripping part of it up before sprinting back to the hallway.
“Girls!” Fluttershy exclaimed, Applejack laying on the ground with a bleeding foreleg and a destroyed heretic laying further up the hallway. Pinkie was muttering ‘it was a doozy’ to herself as Fluttershy slid next to Applejack checking up on the wounds, but before she could do anything two geth primes stormed into the hallway from the direction of the exit.
Oh, fuck me sideways.
Fluttershy immediately pivoted to putting up a shield to block the mass of incoming fire from the two behemoths with one wing and grabbing hold of the roof with the other and collapsing it on top of them.
“Fluttershy! What are you-”
“No time!” Shy cut off Rarity as the ground started shaking and the cracks coming from the collapsed section started to expand out. Picking up Pinkie from the ground Fluttershy Ran into the large chamber where the group of heretics were still recovering from their main hub being taken out. “Move! Over there!”
Fluttershy pointed at the opposite end of the room where another hallway lay, stones dropping from the ceiling and hitting a few of the robots. The four ponies hobbled to the other end of the room, Shy putting up shields to prevents stones from falling on top of them and to stop sporadic incoming fire. Before they could reach the other end of the room the opposite hallway collapsed as well, leaving no exits to leave through while the roof looked like it might just come down all at once.
“That ain’t good,” Applejack said through gritted teeth, leaning on Rarity and staining her coat red. Fluttershy wasn’t about to give up though, she survived a reaper, a bunch of falling rocks were not going to get her now.
“This way!” she shouted, running towards where the heretics had been digging in a final ditch hope that they had uncovered another exit. Flinging a few machines aside that were standing in the way they found a metal door of sorts at the bottom of the hole.
“Can you open whatever this is?!” Rarity shouted in panic, Fluttershy looking around and finding a panel of sorts and putting her hoof on it in the hope it would respond. To her surprise, and relief, the image of a hoof appeared on the screen and it flashed green, opening the door for the four ponies.
“Inside! Move, move move!” Fluttershy called out, firing at the few heretics that tried escaping the collapse by running towards the door too before heading in herself and closing the door behind her by another panel on the inside. Dust forced itself in through the door right as it closed as the rest of the roof filled the previous chamber, the four ponies coughing as it forced itself into their lungs.
“Applejack needs help, Shy,” Rarity eventually said while she was holding AJ’s wounds on her leg closed, Fluttershy swiftly administered medi gel to her fellow pony, instantly closing the bullet holes and stopping the bleed.
“Whoa nelly, that’s some real strong stuff,” Applejack said as she checked their surroundings. “We ain’t in them machines’ base, are we?” she added with a worried tinge in her voice.
“No, we’re in...” Fluttershy then turned to look at the panel she’d used to close the doors, a hoofprint dead center of the glowing screen. Checking the room they were in she noticed another, larger, console at the back of the room and made a Dash for it, trying to see with her omni-tool if it was active. The holographic display sprung to life and rapidly pulled data off of Shy’s tool before activating fully. “No way...”
“What? Where are we, Fluttershy?” Applejack asked again.
“We’re in an ancient pony base,” Fluttershy answered this time, quickly moving through menus on the computer in the hope of finding a map.
“An ancient base… from us?” Rarity asked in astonishment.
“Something we found out due to… something Shining did. There was a time ponies traveled the stars thousands of years ago… Jackpot!” Fluttershy smiled as she found a holographic map that showed the entire underground facility.
“This place stretches all the way to the Ghastly Gorge?!” Rarity exclaimed as she studied the map. “That’s miles upon miles away!”
“That chamber is darn massive too, it’s almost the entire length of the entire gorge...” Applejack said in wonder.
“Oohh, I wonder what’s at the bottom here!” Pinkie pointed at the deepest part of the base which looked to be incredibly deep away. The Pink pony’s energy already increasing again after what happened in the catacombs moments before.
“Well, let’s see… The big chamber is labeled as the manufactorum in here. The rooms down below us seem to be laboratories of sorts,” Fluttershy said as she found the listings to the hologram.
“So they were buildin’ something? Sounds mighty interesting,” Applejack said, Rarity scoffing.
“Of course you would, but imagine what we could find in the laboratories!” Rarity exclaimed, looking over at Shy, “So what do you say, darling? Where should we go?”
To be honest I was hoping to find an armory but seeing what kind of facilities this place has… I wonder what the ponies here were making and researching before they left this place for good...
1. Head for the manufactorum.
2. Check out the laboratories.
3. Find an Armory.
What to explore, what to explore~ 
[Paragon] or [Renegade] are colored when available, though normal options might also contribute to one or the other. As for the shippers under us, [Romance] is now also a thing.
When an option is not available due to various reasons it will be colored [Grey]
https://www.strawpoll.me/20775625
[Certainty: 80]
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Ah, so it did go south for them; luckily, AJ's foreleg being wounded was the worst of it..for now. As for where to go...since there's no armory clearly labeled, I might be inclined to check out the manufactorum; maybe get lucky and find equipment there.
Something intresting this way comes. The Tree wasnt an antenna coupling? Or just an outcrop of a planetary web?
Shy isnt calling up Sheperd because she cant get a signal out, its being jammed, the Normandy is already haaving an Intresting Time?
Given the Heritics knocking on the door, which is a handy choke point, assuming the airlocks cant be flooded with fast setting denial concrete etc, I would say Option 3, Find an Armory, hopefully with portable shield generators, and lock as much of teh base down to limit the Heretics movement options to hopefully kill zones, assuming theres little to no working internal security?
A large chamber is usually a transport option, either a Stargate, Relay, or given nteh shize of Ghastly Gorge, a Cruiser?
10386648
...except that the catacombs have caved in and Fluttershy smashed the local server hub. The Heretics would need to sneak in a new server and start digging from scratch, without the aid of the preexisting tunnel system. For all intents and purposes, that entrance is sealed. Manufacturing might get them more gear, which AJ, Rarity, and Pinkie needs. Me, I vote the labs, since I am a "Lore *****", and that seems like where we can pick up more "Codex Entries".
10386679
Ah, my extensive mistake, I thought Shy only managed to temporarily disable the Server and the Tunnels only collapsed behind them as a slow down method. I was wondering just how far down they were relative to teh Tree Of Harmony cavern beneath the castle, given the Gorge run.
Given Immediate defence, offence is no longer required, resourcves and information are critical.
I would select Labs, for the better terminal access and databases, but I selected the wrong option under personal misnformation.
Would be typical if theres a Pony Legion in there.
10385259
I see...but yeah, I was speaking of military rank in relation to Shepard.
A giant underground cavern the Geth were presumably digging down to, and laboratories of some kind. Why do I suspect there's a half-finished Pony Reaper in that cavern?
Do you think it would be smart if they find some guns first? That's just an idea.
Into the Underdark we go....
Alicorn decanting facility.
Shame we cant visit all three locations
10387389
The secret to planning the Perfect Party. And Pinkie Pie is their greatest success...
labs = research, Research = what they could have made back then or possible blueprints
manufactorum = means possble vehicles of some kind....
Armory = weapons ..............
ahhhhh why must such choices be so hard
Or it could be that.
Big enough to manufacture starships?
1.for all we know the Armor has only ww2 weapons...
I wonder if we find friendly a.i.'s here... After all this time energy might be a problem.
10386645
Or let it be produced... I wonder how the power generation and reserves look like...
10386648
Should a Facility like that don't usualy have V.I. or A.I. support?
10386679
Gear up, next time it might be a headshot instead of a leg that get hit...
10386693
Isn't survivel higher ranked? AJ already got the Changeling treatment with holes in the legs...
10386783
Doubtful, if anything like that was around it would have finished the ponys of millenia ago... Unless Nightmare was a result of it?
10386916
Guns are nice, but shield and armor seem to be more critical...
10387701
Time is short, afterwards there is always time...
10388664
Or the guide to the perfect cupcakes and cookies!
10389564
Than again, AJ already has holes in one leg... Armor and Shield sound good about now...
10798111
Pony in space incoming
So many possibilities, but the laboratory seem to really be something after the Geth are not hot on their plotholes to add some new ones sll over their bodys.