Chapter Seventeen: Flowing
“Did you hear that?” Twilight asked.
The groups stopped and listened intently, hearing nothing but distant rushing water and not so distant bleating of Lydia, the lama very much unhappy with being in a narrow, foul smelling dark tunnel.
“It's probably nothing,” assured King, though from how tense his voice sounded, Twilight wasn't sure if he was comforting her or himself. “Some rubble falling from the ceiling further down or something.”
“Great,” said Crown, pulling at Lydia's leash to make the animal move again. “So now we are at risk of being buried alive, not jus getting eaten by giant insects or shot to death by murder bots.”
“This structure was here for several millennia,” Ratslayer said as he calmly continued to venture further into the vault. “The chance of it collapsing right now at this time is highly improbable and thus probably not something to be worri-”
“Don't,” interrupted Crown, “just please don't.”
Thankfully, this was the moment King discovered another closed vault door - similar to the first one they had opened. It too was made of gray metal with green glowing veins of some unknown technology.
“Sparky,” King gestured at the lock. “Do your thing.”
The unicorn gave a nod, her horn glowing for a brief moment before the doors hissed and opened, revealing another corridor filled with darkness.
“Can I just say how creepy this is?” Crown motioned towards Twilight. “I mean, are you sure it isn't melting your brain? Is it safe? This doesn't look…normal. Even by our low standards.”
Twilight sneered and fought from some sarcastic remark. She was fine. Her head was just kinda spinning and something about those green glowing doors felt so damn familiar, but she couldn't place it. But she was fine.
Dawn shook in its place on the small of her back; the chain sword giving a slow, calming purr.
Silently, she continued on and into the newly opened passage, while trying her best to ignore the inquisitive look Ratslayer was giving her.
Twilight's brows narrowed. Watching shadows dance on the walls, Dawn levitated in front of her and at the ready. Her other companions behind her, she turned to face them.
“I’m going first,” she said, levitating Dawn. “The rest cover me.”
At first, she thought that stealth might be an option, but her clanking plasteel plate armor, the nervous llama and Crowns swearing at every darkened corner, made that quite impossible.
They would have to just hope for the best.
She gave Crown a worried glance. The man clutched his rifle close to his chest, face pale and eyes distant.
The pony closed her eye, as she pushed some of her precious power into her horn to power her spell.
Despite her time spent on the Rimworld, she still felt the unnatural resistance fighting her magic. A spell this simple shouldn't be a problem for her to cast. She was pretty sure that back home in Equestria, she wouldn't even really feel it being used and could maintain it almost indefinitely. But this wasn't Equestria. Her magic was nowhere near as strong as she was used to it and it got depleted fast.
Still, it was worth it.
Purple light lit the tunnel revealing the crumbling concrete walls of the vault, together with piles of rubble laying in the hallway and the rusted wiring hanging off the ceiling, like spilled guts of a decaying corpse.
“Shouldn't you save your magic?” King asked, suddenly standing right next to her, his gaze fixated on the door, revolver at the ready.
Twilight glanced back at Crown. The man relaxed a little, though she could see his embarrassment at the situation.
He shouldn't be, Twilight thought. Crown crawled through a dark tunnel filled with death while his home was burning behind him. And he was utterly alone while doing it, with only his mortally wounded friend and her useless, unconscious form. Of course it would leave a mark.
But that could wait for later. After they all survived and made it back to Going South.
Or what's left of it, Twilight thought bitterly.
She shook her head, entering the new room at the end of the tunnel only after a brief second of hesitation.
It was large. It reminded Twilight of one of the lecture rooms in Canterlot’s school for gifted unicorns, except that instead of rows of seating for students facing a professor's lectern, it was rows of some machines on tables. Computers they were called. Or at least that's what Twilight thought they were from the description Lily gave her. Except the big machine in the middle of the room, Twilight had no idea what that was, except it vaguely looked like a map carved out of glass connected to an eldritch abomination made entirely of wires of different thickness and length.
“Okay, let's look around a bit,” Twilight said to her companions. “Look for anything we could salvage.” She paused. “And be careful. We don't know what anything here does.”
Crown smirked.
“You wound me, Twilight. When I'm not careful?”
King halted for a brief moment.
“...Was that rhetorical?” He asked. “Or should I get the list?”
“You have a list?”
Ignoring them, Twilight walked between the rows of the computers - looking for things they could use.
And there it was. On one of the tables in the middle.
Papers.
The unicorn smiled, rushing there. She frowned a little, seeing that they were blank. She hoped for research material, but still, paper! That meant she could finally write something down!
She opened her saddle bags, carefully levitating the papers into them when she noticed it.
There was a framed photo standing on the table next to them.
Curious, she picked it up.
The photo was faded, and the glass was cracked and covered in a layer of dust inch thick. Despite that, Twilight could see it was a picture of a young woman with a metallic eye. But the bionic did not stop her from looking stunning, almost radiant, in a beautiful white dress Rarity wouldn't be ashamed of making.
Then Twilight froze and stared.
The woman wasn't alone in the picture. She was in the middle of a kiss with a man in a red beret and a dress uniform. A dress uniform which looked shockingly similar to what she saw Shining Armor wear during his promotion ceremony, but that was not what made Twilight pause.
It was the man's face.
She recognized it.
She saw it before. In one of her dreams.
In her shock, Twilight dropped the picture, the frame shattered. She faintly heard Crown swear as he lifted his weapon, ready for an attack that wasn't coming.
But her attention was still on the picture - or more accurately, on the writing she now saw, hidden before by the now broken frame.
Wedding of Winston and Elisa Wawes.
And, as on cue, Dawn moved, the blade making a fast, almost panicked, seeming, whine.
“You okay Sparks?” King asked, worry clear on his face.
“Yeah,” Twilight forced out, quickly hiding the photo in her saddle bag while giving him a smile so fake it hurt her face. “It's nothing. I got lost in thought and bump into something.”
She paused, looking again at the empty room, at the empty seat and all the abandoned space.
“I was just…wondering, what do you think happened here? Where are the people that build this? Used this? Where did they go?”
King pondered it for a second, opening his mouth to answer, only to be cut off by Crown loudly swearing.
“Crown?” King called out to his friend.
Crown didn't answer. Instead, he swore again and pointed with his weapon at the ground, where something laid, still half-hidden by the darkness.
Slowly, Twilight walked to his side, her horn light revealing more and more.
Whitened bones and rags, empty skulls gazing into nothing.
Skeletons.
Ten, twenty, thirty…
Lined to a wall of the room. A wall covered in scorch marks. They wore nothing but rags - the tattered remains of lab coats and worker overalls. Civilians.
Executed.
It was Ratslayer who spoke up and finally broke the silence.
“I think we just found your answer, Twilight.”
Twilight felt like she was going to cry.
From one of the skulls, a single metallic eye was staring back.
“We need to get out,” Twilight stated suddenly. A horrible feeling began crawling down her back like icy claws. “Ratslayer, get Lydia, Crown, I need you to stay calm and-”
“Sparkles,” King said slowly in a vain attempt to stop panic from seeping into his voice. “Did you close the doors behind us?”
“No?”
“Then why is it closed?”
Eye growing wide, Twilight rushed towards the doors, her horn alight. But the doors stayed sealed shut. A small writing appeared on the screen above the lock.
Access denied.
Twilight took a step back, giving a nervous laugh.
“it's probably just a fluke.”
She tried again. The lock gave a beep.
Access denied.
“Something reactivated the safety protocols,” Ratslayer supplied helpfully, his voice still flat and emotionless despite now being trapped in what appeared to be a giant tomb. “The vault security system went into full lockdown.”
The three remaining colonists all gave the supposed tribal a look.
“Where did you even learn what any of that means?” King asked.
Ratslayer pondered that for a second, his face unchanging and blank.
“...I don't know,” he finally answered.
Twilight started to panic. They were trapped. Trapped because of her. If she just didn't-
The chains sword purred, pulling her back. Stopping her would-be-panic attack.
The vault doors would not be opened by force. That much she could gather. But they could still try, maybe find a piece of rubble and try to use it as a pry bar to force the doors to let them through.
She shook her head. No, that was wishful thinking. This was not the time for a panic attack. She needed to keep calm if they were to escape alive.
“Ratslayer, do you know how to turn off the…safety protocols?” she asked.
“We can shut them from here in the control room,” Ratslayer answered. “But first, we need to restore power to this section. There should be a generator room in this facility. If we repair it to sufficient capacity, it should go from emergency power mode and give you access.”
“Again, do we just…not question how a random tribal - no offense - knows how to operate Ancient Terran machinery?” Crown asked. “Or how a goddamn unicorn can?”
Twilight shook her head. While she was curious too, they had more pressing matters on hoof. Maybe they could find some answers in the vault, but she doubted that Ratslayer would know why-
“Twilight can access the systems because she fits the biometric signature,” Ratslayer said without the slightest hint hesitation.
All of them gave him a look, Crown just raising his brow.
“What the fuck is biometric?” he asked.
Ratslayer simply shrugged.
“I haven't got the slightest idea.”
It took a few minutes before they moved on from the control room. They now huddled closer together than before, standing shoulder to shoulder as they advanced deeper, discovering more parts of the vault on the way - a barrack, a kitchen, a med bay, a hydroponics farm. But they have found no sign of the generator room.
Still, it wasn't entirely useless. In the med bay, they found some medicine in a sealed crate. In the kitchen, they were cryogenically stored meals that looked safe to eat - as much as prepared army meals ever looked safe to eat, anyway.
Twilight chose to not speculate on how long the food would last if they were to be trapped in the vault for what would inevitably be the rest of their very short lives.
And in every room, they found more corpses.
The rest of the vault looked every bit like a battlefield. Spend casings littered the floor, bullet holes and more scorch marks marred every surface.
With each discovered part of the vault, their paranoia grew deeper.
They were entering another room. The doors there were broken, blown inwards by whatever force had swept into the vault and killed everyone inside. Her two human friends each took position next to the doors with herself in the middle and Ratslayer staying behind and holding Lydia's leash.
King raised his left hand, with all five fingers extended, the right still holding the revolver.
A countdown. Five.
Twilight gathered her breath and lowered the visor of her helmet, the chain sword almost buzzing in her magical grip.
Four
She met Crown's gaze. The man had his Enfield shouldered and his bayonet attached - turning the long rifle into a makeshift spear would the circumstance required it.
Three
King's body tensed, trying to remember his training. He went through drills and killing houses in his old police department, but he never really did room clearings for real.
Two
The trio prepared themself. Ready for a fight, ready to go forward and face whatever awaited them on the other side of those doors.
One
They moved as one, springing forwards, rushing past the doors. King and Crown covering each other blind spots and Twilight shielding them as much as she could.
Nothing. The room was empty.
“God dammit,” Crown laughed, shoulders relaxing as relief washed over him. “That's the fifth time in a row. We need to stop doing this. My heart can't take it.”
He stopped, really looking around and finally noticing just what the room was.
“Is this?”
“An armory!” King exclaimed, running to the racks and shelves, eye sparking. He picked up something from one of the shelves.
“Looks like they left a few things behind,” he said happily, inspecting his find. “Looks almost brand new.”
“What is it?” Crown asked, looking at the weapon. He recognized it as a standard ballistic firearm, instead of charge or some kind of energy weapon, but that was about how far his expertise went. His own militia training never really gone into much detail on those things.
“It's a modified M16A4 rifle,” King squealed. “Somebody replaced the standard stock with a CAR-15 collapsing stock, got rid of the rear sight and got a holographic sight, but left the front iron sight alone - that's good, by the way…and what the fuck is that muzzle device? Wait, is that an adjustable gas system?”
Twilight turned towards Crown with a questioning look, Crown shrugging.
“Eh, can you translate that to normal speak?” he asked.
“It's an assault rifle,” King answered happily. Two owlish blinks his reply. “It pew pew fast,” he sighed.
“Oh!” “Why didn't you just say so?” “Explain what is ‘Pew Pew’.
The gunsmith's face palmed.
“Why do I even try?”
He shook his head, picking another gun and handing it to Crown.
“Anyway, this is a Remington 870. It's a shotgun. Probably better for enclosed spaces than a rifle.”
Crown tilted his head, watching his friend.
“What? That's all you have to say?”
King shrugged.
“Well, I mean, it's a shotgun,” King said easily. “It guns shots and spits hot lead,” he gave Crown an inquisitive look. “Do you have any experience with shotguns?”
Crown shot him a ‘don't be stupid’ look.
“I grew up on a ranch,” he deadpanned. “Of course, I have experience with shotguns,” he started picking up the loose shotgun shells from the shelf, stopping briefly to point at the multicolored ammunition scattered around. “Wait, orange shells? That ain’t buckshot! What are those?”
“Dunno,” King shrugged. “They aren't labeled. For all we know, they can be buckshot. I know those are usually red but that's not universal,” he picked one up, turning it in his hand before throwing it back to Crown. “Anyway, they aren't blanks and it's 12 gauge. Whatever they are, they probably hurt.”
With that, they gathered the rest of the ammo and left the armory, finding nothing else useful to scavenge.
“The generator room should be nearby,” Ratslayer said, stepping into a new room, while totally ignoring King's trying to organize another room clearing attempt, much to the other man's annoyance.
Twilight held a giggle. She could empathize with King, but Ratslayer was probably right. The vault was sealed shut for millennia. Whatever battle killed the vaults original residents had long since passed, leaving only abandoned halls and corridors.
So why do I feel like something is watching us?
“Twilight?” Crown asked. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I just have a bad feeling,”
“Tell me about it. I hate exploring ancient ruins.”
They stopped. What was before them was a laboratory. The air was heavy and musty, specks of dust flew in the air. A circular tiled room with machines of steel and glass, with one coffin-like chamber in the middle of it.
It was open.
Twilight muzzle scrunched. The feeling of being watched intensified, but she still could pinpoint why or from where. The reach of her horn light did not cover the entire room, but everything was so silent so far.
They encountered nothing dangerous so far with the notable exception of the malfunctioning machinery that locked them in. Ratslayer strolled into the room, casually walking towards the open capsule in the middle, inspecting the markings in the dust around it.
Entirely missing the piece of string he tripped over.
Get Down.
Without a second of hesitation, Twilight dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding a wave of shrapnel as a grenade went off to her side. From the periphery of her vision, she saw Ratslayer being thrown against a wall by the explosion, his body falling limply to the floor and leaving a bloody stain on the concrete.
Before Twilight could realize what was happening, something jumped out from behind the lab equipment, accompanied by the loud sounds of gunfire.
Gunfire coming her way.
A cold, sudden realization hit Twilight at that moment. To dodge the grenade, she dropped to the floor. She couldn't teleport or dodge that quickly. She was going to get hit.
She was dead and there was nothing she could do about it.
She waited.
Nothing,
Twilight blinked. She wasn't dead. Or even dying.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Dawn, her sword blackened and scorched by whatever weapon was firing at her. The sword itself was hurled across the room by the force of the impact, far away from her reach.
The burst of gunfire revealed the enemy ambushing them. An impossibly large humanoid figure covered in smooth white power armor. Its face was completely hidden by a featureless helmet. If there were eye slits on the helmet, Twilight could see them. Where there should be eyes, there was simply more smooth metal.
Despite that, she felt its gaze bore into her, making her shudder with fear.
It aimed again.
Twilight felt herself being moved - King dived from cover, grabbing her by the collar and almost throwing her behind an old machine as bullets hit around them.
No, not around them. Not completely.
King flinched. Something warm stained Twilight's chest plate, she felt it dripping down her back.
Blood. Not hers.
King fell behind the machine next to her, clutching his side. His clothes and vest were drenched in red, his face contorted into a grimace - more from the shock of being hit than actual pain. Still, he shouldered his assault rifle, aiming for the position from where the enemy fire came from and returned it in kind.
More bullet impacts were the answer to his defiance. The rounds just narrowly missed his head and scorched the wall behind him black.
The sound of the enemy weapon struck a familiar chord within the Twilight. She had heard this exact sound once before, when the mechanoid attacked Going South.
It has a charge weapon, Twilight grimly realized. That meant their armor was practically useless. Only her plasteel plate stood a chance to withstand a direct impact from a charge weapon. And even then, only barely.
The unicorn leaned from her cover, trying to spot their foe. Twilight saw it moving in the darkness of the lab towards them.
It was almost elegant in how it wasted no movement. Each step was calculated, cold, patient and accompanied by unrelenting gunfire. Burst after burst was fired onto their position, forcing them to keep their heads down and Twilight to back down into cover again as bullets hit the structure she was covering behind.
She pulled out the only weapon she had left - her Ikwa. The plasteel spear felt so small and inadequate in her grip when faced against an armored beast so tall it would make Celestia look short.
“Eat buckshot chucklenut!” Crown suddenly yelled out, hopping from behind his cover and firing at the beast.
There were sparks as the buckshot pellets met its armor, but it didn't make it slow down or even flinch. The armored beast simply whirled around to face Crown and then returned fire in one fluid movement, forcing Crown to scramble back into cover just in time to avoid being turned into the human colander.
But it gave Twilight an opening.
The unicorn vanished in a shower of purple sparks, appearing behind the power armor clad warrior. She stabbed up, leading the spearhead into the weak point of the armor’s armpit where the joint disallowed heavy plating. The Ikwa sailed through the air-
Faster than her eye could follow, the beast dodged her strike and hit her with a backhand of its right arm.
Twilight vision went hazy as pain seared through her skull. First was the throbbing sensation of the iron fist hitting her helmet - like if her head was stuck in a ringing bell - then the terrible sense of pressure against her horn as the beast started to crush her head in its hand.
Twilight's heart thrummed in her chest as she struggled against the vice-like grip. Her magic went wild. She couldn't concentrate, couldn't breathe. But she could feel as her helmet began to give in and dent and push against her horn, threatening to break it.
And then it let her go.
The beast dodged again, a long pillar of flame went through the space it just left. It dropped Twilight, choosing to return fire instead and deal with the more imminent threat.
Another burst of light and a sound of gunfire thundered through the room, this time from the opposite side of the lab, forcing the beast to readjust.
King kept pushing the trigger. He pressed his rifle against the table he was taking cover behind, leaning onto it to keep the assault rifle steady with his own body weight as he switched to automatic and fired his whole magazine into that thing.
King could see flashes of light as bullets ricocheted off the power armor, but the sheer volume of fire at least made it stagger, buying Twilight precious time.
The thing moved in a blur. Another barrage of charge rounds found its target, hitting King in the shoulder and chest. The man dropped. Still. Unmoving.
*Cracka boom!*
Crown jumped out from his hiding space, shotgun leveled at the power-armored beast. Blast after blast of pure white hellfire left the barrel of the shotgun.
At that moment, Crown found out what the orange shells were.
Dragon breath. Stored by the original occupants of the vault for cases of insect attacks.
Crown stepped closer and closer as he pumped the shotgun and fired again and again. Pillars of flame erupting from the shotgun each time, setting the soldiers ablaze. Driving him back and away from Twilight.
And then, the worst possible noise.
*Click.*
“Shit!”
He ran empty.
Without missing a beat, the beast aimed at Crown and shot, only to be stopped in its tracks.
Twilight stood tall, horn alight and bright, the air around her shimmering with arcane energy as she pushed the last of her reserves onto the spell.
The power-armored beast's limbs were enveloped in a purple aura. The room was filled with the screeching of exoskeleton servo motors as Twilight forced it to kneel. Smoke began rising from the power armor’s mechanical joints as it tried to resist her magic.
Crown, panicking, reached into his vest pocket. He picked a fistful of shells in a shaking hand and while he fumbled and dropped most of them, he managed to load one into his weapon.
The shotgun blast hit the beast's helmet. The shotgun shell Crown picked at random turned out to be a slug. The sheer impact of the large projectile moved the beast's head backwards and shattered the visor of its helmet, revealing the face underneath.
Finally, Twilight saw their enemy.
A human man, his face bleeding and covered with scars. His red were eyes locked onto hers, pure hatred crystal clear in his gaze.
“Archo abomination,” the ancient soldiers growled towards Twilight, his voice distorted and robotic. The cataphract helmet voice box was still working despite the damage to the visor.
The exoskeleton gave another deafening screech, the armored man moving, struggling against the hold of Twilight's magic.
“My armor is contempt,” he snarled, one leg straightening, his shoulders lifting.
He was getting up. Twilight grit her jaw, pushing even more magic into the spell just to hold it, just to give King or Crown more time to reload. She started seeing double; the world floating around her.
“My shield is disgust,” the man continued to move despite the magical bindings. Crown could only stare in horror at the slowly raising muzzle of the charge rifle towards him. He tried to load more shells into his shotgun, but slipped, spilling them on the floor. “My sword is hatred.”
The soldiers pressed the trigger.
The magic bonds shattered. The sudden absence of resistance caused the soldier to move and miss Crown by a few inches, only damaging the lab machinery more, spilling chemicals and lighting a small fire.
Before Crown or Twilight could react, the ancient soldier jumped to his feet, crossing the short distance between him and Crown in a blink. He struck with his offhand, landing a blow to Crown's stomach. The colonist gasped and crumbled, dropping his weapon.
Twilight rushed forward, stabbing with her ikwa, aiming at the soldier's knee.
He spun around, his movement fluid and without waste. The soldier hefted his charge rifle at her and sent a three-round burst her way. She could only stop her advance and skid to cover, but not before one of the charge rounds hit her shoulder.
She only knew she was hit because of the noise her armor made and by the force of the impact, nearly making her fall. It was almost like being suddenly hit in the leg by a hammer, except there was no pain. Only the force behind it.
Pain would come later.
“Do not suffer the mutant to live,” the ancient soldier spoke as he calmly walked to where Crown was still groaning in pain on the floor. The soldier's voice was cold and robotic, but it dripped with venom and unabashed contempt.
The ancient soldier briefly looked at Crown.
And then he stepped on his neck.
Crown's eyes shot open. He began to writhe and struggle as he started to suffocate. Legs kicking emptily into the air, his arms uselessly trying to lift the weight of his throat, fingernails breaking and snapping off as he clawed at the sabaton slowly pushing the life out of him.
The soldier had his rifle still aimed at where Twilight was hiding, hoping to bait her out. He could wait. He had time.
The man under his foot did not.
Twilight watched the scene from her hiding space. She had to move, save her friend. Make up a plan. What plan? Crown was going to die.
The unicorn prepared herself. One mad dash at a power-armored juggernaut to save her friend.
If You Do This, You Die.
Twilight hesitated.
Crown's writhing began to weaken, his face turning blue, his empty gasps for air more erratic. His eyes bulging, mouth open for a scream that wouldn't come out.
One single shot rang out through the lab.
Blood splattered from the soldier's head. It stained the wall behind him with crimson. The soldier took a step backwards, releasing Crown.
King stood smiling,. His chest was bleeding, one hand pressed against the wound, the other holding the smoking revolver.
Still, he was smiling,
The soldier turned, letting King see the results of his work. Half of the soldier's face was now missing, with bloody pieces of meat and bone dangling on loose strands of skin where his left cheek used to be.
King smirked. He hit the one crack on the soldier's helmet, exactly where he was aiming.
Now just to finish it.
Twilight saw her chance and took it.
It's now or never.
She jumped from behind her cover, hoping to catch it by surprise.
She did not.
It swept her legs and hit her in the throat with the butt of his rifle. With the same blur of movement, he picked her up, crushing her painfully against his chest as he aimed the rifle at her head while simultaneously using her as a living shield.
King froze and grit his teeth. He thumped the hammer back and prepared for another shot, but he couldn't fire without risking either hitting Twilight or the soldier simply executing her if the shot didn't kill him cleanly.
The ancient soldier tilted his head.
“What? You hesitate to kill your pet mutant, heretic?”
“No,” answered King with an easy shrug. “Just surprised that Crown can be sneaky when he wants to.”
Behind the ancient soldier, Crown took this as his cue and charged forward, using the Lee-Enfield with its attached bayonet as a spear.
Many things could be said of Crown. Many of them not flattering. He was abrasive. And a hothead. And kind of lazy, and yes, even a ‘prickly asshole’ as his twin would put it.
And he was scared of the dark. And at that moment, he was terribly afraid. Charging down a hulk of a man in cataphract power armor with only a bolt-action rifle that was outdated two millennia ago was clearly a suicide. It would be like trying to fight a tank using only a bronze knife and a stone javelin.
Crown did it anyway.
Becasue while Crown was scared for himself, he was more scared for his friends.
Crown charged.
The bayonet hit between the hard plates on the back of the power armor with enough force to drive the blade through the ballistic fiber underneath and into flesh, bone and organ.
The power armored soldiers roared in rage, letting go of Twilight, the unicorn used the opportunity to kick him in the head with her hind legs and simultaneously stabbing him in the armpit with the ikwa.
The man growled like an animal, using his elbow to hit Crown, then attempting to punch Twilight.
Attempting.
King stood in front of the soldier, the power-armored fist caught in King's own hand. The wounded soldier gave King a look of utter bewilderment and surprise as he attempted to move his arm in vain, King somehow holding the soldier back despite his own lack of mechanical enhancement.
Trying to get King off him, the soldier tried to back up a little - to create enough space for him to shoot the charge rifle, only for King to surge forward and grasp the muzzle of the weapon, forcing it away from him.
The soldier even tried to fire the charge rifle - to force King to let it go from the sheer heat of holding onto a hot barrel of a firearm, but King simply continued exerting pressure against him.
Meanwhile, Twilight rushed towards Crown, finding him unconscious, the bend Lee-Enfield laying next to him.
She glanced back at King, still somehow holding the ancient soldier at bay.
She needed a weapon. Fast.
King felt his bone crack and break, his fingers shatter and bleed. His other hand burn and sizzle.
He still held.
“Yield,” commanded the ancient soldier. “Yield and I make it quick.”
King did not do that.
Desperate, he did the only thing he could think of doing.
The soldier staggered back as King head butted him. The soldier was more confused than hurt, but it gave King a second of respite.
Seconds. He only needed to hold for a few more seconds.
Twilight searched, crawling under the lab machinery. Her Ikwa was still impaled in the ancient soldier's shoulder, Crown's bayonet buried in his back. She needed a weapon.
She needed Dawn.
King pushed, head-butting the metal wall that was the soldier again, ignoring his wounds, thanks to the Luciferium in his veins, but even the miracle drug could only do so much.
It was only a matter of time before he broke.
With one swift movement of the soldiers' legs, King lost balance and fell to the ground.
Utterly exhausted, he attempted to get up again, only for his knees to buckle from under him.
He felt something hard support him and pick him back up.
A metal hand gripped his shoulder.
“You fought well,” the ancient soldier whispered to his ear, almost sounding gentle. He put the barrel of the charge rifle against King's forehead. “Now rest proud.”
“Hey!”
The soldier spun around, instantly at the ready.
Twilight stood in the middle of the lab, Dawn in the air beside her, the chain sword roaring defiantly.
“Get from my friends!” Twilight hissed.
The man simply aimed, ready to fire, when he stopped and stared at Dawn.
First with confusion.
And then, to Twilight's surprise, recognition.
“That sword does not belong to you, abomination,” he spat.
“Well then,” Twilight said with much more confidence that she was feeling. “Come and take it from me.”
Twilight lunged forward, spinning the blade and stepping to the side, dodging charge fire left and right. She raised the sword, feinting an attack from his right side.
The soldier braced himself, and side stepped while firing.
Just as Twilight wanted.
In a shower of purple sparks, the unicorn blinked out of existence, reaping to the soldier's left and slashing with her sword at his torso.
The man reacted in time, putting up his weapon to block the attack. The chain blade bit into the rifle, nearly severing it in half before Twilight was forced back.
The soldier leveled his rifle at her again, pushing the trigger, aiming for the unicorn in a second of vulnerability.
*Click.*
Throwing away the broken weapon in indignant rage, the soldier then grabbed for the plasteel ikwa stuck in his armpit, pulling the bloodied short spear out with a sickeningly wet sound.
He twirled the blade in his hand testily, before turning his hateful filled gaze back towards Twilight.
Without further warning, he surged forwards, slashing first from up then to the side, trying to get past Twilight's defenses and hit her horn. Her short stature gave her some advantage here - it was the only place he could really reach so it made theoretically easier.
Theoretically.
Twilight avoided the blindingly fast strikes more by sheer luck than skill, frantically parrying the ikwa while struggling to keep pace with the onslaught.
“For Terra!” the soldier screamed out, suddenly lunging forwards with the spear. Twilight managed to block it in time, only to get hit by its off-hand, sending her flying. The blow shattered her helmet and broke the strap holding it, exposing her head. The pain and shock broke her focus, ending her levitation around Dawn. The silent blade limply fell to the floor next to her.
Twilight gasped, her strength gone. Her body was exhausted. She couldn't fight anymore. She just couldn't. It was time to accept that.
She wasn't a warrior. She wasn't a fighter.
She was just a pony. And it was time to let go.
“Is that all you got?” the soldier marched forward as he spoke. “Get up,” he spat. “Show me what passes for fury among your misbegotten kind.”
Agonizingly, slowly Twilight got up, her horn ablaze again, but it was a flickering light. Dawn was shaking in the air, barely kept afloat. Blood was pouring from her split lips, her legs were trembling.
The soldier shook his head, looking at the pathetic state his foe was in. The pony closed her eye.
“Time to die, mutant.”
He swung at her exposed face, aiming to slit her throat.
No,” Twilight whispered.
“Not Today.”
Dawn moved through the air, chain spinning, screaming. With one swing, Twilight severed the soldier's arm at the elbow, the limb falling to the ground, still holding the ikwa.
The soldier howled in pain.
Twilight advanced. Swinging again and again. With nothing left to defend himself with, the soldier could only go back while cowering and holding the stump that used to be his hand.
Twilight did not stop, did not hesitate. She cut him in the legs, in the torso. Anywhere she could reach, she attacked relentlessly. She pushed her magic beyond her limit, fueling it with pain and rage and a survival instinct that demanded her to live.
One last attack, aimed for the neck. Coming from above.
In true desperation, the man grabbed the blade with his remaining hand.
“I will not fail!” he screamed. The roar of the blade got louder and louder as it tore through metal and flesh alike. “You will burn, mutant! The archons will all burn! Your whole world will burn! The galaxy will be cleansed in flame!”
Finally, she saw in him some other emotion than hatred.
Fear.
She pushed the blade down, closer to his head.
“Suffer not the Unclean!”
Closer
“Suffer not the Impure!”
Closer.
“Suffer not the Archo-”
With one last roar of its chain blade, Dawn had silenced the soldier forever more.
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Rimworld is one one the best games ever made and I will die on this planet surrounded by mountains and preferably near a geothermal vent.
11888412
Thanks for your comments, hope you find another story to enjoy!
11888249
Its Rimworld, that can be arranged.
Suffered these nuts you space marine wannabe.