Bounty Hunters 3: Genesis

by Jasper77W

Chapter 61: Onwards and to Hell

"Looks like our Haven allies are doing fine." Spitfire said, watching from the OASIS while officers ran to and from the bridge carrying reports of battle and various messages.

"Indeed they are." Soarin nodded, impressed. Unfortunately for them they don't have any reinforcements to spare- and they could only hope Haven holds out until the magic faction forces on the ground reach them.

"Captain Spitfire! Ma'am!" An officer cried out, running towards the top of the bridge. "We've just received a distress signal from inside the COLOSSUS!"

Spitfire and Soarin turned, their attention instantly captured. They looked at each other.

"You think it's Blithy?" Soarin raised an eyebrow.

"Really can't be sure." Spitfire replied, turning to the officer. "Where did it come from?"

"Val's personal Throne Room, captain." The officer said.

"Of course." Spitfire muttered. "ILLUSION, retreat and abort the mission."

"Wait, WHAT!?" Soarin looked at her incredulously. "ABORT!?"

"Val's keeping Blithy close to her. This could be a trick, and even if it's not I don't want any pony getting near Val. That mare is literally invincible- a rescue mission from under her nose will be impossible." Spitfire reasoned, walking up to the holographic displays.

"THE COLOSSUS IS MOVING AGAIN!!" Came the yell.

Spitfire and Soarin turned to look outside, watching as the battle slowly ceased. The science faction troops were... Retreating...?

"What the hay...." Spitfire muttered, watching as science faction cruisers scrambled out of the way of the-

Oh, no.

"Iris! How much charge do we have on the CYCLOPS!?" She screamed.

"We're about two minutes from a full charge!" Iris replied. "Why?"

"BECAUSE THE COLOSSUS IS AIMING ITS DARK-MATTER CRAP-DISPENSER AT US!!!" Spitfire yelled, issuing out signals to tell the other ships to scramble and get as far away from each other as possible. "ALL FIGHTERS!! RETREAT TO YOUR HANGARS!!! CRUISERS- SCRAMBLE! NOW!"

The magic faction fleet's formation was breaking apart rapidly, and the path to the surface for the science faction fleet was becoming increasingly clear.

"Cyclops! Charge?" Soarin inquired.

"Minute and fifty seconds!" Came the reply from Iris.

"Give me a scan on that dark-matter cannon!" Spitfire yelled.

"Modified dark-matter at over eighty percent concentration! It's reaching firing strength!"

"Crap...." Spitfire racked a hoof through her mane. You know things are extra bad when she does that. She put a hoof to her mouth, eyes unfocused on whatever she was looking at, unlike her mind which was racing through options to take and others to not. She tapped the hoof rails in front of her, thinking. They didn't have a lot of time left.

*

Doctor Whooves shuddered, his eyes slowly opening as he became more aware of his surroundings. He could feel an oddly warm form on his body, despite the freezing cold temperatures outside.

He almost jumped when he realized the warm form was Derpy, unconscious on his chest. Blushing, he quickly got up and carried her on his back. He looked around him, shaking off the numbness in his legs- but winced as he did so. The leg implant he was given hadn't been fully installed yet, they still needed to insert a chip in his brain so he could control the motorized joints and other functions installed. Right now it was just a high-tech crutch and a dead weight.

The cold didn't make things any better. There should be an internal heating element, but without the chip it couldn't work. And right now the near-frozen metal was something that was very uncomfortable to be in physical contact of. In fact, the part where metal contacted the Doctor's skin was already freezing to the point of pain.

Nothing that couldn't be dismissed by a few grunts though.

"Well ain't this something new." He muttered, slowly limping along the dark corridor he was in, the grey pegasus on his back being the only source of warmth. "Now, where am I?"

Suddenly the earth shook, and he heard the rumble of an explosion. He froze in place, ears pricked and listening. Sounds like gunfire in the distance.

Another explosion rocked the dark corridor, then slowly light crept into the room. He looked up- light was being filtered through a thick light blue solid, presumably ice. The ice covered the entire roof, the Doctor realized. The light was coming through small windows in the metal ceiling, where ice was the only barrier to the outside.

But the light shining through hadn't been the one to shine his path as he had hoped. Instead it seemed to point to hell.

The light revealed the bodies of about thirty ponies, young and old; collapsed and broken on the floor. White flakes of frozen water slowly drifted down from the roof above, forming small piles of snow in the corners of the room.

There was a pony who had her head bashed open, her brain frozen in a crimson sludge that was in the process of oozing out of her open skull when the frost came and froze everything in place.

Frozen blood and gore was all over the place, and it was almost inevitable to be stepping in some.

The Doctor wasn't revolted. Instead he was sad- what happened here...? It made no sense- this place wasn't heavily damaged, meaning something else caused the carnage instead- but as far as he was concerned, they were in city central where all the civilians had been gathered- so was the opposition targeting civilians specifically...? These were families! These were innocent ponies!

His first question was answered as he glanced to the right, then down. On the right wall rows of seats were lined up neatly, only some of them detached from the surface and seemed to fall down a bit from whatever happened here. Looking down at the floor, he found that there were matching sets of windows on the floor as the ceiling- except this wasn't frozen. It just showed the snow laden concrete beneath... Was it a roof? Probably was.

Then he remembered.

He was being evacuated, along with Derpy and a few other patients that were staying at the CMC tower. This was the sky bus they were being taken away on, and somewhere during the course of that it had flipped.

A meteor seemed to pop out of the Doctor's head as he tried to retrace his own memories- but getting onto the sky bus was as far forward as it went. He had no idea what happened.

Worse part was that he remembered thinking of something- a theory, is what it probably was. A really bad theory, one that could possibly change the course of the entire war. And not in a good way.

And here comes the worse part: he couldn't remember what it was.

He thumped his head. "Think, Doctor! Think!"

There was a yelp from above. Was the battle getting closer...?

He needed to get out of here. But most importantly- he needed to get Derpy out of here. If the fight reached them before they got out, chances are this wrecked bus'll be cover for one of the sides- and bigger chances are that that side will get hit by whatever explosive is getting thrown about.

He broke into a swift trot to the far end of the bus, finding the rear emergency exit door locked.

"Ah, pockets. A timelord's second- er, third- best friend." He said to himself, rummaging through his pockets and searching for the little metal shaft.... Ah, there it is. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, a green glow filling the dead space around him as he pointed it at the door. "After the TARDIS and my sonic screwdriver, of course!"

The door clicked and unlocked, and instantly fell down on its hinges with a metallic groan and a loud snap.

"Gah!" The Doctor winced as a fresh but chilling gust of wind flooded into the wrecked sky bus. He took a few steps back, and was instantly glad he did so. "Ooh..." He looked out the open door.

"Hmmmmm...?" Derpy yawned, eyes opening.

"Uh, Derpy? You can fly, yes?" Doctor Whooves asked.

"I find that insulting." Derpy complained, clearly not catching the seriousness in his voice as she slowly woke up. "Why am I on your back?"

"Needed to carry you around for a little while." The Doctor replied. Derpy hopped off, trotting to a stop next to him. Then the cold got to her through her drowsiness, and she instantly jumped back and curled up against the Doctor's side for warmth; drawing a light chuckle from the both of them.

"Alright. Seriously though, Ditzy- I need you to fly out there and take a look around at where we are. I think we somehow managed to end up in the Arctic or something, but we're on a roof and in a city." The Doctor said, peering out the open door once again. The snow storm outside was pretty bad, visibility extremely low. He could barely see the buildings lined up on the other side of the street.

Derpy nodded, however unwillingly. She trusted the Doctor. No questioned asked- plus if she did, she often got a bunch of jumbled physics equations she didn't even understand as a means of reply. Worse case scenario is that she manages to get him bickering to himself. Those last for hours.

"Hey, you be careful out there Ditzy!" The Doctor called after her over the howling winds as she flew out the open door and took a look around.

A moment later she returned, but by the time she did her fur and hair had been coated with snow. She quickly shook it off and cuddled by the Doctor's side, who winced at the now cold body of Derpy but stayed none the less.

Then the building shook and rumbled, the sky bus tilting slightly to one side. The Doctor quickly grabbed Derpy and hauled the both of them to one side and out of sight as two Strikers slowly glided past, rattling the wrecked bus in its cage with their engines that shone through the storm.

Then a missile came out of nowhere and struck one of them in the right engines, knocking both out at the same time. The out of control aircraft spun through the air, spiraling down.

Then the building jolted as the plane slammed into the side of it, a fireball erupting and briefly engulfing the sky bus in heated air. The Doctor and Derpy stumbled a bit, then felt a lurching in their stomach as the carcass slid down a bit.

It was going to go off the side of the building.

Then there was a loud whine, followed by what seemed to be dubstep music as a hole was busted through the bus's windshield on the far side, which was frozen earlier. Chunks of ice and frozen glass tumbled and sprawled across the floor.

There was a stallion standing at the opening, holding some sort of magic energy weapon which glowed a mesmerizing light blue color.

"Get the hell outta there! The hay you waiting for!?" The stallion yelled, gesturing for them to run. "GET OUT!!"

Then the sky bus tilted dangerously towards the edge, the Doctor and Derpy stumbling as their run to the exit became a climb for survival. It would've been much easier for Derpy if she had enough room to stretch her wings and fly.

"Run! RUN!" Doctor Whooves yelled, pushing her forward as they scrambled past the rows of seats to their side.

Then the building shook and the bus slid back a few more inches.

"Oh cra-" the Doctor briefly saw a frozen body fall down towards him, before getting hit in the head by it. Boy, that felt more like a lump of rock than a body.

He tumbled back, but Derpy caught his hoof before he could roll any further. Shaking his head from side to side and trying to clear the dullness in his brain, he quickly scrambled up and kept on running.

"TAKE COVER!!!" The stallion yelled, and they both ducked down as they heard the whoosh of an off-target rocket.

It struck a little under the sky bus, sending it up into the air at first but then down again- and this time it wasn't going to stay on the roof.

The Doctor and Derpy had made it to the exit. They felt the warm rush of air from the explosion brush against their tails as they leapt from the falling sky bus.

They hit the roof and tumbled by the stallion's hooves, panting.

"You're gonna have to be a lot fitter than that to survive out here." The stallion remarked, helping the two ponies up. The Doctor took note of the odd weapon slung across his back. "You must be the Doctor." He pointed at Doctor Whooves's leg implant. "Tracking chip. Your implant hasn't been activated, so it can still be traced."

"Ah." The Doctor grinned, slightly astonished. "Well, you already know who I am. This here's my assistant, Derpy. So, you are..?" He peered at the name tag on the stallion's chest. "Lieutenant Noteworthy- ha, what a nice name." He ignored the awkward look Derpy was giving him. The same look she seemed to give him every time they met somepony new, and for what reason he didn't know and couldn't figure out. "Also, interesting sonic weapon."

"Ain't mine." Noteworthy replied.

Then the roof collapsed out from underneath them as the sky bus swung over the edge and hit the side of the building, before tumbling down to the streets below.

The trio crashed onto the floor below, bits of debris still falling down around them.

Noteworthy coughed, waving a hoof and trying to clear the ash as he scrambled back up.

"Get up, get up! The battle's reaching over to this area- we need to get you to HQ immediately!" He yelled, helping the two up for a second time. "Follow me- and stay close."

He started walking further into the building, shining a flashlight into the shadows and searching for something. The Doctor and Derpy followed him down several flights of stairs to the bottom of the building. There he kept scouring the shadows, although the two had no idea for what.

"Ah damnit." He muttered as he came across a pile of crumbled concrete.

"What is it?" The Doctor asked, annoyingly cheerful despite... everything.

"That's our ride straight to HQ- buried under all this crap." Noteworthy gestured at the pile of rubble. Well, he could try and blast the rubble with the Bass Cannon Vinyl lent- er, he kind of just took it. But he was sure she wouldn't mind. Anyhow, it probably would end up damaging the automated systems and screw up the entrance to the Tunnels anyway, rendering it useless. "AL, you got a plan B for us?"

"Didn't expect you needed one." Came the reply. "The closest entry point is three blocks away, you'll have to make it on hoof. Everything else in the area is either non-functioning or down-right destroyed."

"Damnit." Noteworthy sighed, then nodded to the two standing in the corner not knowing what to do. He tilted his head towards the exit. "Follow me." He said, kicked down the double doors leading to the frozen Haven outside and stepping into the white tinted sunlight.

*

"ILLUSION! Cloak the CALAMITY and NEMESIS!" Spitfire yelled. "Make sure they get away!" Those were two ships that were worth saving and weren't needed in the current battle- and just as a captain would not abandon his or her ship, the OASIS will not abandon the rest of the fleet. It was staying firmly where it was- right in front of the COLOSSUS's muzzle, if that's what it takes.

"Spitfire..." Soarin started, but Spitfire shushed him before he could continue. Of course, he knew what the order implied. And so did everypony else that heard.

"We are NOT abandoning the magic faction fleet, captain!" Shining Armor yelled through the comms, but Spitfire shut him off. There wasn't time to argue. She didn't have the strength in her anymore.

Sighing, she noticed the officers around her had grown silent. Even radio chatter had decreased to a minimum. She took in a deep breath, leaving the hoof rails and slowly trotting in circles around the platform she stood on, and had stood on for almost ten years now- serving as the proud captain of the OASIS.

Finally she conjured up screens of live images of all the magic faction ships, contacting their commanders and captains. Faces showed up across the transparent blue screens, some hesitant and worried while others were confident and determined. All were battle hardened faces, only a few new officers who were recently promoted that Spitfire hadn't gotten the time to know. And by the looks of things, she never will get a chance again.

She was about to speak, her mouth half open- but the words caught in her throat. She looked down, swallowing them. She could feel her eyes watering. Val had played a move they could've done nothing against. Haven was doing their part- and so will the magic faction space fleet. She looked up again, this time with new determination.

"Captain Spitfire speaking." She started, and if there was any radio chatter left between the ships- it had ceased completely. "I know... I had just given an order that will probably kill the majority of us. Me included." She sighed, closing her eyes and bashing out the sorrowful faces she was seeing before her- in the screens, and behind them on the officers on the bridge of the OASIS. "It's a hard decision, I know. It's not much of a decision though, really. Val didn't give us a choice. But I'm not Val- so I will give you all a choice. All that wish to stay and fight for our cause may remain where you are. All that wish to leave and fight another day- you may do so now. No hard feelings. Nothing personal." She took in a deep breath, and held it.

Several ponies working on the bridge slowly walked from their still forms and took their leave. Nopony else so much as glanced at them with dislike, instead they simply gave a nod of farewell. Spitfire did too, saluting. The ponies saluted back as one by one they left.

Spitfire let out the breath she was holding, the hard part was over.

"Farewell." She said as the last of the officers left. Clearly the other cruisers were going through the same processes- but none of the captains left. Spitfire gave them permission to, but they stayed. No one of their ranks is getting left behind. If they run they run together- and if they die, that'll be in the same battle unless some emerge victorious, which seemed unlikely at this point. Outnumbered and outplayed, they didn't have many options.

"Perhaps the 'reliable umbrella' is getting blown away by the storm." Soarin said, sighing.

"Everything has its limits. And perhaps it was the storm- or maybe it's just that I'm letting go of it because I don't want to see it break." Spitfire cast a sad smile behind her at her faithful officer. "Soarin- you can leave too, you know. I don't mind. You'll be of much use in the battles to come."

"We're fighting for home." Soarin said. "And you know what? OASIS is home. Its officers, including you; my family. I'm not abandoning either of them for anything, because they are the purpose. They are why I, and possibly many more of us- are still standing here. Fighting."

Spitfire felt her eyes water a slight bit as Soarin stood unwavering.

"That's the officer I know." She gave him a light pat on the shoulder, nodding to herself. Then she turned back to the screens, all of them watching her expectantly.

"Captain.... What do we do?"

Spitfire reassured herself in her decision. "We fight until we run out of time. We only have a few minutes left. The cruisers travel a few hundred kilometers a second. We can make it to the enemy fleet in ten seconds." She sighed. "This'll be the last time I'll be addressing you. Full speed ahead, comrades. Our days have come to an end. We have one last battle to fight. Make it count." She turned to the officers on the OASIS's bridge as the various other captains nodded their thanks and farewells, and slowly one by one the screens faded away. "Alright officers! We're gonna charge right in there- close the distance! The COLOSSUS can't hit us if we're one with them- but it also means we'll probably be dead in a few minutes- therefore we're bringing as many of them to the grave with us as we can. We take down the COLOSSUS, we take down the equivalent of ten of their ships. Val's on that darned hulk of a ship too- and damn me if we don't take her to hell too."

"And Blithy?" Soarin inquired.

"Will be sorely missed, like the rest of us." Spitfire said coldly. "Start your engines, boys and girls. To hell we go!"

Comments

[nmNighteyes]

The beginning of the end, it have been a honour...

[tyret100]

I love this story it is one of my all time favorites and i cant wait to see what happens