Half-Life : A World Beyond

by Random Gamer

8a - Sandtraps

"Hey, you there!" said one of them. "Stay off the rocks, it makes the antlions crazy!" The one rebel was wounded by a previous encounter with antlions and was laying on the floor, covering a wound with one of his hooves. Before we could jump to another rock and help them, the ground shook violently and a bunch of antlions climbed out of it.

We started shooting and dispacthed a group of them rather quickly, but one of them killed the wounded rebel. The one that survived kneeled to him and looked rather taken by his death.

"Poor Lazslo!" he said. "Finest mind of his generation."

"We tried to-" said Clara.

"I know you tried to help but there's nothing you can do now." he said. "We tried to get to the outpost to get some bugbait so these would leave us alone, but it doesn't matter now."

"How far is it?" asked Darek. "We're running out of ammunition fairly quickly."

"Just keep heading north, you can't miss it." he said.

"Are you coming with us as well?" I asked.

"No." he replied. "There's... something I have to do." We continued on, trying not to stand on the sand. My luck ran out after I accidentally placed half of a hoof on a small patch of it and spawned a whole horde of antlions. We gunned them down quickly, but they didn't stop coming, not even after we jumped on some rocks. Sure, we could hold our ground forever, but all of our guns ran on bullets and those little buggers started running out.

"Move!" I said, ignoring that I once again stepped into sand. We ran through it and dealt with any and all antlions in our way, eventually reaching a mountain pass with a lot of junk laying around. Good news was that the antlions weren't going crazy anymore since sand was everywhere. Unfortunately, as we passed through, a massive antlion appeared out of seemingly knowhere, charging at me and the others.

I didn't react fast enough, though and was sent flying onto the mountain walls. It gave me quite a beating but I didn't give up just yet. I took advantage of it's non-existant eyes and pretended that I was dead by not producing a single sound. Needless to say, it worked and I bough myself some time for an ambush. After it turned around, my plan started going just as I planned.

"Terin!" shouted Darek, trying to outgun the antlion. It only took a few rounds to take one down but their sheer numbers were starting to really get to us. Suddenly, I heard their weapons click, unable to fire a single round. Darek tossed his weapon aside and ran like a maniac but Clara kept her cool and instead, started attacking the beast with the small knife she had strapped to her hoove.

I fired the rest of my ammunition into it but to no success and soon after, all of us were down on the ground, knocked away by the antlion's sheer strengh. As the beast was preparing for a final attack, a unicorn appeared out of seemingly nowhere and stunned the monster with it's magic. Vinyl Scratch was full of suprised when it came to sawblades but taking down an antlion this size was the biggest one so far. Clara made use of the beast's immobility and stabbed its neck, instantly killing it. It let out a deafening, painful shriek and then collapsed.

"Thanks Vinyl." I said and the rest of the group helped me up. "I dunno what would we do if you hadn't come to help." Suddenly, I felt a sudden jolt of pain coming from my hind legs, as if the antlion managed to break some of their bones.

"Yeah, that's what I though too." She kneeled to the slain antlion and started focusing her magic on it's abdomen."You here for the bugbait, right?"

"Yes." answered Darek, curious about what she was doing. "It could potentially increase our chances of successfuly infiltrating Novum Prospectum and that's why it's so important for us to acquire one or more. The question is, do you have them?"

The antlion's abdomen suddenly burst open and sprayed us with what can only be described as greenish goo. Vinyl giggled and pulled something the abdomen's remains and handed it to us.

"Here." She said, holding a organic ball of unknown purpose. "This is bugbait."

I raised an eyebrow and looked puzzled. "I expected something... bigger." I said, looking at the 'bugbait' oddly.

"It's a pheropod, Terin." said Darek and took the bugbait for his safekeeping. "Those things are small." I wanted to object that it's still small than most pheropods I read about but instead, they followed Vinyl into the outpost and I was visibly lagging behind them.

The entrance consisted of a single piece of metal with a door stolen from a ship in the middle and a rebel sitting at the top, armed with a stationary gun. At first, he aimed at us, thinking we're regular Civil Protection units but after Vinyl told him some sort of cryptic sentence, he let us in. Something along the lines of 'the birds are in the nest' or 'whiskey tango foxtrot.' I dunno, I wasn't listening because it wasn't important.

The outpost was pretty much like every other one. Some food, some supplies, some jokes, a campfire, many wounded. Yeah, nothing new. Oh and Fluttershy, the good-for-nothing antlion lover. For some reason, she was supposed to teach us how to use the bugbait. After grabbing some supplies and getting my hind legs checked and bandaged, we headed to a large cave that was stupidly called 'Fluttershy's Antlion Farm.' In it were many holes full of sand and dummy combine soldier strapped to a pole to serve as a target.

"Ummm... hi." she said. "So... y-you got the... bugbait?" Why does she always speak like that? It's not like any of us are gonna bite her or something. Not on purpose anyway.

"Yes Fluttershy." said Clara. "We have it. Can you please show us how to use it?" Fluttershy gulped and Clara raised an eyebrow. She was the best when it came to the extremely rare use of diplomacy but Flutters seemed to be a hard one. Instead of answering her question or showing her the 'device' works, she did a few chirping noises and coiled into a ball, covering her head with her hooves. We looked at ourselves in confusion and then it hit us - the masks. They must have frightened her and so, we put them down, one by one. It was a rare sight indeed since our mission required us to be in disguise or at least, be hard to identify.

Clara, with her reddish mane and pink coat, slowly approached Fluttershy and tried to get her back to her senses. "Hey, it's okay." she said. "We're friends." Fluttershy turned away and with this, Clara was sure she failed.

Darek, with his orange mane and dark blue coat, switched places with Clara and he too, tried to get Fluttershy back to her senses. "It's all gonna change soon, really." he said. "We just need little bit of your help." Fluttershy shook her head.

"That's what they said last time." said Fluttershy. "And then they took Dashie!" It appeared the team placed all their confidence in me to resolve this situation. Thanks team!

Instead of telling her something, I instructed my partners-in-crime to leave let her be. "Then our journey was pointless and so was Dash's sacrifice." I said as we were walking out of the cave and into the beach surrounding Novum Prospectum. "More pegasi like Dash will die and they will remember us and you being the key factors why the situation persisted. Farewell Fluttershy."

Something inside of Fluttershy's trainwreck of a mind turned off and instead of letting us go, she jumped infront of us and shouted "WAAAAAAAAIT."

"Dashie didn't die for nothing!" she said, boiling with anger. "YOU GET YOUR ASSES BACK THERE AND TRAIN HOW TO USE THE FREAKING BUG BAIT!!!" Oh, so this was this 'you wouldn't like me when I'm angry' personality they told me about. Actually, I like her more when she's angry. At least she gets stuff done.

Without complaining, we walked back the dummy and waited what she'll want us to do. This is why I'm the... whatever of this team. Best rank ever.

"Gently push the pheropod with your hooves to call antlions." she said and Darek did exactly that. Four antlions climbed out of the nearby sand but didn't attack us.

"Now, throw it at the dummy to command the antlions attack it." she instructed us.

"Throw it?" asked Clara. "We only got one. I'm not sure we should just throw it." Fluttershy gave her a look that can only be described as 'do it or I'll cut you'.

"Heh." said Darek nervously. "Here goes." Darek threw the bugbait at the dummy and an antlion pounced at it. For reasons unexplained, the bugbait reappeared in his hooves, not a single piece missing.

"Wait just a tiny, little second." He said and threw the bugbait again, only to have it reappear once more in his hooves. "Ugh... guys? My brain is broken. I see things that shouldn't be here." We burst into a laugh.

"Nah, that's just how it works." I said. "Don't try to find any logic behind it." And so, with our logic and laws of physics challenged, we bravely stepped into the beaches of Novum Prospecum, hoping to infiltrate it and hopefully, free a few rebels along the way.