Vinyl Bought Equestrian Robot Combat...Oh Boy.

Vinyl opened the door to her house with a sense of great urgency, practically rocketing through the doorway and her abode; her intended destination being the big, soft couch that was situated in front of her television.

As she made her way over to the couch, she quickly took in her surroundings and scanned each room as she trotted by, making sure she was going to be alone. She didn’t want any interruptions; that simply wouldn’t be pleasant.

After establishing that she was alone in her home and that her roommate was in fact still out and about, she let out an eager sigh and made her way over into the living room, plopping down on the couch and levitating the large, black box she had brought in with her onto her lap.

“Finally…” She breathed softly, levitating her trademark glasses off of her face and setting them to rest on a nearby table.

The box read “Equestrian Robot Combat.” In big fiery letters across the front, an image depicting two massive mechanical bipeds; one with red stripes and one with blue, having at one another with a menagerie of different weapons.

With a squeal that could have been compared to that of a happy young schoolfilly, Vinyl opened the lid of the box and levitated out its contents.

It was beautiful, gleaming black metal polished to perfection, shining like some sort of black diamond, was the ERC helmet.

It wasn’t just your average biking helmet however, you see. “Equestrian Robot Combat” or “ERC” was a new video game that had been released only last month, rapidly rising through the gaming ranks and becoming second to none in its popularity throughout all of Equestria.

What ERC had that made it really stand out amongst all the other games though, was the almost unfathomable level of immersion and detail the player would experience whilst playing.

Upon donning the gaming helmet, the player would be “transported” into the gaming world, the helmet had the ability to simulate senses of touch, sound and smell and graphics that were so high quality you wouldn’t be able to tell them from real life, creating the most realistic and detailed virtual reality game in the history of video games, and even the entirety of Equestria.

The premise of the game was based around two teams; Red and Blue, dukeing it out in bipedal robots the size of two story buildings, engaging in staggeringly realistic and intense combat until one side emerged victorious.

Of course, Vinyl had been one of the most hyped out of just about everypony upon hearing about such an immersive and intense game, so she was the first in line to pick up a copy when the game was eventually released.

Only problem was, the game developers had decided not to let everypony know that the game would cost two thousand bits upon release; a price which most actually paid, and it wasn’t that Vinyl didn’t want to pay that price for it, she just didn’t have the money to spend on the game at the time, and so she had waited; somewhat unwillingly at that, due to Octavia, for the day she would finally have enough bits to purchase the game and bring it home with her to try out.

Today she had finally saved up enough to go and buy the game, and she did so without a second thought.

“Alright…now how does this work…” She said softly, pulling out the operation manual and scouring it.

---@---

Getting Started with ERC

Before getting started, If you wish for others to be able to see what you are seeing whilst playing Equestrian Robot Combat, it is recommended that you attach the wireless HDMI plug into the HDMI port on your TV, assuring that it is firmly connected for the best experience. The wireless HDMI plug is located on the left side of the ERC helmet and will easily snap out.

1. Plug the wireless electrical cord into any electrical outlet within 60 feet, making sure the green light is on and glowing brightly. If the light is blinking red upon plugging the wireless electrical cord in, please contact our staff at ERC and we will do our best to help.

2. Don the ERC helmet and assure the securing straps are comfortable fastened, so as not to interrupt your gaming experience whilst participating in ERC. Make sure the power switch is flipped to “ON” and glowing green before doing so. The power switch is located on the right side of the helmet.

3. You are now ready to begin playing Equestrian Robot Combat!

WARNING.

Equestrian Robot Combat is an extremely realistic, and immersive combat game in which the player will feel, hear, see and smell exactly what they would on an actual battlefield, the events depicted in the game or that may be depicted during your gaming experience are purely fabrications and will not actually physically harm you. Should you get a hole blown in your massive robotic midsection, or turned into a giant metal slice of Swiss cheese after being riddled with bullets, do not panic! You are not actually hurt and will respawn or go into spectator mode depending on what game mode you are playing.

---@---

Vinyl eagerly read this part of the manual, eventually getting tired of reading it and tossing it to the side. She had enough information anyway, everything else was copyright stuff and all that junk, she didn’t want to read that. It was like the Terms and Conditions stuff, no one ever actually read those.

Almost bouncing as she did, Vinyl pulled the both the Wireless HDMI and the Wireless Electrical Cord out of each side of the helmet.

She figured she might as plug in the HDMI to her TV, lest Octavia happen to walk in and wonder why in Equestria her roommate was sitting on a couch, wearing a weird helmet, and screaming battle cries and curses at seemingly nothing.

That would be a tad embarrassing.

After plugging in all that needed to be plugged in, she zipped back over and plopped down on the couch, taking the ERC helmet into her hooves and flicking the power switch to “ON” The inside of the helmet glowed softly as she did, the TV also flickering on at the exact same moment and showing what was playing inside the helmet with a stunning amount of clarity.

With a giddy laugh, Vinyl pressed the helmet on and fastened the straps around her head, the helmet then responded by letting out a soft “Hiss” followed by a click as it fastened firmly around her head.

All was dark for a moment, Vinyl couldn’t even see the inside of the helmet, and it was as if she was actually closing her eyes.

Suddenly, the world around her flashed to life, she was in a large hangar, and the words “Maretari” flashed in front of her, it was as if she could have reached out and touched them, soon after the words faded and were replaced by the words “Speak to enter Screen Name and create new Account.”

Vinyl raised an eyebrow at this, but did as directed by the flaming letters.

“Uh…Vinyl Scratch..?” She let out uncertainly, pleasantly surprised to find her name soon spelled out perfectly in the floating box.

All was dark for a moment, and then the previous flaming text faded away, only to be replaced by the words “Are you sure this is your screen name?”

“Yes!” She replied.

The box containing her name, along with the text disappeared into a plume of smoke that she could smell, as it floated away. A flaming loading bar then appeared, with small flaming text flashing below it rapidly, Vinyl could barely even read what it said, she was sure there had been something in there about it automatically being linked to her E-mail or something of that sort.

And then, without any sort of warning, the loading bar disappeared in another smelly plume of smoke and all was dark again.

What happened next made Vinyl let out the most elated giggle she had ever let out in her life; and she had let out a lot of giggles in that time.

The world around her flashed to life, and she found herself sitting on the edge of a plain white bed. The room she was in looked much like some sort of military bunker, silvery walls lined surrounded her, their presence interrupted only by the black door at the other end of the small room. There was a desk with multiple papers to one side of her, and a large wardrobe to the other side.

Vinyl let out a soft laugh at her new surroundings, if she didn’t know any better she would have thought she was actually in some sort of military bunker.

“Woah…” She breathed softly, and was just beginning to push herself up off the bed as a large blue screen flashed up in front of her.

Vinyl let out a soft yelp of surprise and fell back on the bed, slightly surprised at this sudden appearance of…whatever this was in front of her.

“What is-“

As if on cue, the screen in front of her flashed to life, and four different options were listed in floating, flaming red letters.

“Singleplayer”

“Multiplayer”

“Robot Customization.”

“Options.”

Vinyl’s lips curled into an almost evil smile, instantly knowing where she wanted to go first. Oh this was going to be fun.

Vinyl slowly extended out a hoof and tapped the “Robot Customization” button, and instantly found herself flying through the air, her hair flying as she whizzed through surroundings moving too fast for her to even make out properly.

When she finally came to rest again, Vinyl was now inside of the large hangar she had seen earlier on the loading screen, except it was now much clearer and definitely much more occupied.

The hangar stretched on for what seemed like forever on either side, gigantic docking stations located on wall she was facing, their forms covered in alternating black and yellow stripes. Yellow lights flashed around her, and the sound of machinery whirring and power tools buzzing away filled her ears. The smell of industrial work wafted into her nostrils. Oil, sweat, smoke and steam all mixing together in an almost overwhelming cacophony of smells.

However, all these things were not what really staggered Vinyl, no. What really made her jaw drop was what was resting in the massive docking station directly in front of her.

There standing stock still in the docking station on the wall, was a robot of such massive and imposing proportions that it was almost horrifying.

“Dude…”

The robot was easily twenty feet tall, it looked like it was a decent medium between speed and strength, long goat-like mechanical legs holding an upper body that was sharp and edged looking, an elongated cockpit set into the top of the machine, its arms hung almost below its knees, their armor was sleek and edged. The grey, bland metal plating that covered the robot gleamed in the soft lights that dangled from the ceiling of the hangar, illuminating its form in a rather grandiose and theatrical way; as if it weren’t already both of those on its own.

The words “Warrior” floated above the robot in flaming letters, along with a list of stats in the form of a fiery bar graph to the left of the robot. As expected, the robot was well rounded, showing a well rounded list of combat capabilities and recommended uses. The four bars that burned at half full, being named Armor, Agility, Strength and Health.

“Wait…warrior…does that mean, there’s other classes?” Vinyl said softly to herself, barely able to contain her foalish squeals of elation at this entire situation.

A glowing arrow materialized to Vinyl’s left, gently pulsating in the same fiery way that the words above the robot had. Letting out another squeal of joy, Vinyl tapped at the arrow with her hoof and quickly found herself flying sideways across the hangar, multiple other robots whizzing past her too fast for her discern what they were.

When Vinyl came to rest once again, she was now situated in front of a different kind of robot; this one was almost completely different from the previous one. Instead of the longer legs the Warrior robot adorned, this robot was much shorter as far as leg length was concerned, however this didn’t mean it wasn’t lacking in everything else.

Despite the short legs, the robot was extremely large, easily ten or fifteen feet taller than the Warrior class, it was heavy looking and bore two pairs of arms, one pair massive and hulking, and a second pair sprouting from its midsection, this pair was smaller and looked useless compared to the rest of the mech. Similar to the cockpit in the previous robot, this bigger robot had a more pill-shaped cockpit built into the front of the body, giving it a large, more rounded look; almost like a massive, upright metal beetle or turtle.

Hovering above the robot in flaming letters was the word “Heavy” With a flaming bar graph floating next to it. From the stats it showed it definitely lived up to its name, it had almost nothing in the Agility department, whilst almost completely maxed out in Armor, Health and Strength.

Vinyl scratched her chin with a hoof, inspecting the massive robot standing before her, before turning her attention to the flaming arrow on her left.

Once more she was whizzing past a multitude of robots, unable to discern what kind they were as she whipped by them. Originally this sensation of flying through the air had been a bit startling to Vinyl, but she had quickly adapted to it; she was the greatest DJ in Equestria after all, she could handle a bit of crazy flying, right?

Finally, Vinyl came to a halt in front of the third and final class of robot, slightly surprised to find it drastically different from the first two, and different to such an extent that it looked like it was from a different game.

The robot currently in front of her was small, barely topping fifteen feet. It’s limbs were long and spindly looking, the narrow legs only growing even more narrow to the point where they ended in stubs at the end rather than actual feet, it bore one Cyclops-like eye in the middle of a head strikingly similar to a hammer-head shark, and had fins protruding from its thin arms in a manner that made it almost look avian-like.

This robot looked like it was meant to move very, very fast. Built for zipping around and attacking with speed rather than brute force and this theory was confirmed as Vinyl laid eyes upon the fiery letters that floated above its head that read. “Racer”

The flaming bar graph that floated next to the sleek looking robot reiterated its name and looks perfectly, showing low health, armor and strength, but almost maxed out agility.

Vinyl’s smile couldn’t have gotten any bigger, she stood before this marvelous mass of metal and reveled in the awe-inspiring presence it gave off, it was truly staggering how impressive these mechanical marvels were, even the Princesses didn’t inspire this much of a feeling of awe.

She let out a long and loud laugh, the only thing she could really do to express her amazement at all of this. It was so real, so large, and so…powerful. All of it was, from the massive machines to the smell and sounds of gears grinding in the distance.

Vinyl shook her head, bringing herself out of a sense induced state of happiness and returned her attention to the “Racer” robot in front of her.

“What to choose, what to choose….” She said softly, her stupid grin never leaving her face.

She could go with this sleek; and kind of sexy looking in her opinion, “Racer” robot, flitting in between enemies and cutting them down with precisely placed attacks, but then she would be going into her first battle with basically no armor.

Or, she could go with the “Tank” robot and be an absolute beast; Lumbering around the battlefield and unleashing a hail of raw firepower on any who dare to oppose her, an unstoppable wall of metal and doom-bringing-machinery. However this also meant she would be very, very slow; and while the thought of all that power got her all tingly, she hated the thought of being slow.

Then there was the “Warrior” Robot, it seemed like a decent choice, at least to start out as. It was only her first time playing after all, and she didn’t want to get totally destroyed the second she set her giant metal foot on the battlefield. The Warrior was well rounded, had decent stats…

That was it, her choice had been made.

Vinyl tapped the flaming arrow and whipped back over to the Warrior Robot, the word “Select?” appearing before her in flaming letters. They hadn’t been there before, so maybe the helmet had processed that she had decided she wanted that one? Vinyl wasn’t sure, it wasn’t a totally outlandish assumption though, if she could smell and hear and feel everything around her, magical floating fire-words weren’t entirely out of the question.

Letting out yet another soft squeak of excitement, Vinyl tapped the flaming words with a hoof, feeling gentle warmth as she made contact with the flames, but not actually being burned.

Everything around her other than the robot directly in front of her blurred softly, her vision forcibly focusing on the robot as new, more colorful flaming images appeared on either side of the hulking metal figure.

“What is…?” Vinyl had her question answered before she even asked it, the words “Robot Color” appearing over a palate of multiple colored flames to the left of the robot, and the flaming words “Loadout” hovering over on the right side. Closer to the feet of the robot, in smaller flaming words, Vinyl read aloud.

“Aesthetic and Loadout customization unlocked at LVL 5”

Vinyl let out a slight huff of annoyance, rolling her eyes at the text.

“Just like Maretari, always making you work for the good stuff.” She couldn’t help but smile at how bratty she sounded as she spoke, shaking her head and turning her gaze up to the left side of the robot.

As if on command, the “Robot Color” menu opened up to reveal a multitude of colors and choices of specific robot parts to color.

“Let's see…” She said with a smile that Pinkie Pie herself would have a hard time topping, beginning her work on the mech.

About five minutes later, the once dull grey robot, was now a gleaming white color, “eyes” tinted red and a blue tiger stripe pattern covering the arm, leg and head plating. The newly painted robot gleamed in the hangar lights, looking like some pristine and million-dollar car turned into a deadly fighting machine. What made Vinyl the most happy though, was her discovery of the ability to put custom decals on her mech. She had taken full advantage of this feature and created a perfect copy of her cutie mark and stamped it on the chest and forearms of the robot warrior.

A new set of flaming text appeared shortly after, asking Vinyl if she had customized the robot to her liking. She begrudgingly said yes, silently wishing she would mess around with her loadouts and robot appearance and all as she was whipped through the air until she was once again seated inside the small bedroom she had started off in, the familiar start menu burning brightly in front of her.

Now, with most games; especially if one has never played said game before, it is often a smart idea to start out trying your hoof at singleplayer mode, getting yourself familiarized and accustomed to the game before delving into a world of combat populated by actual ponies instead of bots that couldn’t aim to save their flanks.

Vinyl however, did not think she needed to start out in Singleplayer, no. She wanted to get right into the crap and “Own some noobs” Never stopping to think she was actually a noob herself.

“Let’s get it on!” She cried in excitement, pressing the “Multiplayer” button with a hoof.

Gently, Vinyl was floated through the hallways and back into the Robot hangar; the slow pace surprised her slightly, but she brushed it off upon noticing she was approaching her war-machine. It gleamed and reflected the hangar lights in just as perfect and flawless of a manner as it had when she left it only a few seconds prior.

Slowly, she was lifted up closer to the robot by an invisible force, the cockpit opened with a hiss of air followed by a soft click. Gently as one would set down a newborn foal, she was set into the cockpit and released from the invisible force that had lifted her into her new toy. She was set up in a way that she stood on her back hooves, strange gauntlets and boots materializing out the floor and sides of the cock pit, attached to metal tentacles that most likely would transmit her movement into the movement of the robot. The boots latching onto her hooves and holding her in such a way that she was standing much like the bipedal robot was.

The cockpit slowly lowered over Vinyl, sealing her inside with a hiss and another click. A moment later another menu appeared in front of her, one that read “Choose Gamemode” in burning letters, followed by a short list of available game-modes; also written in fire.

Vinyl carefully scanned over the list, taking into account each different type of gamemode before finally finding one that caught her eye.

“Hardcore Team Deathmatch- 6v6”

“Hmm…that sounds rather invigorating!” She said to herself, tapping the flaming words with a hoof and being rewarded by the sound of a shotgun cocking.

Then she was falling.

The floor opened up beneath Vinyl and both she and the robot she was piloting began plummeting through the sky that she hadn’t even known they were in until that point. The sky was a pleasant blue, almost lovely actually. Fluffy clouds dotted the sky and decorated it with multitudes of shapes and forms. Vinyl glanced downwards and found that there was indeed a ground down there, and that she was rapidly approaching said ground; the form of what appeared to be something similar to Manehattan growing clearer and clearer as she plummeted.

The sound of wind whipping by was all Vinyl could hear, the scream she let out as her stomach did flips from the new sensation drowned out by the aforementioned sound, she flailed her limbs wildly in hopes of maybe gaining some sort of control over her robot, only to find it totally unresponsive to her movement, there weren’t even any controls! What was she supposed to do!

Despite the rapid descent, Vinyl’s robot was actually maintaining a perfect upright position, metal arms extended out to the side and making motions akin to somepony treading water as they plummeted.

As the ground grew closer and closer by the second, Vinyl couldn’t help but feel slightly terrified at all this, wondering exactly what would happen as she plummeted downwards and towards the perfect replica of Manehattan she was to do battle in.

Vinyl VS The Upper Class (Part 1)

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Vinyl VS The Upper Class(Part 1)

The normally bustling town of Manehattan was completely and totally devoid of life, Taxi cabs and city buses sat motionless as stone in the middle of ghostly-silent streets. Trash flew out of overturned wastebaskets and fluttered out into the air, food carts and corner stores sat empty and barren. The tall skyscrapers that normally were filled with thousands of ponies at any given time were empty and devoid of all life, not even a measly fly hovered over the land in search of food.

This particular part of Manehattan was situated near the water. It was rather close to the Bricklyn Bridge and coincidentally, this part of the island was the part crowded with the largest concentration of tall buildings. Massive skyscrapers and gleaming glass-sided buildings rose above it all, towering over all below them like giants over ants.

Rising higher than any of the other buildings, was the Equestrian State Building. A massive feat of architecture made up of ornate stone and glass, amongst so many other materials that only made it look even more regal and magnificent, it lorded over all other buildings by multiple stories and it was said that if you climbed all the way to the top you would be able to see for miles around.

And all was silent.

All was silent, until a dozen, massive, ten-ton robots with ponies inside of them, came hurtling out of the sky on either side of the city, broken into two groups of six. Each side adopting either red or blue bands on their armor plating, making it clear what team they were on.

Vinyl, however, was too busy screaming in horror to even realize there were five other mech suits falling beside her, and kept her eyes fixated downwards as the ground grew closer and closer, almost mocking her as if it were eagerly awaiting her impact, until finally…

There was a series of earth-shaking thumps, one after the other as each robot impacted on the ground; landing very much on its feet, bending its knees automatically and absorbing the impact so as not to jar the pilot. Vinyl had expected a bone breaking “Crunch” followed by a message that said “You suck at this game” or something, but no. Instead her landing was relatively soft and without much trouble.

As Vinyl opened her eyes, she found she had landed inside of; or rather, smashed through the top floor of, what appeared to be a parking garage, the occasional carriage sitting here and there amongst the so many empty parking spots.

“I-I’m alive…?” She said softly, yelping as a Heads up Display flashed to life in front of her, fluidly following her wherever she looked so she could always see it.

“Ha, of course you’re alive!” Came a voice that sounded painfully like that of some slimy sales pony, you know...the slimy kind, The voice came from behind Vinyl, and shortly after she was knocked face-first; or rather, cockpit-first into the concrete floor. This was the result of what was intended to be a friendly slap on the back by one of her teammates.

“I say, are you alright?” Came another voice, this one sounded more refined and “Upper-class” so to speak, whoever this pony was, they were from Canterlot for sure.

The sound of hydraulics hissing, mingled with that of gears and other mechanics, accompanied by a soft thumping sound, and she was suddenly yanked to her feet by the classier sounding teammate. Once on her metal feet, Vinyl managed to hold her balance long enough she could get a good look at the robot and catch a glimpse of its pilot.

The robot that had aided Vinyl in righting herself was a stark white color, a splash of dark blue adorning the shoulder pads and knee armor, and an image somewhat similar to three crowns adorning one shoulder. In addition to this, a mustache had been painted onto the cockpit so that it looked like the robot wore a fancy mustache. Upon looking into the cockpit; that coupled with the name “MrFancyPants” and the level indicator of “9” floating above his head, only confirmed it was who Vinyl thought it had been.

“Fancy Pants?” Vinyl said with an expression of both shock and amazement; she hadn’t ever expected somepony like Fancy Pants to be indulging in such…violent frivolities.

“Hold on…Vinyl? Ah it’s good to see you!” Fancy Pants responded, his voice slightly computerized.

“I didn’t expect-“

“To see me in such a game?” He finished for her, his giant metal shoulders shrugging with a whir. “You know about a week ago I would have said the same thing, but now…I say if this isn’t a great way to blow off some steam after a long day!” Fancy pants finished with a flourish of his metal hands, a weapon resembling a large revolver materializing in one of them as he did.

“The Game Begins In 5…”

“Alright Ladies, enough chit-chat, we got a game to win.” Came another voice, this one was more feminine sounding, it came from a salmon-pink colored Racer class robot; heavy blue stripes covering the mech to identify its team, the only other feature being the image of some sort of flower printed on the chest of the tiny little mech. It was equipped with a recently materialized shotgun and a knife on its waist that would have made Crocodile Dundee cry in out in rapture. The name “Bl0ss0m4th” Hovered above the mech, right next to the number “3”

As the computerized voice counted down, Vinyl got a quick look at her other teammates.

There was Herself, Fancy Pants and this Bl0ss0m4th character.

In addition to this, there were two heavy class robots, each colored crème and bearing faded red stripes that barely showed through the heavy blue stripes that barred across it. The two heavy robots were perfectly identical, save the images on each of their chests.

One heavy-class bore an apple with a slice out of it, and the other bore an apple slice that appeared to have been cut out of the other apple. They each carried their own heavy machine gun; or at least that’s what they looked like to Vinyl, massive drum clips the size of truck tires sticking out of the bottom of each gun.

Vinyl wondered if maybe they were a gay couple or something, granted she didn’t have anything against gays but the way they were bantering to each other was surely not helping her think otherwise, The names “Salespony1” and “Salespony2” hovered over their heads respectively, in addition to the number “4” indicating their level.

Then there was one more robot, a Warrior class like Vinyl, but unlike the other, more talkative ponies, this one was totally and completely silent. It held what appeared to be a massive sniper rifle with bullets that were most likely the size of a 2-liter soda bottle, in addition to what appeared to be a twin pair of machine-guns clipped to the waist. The mech was a total black color, dark as the night itself. The coloration was only interrupted by the blue bars adorning the armor of the robot to show which team it was on. While the mech was the same class as Vinyl’s, it very obviously bore heavy aesthetic modification. Sharp spikes protruded from the shoulders and what appeared to be some sort of giant metal utility belt was attached to the waist, along with fins that protruded from the forearms and ended in rather evil looking spikes. The name “Bringer Of Night” hovered above the mech, with the number “15” floating next to it to indicate the level.

“The game begins, good luck, ponies.”

The mechanized voice announced the beginning of the game, and Blossomforth zipped out of the parking garage; leaping over the edge and disappearing from view. The two sales-pony mechs followed close behind, shaking the very foundation of the parking garage as they took off after their companion. Upon reaching the edge of the parking garage, they leapt off and disappeared from view, leaving Vinyl, Fancy Pants, and this strange and mysterious-

Oh wait, no that one was gone too.

Fancy pants seemed less quick to jump out into the inevitable crap-storm that he knew would start up once the fighting began, and decided to stay behind with Vinyl; he had taken careful note of the “1” hovering next to her name.

“So, my dear, I assume you’re rather inexperienced at this then?” He said; posh, slightly computerized voice echoing throughout the parking garage.

“I…I uh, just got the game today.” Vinyl replied sheepishly, motioning to rub the back of her neck and only managing to dish out a heavy metal backhand to Fancy Pants’; staggering him back and knocking him onto his armored rear with an unpleasant sound akin to that of a carriage being crushed.

“Fancy pants!” Vinyl cried, turning to go and help her acquaintance, only to stumble and fall flat on her faceplate due to not being used to walking on two hooves; she hadn’t exactly spent much of her time practicing, so this was understandable.

Fancy pants let out a hearty laugh and promptly righted himself, waving a robotic hand dismissively to assure Vinyl it was nothing to worry about.

“So from that, I take it you decided to skip the piloting tutorial, hmm?” He asked, pulling her upright before bending over to pick the weapon up she had dropped; she hadn’t even known she had it!

“Possibly.” Vinyl said slowly, holding out balled metal fists to and accept the weapon. “Uh…I can’t…”

“Think about opening the hand.” Fancy Pants said in a rather fatherly manner, holding the weapon out in front of Vinyl for her to receive. The rifle itself bore resemblance to an AK-47 she had seen in Call of Cutie, except it was about ten times bigger, had a clip that was about five feet long, and was all black. Despite this, the relative familiarity of the weapon did just a little to sooth her uneasiness at piloting this monstrosity of metal.

The DJ-turned-mecha-warrior did as asked, and to her surprise found the hands opening slowly, allowing her to accept the weapon.

“It will take a few minutes for you to acclimate to the whole ordeal, but you’ll get it my good fellow! It takes a bit of practice! The game will assist you to an extent, but not too much; this is hardcore mode, after all!” Fancy Pants said encouragingly, patting Vinyl on the shoulder with a good amount of force; though to her it didn’t feel like much at all.

“Now, I’m terribly sorry but I must be taking my leave, in case you haven’t noticed, the songs of automatic weaponry and explosions have begun, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on any of the fun!” With a polite mechanized bow, Fancy Pants took off past Vinyl; shiny revolver in hand, and leapt over the edge of the parking garage with a level of grace a robot that size shouldn’t be able to achieve.

Vinyl was now alone, in the garage, willing each individual finger to move for a good while until she deemed she had good enough control over these strange things appendages. Wondering what exactly was meant by “Hardcore Mode” all the while, was it like Call of Cutie, with limited HUD and no health regeneration or something?

She took a moment to absorb everything around her, the sound of the gunfire in the distance beginning to pick up. The “Thunk, thunk, thunk” of large rifles reaching her ears and echoing off of the vast buildings that stood just on the outside of the parking garage.

The smell of dust was in the air and clouds of it wafted up from the rubble that had been made after Vinyl and her teammates had crashed through the top floor of the parking garage, Small particles of dust clearly visible in the sunlight shining through the newly created holes.

Vinyl carefully turned to look at the edge everypony had leapt off of, sighing softly to herself and then taking a clumsy step towards it. Vinyl’s entire form shuddered uneasily a bit from lack of balance, she wobbled her massive metal arms a bit to try and regain composure before cautiously taking another step. The feeling of the game assisting her walking was now very obvious, but whilst obvious it was also slight.

“Maybe I should have tried singleplayer…” She said, beginning to regret just leaping straight into multiplayer without learning the basics first. Although at this point she assumed it would be slightly rude to just leave, normally she would have just left the game and gone to singleplayer or something, but Fancy pants was here and he had a habit of getting her booked for good parties and DJ gigs in Canterlot every now and then, the last thing she wanted was to look like a poor-sport; especially after he had lingered behind to help her.

Vinyl silently decided she would just stick around the game until it ended, maybe find somewhere nice and safe and take potshots at everypony with the rifle she now held. It most likely wouldn’t even take too long to find a place to camp, after all, the map was most likely small. How hard would it be?

“Oh…my…”

As Vinyl lumbered over to the edge of the parking garage, she was able to take in just exactly how staggeringly massive the map was. As far as she could tell from here it looked pretty darn similar to the real Manehattan. The tall skyscrapers, smaller apartments and shops looked absolutely spot-on, there was even this one club that she had visited and DJ-d at a few years back; right where it should be, situated on the street corner of 2nd Ave and Sandwich Street.

“Wow…they really meant it when they said this was realistic.” She said to herself, gripping the ledge with her mechanical hands and leaning cautiously over the side. She barely had but a few seconds to take in the view before she found herself looking down, her stomach churned a bit as she found she was easily six stories above the ground.

“Oh, damn…”

Vinyl found herself wondering how the others had managed to bring themselves to leap off that ledge, however her thoughts were interrupted as an unfamiliar sound of a bell tolling rang out inside of her mech, the words “Sp33dysoarin was put down by MrFancyPants” lighting up in the top right corner of her green, glowing, Heads Up Display.

“Get ‘em Fancy Pants!” She cried out with a chuckle, bringing her hooves up from inside the cockpit in an effort to amplify her voice; and amplify it she did. However, Vinyl had forgotten that motion inside the robot, translated into motion the robot made, and so upon lifting her hooves/hands the robot lost its grip on the ledge and tipped over, rapidly plummeting down towards the ground and impacting with an earth-shaking “BOOM!”

Gee, the sky sure did look great today.

Once the sound of gravel and dirt plinking against her visor died down, Vinyl let out an annoyed groan and wiped some of the debris off of her visor; luckily the fall didn’t appear to have hurt her or anything, as the small image of her robot in the bottom left corner had all limbs glowing green.

As she righted herself, Vinyl found she had landed on what used to be a tree, however, now it was no more than a bunch of large splinters and mulched leaves. There was a small dent in the ground where she had landed.

“Jeeze…this place is massive!” She said in awe twitching her ears from inside the mech as she looked up at the towering buildings not too far in the distance. She was beginning to wonder if there was a way for her to get up there on top of one; it would be a good place to just kind of chill and maybe pick somepony off from a distance.

Just then, the ground was shaken by a teeth-rattling explosion, followed by the words “SalesPony1 was blown up by SirDragonZilla” appearing in her HUD.

Vinyl winced and let out a soft chuckle, gazing at the plumes of smoke now floating up from behind one of the buildings a little ways down the road in front of her.

“Better luck next time Mr Salespony dude…” She said, before it dawned on her that the plumes of smoke now billowing out from behind one of the buildings were actually only about four blocks away; and maybe she should get to cover lest she wanted to be slaughtered next.

Fueled by this thought, Vinyl clumsily scrambled over to the nearest building; managing to kick a trash can through the window of the building in front of her in the process; wincing apologetically, as if the owner of the building would be mad and as if he was actually existent here in the first place.

Slowly starting to get more comfortable piloting this robot, Vinyl inched over to the corner of the building; peeking over as slowly as she could. Peeking around corners wasn’t exactly easy however, due to the fact the cockpit was situated in the robot’s body and it didn’t actually have a head.

The street she looked down was completely devoid of movement; all save the smoke still billowing out from behind a building four blocks down; which now that Vinyl looked at it, the building was actually a fifteen story apartment building.

She was just about to make her way out from her hiding place when it walked out, only then realizing the presence of heavy footsteps.

It was a heavy-class robot; a deep purple tint covered the entirety of its form, only interrupted by the red bars over the armor and the occasional spot of grime or debris; the last two it most likely had earned upon slaughtering “Salespony1”. The large cockpit was a deep green tint and had spikes protruding from the top, its smaller pair of hands were idly tucked to the chest and it held in its larger pair of hands some sort of rectangular device, it had eight holes in the end and was held much like one would hold a chainsaw, the name “SirDragonZilla” hovered above the enemy in flaming red letters along with the number “8”

With a soft gasp, Vinyl jerked her body back behind the building, only barely keeping herself from falling onto her behind and alerting the enemy.

She found herself suddenly regretting her choice to skip the tutorial.

Despite the slight terror-inducing presence of the thirty foot tall metal monstrosity that would most likely lay waste to her as soon as it would look at her, and despite the fact that said monstrosity was currently only a few blocks away and around a mere building corner. Vinyl couldn’t help but find herself wearing a stupid grin.

This was extremely thrilling, the realism, the immersion, the sounds and the smells. The smell of the smoke was extremely real; she barely held back a small laugh as she thought about it. She felt this way about it all and she hadn’t even killed anypony yet!

Vinyl now weighed her options; did she want to go up against this enemy alone? She could try climbing a building and attacking from above, but that would probably fail horribly due to the fact she could barely walk properly in this suit, let alone climb. Maybe she should try and find some teammates and take it down, Of course, it was just one enemy and it couldn’t be all that hard, right?
Of course, the thought of feeling such a massive enemy alone was something that would surely level her up, on top of the fact she would get the bragging rights…

Silently making her choice, Vinyl readied herself.

She was gonna take this big hunk-o-junk down and nopony was gonna stop her!

With a battle cry containing a mixture of joy, fear and excitement, Vinyl stepped out from her hiding spot and held her rifle at her hip, actually managing to smoothly step out before pulling the trigger to let loose a hail of bullets upon SirDragonZilla.

“Click.”

Wait, bullets didn’t go “Click.” Bullets went “Boom, boom!” That was like…first grade stuff for Vinyl. So why weren’t her bullets going “Boom, Boom”?

“Oh come on!” She cried bitterly, hissing through her teeth and shaking the weapon in her metal hands; as if that would make it work.

There was a spine-chilling; slightly computerized, roar, not terribly unlike that dragon snore she had heard when one of the monstrous beasts and decided to sleep near Ponyville.

Vinyl froze, looking up through her cockpit window and unknowingly making eye contact with the pilot.

The purple-green robot wascurrently swinging its strange weapon to aim at her; the smoke billowing out from the building beside it creating a rather dramatic effect; like something you would see used as a screensaver or the like.

“Ponyfeathers.” She deadpanned, just before she discovered exactly what the weapon was.

Four consecutive hissing noises followed, one after the other. They were not unlike the sound made when one opened a bottle of shaken up soda, except this wasn’t soda and there were now four rockets zooming towards her at frightening speed; leaving white trails of smoke behind them.

Vinyl let out a frightened yelp and dove back over towards her previous hiding place, now resenting ever leaving it. Sparks flew as the metal of her robot collided with the concrete and the four rockets whizzed past her head and impacted on the parking garage she leapt from earlier, exploding in a fantastic display of fire and debris. A massive chunk of the portion that had been hit was now totally gone, along with just about everything else within a fifteen foot radius.

Vinyl sat on her metal rump, propped up on one mechanical elbow as bits of debris plinked on her visor, watching the plume of black smoke grow ever higher with each passing second.

Another deep, thundering, mechanized roar.

If Vinyl could have looked pale; she did have white fur you know, she would have been as pale as could be. She whipped around as quickly as she could and found the hulking form of SirDragonZilla to be lumbering towards her; the small pair of robotic arms on his chest feeding fresh rockets into his tool of death.

“Heh…I think I’ll uh, be going!” She said with a sheepish chuckle, waving briefly at her enemy before scrambling out of the line of fire and back over to her building, shakily righting herself once she was out of the way.

Her actions were rewarded with yet another angry roar, followed by the unsettling “Fizz” of rockets being loosed.

“Wait…I’m out of his sight, why would he waste-“

Vinyl never got to finish her train of thought; it was derailed with a rather explosive force as the corner of the building she hid behind exploded in a mixture of glass, concrete and so many other building materials. The force of the blast knocked Vinyl down on her back and stunned her slightly. She hadn’t been fully expecting the environment to be destructible, despite witnessing it on the parking garage just seconds beforehoof.

Vinyl brought her hooves up to her head and tried to rub the ringing in her ears away; her mech mimicking these movements and doing the same to its cockpit. She blinked her eyes in an attempt to make the world stop spinning, somehow managing to gain enough composure to push herself up so she could watch as SirDragonZilla rounded the corner, unable to see into his cockpit due to the deep green tint.

SirDragonZilla let out a roar eerily similar to an evil laugh, leveling his rocket launcher to Vinyl and stopping at the intersection a few feet away from where she currently was.

“Freaking noob-tubers…” She said to herself, groaning and preparing for her inevitable doom.

Four seconds later, instead of a fiery and explosive end like she would have expected, Vinyl’s ears were hit with the sound of gunshots. They were deep and heavy, but slow. Whatever or whoever was shooting now had a big-ass gun and was enjoying making use of it.

As it turned out, the shots were not being dealt by SirDragonZilla, in fact they were actually being dealt to the massive robot. The rocket-wielding mech staggered backwards and brought a heavy arm up to block its visor, only to be rewarded with two bullet holes in said arm.

SirDragonZilla let out an unpleasant roar and without aiming, loosed four rockets past Vinyl and in the direction of her unidentified savior, then made use of the distraction his rockets created to turn and jog as fast as he could back down the street and away from the scene of battle.

Vinyl sighed with relief, lying down in the street with a metal “Thunk.” This position unintentionally gave her a good view of the stark white robot that leapt over her, stopping a few feet away and holding she found to be a large, golden revolver-type weapon; from which three more rounds were fired down the street, the result being another unpleasant roar from who Vinyl assumed was SirDragonZilla, yet no indication that he had been killed appeared on her softly glowing HUD.

A moment later the sound of hydraulics hissing and gears whirring was heard, followed by a large shadow being cast over Vinyl.
“Oh…hey Fancy Pants.” She said with a sheepish chuckle, grabbing his giant metal hand with her own and getting to her feet with a mechanical whir.

“I say, Vinyl, tell me you didn’t try to duel with such a massive brute all on your own?” He asked with a tone that betrayed the fact he already knew the answer.

“I couldn’t get my gun to fire! I pulled the trigger and all I get is a dead pony’s click!” She replied with an annoyed gesture of her mechanical hand.

“Did you cock the weapon?”

Vinyl straightened up a bit; or at least as much as was possible in her suit.

“Do what now?”

Fancy Pants let out a hearty laugh and patted Vinyl on the shoulder; the metal impacting resulting in a “clang”

“Vinyl, this is a hyper-realistic video game, you have to actually ready your weapon before you can shoot it!” He said with a laugh, holding a giant mechanical hand out and motioning for her to relinquish said weapon.

Vinyl silently gave him the weapon, feeling slightly foolish for not thinking to cock the weapon so it would actually fire; she was so used to it being automatic, she hadn’t even thought she would need to do it and just assumed it would happen on its own like in other games.

“Like so, dear.” Fancy Pants turned the weapon over so that Vinyl could see the charging handle on the right side, as effortlessly as one would breathe he grabbed onto the charging handle and pulled it back, releasing it a second later with a familiar “Click.” He then handed it back to Vinyl, who felt like an utter fool for forgetting something so simple.

“I knew that…” She said half-heartedly, taking her rifle and glancing at the charging handle in annoyance, as if it should have told her it needed to be used.

“Right, right.” He replied without a hint of sarcasm, his metal feet crunching on the concrete as he gently pushed past, slowly making his way down the street and away from the direction SirDragonZilla had gone.

Vinyl glared at the giant rifle in her mechanical hands a moment longer before realizing Fancy Pants was on the move, and promptly turned around and went after him; actually managing to do so with a minimal amount of stumbling.

“Hey, shouldn’t we like…go after that guy?” She asked, pointing a metal finger back in the direction the rocket-wielding menace had fled.

“Indeed, but I would suggest a rendezvous with our remaining teammates first, our chances of successfully felling the fair “SirDragonZilla” on our own is rather slim and I suspect causalities will result regardless, on both sides.” He said without ever turning back to look at her.

“Ah…” She said, unsure if what he had just said was insulting or not. “Hey wait a minute, what do you mean ‘remaining’ teammates, you say that as if-“

“As if they won’t respawn, yes. We are playing hardcore mode, my dear.” He stated nonchalantly, flicking his revolver open so he could load more rounds into it.

“Oh. So that’s what makes it Hardcore.” She said softly, turning to look back at the pillars of smoke still floating up from the scene of a battle she had barely survived.

The pair were silent for a while, as was the air around them; the only noises being the rhythmic “Chunk, Chunk, Chunk” of their mechanical feet as they traveled; only interrupted by the occasional distant sound of shots being fired or some explosion.

Yet despite the sounds, Vinyl’s HUD never lit up to show anypony else had been eliminated from the game.

“Say, Fancy Pants?” Vinyl inquired softly, turning back and realizing for the first time that the smoke pillars were well behind them, the parking garage almost completely out of view.

“Yes?” He said calmly, his heavy mechanical gait never faltering.

“I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“Well, actually, I have two.” She said, picking up a bit of speed; and feeling a bit proud of herself for not stumbling once as she walked next to him. “First, how come I’m not seeing anypony else getting killed on my little screen thing, and second, how is it you managed to find me?”

Fancy Pants let out a hum, his robot tilting back slightly as he walked so as to gaze up at the rooftops before speaking.

“Astute questions the both! I presume the reason we are not receiving any indication of our foes nor allies being slaughtered, is due to the fact they may have deigned it best to take a more…safe, course of battle.” He said, making a motion of uncertainty with his metal hand.

“How so?”

“Well, you see, in ‘Hardcore’ mode, the player only has one life, so therefore a respawn is nonexistent until the game ends, which in turn means that smart players may have taken to keeping themselves somewhat concealed as they search for their enemy, rather than simply charging out into the middle of it all ‘Guns Blazing’; I believe is the term.”

“Except for that big guy, apparently.” She said with a soft hint of disgust, the fizz of the rockets playing in her head as she thought about the near-game-death experience.

“And, to answer your second question, I was able to find you because of the plumes of smoke that big fellow created with his weaponry, you can see those things all across the map if you get up high enough. I will admit, I hadn’t known exactly who had been causing said plumes, but I did know you were last to leave the garage. I thought it safe to assume you were in some sort of predicament and decided to lend a hoof.”

“Thanks…” Vinyl let out a slight chuckle of embarrassment and rubbed the back of her neck; the robot mimicking these movements perfectly despite not having a neck.

“This way, hurry!” Fancy Pants said abruptly; almost in a commanding tone, practically turning on a dime and jogging in the direction that led further into the city.

Vinyl let out a small yelp of surprise and took off after him without even really understanding what was going on; she hadn’t quite mastered running yet so her gait was clumsy to say the least.

The road Fancy Pants was currently leading her towards was lined with apartment buildings on either side. As they had traveled the buildings had slowly changed from small shops and outlets into larger apartments and more reputable shopping outlets, the buildings noticeably higher than the shops farther back but never taller than a few stories. The apartments were made out of what had originally been red brick, now however it was blackened and dirty from being exposed for so many years; just like the real Manehattan!

Other than this, the street was empty; save the occasional carriage parked here and there.

Fancy Pants strode over to one of the corner buildings with noticeable haste, pressing his metal back against the brick wall of an apartment before beckoning Vinyl over.

“Hurry, Vinyl, unless you want to get shot!” He hissed, somehow managing to maintain his “classy” accent whilst doing so.

“I’m coming, hold on!” She replied softly as she could, nearly tripping over a carriage as she made her way over to him; the crunch of her metal feet on the concrete being the only other sound until she arrived next to him.

“Why are we hiding, is there a bad guy?” She asked with a hint of excitement, holding her rifle up at an angle in eager preparation for a fight.

“Bad guy, indeed…” Fancy Pants replied, his voice trailing off as he leaned around to peek over the corner, inhaling sharply almost instantly afterwards and pressing himself back against the brick wall; unknowingly shattering a window in the process.

“Is it that SirDragonZilla guy? I want some revenge!” Vinyl said excitedly, nearly succeeding in jumping out from cover and unleashing bullets in the enemy, had Fancy Pants not stopped her with a giant, armored arm.

“No, it appears to be somepony else, a warrior class like us, and he happens to be merely two blocks down.” He said in a hushed computerized tone, checking to make sure his revolver was ready for combat as he spoke.

“Did they see you?” Vinyl asked, her excitement almost uncontainable. She gripped her rifle firmly, eager to get into a fight.
“No, but I suggest we devise a plan of action, lest we-“

Fancy Pants was cut off by the all-too-close sound of gunfire, a heavy “BOOM!” ringing out and being followed by the sound of a round being chambered.

There was a distinctly masculine cry of despair followed by a rapid “Pop, pop, pop, pop.”, then another cry of shock; this one more feminine.

Both Vinyl and Fancy Pants looked out from their hiding spot to find two robots; one adorning blue stripes and the other adorning red.

As it turned out, the red team robot was Bl0ss0m4th, her distinctive Racer-mech was instantly recognized by Vinyl. There was a second robot however that she didn’t recognize, it was totally grey, and bore an image of a pink teacup on the shoulder; in addition to the blue stripes it adorned. The name “EarlofGrey” hovered above the mech in flaming red letters along with the number “6”

EarlofGrey was currently unloading what appeared to be some sort of Sub-Machine Gun at Bl0ss0m4th; who was frantically scrambling behind a nearby carriage in a desperate search for cover.

“Ha, foolish ruffian, a mere carriage will not serve to protect you from me!” EarlofGrey said with a cry of excitement, aiming his weapon directly at the carriage and unleashing a seemingly endless stream of bullets towards it, the flash of gunfire lighting up his visor. His manner of speaking instantly giving away that he was from Canterlot.

The sound of the automatic weapons mixed with that of the flimsy carriage being ripped apart, and the faint clinking of large shell casings clattering onto the ground, filled the air. This “Earl” character’s almost maniacal laughter was totally drowned out as he unleashed Tartarus.

“My dear fellow, don’t you know it’s rather impolite to bother a mare in such a fashion?”

EarlofGrey ceased his firing and whipped over to where Fancy Pants was now standing; whose revolver was aimed directly for the SMG wielding mad-pony.
“Oh, Fancy Pants! How good to see you my friend, how is the missus?” Earl replied, swinging his gun around to aim at Fancy Pants.
Vinyl stepped out as Fancy Pants replied, rifle held low at her hip and ready to fire. It was now she realized that EarlofGrey only had one arm, the severed one lying on the ground a little ways away with sparking severed wires.

“Fleur is doing wonderful, how goes the tea business?” Fancy Pants replied, noticing Bl0ss0m4th slowly peeking out from behind her badly damaged source of cover.

“Oh, tea is good as usual. However I didn’t come here to catch up old chap, I came here to-“

EarlofGrey never got to finish his words, the hail of bullets Vinyl unleashed just then did well to end his stream of banter.

Her maniacal laughing drowned out by gunfire, Vinyl unleashed all she had on her enemy. Earl cried out in surprise and tried to raise his weapon to fire, but was only met with said weapon being blown apart; along with a good amount of his remaining robot hand; courtesy of a skillful shot from Fancy Pants.

Earl stumbled back, glancing briefly over at where his remaining hand should have been and was no longer.

Then Bl0ss0m4th joined in. She hopped out from behind her mutilated cover and fired her shotgun at Earl, the shot-pellets quickly blowing out the left knee of their heavily outnumbered enemy.

The cacophony of gunfire that ensued was the loudest thing Vinyl had ever heard. Revolver, Shotgun and Assault Rifle all unleashing their own brand of pain upon EarlofGrey. A revolver round was dealt to his shoulder at the same time five assault rifle rounds punched through his visor. As if that weren’t enough, his other knee was quickly dispatched by a shotgun round. With a cry of both anger and frustration he collapsed to his knees with a heavy “Crunch!” Making a futile attempt to block the hail of lead with what remained of his arms before his robot had taken too much damage to continue functioning.

“Bollocks.” Earl said angrily. His Heads up Display flickering and promptly displaying a red pony skull and crossbones both in his visor and over his head, just before he collapsed to the ground with an earth-shaking mixture of metal and glass colliding with concrete. The smell of gun smoke filled the air, the last few spent bullet shells clattering onto the concrete and tumbling off in their own direction before they too faded into silence.

The trio of teammates stood silent, weapons smoking almost as much as the robotic corpse now lying on the ground before them. The silence was broken seconds later by Vinyl, who let out a triumphant whoop upon the words “EarlofGrey was decimated by VinylScratch, MrFancyPants09 and Bl0ss0m4th” appearing on her HUD in flaming letters, along with the resounding death bell that rang out over the entirety of the map.

“That…was….AWESOME!” Vinyl cried out, unable to keep from grinning like a fool whilst pumping a giant metal fist into the air in triumph at their accomplishment.

“Yes, well done indeed, the both of you.” Fancy Pants said simply, the slightest hint of a smile on his face as he reloaded his weapon.
“I thought I was toast for sure, thanks you two!” Bl0ss0m4th said with a faintly computerized sigh of relief, making her way over to the smoking corpse and beginning to search through the remains; not really bothering to pay much attention to her saviors aside from her thanks.

“What’re you doing?” Vinyl inquired, walking over to her teammate with the whir of gears and the hiss of hydraulics.

“Scavenging, here.” She said simply, promptly detaching what appeared to be a single grenade from the waist of her fallen foe and tossing it to Vinyl.

“Gah!” She let out a yelp and quickly grabbed at the grenade mid arc; silently thankful she hadn’t crushed it or something when she caught it.

Vinyl inspected the grenade once she had a firm hold on it, it was identical to your average grenade, except for the fact it was the size of her head and could most likely rip an entire robot apart. The question of where she was going to put it was just dawning on her, when Fancy Pants clunked up next to her and said in a hushed, computerized tone.

“It will attach automatically once you bring it near your waist.”

Vinyl gave him a grateful look through her visor and did as suggested, as expected once the grenade was almost touching her robot’s waist, it automatically zipped over and attached into a small socket with a faint “Click”

“So, Miss Blossomforth, are you going to be embarking out on your own once more, or shall you stick with Vinyl and I?” Fancy Pants asked, clunking over to her and watching as she pulled the last of the ammo from the metal corpse; apparently not feeling like sharing anything else.

“I’ll keep on flying alone, thanks.” She said flatly, taking one last look at the wasted remains of now picked-clean robot lying on the street.

With nothing more than a half-hearted salute, Blossomforth had taken off down the street once more, looking more like she was rollerblading as she moved, a feat made possible due to the tiny yet extremely powerful thrusters that were built into the end of each leg in place of a foot; strong enough for fast movement but not quite enough to fly.

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” Vinyl asked, striding up next to Fancy Pants after getting tired of fiddling with a four foot long combat knife she had found on her waist.

“Yes, probably, I don’t know her too well but I gather she can be rather…impetuous, sometimes.” He replied with a soft sigh, watching as Blossomforth leapt up onto the side of a building and began scaling it, disappearing onto the roof a few seconds later.

“Eh, oh well.” Vinyl replied with a hydraulic-powered shrug, turning her gaze down to EarlofGrey’s remains and giving them a not-so-gentle kick.

“We should be going too, there are only four enemies left and I doubt they will all be as foolish as the poor Earl.” He said, walking off down the street, machinery whirring with each step he took.

“Do we have an idea of where we’re going or…?” She trailed off, clunking off after him without a second glance at the late Earl.
Fancy Pants stopped at the intersection a few feet away, gazing down it and letting out a contemplative hum as he did so.

Vinyl stopped next to her companion and followed his gaze; or rather the way his visor was pointing. Before her now was a road with red-brick apartments on either side, just like the street over, however the next block down from where she was facing, held not only apartments, but had shops, restaurants and a menagerie of other businesses. Even farther down the road, these buildings seemed to get fewer and were replaced by numerous different office buildings, varying from being made of marble to looking like they were totally made up of glass. The buildings only got taller as they went closer and closer to the center of the city; other than the occasional taller one that would stick out like a sore thumb.

“Our Earl friend came from down this way, so I assume that we may discover more of our adversaries down that way.” Fancy Pants pointed a robotic finger down the way that led deeper into the city as he spoke.

“Wait, what happened to that whole ‘safe’ thing you were talking about earlier?” Vinyl asked apprehensively.

“There is a difference between playing it safe and sitting in a corner waiting for our foes to come to us, dear.” He replied, his voice laden with condescension.

“Yeah, yeah, shut it.” Vinyl said with a hint of annoyance, waving Fancy Pants off before clunking down the street, further and further towards their enemy.

And boy would she be surprised when she figured out exactly who the remaining enemies were.

Vinyl VS The Upper Class (Part 2)

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Vinyl VS The Upper Class (Part 2)

How had this happened?

How had everything, literally, everything, hit the fan in less than five minutes. How had they managed to get in such a terrible spot in such a short time?

This was a disaster, and Vinyl knew that full well whilst praying her hardest that the bottle sized sniper rounds currently being hurled at her at over thirty five hundred feet per second, wouldn’t somehow make its way through the overturned trolley she and Fancy Pants were currently hiding behind.

“Fancy Pants, I don’t think this thing is going to protect us forever…” Vinyl said with a worried moan, just as the feeling of another round hitting the trolley shook it slightly, punching through the thin metal roof and actually punching through the other side, flying past Vinyl and being stopped by a carriage a little ways away from them.

“Indeed, I do suspect our purple sniper friend has no intention of giving us any breathing room though!” He cried in response, bringing his revolver up and sticking it over the edge of their cover to fire blindly, only for a bullet to ricochet off the metal just a few inches from his hand.

“And what happens when her friend gets back? I doubt that Salespony dude is going to last long against SirDragonZilla!”

“We are at quite an impasse then, aren’t we?”

“I hadn’t noticed!” Vinyl cried, just before letting out a cry of shock as another robot; seemingly appearing out of nowhere, landed on the ground in front of them with an earth-shaking crunch.

And it was ready to kill.

-A Few Minutes Earlier-

“Fancy Pants, are you sure we aren’t lost?” Vinyl asked for the second time since they had split up with Blossomforth.

“Yes, quite sure, this is an exact replica of Manehattan and believe it or not I’ve been in the real city quite a lot In my time, both on business and vacation with Fleur. So I think I have an idea of where we’re headed.”

“And…remind me where that is?”

“City Hall Square, the previous times I have played on this map in particular, I have found the enemy team will often consolidate themselves to that park, it’s easily defendable and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve moved carriages around or something of that sort to make it even more like a fortress.”

This surprised Vinyl a bit, it had registered in her head that the environment was destructible and that things in it could be moved and destroyed, but she hadn’t ever really thought to actually build fortifications from scenery and props. It wasn’t a bad idea, she just hadn’t considered it, why would she? This was a First Pony Shooter, not Minecraft or something.

For a while afterwards the two ponies were silent, the only sound being the near-rhythmic crunching of their metal feet upon the asphalt. The buildings around them easily broke twenty to thirty stories tall. Each one was often lined with windows spaced evenly apart from one another, often there would be stone pillars rising between each window to make them more pleasant and ornate looking, often they would grow thinner as they got taller, looking as if blocks had been stacked largest to smallest. The newer buildings however, as opposed to the older ones, were often comprised of glass and steel. They tended to be either hotels or office buildings.

Eventually they ended up in what appeared to be Clydes Town. The buildings were somewhat shorter here, lined with windows and colored in yellows and reds that were dotted amongst the many other tan buildings. Often there would be metal stairways on the outsides of the residential buildings, made out of wrought iron bars and bolted into the sturdy walls.

Banners with ornate and foreign decorations hung low from many of the buildings, colored in different shades of red and green with golden lettering, each one eye-catching and advertising its store or place of business. More often than not they were accompanied by awnings, protecting the different stands products from the sun and elements.

Carriages lined the parking spaces on each side of the street, sitting in silence as if waiting for their drivers to trot out of wherever they were and zip of to their next destination or to some business meeting, as was the way of Manehattan.

This however, was not the normal Manehattan. Nopony was browsing the stalls, or chatting it up with some store owner. None were climbing into their carriage to hurry off to some place of work. None were busy folding their laundry or drinking morning coffee inside their apartment whilst watching to morning news.

The only souls in all of Manehattan were the nine remaining ponies in the game; All seeking to murder one another with the aid of their individual metal behemoths.

“So, Vinyl.” Fancy Pants said, finally breaking the silence as they entered Clydes Town.

“Huh?”

“How is Octavia?” He asked in that high-class type voice of his, scanning the rooftops for enemies as the clunked along.

“O-oh she’s doing alright, she might be getting to play at the Gala in Canterlot again, she’s working out the details with-“

“Vinyl, you know that isn’t what I meant.” He said; the silly grin he wore very much detectable just by the way he spoke.

Vinyl got a bit flustered, suddenly finding herself wishing that an enemy would pop out and shoot at them or something of that sort. It wasn’t that she didn’t like talking about Octavia, nor was it that she wouldn’t admit the two very much had a “Thing.” She just wasn’t exactly sure how to explain that “Thing” to other ponies, it always came out wrong. She had been meaning to have a sit down with her roommate and discuss exactly what their “thing” actually was, but she hadn’t worked up the courage to do it for fear of ‘Tavi not wanting anything else than a “Friends With Benefits” sort of ordeal; and that isn’t what she wanted at all.

“Things are…good…” Vinyl said anxiously, rubbing the back of her neck from within the robot with a look of uncertainty; though Fancy Pants couldn’t see the look, he knew very well she was making it.

“You haven’t talked to her have you?”He said with a pang of disappointment, looking over at the DJ through his mech-visor.
“I’ll get to it…eventually…” She said, almost uncomfortably so.

“Vinyl, you can’t just neglect to talk to her about this, you know that full well.” He said with a shake of his metal finger; the sound of its mechanisms whirring being heard as he did.

“I know, I know…I just, I don’t want to screw it up or anything you know, What if she-“

“Turns you down? Vinyl I know you don’t like it but that’s just how the world functions, we win some and we lose some; occasionally the losses are horrible, but there is always a win right around the corner if we just try hard to attain it! Octavia could very well be a win, so to speak, but not if you just sit and wait, you have to take action!” Fancy Pants’ tone was reassuring and caring, he put his metal hand on Vinyl’s shoulder and gave it a gentle; gentle for a massive robot, squeeze, as if she would be able to feel it.

Vinyl let out a sigh of slight tribulation and looked over at him, bringing her rifle up and resting it on her shoulder.

“I guess you’re probably right…” She said, hoping he wouldn’t continue on the topic, alas, much to her chagrin, he very much intended to.

“You care for her, correct?” He asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Yes…very, very much...” Vinyl replied hesitantly.

“And, you long for quote unquote, ‘more’ than what you two currently have relationship-wise, correct?”

“Yeah…”

“Then go for it, my dear!” Fancy Pants said, his voice seeming to gain a few decibels; followed by an encouraging pat on the back.

“I guess there isn’t really anything else to do other than-“

Vinyl never got to finish her sentence; she was interrupted by an explosion barely ten feet away from them, followed by a bright white flash and a “BANG!” Asphalt and smoke filled the air, bits of the road flying everywhere. Vinyl and Fancy Pants were knocked down simply by the concussive force of such a large blast, finding themselves nearly blinded and deaf, their ears rung and all they could see was a white that was slowly fading away.

The both of them let out a cry of shock in unison, Fancy Pants stumbling over to the right side of the road and tripping over a carriage, sending him toppling into a shop with great force. Bricks crumbled as he slammed into the building, leaving a sizeable crater in it before teetering over to the ground with the unpleasant crunch of metal hitting concrete.

Vinyl, stumbled backwards over to the left, much like her companion, she tripped on one of the many carriages lining the sidewalk, promptly toppling over into an alley way in which she just barely fit. In a mad, blind scramble to get away from whatever it was that had attacked them, she drug herself into the alley she wasn’t even sure was an alley, not until her vision began to return and she could actually right herself and try to assess what in Equestria was going on.

She almost cried out for Fancy Pants, fearful that he had been injured. She would have done so if their attacker hadn’t decided to make his presence more known.

“Jeeze, I can freaking hear you guys from a mile away!”

Vinyl couldn’t help but find this voice unpleasantly familiar, where had she heard this guy before?

“I would know too, I mean, I freaking make noise for a living! Musical noise though, you know, wubs and all that jazz.”

No way, there was no way this is who she thought it was. Please, Celestia not let it be who she thought it was.

“Come on out Vinyl, I won’t shoot you! At least not right away! I’d like to chat a bit first!” This pony sounded extremely cocky, even more so than Vinyl tended to be sometimes; and that was saying a lot. Of course if it was who she thought it was; so that was to be highly expected.

With a groan, knowing that this stallion wouldn’t take no for an answer; he never had when they had met in the past; she clunked out of the cluttered alleyway and into the street, catching sight of Fancy Pants as she did.

Fancy Pants was slowly righting himself out of a pile of crushed bricks and what used to be fruit-filled baskets. Now though, he had essentially turned them to mush with his big metal rump. He groaned unpleasantly, rubbing his head as he used the hole he had created in the brick wall to help right himself.

There was a loud “Crunch!” Vinyl turned her gaze to look down the street, letting out a sigh of displeasure when she saw exactly who it was.

The mech had just leapt off a nearby roof, and was slowly rising to its full height a little ways away from her. It was a warrior-class and held what appeared to be some sort of cannon in one hand. The armor plating was a muted grey-blue color, with the rest of the robot painted a dark black. An image of three stars was painted onto his chest and as expected, the mech bore the heavy red stripes of the enemy team. The name “MasterDJNeon” hovered above it in flaming red letters, along with the number “7” next to it.

“Hello, Neon Lights…” Vinyl said, purposely sounding as perturbed as she could.

“What’s up, sweet stuff? You still hanging out with the weird violinist or whatever the heck she plucks away at?” Neon said, sounding rather disgusted to even mention “That weird violinist”

“Her name is Octavia, and she plays the Cello, you don’t pluck a Cello, you use a bow! Also, yes, as a matter of fact I am still hanging out with her!” Vinyl snapped back, raising her rifle to aim at him and unleash a well deserved world of pain onto her long time rival.

“Uh, uh, uh, drop it!” Neon gave an evil smirk and brought his cannon over to aim at Fancy Pants, who was now realizing he had dropped his weapon in the middle of the street, leaving him defenseless.

Vinyl let out an almost furious growl, slowly setting her weapon down onto the ground. If Fancy Pants got shot, she sure as hell would end up dead too. So she begrudgingly did as commanded; receiving a slimy looking grin from Neon.

“Very good, very good, it’s nice when your obedient, Vinyl, it makes me happy and I know you like to do that.”

“I’m going to rip off your leg, and shove it down your throat, you slimy little creep!” She said through gritted teeth, pointing an angry robotic finger at him, furious at not only the fact that Neon was here, but the fact he had also called Octavia names for no reason and was holding her friend at gunpoint.

“Oh, tsk, tsk, tsk. Vinyl, babe, sorry but I’m not really into that sort of thing, now your throat on the other hoof-“

“Shut up, Neon! What do you want?” The need Vinyl felt to literally rip Neon apart could not have been properly described.

“What do I want, what do I want…” Neon’s voice trailed off, and he scratched at his chin with the hoof not occupied with aiming his gun; which now that Vinyl looked at it, looked much like a barrel that had just been attached to a trigger and handle.

“Oh! That’s right!” He snapped his robotic fingers and then pointed at Vinyl; how exactly he knew how to snap fingers nopony even knows. “I want you to finally admit you have an insatiable lust for me and my fine DJ-ing ass, and that you also are a sub-par DJ compared to me, and I want you to finally ditch that stupid-ass violin player, I mean, she’s so freaking plain too, that hair and that goofy bow tie? Ugh!”

“Excuse me?” She replied in utter disbelief; her rage only growing greater with each word he uttered.

“You heard me, I said that the string plucker is plain, and has no fashion sense.” He sneered, deliberately trying to tick her off.

“I’m going to destroy your miserable little-“

“Ah, ah, Vinyl…” He sang warningly, shaking his cannon gently so as to remind her he was very much capable of ending Fancy
Pants; who was busy wondering how somepony could be so desperate as to resort to this form of…whatever it was you called what Neon was trying to do, and in a video game no less.

Vinyl gritted her teeth, mechanical fists balling tightly in anger, then remembering she actually still had a weapon, and that said weapon was attached to her waist.

“Oh, hold one a moment. I actually have something to give you.” She said nonchalantly, managing to mask her animosity, reaching down and pulling the large explosive off her waist. With a lazy underhand toss, she lobbed the grenade in Neon’s direction as if it were nothing.

Her rival’s gaze followed the explosive, too caught up in his little tirade to realize what it was until it came to a stop right next to his foot, the soft beeping it emitted suddenly growing faster since Vinyl had armed and delivered it.

“Crap!”

Quickly as he could, Neon dove away from the little ball of explosive fun, firing his cannon blindly in hopes of hitting Fancy Pants as he did so.

Vinyl turned and dove to the ground just as the grenade went off, hoping she hadn’t just gotten her comrade killed as yet another crater was put into the Clydes Town street with an earth-shaking “BOOM!”

Bits of concrete rained down all around, sounding much akin to hail as it plinked off of everything around it, Clattering off of windows, awnings and robots; fading away as quickly as it had happened and leaving only a smoking crater in its wake.

Quickly as she could, Vinyl righted herself. She had caught a glimpse of Neon diving away just before the blast and knew there was a good chance it hadn’t ended him. That theory was only confirmed when there was no notice of his death on her HUD, and doubly confirmed when she found him shakily pushing himself upright a little ways away from the blast zone.

“Damn it…Vinyl…” He groaned, shakily righting himself, only to stumble over into a nearby building, leaning against it and showing off the extensive amount of damage he had taken from the explosion.

Neon’s mech was sparking from its numerous damaged parts; his left arm was practically shredded and belching out plumes of grey smoke. His left leg was faring better, but not by much. A good portion of the armor was torn off, exposing the inner mechanisms. Whirring gears and hissing hydraulics did their best to work properly amidst the damage they had been dealt, but the continued usage in their current state only made the damage more and more extensive.

“Good show, Vinyl, very good show!” Came the voice of Fancy Pants; who was thankfully unscathed.

“To be honest I had absolutely no idea if that would actually work, I mean, Neon’s an idiot but I didn’t think he was stupid enough to not know what I was throwing at him…” She said, bending down to pick up her weapon as she spoke.

“Well, I would suggest we go and finish taking out the trash, the stench is nearly unbearable.” Fancy Pants returned with a chuckle, clunking over and retrieving his weapon off the ground.

Vinyl turned her gaze over to the struggling form of Neon; who was having quite a fit at not being able to function fully. He wasn’t even able to attack them; his weapon had apparently taken shrapnel or something of the like and was laying on the ground spitting smoke out the barrel end. Neon looked just as bad; with each and every spark that popped out of his suit he would let out a cry of frustrated anger and collapse back once again. It was sort of like a one step forward two steps back sort of process.

“Hold this.” She deadpanned; her gaze stone cold and locked on her soon to be prey, shoving her rifle in Fancy Pants’ direction; much to his surprise.

“Oh, dear.” Fancy Pants said simply as he took the weapon, realizing that Neon was about to receive a sound thrashing that was most likely well deserved.

Without another word, Vinyl clunked over towards the battered form of Neon’s mech. Machinery whirring with an almost angry passion in time with each step, growing louder and louder in the ears of her foe as he realized those were the sounds of his end.

Neon collapsed once more, this time to one knee. Smoke coughed from jammed gears and lubricants spurted from broken hydraulics, sparks popped off of broken wires every now and then; the energy surging through them having nowhere to go but out from the damage. He persisted with trying to get up though, as if he would somehow magically heal and be able to walk away from this.

“Vinyl, be reasonable here I could get you a gig In-“

“Nope!”

With the robotic equivalent of a swift kick in the teeth, he went flying back. Damaged hands groped at empty air and bits of already shredded metal flew off in a rather spectacular shower of mechanical carnage, Vinyl looking much like one would when kicking a soccer ball, only with a lot more…eagerness.

Neon impacted hard on the ground, not so much flying as he had essentially rotated 180 degrees and been introduced to the road. Sparks flew out from under him, and the sky darkened, Vinyl’s shadow lording over him like the incarnation of the Grim Reaper.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this…” She growled.

“Waiting to do wha-“

Neon promptly received his answer in the form of Vinyl’s mechanical foot, with an incredible amount of force, right between his mechanical legs. Due to how injured his armor already was, a good deal of damage was dealt. Vinyl’s foot slipped to the side and crunched into Neon’s already shredded leg, her blow rending it completely useless, dead and all but severing it.

Now, luckily for Neon he couldn’t actually feel that blow, if he could he most likely would have sounded about ten octaves higher for the rest of his days, so he counted himself lucky there; Still though, the general principle of Vinyl committing such an act was something he didn’t take a fancy to.

“Vinyl, seriously, was that really called for?” He berated, his voice unsurprisingly not matching what his mechanical body was being dealt.

“Yes, it was!” She growled back, stomping on his inert leg as furiously as she could.

Neon simply groaned. “You have issues, you know?”

“Shut up, I would be doing this anyway; you’re on the enemy team!” She retorted, growling yet again upon reaching down and grabbing Neon’s leg and ripping it off, the already severely weakened metal snapping without much resistance under the robot’s great strength.

Neon let out a yelp as his leg was detached, only to be reunited with it once again as Vinyl attempted to redefine “Hoof in Mouth.” He could only watch with an almost bored look as his foot was brought down into his faceplate. Once, twice, three times, four times. Over and over until it smashed through his visor and swiftly ended his time in the game.

The words “MasterDJNeon was crushed by VinylScratch” appeared in Vinyl’s HUD, and as if that wasn’t enough, the words “Level Up!” appeared in front of her in flaming letters, the number two popping up briefly and exploding into a cloud of smoke; to which she responded with a triumphant huff.

“Told you I’d shove it down your throat!” She spat, giving Neon’s robot corpse an angry kick and receiving a few sparks in return.

“Vinyl, I hate to interrupt your moment of triumph, but I do suggest we take cover!”

Vinyl perked her ears up and turned around, wondering what was wrong that had Fancy Pants so frantic sounding as he clunked over to her; rifle held out for her to take before she had even turned around.

She didn’t even miss a beat, this was becoming easier now, the game. She had essentially mastered her robot; or so she thought, she could control the hands as if it were nothing, the legs had felt more natural, like they were and extension of her body and she could move somewhat fluidly. Granted, that was just walking and light jogging, running and full out sprinting might turn out to be a bit more tedious.

Vinyl seized her rifle from Fancy Pants and promptly followed his lead, leaving the late Neon lying limp in the battle-scarred street; only realizing too late she hadn’t scavenged like she had seen Blossomforth do a while earlier. There wouldn’t be time for that now though, apparently enemies were headed their way and Vinyl was feeling pretty good about herself right now; she had just crushed a long-despised rival after all, so what wasn’t there to feel good about, right?

Right about now, Vinyl could feel the ground shaking ever so slightly, that kind of subtle vibration. Like when she would blast her electronic music loud enough to vibrate the windows, or like a scene out of Jurassic Park, rhythmic thumping growing louder and louder with each step she and Fancy Pants took.

“Whoever that is, they sound big!” She said, looking back just as they reached the street corner before ducking around behind the apartment building on the street corner with her teammate; nearly smacking her “head” on one of the wrought iron staircases that hung from the front end of it in the process.

Vinyl positioned herself so that Fancy Pants was on point, cautiously watching the opposite way he was facing so as to lessen the chances of being snuck up on. Her silly grin was starting to come back, the rush of excitement beginning to fill her. She felt good, she wasn’t as startled by this anymore so much as excited by it, eager to get into a fight and lay down some pain.

“It appears the dear SirDragonZilla caught wind of the commotion we made with all that fighting…” Fancy Pants muttered, pulling back from peeking around the corner and turning to Vinyl; who was wearing a look of elation.

“Are we gonna take ‘em?” She asked in a hushed tone, shifting her weight from leg to leg in restless anticipation to get a little payback. She gripped her rifle firmly, feeling very much ready.

“If you’d like, but I cannot guarantee our endeavor will be successful, Vinyl.” He replied with a cool, calm demeanor, reloading his revolver as he spoke and flicking the cylinder back in with a “click”

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “What happened to what you said the first time we met him?”

“You couldn’t walk then.”He deadpanned.

Vinyl only rolled her eyes and crept in front of her teammate, peeking out into the street and trying to get a view of her enemy. True to Fancy Pants’ word, this SirDragonZilla robot was standing out in the street, back turned as he crouched over Neon’s body, most likely scavenging; Vinyl wondered if that could be considered cannibalism.

From this view, the massive Heavy-class didn’t look to badly damaged. There was a hole in the back of his shoulder plating; Fancy Pants’ doing, and Vinyl couldn’t tell if he still had the holes in his arm, but thought it safe to assume they were there, as little as it would help for her to know. There was one helpful observation to be made however. SirDragonZilla had quite foolishly set his large weapon down to the side while he scavenged, so there was that. Other than that matter though, as far as Vinyl knew, a heavy’s only weakness was how slow it was, if they could maybe take advantage of that they might have a chance!

“Fancy Pants, you can climb, correct?” She asked suddenly, turning back to him and speaking in an almost excited tone.

“I don’t exactly spend my free time practicing, but I’ll give it a shot. Why?” Fancy Pants’ expression was anything but certain that he would actually be able to do so, but Vinyl seemed excited for some reason, so he figured it best to let the young mare have her fun and let her take charge; assuming that’s what she was doing.

“Ok, these guys are slow, right, the big ones? So the way I see it, if you can get up on top of one of the roofs, I’ll distract him. That way he won’t pick up on you climbing or anything, then you get his attention on you, and I’ll run in and get close enough to hopefully deal a lot of damage! It’ll be sort of like you’re flanking him; I’ve done this with Octavia in other video games before so I think it’ll work!” Her voice was painfully unsure, especially on the last part.

“You’ve done this with Octavia?” He asked ambivalently.

“We’ve….tried, some ponies just don’t do video games well. Anyway! It’ll work, I know it will, we’ve…” Vinyl trailed off, her voice growing softer until she was silent.

The ground was shaking again, the subtle rumbling that had become akin to that of the heavy class robots. Except this time it was faster, there was less time between each step, almost like the one responsible for the vibrations was running…

Vinyl slowly turned away from Fancy Pants, bringing her gaze back out over the corner and scanning the area. She had feared that somehow SirDragonZilla had become aware of their presence here, but as it turned out that was not the case. He looked just as confused as Vinyl was; or at least as confused a look as a giant death machine could pull off.

“That…isn’t the dragon guy…” Vinyl said with a tinge of worry, turning back to Fancy Pants; who upon hearing her words had adopted just a confused look as she had.

The thumping was growing louder now, it was closer and the ground shook with more force as each second went by, then as if to answer everypony’s question of who was the cause of this noise, another robot appeared.

Down the street from where Vinyl and Fancy Pants were hiding, was a heavy class mech. It was crème colored and bore an image of an apple slice on its chest, the name “Salespony2” hovered above it in flaming green letters, along with the number “4”.

Salespony2 was barreling down the road with what looked like the force of a freight train, looking like he could hit harder than a train despite the fact he wasn’t going anywhere near as fast. The light glinted off the large reinforced glass of the cockpit as he charged, arms swinging in parallel unison with stumpy mechanical legs as thick as tree trunks, propelling him towards his target with furious passion and smashing through two of the stoplights a block away from them as if they were toothpicks; never once faltering.

“What in the name of…” Vinyl wasn’t exactly sure how to react to what she was seeing, It was almost horrifying to see something so large moving at that speed, it made her wonder just how fast the smaller classes could go.

Salespony2 barreled past them without so much as a passing glance, smashing through the stoplights at that intersection as well; again as if they were nothing. Vinyl and Fancy Pants both scrambled to avoid the now airborne street lights, an action which simultaneously allowed them to watch as SirDragonZilla turned and caught sight of the incoming mechanical Behemoth.

Still blurting out angry cries of passion, Salespony2 introduced his massive fist to the reinforced visor of SirDragonZilla; who was unable to react quickly enough to even get close to blocking the punch. There was the extremely unpleasant sound of metal colliding with visor, the punch packing enough force that it actually sent the enemy heavy flying about twenty feet, landing on his back with a teeth-jarring “Crunch”

SirDragonZilla let out an enraged, computerized roar as he tried to right himself, slamming a metal fist into the ground and sending cracks throughout the area around, then using that leverage to put those hydraulics to use and push himself upright, only to be met with a metal-crunching left jab from Salespony2; sending him stumbling backwards into a brick building with another cacophony of unpleasant crashing noises.

Vinyl and Fancy Pants were both staring in sheer awe, Vinyl out of pure amazement and the fact that watching two metal monsters go at each other so brutally was giving her goosebumps, and Fancy Pants because despite the decent amount of time he spent playing Equestrian Robot Combat, he hadn’t actually seen too many hand to hand combat scenarios, certainly not between to heavy-class robots; who usually blew each other and everything else to bits before they could even get close enough to do so.

“You killed Flim, How am I supposed to have jaunty back and forth conversations with him if he isn’t in the game!” Came the voice of Salespony2, sounding very much like an old-timey sales pony; you know the slimy kind that would sell you fake stuff or be an auctioneer.

As he spoke, Salespony2 thundered over to the dazed form of SirDragonZilla; who was shakily pushing himself up to his feet. His visor bore a visible crack down its entire length and his shoulder armor was visibly dented inwards from the insurmountable force of the heavy-metal jab it had previously received from its crème colored foe.

With an angry roar, Salespony2 grabbed at his enemy’s shoulder, pulling back his other arm with a tightly balled fist in preparation of dealing out another massive blow, only to find his attack stopped cold mid swing.

Almost unexplainably, SirDragonZilla had stopped the blow completely and was now holding the fist of his enemy in his own mechanical grip. Metal shuddered and groaned against metal as Salespony2 struggled against his enemy, growling angrily as he dug his mechanical grabber into the shoulder of his enemy in a vicious attempt to separate metal from robot.

“Perhaps we should lend a hoof?” Fancy Pants suggested, pushing himself up from the street; never having stood up after evading the street lights.

“What…exactly would we be able to do?” Vinyl asked uncertainly, watching in awe as the two metal monsters stood locked in a struggle to overpower one another.

“You’re the one who suggested attacking in the first place; did you do so without even knowing where to shoot? Surely not, that would be uncharacteristically bull-headed of you wouldn’t it, Vinyl?” Fancy Pants’ stupid grin was almost audible in is words.
“Yeah, shut up, at least I had a-“

Vinyl was interrupted by a gunshot louder than any she had heard previously in the game, it was thunderous and simply the sheer power of its sound carried evidence that it carried extreme firepower behind it.

It wasn’t the two Heavies though; it was something almost as powerful, just in a smaller package. A package that was promptly delivered to the door step of Fancy Pants’ shoulder.

Fancy Pants let out a cry of shock and was knocked backwards onto the road, a sizeable chunk of his shoulder ripped off in a manner that was anything but clean.

“What? No!” Vinyl let out a distressed cry and scrambled over to the badly wounded form of her friend, another thunderous gunshot sounding out and missing her by a hair as she scrambled.

“Bollocks!” Fancy Pants let out his version of a curse upon witnessing the amount of damage his shoulder had received, grasping at it with his unwounded arm as if to feel for blood that wouldn’t be there. “Vinyl, I do believe that is a sniper firing upon us!”

His words were only confirmed as a chunk the size of a tire was blown out of the street next to them, the owner of the bullet missing by ‘that’ much yet again. The sound of metal fists colliding on armor had started up again as well, mixing in with the sound of structures being crushed and bricks turned to nothing more than dust, indicating that Salespony2 and SirDragonZilla had returned to brutally slugging away at one another like a giant game of Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots.

“Move!” Fancy Pants cried, frantically managing to right himself and scrambling over to a trolley up against the side of the road.

There wasn’t enough room for them to both hide safely behind it, not the way it was parked. With a worried groan, Vinyl clunked around to the side of the trolley and pushed it, slowly managing to turn it at an angle so that they could both safely sit behind it in desperate hopes that they would be safe.

“Wow, really, are you kidding me?”

This voice was new whilst also slightly familiar. Vinyl felt like she knew who this pony was, like she had seen her before or heard her voice, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on it.

There was a loud “THUNK” The sound of metal colliding with the asphalt road. Without even thinking about it, she poked out from behind the makeshift cover and caught a glimpse of their attacker; though only for a moment.

The robot was a Warrior-Class, that much was obvious, standing in the intersection just one block down. It was clad in a purple coloration a few shades darker than that of the Heavy-Class on the same team. In its hands was a large, thick looking rifle with an even larger scope on the top. The main body of the rifle was somewhat rectangular, with a barrel that easily pushed ten feet protruding from the end you really didn’t want to be on. The stock of the rifle was pretty vanilla, nothing too fancy there other than the fact it was abnormally large and would probably take four ponies to lift on its own. It bore the tell-tale red stripes of the enemy team, in addition to a strangely familiar image of a large purple star painted on each shoulder; multiple smaller stars surrounding it. The name “StarSwirlfangirl” hovered over it in burning red letters, along with the number “10”

“BOOM!”

There was another gunshot, it whizzed through the air with an unfathomable speed and punched straight through the trolley, shaking the entire structure of the public transportation-turned-refuge as it ripped through a mixture of metal and leather seat cushion, tearing out the other side and tearing past both Vinyl and Fancy Pants.

“Fancy Pants, I don’t think this thing is going to protect us forever…” Vinyl said with a worried moan, just as the feeling of another round hitting the trolley shook it slightly, tearing through the metal like a knife through butter.

“And what happens when her friend gets back? I doubt that Salespony dude is going to last long against SirDragonZilla!”

“We are at quite an impasse then, aren’t we?” He said with a displeasured grumble.

“I hadn’t noticed!” Vinyl cried, just before letting out a cry of shock as another robot; seemingly appearing out of nowhere, landed on the ground in front of them with an earth-shaking crunch.

This robot, fortunately enough, was on their side; evident by the deep blue stripes it bore.

Vinyl recognized it as the night-black Warrior class she had seen at spawn, the silent one who had just disappeared without even ever saying anything. The name “Bringer of Night” hovered above it in green flames, along with the number “15”. Familiar shoulder spikes protruded from the shoulder armor in addition to decorative fins that were attached to the forearms. Much like the one who had taken a sizeable chunk out of Fancy Pants’ shoulder, this robot held a sniper rifle; a weapon that it put to good use the second it touched the ground.

“Have at thee, Twilight Sparkle; Thou shall not defeat us on this day!” Following up with her words, the black robot promptly loosed two thunderous shots at the pony who was apparently Twilight Sparkle.

Wait; hold on, did she say “Twilight Sparkle."? Like…the Princess? So that was where she had recognized the voice! On top of that, Vinyl did know this dark robot’s voice, everypony knew that voice. Especially after that one Nightmare Night in Ponyville a while back, but there was no what that could actually be-

“Agh!” There was the sound of metal feet scrambling to avoid to recently hurled projectiles the size of 2-liter bottles. “Luna, you need to work on your aim!”

“And thou need to work on one-liners!” Luna retorted; although her retort didn’t really fit in that situation. She then proceeded to unleash two more deafening shots, sidestepping as she did in an attempt to keep her fellow royal in her crosshairs.

Vinyl flinched slightly at the sound of Twilight unleashing another bit of hell in Luna’s direction, watching as the Princess sidestepped and the bullet buried itself in a building not too far down the street.

“Assistance, would be preferable!” Luna cried; ducking into an alleyway and looking over in Vinyl’s direction as expectantly as a robot could look.

“Oh, right, sorry!”

Without further hesitation, Vinyl popped up from behind the trolley and quickly took in the scene in front of her, as soon as she caught a glimpse of her purple-armored foe, she loosed a trio of bullets across the intersection and towards Twilight’s position; in the process realizing that what she was doing would probably result in banishment if it hadn’t been a video game.

The faint sound of bricks being blown apart was rather annoying, as that meant she hadn’t hit her target. This fact was further proven by the sound of fifteen-pound sniper bullets being fired at her, and promptly shredding any part of the trolley that they touched.

Vinyl hissed and ducked down as low as she could, glancing over at Fancy Pants; who was still leaned up against the trolley, his shoulder sparking from the chunk that had been torn off of it.

“I seriously doubt we’ll be able to remain here for too long, our opponent will likely try to push forward once her big friend shows back up!” He said through gritted teeth, silently annoyed for not being able to do much to help fight their long-range attacker.

“We agree wholeheartedly, Fancy Pants. Twilight has proven to be most adept at this game and will not hesitate to push us back, especially once Spike resurfaces; wherever he has run off to.” Luna chimed in, peeking out from her alley across the street to unleash more heavy-metal hell in Twilight’s direction.

“Spike?” Vinyl cried, flinching at the sound of sniper-fire being returned and segments of brick wall turning to dust.

“I believe she is speaking of the large purple fellow with the rocket launcher.” Fancy Pants deadpanned, rapping his mechanical fingers against the asphalt in a manner that portrayed great boredom.

“You mean that guy?”

As If on cue, “SirDragonZilla”; or Spike, as he was now known, proceeded to come flying back into the intersection. This was rather surprising to everypony watching, considering that the heavy-class mech weighed easily ten-tons and even getting it off the ground in the first place would be a feat in and of itself.

Vinyl watched as Spike let out a computerized roar, landing on his back and making a shallow crater in the pavement. He balled his large mechanical fists and slammed them into the ground, sending cracks spiderwebbing throughout the area around as he began to push himself up and loosing yet another roar.

“Spike really should get that mic fixed…” Luna said; her words barely audible over the cacophony of sounds that filled the air.

His armor was badly damaged, what had once been a rather pristine-looking robot was now a thoroughly beaten and dented hunk of metal. One of the small arms on the stomach appeared to have been torn off, and the armor on his right shoulder was almost nonexistent, sparks flew out from multiple points on his armored body with each movement that was made, however despite his battle damage, Spike was still a force to be reckoned with.

A familiar, rhythmic thumping shook the ground. Vinyl scanned the area before her as best she could without exposing herself and tried to gain a better grasp on what was going on; she already knew what was making the ground shake, what worried her was if it was their heavy or another enemy heavy.

Luckily, as it turned out, it was a friendly.

Salespony2 charged into view once more, however unfortunately, he did not appear to be faring much better than his enemy was as far as armor integrity went.

His stomach armor was beaten and crumpled, a good portion of his left shoulder had been dented inwards and his right leg was spewing thick black smoke. A large crack was zigzagged through his visor and much like the robot he was about to give a heavy-metal body slam, sparks flew out from different parts of his damaged body with each step he took.

Vinyl couldn’t help but watch as Salespony2’s charge was brought to a most unexpected and abrupt end. The massive mechanical being charged forth with all the speed he could muster, only to be tripped up almost comically as Spike turned to the side and slammed his fist into the back of his opponent, sending him toppling forwards and turning the force of his charge into energy used to firmly plant his faceplate into the asphalt with an unpleasant crunching of metal and reinforced glass.

“We would advise that all available firepower be focused on taking down Spike!” Luna cried, swinging her rifle over and taking aim at Spike; who was in the process of raising both his fists much like a gorilla with the intention of slamming them down on his enemy.
Without hesitation, Vinyl brought her rifle up to her shoulder and took aim; A satisfying “Thump, thump thump.” Sounding off almost rhythmically as she fired at Spike.

The thunderous sound of Luna’s sniper rifle followed soon after; also accompanied by the deep shots Fancy Pants' revolver gave off with each pull of the trigger. Each round hit its mark as intended, impacting somewhere on Spike’s back and successfully turning his attention away from the badly-battered form of Salespony2.

However in this little bit of excitement, they had all forgotten about Twilight.

Fancy Pants was the first to pay for this in full, without any prior warning, his already damaged shoulder was shredded and his arm torn clean off, the force of the bullet punching through his armor did well to turn him around and send him onto his stomach, sparks and some sort of lubricant spewing from where his arm had once been.

“Ha!” Twilight jeered; her triumphant yell audible even over all the commotion.

“Fancy Pants!” Vinyl cried, turning her attention from Spike and scrambling over to her wounded comrade; sparks flying as the metal of her robot ground against the pavement; Holding her rifle in one mechanical hand and kneeling down to turn Fancy Pants, faceplate-up.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” He said in annoyance, waving his one good arm at her dismissively for a moment before sitting up and looking around for his weapon; not even paying attention to the lubricant and sparks that were sputtering from his shredded shoulder.
“Uh, at this juncture, we would heavily advise some sort of retreat!” Luna’s voice said, loud and commanding amidst the sound of enemy sniper-rounds being loosed and what Vinyl now recognized as Spike’s heavy footsteps getting closer.

As it had turned out; though they didn’t know it, Vinyl and her team had actually helped carry out a plan that Twilight, Spike and their third remaining teammate had laid out. Spike was to be a distraction and draw Vinyl’s team out of cover so Twilight could thin their ranks, at which point Spike would turn his attention to what remained of his foes and push them back into the trap they had laid out.

The part where he pushed them back was currently being carried out wonderfully.

“Move back!” Luna cried, taking potshots at Spike and looking like she was preparing to bolt away. Spike was now nearing the overturned and hole-ridden trolley that had previously been used as cover; luckily for them he was without his rocket launcher so there wasn’t any immediate danger, but there soon would be if they didn’t haul heavy-metal ass.

“Either pick up Fancy Pants or leave him here, because we are leaving, now!” Luna cried, diving out from her alley and firing a trio of shots in Twilight’s direction so she could safely retreat.

“Bollocks, this is no good at all!” Fancy Pants groaned, struggling to push himself upright so that he wouldn’t get stepped on, fueled by the sight of Spike’s massive robot closing in on them; balling a fist and slamming it into the trolley they had used as cover, and sending it crashing into the alley where Luna had previously been.

“No…” Vinyl breathed. She had a conscience and even though this was a video game she couldn’t leave Fancy Pants here and feel good about it; that was the realism kicking in, or at least she thought so. Gritting her teeth, she put her smaller mechanical frame between Fancy Pants and the massive mechanical monster before her, took a knee, and brought her rifle up to her shoulder, pointing it straight at her enemy’s visor and praying Twilight didn’t pop out and blow her apart.

However just as she was about to unload her ammo clip, gunfire rang out in the air. Like some sort of saving angel, a racer-class mech leapt off the roof of the building closest to Spike, round after pellet-filled round blasting from the tip of her shotgun as she soared through the air and boosted at the last second, landing gracefully atop Spike’s mech and jamming the barrel into the top of his visor.

Vinyl didn’t need much time to realize it was Blossomforth; her tiny Racer-class frame was laughably small compared to the heavy-class. Topping out at only ten feet as opposed to the heavy-class’ thirty feet.

Spike let out a roar of displeasure as shotgun rounds were unleashed into his upper half; he swung his thick hands up in desperation, trying fruitlessly to grab the pest currently dealing him a substantial amount of damage.

“Time to go, Fancy Pants!” Vinyl said with a hint of worry, grabbing her wounded friend by his remaining mechanical arm and quickly hauling him to his feet; managing to do so without falling over in the process.

“I agree completely!” He replied in a manner most chipper; as if he wasn’t missing an entire arm and part of his shoulder.

“No, wait!”

Vinyl and Fancy Pants both turned their gaze back up to Spike and Blossomforth, finding the latter of the two to have been the one who let out the scream, and the reason why she had was instantly evident.

They watched Spike as he wrapped his massive mechanical fingers around one of the small, spindly legs of Blossomforth’s mech. She cried out in shock and quickly flicked her combat knife off her belt, bringing it above her head for a moment and then down into Spike’s shell; desperately trying to stop her impending doom.

“WE WOULD SUGGEST THOU RETREAT!” Luna’s voice boomed from behind them, followed by the sound of a single, thunderous gunshot. It hit dead center on the back of Spike’s massive hand; which promptly released Blossomforth’s leg after the shock of the impact.

“I believe she means now!” Fancy Pants cried, grabbing Vinyl’s shoulder and tugging on her so she would follow.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

With a worried moan, Vinyl quickly followed after her friend, trying to ignore the sounds of battle behind her and the gunshots from all around. He mind raced and her heart was pounding, adrenalin coursed through her and she felt like she could run for days.

The smell of gun smoke filled the air, the ground shook from the thunderous steps of dueling mechanical monstrosities. All around her the sounds of combat were loud and clear. Brick and concrete turned to dust and pebbles as bullets and metal fists smashed into them.

The entire intersection had turned into a full out warzone; a warzone where it seemed as if neither side necessarily had an obvious advantage.

There was a bone-chilling roar; one Vinyl could only assume had come from Spike. It fueled her to move faster, but she was already moving pretty fast as it was. She was struggling to keep her balance as she moved and it almost felt like she was running forward to keep herself from falling rather than to evade the monster trying to crush her.

Something large and metal flew past Vinyl with an incredible amount of speed, she wouldn’t have thought much of it, had it not been for the fact whatever it was that was thrown had been screaming. Loudly.

“Fancy Pants, I think that was-“

“Never mind her, keep moving, we have to get somewhere safe!” Fancy Pants cried; his accented voice surprisingly calm and collected considering his current state. He was actually managing quite well despite having only one arm, and it didn’t seem to hinder him all that much as he ran down the street with her.

“Damn it!” Vinyl cursed; swinging her shoulders opposite her legs, keeping a grip on her rifle and trying to do her best to keep her balance as she ran; it was actually more like a jog, but to her it was running.

She watched as Bloosomforth’s small frame collided with a streetlight and bent in a manner that looked extremely unpleasant, before flying onto the street and tumbling to a halt, and lying motionless, sparks and a small bit of smoke coming from her heavily damaged mech.

“This way, Vinyl, make haste!” Fancy Pants shouted.

Vinyl turned and watched as her friend led her down a street away from the scene of battle, she was only a little ways away from him, but they were almost in the clear!

Putting all she had into a full out sprint, Vinyl made a left and went after Fancy Pants. All they had to do was get away from Spike, that’s it. He was slow and large so he couldn’t sneak up on them. They would escape, and regroup, and make a plan, and take him down and win the game!

Fancy Pants slid to a halt at the end of the street, coming to a T-intersection and looking side to side as he tried to figure out which way to go. He was visibly worried; it was noticeable just by the way he moved. His mechanical hand open and closed and his movements were quick and jerky.

“Vinyl!” He cried, turning around and looking back at her from his spot halfway down the street. “Hurry, we need to-“

A thunderous gunshot drowned out the rest of his words, and without any sort of warning, Fancy Pants’ knee was blown out and shredded into hundreds of tiny bits of metal, he let out a cry of surprise and dropped to the ground. Metal screeched against asphalt as he fruitlessly tried to right himself in a manner that was almost pitiful.

“Fancy Pants!” Vinyl cried, her stomach doing back flips as she came to an unsteady halt a few yards away from him, the need to help her friend clashing with the need to get to cover and avoid meeting the same fate.

“Finally!” A familiar voice called out, followed by a rather triumphant laugh.

It was Twilight.

A second later, Twilight’s purple warrior-class robot appeared on the roof of a three story shop across the street from where Fancy Pants stood, on the other side of the T-intersection. Massive sniper rifle in her hand, she leapt from the roof of the building and onto the street with a loud “¬Ka-chunk”, bending her knees to absorb some of the impact.

“Don’t even think about it!” Vinyl cried, raising her rifle to her shoulder and aiming it straight at her purple-armored foe.

Four rounds fired off.

Only four.

Twilight let out an annoyed “Gah!” and swatted her giant hand as she tried to ward off the bullets, stopping shortly after and flexing her mechanical hand in front of her face-plate as she stared down at Vinyl; who was currently cursing in a manner most colorful as she tried to figure out how to reload.

“Damn it, damn it, you son of a-“

“Well, well, somepony skipped the tutorial, am I right?” Twilight practically cooed, suddenly adopting a rather lazy stance and
resting the barrel of her rifle on her shoulder, her other hand lazily resting on her hip as she leaned her weight on one side.

“Shut up, Princess!” Vinyl hissed, frantically slapping her rifle and trying to find the release for the clip.

“Tsk tsk, such a mouth…At least your friend here has the sense to keep quiet and accept he’s going to die.” The Princess said nonchalantly, giving the shredded but still functioning form of Fancy Pants a kick.

“I’ll rip you apart before you even get the chance!” Vinyl said through gritted teeth, her abuse of her rifle becoming more frantic. How did it work in the other games, what button on the gun was pushed? Usually they would just pull and it came out! Or at least it looked like that.

“Unlikely.”

Twilight’s grin was practically audible in her words. In one fluid motion she brought her rifle down; still holding it in one hand, and aimed the barrel-end at Fancy Pants.

“Vinyl, run-“

The sound of metal being shredded and shot after thunderous shot ensured Fancy Pants didn’t have the chance to finish his words. Vinyl could only watch in helplessness as her friend was riddled with multiple rounds the size of 2-liter bottles.

Fancy Pants’ mechanical hand was outstretched as if to try and stop his fate, the first round tore through his thumb and into his shoulder, then another went into his chest, and the next into his forearm; straight down the palm, and sufficiently shredded his entire arm, leaving him to weakly kick with his one good leg as Twilight emptied her clip into the upper-class pony.

Eight rounds later, Fancy Pants was nothing more than a smoking pile of twisted metal in the middle of the street, and the words “MrFancyPants was eradicated by StarSwilrFangirl’ appeared on her HUD in flaming letters

“No!” Vinyl cried, throwing her rifle to the side and running at Twilight as fast as she could. She would make the Princess pay for that, dearly.

“Oh, yes, bring it!” Twilight said with a laugh, tossing her rifle haphazardly onto Fancy Pants’ remains and raising her mechanical fists.

It wasn’t until it was too late to stop her sprint, that Vinyl realized she had no idea what she was about to do. Was it a grapple, a tackle, a punch, what?

Oh, no, it was her getting slammed into a building.

Twilight turned to the side at the last second; much like Spike had to Salespony2, and shoved her metal palm into Vinyl’s back, propelling her forward even faster and sending her faceplate-first into a shop window.

Vinyl let out a cry of shock as she slammed into the second story of a bakery, smashing through the glass and crushing a few of the chairs and tables that were inside.

Outside, barely audible, were the sounds of battle as they began to resume. It sounded like Spike had been engaged in battle yet again wherever he was. However that wasn’t of Vinyl’s concern right now, what was her concern, was the fact she was being dragged out of the building she had been slammed into up to her shoulders.

With an almost animalistic roar, Twilight latched her mechanical grabbers onto Vinyl’s back and pulled her out of the building, transferring the force from that into a half toss half shove into the street that sent Vinyl into the asphalt with the unpleasant sound of metal grinding against stone.

“Oh, your glorious suicide is insanity, but I love it!” Twilight said maniacally, the sound of her metal feet clunking over closer to Vinyl growing louder and louder in the DJ’s ears.

Vinyl groaned in annoyance, the depiction of her robot in her HUD showed the part of her armor that was shoved into the building had been brought down to 96% integrity, so she hadn’t taken too much damage, but still. You didn’t just throw Vinyl Scratch into a building and get away with it!

Not bothering to think of a good comeback, Vinyl pushed herself up off the ground and turned to face Twilight with relative ease; bringing her mechanical hands up in tight fists in front of her.

“I’ve read books on so many different forms of martial arts that you couldn’t even begin to list them all, do you really think you’re going to take me down in hand to hand combat?” Twilight sneered, stopping a few yards away and taking a battle stance, positioning herself at an angle so she couldn’t be knocked down as easy.

“Listen, Princess, I’m a DJ. Getting in fights comes with the job when you work at some of the clubs I do, so don’t think I’ll be going down easy.” Vinyl said with a cocky grin, actually feeling somewhat confident in herself.

“We shall see…”

Without warning, Twilight lunged forward, pulling her mechanical arm back with a hiss of hydraulics and a whirr of gears. She closed the distanced between them with three strides and swung hard, hitting Vinyl square in the visor and sending her stumbling back into a building with a crunch.

Vinyl let out an annoyed groan as a few bricks fell down and bounced off her hull with a series of “Clunks”.

Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as she thought.

Vinyl barely had time to recover before Twilight was on her again. She felt one of her foe’s hands grip onto her shoulder firmly and holding her in place just as a staggeringly powerful blow was delivered to her stomach, denting the armor and sending the armor integrity down to 85% with only that one blow.

She roared and introduced her fist to Twilight’s faceplate in retaliation, but there wasn’t enough force behind it to do any more than dent the armor, so Twilight delivered another powerful gut-punch and knocked the stomach armor integrity down to 78%

“Get. Off!” Vinyl protested; fueled by the armor percentage, and grabbing at her enemy’s shoulder, gripping onto an armor plate and using it to try and push Twilight away.

“Gah, let go!” Twilight cried, letting go of Vinyl’s shoulder, only to start slamming the DJ’s stomach with her other fist; dropping the armor integrity down to 70%

“WOULD YOU STOP THAT!” Vinyl roared, using her grip on Twilight’s shoulder to pull the Princesses mech closer to her; catching her off guard and then bringing her knee up into the stomach of her enemy.

Twilight doubled over a bit and her gut-punches momentarily ceased, long enough that Vinyl could bring her giant metal elbow down and slam it into her enemy’s back; sending sparks flying and the unpleasant sound of metal scraping metal through the air.

Taking advantage of Twilight’s vulnerable state, Vinyl gave her another knee in the chest and then shoved her away. The Princess stumbled backwards with a cry of shock and landed on her purple metal rump in the middle of the street.

“What now, Princess?” Vinyl mocked, pushing herself off the building, sauntering over and punting Twilight back onto the asphalt just as she started to right herself, sending sparks flying and a crack running through the reinforced glass visor of her boxing opponent.

“You’re way too cocky!” Twilight hissed, swinging her leg around from her position on the ground and sweeping Vinyl’s feet out from underneath her.

The DJ cried out as she toppled like a tree, crashing down onto the street and crushing a carriage beneath her. Wood splinters and a large swatch of cloth turned to a pancake beneath her.

While she lay on the ground, an entire taxi carriage squashed beneath her. Even though she was furious as how Fancy Pants had been executed, she couldn’t help but feel…alive. This was intense, her heart was racing and her blood was pumping, adrenalin raced through her and a blood-lust coursed through her veins.

Good thing it was just a video game.

Just as she was about to stand up, a mechanical, purple foot was brought down onto her chest, the clawed toes digging into the armor and holding her down. Vinyl cried out and grabbed at the leg, slamming it in a desperate attempt to dislodge it as she watched her stomach armor integrity drop down from 70% to 68%, and then to 65%, and then to 62%, and so on. The pressure was growing greater and greater by the second.

“What now, DJ?” Twilight said, with a slightly insane-sounding cackle.

Her HUD flashing red, Vinyl frantically looked around for something to help her get out of this. No way was she going down like this. Squashed by the Princess, hell no!

But how was she going to stop it, there was nothing around her but-

The Carriage!

Frantically, Vinyl struggled to grab at the large tarp-like fabric that had made up the canopy of the taxi; she gripped it in her mechanical fingers and swung it up into Twilight’s face, praying harder than she had ever prayed that luck would favor her.

And so it did.

The tarp still had fragments of the taxi attached to it when it was thrown, so it got stuck between segments of Twilight’s armor and completely covered her visor, rendering her totally blind.

“Ahh, I can’t see, I can’t see!” Twilight hissed, swinging her arms around for a moment before she found the tarp and began yanking at it, beginning to tear it off.

In her frantic attempts to remove the tarp, Twilight had slackened the amount of pressure she was applying to Vinyl’s chest, doing so long enough that the DJ could grab onto her ankle and shove her attacker off, sending her careening backwards and the brick building she had backed Vinyl into earlier.

Without missing a beat, Vinyl pushed herself up off the ground, taking a moment to regain her balance before storming over to where Twilight was; finding her finally removing the tarp and realizing what was going on.

“Ponyfeathers!” Twilight cursed, throwing herself to the side just as Vinyl buried her fist into the brick wall and punched a hole clean through.

“Oh, what’s wrong, having trouble, Princess?” Vinyl snapped, yanking her fist out of the brick wall and sending dozens of bricks down onto the ground as she did so.

“Ha, from the condition of that mech of yours, I’m not the one having trouble!” Twilight retorted; pushing herself up off the ground and taking a few steps back to put some distance between the two of them.

Unfortunately for Vinyl, her opponent was correct. The DJ’s once pure white mech was now scratched and battle-scarred rather extensively. Her chest and stomach armor had been severely damaged, sparks and small plumes of grey smoke coughed from her front end every so often. However she wasn’t out yet, she still had a lot of fight left in her, and the fight she had put up so far was evident on Twilight’s mech.

Twilight’s robot had a large crack that stretched across her entire visor, her chest armor was dented in but not nearly as much as Vinyl’s armor was, and sparks spewed from her back; the result of Vinyl’s elbow earlier. In addition to this, Twilight’s stomach was also battered, the result of Vinyl’s kneeing.

“It’s still anypony’s game. In case you haven’t noticed, no one else has died yet. We’re still evenly matched! If anything, we outnumber you!”

“You seem to assume that our third remaining teammate isn’t capable of utterly destroying the rest of you on her own, even if Spike and I fall, you still have to take her down and is seriously doubt that’ll happen!”

“Oh yeah, if she’s all great and powerful, where is she?”

“She’s dealing with the rest of your teammates, don’t worry.” Twilight said darkly, then proceeding to dig her clawed feet into the ground and sprint towards Vinyl.

However, this time, Vinyl was ready. She braced herself, watching as Twilight tightened her right fist in preparation for a swing that carried the force of her sprint behind it.

Just as Twilight came close enough, Vinyl side-stepped; mimicking what Twilight had done and intending to get the same result. However much to her surprise, at the last second, Twilight balled her other fist and with a roar of passion transferred all the energy into that arm, punching Vinyl right in the shoulder and sending her flying.

When the DJ-turned-mecha-warrior reunited with the ground, it was face first. She rolled a good distance and crashed through two stop-lights and a fire hydrant before coming to a grinding halt. Her entire HUD flashed and her shoulder armor had been reduced to 65%.

That had been one hell of a hit, but how had she managed to-

“Surprised?” Twilight said mockingly as she pushed herself up off the ground; having essentially done a belly-flop after throwing herself like she had.

“I unlocked single-use elbow rockets at level 7, I knew it was a good idea to wait to use them, aren’t they just wonderful?”
“Yeah, wonderful…” Vinyl said through gritted teeth, slamming her fists into the asphalt and pushing herself up off the ground. She rolled her shoulder a bit once she had stood, the sound of metal grinding against metal being heard as she did so, signaling that the armor was pressing against the mechanisms beneath.

Twilight was already storming towards her once again, her arms swinging opposite her powerful hydraulic-powered legs as a run turned into a sprint.

Vinyl was so done with this.

In a manner slightly frantic, she looked around for something that she could use; anything she could use to hit the Princess, hard, multiple times.

There!

Over to her left, was one of the stoplights that had been knocked down like a tooth pick when she had been thrown. Vinyl wasn’t sure if it would do well as a weapon or if it would break, but it was something!

Vinyl let out an unsettled moan and scrambled over in the direction of the stoplight, doing her best to make it look like she was trying to run away so that Twilight wouldn’t suspect anything.

“Running won’t save you!” Twilight yelled, laughing madly as she grew closer and closer.

Vinyl collapsed to her knee as soon as she was within arm’s reach of the stop light, wrapping her fingers around it and waiting until Twilight sounded close enough.

Damn, if she pulled this of it was going to be so badass.

“Say goodbye, DJ!” Twilight cried, and in the process alerting Vinyl that now was her chance.

Praying for the best, Vinyl pushed up onto both feet and spun around; swinging the stoplight in one hand much like one would if they were playing baseball.

“Clang!”

The stoplight smashed into Twilight’s shoulder and did so with enough force, that her charge was redirected into the corner of a nearby building. The lights and the curved end of the stoplight broke off and remained lodged in Twilight’s armor right up until she collided with the corner of the building.

The sickening crunching noise that followed made Vinyl cringe, she watched as Twilight’s front end buried itself into the brick, through the wall, halfway into the shop, and then as if the wasn’t enough. The single-story corner shop then collapsed on top of her in a shower of brick, wood and roofing, leaving her buried beneath it.

“Outta the park…” Vinyl sneered, grinning to herself as she clunked over to where Twilight lay; half buried under rubble and unmoving.

Upon nearing the scene, Vinyl gave her fallen foe a good kick in the side, and her entire form shuddered.

Twilight was trying to get up.

She groaned and slowly tried to push up to her hands and knees, the metal of her mech groaned and creaked as she moved, chunks of rubble and debris tumbling off her back and kicking up clouds of dust as the giant purple machine tried to stand upright.
“No…I can’t lose, I read all the books, and I studied all the-“

Twilight was interrupted by a stop light pole to the stomach; it knocked her sideways and onto her back with a “Thunk”; her arms and legs splaying out weakly to the side.

“Come on, get up, I’m not done with you just yet.” Vinyl growled, reaching down and grabbing Twilight by her shoulder, and then ‘helping’ her up, only to slam her into the building next to the one that had just collapsed.

“Ugh…” Twilight groaned, still dazed from having a building collapse on her just a few moments prior.

“Let’s see how you like it when your arm gets ripped off!” Vinyl roared, ramming the stoplight pole into the area that held Twilight’s arm to her shoulder. She put all her weight into her thrust, succeeding in spearing it all the way through the Princesses shoulder and effectively nail her to the wall as the pole dug deep into the building.

Twilight growled and tried to swing at Vinyl with her one good arm, but the DJ was too quick, she grabbed Twilight’s arm and held it firmly against the wall, rendering her opponent all but helpless.

The sound of metal being crumpled filled the air not seconds later.

Twilight was helpless as blow after metal-crushing blow was dealt to her chest, stomach and visor. He armor crumpled with each hit and with every second that passed she grew closer and closer to total shutdown.

Vinyl growled and began focusing her blows on Twilight’s shoulder, slamming repeatedly on it with her fist until it was crumpled enough she could grip it and then rip it off; tossing it to the side and exposing the inner, more fragile working of the machine.

“This looks important!” She chimed with an evil grin, jamming her hand inside and gripping a large cluster of tech and machinery.

“What’re you doing? “ Twilight cried.

With a roar, Vinyl closed her hand around whatever it was Twilight seemed so frantic about, and with a small deal of effort, she ripped it out of her chest and tossed it off to the side.

“GAH, NO, STOP!” Twilight cried, her chest beginning to spew thick black smoke and fire.

Vinyl yelped and waved her giant hand at the smoke, trying to ward it away as she backpedaled into the middle of the street, releasing Twilight and allowing her to slump away from the wall.

“Damn it!” Twilight cursed, stumbling forward and pulling herself away from the pole that held her to the wall, unintentionally ripping her arm off in the process and falling forward onto her knees; left side spewing thick black smoke, sparks and so many assorted machine fluids and the like.

There was an explosion to Vinyl’s left; down the street. Both she and Twilight turned their gaze in that direction and caught sight of what had caused it.

Five or so blocks down, Spike was still locked in intense combat with Luna and a little speck zipping around that looked like Blossomforth; how she had survived being tossed Vinyl had no clue. Salespony2 wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but he hadn’t died; otherwise it would have shown up on her HUD, so he had to be skulking around somewhere.

“You won’t win…” Twilight said weakly, still on her hand and knees; on the precipice of death.

“Maybe not…but I’m gonna have a damn good time doing it.” Vinyl sneered in reply, turning her attention back to Twilight and preparing to deal the finishing blow.

“You actually are happy about-“

“Oh, shut up!” Without any more chit-chat, Vinyl swept Twilight’s remaining arm out from under her, and then proceeded to bring it down with all her strength on the back of her ‘Head’, being rewarded with an extremely satisfying “Crunch” and flattening Twilight’s cockpit with a crunch of metal and the shattering of glass.

The words “StarSwirlFangirl was stomped into the dirt by VinylScratch” appeared in the HUD’s of everypony still in the game, and flaming skull and crossbones appeared over Twilight’s smoking corpse.

“So much for all those fighting skills, and here I thought you-“

Vinyl was cut off by a spine-chilling roar, it didn’t even sound like somepony with a broken mic, it actually sounded like a roar. What was truly horrifying was that it had come from Spike, he sounded furious, and just as Vinyl looked back down the road, and Spike caught sight of her.

“Oh boy.”

Spike turned and slammed himself into a building, managing to get Luna to jump off his back so she wouldn’t get hurt, and allowing him to begin running down the road and towards Vinyl’s current position.

“Oh…boy.”

Frantically, Vinyl began searching for a weapon. The stoplight pole sure as hell wasn’t going to work, so maybe Twilight’s corpse had something on it she could use?

Her new task decided upon, Vinyl kicked Twilight’s corpse onto it’s back and began frantically searching for something she could use; finding herself seriously regretting tossing her gun away earlier. Of course she couldn’t figure out how to reload the damned thing, but…

“Come on, you’ve gotta have something useful!” Vinyl whined, patting down the heap of wasted metal and trying to find something. Thinking back to the run in with “EarlofGrey”, she remembered that Blossomforth had pulled stuff off of the waist, so that would probably be where the equipment was.

Finding herself somewhat encouraged, Vinyl moved down to search the waist, only to find most everything down there…she had pounded into nothing in her frenzy to kill Twilight.

“Good job, Vinyl.” She muttered under her breath, the ground-shaking footsteps from Spike’s thirty-foot robot getting closer by the second, accompanied by another roar that filled the air.

“Come on, come on!” She whined, trying to find some sort of weapon she could use.

Flipping Twilight’s trashed metal corpse yet again, she found that she wouldn’t be fighting Spike with just her hands; thank Celestia.
The only two things still intact on Twilight’s waist, was a single grenade; what kind it was, Vinyl had no clue, in addition to the grenade was a four-foot long combat-knife.

“That’s more like it…” She muttered with a grin, pulling the knife off of Twilight’s belt and examining it in her mechanical hand.
The shiny blade gleamed in the light of the sun, its edge looked unimaginably sharp and it had jagged teeth all along the back; most likely for stabbing and then yanking out to cause good amounts of damage.

Another roar roused Vinyl from her examination of the knife; she let out a whimper and turned around to see Spike was only two blocks away and closing fast.

He was significantly more worn looking than the last time she had seen him. Black smoke was almost pouring from a chunk that had been torn off of his side, and his visor was spiderwebbed with cracks. The armor of his right forearm and shoulder was nonexistent and a small fire appeared to be burning on his left shin.

If anything it made him look more intimidating than he already was.

“Yo, lady, I’d suggest you be moving out of the way!” A voice called.

Vinyl turned her gaze over to the rooftops to Spike’s left, finding Blossomforth zipping along, hopping from rooftop to rooftop and keeping up with Spike as he barreled down the street.

The massive machine was two blocks away now, and just as Vinyl was about to turn and run for her life, Salespony2 burst out from the right side and slammed into Spike, sending them both toppling into a thrift shop and instantly crushing the small building under their combined weight and sending a massive burst of dust and debris into the air.

“Damn…”

All seemed to go silent for a moment, no other sound filled the air but that of the dust settling and the bits of debris falling onto the ground. It had happened so fast too, Vinyl had barely even seen Salespony2 as he came barreling in out of nowhere and body slammed Spike into a building!

“And here we thought the large one had run off to nurse his wounds…so to speak.”

Luna dropped down from a three story apartment building off to Vinyl’s side, landing on the ground with a heavy “Ka-chunk” and bringing her rifle up to rest the barrel on her shoulder.

“I was wondering where he went, I was also wondering…” Vinyl said in an annoyed tone, turning over to Luna and giving her the faintest of glares from behind the visor. “Where you ran off to…”

“We chose…a tactical retreat.” Luna said with a shrug, sauntering over to Twilight’s smoldering corpse and looking it over.

“No, you ran and hid you shiny metal ass, while I dealt with this.” Vinyl gave the twisted heap of metal a good kick and glared down at it with a frown. “I already scavenged her, so don’t bother looking.”

“We can see that fair Twilight was not felled easily…” Luna said with a hint of amusement lacing her tone, looking Vinyl’s battered mech up and down and huffing softly.

“That doesn’t even begin to describe the-“

There was another roar that cut her off, obviously from Spike. Both she and Luna turned their gaze back to where the dust was finally settling, just as Blossomforth hopped down from a rooftop and landed next to them.

“Someone’s getting back up…”

“Why is it you guys didn’t charge in and finish him off while he was down?” Vinyl asked, her tone almost teasing.

“I just figured that weird-ass Salespony guy would like…beat him or something.” Blossomforth said nonchalantly, hovering over and looking at Twilight’s corpse curiously.

“The point is we are over here now and not over there; let us make haste so we can end these frivolities. We want lunch.” Luna said in a commanding tone. “Blossomforth, take to the rooftops and ready thyself in case thou art needed to assault from above. Vinyl, thou will…where is your weapon?”

"Huh?"

“Your weapon, the rifle, where is it?”

“Oh, yeah, uh…I possibly…ran out of ammo.” Vinyl said with a sheepish chuckle, watching as Blossomforth scaled a nearby building and took off down the street.

“How did thou manage to empty six ammo clips on Princess Twilight?”

“I didn’t…”

“Then how did thou-“

“I didn’t know how to reload the damn thing!”

Luna was silent.

“Shut up, let’s go. I have a grenade and a knife.” Vinyl said with a huff, waving a mechanical hand dismissively at Luna and beginning to move in the direction of the two badly damaged Heavy-classes slowly righting themselves.

“We said nothing, but we agree. Let us hope your need to skip the tutorial won’t get us all killed…” Luna said with a computerized sigh, walking next to Vinyl with heavy clunking feet and simultaneously feeding a new magazine into her rifle.

“We will take up a position farther back, thou should make use of that grenade, try to take out one of Spike’s ankles!”

Vinyl couldn’t even get a word in before Luna turned and took off into an alleyway over to the left, latching her rifle onto her back before beginning to climb up onto a roof.

And so, yet again, Vinyl was alone in the middle of a street surrounded by giant fighting robots.

“Oh boy…”
There was a passionate battle-cry, loud and resounding amidst the gunfire that had yet again started to pick up. Salespony2 threw a heavy left swing and missed rather spectacularly, his leg giving out as he did and sending his fist into the ground rather than into Spike’s visor-plate.

His armor was in such a poor condition it was almost nonexistent at that point, his right arm was almost totally shredded and hung limp, sparks and smoke spewing out from different points on it and a small fire burning in the shoulder. His leg; the one that had just given out, looked like it had actually just snapped and now was detached at the knee. His stomach armor was shredded and the only part of him that had sustained the least amount of damage as his right arm; something that was going to also be ruined rather soon. The unfortunate fellow was in quite a bad spot and he would have been stupid to think his end wasn’t rapidly approaching.

With a spine-chilling roar, Spike reached down and firmly gripped the Salespony2 by the shoulder, lifting him up and holding him out in front of him in a rather strange manner, much like one would hold out a coat to inspect it.

Why was he…?

There was a sound akin to that of something large powering up, it seemed to fizz unnaturally and it’s source was unknown until about five seconds after, at which point a blue ball of what could only be described as ‘Energy’ flew out from the street to the left and impacted on Salespony2’s back, blowing a hole clean through his chest and then dissipating before it could hit Spike on the other side.

Salespony2 let out a cry of shock, but did not die; much to the surprise of Vinyl and all those watching.

Spike let out another roar and shoved Salespony2 backwards, and he looked as if he would fall over, that is, until he was caught. Seemingly out of nowhere; just like the energy ball that had punched through his stomach, another heavy class mech appeared.

This mech was the definition of clean; its metal shined in the sunlight and it was painted an almost painful-to-look-at white. On its shoulders it bore a strikingly familiar image of the sun, and other than the red bands it wore on its shoulders and chest, it was marked in no other way.

“No way…”

Vinyl knew without a doubt who this was, simply based off of who she had encounter in the game thus far.

In burning red letters, hovering above the white heavy-class, were the words. “SunRiseBooty” and the number “14” hovering next to it.

“Princess Celestia?” Vinyl said in shock, watching in horror as the Ruler of Equestria proceeded to hold Salespony2 by his one remaining shoulder; back to her, and drew her fist back. Then on her elbow, the armor plating pulled back and revealed a grouping of rockets, they fired in full and combined with the already staggering force the robot could exert, punching straight through the barely-alive form of Salespony2 with the literal force of a freight train.

Glass and twisted metal showered out into the air, plinking off of Spike’s mangle hull and onto the ground, the body it belonged to only collapsing once Celestia had removed her massive rocket-propelled fist from the hole where her victim’s visor-plate used to be.
The words “Salespony2 was obliterated by SirDragonZilla and SunRiseBooty” appeared in the HUD of every remaining player, signaling that their teammate had finally been brought down after what had seemed like an hour of intense combat.

“FALL BACK!” Luna roared, her voice loud enough that she could make sure it was heard above all else, but also drawing the attention of the two heavy-classes in the middle of the street.

Vinyl let out a worried mewl-like noise and started backpedaling down the street, watching Luna hop down from the roof she was on and begin actually sprinting down the road, swinging her rifle around and latching it onto her back as she moved.

“Blossomforth, come on!” Vinyl cried out, still backpedaling and watching as the racer-class mech she was calling out to turned and looked at her.

Just as Celestia raised up a massive, energy cannon and unleashed a blue ball of hell right at the building atop which Blossomforth was standing. The cannon seemed to almost ripple as it charged up, blue light coursing throughout multiple tubes and wires on its outer shell, the barrel end glowing brighter and brighter blue until finally it launched an energy ball the size of a tire.

Blossomforth jumped at the last second using her boosters to try and get away, but it didn’t help her very much at all, she still caught the brunt of the blast and was thrown down into the street.

Right at the feet of Spike and Celestia.

“No, no, wait!” She cried, holding out her shotgun and taking aim, only for it to not fire at all; it had taken damage from the blast. She let out a frustrated cry and tried to stand up to flee, but Celestia was too quick, she bent and grabbed onto the lower legs of the smaller mech with one giant hand and lifted her up to eye-level.

Paying no mind to Blossomforth’s protests, Celestia wrapped her hand around the top half of the racer-mech and effortlessly ripped her in half, tossing each piece to the side as if they were nothing more than empty sunflower seeds.

“VINYL, MAKE HASTE!” Luna roared, just as the words “SunRiseBooty destroyed Bl0ss0m4th” appeared in the HUD’s of the four remaining players.

“Mother of…” Vinyl breathed, watching as Spike roared and pointed in her direction.

“Ah…”

Vinyl couldn’t have moved faster; though she wished she was. The thunderous steps of the two heavy-class mechs shook the ground as they took after her. The DJ spotted Luna as she took a left turn down the street about two blocks down, finding herself able to run without much trouble, and reaching her destination without tripping up.

She did however, nearly fall as she tried to round the corner, and she would have done just that if Luna hadn’t grabbed her mechanical hand and pulled her over into an alleyway, literally tossing her to the ground as she rushed to hide her only remaining teammate from danger.

“Well isn’t this a fine predicament we hath gotten ourselves into?” Luna muttered softly, peeking out from the alley, only to zip back into it as soon as she saw the two heavy-classes lumber into view, scanning the area around them for their prey.

“Why didn’t you tell me that your sister was in here, I assume that’s your sister?” Vinyl hissed, pushing herself up off the ground and pressing her back against the alley wall, praying they wouldn’t be found.

“Quiet!” Luna hissed, holding out a giant hand and making a grabbing motion with it.

“What’re you-“

“Grenade!”

“Oh.”

Quickly as she could, Vinyl reached down and detached the grenade from her belt, handing it to her royal teammate and wondering what she had planned.

“Thou art going to cause a distraction.” Luna said softly.

“Uh…pardon?”

“Thou heard us loud and clear. We need thee to run out and grab the attention of Tia and Spike, so that we may plant the grenade in Spike’s armor and end him, then we can work together and take down Celestia.” She explained, not even seeming to mind that Vinyl could get utterly obliterated.

“Do you not see that cannon!”

“Doth thou not wish to triumph on this day?”

Vinyl shot the Princess a glare through her visor, not really liking this plan but not being able to argue with the logic that Luna was presenting.

“Fine.” She hissed, “Just tell me when.”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now! Go!”

With a worried whine, Vinyl was once again back out, alone, in the middle of the street, facing angry robots; though they were looking the other way.

“Uh…hey, big metal whales!” Vinyl yelled out, cupping her hands as if it would amplify her voice.

Spike let out a roar and Celestia was silent as they both turned around and laid eyes on the single, tiny warrior about a block away from them. Celestia’s cannon started to bristle with energy and the barrel end began to glow a bright blue, signaling she was charging up what would most likely be a very large blast.

“Uh…you’re…fat?”

Neither robot moved, Celestia’s cannon however was very much active and the end you didn’t want to be on, was glowing a very bright blue.

“I don’t like this plan anymore!” She cried, turning and hauling shiny metal ass down the street as the crackling sound of Celestia’s cannon charging up began to fill the air. There was a muted “Thump” shortly after, and then the fizzling sound started to rapidly get closer.

Vinyl let out a cry of displeasure at this entire situation, and threw herself to the side, landing on a carriage and instantly crushing it under her weight as a blue orb of energy whizzed by and impacted on a building down the street, exploding and leaving a hole that couldn’t be called a hole so much as it was a massive chunk that was now missing out of the entire shop, easily half of the front end had been obliterated.

“Dammit, Luna, this better work.” She hissed under her breath, slamming a metal fist into the sidewalk and sending cracks throughout it as she pushed herself upright, turning her gaze back to the two heavy-classes down the street, just in time to see Spike beginning to charge towards her.

Her first instinct was to get the hell out of there. She didn’t have anything but the knife anymore, and there was no way she was skilled enough to take Spike down with only that even with the amount of damage he had sustained.

She would have to trust Luna not to get her killed, So she held her ground; drawing the four foot combat knife from her waist and brandishing it out in front of her, as if that was going to do anything at all.

Slowly, Spike picked up speed, focusing himself solely on Vinyl instead of the black-armored warrior-class mech that had appeared on the rooftops beside him and was currently running and leaping to keep up; grenade clutched in her hand.

“Come on, I’m right here!” Vinyl shouted, waving her arms and trying to make herself as annoying as possible to ensure Luna wouldn’t get caught and their plan ruined.

Luckily for the two remaining players on blue team, Spike didn’t notice Luna.

Celestia, however, did; though it wasn’t in time to save Spike.

Luna threw herself off the roof just as Celestia unleashed an orb of blue energy right at the building her sister had just leapt from, it exploded in a fantastic display of blue energy, fire and debris flying everywhere, creating a spectacular background as Luna landed on Spike’s back and jammed the grenade in, lodging it between Spike’s armor before scrambling to push herself off and falling to the ground.

Three seconds later Spike’s entire back was turned into a crater, and thousands of tiny pieces of metal and machinery flew out in a mixture of smoke and fire. Instantly he dropped to the ground and slid a few feet on his faceplate, then came to a halt and was no more.

The words “SirDragonZilla was eliminated by BringerOfNight” appeared in the HUD of the three remaining players, and a red skull and crossbones floated up above Spike’s corpse and signaled his death yet again, dissipating in a flash of smoke a second later.

“Finally…” Vinyl sighed, wiping a bit of grime off of her visor and looking down the street, catching sight of Luna righting herself, and the Celestia working on feeding a new clip into her cannon and slowly lumbering forward; The tiny arms on her stomach doing all the work to reload so she could hold the weapon.

“We told thou that the plan would work!” Luna called, turning to look back at her sister before briskly clunking over to Vinyl and putting a metal hand on her shoulder. “No time to rejoice now, we would suggest mobility be the best route, lest our sister reload her weapon sooner than expected.

“Agreed, why don’t-“

“You aren’t going anywhere, Lulu!” Celestia’s voice rang out, even though slightly computerized; you could still hear her sweet, motherly tone. It was somewhat strange for it to come from a monstrosity wielding a cannon, but that wasn’t the concern.

What was the concern was that Celestia appeared to have abandoned reloading her cannon, and was now aiming a forearm in the direction of them both.

“Sister, what art thou- HOW?”

Celestia let out a soft chuckle as the armor on her forearm folded back, and a group of four rockets slowly came out from the hole with a faint whirring noise.

“Thou did not tell us that the wrist-rockets had been unlocked!” Luna cried, actually stomping her giant metal foot.

“I don’t tell you everything you know.” Celestia chimed back.

“So we hath learned!”

“Honestly, Lulu, this would have happened sooner. You know it would have. However royal duties happened to come up that needed my attention just as the game started, hence why I didn’t show up to decimate your team until later in the game!”

“Thou did nothing of the sort! Royal duties…all thou did was stuff thy face with CAKE!” Luna cried, stomping her foot yet again rather like an annoyed child.

It was actually somewhat humorous to watch.

“Lulu!” Celestia said sharply, sounding rather hurt.

Vinyl would have expected more to be said, maybe more ‘Sisterly’ back and forth, but no. Apparently Tia had enough, and shortly after that, four rockets were launched straight for them both.

“Oh damn.”

Vinyl managed to at least try and get out of the way. Luna however seemed to busy doing what was most likely pouting to even pay much attention to the four rockets whistling through the air and coming to meet her straight in the visor-plate, creating an explosion of shiny onyx-black armor pieces that showered the area around.

Vinyl caught a good deal of the explosion, landing face-first into the street as the words “BringerOfNight was vaporized by SunRiseBooty” on her HUD in burning red letters.

Unfortunately for her, that wasn’t the only thing in her HUD.

The image in the bottom corner of her HUD showed her legs glowing a bright red, with an ‘X’ on each one and a 0% on the armor integrity counter.

Her legs were gone, completely.

“Oh…wonderful.” She groaned, flipping herself over and deciding she might as well get comfortable for the end.

“She always was a bit of a sore loser, I’m sure I’ll hear about this for quite some time.” Celestia chimed, the armor on her forearm recovering the holes the rockets had come from as she lumbered over to Vinyl and lorded over her.

“Oh, I know you!”

“Oh, really?” Vinyl deadpanned, not even bothering to try and put up a fight as she had no legs or weapons.

“Yes, you’re the one who DJ’d Shining Armor’s wedding, aren’t you?” Celestia cooed in that soothing voice of hers.

“Uh…yeah.”

“Oh, wonderful, I don’t know if he ever told you but he enjoyed the party quite a bit!” She said happily, as if she wasn’t currently bending down to pick up Vinyl’s badly damaged mech and lift it up into the air; holding it in both hands by the shoulders.

“Yeah…he told me.”

“I hope you know, My little pony, this isn’t anything personal. It’s just the way the game is played!”

“Just kill me and be done with it.”

“As you wish.”

The sound of metal being crumpled was the next thing she heard, followed by the shattering of visor-glass. Vinyl’s entire HUD lit up and flashed a bright red.

And then everything went black for a moment.

A few seconds later, she was in the air, seeming to be flying around the city of Manehattan, only the entirety of ClydesTown was currently spewing smoke from multiple different places.

A second later, the scoreboard popped up in the sky, written in rather intense flaming letters.

Red Team.

“VinylScratch”: Warrior Class Mech. Level 1(Leveled Up +1) (Kills: 2 Assist Kills: 1 Killed by: "SunRiseBooty")

"MrFancyPants": Warrior Class Mech. Level 9 (Kills: 1 Assist Kills: 1 Killed By "StarSwirlFangirl")

"Bl0ss0m4th": Racer Class Mech. Level 3 (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 1 Killed by: "SunRiseBooty" )

"Salespony1": Heavy Class Mech. Level 4 (Kills: 0 Assist Kills:0 Killed By "SirDragonZilla")

"Salespony2": Heavy Class Mech. Level 4(Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0 Killed by "SirDragonZilla" and "SunRiseBooty")

"Bringer Of Night" Warrior Class Mech. Level 15 (Kills: 1 Assist Kills: 1 Killed By "SunRiseBooty")

Blue Team.

"Starswirlfangirl": Warrior Class Mech. Level 10 (Kills: 0 Assists Kills: 1 Killed By: "VinylScratch")

"SunRiseBooty": Heavy Class Mech. Level 14 (Kills: 4 Assist Kills: 0)

"SirDragonZilla": Heavy Class Mech. Level 8 (Kills: 1 Assist Kills:1 Killed by "Bringer of Night", "MrFancyPants")

"Sp33dySoarin": Racer Class Mech. Level 6 (Kills: 0 Assist Kills:0 Killed By "MrFancyPants" )

"EarlofGrey" Warrior Class Mech. Level 6 (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0 Killed by "MrFancyPants", "VinylScratch" and "Bl0ss0m4th" )

"MasterDJNeon" Warrior Class Mech. Level 7 (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0 Killed by "VinylScratch")

Final Scoreboard.

RED BLUE
5 6

Blue Wins

Game Over.

Vinyl VS The Farmers (Part 1)

View Online

Vinyl VS The Farmers (Part 1)

“Two minutes to LZ. All players please prepare for drop.”

Vinyl grinned and readied herself, tightening her grip on the metal hand-hold hanging from the ceiling above her. The thumping of massive helicopter blades echoed throughout the cavernous inside of the drop ship, and all around Vinyl stood her fellow teammates.

There were ten of them, in all; counting Vinyl, Each one piloting their own, massive, personalized robot. Complex marvels of machinery built for the sole purpose of utterly destroying the enemy.

The thick, almost beetle-like Heavy Classes. They stood at thirty-five feet tall, with their tree-trunk legs and arms three times as thick. They were the biggest of the three mech-classes; Built for taking large amounts of damage and dealing out just as much.

Though slow, they were extremely hard to fell, if the pilot knew what they were doing.

Then there were the Racer-Class mechs. Though they only stood at fifteen feet, they were extremely dangerous if they were used properly. These robots were sleek and edged, built for speed and quick, precise strikes. Their startling speed made up for their scarcity of armor, and instead of feet they had stub-like legs with powerful propulsion systems built into the ends; allowing the pilot to move around much like one would if rollerblading.

Finally, there were the Warrior-class mechs; they were the average, well rounded class, a good balance between speed, strength and armor. These were the most common class, and also the easiest to pilot. However, if utilized properly, they were just as deadly as any of the other classes.

Vinyl turned and looked back through the hold, getting a quick look at her teammates; but not really bothering to take note of their names and ranks; there were too many to do that. With a sigh, she turned back to look at the racer-class mech in front of her; or below her rather. It was a sky-blue color. On its head was what appeared to be a Mohawk made out of steel wiring painted in a wide variety of colors. The name “10secondsflat” hovered above her fellow teammate in flaming letters, accompanied by the number “14” next to it.

“One Minute to LZ.”

On cue, weapons materialized in the robotic hands of each player. Assault rifles, energy weapons, shotguns, rockets. Whatever each individual player had chosen for their weapon, sidearm and assorted equipment. It all materialized on its proper place on their individual robots.

Vinyl gripped at the handle of her rifle as she felt it materialize, finding it familiar and more like an extension of her own body. She had been through quite a few battles since her first one. Her robot was comfortable and she could move around in it as easily as she could her own body; climbing was still giving her some trouble though, she had trouble balancing herself while doing so.

Throughout her various games, Vinyl had managed to bring herself up to level 4. This game was an exciting one for her too, because she was very close to leveling up. Level 5 meant that she would be able to customize the look of her robot and begin unlocking new weapons to use!

She was playing a game type known as “Hardcore Big Brawl”, a game mode in which two groups of ten struggled to eliminate one another, plain and simple, the winner being the team that successfully destroyed every player on the opposing team.

The reason for it being hardcore was because Vinyl had found it to be more ‘Intense’.

In reality she just liked how it felt more dangerous.

“Alright, Team!”

Vinyl jumped a bit at the sudden, loud, somewhat rough sounding voice that echoed throughout the drop ship. It didn’t take her long to realize it had come from the small racer-class mech in front of her.

She watched as it turned around and seemed to inspect her for a moment; also allowing Vinyl to catch sight of the image of a cloud and rainbow lightning bolt painted onto the front.

“10Secondsflat’s” Singular eye locked on to Vinyl’s visor, staring at the DJ and seeming to look her up and down as she began to speak in a manner rather militaristic.

“Just like we practiced, stick with me and follow orders and we will crush our enemy!” She cried; it was then Vinyl assumed this small robot was a ‘She’.

A resounding “Yes ma’am!” Sounded throughout the drop ship interior, all in unison as they listened intently to the tiny blue robot barking at them.

Vinyl couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of those near-fanatical online gaming clans or something, one of the rare but really hardcore ones.

“You!”

“Hey, you!”

Vinyl shook her head from inside her mech, turning her gaze down to find she was being called at by the small blue racer-class named “10secondsflat”

“Uh…hi?” Vinyl said uncertainly.

“From the looks of you, it doesn’t look like our tenth clan-member made it in here. So you’ll be riding with us for today.” She said authoritatively, putting a metal hand on her hip and propping what appeared to be some sort of energy weapon against her shoulder.
“Uh…” Vinyl rubbed the top of her head, the metal of her robotic hand sliding against the top of her visor as she did. “Who is ‘Us’ exactly?”

“Pfft, really?” The blue robot scoffed.

“Yeah, really.”

“Wow, ok then…”

“10secondsflat” ‘skated’ over to the side and pointed a spindly mechanical finger down the hold. “Crusaders, tell ‘em who we are!”
There was a trio of happy, computerized squees.

About two seconds later, three more racer-class mechs zipped out from behind Vinyl and spun around on a dime in front of her, each one coming to a halt beside its comrade and standing at attention, then promptly giving a mechanical salute.

“We are the Rainbow Dash Attack Force of Awesome Robot Fighters!” they all said in unison, their voices tiny and reminiscent of young fillies rather than highly trained robot pilots.

There were three of them in all. From left to right they were “Crusader1” Crusader2” and “Crusader3”

“Crusader1” was a sort of creamy-yellow looking color, and bore an image of a red bow painted on the top of its head, with a muted red outlining the visor, shoulders, elbows and knees. Otherwise the armor was unmodified. In one hand, it held a large SMG, and the level indicator of 5 hovered beside its name in flaming letters.

“Crusader2” was painted pure white, with a light pink outlining the visor, kneecaps, elbows and shoulders. Unlike the racer-class before it, this one bore no modifications. In its hand it held an SMG identical to the one that “Crusader1” held, only the barrel glowed a soft blue. The level indicator of “8” floated next to the name in flaming letters.

“Crusader3” Was painted fully orange, with purple outlining the visor, elbows knees and shoulders. In its hand it held an SMG identical to that of “Crusader1”. The level indicator of “5” hovered next to its name in flames.

“Uhm, excuse me…” Came a new voice.

All present turned their attention over to the bright yellow Warrior-class, striding over towards Vinyl.

It was all yellow, with a few pink stripes painted on the knees, elbows, and around the visor. A depiction of three butterflies was painted onto the shoulders and chest, and it bore the dark blue stripes that identified its team. This new robot was armed with a strange looking energy weapon, assorted tubes and wires criss-crossed over its surface and a glowing ‘+’ sign shone on each side.

The name “ButterflyButt” floated above it this mech in flaming letters, accompanied by the level indicator of “8”

“Uh, the name is a work in progress…we’re still debating it…” The yellow mech said softly.

The name “ButterflyButt” floated above it this mech in flaming letters, accompanied by the level indicator of “8”

“Uh, the name is a work in progress…we’re still working on it…” The yellow mech said softly, flexing its grip on the weapon it held.
“I think it’s just fine the way it is, Fluttershy.” The blue racer exclaimed.

“I agree with Rainbow Dash!” Crusader3 exclaimed, hovering over next to 10secondsflat and patting her on the shoulder with an orange, metal hand.

Wait, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy? Weren’t they like…protectors of Equestria?

Vinyl found herself not too phased by this development; after all she had met three of the four Alicorn Princesses in her first game, brutally destroyed one of them, fought alongside another, and then got squashed like a bug by another.

So this wasn’t found as very surprising, and Vinyl just gave a mechanical shrug.

“Listen, I don’t know about y’all’s little ‘clan’ but I think I’ll just-“

Before Vinyl could finish, the floor gave out beneath her. Suddenly she was falling through the sky at breakneck speed. Wind rushed by her so fast and hard it was heard even inside the robot, and it didn’t take long for her to realize the game had started and they were being dropped into the battlefield.

They had all been too busy to realize the game had started.

Various whoops and cries of delight were heard from the entire team, and Vinyl could have sworn she could hear a scream of terror coming from the yellow robot; but she didn’t pay that any mind.

Vinyl let out a slight grunt of annoyance as she looked below, finding the map to be unfamiliar and alien. She hadn’t ever played this map before. The entire thing was a rectangular island. Large, towering buildings packed densely together all around it, and what appeared to be a lush park in the center, with a large stream running through it.

At least it wasn’t as complex as some of the other maps she had played. It was pretty simple, which meant easier to plan out maneuvers and routes of escape should they be needed.

The ground grew closer at a startling pace, the buildings and scenery below becoming easier to make out and discern with each passing second. Vinyl peered down directly below, catching sight of the concrete parking garage nestled in its own little section, with a decent amount of space between it and any other buildings.

About ten seconds later, ten massive machines crashed through the top floor of the parking garage and into the level directly below, knees automatically bending to absorb the impact and jar the pilot as little as possible.

Vinyl tightened her grip on her rifle as she felt her knees re-extend, bringing her up to full height with a whirr. Before she could do much else though, half her team had already started to make their way out of the parking garage, being led by the one who had been identified as Rainbow Dash.

“Alright, Fluttershy, Crusaders and the newbie, you guys are sticking with me.” Rainbow barked, zipping out into the front so she could be seen by the whole team as she began pointing her mechanical fingers.

Vinyl still wasn’t sure what was happening.

Fluttershy let out a sort of mewl-whimper thing and clunked over beside her friend, her massive form not at all matching her tiny voice. The Crusaders followed suit, letting out an affirmative “Yes Ma’am!” in unison and zipping over by their ‘Commander’.

“Button Mash!” Rainbow barked authoritatively, jabbing her finger behind Vinyl and to the side.

“Uh, yeah?” Came a voice. Like the Crusaders, it sounded more akin to a young pony rather than somepony Vinyl’s age, and it made her wonder how much of her team was made up of little kids.

Though upon turning to see this ‘Button Mash’ character, she found ‘Little’ probably wasn’t the best word to describe him.

A heavy-class mech lumbered over from the corner of the garage. The entire building shook with each mechanical step it took. Its armor was painted a dirty-looking brown and an image of a propeller hat was painted onto the top of the visor. In its hands, the mech held a truly monstrous Minigun, eight barrels in all, each one ready to spit out a deadly projectile when its turn came in the rotation. The ammo clip was almost as massive, easily the size of his shoulder and nearly dragging on the ground as he held it low at his hip.

The words, “TheStache” floated above his head in flaming letters, accompanied by a level indicator of 11.

Vinyl stepped back a bit so she wouldn’t get knocked over as Button Mash lumbered by, paying her no mind as if she were nothing more than an ant on the sidewalk.

“You take Soarin, Flitter and Cloudchaser. You four have been good at defense in the past. Your job is to get to that park in the center of the city and take up a defense, make it look like you’re holing up!” Rainbow barked; turning and pointing out of the garage and motioning for Button to get a move on.

Button Mash did something that Vinyl figured could have been a nod, and then lumbered off towards the edge of the garage and leapt off the side; his teammates following suit without so much as a word.

The sound of four pairs of mechanical feet impacting on the street below was the last Vinyl would hear from them in a while.

“Ok, now.”

Vinyl turned her attention over to Rainbow Dash as she, yet again, began to give orders.

“All of you need to stick with me unless you feel like getting ripped to shreds. You know who we’re up against and what the stakes are!”

“Yes ma’am!” The Crusaders cried out rather shrilly, giving a salute in perfect unison as they did.

Ok, now Vinyl was really confused, but she figured she might as well keep quiet. It was probably better to just stick with this little blue robot, rather than run off on her own and get killed. Though her curiosity had been piqued upon the mention of ‘The Stakes’
“Now, newbie!” Dash barked abruptly, skating over to Vinyl and looking her in the visor.

“I run a tight ship, no messing around, and no fancy stuff. You get the job done, you do as I say, we all live though this and go home in one piece, got it?”

It was almost comical, watching this comparatively tiny robot jab its finger at Vinyl and give orders.

“Right…” She said uncertainly.

“Good, we’re all clear then!” Dash said happily, spinning around and pulling her energy weapon off her hip. “Move out!”

Unfortunately for Vinyl and Fluttershy, they were not racer-class like everypony else, and despite the speeches about sticking together, she and Fluttershy were left in the dust to watch as Rainbow Dash and her Crusaders zipped over the edge of the parking garage and disappeared, the whirring of hydraulics and gears growing fainter and fainter until they were no longer audible.

“Is she…”

“Always like that? Uhm…yes.” Fluttershy finished, clunking over to Vinyl and somehow managing to look small.

An extremely awkward silence followed.

“So…” Vinyl said after a moment, turning over to look at the giant yellow machine rocking on its heels next to her.

Fluttershy said nothing.

“We should probably be going…” Vinyl coaxed, making a ‘hurry up’ type motion with her mechanical hand and pointing her rifle barrel in the direction Rainbow Dash had taken off.

“Uh…but, what about Rainbow Dash?” She replied softly, scratching the top of her mech in a manner that looked rather unsettled; for a robot.

“She’s already out there…”

“Well, you see, usually I follow Rainbow Dash around and heal her when she needs it. I use this!” Her voice gained an octave as she finished; her smile audible in her voice as she raised the energy weapon up to show Vinyl.

“It’s a healing beam! It will rematerialize the metal that was destroyed and replace it exactly where it should go! You see, it does this using an electromagnetic ray in addition to atom-building software inside to ray, and it will stretch and duplicate the already existing metal to create new metal, sort of like a cloning machine!”

Fluttershy gave a gentle bow and pulled her weapon closer to her, making a small mechanical whirr that sounded all-too-much like a squee as she did.

“Oh…I-I…uh…Ok.” Vinyl said, finding herself a bit stunned at this little rant.

“I…like to study the game, I-in my free time I mean!”

“We should get going…” Vinyl said softly, turning to look out towards the edge of the parking garage as she began to make her way over.

“W-wait, I can’t!” Fluttershy called, staying firmly rooted in place.

It was all Vinyl could do, not to groan.

“Why can’t you leave, pray tell?”

“Uh, because Rainbow Dash isn’t here.”

“Why do you need her?”

“Well, she usually keeps me alive…”

Well wasn’t that wonderful. Not only had Vinyl been abandoned by her team, she was stuck with…this pony. She very much wanted to just leave Fluttershy there, but of course, she wouldn’t. No, she would try to bring her along and they would both probably get slaughtered.

“Well…how about I keep you alive?” Vinyl sighed, slumping her shoulders a bit and giving off a mechanical hiss as she did so, her arms hanging limp at her sides.

Fluttershy tensed a bit.

“Oh, I don’t know if I should…”

Vinyl let out a computerized sigh and slid her metal hand down her visor, clunking over to Fluttershy and gently grasping her shoulder as she did.

“Ok, look. One of two things will happen here, either I leave, and you come with me. Or I leave and you stay here until the game boots you for lingering in spawn too long.”

“Oh.”

“So, what’s it gonna be?”

“Uhm…I’ll stay.”

Vinyl just gave her a blank stare.

“I don’t get you.” She sighed, releasing the shoulder of her comrade and turning to look out of the garage.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

Vinyl shook her head inside her mech and clunked over to the edge of the garage, propping her rifle against her shoulder and looking out at the area in front of her.

The buildings were mainly made of glass or brick, arranged in neat rows and varying in their height and width. Street lights flashed between green, yellow and red; As if directing carriages and cars that weren’t actually there, But otherwise all was silent, and akin to every other map in the game. It was like a ghost town; or at least it would stay that way until the combat began.

A familiar feeling of excitement began to well up inside Vinyl’s chest, the anticipation of combat and action bringing a grin to her face as she tightened her grip on the rifle she held. It wasn’t as foreign and awkward to hold as when she had first used it, it was familiar and friendly. Like an extension of her own form rather than a weapon separate from her body.

“Last chance, big yellow, you coming or not?” Vinyl asked, turning to look back at Fluttershy; who was still firmly planted in the exact same spot as before.

“Uh…no, I’ll stay here, thank you.” She replied politely, giving a mechanical wave.

Vinyl just shrugged, waving the big yellow machine off dismissively before turning and leaping off the edge of the garage and into the street below. The air rushed by her for a moment as she fell three stories, and then impacted with the asphalt below with a “Crunch”.
Looking both ways down the street, and then directly ahead, Vinyl found that her teammates were nowhere to be found. They had all taken off and now they were probably spread out all over the city, and the only teammate that had stayed behind was big yellow, and she didn’t appear to want to help much.

“Yeah…I’m probably gonna get killed.” Vinyl muttered, remembering what Rainbow Dash had said about the center of the map, and something about holing up there. She hadn’t really been listening to the tiny blue robot, so she wasn’t sure.

With a mechanical whirr and the hiss of hydraulics, Vinyl began making her way down the street, fully prepared to face whatever she would find in the middle of-

“Wait!”

Apparently big yellow had something to say about that plan.

“What?” Vinyl said, trying to hide her annoyance as she turned around and looked up at the parking garage; finding Fluttershy to be peering over the edge.

“Uhm…Don’t go that way.” She stated flatly.

“Would you care to explain why?” Vinyl sighed, her patience being severely tried.

“Well, that direction leads you straight to what is going to become a kill box. You would die.”

Suddenly, listening to the yellow one began to sound more favorable.

“Care to lead me in the right direction?”

“I…guess I could.” Fluttershy replied, tapping her metal fingers against the edge of the parking garage ledge.

Vinyl was about to ask if Fluttershy planned on coming down, as she realized that the yellow robot still had no intention of doing so, and by “Lead” she had decided to simply point to the left, down the street.

“Right, thanks, big yellow!” Vinyl said, waving half-heartedly and turning to make her way down the street, leaving Fluttershy behind and just barely hearing as the yellow robot whispered.

“My name’s Fluttershy…”

----&----

Ten minutes.

She had been walking ten minutes and still, nopony had been killed. There hadn’t even been a gunshot, or a punch, or a glass window being broken.

Not a sound, but the rhythmic clunking of Vinyl’s metal feet against the hard asphalt as she traveled further and further away from the garage.

Honestly, this was beginning to get dull. Vinyl wanted action, gunfire, she wanted the thrill of bullets the size of soda cans whizzing by her! Where was all of that?

The silence had made her wonder how this game would play out. Would both sides just hide until they got bored enough to go out looking for one another, or until they just left the game? These games had no time limit; battles dragging on for hours at a time were not uncommon.

With a sigh of irritation, Vinyl stopped at an intersection and looked to her left and right; though she already knew which way she would need to go.

To her left, about six or so blocks down, was the edge of the map. It didn’t just cut off however; instead it was a beach that actually looked pretty pleasant. The waves crashed against the distant sand, and the faint smell of saltwater and fish floated in the air.
To the right; further into the city, was a street that went on for about eight blocks before a building obstructed what would have otherwise been a continuous, straight road. Food carts and carriages sat idly; parked on the side of the road and waiting for ponies that weren’t coming.

Silently choosing the path further into the city Vinyl turned and began making her way down the street, constantly scanning the area in front of and above her as she moved, so as not to get ambushed; she had learned that checking above you for an enemy was a good idea, and she had learned it the hard way.

She found herself wondering what Fluttershy was up to, was she still sitting in that parking garage, waiting for the game to kick her from the server, or had she worked up the courage to go out on her own.

Suddenly, a loud, computerized cry of distress filled the air. It was not too loud at first, but it was growing louder and louder by the second. The problem was Vinyl couldn’t tell where it was coming from! It was echoing off the buildings and-

“¬Ka-Chunk!”

As if to answer Vinyl’s unasked question, a yellow mass of machinery appeared from above and smashed into the asphalt. Cracks spider webbed outwards and the sound of metal being dented and damaged was just as loud.

Much to Vinyl’s surprise, it was Fluttershy.

“What are you-“

“Hide!” Fluttershy whimpered, struggling to right herself and failing miserably.

As it turned out, when she had landed on the asphalt, Fluttershy had landed in such a way that her left leg had been hopelessly destroyed. Sparks and smoke spewed from it and a small fire was burning in the badly mangled thigh.

“Hide!” Fluttershy repeated, looking over at Vinyl and waving her away as she began crawling over to the sidewalk in a manner most pathetic.

Figuring she should probably take the advice of the big yellow machine that had fallen from the sky, Vinyl let out a worried whimper and backpedaled a block away, turning and taking cover behind the corner of a building and keeping an eye on Fluttershy; still unsure what was going on as she watched her teammate struggle, and fight the instinct to go help her.

“Oh, look at you!” Came a new, feminine, voice, this one was more confident than Fluttershy’s and less…sweet.

“No…” Fluttershy breathed, smacking her mechanical hand against the ground as she drug herself across the street, looking like she intended to use a nearby office building to stand up.

The sound of glass being shattered filled the air, it was continuous and unpleasant. Vinyl turned her gaze upward of the building her teammate was intending to use to help right her, and found the entire situation becoming that much clearer.

Fluttershy hadn’t broken her leg, it had been shot.

A sandy-tan Warrior-class was in the process of sliding down the building, it had a hand dug into the glass and was using that leverage to slow its descent. The tan armor plating gleamed in the sun and orange coloration outlined the visor. An image of three carrots was painted on the shoulders, and in the hand not currently dug into the building, was a rifle-like energy cannon; the inside of the barrel glowing a deep blue.

The words “CarrotFarmer” hovered above it in flaming letters, accompanied by the level indicator of 8.

In a shower of glass shards, CarrotFarmer let go of the building and dropped the remaining eight stories, landing on the ground with a “Crunch” and then rising to full height with a whirr; glass plinking off her hull and clinking onto the street.

“I ain’t done with you yet, honey.” CarrotFarmer cooed; resting her energy weapon on her shoulder and sauntering over to Fluttershy and looking her over like one would a crop of food.

“Get up; come on now, you tellin’ me I shredded your leg that bad?” She mocked, bending down, grabbing Fluttershy by her shoulder armor and then slamming her faceplate first into the building; sending glass flying out onto the street, the sound muffling Fluttershy’s cry of displeasure.

Already, Vinyl had seen enough of this. She readied herself for the approaching battle and inhaled deeply, bringing her rifle up in front of her and pulling back the charging rod, sending a round into the chamber and ready to be unleashed upon the enemy.

Silent as the grave, Vinyl stepped out from the corner of the building, bringing her rifle up to her shoulder with practiced fluidity and squeezing the trigger as soon as she had CarrotFarmer in her sights.

As gunfire filled the air for the first time since the game started, CarrotFarmer let out a cry of surprise and released Fluttershy, stumbling back and turning to face Vinyl as bullets ripped through her hull.

“Where the hell did you come from?” She cried out, raising her cannon and aiming it in the direction of her DJ assailant; the hum of energy building up inside it heard even over the gunfire as she backpedaled.

“Aw, hell.” Vinyl breathed, lowering her rifle and leaping to the side as three balls of blue energy whizzed past her, crackling as they flew.
As soon as she had hit the ground, Vinyl rolled and came to a knee, bringing her rifle up again, taking aim, and firing at her enemy. Lead flew across the street and buried itself in CarrotFarmer’s torso, sending sparks flying as each round punched through.

CarrotFarmer let out another growl of annoyance and ceased trying to shield herself with her arm, instead, she simply ignored the damage she was taking and raised her cannon, letting loose a single orb of blue energy straight for Vinyl.

Again, Vinyl dodged; but just barely. The projectile grazed her shoulder and burned the armor horribly as she rolled; her HUD lit up and showed the amount of damage done to her armor. He shoulder had dropped all the way down to 74% just with that hit. Energy weapons made up for their slower projectile speed with the damage they dealt, and that was being demonstrated beautifully right at that moment.

“Stop movin’, honey, just stay still and make this easier on all of us!” CarrotFarmer chimed, already charging her weapon up for another burst of fire as Vinyl came out of her roll.

Unfortunately, this time, Vinyl couldn’t react quickly enough. As soon as she came to a knee, three, molten-hot balls of blue energy impacted on her hull, hitting one after the other right between her shoulder and visor-plate.

She cried out in surprise as the force of the impacts knocked her back onto the street, metal crashed against asphalt and sparks flew as the two grinded against one another for a moment until Vinyl came to a halt, groaning as her HUD flickered briefly from the damage.

“See, now, wasn’t that easy?” CarrotFarmer chimed, her mechanical, clunking steps growing closer by the second.
Vinyl growled, but couldn’t help but smirk. Though it hadn’t been planned, this “CarrotFarmer” was only further ensuring her demise with each step closer she took.

“This turned out pretty well for me, I think. I only expected to turn one pony into scrap, not two. That’s a good day in my book.” She said, closing the distance between herself and Vinyl, placing a mechanical foot on the DJ’s stomach and digging the claws in; puncturing the metal and stabbing at the inner workings.

Vinyl let out a furious roar, balling her mechanical fist and putting all her focus into delivering a brutal punch to the inside of her attacker’s knee. Metal bent and creaked as it was hit and sparks flew out the other side.

The punch had carried enough force with it that CarrotFarmer teetered backwards, ripping her clawed foot out of Vinyl’s stomach and taking a good chunk of armor with it. She stumbled and collapsed onto her back; armor plating sparking as it ground against the asphalt.

“How’d that turn out for ya?” Vinyl hissed, pushing herself up off the street and ignoring the fact her stomach armor integrity had dropped to 23% after so much of it had been torn off, and the fact a small plume of smoke was currently trailing out of it.

“Damn it, my knee, you broke my knee!” CarrotFarmer hissed, using her uninjured leg to try and pry the chunk of Vinyl’s armor off her foot; it was actually kind of like watching somepony try to take of socks with just their back hooves.

Vinyl couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, clunking over to her foe with the intention of introducing her to the bottom of her metal foot.

CarrotFarmer had other plans.

In the little scrimmage that had just occurred, Vinyl had neglected to take into consideration the fact her foe was still holding a large energy weapon capable of blowing her faceplate off.

With a roar of passion, CarrotFarmer raised her weapon and aimed it at Vinyl, the sound of it charging up filled the air as the inside of the barrel began to glow brighter in preparation for unleashing its fury.

“Nope!”

In one fluid motion, Vinyl swung her leg and kicked the weapon out of her enemy’s hand, sending it flying over to the side and then clattering onto the sidewalk, its hum growing fainter, almost like a sad whine at being denied the ability to fire.

“No!” CarrotFarmer cried, grasping the air in the direction of her weapon, as if she would be able to grab it and save herself.

Without missing a beat, Vinyl raised her leg and brought it down on the forearm of her enemy, smashing it into the ground and sending sparks and machine fluids flying out onto the concrete. The cries of the one the arm belonged to, only further fueled her need to destroy as she twisted her foot, grinding it further into the ground.

“Get, off!” CarrotFarmer roared, bringing her fist up and; much like her enemy had though without as much force, introducing it to the DJ’s inner knee, sending sparks flying out the other side as Vinyl cried out and toppled over onto her side.

As she collided with the asphalt, Vinyl found herself wondering if the thought of maybe trying to help, had crossed Fluttershy’s mind, or if she was just sitting down there watching.

“Think you’re gonna beat me, huh, honey?” CarrotFarmer crooned, shakily pushing herself up and leaning against the building for support as she glared down at Vinyl; her knee sparking as it tried to function properly amidst the damage it had received. Despite her words, she didn’t look like she was in very good of a condition to be winning anything.

Of course, as Vinyl pushed herself up off the ground, she realized she herself was in an even worse condition.

Her shoulder was very badly mangled, its armor rating at only 45% from all the energy blasts it had taken. The once white metal was now scarred and burned, smoke coughing from the damaged areas every so often when Vinyl moved the shoulder. Her stomach was almost entirely unarmored, the inner workings of her robot were exposed and while they were for the most part, unharmed, it wouldn’t take much for them to be completely ruined. Then there was her knee. Though it hadn’t been hit as hard as her foes had, Vinyl’s knee was sparking and the sound of grinding metal could be heard whenever she moved it.

This wasn’t looking too good for her, at all, and at that moment, CarrotFarmer realized this fact.

“You aren’t looking too good there, honey, you might wanna get that checked out.” She mocked, pushing herself off the building and limping over in Vinyl’s direction.

With an annoyed growl, Vinyl gritted her teeth and raised her rifle with one hand, intending to unload the clip into the visor-plate of her foe, but as it turned out she wasn’t quick enough on the draw.

In one swift motion, a group of spikes popped out of CarrotFarmers fist, and she swung her arm around and punched the rifle out of Vinyl’s grasp, bending it and assuring it would be useless for the rest of the game.

Vinyl hissed as her weapon was torn from her hand and sent flying over into the building beside her, embedding itself in the side with a “Crash” and sending fragments of glass cascading out onto the street somewhat spectacularly.

Despite this, however, she did not falter in her resolve to destroy her enemy; who was in the process of preparing to deliver a spike-tipped left swing when Vinyl sidestepped and brought her own fist up into the enemy robot’s armpit. Metal crumpled and broke as she grabbed onto CarrotFarmers wrist and used all her strength to swing her around and slam her faceplate first into the glass building.

CarrotFarmer let out a cry of displeasure as she was buried into the building, using her free hand to try and fruitlessly push herself out.

Simultaneously, she tried to pull her upper half out of the building and wrench her arm out of Vinyl’s grasp, sending even more broken glass onto the sidewalk as she did so in a manner that was rather frantic; hydraulics and gears hissing and whirring as she squirmed hopelessly.

Now that she had her foe in a more manageable position, Vinyl removed her hand from CarrotFarmers armpit and grabbed the four-foot knife from her waist, raising it up above her head and bringing it down into the shoulder blade of her foe with a furious growl and startling fluidity.

Metal sliced through metal as CarrotFarmer let out a worried moan, her entire arm twitching as it was cut into with such great ease. Sparks flew and at first, that was all that happened; Until Vinyl decided to pull the knife to the side and begin to separate arm from torso.

Armor tore, hydraulics snapped and wires broke as the knife tore through, and a moment later a massive mechanical arm was separated from the body it belonged to and fell to the ground with a metallic “Clang”, now limp and lifeless.

“No, no, stop!” CarrotFarmer protested, unable to do much but take what she was being dealt as the DJ pulled her out of the building and tossed her down onto the street, armor grinding unpleasantly against the asphalt as she slid across it.

“Oh, look at that, you don’t look too good, ‘honey’.” Vinyl mocked, gripping her knife and kicking the dismembered arm aside as she limped over to the badly wounded form of her enemy, only to stop halfway and turn back to go and grab the energy weapon that was still sitting on the sidewalk.

“Shut up!” CarrotFarmer hissed, futilely trying to drag herself away from the scene.

With an almost evil chuckle, Vinyl bent down and picked up the energy weapon, it was unfamiliar and definitely much heavier than her assault rifle, but it would have to do, considering her other weapon had been sufficiently destroyed.

“Time to die…” She sang, spinning around and half-limping over to CarrotFarmer’s mangled body; watching as she drug herself on her stomach, trying to get away.

“No, No, wait!”

Vinyl paid the protests no mind, pressing her clawed foot on the back of her enemy and digging the claws in deep, holding her in place as she brought the cannon down and charged it up.

The hum of the energy building up and the crackling of that same energy filled the air, small jolts of electricity snapping and popping around the barrel as it glowed brighter and brighter. Five seconds later, three, unimaginably hot orbs of energy were unleashed directly into CarrotFarmer’s back, each one burning further through the armor than the last until the third and final orb flew out and impacted.

Yet still, CarrotFarmer struggled; and Vinyl didn’t mind that.

“Ooooh, let’s see what happens if I do…this!” Vinyl promptly stooped over and reached inside of the hole that had been burned into CarrotFarmer’s back, gripping a cluster of wires and electronics and crushing them in her hand; causing the owner of said wires to shudder helplessly, before ripping them out and tossing them to the side.

“N-no!” CarrotFarmer groaned, slamming her remaining fist on the concrete.

Again, Vinyl charged up the energy weapon. She pressed it into the hole she had made in her enemy and aimed it upwards, towards the visor area. It hummed and crackled for a moment as it charged and glowed, then discharged with staggering force. The energy was enough so that it exploded out of CarrotFarmer’s top half, sending glass, bits of metal and machine fluid flying out onto the street, and then CarrotFarmer was no more.

The words “CarrotFarmer was eradicated by VinylScratch” appeared in Vinyl’s HUD, Followed by a skull and crossbones floating up from CarrotFarmer’s corpse, burning bright red in flaming letters before disappearing in a plume of smoke.

With a satisfied grunt, Vinyl pulled the cannon out, ripped her clawed foot from the mangled corpse of her foe and turning to where Fluttershy was last seen, leaving the smoking mechanical corpse in the street and making a mental note to return and loot it after she paid big yellow a visit.

As expected, Fluttershy was sitting up against the building she had gotten her face slammed into. Only instead of sitting and just smoking and sparking, she was in the process of using her repair-ray on her own leg.

As Vinyl limped closer, she watched as Fluttershy’s leg seemingly rematerialized its metal and machinery out of thin air, rebuilding upon itself like some sort of magic trick. Metal clanked and slid into place, Wires came alive and writhed like snakes before reconnection with one another and a red aura floated around the entirety of the leg, and then, just like that, it was repaired.
Vinyl stopped a ways away from Fluttershy, crossing her arms and tapping her mechanical fingers as she glared at the big yellow robot currently righting herself and testing out the newly repaired leg.

It didn’t take Fluttershy long to realize she was being glared at.

“Uh…Hi.” She stated; waving as meekly as a twenty foot robot could manage.

“You were following me.” Vinyl deadpanned, limping closer and dinging her finger against Fluttershy’s visor.

“Well, I kind of felt bad… you were going out alone and you could have died…”

“I almost did…” Vinyl replied, finding it hard to really be mad at the yellow robot standing in front of her and managing to somehow look timid

“Oh, I can fix that! I-if it’s ok with you, I mean.”

“Be my guest…” Vinyl sighed, holding her arms out to the side and wincing as her shoulder mechanics ground against one another.
Silently, Fluttershy raised her strange weapon and pulled the trigger, shooting a continuous, red beam straight at Vinyl’s stomach.
The DJ watched as her stomach armor integrity rose to 30%, 40%, 50% and so on. Each passing second raising it up higher as new armor was materialized and cloned from the already existing plating, re-armoring the damaged segment and returning it to 100% integrity.

“So you followed me…because you were worried I would get killed?” Vinyl inquired, watching her armor integrity rise for her shoulder as Fluttershy repaired it without any trouble.

“Well, yes…plus, you were really nice to me. Nopony ever really tries to get me to come with them when I get left behind by the others. So I spend a lot of time in that garage, not really doing much…” Fluttershy paused for a moment, redirecting her repair-beam down to Vinyl’s knee. “…And after you left, you didn’t really know Rainbow Dash’s plan…so, I didn’t want you to get killed.”

“Oh…well, thanks.” Vinyl replied sheepishly, testing her freshly repaired knee and rolling her shoulder; finding everything to be working perfectly and as it should be. The grinding in the shoulder as gone and her stomach had stopped coughing smoke; in addition to this her knee was no longer sparking and functioned in full.

“I’m always happy to help!” Fluttershy said with a smile, giving a ‘small’ mechanical bow.

Vinyl gave a computerized grunt of affirmation and raised the energy cannon she was holding up in front of her, there was a glowing blue bar on the battery pack that held the charges, and it was almost completely empty.

She turned and looked back over at the smoking metal corpse still lying motionless in the middle of the street; charred and torn by the recent combat it had endured.

“Is that CarrotFarmer’s cannon?” Fluttershy inquired, clunking up next to Vinyl and giving the glowing blue weapon in her comrade’s hand.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, she smashed my rifle up pretty damn good, so I’m stuck with this…” Vinyl said, somewhat disappointed she would be without a weapon she was familiar with for the rest of the game.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much. That’s a T-1 LEC, not a T-2. The T-1 has a 12 round clip, is easier to use and from the looks of it, you have a Particle Accelerator attached to it, so that means if you hold down the trigger for five seconds, the cannon will charge up and then fire a three round burst!”

“Oh.” Vinyl gave her comrade a surprised look from behind her visor, and then brought her gaze down to the cannon in her hand; inspecting the different glowing bits and assorted gadgets scatters across the large rifle.

With a sigh, she clunked over to CarrotFarmer’s smoking corpse and took a knee, bending over and picking at the waist of her fallen enemy, searching for something she could make use of; primarily more ammo for the damn cannon.

“Oh, my. She really did mess up your gun, didn’t she?” Fluttershy called from behind.

Vinyl turned her gaze just in time to see the big yellow machine yank the bent rifle out of the side of the building, and begin inspecting it curiously.

“Messed me up pretty bad too…” Vinyl muttered, pulling an energy pack off of the mechanical corpse and stashing it in her waist.
“What did you find?” Fluttershy chimed, gently setting the bent rifle on the sidewalk and clunking over to her teammate, inspecting the loot in her mechanical hands.

“Let’s see…” Vinyl said thoughtfully, feeling along the waist of the metal corpse and wrapping her mechanical hand around some sort of pistol that could only be described as ‘Fat’.

As she brought it up in front of her visor, Vinyl found it was some sort of large revolver. Everything about it was thick, the barrel, the cylinder; even the handle looked abnormally large. She wondered what strange kind of-

“That’s called a Lockbuster.” Fluttershy chimed in, unintentionally interrupting Vinyl’s train of thought. “It’s a sort of shotgun-pistol. It has a six-round cylinder and shoots 40 gauge shot-shells, although it’s not very useful unless you’re really close…”

“So are you like a freaking encyclopedia on these types of things, or…?” Vinyl asked, smirking as she turned the revolver over and inspected it more thoroughly.

“Well, uhm, kinda. I like to do my research on these kinds of things, it’s very helpful!”

“Yet you never put it into use, and just sit in the parking garage all the time.” She deadpanned, handing the Lockbuster over to Fluttershy.

“Yes, I- Oh, wait, no thank you.” Fluttershy replied, gently pushing Vinyl’s hand away.

Vinyl stood slowly, turning and looking her comrade up and down for a moment then shook her head from inside the mech and sighed.

“Do you actually have a weapon that…you know, does damage?”

“Uh, W-well, no, but-“

“Big yellow, how do you expect to survive and level up without killing the enemy team?”

“I…haven’t ever killed another player.”

This came as a rather large surprise to Vinyl.

“Wait, how did you get to level eight if you haven’t ever-“

“Rainbow Dash played as me and she leveled me up so I could use the healing ray…” Fluttershy said with a mechanical shrug.

Vinyl wasn’t sure if she should be surprised or not.

“You…can’t be serious.”

“Uh…yes, I’m serious.” Fluttershy replied with a small smile, rocking on her mechanical heels as she spoke.

“Wonderful…”

Vinyl couldn’t help but feel this was going to end up being another one of ‘Those games’.

Vinyl VS The Farmers (Part 2)

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Vinyl VS The Farmers (Part 2)

“So, I guess we should go find the rest of our team then, huh?” Vinyl said with a sigh, pushing up onto both feet and giving ‘CarrotFarmer’s’ mangled corpse a half-hearted kick, before turning to look at Fluttershy.

“Yes, I think that would be best. Not to be rude, but we probably won’t last too long on our own…” Fluttershy replied with a sheepish chuckle, tapping her mechanical fingers against her thigh as she spoke.

“Preaching to the choir, my friend…” Vinyl said; holding her tongue so as not to hurt the feelings of her big yellow friend, as she clunked by and gave her a pat on the shoulder before starting to make her way down the road, and away from the scene of their recent battle.

“Maybe we should get to higher ground?” Fluttershy suggested, moving up next to Vinyl as the pair began to make their way down the street; her clawed, mechanical feet crunching against the asphalt as she walked.

Vinyl paused for a moment, turning and looking back at her companion with a robotic whirr, then silently turning her gaze upwards, to the building rooftops high above and to the buildings themselves, they were tall and stood proud over the city, gleaming in the sunlight due to being covered in mainly glass. They were most likely in some sort of business district; as there were very few shops within sight, not only that, but every building looked like it topped out somewhere around twenty stories or so, that meant climbing them wouldn’t exactly be a task that would be quiet or easy…

“Maybe we could circle back, there were smaller buildings back near spawn, we could always climb up on top of there and make our way up onto these, get a better vantage point?” Vinyl asked; resting her cannon on her shoulder and turning to look at Fluttershy.

“Oh, that could work, that way we can maybe spot Rainbow Dash easier, then we can-“

The rest of Fluttershy’s words were drowned out by an earth-shaking, teeth-rattling explosion. It was deep, heavy, like whatever had caused it had a lot of firepower behind it; and there was only a 50% chance of that being good for Vinyl and her team…

Both ponies turned to look a few blocks down the street; the direction they had intended to head in, and found that there was now a very large, thick plume of smoke floating out into the intersection, it covered the street and made it impossible to see any farther than that street.

“What in the-“

This time it was Vinyl who was cut off, just as a missile flew across the intersection currently billowing smoke, and impacted on the building across the street, exploding in a shower of glass, concrete and metal.

Fluttershy let out a squeal of fear, and Vinyl brought her weapon to the ready, preparing herself for what was most likely, an inevitable conflict with whatever was throwing missiles around like a foal with a Nerf gun.

With silent determination, she eyed the thick smoke, expecting to see a band of heavily armed enemies, ready to tear her limb from mechanical limb and then scatter her across the street; an outcome she would rather avoid.

Just then, out of the smoke; and the fire that had recently started burning, came a small, very fast moving, blue figure. It was a racer-class, and the words ‘10SecondsFlat’ hovered over its head in flaming letters.

It was Rainbow Dash.

“RUN!” Dash cried, sprinting down the street, and flailing her mechanical arms like crazy as she did so.

“We should…probably does what she says.” Fluttershy let out, her voice barely even a startled whisper.

As if to confirm this suggestion, out of the smoke, behind Rainbow Dash, came the massive form of a Heavy-class mech; followed by what appeared to be two Warrior-Class mechs.

The heavy-class was colored bright red with an image of a green apple painted on the chest and tan outlining its shoulder plates and visor, in its massive hands it held a four-barreled rocket launcher. Two of the rockets had been spent; as evident by the fact that two of the four barrels had white smoke trailing out of them.

The words ‘Big Apple’ floated above its head in burning red letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘8’ floating next to it.
Behind the heavy-class mech, the two warrior-classes held a brisk pace, doing their best to keep up as they all barreled after Rainbow Dash.

The first warrior-class was painted a dull orange, with a light green outlining the visor and shoulders; an image of an orange was painted on its chest. In its hands it held a long, black rifle, with some sort of scope mounted on top, not quite a sniper rifle, but not quite an assault rifle either. Whatever it was, Vinyl was sure she didn’t want to become target practice for it.

The words ‘Oranges>Apples’ hovered over its head in flaming letters, next to the words, floated the level indicator of ‘8’.

The second warrior-class, was colored a sandy-tan color, with light orange outlining the visor and shoulders, an image of a bright red apple was painted onto the chest. It its hands, the warrior-class held an energy cannon; similar to Vinyl’s, only longer looking and somewhat akin to a shotgun.

The words ‘DesertApple’ hovered above its head in flaming letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘9’.

And at the front of the pack, Rainbow Dash’s small, mechanical form, running for her life. Why exactly she hadn’t been able to get away from the larger mechs, Vinyl wasn’t sure, what she was sure of, however, was that all three of the enemy robots were heavily armed, looked completely unhurt, and were headed straight towards she and Fluttershy.

“I’m…going to find a place to hide…” Fluttershy whimpered, seconds before turning tail and clunking off to hide in an alleyway to the right of the intersection she and Vinyl previously stood in.

“Yeah…” Vinyl deadpanned, finding herself a little more than intimidated as she brought her cannon up to her shoulder and pointed it in the direction of ‘BigApple’, the heavy-class mech. She took a deep breath and aimed it straight for the knee; praying that her target would remain focused on Rainbow Dash, long enough for her to take a shot.

A second later, a large, blue, orb of energy flew out of the barrel-end of the rifle, and straight towards ‘BigApple’; crackling and sparking as it flew through the air.

BigApple couldn’t react in time and the orb hit him directly in the knee. Metal burned and wires sparked as the hot sphere of energy burned through the armor plating, though while it wasn’t enough to totally incapacitate the leg, it was enough to trip the heavy-class robot up…and send it toppling over rather spectacularly.

BigApple let out a cry of surprise as the force of the energy blast sent him toppling over to the right, as he fell; his arm swung up and sent DesertApple flying forwards. The heavy-class then crashed into one of the many glass buildings lining either side of the street.

Chunks of concrete and countless shards of glass went flying as the large robot slammed into it, the ground shook and the sound of the building itself being damaged filled the air, DesertApple; upon returning to the ground faceplate-first, slid a few feet, sending sparks flying as he did and then finally came to a screeching halt on the sidewalk.

Vinyl couldn’t help but smile at her work, watching as Rainbow Dash made her way over and collapsed on the street, groaning as she clutched at her left thigh; which Vinyl now realized was coughing smoke and sparking rapidly, the reason she hadn’t been able to escape from her assailants.

“T-thanks…” Dash wheezed, pushing herself up into a sitting position as she spoke.

“Don’t go thanking me yet…” Vinyl moaned worriedly, turning her attention back out to their enemy.

“Uncle Orange!” DesertApple roared as he shakily pushed himself up off the ground; his mechanical form clunking against the concrete as he did so. “Turn ‘em to scrap!”

As it turned out, Vinyl had only managed to hinder two of the three robots that had been chasing Rainbow Dash, the one known as ‘Oranges>Apples’ had managed to come out of the ordeal, completely unscathed and very annoyed.

“With pleasure!” Oranges>Apples; now known as ‘Uncle Orange’, said in reply, raising his rifle and pointing it straight in Vinyl’s direction, then without any further hesitation, he opened fire.

Vinyl yelped and sidestepped over to the nearest building corner with heavy, mechanical thumps; charging up her cannon as she did so and then blind-firing a trio of blue energy in the direction of her foe, before practically throwing herself into cover.

She landed with an unpleasant crunch, quickly pushing herself up and pressing her back against the corner-building as she did; shattering a bit of glass in the process and sending it plinking onto the ground and off her metal hull.

“Ha! Uncultured swine, you missed, rather badly at that!” Came a voice; Vinyl could only assume it was this ‘Uncle Orange’ character.

“Did he just call me…?” Vinyl gritted her teeth, half surprised and half offended at the rather…unorthodox, insult. She let out a defiant huff and peeked out from behind the edge of the building.

Uncle Orange, apparently, had been expecting this and was already aiming straight at the corner of the building, so the second Vinyl had shown her metal-clad form, a group of bullets were sent to greet her, courtesy of Uncle Orange himself.

Vinyl yelped and stumbled back as four rounds impacted on the building, sending glass flying out onto the sidewalk and street. Unfortunately for her, two of these rounds managed to punch through the building and hit Vinyl in the shoulder; sending the DJ stumbling backwards and even further out of cover.

Vinyl growled and did her best to turn the stumble into a roll; the result of which ended up producing a sort of controlled tumble, as she rolled across the street and stepped uneasily over onto the sidewalk; unable to control the momentum behind her as she collided with the building across from where she had been hiding.

As she desperately tried to recover, Vinyl brought her cannon up with one hand and pointed it in the general direction of her foe, only to be met with another group of 30mm rounds straight into her chest and be knocked backwards as she watch her chest armor percentage drop from 100% to 64% as five rounds buried themselves into her armor. She stooped over and did her best to remain standing, those shots had carried a staggering amount of force behind them and she was honestly a bit dazed from the ordeal.
“I must say I expected a bit more of a fight from you, I’ve gotten more resistance from mere foals…” Uncle Orange mocked, bringing his rifle down to aim at the ground as he began to clunk over to Vinyl with heavy mechanical footsteps.

Vinyl let out a defiant growl as she finally regained her composure, straightening up and locking her eyes on Uncle Orange; intending to loose a few orbs of raw energy into his stomach, only to find her cannon had taken a bullet, so instead of charging up when she pulled the trigger, it simply spewed out a bit of blue liquid, shuddered and then coughed out a bit of smoke.

“Damn.”

“How unfortunate…” Uncle Orange crooned as he closed the distance between them. “For you.”

Vinyl couldn’t do much to resist as she was dealt a powerful, mechanical kick to the stomach that sent her flying backwards and down onto the sidewalk; her stomach armor dropping down to 85% from the heavy blow.

The next thing Vinyl knew, the barrel of Uncle Orange’s gun was pressed against her visor-plate, making it easy to see straight down it and into the black abyss that was the end of the gun.

“It’s unfortunate that I’m not supposed to kill you…” He said with a slight groan of disappointment as he loomed over her. “Our leader wants prisoners for whatever reason, something about making a point, or winning some sort of competition…I haven’t the slightest idea, all I know is, you’re lucky I’m following those orders.”

This came as a rather confusing idea to Vinyl, taking prisoners? This was a deathmatch…you didn’t take prisoners, there was no reason to do so, you kill the enemy, you win the game, simple as that. So what was the point of this?

Regardless of the reason for her enemy’s actions, Vinyl was in a poor position, she was unarmed and just then, she was reminded how outnumbered she was. Despite this, she did still have a trick up her sleeve…but for the moment, she let her curiosity get the better of her and figured that she would just wait it out and see what in Equestria was going on.

“Let. Go. Of. Me!” Rainbow Dash protested; though Vinyl couldn’t see her just yet.

“Have you two acquired the blue one?” Uncle Orange called; his gaze still locked on Vinyl and his rifle still pressed against her visor.
“Eeyup.” Came a new voice, this one larger sounding; and despite only having said one word, significantly less…snotty, sounding, than Uncle Orange.

“I got the yella one; she didn’t put up much of a fight…” Came another voice; this one laden with a heavy southern tone.

“Get up.” Uncle Orange snapped, backing off of his prisoner a bit so that she could stand; but still keeping his rifle trained on her visor.

Begrudgingly, Vinyl obeyed, pushing herself up off the concrete and watching her enemy with care.

As she stood and turned her gaze out to the intersection she had previously been standing in, Vinyl was able to further learn how absolutely screwed they were.

Rainbow Dash had been captured, this was evident by the fact she was upside down, dangling out of one of BigApple’s mechanical hands; her damaged thigh still coughing smoke and sparks as she struggled fruitlessly. Vinyl took note of the fact that the heavy-class robot’s right knee was sparking every so often and that the armor was rather badly mangled; the product of her own assault.
Fluttershy had met the same fate; though probably with significantly less resistance, and was now quivering slightly as the warrior-class robot named ‘DesertApple’ shoved her forward, via the barrel of his energy cannon into her metal back.

“You don’t have to be so rude…” Fluttershy whispered shakily, looking about as downtrodden as a giant yellow robot could look.

“I think this is the last of ‘em…I reckon we should be gettin’ back to the square now, AJ’ll want to be getting’ on with this, and y’all know she don’t like to be kept waitin’ on these things.” DesertApple said, giving Fluttershy a passive shove as he spoke.

“Agreed…” Uncle Orange hummed in response, looking Vinyl up and down for a moment before grabbing her by the shoulder and gripping tightly, then turning and throwing her down onto the street; into the intersection, and next to Fluttershy.

Vinyl let out a yelp as she crashed into the asphalt, quickly pushing herself up off the ground, only to receive a light, mechanical kick in the rear that sent her stumbling forward into the massive brute known as BigApple; who only glared down at her.

“Keep the little one in a tight grip, she’s a runner.” Uncle Orange deadpanned as he clunked past, not paying Vinyl much attention as he did so. “Braeburn, keep an eye on the other two, I’ll take point.” He added, pointing his mechanical finger upwards and making a circular motion as he walked. “Make haste.”

“Yeah, yeah…” DesertApple; now known as ‘Braeburn’, replied in a rather annoyed tone, just before yanking Vinyl to her feet and jabbing her in the back with his energy cannon; prodding her forward.

Silently, Vinyl allowed the shoving to continue and played along; hoping to see exactly what was going on before she had a hole blown through her chest.

The sound of the multiple different robots clunking along was almost rhythmic; the heavy, deep-sounding steps shook the ground ever so slightly as they moved, along with the lighter steps of the Warrior-Class robots, was a song that was anything but soft.

Vinyl was just about to give in to the urge to make a smart-ass remark directed at her captors, when Braeburn began speaking; and in a rather soft tone at that.

“This is a bunch of horsefeathers.” He grumbled softly.

“Eeyup.” BigApple replied.

“We’ve gotta take orders from an…an Orange, and we ain’t allowed to put an end to these here jokers, all cause mah cousin needs to settle some stupid…whatever the hell it is she’s making us do this for, I just want to shoot stuff, not be all sneaky!”

“Eeyup.”

“Hey! It isn’t stupid!” Rainbow Dash chimed in; a feat that Vinyl found a bit surprising considering Dash was in the clutches of a robot that could snap her like a toothpick. “It’s a very serious-“

“Quiet, you!” Braeburn snapped; his words quickly enforced further by a light, mechanical flick from BigApple.

Dash was pretty much quiet after that.

------@-----

After a few minutes, the scenery around them began to slowly change. In place of tall glass-covered office buildings, now stood a much wider variation of structures. Mixed in with the cookie-cutter glass buildings, were much older, more worn looking buildings made of stone and brick. Apartment buildings and department stores built of worn brick, looked almost out of place compared to the rest of the newer buildings.

“We’ve arrived…” Uncle Orange called from the front; he had kept a small distance ahead of the rest of them for whatever reason, Braeburn seemed to think it was because Apples and Oranges shouldn’t mix.

“Where is here?” Vinyl asked curiously, turning back to look at Braeburn; only to receive a swift jab in the back as a response.

“Face forward!” Braeburn growled.

Vinyl let out a soft huff of displeasure as for the umpteenth time in the past few minutes; the barrel of a gun was jabbed into her back. This had happened enough that it had even knocked the lower armor on her back down to 99%!

“It’s the center of the city, a big park, also known as yer final resting place!” He said. “Now shut it, and get moving!”

Vinyl said nothing in response, though she couldn’t help but get a tad bit worried at the mention of this park being her final resting place; though if she had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t just be her final resting place, a certain orange robot would be coming with her…

The park itself was surprisingly large. It was rectangular and while it looked mostly flat, tall pine trees stood proud, covering most of the park’s surface. Multiple pathway entrances were visible on the edge, most likely winding through the trees to the center of the park; where Vinyl assumed they would be heading.

All around the park stood multiple different kinds of buildings, some made of brick, some of stone and some of glass, shops, apartments and offices. Though none stood as tall as the building at the far north end of the park, it was easily the tallest building in the city, Vinyl wasn’t exactly sure, but she guessed it stood at about fifty stories or so, all topped off by a shiny, pointed, golden roof.

“Take them to the center, quickly; I have things to attend to!” Uncle Orange barked; his words pulling Vinyl out of her sightseeing and back to the situation at hand. She watched as Uncle Orange turned and looked back at them, bringing his rifle down to his hip and glaring straight at Vinyl.

“Move.” He snapped.

Vinyl returned his glare, but did as she was told, allowing herself to be shoved down a pathway with broken and snapped trees on either side; most likely a byproduct of the enemy team moving through it. Her leg mechanics whirred and hissed as she walked, and she couldn’t help but notice how flattened and trampled the path was…how many of her teammates did they have back here?

“Uh…R-rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy let out in what was barely a computerized whisper; her first words since they had been captured.

“Yeah?” Dash deadpanned; still dangling from BigApple’s mechanical fist.

“You…have a plan, don’t you?”

“Uh…y-yeah…” Dash replied; sounding like she had anything but a plan.

Then, without any sort of warning, the trees suddenly receded and they were in a very large, grassy clearing. In the middle of the clearing, directly in front of them, was a decent sized lake with an ornate stone fountain in the middle. It had two large bowls on it; one on top of the other, with four carved pegasi on the top, spouting streams of water from their mouths into the lake below; of which the surface was dotted with lily pads, all in all, it was a rather pretty sight.

However, the scene behind the fountain, on the other side of the lake, was anything but pretty.

On their knees, on the other side of the lake, was every single member of her team.

‘Sp33dysoarin’, ‘TheStache’, Crusaders 1 through 3, ‘FlitterFly’ and ‘Ichaseclouds’. Each and every member of her team was on their knees, disarmed and under heavy guard.

In this instance, the heavy guard being five enemy robots with five deadly weapons, all aimed at their prisoners.

As Vinyl and her captors grew closer, her captured teammates noticed their presence, and if they hadn’t already looked defeated and hopeless before, upon seeing their leader, Rainbow Dash, be thrown onto the ground at their knees, their defeated looks turned to looks of pure horror.

Dash said nothing, she looked ashamed, if anything, and the fallen; self proclaimed, leader, of Blue team, drug herself through the grass and dirt for a moment, before pushing herself upwards, into a sitting position.

Without any sort of warning, Vinyl and Fluttershy were both shoved towards their teammates, by Braeburn, with a clang. They toppled over and hit the ground with a crash, their metal bodies cutting deep gashes in the earth and sending it flying as they fell.

“Where’s mah cousin?” Braeburn drawled at his teammates; giving Vinyl an evil glare as he spoke.

“Applejack!” One of the robots called; a light green warrior-class with a bright white color outlining the visor, shoulder-plates and the knees. On the chest, an image of a steaming pie was painted on. In her hands, she held an assault rifle; like Vinyl’s, only this one had a large, scary looking knife on the end, and an almost comically large drum clip on the bottom.

The words ‘GrannyApple’ hovered above in burning red letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘8’.

Vinyl couldn’t help but notice how…elderly, this particular robot sounded.

A few seconds later, the trees started rustling and shaking rather frantically, just before yet another Warrior-class robot stepped out, this one was painted a soft orange color, and the visor, shoulders and knees were outlined in a color resemblant of hay. On its chest, an image of three apples had been painted on in a triangle-like pattern. In the robot’s hand, was a somewhat intimidating looking energy weapon; much like that Braeburn held, only this one had a large blade on the underside of the barrel, and some sort of glowing device that was attached to the side.

The words, ‘HonestApple’ hovered over its head in flaming letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘12’.

“Granny, what’re ya- Oh, howdy Braeburn.” HonestApple; or, ‘AppleJack’, said; her voice laden with a heavy southern tone as she clunked out of the trees.

“Howdy, cuz, I got the rest of ‘em, just like you asked.” Braeburn replied, giving Fluttershy a swift, mechanical kick in the stomach and sending her teetering over into the dirt; to which Fluttershy only yelped and dealt with it.

“Oh well, howdy there, Fluttershy, I didn’t expect to see yah here, I don’t reckon we’ve ever been on the opposite team before.” Applejack chimed nonchalantly, making her way around the prisoners and over to Fluttershy, then taking a knee and giving her friend a pat on the back. “Ya know this ain’t nothing personal, right?”

“I know…” Fluttershy said with a sigh, as if the fact she was being held captive by a group of large, heavily armed robots, was an everyday occurrence.

“Mighty glad to hear it.” Applejack said in a friendly tone, before rising back up to her full height and making her way over to where Rainbow Dash sat.

“You, however…” She almost growled, her tone much darker than before. “When it comes to yer sorry flank, this is quite, personal!” She said, jabbing a mechanical finger at the smaller form of Dash’s racer-class.

“Applejack, you shouldn’t hold a grudge, she’s your friend after all, ain’t she?” GrannyApple chimed in, her voice sounding as shaky as her old bones probably were.

“It ain’t, a grudge.” AppleJack deadpanned.

“Then what is it, cuz, cause you ain’t been tellin’ us a tinkers damn, ya’ll just wanted all of the other team, rounded up like stray sheep and tossed here in front of ya’!” Braeburn groaned, stepping forward and making a sweeping motion with the hand he held his cannon in, motioning to all the prisoners.

“How about we have Rainbow Dash, tell everypony exactly why all us Apples went to all the trouble of rounding up the entire enemy team, and not smokin’ a single one?” Applejack said with a soft chuckle, crouching down to where she was almost at eye level with Dash.

Rainbow Dash said nothing.

“Come on then, tell ‘em why.” She goaded. “Be a good sport about it, Dash, Tell ‘em why and I’ll refrain from teasing ya about it too much.”

Rainbow Dash sighed and let out an exaggerated groan of exasperation.

“I made a bet!” She cried out.

“And, what were the details, of this little bet?”

Again, Dash said nothing.

“Braeburn.” Applejack deadpanned, snapping her mechanical fingers and pointing over to the side.

Without a word, Braeburn cocked his weapon with a mechanical hum, and two steps later he was standing next to the prisoners, without any hesitation he brought the cannon up and aimed it straight at ‘Sp33dysoarin’s’ visor-plate.

Five seconds later, what was once a cockpit, became nothing more than a hole as the sound of an energy cannon discharging filled the air, and bits of metal, glass and machine fluids flew out onto the grass behind where the prisoner had been sitting, before his smoking husk of a robot went limp and slumped over to the side, coughing smoke and sparking profusely.

The words ‘Sp33dysoarin was eradicated by DesertApple’ shone in the HUD’s of every player, and a flaming skull and crossbones floated up from the body of the deceased before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

“Fine, fine!” Dash groaned; though since they were all dead anyway, and this was a game, Vinyl wasn’t sure why these actions had any effect on Dash’s resolve to remain silent.

“I…challenged, Applejack, I told her that I was the better player and that if she could capture everypony on my team, without killing them…I would…” Dash hesitated for a moment, letting out another groan of displeasure.

The sound of Braeburn re-cocking his weapon, spurred Dash to speak again.

“I told her that if she did that…I would, by myself…clean her entire barn…” Dash groaned.

“Yee-haw, yer damn straight! ‘n’ now I’m spared the trouble, of having to clean out four months worth of hot, smelly cow fertilizer, Rainbow Dash here, ya see, gets the honor, of shoveling it all into carts, taking it out to mah fields, and then helpin’ me use it to enrich mah planting grounds!” Applejack said with an overjoyed laugh, patting her friend on the shoulder as she stood up to full height once more.

“You tellin’ me this was so you didn’t have to clean out the dang barn?” GrannyApple deadpanned, clunking; or rather, creaking, over to Applejack and poking her in the chest with a mechanical finger.

“Uh…yes.” Applejack said cheerfully.

“I missed the first half of the Appleoosa pie eatin’ contest for this.” Braeburn groaned, dragging his metal hand over his visor in a show of annoyance. “Can we at least shoot ‘em now?”

“Oh…uh, yeah, sure.” Applejack replied, turning over to look at Rainbow Dash, and then bringing her cannon down to only a foot or so away from her faceplate.

“Y’all might wanna get yer rubber boots on, Dash, it’s messy in there.”

Without another word, a bright blue orb of energy was fired straight into Dash’s head, it was large enough that it took the upper half of her shoulders with it, and it happened fast enough that she couldn’t even protest.

Red-hot bits of metal flew out onto the grass, and the now shoulder-less arms fell to the ground with a soft ‘thunk’, as Dash’s body slumped down onto the grass, the words ‘10secondsflat was destroyed by HonestApple’ appeared in everypony’s HUD, and a flaming skull and crossbones floated up from the corpse.

For a moment, nopony on Vinyl’s team really said much. For all the talk she would give, Rainbow Dash sure hadn’t put up much of a fight…

“Alright…wrap it up, ah got apples to tend to.” Applejack deadpanned, resting her cannon on her shoulder and turning away from the smoking metal corpse.

All at once, rifles and cannons were cocked and ready to fire, and for a moment, all of them but Vinyl were pretty certain that this was the end.

Until Vinyl stood up, pulled the Lockbuster she had stolen from CarrotFarmer out of a compartment in her thigh, raised it straight at Braeburn and let loose a rather loud, attention-drawing shot.

Braeburn’s severed arm hadn’t even hit the ground before everything slipped into chaos.

The enemy team; stunned by the fact Vinyl had a weapon, were too busy trying to comprehend the fact that one of their own had just been severely wounded, to react to the sudden rebellion of their prisoners.

Almost as one, each and every prisoner; armed only with their bare mechanical hands, leapt into action, and soon the sound of heavy metal punches mingled with gunshots to create a rather loud cacophony of battle.

The three ‘Crusaders’ instantly leapt up and zipped for BigApple; screaming some random, high pitched battle cry as they did so, Vinyl watched this occurrence out of the corner of her eye, as she charged through the fray, and straight at Braeburn.

Braeburn; who was still trying to recover from the fact he was now missing an arm, didn’t even have time to turn and look as Vinyl charged at him and without missing a beat, brought her gun down into his lower back in a manner akin to a punch, before firing two shots into his armor plating.

The first shot punched through the armor like it was nothing, only slightly damaging the inner workings, the second shot however, punched clean through, and made a brand new hole that went all the way through Braeburn’s stomach.

He cried out in shock, and toppled over onto his knees, grasping at the area where his stomach used to be, with his one remaining arm, not ever even seeing Vinyl as she pressed the barrel of the shotgun-pistol to the back of where his cockpit was, and pulling the trigger.

A moment later, the words ‘DesertApple’ was killed by VinylScratch’ appeared in everypony’s HUD’s, and Braeburn’s smoking corpse collapsed to the ground.

“Braeburn!” Applejack’s voice called out, anger and surprise tainting her tone.

Vinyl had barely turned to look, as Applejack sent her shoulder straight into the DJ’s side, sending her toppling backwards and into the pine trees that bordered the clearing; cracking a few of them as she came to a halt in the dirt.

“I don’t know how in the hell, ya managed to keep a gun on ya, but it ain’t gonna help ya one bit, nopony messes with mah family!” the cowpony growled, raising her cannon straight at Vinyl and charging it up.

The air around the barrel crackled and sparked spontaneously, the inside of said barrel began to grow brighter and brighter blue, in addition to all of this, the strange attachment on the side of the gun was glowing too; whatever it was it appeared to be letting her charge the weapon.

Though, the cannon never discharged at Vinyl.

In fact, it never even came anywhere close to hitting her, it didn’t even fire at all.
Just as Applejack was about to end the pony who slaughtered her cousin, she was sent flying into; more like over, the trees and then disappeared into the forest a little ways away.

The cause of this rather unexpected event, was made possible by the hulking mass of brown machinery known as, ‘TheStache’. He had swatted AppleJack’s smaller form like a fly and while the hit hadn’t killed her, it had taken her out of the battle for at least a little while.

“Thanks…” Vinyl said gratefully, taking the mechanical hand of her teammate and allowing him to pull her up with a whirr, even as the sounds of battle sounded off around them.

“No problem, Just trying- OW!”

TheStache was cut off as his shoulder was suddenly peppered with bullets, unarmed, he was only able to raise his arms and try his best to shield himself from the oncoming barrage of enemy fire. Bullets tore through metal and his armor sparked in a manner rather spectacular, and for a moment all he did was sit and take it.

Then he grabbed a tree.

TheStache let out an almost primal roar as he tore an entire pine tree only a few feet shorter than he was, and hurled it at his attackers; which now that Vinyl looked in that direction, she found it to be GrannyApple, along with two other warrior-class robots.

Once the trio of robots had sufficiently avoided the oncoming tree, Vinyl was able to get a good look at them.

Behind GrannyApple, stood two more robots. The first one was painted light green; Like GrannyApple, and with white outlining her visor and shoulders, an image of what appeared to be a seedling was painted on the chest, and in its hands, it brandished a twin pair of large SMG’s.

The words ‘SaucyApple’ floated above its head in flaming letters, accompanied by the level indicator of ‘8’.

The third warrior-class was painted an orange-ish color, much like that of Applejack, and like the two robots beside it, this mech’s visor, shoulders and knees were outlined in white paint. An image of an apple-rich apple tree was painted on the chest, and it its hands was a pair of SMG’s identical to those held by SaucyApple.

The words ‘GoldieApple’ hovered above its head in burning letters, along with a level indicator of 5.

All in all, they looked rather intimidating.

“Girls!” GrannyApple cried out, as loud as her old, shriveled lungs would let her.

“Let’s show ‘em how we brought the pain, in our day!” She cried, and in unison the three robots charged straight for TheStache.
“I’ll take the orange one!” Vinyl cried, locking her gaze on the one known as ‘GoldieApple’ and charging straight for her without even bothering to wait for a response from TheStache.

Hydraulics and machinery whirred and hissed as she picked up speed, kicking up chunks of dirt and grass behind her as she charged in at a startling pace, all around her, bullets flew, punches were thrown, explosions rang out.

As Vinyl ran, she spotted the three self-proclaimed ‘Crusaders’ still crawling all over BigApple and doing their best to do whatever damage they could, while also avoiding his large mechanical hands. He stumbled around haphazardly, knocking over trees and even accidentally swatting one of his teammates away when they moved to try and help him, had it not been for the fact this was a warzone…Vinyl would have stopped and watched it all happen with great pleasure.

However, this was indeed a warzone, and she was indeed about to collide with her enemy.

A moment later, she slammed her body into GoldieApple, from the side, catching her enemy by surprise and being able to do so because they had been so wholeheartedly focused on TheStache.

Metal slammed against metal as Vinyl grappled with GoldieApple, and they both went tumbling over to the side in a manner rather spectacular, before both tumbling into the pond with a glorious splash that sent water flying out every which way and covering the ground around them.

For a moment, Vinyl was completely underwater, she wasn’t standing up, but still, this water was surprisingly deep. It was actually somewhat neat, being in her cockpit and having the water all around her, but it wasn’t a sight she got to enjoy for long, as Goldie Apple had already recovered and was standing upright in the water.

As Vinyl pushed herself up to a fighting stance, she found the water came up to her robot’s waist; something she hoped wouldn’t impede her ability to move too much.

“All you young whippersnappers, thinking you’re all slick with yer fancy moves and yer loud music, just cause I’m old don’t mean I won’t spank ya’ fer breakfast!” GoldieApple cried, raising the one SMG she still held and unleashing a barrage of lead in Vinyl’s direction.

Thinking quick, Vinyl dove into the water; managing to avoid all but a few of the bullets as she did, and then kicked off the edge of the pond as soon as she was fully submerged, using the force to propel herself over behind GoldieApple; hopefully without her noticing, and then reposition herself so that she could push up off the bottom of the pond and turn that force into a staggering punch.

Her tactic worked wonderfully.

Vinyl shot up out of the water and sent her fist straight into GoldieApple’s back, causing her to careen forward and fall over at the edge of the pond; her lower half still in the water.

Before GoldieApple could recover, Vinyl waded over and grabbed her by the shoulder, then proceeded to toss her into the fountain in the center of the pond, shattering it like it was nothing and sending her foe into the opposite edge of the pond, and then into the water itself.

Before she went to finish the job, Vinyl strode over to the water’s edge and grabbed a hold of the one SMG that GoldieApple had tried to shoot her with before, and then spun around just in time to catch her foe trying to shakily crawl out of the water.

Vinyl let an evil grin come across her lips, just before unleashing hell, straight into GoldieApple’s armored back. The first few shots barely penetrated the armor, but within a few seconds, they began to punch through and tear into the inner workings of her foe like a bunch of hungry piranhas, shredding and destroying the metal and machinery until with one final cry of defiance, GoldieApple collapsed onto the edge of the pond and was no more; her corpse now smoking and sparking profusely from freshly carved bullet holes.

As the words ‘GoldieApple was put down by VinylScratch’ lit up in everypony’s HUD, Vinyl spun around in time to watch as TheStache crushed an enemy warrior class with the name ‘LavenderApple’ under his foot, all the while, still struggling to pull GrannyApple and AppleSaucy off his armored hull.

As soon as the death of the ‘LavenderApple’, character was announced to every player, there was an earth-shaking, bone-rattling explosion. An explosion unlike anything ever heard before in Equestrian Robot Combat, an explosion unrivaled in its power and force, simply because nopony had thought to utilize explosives to such an end.

Everypony ceased their conflict almost instantly, looking all around and even at one another; trying to figure out where exactly this truly thunderous explosion had originated from.

They didn’t need to wait long before the answer revealed itself in the most unexpected and spectacular fashion imaginable.

A few seconds after the explosion had occurred, the sound of strong stone and metal snapping like so many toothpicks, and a few seconds after that, the ground began to rumble.

Vinyl saw it first, slowly, she turned around and laid her eyes upon the massive building situated at the far end of the park, finding that instead of standing tall and proud over the entire city.

It was falling, and doing so in such a way that in mere seconds it would crash straight into the park.

“RUN, Y’ALL!” Crusader1 screamed at the top of her lungs, drawing Vinyl’s attention long enough that she could watch as the light-yellow racer-class leapt off of BigApple; who let out neigh but a ‘Eeyup’ of agreement as the other two Crusaders leapt off of him and began running for their lives.

Vinyl decided it best to follow suit.

Fighting turned into full out sprinting as each and every robot ceased fighting and turned to haul ass away from the building as it rapidly closed in on them. From behind her, all Vinyl could hear was the sound of glass and stone crunching against trees and rocks, splinters of wood and chunks of earth flew everywhere just before being flattened beneath the building’s unfathomable weight.

As Vinyl continued to put all she had into sprinting, to her left, she took note of an enemy warrior-class, it was painted a light pink-ish color, with a soft green outlining the visor and shoulders. An image of a peach was painted on its chest and luckily for Vinyl, the robot held no weapon.

The words ‘PeachyPone’ hovered over its head in burning red letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘5’.

Unfortunately for Vinyl, PeachyPone seemed to get the idea to start heavy-metal shoving, before Vinyl did, so as soon as the two of them locked eyes, Vinyl’s enemy veered closer with the full intention of stumbling her and then dooming the DJ to a death by falling building.

Unable to do much to brace herself and continue running as fast as she could; and also do her best to try and figure out how she was going to make it through the rapidly approaching tree line ahead without getting herself killed, Vinyl could only pray for a miracle as her enemy drew closer.

And a miracle she got, in the form of three, small, racer-class mechs that happened to zoom up next to them at that exact moment. Before Vinyl could even really process what was going on, Crusader1 and Crusader2 appeared next to PeacyPone’s outer left side; undetected for the half second before they both drew large, shiny knives out from their waists and; in unison, drove them into the mechanical knee of their enemy, sending sparks flying as metal tore through metal.

PeachyPone didn’t even have time to express her surprise, suddenly, she went down and disappeared from view, followed by a faint crunch, an explosion, and the words ‘PeachyPone was slaughtered by Crusader1 and Crusader2’ appeared in everypony’s HUD’s.
“Thanks!” Vinyl cried out; waving briefly to her tiny saviors as she ran, her voice barely audible above the sound of the building crashing down behind her.

The two Crusaders only returned the salute in response, before speeding up ahead of her as if it were nothing, though, they could have spoken and Vinyl just might have not heard it, but she didn’t really have time to think about that now.

Though upon looking back ahead of her, she found herself very badly wishing she had been paying more attention.

Her massive mechanical form was introduced to the tree line, and was sent crashing through countless pine trees without slowing down all that much, but instead of running, she was now tumbling and crashing uncontrollably through them. Now the sound of her hull smashing through the trees mingled with not only the building behind her, but also the sound of her HUD flashing red and giving off a small warning chime; her hull integrity wasn’t exactly holding to well when she had gone from running at such a high speed, to crashing through 12 inch thick trees without much of a warning.

At this point she wasn’t even sure where anypony else was, she wasn’t even sure if she would be alive in the next ten seconds, all she knew is as of about a half second ago her rapid tumble had turned into her flying through the air and headed faceplate-first into the dirt. As suddenly as she had crashed into the trees, the DJ buried her front end into the dirt and slid through it a good distance, like some mechanical meteor, before coming to a sudden halt upon hitting a surprisingly large pine tree.

Vinyl coughed as the smell of freshly tilled dirt filled her nostrils, snorting to get some of the dust away as she looked around her cockpit to assess the damage. The trees had done a good amount of damage, but not as much as she had expected, each of her limbs hovered around 75-80% and her chest and back were holding at 68%, so it wasn’t like she was totally dead in the water.

She was curious as to why she hadn’t been crushed by the building, though.

With an exhausted groan, Vinyl dug her mechanical fingers into the mounds of earth on either side of her; the byproducts of her little adventure through the forest and into the dirt, and then pushed herself up, shakily.

Using the pine tree responsible for stopping her travel to help pull herself up, Vinyl turned and looked behind her; expecting to see the building somehow inexplicably still falling and meet her untimely end.

Instead, however, she found that she had stopped just outside of where the top of the building had fallen, and that it was also rather hard to see.

The building; upon toppling over, had kicked up a significant amount of dust; both dirt and concrete, and that dust seemed intent on lingering for quite a while. With a snort, she raised her mechanical arm and waved some of the dust away, squinting her eyes and desperately scanning for any sign of her teammates.

Though, try as she might, she couldn’t manage to spot anypony else. Just before she was about to call out though, she discovered she didn’t need to call out at all.

Suddenly, the building rubble at her clawed, mechanical feet shifted a bit, and a second later the small horribly dinged and scratched up, form of a racer-class mech began to pull itself out of the rubble.

It was Crusader1.

“You alright there, bud?” Vinyl asked, kneeling down and pulling a large chunk of rubble away with a mechanical whirr.

“I ain’t no ‘bud’ I’m a girl, thank you very much…” Crusader1 said with a grunt; shoving a chunk of roofing almost as big as she was, over to the side. “Thank ya’ kindly, though, I appreciate it.” She added, promptly hopping out of the small crevice she had been trapped in, and out onto the top of the rubble.

Vinyl instantly noticed that her tiny comrade had a badly damaged left arm, in fact, the entirety of her left forearm was gone, and where it once was attached, now sat nothing but frayed wires, twisted metal and the occasional cluster of sparks.

“You uh…you’re missing a few pieces there.” She deadpanned, to which Crusader1 only shrugged.

“I know.”

“Ah, good.” Vinyl replied; though somewhat awkwardly, before standing up straight and trying to yet again survey the area.

“You have any idea why in Equestria that entire flipping building came tumbling down and nearly squashed us all?”

“Mah sister probably blew it up.” Crusader1 said nonchalantly, flicking a bit of rubble off her shoulder, using her one remaining; though not undamaged, arm.

“Say what now?”

“Mah sister, Applejack, the one with the big glowy-gun-thing that turned Rainbow Dash into metal mince.” She continued, clambering up a bit higher onto the rubble in an attempt to get a better view.

“Careful, kid…” Vinyl said warningly, “If you managed to crawl out of that rubble, the enemy team could do just the same.”

As if on cue, the rubble beneath Crusader1’s sharp-looking feet began to shake and shift, basketball-sized chunks of concrete and huge shards of glass tumbled down to the sides and even larger chunks followed suit, all parting like the gates of hell opening for some demonic beast; and sent Crusader1 toppling off to the side with a rather unpleasant shriek in the process.

In this case, the ‘demonic beast’ turned out to be the; though somewhat worn and damaged, massive mechanical form of TheStache, but that wasn’t all. Clutched close to TheStache’s chest, were two more racer-class mechs, Crusader2 and Crusader3, but what was more, is that Fluttershy appeared to have been saved by this Stache-Shield as well, and while she looked a bit beaten, she was probably the least damaged out of anypony there.

“I told you guys I wouldn’t get squashed!” TheStache said proudly, not even acknowledging Vinyl’s presence as he just started speaking in a rather…prideful, tone.

“Button, you only suggested shielding us, after you couldn’t run fast enough from the building.” Crusader2 sighed, bringing a mechanical hand up and making a motion akin to that one would do to massage their eyes.

“Not to mention all the…feminine screaming, you demonstrated for us.” Crusader3 added.

“I saved your flanks, be thankful.” TheStache; Or ‘Button’ as he was now known, stated flatly, dropping Crusader3 onto the ground and then setting Crusader2 down with a noticeable amount of extra care, before rising to his full height with a deep mechanical whirr.

“We’re just lucky that we only got hit by the tip of the building, I don’t think even Button Mash’s armor would have held up against much more than that…” Fluttershy chimed; pushing away a small chunk of rubble so that she could climb out without much trouble.

“Ah, Big Yellow, you somehow managed to survive imprisonment and having a building fall on you…” Vinyl said with a soft chuckle, clunking over to her yellow comrade and taking her metal hand, then proceeding to help pull her out of the rubble and hold onto her as she regained balance.

“Oh. Uh…Is that a problem, or…?” Fluttershy asked softly.

“It’s fantastic.” Vinyl said, giving her teammate a pat on the shoulder before gently clunking past and over to Button Mash.

“Did you see the other two?” Button asked curiously, turning away from Vinyl as he spoke and looking out over the long, runway-like path the rubble had carved and then paved through a good amount of the park.

“Other two?”

“Uh…Flitter and Cloud…dancer, or something, I forget their names. The two sisters, kinda light blu-ish armor?” Button said with a dismissive wave of his mechanical hand; which Vinyl now noticed was missing a finger.

“No, I didn’t. Remind me again how it is you guys are supposed to be a clan, yet you don’t know the names of your teammates by heart?” She inquired, not expecting to get much of an answer close to anything other than-

“It’s…a newly formed clan.” He said sheepishly.

Vinyl expected nothing less, and was just about to return fire with a snappy comeback, before something else sounded off first.

Out of nowhere, piercing the silence and seeming to come from everywhere in the eerie dust that somehow managed to still hang in the air enough that it was still somewhat hard to see and somehow was making it significantly darker.

Came a long, terrified, computerized, scream.

Everypony froze, and if their robots had hair they would have all been standing on end.

The faint sound of metal being torn into was heard for a brief moment, and then the words ‘IChaseClouds was butchered by HonestApple’ appeared in everypony’s HUD.

“Uh…that’s bad.” Crusader2 squeaked, scrambling up next to Vinyl and Button, then proceeding to make her way behind Buttons massive arm and hide behind it; peeking out to try and get a better view at the scene ahead.

“Quiet!” Crusader1 hissed, zipping up onto the rubble and out in front of both Vinyl and Button, holding a dented mechanical hand up to try and wave away some of the remaining dust; it had finally started to settle.

Again, another sound came, without warning just like the last one. Though instead of a scream, this one was a thunderclap.

Vinyl then put two and two together, and came to the conclusion that the dust hadn’t lowered the visibility, it was because a storm had rolled in; though how she had confused the two she hadn’t the slightest clue.

A few seconds later, the sound of raindrops plinking against the metal hulls of six robots began to slowly rise, slow and soft at first, but then gradually building within a few seconds into an all out downpour, the kind of rainstorm that you normally wouldn’t even want to be outside in due to the sheer amount of H2O that was put out.

“Gotta love that Manehattan weather…” Vinyl said with a sigh, the smell of wet grass and pine making its way into her nose; an almost overpowering smell to say the least.

“Rain or shine, mah sister just trashed our teammate like bad apples at harvest time, we need to be careful!” Crusader1 called a softly as she could, while still being heard over the rain.

Another scream, this one mixed in with the sound of the torrential downpour to create an even more bloodcurdling effect than the last, and a moment later the words ‘FlitterFly was eradicated by Oranges>Apples’ appeared in everypony’s HUD’s.

“All of you, move back, we don’t have weapons and we don’t know how well equipped they are, hide yourselves in the trees!” Vinyl hissed, spinning on her mechanical heel and suddenly taking charge of the group without really intending to. Much to her surprise, each and every one of them replied with some variation of an affirmative and proceeded to scatter into the tree line with remarkable haste; even Button, in all his massive, armored glory, managed to quickly make his way into the trees and crouch down behind a massive chunk of concrete that had flown off the building and landed a ways out.

The Crusaders quickly regrouped and seemed content to stick close to Vinyl, and as the four of them began to make their way into the tree line, Fluttershy decided to go with them as well.

At that point, Vinyl decided they would all just go hide with Button Mash and hope for the best; a feat which they accomplished just in time, too.

As soon as Vinyl knelt behind the massive concrete slab, with her visor poking out so she could see, the voices of their enemies made their way through the rain; faint at first, but slowly growing louder and more prominent.

“Well, shoot, and here I was hopin’ they’d all be trapped under the rubble like the last two…” Came the unmistakable voice of Applejack, followed by the sound of her kicking at the rubble, just before she finally came into view.

From her position atop the rubble Applejack looked relatively unharmed, save the fact that a good portion of her right chest armor was horribly twisted and bent, a spark or two popping out here and there; the product of Button’s punch that sent her flying like a golf ball.

In addition to this, Vinyl made note of the fact that Applejack was without her cannon, she could only assume the cowpony had lost it after being fist-punted, and now instead of her cannon, in her hand she clutched a very large, very sharp, very scary looking axe. It was shiny and all black, with the edge of the blade glowing a soft, muted shade of red.

“The ruffians are around here somewhere, I can smell their filth even in this rain…” came the unpleasantly familiar voice of Uncle Orange.

Vinyl watched as Uncle Orange clunked; or limped more like, out into view and stopped a little ways in front of Applejack, only down on the muddy ground instead of up on top of the building rubble.

His previously orange-tinted armor was now covered in dirt and grime, his right leg was missing a large chunk of the thigh armor, leaving the inner workings exposed and smoking slightly; the cause of his limp. In his hand he held the rifle he had prior to the building collapsing, though due to the fact he was missing a hand, it was uncertain if he would be able to use it with great accuracy.

“Where’d the rest of ‘em go?” Crusader3 asked quietly, tapping her metal finger against Vinyl’s thigh to get her attention.

With a soft whirr, Vinyl turned and sat down as softly as she could, her heavy mechanical form gouging into the dirt as she did so.

“No idea, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were currently creeping through the trees, I didn’t see any death indicators…” Vinyl said in a hushed tone, trying to figure out how they were going to attack in a manner that was anything near strategic when they were all cramped behind a slab of concrete the size of a small house.

She sighed softly and turned her gaze over to what was left of her team, they were larger in number than the enemy; though only by one, however they were without any form of ranged weaponry, most of them were badly damaged, worn, tired-looking; at least as tired as a robot could look, and covered in mud.

Wait.

“You’re all…covered in mud.” Vinyl said softly, turning her gaze down to the three Crusaders sitting against the slab next to her; excitement welling up inside of her as she began to formulate what she thought was going to be a pretty badass plan.

“Yeah…?” Crusader2 said curiously, turning her head up to Vinyl.

“You three, start covering yourselves in the mud and hide under the trees.” Vinyl whispered rather authoritatively.

“Vinyl, what are you-“

“The Crusaders are small, and if they hide under the trees they will be somewhat shielded from the rain. They can cover themselves in the mud and dig into the ground a bit, kinda half-buried. They won’t be easy to see. Then, we lure the enemy into the trees, and the Crusaders pop up and attack, take out their ankles and bring them to the ground, then we rush in and attack and boom, game over.” Vinyl explained, unable to hide the excitement in her voice.

“And where do you suppose we hide?” Button Mash asked.

“Button, you, Big Yellow and I will be the bait, you’re going to act injured, immobilized from the waist down, Fluttershy and I are going to drag you out from behind this slab and over into the trees a little ways in front of where the Crusaders are hidden…and pray that Uncle Orange doesn’t decide to just pop us all in the head and be done with it.”

“He won’t.” Crusader1 Said softly, “I know mah sister, She’ll want to use that fancy axe of hers ‘n’ do it herself…”

“This plan was good until I was being put in this position.” Button Mash deadpanned.

“And we need to cut off your leg.”

Button said nothing.

“Can I do it?” Crusader3 chimed in; a bit too eagerly at that.”

“Scootaloo!” He whined softly, sounding rather hurt at this prospect.

“Shush, it’ll be like playing surgeon, but with giant robots and I’m actually cutting your leg off.” Sweetie Belle said in a surprisingly dark tone.

“Why do we have to cut my leg off?” Button hissed.

“More convincing, a gamble, but more convincing.” Vinyl replied softly; watching as Crusader3; Or Scootaloo as she was now known, slowly draw the large knife from her waist.

“I agree.” Fluttershy stated as Scootaloo began playing surgeon.

A few moments later, Button Mash was now missing a leg; and looking rather put off about it, and the plan was ready to be put into motion.

It was a gamble, and there was a lot that go wrong. They had no idea where the rest of the enemy team was, and Uncle Orange had a gun that he could easily use to kill them; though they were counting on what Crusader1 had said and praying that wouldn’t happen, and on top of all of that they all needed to pray that they could carry out this plan without giving themselves away.

But, it was all they had, so into play it went.

Vinyl let out a soft grunt of satisfaction as she watched the three Crusaders finish burying themselves in the mud; they had done a pretty good job doing it too, she could barely even see the smaller robots and she knew where they were, so she was confident they wouldn’t be found; as long as they didn’t get stepped on that is.

“Showtime…” Vinyl whispered, motioning to Fluttershy that it was time, and grabbing Button under his arm as Big Yellow did the same.

“This is ridiculous.” Button hissed.

“Shut up and cry.” Vinyl growled, thumping his visor in annoyance.

Button promptly began letting out a surprisingly realistic series of pained moans.

Vinyl gritted her teeth and began pulling as hard as she could on Button’s shoulder, her mechanical feet dug into the mud as she began slowly backpedaling out from behind the slab; assisted by Fluttershy as planned. Hydraulics hissed and machinery whirred and buzzed upon being put under stress from all the power needed to perform their act, and from her cockpit, even over the rain, Vinyl could hear her machine at work.

As soon as she stepped out into view, Vinyl laid eyes on Applejack and Uncle Orange.

As planned, they had already taken notice to Button’s caterwauling, and were promptly clunking over to slaughter them, there was a half second that Vinyl thought everything would go wrong as Uncle Orange raised that damn rifle of his, but then, as hoped, Applejack pushed it down and clunked out in front of him.

“It’s working.” Vinyl whispered, unable to help the large grin that had found its way across her lips.

“Yay.” Fluttershy whispered; though somewhat shakily.

“And here I thought y’all would be more careful…” Applejack said with a soft chuckle, twirling her axe around in her mechanical hand as she sauntered forth, clunking through the mud and stopping a little ways away from the trio, and just enough into the trees that the Crusaders could come up out of the mud and attack without being seen.

Vinyl promptly released Button Mash and let him fall to the ground; mud splashing out around him as he hit the ground with a ‘thunk’.

As planned, she quickly drew her knife and brandished it at Applejack as menacingly as she could.

“You shouldn’t come any closer…” She growled, inwardly ecstatic that this was working flawlessly.

The cowpony let out an exaggerated cackle of pleasure, slapping her metal knee and resting her axe on her shoulder.

“Y’all are funny, ain’t yah?” She said with a chuckle.

“Applejack, just let me shoot the ruffian and be done with it, I insist!” Uncle Orange said in annoyance, grabbing onto Applejack shoulder and tugging on it gently.

“Hush up, Uncle, I want to kill ‘em.” She sighed, brushing him off and turning her attention back to the three ponies before her.
“Selfish, aren’t you…”He grumbled to himself.

“I think I’ll kill you first…” The cowpony said darkly, pointing her axe in Vinyl’s direction and letting out a soft but eager chuckle.

“I think you probably shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion that we were idiots.” Vinyl said, sounding rather proud of herself as she watched the three Crusaders rise up out of the mud behind their enemies, like some beasts of Tartarus summoned to bring chaos upon the land.

It was kinda creepy actually.

“If I recall correctly, we were able to capture you with relative ease…” Uncle Orange said condescendingly, stepping forward a bit and glaring at Vinyl.

“And I think we were able to trick you with relative ease.” Fluttershy said softly; Vinyl thought she could sense a bit of pride in Big Yellow’s voice.

“Pardon me, I don’t see how-“

Uncle Orange didn’t finish his words.

The screeching battle cry of three small ponies in racer-class mechs came out even over the pouring rain, and the sound of knives being driven into steel ankles was almost as loud.

Uncle Orange let out a cry of surprise as Crusaders 1 and 3 drove their blades into his robot, sending hi toppling down to his knees and into the mud, as he fell, he managed to let off a round mid-fall, a round that made its way straight into Applejacks shoulder with enough force to knock her off balance and unfortunately cause Crusader2 to miss her stab.

“Eat metal!” Vinyl roared, improvising and stepping forward to deliver a powerful knee straight into Applejack’s visor; and being rewarded with a satisfying ‘crack’ as she did so.

The force of her hit sent Applejack sideways and into the mud with a ‘Splat’, just as Crusaders 1 and 3 moved onto Uncle Orange; who was in the process of smacking Crusader1 with his stump-arm and sending her flying into a tree; he had managed to flip around before they could kill him.

“Yah cheatin’ snake!” Applejack cried, grabbing onto a tree and promptly pulling herself up; barely giving Vinyl enough time to backpedal and avoid a surprisingly quick axe-swing.

“Granny!” She cried out as loud as she could, her voice trumping the rainfall.

“Granny?” Vinyl said aloud; yelping as she backpedaled again to avoid another axe swing and then spun around a tree; trying to lure Applejack away from Fluttershy and Button.

“You forgot there were three more of us, didn’t ya?” Applejack chuckled evilly, clunking towards Vinyl and raising her axe for another swing.

With a defiant roar, Vinyl brought her knife up and parried the blow with relative ease, knocking her opponents arm back long enough the DJ could deliver a powerful shove.

Metal clanged against metal as Vinyl sent Applejack stumbling back into a small tree; the cowpony’s mechanical form snapping the foliage like a toothpick but doing well to send her onto her back.

Gunfire suddenly sounded off through the rain; automatic gunfire.

Meaning it wasn’t Uncle Orange.

Crusader2 let out a cry of shock, and Vinyl turned just in time to see her comrade’s knee get blown out and three bullets rip through her stomach from behind, before anypony else could react, Button let out a roar of anger and surprisingly enough, managed to throw himself out in front of Crusader2; blocking her from the oncoming barrage of ammo.

Vinyl couldn’t focus on them for too long though, Applejack was already up and coming at her with that damn axe again.

“You just don’t stay down, huh?” Vinyl crooned, taking a fighting stance and flipping the knife around so that she was holding it backwards.

“Damn right.” Applejack growled, proceeding to let out a roar as she clunked forward and tried to deliver a swing that probably would have sliced Vinyl in half instead of the tree behind her, had she not rolled to the side rather spectacularly.

“Granny and Aunt Applesauce’ll take care of my sister and the rest of ‘em, so I get you all to myself…” Applejack growled, spinning around and using the force of her previous swing to help carry her into the next; which Vinyl just barely dodged.

Mud and bits of broken trees flew everywhere as Vinyl jumped away and crashed into a small pine, snapping it clean in half and uprooting the bottom half completely as she slid through the mud.

“Y’all should quit movin’ and just let me kill ya, all you’re doin’ is delaying the inevetable!”

“And you…” Vinyl growled, pushing herself up to one knee and wrapping her mechanical hand around the tree she had snapped in half.

“Should shut your mouth!” She finished, spinning around and coming up to full height, while also swinging the tree around and slamming it into the shoulder of her foe with enough force she was knocked over into the mud with a cry of surprise.

“That freaking accent is annoying as hell…” Vinyl spat out, still holding what was left of the tree-turned-club; which was only about ten feet of stump and a few branches.

Taking a half second to survey the area around her while her enemy was down, Vinyl found that Uncle Orange was engaged in a rather hilarious game of ‘Try to pull small robots off your body’ with Crusaders 1 and 3, as Button Mash did his best to protect the wounded form of Crusader2 from GrannyApple and AppleSaucy; apparently known as Granny and Aunt Applesauce.

Fluttershy was just quietly sitting in the middle of it all.

Vinyl let out a huff as she watched Applejack push herself back upright; her frontside totally covered in mud, save her visor; which she had wiped off as best she could with her metal hand.

“You’re getting on mah nerves…” Applejack growled, jabbing a mechanical finger in Vinyl’s direction as she clunked forward for another attack.

Vinyl; armed with a tree and a knife, stepped forward and blocked a side-swing from the cowpony’s axe, with her knife, and brought her tree stump down onto her visor with a satisfying ‘clang!’

Vinyl chuckled and then delivered a strong mechanical kick to her opponent’s stomach, sending her onto her metal rump and into the mud yet again.

While Applejack let out a rather long string of curses, Vinyl stepped forward and brought her stump above her head, then quickly bringing it down with the intention of smashing her foe’s faceplate in; however Applejack didn’t seem to like this idea, she brought her axe up and sliced through the stump.

The result of this being that Applejack only sustained minimal damage from what was left of Vinyl’s makeshift weapon, and the dj receiving a swift mechanical kick in the stomach that sent hr flying back and crashing through a cluster of pine trees, the metal of her armored hull smashing through them with predictable ease.

Vinyl’s HUD flickered faintly as she came to a rest, and she let out a groan of displeasure as she wiped mud off her visor with a mechanical whirr.

“Enough of this!” Applejack roared, obviously not too pleased with how long this had taken.

Quickly as she could, Vinyl pushed herself upright just in time to see Button mash a little ways over to her side. He was in the process of bringing what remained of his right hand straight down onto Auntie Applesauce’s mechanical form and squashing her like a bug, the ensuing ‘crunch’ very much audible over the still pouring rain.

The words ‘TheStache destroyed SaucyApple’ broadcasting in everypony’s HUD as the enemy robot was squashed.

Vinyl was too busy paying attention to the triumph of her teammate to dodge Applejack’s axe in time.

As soon as she turned to look at her foe, Vinyl was met with an axe slash straight across her chest, it wasn’t a full-on hit, but it carried enough force to knock her to the side and practically toss her over in the direction of the rest of her team, as well as carve a deep gash in her chest that sent her chest armor plummeting down to 36%.

Vinyl groaned as she came to a halt in the mud, her visor flashing red and a faint warning chime playing on a loop, somewhere in her cockpit. The image of her robot on the corner of her HUD showed her chest colored a deep red where she had sustained damage.

“Let’s try and avoid that axe from now on…” She said to herself, making to stand up just as a heavy mechanical foot made sure she was slammed back into the ground.

“Ah, ah…” Applejack crooned, digging her clawed feet into Vinyl’s armor and furthering the damage it had already sustained.
“Vinyl!” Came the voice of Crusader3, loud and easily audible above the rainfall.

Vinyl looked to her left, just in time to watch as Crusader3 threw herself off of Uncle Orange and made for an object lying in the mud.

It was Uncle Orange’s rifle.

Very obviously using all the strength her tiny form could muster, Crusader3 lifted the rifle up and hurled it in Vinyl’s direction, it wasn’t too far of a distance, and miraculaiously enough the tiny robot was able to toss it within reach, just before an angry kick from the rifle’s owner sent her flying.

The rifle landed close enough that Vinyl could grab onto it and then jam it straight into Applejacks stomach just before she brought her axe down.

A split-second later, round after round tore through the cowpony’s stomach, bits of shredded metal, wire and machinery flew out of her lower back and into the mud below. Applejack let out a cry of displeasure as the sheer impact of each round shook her entire body and sent her stumbling backwards, her axe fell from her grasp and buried itself into the mud as Vinyl endlessly fired into her enemy.

It actually was somewhat surprising how many rounds were in the rifle, almost as surprising as how long it took before Applejack finally collapsed into the mud.

From her position on her back, Vinyl fired round after round into her foe, smoke spewed out from each hole along with bright flashes of sparks, and Applejacks stomach caught fire from so many rounds. She let out one last cry of defiance before too much damage had been taken for her to go on, and fell backwards into the mud, dead.

The words ‘HonestApple was slaughtered by VinylScratch’ was broadcasted to all remaining players, and a flaming depiction of a skull and crossbones floated up from the mechanical corpse of the deceased.

“Bitch…” Vinyl sighed, her arms collapsing to her sides as she took a moment to herself.

“Hey, congrats on the victory, but some help would be nice!” Button mash cried out; his tone heavy with distress.

“Oh.”

Vinyl promptly rolled over and pushed herself upright; grabbing the axe of her fallen enemy as she did and finding it surprisingly light, then made her way over to help her teammate out.

Crusaders 1 and 3 somehow were still grappling with Uncle Orange; who had still not found a way to pry them off his back as the small robots pelted him with the strongest punches they could throw from atop his hull, making little dents in his armor.

Button Mash was not faring so well, however.

He was fruitlessly throwing whatever he could grab, at Granny Smith; Trees, rocks, rubble, clumps of mud, with his only remaining hand. He had leaned himself up against a large tree, and Crusader2 had drug herself behind him; and was letting out small whimpers of displeasure due to the fact she could do nothing but, as her knee had been blown out and a racer without it’s legs was not much use at all.

Granny Smith; the sprightly old mare, had run out of ammo, and was holding her position at a distance and constantly moving to dodge the oncoming barrage of debris, so she could get close enough to deal some damage with her knife.

It was slightly comical.

“Get her over here…” Button growled darkly, as Vinyl clunked by; axe in hand.

“Gladly.” Vinyl replied with zeal, gripping the axe as she clunked through the mud and past Button Mash.

Granny Smith let out a very worried moan as she saw Vinyl slowly moving towards towards her; armed with the axe of her own granddaughter.

“I’ll cut you, you little punk!” She cried out angrily, taking a defensive stance and swinging the knife through the air warningly.

“You think you can just kill Applejack, ‘n’ get away with it, do ya, well let me tell ya, I learned a bit in my day about fighting, don’t think just cause I’m old I won’t whoop yer sorry behind!” She barked angrily, sounding a bit more sure of herself than she actually was.

Vinyl stopped a decent distance away from her foe, and held the axe in both her mechanical hands; like a baseball bat, and readied herself for battle.

“Let’s see if you put up more of a fight than your GoldieApple, friend…” She called out tauntingly, trying to spur Granny Smith to attack first.

“That was you!” Granny Smith said darkly, shortly before charging; foolishly, straight at Vinyl.

It was all too easy to sidestep her charge.

Vinyl spun on her heel and stepped to the side, digging her clawed feet into the mud so as not to slip as she used the momentum from her spin to bring the axe directly into the back of Granny Smith’s upper right arm, slicing easily through the armor and machinery in addition to sending the owner of said arm into the mud.

The old mare proceeded to utter the most creative string of curses ever heard, as she struggled to push herself up to her knees as smoke coughed from where her arm was once attached.

Felling pretty invincible, Vinyl looked down at the lifeless, severed mechanical arm in the mud and gave it a passive kick, knocking it away as she clunked past and over to where Granny Smith was just barely standing upright.

Vinyl soon fixed that.

With silent determination, she held the axe low, and took aim, closing the distance between herself and the enemy just as she swung her weapon upwards like a golf club, slicing through Granny Smith’s one remaining arm with ease and severing it completely.

Granny Smith let out a cry of shock as she fell backwards into the mud yet again; unable to do anything now but struggle to push herself away with her legs.

“Somepony wants to see you!” Vinyl sang, stooping over and digging her fingers into the smoking hole she had created upon slicing off the robotic arms of her enemy and then beginning to drag her over in Button’s direction.

“Let go of me, you little snake! I’ll kick the daylights out of ya’ I swear to Celestia!” She protested.

“Let go? Why, if you insist!” Vinyl chuckled softly and threw Granny Smith’s mechanical form into the mud, right within grabbing distance of Button Mash.

All the protesting and cursing that the old pony spat out as she was dragged through the mud, did nothing to stop Button as he bade a fist with his one remaining arm and the brought it down, hard, straight onto Granny Smith’s visor-plate.

The ensuing cacophony of glass cracking, metal crumpling and mud squelching was rather gruesome.

“Nopony touches Sweetie Belle…” He growled, proceeding to chuck Granny Smith’s corpse into a nearby tree where it impacted and then fell into the mud as her death was broadcasted to all remaining players.

It was then that Vinyl noticed the frustrated cried of Uncle Orange, she turned her gaze over to the scene of battle ensuing between him and the two unwounded Crusaders; a scene that looked like it would soon be over.

Vinyl watched as Crusader1 finally punched through the top of Uncle Orange’s hull and a second later; like comparatively large mechanical piranhas, Crusader 1 and 3 proceeded to pull and tear at the break and make it bigger, then begin tearing out whatever they could grab at with horrifying and unexpected ferocity.

Uncle Orange let out a scream of shock as wires and bits of mechanical devices were torn out and he was literally torn apart from the inside.

It was watching something out of a horror film.

He collapsed to his knees, trying to use a nearby tree to help keep himself up, all the while his free stump-arm weakly swinging at the air in front of him while smoke started coughing out of the hole above his visor.

Crusader1 delivered a quick punch to the armor yet again and proceeded to tear at the armor like one would open a sardine can, peeling it away and ferociously grabbing at the inner workings.

She obviously grabbed something important, because a moment later the arm that Uncle Orange had been using to hold himself up went limp and he collapsed into the mud, now only trying to drag himself away as the robots now positioned atop his back tossed his insides all over the ground around him.

Suddenly, his body convulsed and he let out one last cry of protest, before the one functioning arm her had grasped at the empty air, before falling to the mud.

As Crusader 1 and 3 let out an almost bestial cry of triumph, the words ‘Oranges>Apples was murdered by Crusader1 and Crusader3’ broadcasted throughout everypony’s HUD, and the flaming skull and crossbones floated up and dissipated in a puff of smoke.

“Damn…” Button Mash whispered, only to receive a mechanical slap on the leg from Crusader2; or Sweetie Belle as she was now known.

“Don’t curse.” She deadpanned.

Vinyl let out a soft chuckle and strode over with mechanical clunks, to meet the two tiny warriors halfway; Applejack’s axe resting against her shoulder.

“That was…something.” She said with a soft chuckle, looking down at the two small robots as they stopped in front of her.

“Nah, it wasn’t much.” Crusader3 said plainly, shrugging and then yelping softly as sparks flew from her shoulder upon doing so.

“We’ve done worse.” Crusader1 said softly, giving Crusader3 a playful slug on the shoulder with her one remaining arm.

“I think we-“

A loud, scared-sounding shriek pierced the air just then, cutting Vinyl off and grabbing the attention of all who remained.

“Help me!” Came the unmistakable voice of Fluttershy.

As one, they all turned to where the sound had originated and found themselves suddenly feeling less victorious.

There, standing amidst so many trees; fallen and upright, was the massive, almost completely unscathed form of Big Mac; His massive, red, armored form standing out against the trees and looking nothing if not intimidating.

And in his hand, he held Fluttershy’s struggling yellow form, by the shoulder. She whimpered and squirmed uselessly as she tried to pry herself away, but the heavy-class had his mechanical fingers dug into her armor enough that she wouldn’t be go anywhere unless he said so.

“Wait, no, please!” She protested, uselessly struggling as Big Mac; silent as the grave, proceeded to grab her other shoulder and dig his fingers into the armor.

Fluttershy could do little but cry out in shock and horror as she was torn in half, down the middle. Her mechanical form sparked and popped, smoke coughed out as she was torn in half, slowly at first, but as soon as the top of her hull had split, the rest did the same without as much resistance.

Her yellow robotic form shuddered and convulsed violently in the half-second before she shut down, and then she was no more.
The words ‘ButterflyButt was slaughtered by BigApple’ appeared in the HUD of every remaining player.

Silent as the grave, Big Mac turned with menacing fluidity and glared straight at Vinyl; tossing each half of Fluttershy’s smoking metal corpse into the mud as he did so.

“He’s mine…” Vinyl growled, motioning for the Crusaders to stand aside as she stepped forward and held her axe at the ready.

The scene was set, the final battle.

The tall pine trees rustled in the wind of the storm and the rain seemed to be coming down harder than ever, splattering against Vinyl’s hull and forming puddles in the countless footprints and gouges that had been formed in the mud during the heated battle.
Vinyl stood a good distance away from her monstrous enemy, she hadn’t ever faced a Heavy-class on her own, and beating it was no small feat.

But vengeance was in order.

Big Mac moved first, silent as ever he began thundering forward, smashing into trees and knocking them aside without ever faltering as he headed straight for Vinyl.

This gave Vinyl enough time to think up a quick plan of attack.

The knees, she needed to take out his knees.

She waited until her massive foe was only a few yards away before; surprisingly enough to all watching and even to Vinyl herself, sprinting straight for Big Mac.

Mud flew up behind the dj as she sprinted, and then turned to the side and dropped to the ground, the momentum of her run sending her sliding between Big Mac’s legs just as she had planned, unfortunately she hadn’t thought so far as to maybe try and swing at a knee as she slid by, and hoped she wouldn’t regret not taking that chance.

The massive machine let out a roar of anger as he dug his massive feet into the muddy ground and steadied himself with a mechanical hand, letting out a snort as he turned and glared at Vinyl, his fists balled tightly as he stood upright; though now only a short distance from his enemy.

Vinyl let out a short yelp and leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding a massive mechanical fist as it buried itself startlingly deep into the muddy ground and shook everything around them with a thunderous ‘Boom!’.

Vinyl; covered enough mud that you could barely tell her armor was white, even in the rain, righted herself and grinned at what she saw.

Big Mac’s hand was stuck, upon punching the ground in an attempt to crush her, he had buried it so deep in the mud, that when the mud had quickly filled in around his hand it had created powerful suction, powerful enough that it now held his arm firmly about a foot past the wrist.

This is an opportunity Vinyl had no intention of wasting, without hesitation she rushed forward with heavy mechanical steps, bringing axe into the metal beast’s forearm a moment later and digging it deep into the armor.

Big Mac let out a cry of distress and raised his other arm, awkwardly trying to grab at Vinyl with it, only for her to duck and rip the axe out, spinning around beneath his upper body and bringing the axe into his forearm yet again, this time from the other side.

Again, he cried out in anger and Vinyl barely was able to remove her axe and scramble out of the way as he brought his body down and slammed it into the ground, in an attempt to crush his smaller foe. Mud and water splattered everywhere as he did so, and much to his dismay, upon raising his body out of the mud, he found his attempt to crush his attacker had not only been fruitless, but had also done well to cover his visor with mud and render him almost totally blind.

“You big idiot…” Vinyl said with a grin, hopping up as quick as she could and running by to deliver a quick slash with the axe, to the upper part of Big Mac’s forearm, and then quickly pull it out, whip around and bury it into the side of his stomach armor.

He let out a distressed groan and with an immensely powerful pull; he managed to finally escape from the mud.

Only he had managed to tear his hand off instead of pull it out, Vinyl had cut deep enough into it that it was too weakly connected to withstand the force, and the arm separated from the elbow with a ‘crunch’, and smoke and sparks now billowed from where it was once attached; the arm itself now sticking out of the ground like the stump of a tree.

Big Mac teetered backwards, the momentum he had created from pulling himself away from the mud so abruptly nearly pushing him off balance and sending him onto his mechanical behind.

As he regained his balance, Vinyl charged in again and swung the axe into the metal-plated shin of the titanic mechanical monstrosity that she was combating, the blade sliced through the metal and hit some thicker inner working, stopping the axe cold.

Big Mac let out a growl and kicked his leg, sending Vinyl; and her axe, flying and then colliding face-plate first with a rather large pine tree.

An unpleasant ‘Crack!’ sounded out as Vinyl impacted and then crashed into the muddy ground, Vinyl groaned and rolled over onto her back, letting out a frustrated groan as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position and glared in annoyance at her armor indicator.

That kick and the impact of the tree had dropped her chest armor from 36% to 12%. One more hit like that and she might be put out of commission…

“Crap, that’s not any good…” She grumbled, using the axe and the tree she had crashed into to help push herself up off the ground and face her enemy; finding him just nearly finishing the process of wiping all the mud off his visor so he could see to fight.

Vinyl saw a chance, a small one, but the only chance she might get before that monster landed another good hit and killed her.

She had to get to him and take out his knees before he finished wiping his visor to see.

Without much of a second though, she went into a full on sprint, holding the axe in both hands and bringing it up at an angle so that she could bury it into his right knee.

A moment later she was close enough to swing and as planned, she swung the axe straight into Big Mac’s knee, the combined force of her swing and the momentum of her speed sent the axe through the armor plating and through what she could only assume was the main skeleton of the robot, before she yanked it out and did a knee-slide through the mud.

Without giving Big Mac enough time to even respond with anything but a cry of shock, Vinyl dug in and slowed herself down enough that she could run straight back at her enemy from behind, using the momentum to help bringing the axe straight into her foes kneecap with gruesome accuracy.

The massive, red heavy class could do nothing but collapse to the ground, barely able to hold himself up with the one arm he had left as his other knee was rendered useless.

Vinyl ripped the axe out with a satisfied grunt, stepping back and looking at the struggling form of her crippled foe for a moment.

Big Mac let out frustrated grunts as he struggled to make his legs move how he wanted, but he couldn’t. His right leg was basically severed internally, and his left leg he could only make twitch and spark, smoke coughed from his stumped arm, the wound on his stomach and both his legs.

This was his end, and both he and Vinyl knew that full well.

With silent determination, Vinyl brought the axe into Big Mac’s hip and used it to help pull herself up onto his back, digging her clawed feet into his hull to help herself up.

She promptly ripped the axe out and propped it against her shoulder as she stepped forward and dug her clawed feet into his shoulders, using them to stabilize herself as he squirmed futilely.

“Die…” She growled, taking the axe in both mechanical hands and raising it above her head, then in one swift, precise motion, she brought it straight down into his back.

The furious roars of murderous passion that left Vinyl’s lips were unlike any she had uttered before, her ferocity unmatched by any battle in the past as she brought the axe down into the armored upper back of Big Mac’s back, chopping through the armor more and more with each swing.

Swing after swing she dealt, smoke and sparks had begun spewing from the wounds and one of the wounds had been made big enough that a fire now burned hot and bright. The massive robot let out a weak groan and collapsed to the ground, just as Vinyl brought the axe down one final time.

Ending the life, of the final member of Red Team.

The words ‘BigApple was eradicated by VinylScratch’ appeared in the HUD of every member of Blue Team.

She stood there for a moment, standing amidst the smoke and fire that billowed up around her as she stood atop the corpse of the behemoth she had felled, in the pouring rain and the wind of the rainstorm, in the middle of a pine forest in the center of the city.
Vinyl Scratch stood victorious.

She turned to face her teammates, finding them all staring, slack-jawed; from behind their visors, as what they had just witnessed.
Silently, Vinyl took her axe in one hand and raised it towards the sky just as a bolt of lightning shot through the sky behind her in a manner that was nothing if not theatric.

And they all erupted into victorious cries of joy, as the winning team of the game was announced.

-------Final Standings-------

Blue Team.

"VinylScratch." Level 4. Warrior-Class ( Kills: 5. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: )

"10Secondsflat" Level 14. Rainbow Dash. Racer-Class. (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0. Killed by: 'HonestApple')

"Butterflybutt" Level 8 Fluttershy. Warrior-Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'BigApple' )

"Sp33dysoarin" Level 7. Soarin. Racer-Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'DesertApple')

"TheStache" Level 11. Button Mash. Heavy-Class (Kills: 3. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By )

"Crusader 1" Level 5 Applebloom. Racer-class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 2. Killed By )

"Crusader 2" Level 5 Sweetie Belle. Racer-Class (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 1. Killed By )

"Crusader 3" Level 5 Scootaloo. Racer-Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 1. Killed By )

"FlitterFly" Level 5. Flitter. Warrior Class (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0 Killed By: 'Oranges>Apples' )

"IChaseClouds" Level 6. CloudChaser. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Assist Kills: 0 Killed By: 'HonestApple' )

RED TEAM

"CarrotFarmer" Level 8. Carrot Top. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed by: "VinylScratch")

"HonestApple" Level 12. Applejack. Warrior Class. (Kills: 2. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'Vinyl Scratch')

"BigApple" Level 8. Big Mac. Heavy Class. (Kills: 1. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'VinylScratch')

"Desert Apple" Level 9. Braeburn. Warrior Class. (Kills: 1. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: "VinylScratch")

"GrannyApple" Level 8. Granny Smith. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed by: "TheStache")

"AppleSaucy" Level 6. Aunt Applesauce. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'TheStache' )

"GoldieApple" Level 6. Goldie Apple. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'VinylScratch' )

"PeachyPone" Level 5. Peachy Sweet. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'Crusader1, Crusader2)

"LavenderApple" Level 3. Lavender Fritter. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'TheStache')

"Oranges>Apples" Level 8. Uncle Orange. Warrior Class. (Kills: 1. Assist Kills: 0. Killed By: 'Crusader1, Crusader3' )

Blue Team Wins![b/]

Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 1)

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Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 1)

Once again, Vinyl found herself plummeting through the sky; earthbound. Wind whipped around the outside of her mechanical shell like ghostly screams from souls long tormented, it was almost deafening. She had done this so many times now that it wasn’t really all that frightening. She had stopped counting how many times she had dropped into combat, how many times she had charged forth into the enemy with rifle raised and cries of war.

Though she hadn’t ever gotten over the rush of it, the adrenaline it sent soaring through your body as you plummeted downwards towards the ground. She had about fifteen seconds before she and her teammates hit the ground, so she took time to check all of her gear and equipment as they materialized in her mechanical hands and on her body.

She was a level ten now, and had upgraded and unlocked a fair amount of neat gear. Her Assault Rifle sported many upgrades. It bore an extended clip and red-dot sight. As for her armor and equipment, she had a pistol, grenades, even a combat tomahawk. Her outer shell was still painted white with blue accents around her visor, and on her forearms and shins, but her armor plating was more angled and sharp-looking than the default option; it had been one of the first armor-styles she had unlocked and she had quickly become fond of it.

The ground suddenly came into view, and the map along with it. This was a new map; the area looked frozen and cold, resembling a giant, icy city in the middle of the arctic plains. It was a giant square. Old, frosty-looking buildings and factories sat around the outskirts, and in the middle of it all was a towering power-plant that spewed smoke into the sky like some giant metal dragon. The game was Hardcore Big Brawl, 10v10, one life, wipe out the entire enemy team to win.

Seconds later, Vinyl hit the ground. The legs of her massive mechanical marvel bent and absorbed the shock, then quickly extended back upwards and allowed her full control of the machine. As the clouds of fresh snow flew up around her, Vinyl took a deep breath. The air was chilly, though not entirely unpleasant; it whipped against her hull in short, strong bursts of snow and sleet. She had landed in a field covered with snow and sparsely populated with massive pine trees. She stood in the middle of an icy road that lead into the city only about a hundred yards away.

“Right…” Vinyl said softly, raising her rifle up and cocking it. The weapon made a satisfying, metallic ‘Click-Click’. “Are we sticking together, or…?”

As she turned around, Vinyl found that well over half of their team had already begun making their way off into the city. She didn’t bother catching their names or trying to wave them down, they’d do what they wanted to do anyway. She had learned that usually it took repetitive destruction before ponies understood that sticking with their team was the most life-preserving solution.

There were three ponies that remained in the spawn-area, though. Two Warrior-Class and one Heavy Class.

The Heavy Class was painted a soft brown color, and had tan accents on its shoulders, back and legs. The giant robot carried a massive machine gun with a heavy ammo bag slapped onto the bottom. In addition, a massive hammer appeared to be strapped onto the robot’s back. On its back shoulders, was a painted image of a hammer crossed over a thunder bolt, The name “MjOWNa” hovered above the metal behemoth in burning letters, accompanied by the level indicator of ‘12’.

She could only see one Warrior-Class clearly, and the one she did see was painted a crème color with blonde accenting on the shoulders, forearms, lower legs and around the visor; which had an image of a steaming coffee cup painted on each side. It carried a long, sleek, Marksman Rifle in its metal hands, and the name “MarchyMarch” hovered over it in burning letters, accompanied by a level indicator of ‘18’

They certainly weren’t noobs. Vinyl figured that her best bet was to throw in with these guys, they probably knew each other and she didn’t mind playing the role of an order-taking soldier. She rested her rifle on her shoulder and clunked over to the group. They were chatting softly, probably making battle plans, which was good. Organized teams were good teams.

“Hey, you guys?” Vinyl called, sauntering casually over beside them.

“MjOWNa” and “MarchyMarch” both turned to face her, and in the process revealed the third member of their group. Who it had turned out to be couldn’t have surprised Vinyl more. She knew exactly who it was the minute she saw that username.

“StarSwirlFanGirl”, A.K.A, Twilight Sparkle, stood across from Vinyl. Her armor itself hadn’t changed too much; it still held that same purple-hued coloring with the very same chest markings. Though, this time she carried a much larger rifle and was now level 21.

Vinyl stopped in her tracks. A small grin grew across her face, and she cocked her hips to one side and rested a hand on them. “Hey...I know you.” She crooned, snickering softly to herself as she took two more steps and closed the distance between herself and the group.

“You two know one another?” ‘MarchyMarch’ said curiously, swinging her rifle around and resting it on her shoulder; like Vinyl.

Twilight took a brief moment to give Vinyl a good look, it didn’t take long before it all came flooding back to her. It was obvious that it all came flooding back, as evident by the “Oh.” That soon left her mouth in a mixture of surprise and humiliation.

Vinyl laughed, shaking her head a bit. “Not really. The Princess and I met a long time ago, in battle. I seem to remember nailing her to a wall with a stoplight…”

Twilight snorted, clawed feet scratching at the frosty pavement. “Right. Yes. I remember you. You fought…well.” By the end of her words, Twilight seemed to have shoved aside and buried any sort of remorse towards the DJ, at least for the moment. “And, you can just call me Twilight, please.” She said with a meek smile.

“Right then, Twilight. I assume you three know one another and have some sort of a plan?” Vinyl inquired, turning slowly to look out at the dusty city in the distance.
“Actually, yes we do, and yes we do.” Twilight said, “The big one is Mjolna, and the other is March, March Gustysnows!” As she spoke, Twilight had pushed her way up beside Vinyl and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And I know you already know who I am…” She said cheerily, though not without giving a strong squeeze that knocked Vinyl’s shoulder armor down to 99%.

Vinyl flinched a bit and pulled out of the grip, turning back and looking at the other two mares. “Gustysnows…aren’t you a politician out of Whinnyappolis?” She asked, giving March a curious glance.

“Ah, I just so happen to be her!” March said happily, stepping forth and extending a mechanical hand. “Pleasure to meet ya!”

Vinyl nodded and gave a half-grin, shaking March’s hand and giving Mjolna a nod, before turning back to Twilight; who was staring out at the city in the distance. “A plan, you said?” She asked.

“Yes. A plan. We need to get somewhere up high, but not in the center of the map. It’s too obvious…” She paused for a moment, placing a clawed, mechanical hand on her hip. “That building, there.” She said, raising up her hand and pointing out to a tall building on the left of the map. “We get there and set up shop atop it. If nothing else, it’ll give us the high-ground.”

“Yeah, but it’ll also put us in a really exposed position…” Vinyl suggested, clunking up beside Twilight. The DJ gave her a brief glance through the visor-plate, before looking back out upon the city. “Easy targets, and easy to sneak up on.”

“True.” Mjolna interjected, “But if March and I watch the perimeter around the building while you and Twilight get up there and scout the area, we could eliminate at least some of the danger, and we wouldn’t have to go into this completely blind.

There was a distant explosion just then, followed by multiple bursts of gunfire from various weapons.

“No more talking, let’s get going, yeah?” March said quickly, clunking forward and pushing past Vinyl and Twilight. “I don’t wanna miss the fun!”

Vinyl nodded and turned to Twilight once more, giving her a pat on the armored shoulder. “Well, looks like you get the pleasure of my company atop the building; aren’t you just blessed!”

“Oh, I’m just bursting with enthusiasm…” Twilight said with a sigh, slumping a bit before clunking off through the snow and after her teammates.

Vinyl snickered softly to herself, shouldering her rifle and aiming it low as she moved off after the group.

As they moved into the city, the four of them moved surprisingly stealthily even with a Heavy Class. They had all done this plenty of times; it was evident in their movement. The group had fanned out across the street, one of them always checking behind so as to avoid an ambush. The rooftops were checked frequently, mostly by Vinyl. She had been dropped down on from the roof of many a tall building; she didn’t intend to let it happen here.

Snow whipped against her metal form as they moved, and frost had begun to form around the edge of her visor plate. She couldn’t feel the cold though. Her cockpit was warm and pleasant, the hum of a built-in heating/cooling unit was a constant, though not annoying. Her clawed feet did well to break through any sheets of ice on the street and prevent her from slipping, so that wasn’t much of an issue. The temperature gauge on her HUD said it was a chilly ten degrees outside, and warned of an oncoming snowstorm that would be upon them within the hour.
Vinyl kept her rifle low, but ready. She scanned the buildings on either side of their group. Ice-covered skyscrapers stood tall and proud, mixed in with shorter buildings that looked like they held some sort of purpose for science or research, though of what she wasn’t sure. The sound of gunfire in the distance was sporadic. It would occasionally pop up for a little while, and then die off. So far one player had been eliminated; One “Junebug01”, from Vinyl’s own team. Though all of said carnage had come from the other side of them map.

This wasn’t uncommon, for the majority of both teams to gravitate to one side of the map. Either they would both go to the same side and hunt one another down, or each go to one side and eventually one team would circle around onto the other, but of course there was always the times when everyone just ran out on their own and it was a complete mess, Vinyl had experienced so many different ways these things could play out, and she was confident there would be countless more.

Luckily for her, it seemed to be going some way that kept the enemy out of their way for the time being, not that she had any issues with head-on combat of course; It was just nice to do a little bit more as far as tactics were concerned.

“This building, up here on the right.” Twilight’s voice suddenly broke the vocal silence that had carried on for the past five minutes.

Vinyl turned her gaze and watched as Twilight waved over in the direction of the skyscraper they had originally picked out. It was only half a block away now, and the whole group broke into a short but quick jog to close the distance between them and their destination. Once they arrived, Twilight began to give orders like a regular military general.

“Right then, March and Mjolna, set up down here, but stay out of sight. Patch Vinyl and I into a group comms channel, if you run into trouble, well…start shooting. We’ll get down here as fast as we can.” Twilight said with a shrug, watching her two friends nod and move off to either corner of the building.

“Vinyl, I hope you can climb…” Twilight said uncertainly, giving the DJ a sort of ‘This’ll be interesting’ type of look.

Vinyl scoffed, swinging her rifle around and clipping it to the magnetic plates on her back. She stepped up to the building with heavy, mechanical clunks. The walls were mostly concrete and stone, with long glass windows here and there. Ice and frost coated almost the entire surface; it certainly wouldn’t be helpful.

“Yeah…I uh…I’ve got this.” She said, chuckling sheepishly to herself and giving Twilight a less-than-confident look, before leaning back a bit and gazing up at the top of the skyscraper. It was easily eighty stories to the top, and it was a long, long drop if you fell even halfway.

Vinyl reached out and gripped firmly onto the side of the building as high up as she could; her claws broke through the glass and dug into the more firm, stable structure of the building. It held her weight easily, now it was just a matter of keeping a good hold. She flashed a quick glance over at Twilight; who was quickly scaling the front of the building in a manner much quicker than she. This seemed to spur Vinyl on a bit, and upwards she went.

The climb wasn’t all that long; she was up at the top of the building in the space of about four minutes. Though it was nothing if not an event, at these heights the wind was stronger and more intimidating. At one point Vinyl had slipped just slightly, and let a strong gust of wind catch her just right; both her feet had been swept loose from their grips as a result of both her own movements and said wind. She hadn’t been too interested in doing that again.

The top of the building was almost like a gift from the gods themselves. Vinyl scrambled up atop the roof and rolled over onto her stomach. She breathed heavily, more out of relief than physical exhaustion. Her heart was racing, and she trembled ever so slightly. It didn’t matter how many times she had played this game, she had never dealt with climbing large buildings very well. She wasn’t too fond of the realism the game used when it came to the heights, not at all.

“Are you finished?” Twilight deadpanned from across the roof.

“Hey. That’s pretty scary, alright? Video game or otherwise, It’s not every day you free-climb nine hundred feet up in the air.” Vinyl said breathily, crawling a small distance from the edge and pushing herself upright. She took a deep breath, placing a hoof on her chest and keeling over a bit, trying to slow her frantically-beating heart down; the robot mimicked her every move of course.

After taking a moment to recompose herself, Vinyl turned and looked over at where Twilight was laying. She was near the edge of the building, on her stomach. She looked intently down the scope of her rifle at something far off in the distance, and a thin layer of snow and frost had already begun to grow over her now motionless back.

“Come take a look at this.” Twilight said softly, raising an arm and motioning for Vinyl to come over.

Vinyl raised an eyebrow and slowly made her way over, shying away from the edge of the building a bit and then laying down next to Twilight, propping herself up on her elbows. “Uh, I don’t have a sniper rifle, so…”

On queue and without looking away from her rifle, Twilight reached down to her thigh and tapped a finger against it. A compartment opened up and pushed out what appeared to be a large, intricate magnifying glass. She gripped it and held it out to her side, setting it beside Vinyl before returning her hand to her rifle.

“On your…11 o’clock, between the twin, short buildings.” Twilight said softly.

Vinyl flashed a curious look as she collected the scope. She brought it up to her visor and turned her head up a bit to look through it. This wasn’t difficult, of course, due to how the cockpit wrapped around the tip of the body just slightly, but looking through it just like this wasn’t going to exactly be easy. Just as she began to wonder why the ponies who had built this game hadn’t given all the robots heads, a large square on her visor flickered to life and showed the world through the very scope she now held.

“Convenient.” She said to herself, slowly moving the scope around in the direction she had been told. It took her a few seconds, but eventually she did spot some distant movement through the scope.

“I see movement…but, it’s still far off. How do I zoom?” She asked curiously, pulling the scope away and causing the image in her HUD to disappear.

“There’s buttons on the top. The red one turns on infrared and the little dial zooms you in and out.” Twilight said with a soft sigh, annoyance lacing her otherwise calm and concentrated tone.

“Alright, alright…jeeze.” Vinyl grumbled, looking at the top of the scope and fiddling with the buttons before bringing it back up to her visor. As the image flashed on screen, and she brought the scope back around to its previous location and zoomed in, she found it now much easier to see what was going on.

In the distance, easily over a mile off, there were three…no, four different robots; Two of them on each side of the street. The two closer robots were Warrior and Racer class, she couldn’t make out their details or colors because of the infrared on the scope, but these two particular robots flashed with a blue friendly-tag when viewed through this scope.

The other two robots, however, flashed with red tags. They seemed to be making a great deal of trouble for the two robots on Vinyl’s team. They were both Heavy-Class and bore heavy, loud machine guns; their thunderous pounding was faint, but audible even at this distance. The two heavy classes moved forward slowly, firing constantly at the poor ponies on the other end. Just as Vinyl had begun to wonder why they weren’t falling back, she caught sight of two more enemy robots, another Heavy class and a Warrior class. They closed in from the sides, moving from cover to cover and closing in on their enemies.

Things weren’t looking good for their friends.

“You gonna take a shot?” Vinyl asked, somewhat surprised Twilight hadn’t already done so.

“Soon. I wanted to wait and see what was keeping our friends there. It wouldn’t have done me any good to shoot at one of the two Heavy-Classes in the middle of the street now would it have? Even with this gun it won’t take them down, not in one shot. I’ll take out that Warrior-Class, give them an escape route.”

As she spoke, Twilight had shifted just slightly to get a better angle on the robot that was moving down the street over a mile away. Now that they were staying still, Vinyl had a chance to get a good look at the rifle Twilight held.

It was currently the most powerful sniper rifle a Warrior Class could attain. The BAARR, or “Bolt Action Anti Robot Rifle”. A major step-up from the rifle she had carried last time; bigger, stronger, louder. The body was all black, sleek, not overly blocky or square. Everything was rounded, curved, and shiny. It was one hell of a weapon.

“You know, Vinyl, a bullet from this gun moves at 1500 feet per second …” Twilight mused softly as she began to line up her shot. “The speed of sound is exactly 1,126 feet per second. At this distance, with this caliber, it would take roughly 5.28 seconds for this bullet to travel and hit its target. The target would feel it before they heard it.” Her voice was calm, collected. It seemed to compliment the cool, frigid air that slithered past their metal bodies. The sight of this giant robot, covered in a thin layer of snow with a backdrop of an entire city…well, it looked like something out of a movie poster.

“Why are you telling me this?” Vinyl asked, flashing Twilight a curious gaze.

Twilight chuckled briefly, flicking the safety off of her rifle with a faint ‘Click.’ “So that you can be impressed when I make this shot.”

Seconds later a noise that could only be described as ‘Like thunder’ filled the air, a noticeable shockwave blasted past Vinyl and kicked up the snow around both her and Twilight into a white cloud. Though Vinyl didn’t pay attention to it, she was too eager to see what would happen to the warrior class on the other end.

Twilight had waited until the robot had been standing still and firing. Moments later, Vinyl watched as the massive round impacted on the enemy robot with enough force could heard it from here. The bullet slammed directly into the Warrior-Class’s chest. Fire and flame exploded out from gaping hole that was torn through his visor, as he was thrown backwards. Bits of metal and armor flew out from either side of the robot’s body just before he hit the ground, and moved no more.

The words “StarSwirlFanGirl obliterated ShootingStar99” Flashed across the HUD’s of each and every player.

“Yes!” Twilight let out a small, triumphant laugh. She sounded more than pleased; as she should have been, that had been one hell of a shot.

Vinyl watched as the two friendly robots looked over at where an attacker had once been standing in what could have been shock, before beginning to quickly move in that direction and try to make an escape.

“Nice.” Vinyl said with a grin.

“Thanks! I pride myself on shots like this. The math that has to come into effect when you take a shot, the bullet speed, the distance, the rotation of the planet, the wind-“

“Alright alright, I get it, you’re smart and all. How about you try taking a shot at one of those Heavy’s, yeah?” Vinyl said with a chuckle, scoping in on the Heavies who had been in the middle of the street. She could swear they looked familiar…crème with red accents. She just couldn’t place where she had seen them before.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess I can take another shot…” Twilight said; excitement lacing her voice as she chambered another massive round into her rifle.

The two Red-crème Heavy-Classes in the distance seemed visibly annoyed at this point; they had begun charging down the street, to the T-Intersection they had previously pinned their enemies down into. Though, upon converging with the third Heavy-Class, they all looked at one another and then down the street. At the sight of the smoking corpse of their comrade, they panicked and began moving as quickly as they possibly could to whatever cover they would fit in.

The only issue was that there wasn’t really any solid cover they could get into, not fast enough to avoid another round from Twilight. She had led her target, anticipated where he would be moving. As another round was hurled forth, it took a solid five seconds before it struck right into the lower arm of one of the red-crème Heavy-Class robots. The arm ripped to shreds and exploded at the elbow, knocking the robot over into its twin and sending them both down onto the street.

“Gah, he moved!” Twilight spat, quickly chambering another round and taking aim once more.

There was a sudden static in Vinyl’s ear, like radio. It startled her slightly, she hadn’t ever heard it before, not so close to her in the cockpit. It took a brief second for her to realize it was the Communication System that her teammates had added her to. This was new but, certainly handy.

“Twilight, Vinyl, This is Mjolna, Is that you guys shooting?” Mjolna’s voice crackled over the radio, only slightly staticky.
Vinyl turned her head slightly, towards the direction of Mjolna’s voice in her cockpit and a little red light flashed on; she guessed it signaled she could talk.

“Uh, this is Vinyl…?” She said curiously, wondering if she had actually gotten lucky and made it work for her on the first try.

There was a brief static crackle, and then Mjolna’s voice popped up once more. “Uh, go ahead, Vinyl.”

“Yeah, that is us shooting. Twilight knocked out a bad guy and wounded another, so, it’s going pretty swell up here. You guys doing good?” Vinyl said, squinting as she turned back and gazed through her scope again, just as Twilight took another shot; missing by only a hairs breadth.

“Uh…Yeah, things are kind of boring down here. To be honest I knew it was you guys shooting because of the kill message in my HUD, I was just wanting to…I dunno, check in I guess.” Mjolna said with a sigh.

“Yeah, we’re good, glad you’re having fun on guard duty. There were four guys across the map, Twilight wasted a Warrior-Class, and is currently making the lives of three Heavy-Classes rather unpleasant, so…” Vinyl said with a soft chuckle, wincing a bit as another round exploded through the air.

Mjolna popped up on the radio again just as the round exploded into the back of the already-wounded Heavy-Class, but didn’t quite kill him. His twin friend was trying to help him out of the line of fire and into cover, while the third heavy had been trying to figure out where the fire was coming from.

“Yeah…well, try and take some of those Heavies down…three of them is going to be a bit of an issue, especially if we have to fight them at once, so…I mean I’m good but…” Mjolna chuckled softly as she spoke.
“Yeah, I concur. Three is three too many.” March chimed in, causing a small crackle as her radio connected.

“Alright well, I guess I’ll keep you all…posted, uh…I need to go.”

With that, Vinyl shut off her radio and zoomed her scope in on the third heavy-class in the distance. She could just make out the details, but the Heavy was mostly grey with tan accents, and it bore splotches of red here and there that almost looked like blood. Though what was more disconcerting was the massive, rectangular device it was currently unhooking from its back. Vinyl watched as the Heavy quickly slammed the box down onto the ground. Legs sprouted out from each side and dug into the pavement, metal shifted and moved to reveal a massive, thick cannon.

“Twilight, what’s the one on the left doing?” Vinyl called worriedly, looking over at The Princess as she reloaded her rifle, and the scoped back in; just as a distant ‘Thump’ was heard.

Twilight was silent for a moment as she sighted in. She audibly gasped, “What? No! You aren’t supposed to have that until like…level 28!” She spat, chambering a round into her rifle and loosing a quick shot.

Vinyl watched through her scope once more, watching the bullet explode into the building behind the operator of the strange device. He was already packing it up, and shoving it back onto his back.

The realization of what had happened when she looked away, hit her almost as hard as what then hit the side of the building atop which they sat. Vinyl let out a loud yelp as the entire skyscraper shuddered and shook. Her heart leapt to her throat as the explosion filled the air louder than anything she had ever heard, it was near-deafening.

The building continued to shake violently, until Vinyl could notice a very obvious slant in the part of the roof upon which they now laid. She flashed Twilight a fearful look, the realization of what was happening right at that moment, and what it would end up leading to, hit her in full.

This building was coming down, and they were going to either jump or go with it.

“Move, now!” Twilight roared, her voice barely audible over the awful cracking and crunching noises made from the building far below.

Vinyl let out a worried groan and rolled over onto her back, quickly pushing herself onto her feet, and then nearly toppling backwards over the edge of the building as it convulsed violently. The ground beneath her mechanical feet shuddered and crackled, the thin layer of gravel that covered the roof began to roll backwards very slowly.

With another disconcerted whimper, Vinyl kicked it into gear and scrambled across the roof. It appeared to have split down the middle, so all she had to do for the moment was get to the stable-looking flat part upon which Twilight now stood. Though as Vinyl began to move over in that direction, the angle in which the roof was sitting at began to rapidly grow steeper and steeper, she quickly found herself scrambling on all fours over onto the edge of the break.

Twilight quickly moved over and grabbed her by a piece of armor plating on her shoulder, hauling her over onto the stable half of the building as the other side fell away onto the ground hundreds of feet below.

Vinyl collapsed onto the roof, once again finding herself breathing frantically. She rolled over onto her back, placing a clawed hand on her stomach and letting out a frustrated yell, and kicking her feet, rather like a pouting foal.

“Are you finished?” Twilight said softly; though she too sounded a bit startled.

“I am. So. Done. With heights.” Vinyl spat, pushing herself backwards and away from the edge of the building.

“Well, we got lucky…” Twilight mused, peeking over the edge of the building and down below.” It looks like that missile only knocked out half of the building, about halfway up. I guess this side is stable, though I wouldn’t recommend we stay-“

There was another, thunderous ‘Crack’ that shot through the air just then. It shook both Twilight and Vinyl to the core and sent chills into their hearts. Vinyl felt her heart leap into her throat and her stomach do backflips.

“You just had to open your big purple mouth, didn’t you?” Vinyl barked, slamming a fist on the gravel-covered roof beside her and quickly pushing herself upright just as another rumble shook the building, followed by another heavy ‘Crack!’

“We’re going to have to jump, or fall with the building.” Twilight said, sounding afraid of the very words she spoke.

“WHAT.” Vinyl spat in return, turning to Twilight and giving her a look of disbelief. “Do you seriously expect us to survive-“ Another loud cracking interrupted her, followed by the ground beneath their feet beginning to slowly tilt and slide downwards, it was beginning to collapse upon itself.

“Just…jump, try and catch onto one of the buildings across the street!” Twilight cried out, breaking into a sprint straight for the edge of the building.

Vinyl whined and followed after her. Snow whipped by her face, pattering against the super-reinforced glass like raindrops as she moved so fast. Her heart pounded in her chest, every single atom in her body screamed so wholly against her leaping off a building from over nine hundred feet in the air, but her body itself seemed to be acting of its own volition, a need to survive and make it out of this whole ordeal in as much of a whole piece as was possible.

“I don’t wanna do this!” She cried out, as she threw herself off the edge of the building with as much force as she could muster. She didn’t even know where Twilight was at that point, it didn’t really come to her as a current issue either. The building collapsed behind her almost as soon as she left it, and the DJ suddenly found herself; and her massive robot, plummeting downwards at a rate that she found extremely unpleasant. This was different than the drops into the game, those were controlled, and the robots were set beforehand to not take any sort of damage until the start of the game. It was a theatric to make it more fun when you started, the robot itself couldn’t actually take a drop from that height, especially not face first.

She was flying at an angle at least, so that was something. Even over her own terrified screaming she could put together a thought cohesive enough to try and reach out for the building across from her. Though her flight began to become less of an arc and more of a straight plummet down, and she the building was still just out of her reach.

The building she had leapt off, collided with the building she was trying to grab a hold of just then. Glass and chunks of concrete glittered and flew through the air above her, though they hadn’t reached down to her just yet.

Vinyl figured that at this rate, she had a matter of seconds before she hit the ground, and by some miracle that she dared not try and explain, she managed to come within grabbing distance of the building. Frantically, arms extended out to smash through the frosty glass windows. Her descent was brought to an unpleasant, jarring halt as she buried her metal, clawed hands through the glass and into the building. The rest of her body stopped moving downwards and swung around, slamming into the side of the building and shattering more than a little bit of glass.

Vinyl just sort of hung there for a moment, taking the briefest of moments to try and gather herself and recompose. She was still about five hundred feet in the air, and the whole ordeal with falling had all taken place in the space of about eight to ten seconds, though it had seemed a great deal longer.

Her brief moment of peace was made even briefer, upon the sound of many chunks of concrete and glass clattering and plinking onto her upper hull. Vinyl’s eyes went wide and she shot her gaze upwards, out the top of her cockpit.

“That’s not cool.” She deadpanned, glaring up at the rapidly-closing sight of the collapsing building, grinding its way down the side of the more-intact building to which Vinyl now clung. Though for long she could not stay attached, lest she be crushed by the oncoming danger, and so, much to her dismay, Vinyl released her grip of the building and began a more controlled plummet downwards. It was a terrifying, but easier-to-stomach drop. She would fall for a few seconds, and then grab hold of the building and slow herself, and then drop again and repeat. Though she could never stop for very long, for the sound of the crunching, grinding building, shattering glass and crumbling stone was ever present above her.

The eventual sight of the icy, snow-covered pavement beneath her was something that came as an ironically warm relief. Vinyl leapt from the side of the building, fell a few feet, and hit the ground with a ‘Clunk!’

“Ohthankgod.” The DJ breathed heavily, taking a very brief moment to steady herself, before giving a quick glance upwards and resuming her evasion of the incoming building-turned-robot-squasher.

She moved as fast as she could, even as debris rained down around her in massive clusters. Office chairs, desks, paper, entire windows, walls, appliances, all rained down from the building above and smashed down around her and onto her hull as if a tornado swept up an entire Office Supply store.

She came to a gradually slowing halt, as soon as she had cleared the immediate area upon which the building would fall. When it finally hit the ground, it shook the very earth and sent out enough of a force that it forced Vinyl to stumble back a few steps. Dust and debris flew up in massive, thick clouds, mixing with heavy smoke and snow to create a rather unique mixture of air. Vinyl coughed a bit, feeling some of the thick dust seep into her cockpit. She waved her mechanical hand to ward some of it off, just as the fans in her cockpit kicked in to vent the dust out.
The thick clouds of dust rose up into the air almost as high as the building had once been, creating a thick wall of zero-visibility between Vinyl’s position and the other side of the street. She stood there in awe for a minute, taking a heavy breath and placing her hands on her hips; deciding it was best to maybe give herself a moment to recompose.

She looked over at the comms unit in her cockpit, and cleared her throat. The unit lit up, glowing a faint red, and she began to speak. “This is Vinyl…uh, are any of you guys still alive after that, or…” There was nothing but static for a solid twenty seconds.

“Guys, are any of you alive?” She spoke once more, a bit more intent in her words this time.

The radio crackled to life suddenly, and Twilight’s voice came through clearly.

“Uh…yeah, I’m alright. I think we ended up on opposite ends of the building though. March, Mjolna, you guys okay?”

Radio silence for a few seconds, and then Mjolna’s voice came through the radio.

“Uh, I’m fine Twilight. Miss March here took a hit from some falling rebar though, her left arm is pretty much…well, it’s actually totally gone. Otherwise she’s fine.” Mjolna said, giving a sheepish chuckle.

“I’m fine. I can still shoot. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it one-handed.” March said assertively, voice now coming in over the radio.
Vinyl stepped back a bit, letting the three of them get their bearings for a moment as she drew her weapon and scanned the area before her; putting her back to the rubble behind her. She raised her weapon, making sure it was loaded and ready to go. Lucky for her, it hadn’t sustained any damages besides a few scratches here and there. The DJ turned her gaze as far down the road as she could, and held her breath for a moment.

Just then, as she looked far, far down the road, she saw a robot walk out into view. Vinyl let out a soft gasp and quickly scrambled forward and into the nearest alleyway, she scooted in and pressed her back against the wall. She was hiding between another skyscraper and a smaller, twenty-story office building with red-brick walls.

“Uh, Mjolna and March, which side of the building did you guys end up on?” She said quickly, a certain intensity about her voice. She hadn’t even really realized they had been talking to one another over comms up until that point, and had met up.

“Uh…we’re all together on the other side of the building, why?” Mjolna said curiously.

“Well, I’m not over there with you, and I currently have…” Vinyl paused for a moment, peeking out from her cover and down the street. “Two guys, Warrior-Class and Racer-Class...I’d say that unless there’s some other giant skyscraper that’s fallen onto the street, they’re headed for me, and will be here within a minute or so.”

“Can you handle it until we get there?” Twilight said, her voice followed by a brief bit of static.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just get here before the rest of their team does, I have a feeling this is going to turn into one hell of a warzone, pretty soon.”

“Got it.” Twilight replied, and then after a short pop, the radio went completely silent.

Vinyl peeked out of her cover once more. The Racer class and Warrior class weren’t really too stealthy, nor did they seem to have very much interest in being so. If nothing else it made it easier for her to get a good look at them.

The Warrior-Class was colored a light, sandy color, with dark brown accents on the shoulders, elbows, knees and around the visor. An image of three tennis balls was painted onto either side of his visor and onto the shoulders. Some sort of melee weapon was attached to his back, and in his hands he held what appeared to be an energy cannon. Above his head, the name ‘Ace’ floated in burning red letters, along with a level indicator of ‘13’

The Racer-Class beside this “Ace” character, was painted much more colorfully than its partner. The robot’s armor was primarily a light blue, with darker blue accents on the shoulders, forearms and shins, and a steel-tinted visor. Images of hourglasses were painted onto the shoulders and onto the stomach. In its hands were two small, but powerful-looking energy cannons, and it too had a weapon of unknown use or design across its back. The name ‘BrushyBrushy’ floated above its head in burning red letters, along with a level indicator of ‘13’.

Vinyl sighed softly, pressing her back against the wall once more and bringing her rifle up before her visor, giving it a quick look-over, making sure everything was in order. She could faintly hear them talking to one another now, one male, and one female. Vinyl poked her upper half out just enough to see them.

“I’m just saying, Minuette. If my toothbrush was shaped like a tennis racquet, well, I’d be brushing my teeth a lot more! Plus it would cover a lot more surface area too! And it would look like a tennis racquet!” Ace said, his voice strong and somewhat commanding, like he though highly of himself.

The Racer-Class, ‘BrushyBrushy’, now known as ‘Minuette’, gave a simple shrug in reply. “I mean I guess that’s true, but the engineering isn’t there yet. I mean if you wanna go that far, why not just make a toothbrush that you just put in your mouth and it fills the whole mouth and brushes each tooth individually….” Minuette’s voice was a bit smaller and certainly female, but just as confident and loud as Ace’s.

Ace shrugged. “Well, I still think it needs to happen.”

“I think you’re just too obsessed with Tennis, Ace.” Minuette retorted with a soft chuckle, shaking her head and sighing softly as they both stopped in the middle of the road, surveying the rubble before them.

Vinyl could see almost see them, even with her back pressed up against the wall of the building behind her. It wouldn’t be long before they saw her, she knew it full well. The DJ slowly raised her rifle, aiming it for Ace, the closer of the two. She figured that dealing with a Racer-Class wouldn’t be a difficult, so she would wound the bigger and more imposing of the two so as to make it easier on herself.

“I’m surprised that when Cratus brought this thing down, he didn’t get any kills…hard to believe anypony could survive that, especially if they were on top of the darn thing.” Ace mused, clunking up to a large chunk of concrete on the street and giving it a nudge with his foot.

Vinyl didn’t waste any more time, she pulled the trigger of her assault rifle and unleashed a hailstorm of lead onto her enemy. The weapon thumped and kicked rhythmically, spitting out smoking, empty brass shells at the DJ’s feet as she kept her fire focused on the center of mass.

Ace let out a surprised, frightened howl as the sheer kinetic force of the rounds stumbled him backwards. At such a close range, they tore into his armor with relative ease. Sparks flew with each hit as bullets tore into his hull. After about fifteen rounds, he couldn’t keep his balance and had fallen onto his back with a loud ‘Crash!’.

By now, Minuette; the Racer-Class, had leapt into action. She had figured out where the fire had come from and was lobbing orbs of bright, crackling blue energy towards Vinyl’s position. The DJ ducked out of the way, narrowly dodging the projectiles as they whizzed past and exploded into the wall above her head. She rolled out of cover, coming to a knee and raising her rifle, firing for the smaller robot.

Her target took a hit to the right shoulder that sent her weapon flying from her hand. Minuette yelped and boosted to the left with startling speed. She leapt and spun mid air, kicking and boosting off of the side of the building. Vinyl couldn’t do very much to evade in time, and the smaller robot grappled onto her shoulder, swung up over her head, and latched onto her back.

Vinyl; more than a little taken by surprised at this, desperately tried to reach around and grab at the pesky enemy on her back. The sound of an energy cannon charging up, came as an unpleasant surprise, and Vinyl suddenly found herself in a more desperate need to get rid of the robot on her back. She turned and ran for the nearest building as quickly as she could, hurling herself up against it and slamming against it.

There was a quick, annoyed growl. Minuette could be seen flying from atop Vinyl and through the air. She spun around, boosting a bit to get a bit more distance before landing on the pavement a few yards away. She raised her one remaining cannon and fired off a trio of energy-rounds at her foe.

Vinyl managed to dodge out of the way of all but one round; which caught her in the right shoulder, and caused her to stumble and fall onto her back. As her armored back slammed into the concrete, the sound of Minuette charging forth for another attack could be heard. Vinyl growled softly, quickly trying to right herself, only to be met with the sight of the blue-hued Racer-Class leaping up onto her chest; hands replaced with long, sharp blades.

“Think you’re slick, think you can out-battle Minuette! I’ve seen cavities that look nicer than you do!” She roared out.

Vinyl found herself both trying to process exactly how she had just been insulted, as well as trying to fend off the arm-blades of her foe as they were slashed and stabbed into her armor with startling speed; sending sparks out into the air like tiny fireflies. Vinyl swung an arm out and grasped firmly onto the Racer-Class’ arm; managing to halt at least one of the blades for the time being. Though it didn’t do her own arm much good, because Minuette began slashing and swinging at the arm clamped around her own.

Vinyl spat out a long string of rather colorful curses, and swung her other arm around and connected a heavy-metal fist with the lower abdomen of Minuette’s armored body. The plating dented in and crumpled, sending sparks flying out onto the sidewalk.

“I am getting…” Vinyl growled, digging her fingers into the crumpled plating. “Really tired!” She pulled hard, ripping the plating off along with some of the machine’s inner-workings. “Of you!” She brought the scrapped armor up and slammed it across Minuette’s head. The small robot let out a shriek and went tumbling over into the street beside Vinyl.

The DJ sighed heavily, rolling over onto her side and pushing herself up onto all fours, chuckling softly at the sight of Minuette trying to right herself and zip away. Vinyl swiped a hand out grabbed at the leg of her enemy, dragging her closer and pinning her to the ground.

“Ah! No! Let go of me!” Minuette shrieked.

“Good. Bye!” Vinyl roared, raising a fist up above her body, with the intention of flattening Minuette’s head between her hand and the road.

Though as it would turn out, her fist would never meet the intended target, Vinyl was dealt a sudden and powerful kick to the stomach that sent her over onto her back once more. She lay there; motionless for a moment, groaning softly and taking a brief note of her Armor Integrity Display over in the corner of her HUD. Her right shoulder was at 80%, various bits of her stomach and right arm hovered at around 68% and 72%, respectively. The situation was less than ideal; this little Racer-Class was proving to be more of an issue than expected.

Vinyl groaned softly as began to push herself upright, only to then be met with a strong claw to her chest. She let out a gasp and shot her gaze upwards, finding the enemy Warrior-Class; ‘Ace’, to now be looming over her. He dug his clawed feet into the armor of her chest, crumpling and denting it inwards as he raised his energy weapon and aimed it straight for her visor.

“Ha! Try picking on Minuette now, you talentless fool!” He barked out.

“Talentless my ass!” Vinyl roared in reply, bringing her mechanical fist hard into the side of his leg and sending sparks flying, but Ace stood firm. The cannon he held finished charging and the barrel began to slowly rotate and expand outwards. It would be a mere moment before a massive ball of blue energy blasted into her faceplate and killed her instantly. Though, just before the energy-orb would discharge into her body, a massive, thunderous ‘Crack!’ was heard. Ace’s body convulsed and flew backwards. His visor-plate smashed inwards as a massive hole was punched straight through it. Flame and smoke belched from each end of the hole, and his mechanical form went limp and fell hard onto its side, on the street beside Vinyl.

The words “StarSwirlFanGirl Eradicated Ace” popped up in Vinyl’s HUD, and she found herself letting out a sigh of relief.

“The little one, stop her!”

Twilight’s voice called out from behind where Vinyl now lie, and the sound of gunfire ensued, mingling with the frightened shrieks of Minuette as she scrambled off to wherever crazy blue robots scrambled when they were outnumbered and wounded.

Vinyl groaned softly, rolling over onto her side and pushing herself up onto her clawed feet. Sparks popped and flew from her badly-wounded stomach, and the DJ let out a pain-like wince. She briefly gazed up at where Twilight stood; on the corner of the street, before giving her stomach a better look.

The armor was all but removed. There were more gashes and holes than actual armor, and she could both feel and hear the inner workings of her robot grinding and snapping faintly as she moved ever so slightly. This wasn’t good at all. She wasn’t sure how these things really worked, but she was sure that smoke and sparks coughing from her stomach was a bad sign.

“You two! Go after her; don’t let that robot get back to her team!” Twilight’s voice cropped up over the gunfire, then said fire ceased, followed by the sound of Racer-Class boosting rapidly away.

Vinyl looked up to see Twilight slowly clunking up to her. She spotted two friendly Racer-Class jetting off into the distance, but couldn’t make out their details before they disappeared around a corner.

“You’re lucky we showed up when we did…” Twilight mused; throwing a glance at the DJ’s various injuries.

“Yeah, right.” Vinyl deadpanned taking a shaky step forward. Her machine rattled and clanked, and her right leg quivered violently. The blades had really done a number on her. “If you had shown up sooner maybe I wouldn’t look like swiss cheese…”

Twilight only shrugged. “You did say you could handle them, though…”

Vinyl shot The Princess a half-hearted glare, and limped slowly over to the building to her right; stooping over to pick up her rifle from the sidewalk.

“Well, regardless, you’re in luck. We picked up some teammates on the way over to get you, and one of them has a healing ray…” Twilight said softly, turning and waving over one of the robots that still stood over on the corner. “Hey! Felix guy, can you come patch up our teammate?”
The ‘Felix Guy’; named ‘LuckyHorseFelix’, turned at the sound of his name being called. He was a Warrior-Class. His armor was painted a dull grey all throughout; clean, black accents were worn on his shoulder-pads, elbows, knees and around his visor. An image of three, four-leafed clovers was painted onto either side of his visor. In his hands he held a healing-ray that gave off a faint blue glow; Beside his name, floated a level-indicator of ‘9’ above his head in burning blue letters.

“You look like you had a good time.” He said with a soft chuckle, taking a knee an aiming the healing ray towards Vinyl. The many tubes and devices on the outside of the device hummed to life and gave off a soft blue light, from the end of the barrel a long, snake-like tendril of blue energy shot forth. It latched onto Vinyl’s stomach; jarring her slightly, and soon the repairs began. The metal and armor that had been damaged was pushed outwards onto the ground, and the holes and damages were filled as the metal and armor rebuilt itself.

As she was healed, Vinyl turned her gaze past the teammate healing her. Mjolna and March stood on either end of the street; they were in the process of grabbing whatever they could find around them to make a sort of barrier. Trucks, carriages, even a large trolley were drug out into the street and pressed together to make a makeshift wall. They were boxing the group of them in?
Though she hadn’t realized it at first, Vinyl and her team were in a spot that was less than ideal. For all intents and purposes, if they were to be ambushed right then and there, they would be boxed in. The alleyways for the rest of this block just dead-ended, and the fallen building behind them cut off any hope of an easy, or viable escape from that route.

She sighed softly, looking up at the still-present, but fading pillar of dust, debris and smoke that rose up into the air from the massive pile of rubble in the street. Vinyl felt an uncomfortable chill run through her body just then. Those other two robots had obviously been sent to scout out what had happened, and if Minuette had gotten away…well; no doubt there would be trouble upon them soon.

As soon as Vinyl felt the last bit of armor on her shoulder snap back into place, she pulled away from the beam and turned to Twilight; who was set up with her back to the rubble, watching the road carefully. She was leaning up against a massive chunk of concrete twice as big as she was, and looking down the scope of her rifle.

“Twilight…” Vinyl said softly, rolling her shoulder a bit before placing her rifle onto her back. “We probably shouldn’t stay here…we’re boxed in, if they come down that road it could be trouble. “

“They most likely will!” Twilight said in a rather chipper tone. She lowered her rifle and looked over at Vinyl, “I mean, why wouldn’t they? Due to the lack of Kill-Notifications, I would say that the enemy Racer-Class escaped, and that right now the two Racers on our team that I sent after her are currently scrambling back to us as we speak; probably with the whole enemy team in tow.”

Vinyl simply blinked, taking a moment before speaking again. “So…why aren’t we moving?”

“Well, I have a plan!” Twilight exclaimed happily, waving a metal finger up in the air in exclamation. “You see, Vinyl. When we were coming around to you, not only did we find that Medic, and the two Racer-Class I sent after the enemy, but I also found two other ponies; A Heavy and a Warrior-Class.” Twilight paused, slowly lowering her extended arm until it was level with one of the office buildings about two blocks away. “You see, as we speak, they are scaling the buildings on the opposite sides of the street. Our enemy, though great in number, will come out into this road here in full force, expecting us to be boxed in, easy kills, or so they think!” Twilight made her way slowly over to Vinyl as she spoke, swinging her arm around and resting it on the DJ’s shoulder; leaning up against her as she swung her rifle up onto her shoulder.

“Then, the other two on the buildings will attack from above, swooping in atop our enemy when they least expect it and think that victory is assured! At which point we will all rally together for a good, final charge! Victory will be ours!” Twilight said confidently, letting out a long, happy ‘I’m very pleased with myself’ type of sigh.

“Right. Well…good plan, I think.” Vinyl said slowly. She couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at The Princesses’ demeanor, it was quite something to see the ever-pleasant, Princess of Friendship to be piloting a giant killer robot and making battle plans; but wasn’t that the point of the game, to bring out the fighter in the average pony?

Just then, there was a loud explosion, followed by bursts of gunfire. The noise came from about four blocks down. Smoke and fire billowed out from around the corner, into the street; creating one hell of a backdrop for the sight soon to come.

The two Racer-Classes that Twilight had mentioned prior burst from the smoke. One of them was painted a faded white, with dark-brown accents painted onto various bits of armor. Vinyl couldn’t see a weapon, but the robot bore the name “CameraClick” over its head, along with a level indicator of ‘4’. Behind this robot, was another Racer-Class, Level ‘7’; named ‘DoubleD’, this Racer-Class bore a white coloring like Vinyl, but with icy colored accents and an image of three snowflakes printed on the shoulders.

Though, it wasn’t these robots that really dominated this scene. It was what then came looming out of the smoke behind them that really stole the show. There were robots, a lot of them. Probably more than Vinyl had seen at one place since she had that run in with the crazy Apple-Farmer; however long ago that was.

Eight robots came clunking out of the smoke. Three Heavy-Class and five Warrior-Class. Vinyl didn’t even bother to try and take note of their names or ranks at that moment, though she did notice a trend of high-leveling among them.

“This’ll be fun…” She said with a soft grin, pulling her rifle from her back and clunking forward and hefting the weapon up into her shoulder. As Vinyl moved forward, she could hear Twilight moving up behind her, then proceeding to pass slowly by. Her HUD lit up in the bottom corner just then, flashing a faint red and displaying an image of the sudden, incoming snowstorm.

“Alright, everypony…” She called out, loud and commanding. “This is it! We make our final stand here!” Twilight struck a pose, angling her rifle up in one armored hand, and extending the other out towards their oncoming enemy. “Let’s show ‘em some good old Equestrian ass-kicking!”

Might not have been the best impromptu speech, nor the most appropriate one coming from someone of such royal status, but, hell, it would do. So as Vinyl took up a position beside her comrades, and raised her rifle up to fire…she already felt the excitement begin running through her veins. As she felt the snow begin to fall faster, and the winds begin to pick up and whip hard against her hull…Vinyl felt ready, she felt confident. She was going to come out of this on top, she was going to win!

Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 2)

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Vinyl VS 'The Clan' (Part 2)

The world around Vinyl was a continuous, cacophonous explosion of war and destruction. Bullets bit through the frigid air like angry bees, chunks of building exploded into dust, carriages and trolleys shuddered and convulsed as they took heavy metal rounds; the gunfire was constant. That, coupled with the snow and sleet that battered hard against the entire scene, it made everything that much more intense.

“Do not let them break this line!” Twilight roared; voice just barely audible over the gunfire and destruction. “Hold them for just a while longer!”

Vinyl flinched as a bullet grazed the armor on her shoulder, sidestepping before raising her rifle and firing down the street. The enemy team had charged in, guns blazing as expected; though their strength had been more than anticipated. It was like every member of the enemy team actually knew what they were doing for once. Usually there were only a handful of skilled players per game, but this entire team, the way the held their ground and attacked. It seemed almost too organized.

Two of the Heavy-Class robots on the enemy team had taken up positions up near the rear. They held their machine guns lowered at the hip, firing in the general direction of their enemy almost constantly. Vinyl had managed to figure out who the two striped individuals had been. It was Flim and Flam, from her first game; Funny how small this virtual world could be sometimes. The two of them were completely healed and showed no signs of Twilight’s rifle rounds. So it led her to assume that they had a medic holed up somewhere on the other side of the street, but as of yet she wasn’t sure exactly where.

In the past two minutes, as the enemy had drawn closer, Vinyl had noticed a trend in the enemy team that would possibly explain their efficiency. Not a single enemy was below level 12. They all were experienced, with good gear and seemed to be moving as if under orders to do so.

“Gah, dammit!” A voice cried out. Vinyl looked to her left, catching a brief glimpse of March taking a hard hit to the stomach. It blasted into the armor, sending smoke, flame and machine fluid spurting out of the wound. March clutched at the hole, body trembling a bit as she tried desperately to raise her rifle and return-fire, only to be forced onto her back by machine-gun fire.

Vinyl gritted her teeth, ducking behind the large pile of stacked vehicles and rubble that had been created, and moving her way over to March’s position; even as bullets and rubble rained down around her. She reached March and quickly grabbed her arm, pulling her down behind the junk-wall.

“Where are they, the guy who hit you?” Vinyl asked quickly, wincing a bit as an explosion on the other side of the barrier sent rubble and a trolley-wheel flying over her head.

“Agh…the left of the street, two blocks down, she’s…she’s got some sort of cannon, I’ve never seen anything like it, be careful!” March said sharply, wincing as her stomach popped and crackled. “Ah…damn, I’m leaking reactor fluid.”

“I need our medic, now!” Vinyl roared, turning and looking down the length of the barrier at their Medic; who was already on his way over. Satisfied, Vinyl took a moment to ready for herself. She would have only a precious few seconds to find and attack this cannon-wielding enemy, before she herself took a hit.

With a deep breath, she rose up from behind the barrier; bringing her rifle with her. Left side, two blocks down. Vinyl swung the rifle around to that general area, and found that her target wasn’t at all hard to find. In fact, her target wasn’t really even in cover. Out on the left side of the street, stood the most hefty-looking Warrior-Class robot she had ever seen.

The Warrior-Class was painted a pale, grayish pink, with dark purple accents on the forearms, shins and around the visor. The armor plating itself was bulkier than usual, more rounded and with more of a presence to it overall. There was a single image of a diamond ring painted onto each shoulder of the robot, though what was probably the most eye-grabbing out of everything about the mechanical beast, was the gigantic, pulsing cannon that sat in place of what would normally have been its right arm; Above the robot’s head, floated the words “MoneyMare” accompanied by a whopping level indicator of ‘30’.

Pushing her surprise at such a high-level aside, Vinyl took aim and fired. Heavy rounds thumped rhythmically as they were spouted out from the end of her weapon. They struck true, tearing into ‘Moneymare’s’ armor and causing her to stumble back. She roared in defiance, swiping a clawed, mechanical hand at the incoming stream of bullets and raising her cannon up to face Vinyl.

“Damn!” Vinyl cursed, just as the cannon was aimed at her, began to hum, and then unleashed a rumbling shot of energy straight for her. The DJ turned, diving to her left and away from the point of impact. The shot exploded onto the junk-barrier, and sent bits of concrete, vehicle and street all flying in various directions.

A new voice roared out over the battle, it sounded rather…well, unpleasant, harsh, commanding and unpleasantly uppity. “Kill them! Crush them all, I want victory within the next five minutes or someone is getting demoted!”

Vinyl raised an eyebrow as she started pushing herself back upright, taking a knee and peeking out from over the top of a truck that had been stacked atop a trolley and then squashed with a large chunk of concrete. The new voice was coming from the high-level, cannon-wielding robot.

‘MoneyMare’ had seemingly recovered from her various bullet wounds, and was back out at her post on the left side of the street, firing away. In fact, there weren’t any holes in her armor at all! It was like she hadn’t ever been hit!

At that moment, Vinyl couldn’t help but notice a slight dip in the amount of enemy gunfire. She peeked out over the top of her cover once more, and took inventory of the robots shooting at said barrier. The two Heavy-Class robots had moved up, more into the middle of the street. One of them was keeping their fire focused on wherever Twilight was, at all times. Vinyl guessed they had figured out what a threat she was and figured out that keeping her under wraps would be a good idea.

She could see Minuette popping in and out of cover, zipping around the street about a block away and either lobbing explosives or unleashing quick barrages of energy-shots downrange, but aside from her…there really weren’t very many of the enemy over on the other side of the street. Where had the rest of them gone off to?

Vinyl gasped softly as a Racer-Class beside her, one ‘CameraClick’, exploded from the chest up into a ball of flame. He had caught a cannon-round from ‘MoneyMare’ that had blown his chest and head to shreds. His body flew backwards against the pavement like some sad ragdoll, rolled a bit, and then lie motionless.

With the fear of being flanked even now, in her mind, Vinyl could do little more than hold the line until their reinforcements dropped from the roofs behind the enemy. She took aim, straight for Flam’s Heavy-Class. Rifle rounds thumped away and flew straight into his visor. They hit hard, the first few only plinking off, but then eventually beginning to form cracks in the super-strong glass.

Flam let out a displeased howl, swinging his machine gun around and leveling it with where Vinyl stood. The DJ let out a yelp as bullets began to tear her cover apart. Various bits of debris flew this way and that, but the mixture of concrete and trolleys managed to hold off the fire; for now at least.

She turned her gaze over to where Mjolna and March had taken up arms, the two of them ducked in and out of cover frantically, exchanging fire with Minuette and ‘MoneyMare’. It was hard for Mjolna, the Heavy-Class, to get in much in the way of returning fire though. If she stayed exposed for too long then she was met with a hail of fire from the majority of those down the street. Her armor was flayed and ripped in many places, smoke pouring from her right shoulder.

Poor March was better than she had been last time Vinyl saw her, but not by much. Their medic had managed to patch up her stomach, but she was still missing an arm, and now most of her shoulder on that same side.

Twilight was faring the best out of them all, she had managed to avoid taking too much fire, but only because she was constantly in cover. Their enemy had pushed her into one of the alleyways near their little wall, and the corner wall of the building she was using as cover had become almost non-existent. She called for covering fire, frantically so, but none could be given.

There were a few others, Their Medic and two Racer-Class. The medic could do little to help fight aside from his pistol, and the two Racer-Class were able to do even less. One of them, ‘DoubleD’ had taken a hit to the shoulder and his arm hung limp at his side.

Greater in number or not, they were in a bad spot, A very bad spot and it would only get worse if they were indeed being flanked like Vinyl thought.

There was a sudden commotion from the other side of the barrier, Vinyl returned her gaze back out over the top, watching in pure joy as soon as she laid eyes upon the scene. Currently in the process of smashing Flam’s face in, was a giant turquoise Heavy-Class. It had pure-white accents in more places than she could count, and the hands were painted a bright gold. An image of a harp was worn on each shoulder, and over the beast’s head were the words ‘HandsR4Real’, followed by a level indicator of 7. Accompanying this robot was a Warrior-Class. It was painted beige, with pink and navy-blue accents around the visor and on the shoulder-plates. Two images were painted onto this robot, on the shoulders were three pieces of candy, and on the visor was a stylized image of sunglasses. It carried twin SMG’s, and over it floated the words ‘SecretAgentHorse’, along with a level indicator of ‘11’.

‘HandsR4Real’ had grabbed Flam by the shoulder, broken his gun, and then proceeded to slam her fist hard enough into his visor-plate that it cracked outwards in all directions and sent him sprawling out onto the icy pavement. She turned, ducking beneath an oncoming swing from Flim and then grabbing him by the wrist as she did, twisting his arm around and lifting her thick, stumpy leg and pressing it on his hip. She pulled and twisted; hard enough that Flim’s arm popped and cracked.

Meanwhile, ‘SecretAgentHorse’ was charging for ‘MoneyMare’, unleashing all she had right into the side of the enemy robot. ‘MoneyMare’ shrieked and swung her cannon around. It cocked with a loud, threatening whirr and unleashed a massive shot of energy into the ground beside her attacker.

“Now! Charge, Go!” Twilight roared, stepping from her cover and sprinting out over their barricade and into the street.

The sound of Twilight’s rifle finally starting to fire once more, spurred Vinyl and her teammates to follow suit. As one, they leapt over their barricade and charged forth. Epic cries of confidence and war echoed throughout the city. As they ran, Vinyl was able to spot the source of ‘MoneyMare’s’ rapid healing. She had a medic; a pure white Warrior-Class robot crouched down in an alleyway beside her, constantly healing her whenever she took damage. The Warrior-Class had pink accents, and an image of a red cross was painted on either shoulder. The name ‘HealingHooves’ floated above her head, next to the level indicator of ‘12’.

An evil grin came across Vinyl’s face. She’d take care of this, no problem.

The DJ charged forth, unhindered. Her enemies were all too busy dealing with the robots that had dropped in on them from above, to notice her right away. Flim and Flam were locked in combat with ‘HandsR4Real’ and March. ‘MoneyMare’ was too busy trying to simultaneously dodge and return fire at Twilight and pretty much the entire enemy team. She was getting torn apart, but her medic was making sure wounds healed almost as fast as they were dealt.
Vinyl raised her rifle, taking aim right for the enemy medic. She fired, and connected instantly. ‘HealingHooves’ flinched and shuddered as she ate lead. She shrieked and fright, trying to simultaneously keep her healing ray active and on ‘MoneyMare’. This proved detrimental to her own health, more than was apparently worth staying and healing her friend for. ‘HealingHooves’ retreated farther into the alley as she took more hits.

“Gah! Redheart, what did I say about your job!” ‘MoneyMare’ roared, whipping around even as she took a shot to the shoulder. Her gaze came to rest upon Vinyl, and the evil, fiery glare could be felt even through both their visors and digital space.

Vinyl faltered a bit, scrambling to a halt and raising her rifle to fire. She managed to get off but a dozen rounds before ‘MoneyMare’ had swung her cannon around and taken a potshot; The energy orb whipped by Vinyl’s arm, singeing her weapon and causing her to recoil a bit. The DJ righted herself quickly, beginning to backpedal as ‘MoneyMare’ took another shot, and missed by only a few feet. The round exploded into the pavement and threw Vinyl backwards, onto the ground. She rolled, frantically scrambling to get around the corner of the nearest building and out of the line of fire. Maybe charging straight in hadn’t been the smartest idea she’d ever had.

‘MoneyMare’, luckily enough, had been forced to turn her attention onto March; who had taken advantage of her being distracted and gotten in some good; but fruitless, hits onto her stomach.

Vinyl spat out a colorful string of curses, leaning against the wall of an apartment building and checking her rifle. It was charred, blackened, and the end of the barrel was melted shut. The heat of the shot that grazed her weapon had completely ruined it. She growled, tossing it down onto the ground and reaching into a thigh compartment. Out of it, she pulled a monster of a handgun out; The P-Eagle, a large, energy-style pistol with 9-round clips. It was colored a shiny silver, and blue lines glowed over its surface. She brought it up before her, pulling back the slide and cocking the weapon just as March stumbled over next to her, and collapsed against the side of the building.

She didn’t look good at all. There was little to no armor on March’s left side. Her right leg was bent and barely functional. Her visor was fragmented and missing large chunks, and machine fluid and smoke coughed from many a hole in her armor. A small fire had sprouted up on her back, and burned hot through a hole in the armor. Her weapons were nowhere to be seen.

“Jeeze, March…” Vinyl said softly, grabbing her by what was left of her left shoulder and helping her stay upright.

“Yeah…Medic got blasted, so I’m in a bit of a bad spot…” She winced as sparks flew from her left side, and another fire started up. “My power cell’s gonna bleed out soon if we don’t get me some help…” She said grimly.

Just then, from above, a robot dropped. It fell right behind March, seemingly out of nowhere. Vinyl tried to warn her, to call out, or even to raise her gun and fire, but nothing could be done in time. She could only watch in horror as a large, glowing-red sword was driven directly through March’s back. It punched through armor with ease, melting and slicing directly into her visor. She screamed in shock, raising her one mechanical hand to grasp at the blade, as if doing so would save her in some way.

The blade was twisted, causing her body to shudder and go limp. As it was removed, she slumped down onto the ground with a heavy ‘Crash!’ and moved no more. The words. “MarchyMarch was eliminated by MasterDJNeon’ shone brightly in the top corner of her HUD, and once the body had fallen, Vinyl was able to get a clear image of an old nemesis.

Neon Lights stood over the body of March. His armor was still a dull grey as it had been last time, and with the same black accents. Though, this time the armor was more angled, sharper-looking. He clutched a short-sword in one hand, the blade steamed and radiated with heat. All around the edge it shone a bright, hot red. His level was now ‘12’.

“What’s up hot stuff?” He said with a cocky grin, swinging his sword around in his hand and brandishing it outwards at her.

Vinyl only growled in reply, fury coursed through her blood. She raised her weapon, aiming it directly for Neon. Though, he anticipated the obvious and predictable move. With a swipe of his sword he cut the gun clean in half, sending the larger end of the barrel flying off onto the street.

The DJ dropped the ruined weapon, stepping back and reaching around to draw her combat axe. She brandished the handle in front of her in one hand, pressing the button on the hilt and watching as the large axe unfolded in a seemingly impossible manner, from within its own handle. The blade radiated a bright red glow, and steamed visibly in the chilly weather.

“You don’t sound very pleased to see me!” Neon spat, bouncing a bit and stepping closer to Vinyl. He swung his sword around and then down upon her, a blow she easily parried with her axe. Sparks snapped and flew out from the point of contact like firecrackers. “I mean, last time we met you didn’t give me a chance to put up a fair fight!”

“I’m going to kill you just like last time too!” She hissed in reply, swinging her axe around at his side. “What’re you even doing here?”

Neon spun, parrying the swing and shoving Vinyl’s axe away easily. “I mean, look at this anyway!” He said with a laugh, stabbing for Vinyl’s head and then quickly bringing his fist up to slam into her visor as she put all her effort into parrying the attack. “I join this high-level clan that’s supposed to be the top of the cake!”

Vinyl yelped as she was hit, stumbling over into the side of a nearby building. Next thing she knew, Neon was on her, raising his sword up above his head to stab down into her shoulder. “And here we are, once again on the stage of war!”

The DJ, brought an arm up, grabbing Neon’s wrist as he brought the sword downwards. The tip of the blade melted into her armor, hissing and crackling as it melted through. Vinyl put all her might into shoving him back, causing her nemesis to stumble a bit and giving her time to lunge forth and take a vicious swing with her axe.

Neon laughed manically, swinging his sword down and parrying her swing. “Come on babe, you can do better than that!” He mocked, taking a stance ad twirling his blade around in one hand.

Vinyl raised her axe again, steadying herself and taking a split-second to glance at the battle out in the middle of the street. It wasn’t going well, for her team at least. She had looked at just the right time to see a new enemy Heavy-Class. It was the one whom had launched a missile at them earlier, ‘Krat0s’, level 28. He was currently squashing a white Racer-Class beneath his metal fist. Flim was in a smoking pile of shredded metal on the street; dead, but ‘HandsR4Real’ was now busy trying to fend off the enraged twin-brother Flam. Twilight was desperately struggling to dodge incoming shots from ‘MoneyMare’, and take shots at ‘Krat0s’, who had now turned his attention to her. Minuette was just flitting about causing hell for whoever she could find. This whole ‘Charge forth and win’ plan had gone to hell really fast.

After an extremely brief overview of the battle to her right, Vinyl kicked it into gear and charged forward. Her team may lose, she may be obliterated, but she’d be damned if she let Neon Lights be the one who took her out. She swung her axe down, hard. It slashed against Neon’s sword and sent more sparks flying out all around. Again she swung, upwards. This blow was less easily parried and ended up slashing a small gash across Neon’s armor and visor.

Neon winced, chuckling to himself as he stepped back and scratched a mechanical finger against the gash. “Come on, I know you like going deeper!” He said, the words oozing from his mouth.

“Creep!” Vinyl roared, taking her axe in both hands and charging again. She raised it above her head, swinging it down upon Neon. He sidestepped; spinning around and slashing his sword across her lower back.

Vinyl let out a pained cry, collapsing to her hands and knees on the pavement. She wouldn’t go out, not like this, not to him. Never to him. He’d gloat about it too much, use it against her and mock her at every turn both in-game and in the actual, physical world. Not that she cared, she just hated hearing the slimy little bastard run his mouth. The armor integrity across her back had dropped low, very low. It flashed bright red and showed a holding percentage of 65%; that hit hadn’t done her any favors.

The DJ tried to push herself up, only to receive a swift kick to the gut that would have forced her to vomit had it actually been physical. She keeled over onto her side, quickly finding herself met with Neon’s clawed foot dug into her chest; sword raised above his head. Vinyl snarled in defiance, swinging her axe around and hurling it directly for his visor.

The weapon struck true, and buried itself directly into the middle of his visor plate. Super-strong or not, a red-hot combat axe to the face was hard to repel. Neon cried out in shock, stumbling backwards and falling onto the ground. He dropped his sword, bringing both hands up to the axe and trying to pull it from his visor.
“Gah, son of a….Minuette!” He roared, rolling over onto his side and shakily trying to right himself. No doubt the axe shoved into his cockpit was making seeing his world clearly a problem.

Vinyl had just pushed herself up when he had called for help. The sound of a Racer-Class boosting up rapidly behind her pulled her attention. The DJ turned just in time to see Minuette; the little blue racer, leap forwards and grapple onto her front end.

“Gah, you!” Vinyl spat, swinging an arm around to swat the little robot away, only for said robot to boost up and around onto her back.

“As a dentist, I know the DRILL when it comes to cleaning up messes like you!” Minuette retorted, slipping forth an arm-blade from her forearm and jamming it down into her opponent’s back.

“No! No puns!” Vinyl spun around a bit, swiping and clawing desperately to try and remove the blue annoyance. The sight of her rear-armor being dropped lower and lower only made her movements more frantic. It didn’t take long for her to realize that swiping and spinning was not a viable plan, and she could already see Neon out of the corner of her eye, finally pulling the axe from his visor. She formulated a plan, quick, hopefully effective.

She stopped cold, bent her knees and then leapt backwards. Minuette hadn’t been expecting this and ended up coming down with her. The next sound that was heard was the unpleasant crunching of metal and armor. Vinyl quickly rolled onto her side, slamming a fist down onto Minuette’s chest as she tried to get up. The little blue robot coughed, weakly slashing out with her blade to no effect.

Vinyl wasted no time in finishing her off. “Try and make shitty puns without a head!” Vinyl growled; slamming her palm down onto the damaged robot’s head and gripping hard. Minuette shrieked and stabbed away, but it did nothing to save her. Vinyl pulled, hard. The Racer-Class convulsed and quivered, machine fluid and sparks spurted out onto the street, and with that, Minuette was no more.

Vinyl tossed the disembodied head to the side, not even bothering to look at the Kill-Notification on her HUD. She groaned a bit as she stood upright, hearing sparks pop and snap from her badly-damaged back. She would run just fine, just would have to be a bit more careful. Her armor integrity back there was down to like 38% in some areas. A few well placed shots and she’d be out for the count.

“Look at you, Vinyl….”

Vinyl snapped her gaze over to where Neon stood. He had removed the axe from his visor and now brandished both it and his own sword.

“You’ve lost! Your team is falling even as we speak…You’ve got one, two heavy classes left, and two warriors?” Neon let out an evil, manic cackle. “You can’t even hold a candle to what we’ve got, not even in numbers, in raw, unbridled talent…go ahead, take a look, watch your team fall…”

Vinyl took a step back, briefly flashing her gaze over back into the street behind her. He was right, it wasn’t looking good. Twilight had either run out of ammo or lost her weapon, and was currently firing with her sidearm at ‘MoneyMare’, who simply shrugged off the shots and paid them little mind as she put a round directly into ‘SecretAgentHorse’s’ chest and sent her flying through the air and into the side of a building.

‘HandsR4Real’ wasn’t exactly in good shape, ‘Krat0s’ was seeing to that. She just barely was able to block an incoming punch from one spike-tipped hand, only to receive another straight to the gut that crumpled her armor inwards something terrible.

Flim and Flam had died, but other than that they hadn’t taken much ground without losing some of their own as well. “Doesn’t mean I won’t tear you a new one.” She deadpanned, turning back to face Neon with gritted teeth. “You’ll die before they get to me…”

Neon let out another cackle, twirling both weapons in his hands. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Once I figured out you were on the enemy team, well…I told them to leave you to me if at all possible. I wanted the pleasure of driving a sword through your gut and having you fall to your knees before me, because, well, let’s be honest; we all know you want to.”

Vinyl’s gaze turned even colder than it already was. He would pay dearly for that mouth of his.

“Give me my axe then, we can fight it out like equines. Honor and all that.” Vinyl said with a grin, squaring up and readying herself for his attack. He wouldn’t give her the axe, she knew it full well. He would charge her, and she would be ready.

“You’d like that, huh?” He cocked his hips for a moment, tossing the axe up in the air and catching it once more. “Nah, I think I’ll keep it!” With that, he charged forth, straight for Vinyl.

She took a deep breath. She was severely outgunned, and badly wounded. If she could pull this off though, she’d be perfectly fine with losing this particular game. As Neon charged forth, Vinyl waited until the last possible second. He slashed downwards with both weapons, and she ducked down and hurled herself forward; straight into his chest.

Neon let out a ‘Hurk!’ of surprise, as if he had been winded. Vinyl wrapped her arms around his waist, putting everything she had into picking him up and using his own momentum to bring him up and over her own head. Neon hadn’t been anticipating this, and as hoped, went face-plate first into the pavement. She went down with him, of course, only onto her back. She had seen this move on TV, in wrestling. In all honesty, the DJ was completely surprised it had worked.

Vinyl quickly rolled over, grabbing Neon’s sword and ripping it from his loosened grip. She delivered a hard kick to his back, slamming his visor down into the pavement even harder with a sharp ‘Crack!’. She stumbled back a bit, brandishing his sword outwards and holding it with both hands. She waited until he tried to get up, and then swung it upwards like a golf club. The superheated blade sliced into his right shoulder and came clean out the other side.

Neon let out a pained scream and clutched at the wound, the mechanisms of his right arm almost completely severed at the shoulder; rendering it immobile and useless. He pushed himself up, scooping his opponent’s axe up off the pavement and making a blind, stupid charge straight for her.

Vinyl easily dodged the attack, spinning around beside him and viciously jabbing the blade she held, outwards. It sliced straight into his back, through the armor, machinery and plating, eventually protruding from the other side and out of his chest.

“N-no!” He cried weakly, helpless to do anything but cry out as Vinyl stepped up behind him and grabbed his shoulder tightly.

She kicked hard at the back of his leg, causing Neon to collapse to his knees. As he went down, her blade pulled up. It sliced and melted through everything it touched, cutting Neon clean in half from the waist up. Fire and smoke coughed forth from his body, and the lifeless metal corpse collapsed onto its side in the middle of the icy road.

Vinyl, battle-worn and battered, clutching in her hand the very sword of her enemy; stood there for a moment even as snow whipped and swirled around her. It would have made one hell of a picture; if only someone had been there to take it. There she stood, over the burning, smoking corpse of her long-time enemy, it all looked rather epic.

“Now who’s kneeling, bitch?” Vinyl spat, kicking the burning corpse before turning back to the scene of battle.

As with the last few times she had seen the scene, it hadn’t been going particularly well for her team. Twilight was pinned down by constant fire from ‘MoneyMare’, and ‘HandsR4Real’ was getting the crap beat out of her by the intimidating Heavy-Class known as ‘Krat0s’. She seemed to have held her own this far though, so that was something.

There were only a few robots left. The battle was drawing to a close; soon the victor would be decided. Vinyl knew she could shift the tides in their favor, she just needed an opening. She stooped over Neon’s body, grabbing her axe and slipping it onto her back. Still clutching his sword, she stooped over and searched his lower half for a weapon. His cannon had been obliterated when she sliced him, so all she managed to recover was a handgun and a few clips. It was an impressive weapon; a Lockbuster revolver, she quickly attached it to her hip. The sudden sound of her enemy beginning to ramble again, pulled Vinyl’s attention.

“Yes, yes! You will die, die like all the rest! None shall stand up to my clan, none!” ‘MoneyMare’ let out a long, manic laugh, swinging her cannon around and extending it out towards a new target. It was ‘SecretAgentHorse’, she had pulled herself out of the building and was struggling to stand. Now, totally defenseless, she could only look on in horror as she was fired upon and sent hurling back against a building, dead. Vinyl watched in horror as ‘Krat0s’ drove his fist into ‘HandsR4Real’s’ stomach. Armor crumpled and bent, and the gigantic turquoise robot collapsed to her knees. Vinyl could hear her cries of defiance, she fought to the end, struggling and swinging away, but it did her little good. ‘Krat0s’ raised his arm, forming a shape with his hand that caused the entire limb to shift and re-form. The fingers turned around and curled in, pulling down within the inner arm and being replaced by what appeared to be a massive cannon, its hum was audible even from this distance.

“Vinyl!”

The DJ flinched a bit, whirling to her side and brandishing out her newly-claimed sword. She let out a soft sigh upon seeing who it was, Twilight.

“We need to go…now.” Twilight said softly, grabbing firmly onto Vinyl’s shoulder and giving it a tug. Her armor was torn, and sported more than a few scars and holes. It didn’t look like anything too particularly bad, she just looked really, really roughed up.

“What, but, what about-“

“There’s no time! We can’t help her, not anymore…she’s fought well, they all did, but we have to retreat and regroup!” Twilight insisted, giving Vinyl another tug and starting to pull her along.

Vinyl let out an unhappy grumble, turning back and giving ‘HandsR4Real’ one last look as ‘Krat0s’s’ cannon blasted a hole into her visor and out the armor on her back, killing her instantly. With that, she gritted her teeth and took off after Twilight down the street; leaving the victorious roars of their enemy behind them.

Vinyl had barely noticed the snowstorm in all of the mess she’d been in. The storm was at its peak, snow and sleet battered hard against her hull, wind whipped and whistled in the air. Every so often, a particularly strong gust would give her a bit of a jar, but nothing more. Her machine would hold up against it, no problem. If nothing else it was a bit of a blessing, the sudden decrease in visibility would help aid in their escape.

“How did you get to me, I saw you pinned on the other end of the street.” Vinyl asked, as she and Twilight made their way quickly down the road.

“I circled around, that big pink one with the cannon got distracted by Mjolna trying to charge her…” Twilight said grimly, taking a moment to slow down and look down either end of the street, and then taking off to the left.

“I couldn’t check the Kill-Notifications, is there anyone else left?” Vinyl asked; taking a quick look behind to make sure they hadn’t been tailed.

“They’re dead. All of them. Mjolna, March, our backup, all the others.” Twilight sighed softly, coming to a stop up beside a building and leaning against it. “We’re on our own.”

“Fantastic.” Vinyl said softly, reaching down to her hip and grabbing at the Lockbuster she had stolen from Neon Lights. “What do you have as far as weapons?” She asked, looking over at Twilight as she checked the revolver to assure it was loaded.

“I’ve got elbow rockets, some C-16, and…actually, that’s it. I ran out of ammo for my sidearm a while ago.” Twilight said, whining unhappily as she tossed her empty pistol onto the ground. “What’ve you got?”

“Lockbuster I looted off someone I killed, a sword, axe and two semtex grenades.” She said, reaching back and pulling her axe out. “That C-16, it’s remote-detonated, yeah?” She asked, holding the axe out to Twilight with a faint, mechanical whirr.

“Yeah, I can set it up near the end of the street. If nothing else we can knock out their Heavy-Class with it, should make things easier for us.” Twilight said, twirling the axe in her hand before slipping it onto her back and pulling the C-16 from a compartment on her hip.

“You still think we can win this?” Vinyl asked, pulling one of her grenades out and tossing it to Twilight.

“Oh, I haven’t the slightest clue.” She replied, chuckling softly as she caught the grenade, stowed it away, and began fiddling with her own explosives. “But I’ll tell you this. I’ve faced a lot of troubles in my life, a lot of them much worse than anything you could find in a video game. In my time, I’ve learned that if you give up…” She paused for a moment, looking up at her teammate and placing a mechanical hand on her shoulder. “If you give up, you’ll never know if you would have won anyway.”

With that, The Princess clunked off towards the end of the street. Her form became partially obscured by the harshening storm, but even still Vinyl had a view of her.

“This has been one hell of a game.” Vinyl said softly, chuckling to herself and shaking her head. Here she was, getting life-lessons with Princess Twilight, about to engage in a heated battle with the odds stacked against them. They were outgunned, outnumbered, and wounded. Yet she felt confident, it was a strange feeling this game instilled in the player, the confidence and the will to push on. So many times Vinyl had faced odds like this; it wasn’t uncommon, and she had come out the victor just as much as she had been crushed like a bug, but this time, she really did feel confident. She wanted to win this; though it sounded silly, for those who had fought so hard up until this point, who had so quickly charged forth with hope in their hearts and fire in their eyes. She would win this, for those who had given it their all.

Twilight reappeared through the storm just then, clunking quickly up to her DJ companion and giving her a nod through the visor. “They’re coming.” She said softly, “We should get to cover. Spread out, each side of the street. See if you can’t take out that medic. We aren’t going to get anywhere as long as she’s around.”

“Got it. I can take care of that, no issue.” Vinyl said confidently, drawing her sword from her back and giving it a firm squeeze. It hummed faintly, heat radiating from the blade and steaming in the frigid air.

“And hey, Vinyl.” Twilight continued, chuckling a bit to herself and pulling the axe from her back. “You’re not all that bad, so, whatever happens, I would look forward to fighting alongside you in the future.” She then took off, without giving Vinyl much time to reply.

The DJ simply nodded a solemn, silent nod. Adrenaline coursed through her body, yet she was calm, collected. She knew what she had to do, and how she would do it. Well, actually she didn’t know how to do it, only that it needed to be done, but, that had to count for something. She slipped into an alleyway near the end of the street, trying to crouch down and make her massive metal form as small as possible.

The scene was set, the true, final battle, a snowy street, in the middle of a storm. Tall, impressive buildings towering high above, the flashing street lights shining through the pure white snow. The air was blistering and cruel, like death floated in the very oxygen they breathed. Vinyl sat there, preparing herself. She was ready, ready for this fight. It wasn’t long before she could hear the heavy, rumbling steps of the enemy. She could hear them chattering, hear ‘MoneyMare’ barking orders. She sounded extremely confident, almost annoyingly so. Vinyl got the feeling that this mare was the type to think she should win simply because she existed.

“The fools. Thinking they can run, Ha!” ‘MoneyMare’ chortled, cocking her cannon as she rounded the corner and onto the street. She stood there for a brief moment, cannon humming faintly. “Find them, Cratus!” She barked, swiping her hand outwards, towards the street. “I want them to be shown the true power of Spoiled Rich, and her clan!”

‘Krat0s’; Or Cratus as he had been called, lumbered out into the street with slow, deliberate steps. His grey armor was worn and damaged, but overall still intact. The blood-like markings on his arms and visor only added to the intimidation factor. Spikes protruded from his shoulders, and there were white, ghostly skulls painted onto his shoulders. He held his arm-turned-cannon out in front of him. It whirred and sang softly, energy orbs held right on the brink of firing; ready to be discharged at any moment.

Vinyl waited, holding her breath as Cratus lumbered past her. He didn’t see her, and she didn’t question why. Maybe it had been pure dumb luck, or maybe he just hadn’t been really paying attention too well. Regardless, it would just be a few more steps before he was practically standing atop of Twilight’s explosives.

‘MoneyMare’; or Spoiled Rich, as she had addressed herself, clunked along, staying a fair distance behind Cratus at all times. She was obviously using him as a shield, having him go first to try and trip any surprises or attacks, and as she would learn a few seconds later, trip an attack he did.

There was a massive, rattling explosion that shook the very earth itself as Twilight triggered the explosives. Cratus roared out; no doubt wounded, but Vinyl paid it no mind. She had her mission; her objective was first and foremost now. The DJ burst forth from her alley, sword in one hand, revolver in the other. Spoiled Rich was too dazed from the explosion to react in time, but the DJ simply shoved past her, and bolted for the medic.

Redheart; as she had been called earlier, let out a frantic squeak and began to backpedal. She slung her repair-ray around her back as she moved, reaching for a sidearm on her hip. Vinyl raised her own weapon, firing off two rounds at her target. Redheart gasped in shock as steel pellets tore into her left shoulder. She raised her handgun in a desperate attempt to return-fire, but by the time she had pulled the trigger, the enemy was upon her.

Vinyl spun, swinging her sword around and slicing long ways through Redheart’s right forearm, then brought her other arm around and smashed the revolver across the medic’s face. Redheart stumbled back, grasping at her ruined hand in shock. Her pistol was destroyed, and she was now almost completely helpless. Almost.

“Camping little shit!” Vinyl roared, bringing her sword up over her head to slash once more.

But Redheart was ready this time, with her one remaining hand, she drew a knife from her waist and swung upwards at Vinyl’s sword, parrying the blow and sending sparks flying out from the point of impact.

The enraged shrieks of Spoiled Rich could be heard just then, and Vinyl whipped around just in time to catch a smack across the face from her enemy’s cannon. She went flying to the side, weapons flying from her hands as she careened backwards and slammed into the side of a building; sending crumbled brick and glass down onto her armored body.

As she pulled herself out of the small crater that had been made in the side of the building, Vinyl caught a brief glimpse of Twilight clashing with the massive robot known as Cratus. She had managed to climb atop him, and was in the process of slashing away at the top of his hull with her axe. He roared in defiance, discharging his arm-cannon frantically into the air behind him, trying to shake her off. Twilight held firm, though, bringing the axe down and burying it into the armor of her foe. She then pulled a grenade from her belt and crammed it into a hole in the armor, kicking off of the robot’s back and falling onto the street just as Cratus’ upper-back exploded into a mess of fire, smoke and bits of machinery.

“Look at you!” Spoiled Rich hissed; her tone colder than air around them. “So valiant, for such a low-tier commoner!” She raised her cannon, beginning to charge it up for a lethal shot.

“Commoner?” Vinyl spat, pushing herself off the building and slamming her body against that of her enemy. Spoiled Rich’s cannon discharged into the air; the shot exploding into the side of a building, as Vinyl slammed into her. They both went flying onto the street, tumbling down the road in a spectacular fashion.

Eventually, Vinyl and her foe came out of their tumble down the street, she and her foe both rose as one. Vinyl slashed out her hand, gripping hard onto Spoiled’s shoulder and dealing a wide swing into her visor, it cracked and splintered with a sharp ‘Snap!’. Spoiled Rich stumbled back, clutching at her damaged visor and raising her cannon to fire off a quick round. At this range, it was more than easy to avoid. Vinyl sidestepped and turned on her heel, swinging her elbow around into her enemy’s shoulder and sending the cannon-wielding robot crashing into the side of a building across the street.

“Gah, Redheart!” Spoiled Rich roared, calling out for the backup of her medic as she began pushing herself up.

Vinyl turned, just in time to dodge a vicious stab from Redheart and her knife. The medic had been hovering around the edge of the battle, waiting for the opportune moment to try and jump in. Vinyl was about to educate her on what a poor moment she had picked to do so.

Redheart stumbled forward from her own momentum, only to be dealt a devastating punch directly into her gut by Vinyl. The DJ grabbed onto her shoulder, digging her clawed hands in and pulling the medic around and in front of her…just as Spoiled had unleashed a shot from her cannon. The glowing blue round rocketed forth, directly into Redheart’s lower back. The medic cried out in shock, mechanical body twitching as she was dealt a fatal blow. Vinyl tossed her to the side, charging straight for Spoiled Rich.

“I will not be defeated!” The cannon-wielding mare roared, raising her cannon again and trying to fire. She would have got off a shot, had Twilight not run in from the side and buried an axe into the top of her enemy’s visor. Spoiled Rich screamed out in anger and surprise, swinging her arm around and slamming it into Twilight’s stomach. She shoved her against the wall, swinging her cannon around and pressing it up against The Princesses’ visor.

“Not gonna happen!” Vinyl cried, grabbing firmly onto Spoiled’s cannon-arm. She pulled it away from her teammate, angling it upwards just as a round discharged from within its depths. She pulled, hard, pressing her clawed foot against the robots lower back and proceeding to rip the arm completely off. Vinyl chucked it to the side, grabbing Spoiled Rich by the shoulder and pulling her off Twilight and proceeding to slam her hard into the side of the building.

“N-No! This isn’t possible!” She shrieked, desperately swiping out at Vinyl with her single, remaining arm.

Vinyl easily dodged the attack, grabbing her enemy by the wrist and using it as leverage to swing her back around to where Twilight now stood. Spoiled Rich was helpless to stop it, and she was swung around in a half-circle, straight into the elbow-rocket-propelled-fist that Twilight Sparkle dealt directly into her visor. The Faded-Pink robot flew backwards, out of Vinyl’s grasp and tumbling out onto the street, a battered, beaten mess of armor and metal.

“No…” She groaned weakly, shakily pushing herself up to her knees. “This…It can’t be!” She whined, reaching down to her hip and pulling a large handgun from a compartment in her thigh. “I won’t accept it!” She brandished it outwards; meaning to fire at Vinyl, only to be met with a roundhouse-kick directly across her visor.

“God, I’m so tired of hearing your voice.” Vinyl grumbled, clunking over to where the battered enemy robot now lay, and placing a clawed foot across her wrist. “You know, you seem pretty…rich-bitch-type. Like you think you’re better than everypony else, yeah?” The DJ hummed, pressing her weight onto Spoiled’s arm and crushing the armor beneath her foot.
“Maybe this’ll teach you a lesson, you and your little clan, or whatever the hell you are.” She continued, ignoring her enemy’s weak attempts to squirm free. Vinyl reached onto her waist, pulling out the single grenade she still had. She tossed it into the air, catching it and rolling it around between her mechanical fingers before stooping low and glaring at her enemy. “Don’t underestimate the underdogs.” With that, Vinyl activated her grenade, enclosed her hand around it, and then punched it through a weak spot in Spoiled’s visor. She released it inside, and then stood up and released the doomed robot from the grasp of her clawed foot and began backing away.

“We had better gear, higher levels, communication, and plans!” Spoiled Rich roared, slamming her fist into the road as she rolled over and pushed up onto her knees. She remained on her knees, hanging her arm at her side and looking up into the skies. “I’m supposed to win, I never-“

The sudden explosion from the grenade cut off any further talk. Spoiled Rich’s cockpit exploded into a ball of fire and smoke. Her visor glass shattered and blew out onto the street, and her body was knocked back in the process. As she hit the ground, the words “VinylScratch Decimated MoneyMare” appeared in the HUD of the two remaining players. Vinyl simply stood there in the snow, watching the burning metal corpse as she waited for the game to come to an end.

“As someone who gives her fair share of speeches…” Twilight said, clunking up beside her companion and letting out a soft chuckle. “I can say with a fair amount of certainty that that…was probably one of the more corny ones I’ve heard.”

Vinyl shook her head, chuckling softly as she turned to face the battle-worn Twilight. “I’ll let you do the honors next time, then, how about that?”

Twilight gave a sheepish chuckle. “I…think I’ll pass, just because I have to make speeches doesn’t mean I’m all that fond of it.”

“Whatever you say Princess…” Vinyl said with a grin, turning her gaze up into the cloudy, stormy sky as the winning team was announced, and the game came to its end.

--------Final Standings--------

Red Team

Vinyl. (VinylScratch) Level 10. Warrior Class. (Kills: 3 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: N/A)
Twilight Sparkle (StarSwirlFanGirl) Level 21. Warrior Class. (Kills: 3 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: N/A)
Double Diamond (DoubleD). Level 7. Racer Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: Krat0s)
March Gustysnows(MarchyMarch). Level 18. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: MasterDJNeon)
Mjolna (MjOWNa). Level 12. Heavy Class. (Kills: 1 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: Krat0s and MoneyMare)
Fine Print. (PrinterPaper). Level 9. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: BrushyBrushy)
Lyra (HandsR4Real) Level 8. Heavy Class. (Kills: 2 Kill Assists: 1 Killed By: Krat0s)
Bon Bon. (SecretAgentHorse). Level 11 Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 1 Killed By: MoneyMare)
Junebug. (JuneBug01) Level 3. Racer Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: Krat0s)
Featherweight. (CameraClick) Level 4. Racer Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: MoneyMare).

Blue Team.

Nurse Redheart. (HealingHooves) Level 12. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 3 Killed By: VinylScratch
Spoiled Rich. (MoneyMare) Level 30. Warrior Class. (Kills: 3 Kill Assists: 1 Killed By: VinylScratch)
Ace (Ace). Level 13. Racer Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: StarSwirlFanGirl)
Cratus(Krat0s) Level 28. Heavy Class. (Kills: 4 Kill Assists: 1 Killed By: StarSwirlFanGirl)
Flim. (Salespony1) Level 12. Heavy Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: HandsR4Real)
Flam.(Salespony2) Level 12. Heavy Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: HandsR4Real and SecretAgentHorse)
Minuette. (BrushyBrushy.) Level 13. Warrior Class. (Kills: 1 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: VinylScratch)

Neon Lights.(MasterDJNeon) Level 14. Warrior Class. (Kills: 1 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: VinylScratch)
Noteworthy. (PianoNotes) Level 12. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: MjOWNa)
Comet Tail. (ShootingStar) Level 13. Warrior Class. (Kills: 0 Kill Assists: 0 Killed By: StarSwirlFanGirl)