Ponyshock: "Knight" Squad

Winter was awed by the size of the statue, however she couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed by what it implied. Winter had always believed in the goddesses since they made her feel safe in dark times and allowed her to believe that in some strange way she was being looked after and watched over. She wasn't religious per say but she liked the thought of them watching out for good ponies. Having that feeling of them watching over her helped her through some of her darkest experiences. She had no doubt she would be silently praying to them for Cross... even the thought of that made her heart ache.

When they approached the store she stopped behind Trails and looked to Shutter as he suggested scouting ahead. She looked to Trails wondering what his word would be on the matter. Of course Winter had no experience with combat situations she was relying on Trails and the others to fill the gap for her.

Once the group got moving, Lightning didn't waste any time in pulling out his SMG and having it ready. The pegasus would stand behind Trails the entire time as they all arrived in the pavilion. He would look up at the huge statue, simply shrugging it off and turning his attention to the rest of the room. He would flip up his EFS which he knew would help him spot targets easier.

When two targets popped up, one friendly, one hostile, Lightning would tap Trails, motioning with his head silently to the boarded-up workshop. Keeping his voice low, he would say, "I got two targets. One friendly, one hostile. The hostile is in the workshop over there..."

Rough Sketch had to admit to himself that he admired the statue. It was a symbol, an icon, a monument to the firm strength and ingenuity, the sheer determination of ponykind. It was true; the Goddesses, and indeed all gods, had abandoned them long ago. Left them to die in the waste far, far above this strange underwater cityscape.

He had grown up far apart from religion, and saw it as a comfort for the despairing or desperate, no matter how hollow the hope may truly be. And that was good. But he was neither desparing nor desperate, and he was certainly not about to look and listen for some far-off entity that may or may not exist.

This statue, it would have filled him with notion of pride of ponykind, had not all around him become broken and destitute. It was saddening; these ponies had built something incredible, yet failed.

...I really must stop thinking so much about these sort of things... occured to Rough Sketch as he went on.

He noticed some of the group were drawing weapons - he was towards the back, so he couldn't do much at this point - but he readied his firearm anyway.

Hearing flash mention something about hostiles ale turned his attention away from the shop to survey this potintial battle ground. Observing the layout of the pavilion ale deduced that the best cover from any hostils approching from the borded up workshops would be behind the counter of the shop labeled "the metals", however the statue could also provide cover, if a little bit more exposed. Ale turned to share this information with trails believing he'd be the best one to assign fireing positions should this art gallery need to be repainted in blood.

"Buddy up with somepony first, Shutter. There's no lone wolves round here." Trails replied lowly. He looked at the statue and smirked, somepony had a sense of humor. The bucks in Stalliongrad would've pissed themselves if they saw that. Though he had to admit for a different reason than he might.

"Flash said there's a hostile in there, let's try and avoid any combat if we can." the last phrase felt foreign to him. Guess Sarge didn't much like hiding from a fight, course Sarge wasn't known from turning down one either. "Soon as Shutter hollers or comes back we'll move out again."

Lightning would nod to Trails as he did another check around the room. As long as that hostile stays in the workshop, they shouldn't have any issues, hopefully. He would keep his weapon up and ready before looking back at Shutter. The pegasus remembered fighting with the pony before. "If you need a partner, I'll go with you."

The earth shook as the squad took positions towards the hostile workshop...an eerie silence filled the large chamber as dust and debris fell from the ceiling...then there was silence....an a sob rang out that appeared to come in from 'The Metals'.

*BANG* a huge force hit the boarded door, knocking over some tables and chairs holding it..

*BANG* the relentless force banged agaisnt it once more

*CRASSSHHHHH* The hastily constructed wall came down, and there stood a huge ugly beast, 3 times the size of a regular pony, and its entire mass seemed to be dedicated to muscles, bulging veins swarming the creature and it roared:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

It charged forward towards the group, quickly gaining momentum and speed with a angry fury in its blood soaked expression.....

"Oh buck me, big thing very big thing, MOVE." Ale shouted as he dived out of the way and behind the statue. leaping up in the pedastool and using one of the pony's legs for cover he begain tracking the over grown monstrosidy and squesed the trigger.

(gun-50 with .357: shooting at brute splicer.)

Lightning didn't hear or didn't get a chance to hear Shutter's response as a huge beast of a pony suddenly came crashing through the barricaded workshop. "Oh damn it." The pegasus would take advantage of the large room by unfolding his wings quickly and taking off into the air. If he managed to get high enough, he would unleash two bursts of fire from his SMG, hoping to keep the pony, if one can call it that anymore, distracted from the others.

(Taking flight above the target. Flight 65. One roll.)
(If flight is successful, roll to shoot target. 10mm SMG. Guns 75. Two rolls.)

Rough Sketch's eyes widened as the monstrosity charged forward in its blood rage, and quickly dove to the side, out of its way, hoping that it would continue forward and not stop for him. It would be foolish to stand in it's way, or run in the same direction as its charge.

He opened fire a moment later.

[Action(Gun 35): Fires at monstrosity with .357]

Shutter had been about to get Ashen to watch his back, but was quickly cut off by the sound of an enormous beast smashing it's way through 'The Metals'.

"Oh Celestia! Get out of the way!"

He yelled, diving out of the way in an attempt to get clear of the beasts charge, all thoughts of stealth out of the window as the monstrosity came for them.

Should he manage, he would quickly draw his pistol and open fire on the monster. Now REALLY wishing he had a Prism Blaster...

(Guns 34, Shooting monstrosity with .45 Pistol)

Winter let out a horrified "By the goddesses" as she humped to the side, out of the trajectory of the Brute's charge. She pulled out her newly acquired shotgun and took aim as she was about to give as much as she could to assist her squad in battle. She had never killed a pony before... but then again this thing was hardly a pony anymore. You could see in it's eyes that it was merely a horrific shell of the being it once was.

(Guns 16, shooting at the)

Petal Shard sighed as the creature burst through the makeshift braced and charged the group. She through herself clear of the hulking things advance with no forethought as to remaining upright.

“Had we inquired as to the nature of the local hostiles we would have been better prepared for this situation” she stated to nopony in particular as she skidded to a halt on the floor, extracting her 9mm and taking a moment to aim it slightly better...not that it would make much difference given that she had little ability with crude weaponry such as the pistol she was wielding.

(Guns 16 shooting at Brute X 3)

Trails smirked as the brute charged, this was more he liked it. No guessing games, no fools errands. Just him and his rifle against a hostile. He took aim at the giants chest and let off two shots from his repeater. He let muscle memory take over to direct the third shot at the pony's head.

(Guns 59 3 shots with repeater)

The group turned and fired in unison, all opening up on the brute as he charged. the first bullets to land: Ale's and Sketch's, seemed only to aggravate the beast as they tore holes into it. Adding to the chaos was Flash soaring into the ceiling and promptly falling back down in a heap at hooves of the giant pony. Bell's gut shot knocked the brute back and staggered it, clearly it noticed several dozen bb's being sent into its torso. Ending it was Trails' headshot, tearing through the monster's left eye and sending it to the ground without much delay.

As Lightning tried to take off, his wings were still a little wet from the dip in the ocean. So, despite being able to take off to a fair height, he was unable to drop to a full hover. When he fell back down, the pegasus was sure that he was going to be hurt by the huge beast until he saw that the others managed to take down the pony. Lightning would stand up and brush himself off sheepishly before holstering his weapon. "...That ended well..."

Ale's shot hit home. Although percince the creatures flesh it diden't seem to do too much damage luckely the concitraded fire from everpony else in the room was more than sufficent to drop the beast but ale noted that he would need something with a higher calaber in the future. Leaping down from the pedastool, and walking past a humiliated flash, he approched the beast corpse. keeping his revolver trained on the hulk's head, he gave it few testing kicks, "yep dead,never hurts to check". Holstering the .357 he turned to the others and asked "what the buck was that thing"?

Shutter slowly pulled himself back up, as he holstered his .45, panic still clear on his face.

"That...that is a very, VERY good question...you..."

Shutter said, never having gotten Ginger's name...but this was NO time for introductions, as he slowly walked over to the corpse. Once he was sure it was dead though, he began searchign it...maybe there was a clue as to what it was on it's body or something? At the very least, it might have been carrying something useful...

The creature dropped with a loud *THUMP* as his headless body leaned forward and fell on Rough Sketch, pinning him...

Shutter searched the corpse but only found an old pocketwatch.

As the group stood there cleaning themselves up and prepping their weapons, a loud metallic door swung open from the "The Metals" and a small filly starting running towards Winter, before anypony could react she was hugging Winter's leg tightly... she looked up and her tears dripped from her soaked face.

"Please don't let the monsters hurt me, I'm scared I just want to find my daddy..." She clenched her eyes and dug herself into the baby blue mare, stepping on Winter's fletlocks as the filly moved closer....

"Hey you there!!" During the commotion of the battle, it appeared 3 ponies had appeared behind Trail's groups from a far doorway, and were using what appeared to be battle saddles with Tommy guns attached to each side pointing towards the group's general direction... Still, they looked really well groomed for a hostile environment such as this, they all had what appeared to be suits and fedoras.

"This is Agent territory, ...while I do appreciate the help, please explain yourselves...you don't look from around here...."

Lightning would look at the huge beast with a shake of his head. What the hell was happening down here, hidden from the rest of the world? So far, it certainly doesn't look very pretty. When the door flung open from the workshop, "The Metals", and a filly came running out, the pegasus raised a brow curiously. The filly seemed to immediately take off to the one of the two mares in the group, picking Winter to grab.

Lightning was going to go walk over to Trails and ask what to do next when suddenly, a voice caught his attention. Turning around with sudden speed, his SMG would be up and ready in his mouth, pointed slightly away from the "Agents"...for now. The look of Tommy guns pointed at them did not sit well with Lightning but he wasn't about to say anything to the new ponies. He didn't want to be the one to provoke a battle if one was going to break out.

Shutter would slip the pocketwatch into his saddlebags...while he had no need for a watch thanks to his pip-buck, he had to admit, he liked the look, and it might be useful later...or at least worth a few caps when they got out...

However, his slight moment of greed was quickly interrupted, when heis attention was pulled away from his aquisition, and towards the metallic doorway of 'The Metals', as a little filly came running out and clasped herself around Winter's leg.

There are foals here? Oh Celestia, this must be terrifying for the poor thing...

Slowly, he stepped forward to help comfort the filly.

"Hey there...Don't be scared. We're here to help...What's your name?"

He asked, trying to keep his voice as soothing as possible...however, before he could ask any further questions. His attention was once again distracted by MORE ponies...this time in very nice garb, especially considering their outfits.

Wait, Agent Territory? Agents of who?

(Speech 60, trying to calm down the filly, and generally be the nice guy)

Winter Bell was shocked, surprised and horrified as the filly ran up to her and held to her foreleg tightly. It took her a moment to react as she looked down at the small Filly before she began to realize the situation. She immediately then moved to comfort the infant as best she could as she craned her neck down and spoke softly to reassure her, "Shhh, it's ok, it's all right. No one is going to hurt you I promise" she said as she sat on her rump, her tail swinging around to curl around the filly in a motherly embrace as she wrapped her hooves around the child to comfort her further. "My name is Winter Bell" she said with a soft smile before continuing "What's your name ?" she said softly before her attention was pulled to the door. She got to her hooves from her seated position and stood a little over the filly shield her in a way in case these ponies were dangerous. She didn't fully understand what was going on but she knew this child was not staying here.


(Speech 43, trying to calm the Filly and make her feel safe)

Petal Shard was unsure, and uncaring, as to whether her shots had hit the creature as she stood and trotted toward the massive corpse. Situation: Unknown hostile dead, adolescent female present, armed group referring to themselves as Agents demanding explanations. Assessment: Potential further hostilities, prioritise information extraction.

Petal Shard ignored the armed group of ponies in favour for examining the downed aggressor.

(Science 45 analysing the dead Brute)
(Medicine 30 examining the dead Brute)

"A filly? Ale thought to himself. This was not the turn of events he was expecting. He took a few steps twords the foal when a voice called out to the group. Turning in the direction of the voice he began to draw his revolver, but as soon as he saw that there were already 6 guns pionted in the groups direction he let the .357 drop back into its holster, ale wanted to avoid another conflict if they could.

"We're glad to give it, if there's anymore that is." Trails responded to the agents. They had him outgunned by several magnitudes, so it was best to make nice he figured. "Far as the reason for our being here, that's firnly on the list of shit I don't know. We we're on a ship that got caught up in a storm, I thought I was going to drown, then ai wake up in this little carnival." Trails lowered his rifle, sensing the agents might be the first ponies he could trust down here. "Then this buck calling himself Rich conscripts us into his personal army.I'm not happy with this arrangement, perhaps you could fill us in, or point us in the right direction?"

(Speech 30 to make friends.)