Lord of the Foals[Closed]

Starry wiped the tears from her eyes with her hoof. She just couldn't bring herself to cry yet, at least not in front of Shutter. She wasn't used to letting others see this side of her, even if it was her special somepony. She wasn't ready to let others see her less-than-cheery side, though she was at least comfortable talking about it.

"It's uhm... you know..." Starry had to give herself a moment, and take a deep breath. She was trying to collect her thoughts. "It's like she didn't even care, Shutter. Before I met you and everypony else in Stableton, my family were the only ponies I really knew well, and my dad has already left and my mother apparently doesn't care. I mean, look at my room! Your dad kept your room exactly the way it was, he missed you. My mom... she apparently didn't have a problem forgetting me."

Starry had to stop. She had nearly cracked at the end there, and had to wipe away the tears that had returned. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this... I should be cheery, or determined, like I usually am. But right now, it's just... really discouraging, you know?"

As the others searched for medical supplies, Lightning noticed a small pile of paper scattered across his mother's desk. Walking over to it, he realized that these were notes written by his mother on the patients she treated. That wasn't unusual really. His mother always did that for the sake of keeping records. However, as the pegasus continued to search, it became obvious that these were all injuries caused by the foals, shooting ponies' in the legs or their wings in order to keep them in line. He couldn't help but start gritting his teeth from the anger that just wouldn't stop growing in his heart.

Lightning eventually came across one log that caught his attention. It detailed the status of the tunnel they were constructing as well as the condition of the stable at the time. It also explained about Doctor Leaf's terrible attitude. Now that he knew the real issue going on with the doctor, Lightning couldn't really blame him for being so rude. The wastes wasn't exactly a great place to live but it was better than living under the rule of a crazy foal.

The pegasus quickly stuffed the log in his bag and turned back to the mare and the filly searching for supplies. Looks like they found his mother's small stash of chems. "Nice. Not bad. It's better than nothing at least. I just read a small note detailing some of the work done in the tunnel. If it's accurate, we shouldn't have to dig too much in order to break out. We better get down to the maintenance room. I'm not sure how much longer the ponies can last..."

Bakewell wasn’t particularly fond of going back into the hall; how many times could they get away with blatantly disobeying Jack to his face before he decided punishment was in order? The mare wasn’t willing to even consider letting the ponies that needed their medical supplies down, though.

At Flash’s word she grabbed some of the medical supplies, gritted her teeth, dashed out of the room and started towards maintenance. She found herself hoping against hope that Jack would be merciful and let them take care of the ponies in peace.

Shutter listened to Starry, giving a light nod once she had finished.
"...I see..."
He mumbled, before moving a little bit closer, and placing his good hoof on Starry's shoulder, so that he wouldn't interfere withStarry's medical work on his bloodied shoulder.

"...Starry...don't think the worst of your mother just yet. Everypony has different ways of dealing with Stuff like that...maybe your mother just missed you so much, that the only way she could deal with it was to act like everything was still normal? Maybe trivializing it is just how she's coping..."

He offered, part of him doubting this was true...but Starry needed SOME form of hope, and this was all he could think of with the current situation.

Starry sighed, before nodding in agreement with Shutter. "You're right... you're right, Shutter. As a scientist, I should know better than to jump to conclusions. Here, let me just..." Starry finished wrapping the wound, before passing Shutter the healing potion. "It'll probably still hurt, but it should heal everything major, between the nose and your shoulder."

There wasn't much more for Starry to say or do. She wrapped her hooves around Shutter, and embraced him in a hug. As she would pull away, she would ask, "So... what's in the recordings?" while pointing at the pipbuck.

"Hmm? Oh, right...I got so distracted that when I turned on the logs, I forgot to even listen to them."

He said with a light Chuckle, as he placed the potion in his mouth, drinking it as he tapped his pip-buck to set the recordings to play once again.

What he heard was...not plesant...

"...Sounds like the stable is in even worse condition then we thought...Hotrod was completly ghoulified, so it dosn't seem unreasonable to think those leaks have already gone off..."

He muttered, trying to keep his mind on what was important...but he still felt a twinge of sadness for what he had heard...he had always liked the Stable's teacher, and if Ralph had been making sure she stayed to the classroom, and these leaks had gone off? The poor mare was probably already gone. Shutter hoped she hadn't suffered the same horrible fate as Hotrod, being turned into a monster, but from the suffering he had seen over the last few days, part of him knew better then to expect mercy from the equestrian wasteland...even in the safety of a Stable, it had found a way to turn a secure stronghold into a nightmare twice now.

...It was almost too much to bear...but he had to remain strong...

"...Starry...I think we should go back to my place and get some sleep. We have a meeting to attend in the morning, after all."

Shutter muttered, his face growing dark as he spoke. He needed time to plan, and they weren't going to get anywhere by rushing in blindly. He knew there was a way to take back the stable, and maybe even avoid too mcuh bloodshed in the process...he had even had a slight idea earlier, as he mentioned, and he was sure this meeting Jack kept mentioning might be a key part in taking back the stable. But he was going to need time to plan with Starry if they wanted a solid plan of attack.

He just hoped Jasmine could keep the others from doing anything stupid in the meantime...

Starry's eyes went wide as they listened to the logs. She knew well enough what a malfunction in the stable's cooling system meant, and what those radiation leaks were a sign of. This was cause for panic, massive panic.

"WHAT?!" Starry screamed, as Shutter suggested they go to sleep. It was a loud outburst, but Starry tried to restrain herself, speaking less loudly, but with an overwhelming sense of urgency.

"Shutter, you don't understand! If the stable's cooling system is malfunctioning, that means a catalytic event within the stable's thermal reactor could trigger an exponential outburst of energy, possibly enough to overcome the arcane safeguards designed for such an event! Shutter, this entire stable is a ticking time bomb!"

Starry leaped up from the bed, and dashed toward the door, slamming the button to open it with the full force of her hoof. "Shutter! We need to get to the reactor, NOW!"

Jasmine hid behind behind a pipe, most of her body was visible to anypony in the room. She didn't bother to move and find a better spot because that would require her to become more exposed. She simply sat with her eyes closed waiting for Sky to give the all clear. However she was incredibly gun shy and in the heat of the moment she paniced and flew down the hall toward the reactor. She had no idea that the group encountered a bloatsprite, or what one even was for that matter. In her head she pictured a foal comming to terrorize her and needed to flee at all costs. She soared down the hall leaving a feater or two when she hit the walls, a few seconds later a lound bang from what presumably was a head injury of some sort echoed from her direction.

Shutter's eyes quickly widened as he listened to Starry's technojargon. He didn't understand a lot of it aside from the basics, but he certaintly did pick up the fact that it could override the wards that Hotrod had just talked about. Shutter had assumed that the venting had already happened, and that was what ghoulified the residents, but if there was possibly worse?

"It could bypass the wards? Crap, then you're right! We'll have to put rest aside for a little longer then."

He said, as he rushed after Starry.

Sky was able to kill the little Bugger of a Bloatsprite, her single shot was a 1 up on the success as she killed it with out much fuzz. "One shot the sprite, not bad if i say so my self." Sky said as she looked around, to Arc and....Jasmine was gone, a second later a loud bang against something could be heard. "We need to go find her." Sky sighed as she holstered the rifle and began to walk to the reactor, muttering all the way.

"Damit, she probably got scared and panicked." said Arc with rising concern in his voice. Which meant they had to find her, and find her now if the tunnels were infested with bloatsprites. "Ok Sky, since we know she did not flew past us, she had to go back, let's search there."

The door to the reactor room was, as it had been for the past several months, jammed open. Jasmine was the first to burst into the reactor room, with a severe headache and dizziness, followed immediately by Arc and Sky. What they saw was shocking, to say the least. The entire reactor floor had been overtaken by bloatsprites! There were at least two dozen of them!

Suddenly, Jack's voice came out over the intercomm. His tone was calm, but furious. "Oh, so you ponies are in the reactor room. Perhaps you would like to explain why both Sundae and Trigger Happy are missing?! You know what? Don't bother! I can fill in the blanks well enough on my own. I'm gonna send my own little band of foals to take care of you, then we'll see who the murderers are!"

As the message ended, Starry and Shutter burst into the room, behind Arc, Sky and Jasmine. They had heard the message from the speakers in the corridors(the corridors in maintenance were devoid of cameras, but not loudspeakers), and the bloatsprites seemed to just take notice of the group the moment the message had ended. The first spine fired by a bloatsprite whizzed it's way past Sky's face.

(COMBAT INFO: 24 bloatsprites. Sky has Flash's hunting rifle, Arc has an assault rifle w/ only one clip, Starry has a security baton, Shutter and Jasmine are unarmed. 24 is a lot of enemies to fight, so I'll be expediting the process by expanding upon your actions to get the fight over sooner, which might result in just a little godmodding. Let me know if I do anything which you don't agree with, as I will certainly change it.

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Bakewell, Violet, and Lightning arrived in the meeting room, and were greeted by the familiar sight of the many injured ponies lying on the ground, surrounded by blood. They had, fortunately, stopped bleeding thanks to the efforts of the doctor, as well as Bakewell, Shutter, Starry and Jasmine.

Though none had died since the last time the ponies were here (they had been bandaged very well), many of them had fallen unconscious. It would make sense that they'd need to rest, considering how much blood they all must have lost. Lightning's father was the only one still awake, and he looked up at the group as they entered, offering a weak smile to his son and his friends.

Sky galloped through the corridors behind Arc, they had to go to the reactor to get to jasmine. She could have sworn she heard the bang, from the reactor. Sky remembered about this part of the stable when used to patrol it, not the worst job but it was the most boring job. Now Sky probably regrets coming over here as they turned to see bloatsprites, Alot of bloatsprites. "Arc, please tell me this is one of your worst days too?" Sky sighed as she took out the hunting rifle and aimed at a random bloatsprite, "Do we run or fight? but i probably doesnt matter what we do, those things will get us either way." Sky said shiddering a bit, they really needed to think of something quick.

(Firing Hunting rifle at random bloatsprite, Guns 100)

Left, right, left, small staircase down to sublevel, short hall, right, around turbine C-36... and then the reactor room, old friend of Arc. So many memories of this place, when they used to hide the small distillery set, parts for it stolen from the labs, behind the steam condensator over there, how they used to held private birthday parties... but that's from the time long gone.

They found Jasmine looking at the swarm of bloatsprites, the buggers seemed to be right about to swarm her and... well, leave behind what they left of the foal. And the place was hotter than he remembered it, but if the 'sprites nested here, it was quite possible they did so around the reactor itself, which insulated it, making it boil even faster. They were running out of bloody time.

Then Starry and Shutter bursted into the room behind them. It was slowly turning into a birthday party.

"Stay behind us! At least till we run out of ammo!" which, considering the magazine was smaller than the amount of present bloatsprites, wasn't reassuring to Arc.

(Guns 20, Luck 6 :Shooting the 'sprites at random)

Lightning didn't stop running to the meeting room until they arrived. He frowned as he noticed that more of the ponies were unconscious since the last he left them. His father was the only one who seemed to be awake and somehow, he managed to smile at them. The pegasus quickly began walking over to them before accidently kicking something on the floor. Looking down, he noticed that it was his pistol that he had left for the others. 'Oh, come on...' he cursed silently in his mind.

Lightning picked up the pistol and holstered it before making the rest of the way over to his parents. He struggled to hold back tears as he murmured, "Mom...Dad...Yo-You're going to be ok...I got potions. We're go-going to get you fixed up and w-we can escape the stable." His ears would perk up as another message from Jack came through the intercom. Lightning's face would change from sadness and pain to one of anger and worry. Jack was NOT sending ponies after Arc, Sky, and Jasmine. He couldn't, they were spread thin enough as it is.

The blue pegasus started doing something that rarely happened to him, if it even happened at all. He started to tremble. The stress and the anxiety of the situation was starting to overwhelm him. And it was beginning to show. Lightning's breathing quickened a little as he stared out into space. He had to help his friends and stop the foals from hurting them. No...he had to stay with his parents, he owed it to them and it was his fault that they were hurt in the first place. But the anger that still burned inside him wanted to see Jack dead and it wouldn't rest until Jack ceased to exist. Inside, the stallion was waging a full mental war and outside, his indecisiveness was obvious. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Lightning turned and said in a tone so low, the two ponies that came along with him would have to strain to hear what he said, "...Let's help the injured ones as quickly as possible..."

Jasmine got on her hooves as she tried to shake off hitting her head once again. She rubbed her foreleg against her head in an attempt to doctor the wound and slowly opened her eyes. All around her she heard buzzing and as she opened her eyes she was met with the blurry sight of strange creatures swarming all around her. A shiver went up her spine as a few brushed past her head. She jumped as another bumped into her and turned in the air trying to swat a few away. She began to panic, not sure what to make these things out to be and started galloping back in fourth gasping as she tried to avoid them.

"Ahhh! Thomepony help me!"

Starry charged heroically into the room, having heard Jasmine's cry for help. "Don't worry, sister!" she exclaimed, "I will save you!"

Starry took a moment to pose heroically as she leaped forward through the door, before she gripped the security baton tightly between her teeth and began rushing into the fray and swatting bloatsprites.

Shutter would rush in after Starry, as he too heard the cries of panic. As Starry rushed off to swat the bloatsprites, he ran over to Jasmine, to make sure she was okay...he had no weapon, so there wasn't much else he could do right now...

"Jasmine! Are you okay? Stay behind me, and let us handle this!"

He said, putting on a brave face, as he turned to quickly look about the room, searching for anything he could use as a weapon...gun, lead pipe, sheet of metal...anything he could use to help aid the others and keep Starry's sister safe.

Bakewell bit her lip as she heard the newest intercom message. She wasn’t the most aware pony, but the mare wasn’t blind, either. She had fallen apart enough in her own life to recognize the signs when Flash started displaying them. Maybe he was scared for the others. Maybe he was conflicted. Maybe all the running around was making him feel useless. Regardless of the reason, if Flash fell, she would too. Hay, Bakewell was only still functioning decently now because she had Flash to lead her around like a sheep and keep her on track. If she had to start actively thinking about the world the stable had become again she would probably be reduced to a quivering blob on the floor.

“Flash, I…” The beige mare started to say as she attempted to figure out how to go about making an unconscious pony drink a health potion. She what? What could she say? The blue pegasus was having problems, but what could she do about it? Tell him that everything would be fine? Both ponies knew that was a lie. Their lives would never be the same again after what they had seen. Tell him to buck up because his friends needed him? Pfft. She was the last pony with the rights to tell somepony to buck up. Her words trailed off and died as the cook failed to think of a single worthwhile thing to say.

After drinking down one of the potions, Soarmeister peered up at his son, with a fire in his eyes that was uncharacteristic of Lightning's father. "Flash," he said, reaching a hoof up to him to try and pull him closer, a gesture demonstrating that he had something important to say.

"I want you to kill them." Soarmeister told Flash, solemnly. "Those little monsters don't deserve our forgiveness, they don't deserve our mercy. Look what they've done to us, what they've been doing to us! You've got weapons now, I need you to avenge us. Make them pay for what they've done."


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The reactor room exploded(metaphorically) in a burst of gunfire and spines. Starry charged forward, leaping to swat powerfully at the bloatsprites, cleaving several of the fragile flies in halves. She was nevertheless peppered with spines, which, while incapable of piercing through her, managed to penetrate deep enough to draw blood. As a result, she found blood trickling down her forehead, chest, flank and one of her legs.

Arc was not very accurate with the weapon, but he
did manage to hit several of the sprites. Those that he did hit went down with a single shot. They were not powerful enemies, but they still managed to fire a few spines at Arc. He was hit in his shoulder, neck, and chest by three spines. Arc had already exhausted the clip in his weapon.

Sky had considerably more luck firing her weapon, and managed to hit all but two of her targets with perfect accuracy(Starry came in and smashed those ones). Sky had much more ammunition than Arc did, and continued firing for much longer, but when the dust had settled she found herself on her last five bullets. Sky was hit in her front hooves several times by the spines, and once in the chest and twice in a wing.

Shutter and Jasmine took cover in the corner. Several of the sprites chose to point their spines at them, and Shutter was hit in his bad shoulder by one of the spines. He was already partially healed in that shoulder, but it was still tender, and the spine caused him great pain. Another spine bounced off his pipbuck, and another hit him slightly above that. He was also hit twice in the flank, just in front of his cutie mark, and another time on his cheek, just below his eye. Jasmine didn't take many hits, because Shutter was covering for her. Still, one spine managed to fly between Shutter's leg and hit Jasmine in the hoof. The damage was negligible, but it would still hurt, the pain from the spine was akin to a bee-sting, not that any of them had seen a bee or experienced it's sting.

One of the bloatsprites charged toward Shutter as it fired it's spines, close enough that Shutter could hit it with his hoof. The bloatsprite fell to the floor, and Shutter crushed it with his hoof, getting icky bloatsprite guts all over his hoof in the process.

In the end, they had emerged victorious, killing all the bloatsprites, with only a moderate amount of damage, but a significant amount of pain. The reactor was still set for meltdown, and it would take some ponies with extensive scientific prowess to interface with the various terminals in the room and find a way to cool the reactor.

Panting, Arc set the rifle to stand on the stock and leaned over it.The engineer looked around the room, his companions didn't seemed incapacitated or otherwise badly hurt.

He could feel the flares of pain over his body, indicating the places where the 'sprites got a shot on him. Looking down, he saw that the stingers were still embedded in his skin, partially sticking out. The pain was annoying, so he wrapped end of one of the spines in his magical field and gave a pull.

"GAAAHh!"

Arc floated what he torn out of his body in front of his eyes and seen that the spine had backward hooks on it preventing it from removing easily. The one in front of him had even a small piece of his brown hide on it, and the tip was crimson red.

"The bloody things have backwards facing hooks on them, pull them out carefully everyone, alright?"

Knowing how it was formed, and most importantly, knowing how much it hurt, he proceeded to remove the rest of them much more carefully and slowly. In the process he looked at the hole the first one left. It looked ugly, he seen few drops of his blood drop on the floor and paint in Arc Weld, but it seemed that it will close without any additional necessary aid.

Ok, now that you have this done with, lets have a look on how bad the catastrophe is.

He approached the main control console and looked over all the dials and crazily flashing lights, trying to make sense of the situation.

(Science 90, Luck 6: Assessing the state of the reactor)

Lightning just shook his head when Bakewell began to speak. The reality of the situation was slowly beginning to come clear in the pegasus' mind and it was as his entire body and soul was getting crushed the more he began to accept his fate. He wasn't getting out. The odds were against them so much that the stallion had already began giving up.

Without a word, Lightning picked up a health potion and began feeding it to his father. If he couldn't stop the foals or help his friends against the incoming group of foals, he could at least save the lives of his parents. He had to know that he tried to do everything he could to help them and if even if they were killed later by Jack, he would know that he at least tried...But before the pegasus knew it, Soarmeister began speaking to him. "Dad, d-don't speak. Save your stre-"

He never really finished his sentence as he couldn't believe the words coming out of his father's mouth. His dad was telling him to...kill the foals. To avenge them and the others that have fallen to Jack and the other foals. Lightning leaned in closely to listen to what his father had to say before stepping back just a tad, looking down at himself. His 10mm pistol and his 10mm SMG was still in his holsters and he still wore his leather armor. Lightning closed his eyes for just a second and took in a deep breath. 'Dad is right...We're the only ones who can stand up to Jack and we have to do it.'

Lightning reopened his eyes and with a new fire reignited within him, he gave his father a nod. "You're right...I got to stop them." He turned back to Bakewell and Violet and added, "WE got to stop them. We may not have much...but we still have each other. Bakewell, Violet, we have to stop the group of foals moving to the reactor. There's no way Arc, Sky, and Jasmine are going to be able to hold them off alone. Not with just a hunting rifle. We may not be able to stop them either. But we could at least slow them down and buy them time. We can intercept them if we move fast enough. Now who's with me?"

Bakewell stared down at her hooves as she listened to Flash’s father. She knew that she shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this father-son moment, but she couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t like what she heard.

Kill them? Many of these foals were monsters, and yes they had all done terrible things. But surely they didn’t all deserve to die? Bakewell had been a horrible foal, back in the day. She knew it and reminded herself of it constantly but even if she wasted it horribly and had to pay a huge price for it she had been given a second chance. Even if she failed to do anything with the given chance she at least wanted to. Did that make her better? Was it fair for her to get the chance to be a regular, nice pony while taking that chance away- no. Stop thinking. Never think. Let Flash do all of the thinking, he’s a smarter pony.

Bakewell didn’t seem to be particularly inspired by Flash’s speech. In fact the mare somehow looked even worse for wear than she had been beforehoof. She wanted to keep her friends safe oh so much, but what was she willing to do? How far was she willing to go? She had killed her fellow stable dwellers before, but could she force herself to do it again? That sickening crunch. That horrible feeling under her hooves as she ended somepony she once knew’s life. These weren’t random raiders! She had names for each and every one of these faces! If she tried hard enough she could even remember little personal tidbits about each one. These weren’t the strange she had shot on a ridge in the Mohoofe. These weren’t a mysterious and unknown band of slavers. These were her family. Jack might need to die, but did the rest of the foals? How many of them agreed with Jack and how many of them were her? Just going along and doing what they were told, even if it was kill? What made her better than those foals? What made Lightning Flash’s orders to kill more justified than Jack’s?

The tart-marked earth pony took in a deep, shuddering breath. Her brain was doing that stupid thing where it tried to think and make sense out of things on its own. She needed to stop the gray matter before it got too far and pushed itself enough to make her shut down.

Bakewell slunk her way over to the door. She would follow Flash to try and find the foals after her friends, but wasn’t sure about what would happen past that.

Jasmine hid next to shutter in the safety of the corner. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was somewhere else right now. No matter how hard she tried the sound of gun fire continued to break her concentration. Suddenly she felt a searing pain in her hoof. Her eyes shot open to see that she was hit with a tiny spine. Clearly she was grievously wounded, impaled in one of her hooves. She jumped into the air and screamed in pain. As she landed back to earth the pain in her hoof caused her leg to give out and she collapsed onto the floor.

"AGhhh! Thhutter, I'm hit. Oh godethheth why!?"

Jasmine's eyes filled with tears as she held onto her hoof and rolled on the ground in pain. This was it for her, she was lame; doomed to a life of flying to get around like normal. This was going to be a big change for her.

"IT'TH OVER! I'm doomed, I'm going to be crippled forever."

Sky could only cringe in pain as the spines entered her body, wasnt much though to worry about. these things were pain to deal with but flashes gun was something to behold, saved her life and the rest of her groups lives.

spines were getting to her though, annoying with pain. First ones she got were with her hooves, she needed her hooves to be spine free. And so she did, picking them out with her teeth until there were none left. Next was the chest spine, that hurt a bit more but now she had to take out the ones in her wings. moving a wing over her face she carefully mouth a the spine over her teeth and pulled, cringing in pain as taking out the spines from her wings hurt more than ever.

Finally done with taking out the spines, she noticed she only had 5 rounds left for the rifle. loading them in, she looked over to the others. More importantly jasmine, crying out in pain over the spine in her hoof, "Jas, please hold still. Im going to take out the hoof the best i can, just stay still." Sky said as she approached her, only knowing a simple trick to take out the spine.

(medicine 35, help out jas in taking out the spine from her hoof)