Lord of the Foals[Closed]

Violet first went for the door, to find a way to open it. It was bolted shut, and no force in Equestria would seem strong enough to open it. Whoever designed this room clearly did not intend for anything to move through this door at will.

When Violet turned to try and find another means of opening it; the terminal on the wall came to her attention. It was a bulky thing, with a very wide monitor and multiple compartments attached to what Violet might conclude was a testing lab. There was a loudspeaker on the wall, but there were no cameras. She also noticed a pipbuck lying in the corner, around one of the skeleton's legs. The latest recording on the pipbuck was dated only weeks after the great war ended; these ponies died long before the violence ever took hold in the stable, only weeks after it was occupied.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jasmine couldn't hear any foals pursuing her after her feigned injury. Perhaps not enough time had passed, or maybe there was a situation amongst the foals that kept them from arriving.

All those questions were quickly answered when a new message came blaring over the PA system, in the form of one of the stable's pre-recorded messages.

"Warning! Automated turret system will be active in 5:00 minutes, security code infrared. All non-security personnel, please return to your rooms as this violent rebellion is quelled.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A look of dread spread across Gear's face as the state of emergency was declared. "Uh oh! Sky, if you've still got your room we can hide in, I think it's best that we go there, right now. Bad things are going to happen if that timer reaches zero and we're still out in these hallways."

Wait, what?
WHAT?!
Arc stopped mid gallop and stared at the loudspeaker with wide eyes, a look of disbelief of what he was hearing on his face. He can't... but that... oh. Fuck. So much for the distraction, it would seem.

He heard Gear behind him talking about hiding. Not that he would disagree with hiding from the suppression system, but right now, it could provide the necessary diversion.

He looked at Sky and Gear, a little desperate look in his eyes. "Sky, different idea. We get Gear safe and move on with the plan. The maintenance should be safe from the suppression system, but it will also mean the foals can't move around the corridors too. And... you were a security, no? In all likelihood, nopony wiped the records, and you should be safe to move."

Arc's expression turned more desperate with each second, gritting his teeth as he felt the timer tick. "Still, fight or flight, we have to move now."

Sky nodded to arc as she heard what the loudspeakers said, "alright then, lets get gear to safety and we head on through the plan." Sky looked around, motioning arc to follow her to the maintance wing. "Lets move ponies."



(Crappy post is crappy)

Jasmine's ears strained as she laid on the cold floor of the stable. Her wary eyes scanned both in front and behind her as she tried to keep a lookout for any surprises. Suddenly an emergency announcement blared out over the PA system. The words echoed through the halls as she stared forward with unfocused eyes. Her breathing quickened as she sprang up on all four hooves.

Jasmine circled in place as her gaze shifted around. She stared forward in the direction she could travel toward the Overmare's office, before flying back to find Starry and the others.

Jas flew on at full speed as she navigated the halls of the Stable. She turned each corner foalishly, her wings touching the walls as she continued her flight path. She bumped a few walls on her short journey, leaving behind a few feathers while doing so.

"THTARRYYYY THTARYYYYYY! WE'RE IN TROUBLE!"

She shouted as she traveled like a missile trying to find everypony.

After Lightning dropped Violet off in the vent and began lower himself to the ground, things just seemed to get worse and worse by the second. A pre-recorded message came over the intercom and and announced that the automatic turret system was coming online. This is just getting bad.

Landing, the pegasus grit his teeth and turned toward Bakewell and Lemon Drop, "Ok, this isn't good...We have to make a move now before those turrets come online. Or else, we are going to have a flank full of bullets. What do you want to do, Bakewell...? We can...try and find a room and hide. Or we could...fight the foals and try to regain control of the Overmare's office. But we would need to regroup with the others and do it together or else we won't have much of a force. But of course, we would have to wait for Violet. What do you want to do?"

Bakewell’s eyes widened even further as the intercom announced still more bad news. She nervously clicked her hooves as she stared at the door. Hoping it would open to miraculously reveal safety. Somewhere she could stop and not have to worry about the stable or what was happening or murderous foals or anything. The emotional earth pony was having enough problems holding herself together, and the last thing she wanted was for Flash to ask her to think. But he had, so she must.

“F-Flash, we said we weren’t going to hurt the foals unless forced to.” She said. Her eyes darting from Flash to Lemon Drop and hoping he would understand that they shouldn’t talk about killing or harming the filly’s friends in front of her as though she weren’t even there. “They’re not all bad, maybe none of them except for Jack are. Hay. Maybe… maybe even Jack isn’t all bad. I hate him for what he’s done to our families, but I can’t say for sure that he didn’t have a reason! Besides, what about Lemon Drop? She’s wounded. We’ll be lucky if we get to the others and regroup and crack our way into the most secure office in the stable in five minutes if we gallop full force, there’s no way Lemon can make it!” She insisted. Bakewell wanted to make it absolutely clear that she wasn’t going to betray the one foal who trusted her to make everything okay.

“I think we need to find somewhere to hide, or at least a room small enough for us to make some quick cover and take out the turrets when they deploy. We’ll have time to actually come up with something, at least until the radiation gets us. Maybe that locked room will work, if Violet can open it. Or maybe we can just run to your room and hold out for the others, depending on how far it is. We can’t go to mine, though. My mother made it perfectly clear that I wasn’t welcome. That I…” The mare stopped and readjusted gaze towards the floor. Briefly needing to recompose herself and get her mind back on the task at hand.

“We can’t leave Lemon Drop, either. Jack has cameras, remember? He’ll be able to see that she’s with us. The turrets might target her. We can't do anything at all without Violet, either. I don’t know. This was my home, Flash. And it's falling apart. A cruel dictatorship? Having to constantly run from those who should be our friends? What about the radiation, that's not supposed to happen! Every single pony in here should be family, but they tore each other up a year ago and haven't stopped since. And now it just feels like we're coming back to complete the job by making everything worse."

Bakewell stopped and looked back up in an attempt to look Flash in the eyes, to try and judge how he felt, to try and find out how he was holding himself together so well.

"Why did we come back, Flash? I would have rathered think that everypony was dead. It was better than the truth.”

Lightning probably wasn't showing it because of his anger and his determination to stop Jack from hurting more ponies but inside, the pegasus WAS struggling to handle the situation. Inside, the emotions he felt was pounding to come out. And Bakewell's words didn't help as it was making the stallion feel worse about the entire situation. His wall was cracked and bit and pieces of his emotions came out here and there, like when his parents got shot. But a large majority of it, Lightning held back. He had too. Somepony had to keep a clear mind. If he didn't, the ponies with him will die. And so will the pegasus.

The gravity of the situation was too much and taking a look at Lemon Drop as Bakewell spoke about the foals, Lightning couldn't help but let a few tears drop from his eyes. He knew the mare was right. Lemon wouldn't survive without medical help and they were the only ones that were able to administer it. The stallion didn't want Bakewell to see him cry so he turned away but his attempts of hiding his tears probably didn't go so well. Nodding lightly, Lightning would say, "You...you're right. Let's hope Violet gets this door open and we'll take cover..." In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think, 'And we'll let the radiation hopefully give us a painless death.' If it came down to it though...He had his guns...No. No, he couldn't shoot his friend.

Swallowing hard and forcing his emotions down again, Light turned back to the earth pony. "This was my home too. And no matter what has happened, it has. And we have to live with it. But we can't give up. Not yet. We ca-...We have to make it through this. The ponies in this stable may be divided. But we aren't. We're still a team. You, me, Violet, Arc, Starry, all of us that came here. And whatever happens, we will do it together as a team. As a family."

The question of why they chose to return caught Lightning off guard but swallowing his emotions, he lay a hoof on Bakewell's shoulder as a hopefully comforting gesture. "We all had our own reasons of returning...The overall reasons is we wanted the technology here. But...I'm sure all of us had underlying reasons for returning. For me...my return here was to find the truth...despite how painful it is. And now that I know the truth, I now have a new reason for returning here. And it's to help all the ponies here. I don't know what is your reason for returning...but whatever it is...I know that it is something you have to discover for yourself."

Violet frowned as the door refused to open, this was going to be slightly more difficult than she thought. Sighing, she turned away from the door and scanned the rest of the room. Two things of interests were clearly visible...Although neither of them were very useful.

A pipbuck, and a terminal. Violet frowned as she looked between the two, nudging the pipbuck with a hoof. She was sure the monitors of the two devices were activated, if only because of the glowing magic running behind them, but she would have no way of knowing otherwise. Her vision wasn’t built to recognize the information being displayed by the monitors.

She shook her head and picked up the pipbuck, breaking off the limb it was attached to before slipping it into her saddlebags. She might not be able to read it, but if there was anything on it that was useful Bakewell or Lightning would be able to.

“Alright, there has to be another way out of here...Besides the terminal...” she said to herself as she looked around more, eyes glowing brightly as she tried to discern anything that could help...

Until a message came on over the intercom that drastically shortened the timetable.

“...Oh no.”

There was nothing in here that appeared to be able to open the door, nothing she could see anything and that was a lot...Nothing but that terminal, that is. Her frown deepened as she walked up to it.

Although on the plus side she didn’t see any turrets either.

“Great...The one thing in Equestria that I can’t actually use and its the only way to open that door...Well, pressing random buttons hasn’t killed anypony before...Well, it probably has actually, but I don’t have many other options...Plus it’s more their lives in stake than mine, I don’t even know if there’s another room close enough that they can get into...”

She sighed, before looking down at the keyboard and starting to press random keys to try to get the computer to open the door, and prayed to Celestia and Luna that it wouldn’t blow up the entire Stable or something.

Lemon Drop spoke up. She had remained silent for a long moment, after Flash had made his heart-lifting remarks. She didn't quite know how to fit herself into the conversation, so she just picked up with what she knew. "Jack always said that the turrets won't hurt ponies with security pipbucks. We-uh... after we, well, um..." It was difficult for Lemon Drop to say it, though it wasn't a physical pain which was preventing her. It seemed more like shame.

"The foals have security pip-bucks, so the turrets won't hurt us, I think. I never saw the turrets before, so I don't really know, but Jack never lied before."

It was convenient timing, because a mere seconds after finishing her sentence, the door swung open.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violet's mashing of the keyboard, if it were to meet any success, would certainly begin with a long string of failures. She didn't know what she was doing, or what she was looking at, but there was fortunately an automated vocal response to the commands she was entering.

"Access Restricted."
"Access Restricted."
"Access Restricted."
"Cleanliness is Celestianess."
"Please Enter Password."
"Password Incorrect."
"Procreation is your Civic Duty!"
"You Have No New Messages."
"You Have One Old Messages."
"Lockdown is in Progress."
"Please Follow Proper Procedure Before Ending Lockdown."
"Please Follow Proper Procedure Before Ending Lockdown."
"It Looks Like You Are Trying to End a Lockdown. Would you like some Help with That?"
"User Anxiety Detected, Venting Relaxatives into Room."
"Deploying Manual Fire-Suppression Instruments."
Several fire extinguishers are pushed out of a compartment in the wall.
"Deploying Manual-Fire Suppression Instruments."
Several assault rifles are deployed from another adjacent compartment.
"Seek the Sunshine of Friendship."
"A Problem has been Detected and -OS_CLASSIFIED- has been Shut Down to Prevent Damage to your Computer."

The door suddenly unlatched, and swung open.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gear gritted his teeth as Jasmine arrived. "Okay, I'm following you Sky. What are you three going to do?" he asked, directing his question as Shutter, Starry and Jasmine.

//I apologize for making the Starry/Jazz/Shutter/Arc/Sky portion much shorter than the Bake/Flash/Violet portion ever since reviving the thread. I'll be making a post with Starry to try and flesh out some more options after I wake up.

"JAZZ!" Starry shouted, as her sister approached. "We have to get out of here, fast! I think we have, uhm.... four minutes and three seconds!"

Starry rubbed her hooves against her temple. "A plan, a plan, a plan... AHA!" Starry looked Shutter and Jasmine in the eyes. "We need to get to the Overmare's office, immediately! If Jack or the other foals die, or just don't care about us, then this lockdown might stay in effect forever! We need to access the overmare's terminal, so we can end the lockdown!"

Starry checked her mental clock again. "Three minutes and thirty-three seconds, let's move!"

"Access Restricted."
"Access Restricted."
"Access Restricted."

“Come on...”

"Cleanliness is Celestianess."
"Please Enter Password."
"Password Incorrect."

Violet wasn’t sure why she thought ‘Swordfish’ would work...

"Procreation is your Civic Duty!"

Violet rolled her eyes.

"You Have No New Messages."
"You Have One Old Messages."

“Yeah that’s very helpful.”

"Lockdown is in Progress."

“Kinda figured that.”

"Please Follow Proper Procedure Before Ending Lockdown."
"Please Follow Proper Procedure Before Ending Lockdown."

“I really don’t like computers.”

"It Looks Like You Are Trying to End a Lockdown. Would you like some Help with That?"

“Yes, that would be great! And of course you’re probably displaying all that help in text.” she sighed.

"User Anxiety Detected, Venting Relaxatives into Room."

“That’s not helpful!”

"Deploying Manual Fire-Suppression Instruments."

The filly just stared at the deploy Fire Extinguishers. “...”

"Deploying Manual-Fire Suppression Instruments."

Violet blinked as she turned to the rifles. “...Ok I’m sure those will be far more useful eventually.”

"Seek the Sunshine of Friendship."

Violet groaned.

"A Problem has been Detected and -OS_CLASSIFIED- has been Shut Down to Prevent Damage to your Computer."

“NO DON’T! AARGH, I HATE COMPUTERS!” she started pressing more buttons trying to get the thing to turn back on, hair starting to look a bit frazzled in her desperation...Of course she didn’t notice the door opening until the three ponies outside got a good look at the little filly mashing keys in frustration.

She blinked as she finally noticed the door, slowly turning towards it and the ponies staring at her. “Uh...I mean...Look guys! I got the door opened! Go me!” she said with a somewhat forced smile before she turned back to the computer. “I still hate you.” she whispered before jumping out of the chair.

“Uh, by the way, don’t breathe too heavily, I’m pretty sure the computer pumped some kind of drug into the air. Probably nothing serious but I don’t think getting high will help us at all...Also I found guns!” she pointed at the assault rifles.

Shutter would let out an audible groan on hearing the turret announcement. His reaction may have seemed light compaired to everyone elses, but to him, Things just seemed to be going from bad to worse here, and this piled on everything else just seemed like an already impossible task becoming even more impossible. Still, he couldn't give up now...he and others had managed some pretty impossible things in the past after all, he just had to hope that luck kept up.

"Okay, lets get moving!"

Shutter would state, before galloping off in the direction Starry was heading, still talking as he moved.

"Starry, please tell me you happen to know of a shortcut or something? I'm really not liking our chances of beating this timer..."

Jasmine's eyes widened as she looked around. She looked back to Starry pleadingly at the very mention of the overmare's office. Before she was able to voice her protest Starry and Shutter galloped off down the Hallway. Jasmine lifeted off into the air flying after her sister and her colt friend. All she could think about was staying away from those hideous creatures, as far away as possible. Her stomach seemed to be tied in a knot as she followed Shutter and Starry.

"Thtarry, Thutter- Thith ith a horrible idea! I don't even have anything to defend mythelf, and what about you two?! Thethe foalth don't care- they'll shoot uth without a thecond thought. THEY THINK WITH THEIR ID, never mind ego or thuper ego!"

She flew closer trying her best not to bump into Shutter who was following Star. "Jack thaid over the PA thythtem that he wanted to kill me! If I showed up, any of them with gunth would probably try to chathe me away. I don't want to be shot... Porouth ithn't a good look for me..."

"Don't worry Jazz, I would have us make such a terrible decision if we weren't utterly desperate." Starry reassured her sister, as they reached the Stable's front room, where the massive door sealed them inside. The secret passage to the overmare's office was on the right side of the room, hidden by a terminal. Starry tapped away at the keys, calmly hacking her way past the door. It took a good half a minute before the door slid open.

"Great, it's open! Everypony in. If I'm not mistaken we have precisely six seconds until the turrets in this room activate and kill us."

Starry stood at the entryway, gesturing for her sister and coltfriend to enter.

Jasmine bolted inside as fast as she could, she skidded to a stop and looked over to Starry and Shutter. She really couldn't believe that Starry knew this place exhisted, she wanted to ask about it but felt it best not to ask right now. They had to reach the office and try to shut off the terminal. Jasmine began to look around the passageway trying to look for anything of interest as she slowly walked down the path.

"I hope there aren't any camerath in here... How much farther ith the offithe? And onthe we're there we'll need a plan of attack... well, jutht a plan- minuth the attack."

"Don't worry about me," Gear said, "I'll step just step into Mr. Stock's home here, and lay low until this whole thing dies down." He did as he said, stepping inside the home.

Arc and Sky then bolted down toward the maintenance level, managing to outrun the countdown. They were near the apple orchard, which was in the lowest depths of the stable, where the geothermal generators(the stable's supplementary power source) were located.

Sky suddenly came to a halt, her face pounding against thin air. The impact broke her nose, and blood began to pour from it. Where there was moments ago air appeared a pony, dressed in metal armor clearly emblazoned with the mark of Redeye.

It was one of Redeye's slavers, wearing a pipbuck with a recently-broken stealth buck. He turned his weapon toward Sky, a sawed-off shotgun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starry, Shutter and Jasmine darted into the secret tunnel. The door slid closed behind them, just as a turret sprouted from the ground and opened fire in their direction. They could hear the terminal break, as the bullets barraged it. There was no leaving through this exit.

The three snuck out the other side, into the Overmare's office. To their good fortune, the room was empty. Should they access the terminal, they would find a log recorded by the original Overmare, on the first day of entering the Stable, currently open.

I got the debrief this morning, regarding the Stable's experiment. It's... it's fucking ridiculous, is what it is. These experiments are supposed to be about engineering a better Equestria, creating a perfect society free of violence and hatred, but this... they're just spreading a rumor? They really wasted an entire stable to tell ponies that there was some 'mystery drug' that will cause one pony to go crazy?
It would be a waste of an opportunity. I swear, they’re not giving me the whole picture.”

On the main menu, there was an option labelled "Turret Controls", and under that menu, "Disable Turrets".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The terminal in front of Violet, Bakewell, Flash and Lemon Drop lit up. It was rebooting. In a matter of seconds, it accessed the main menu, and the voice-recording began speaking.

"Critical Recovery complete. Terminal has been reset to original state. You have One new messages.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suddenly, as the timer hit zero, the sound of bullets rang out all across the stable, along with countless shouts and cries of pain. The ponies might have thought it was a slaughter, but in an instant, the ring of gunfire doubled. Explosions, shouting and the sound of bullets rending flesh could be heard among the gunfire, as the turrets waged war with some invisible foe.

Shutter exhaled a sigh of relief as the closing door blocked the turret right in the nick of time. It looked like luck had seen them through after all.

However, now wasn't the time for rest, as screams and gunfire rang out through the stable. Quickly, the colt rushed into the office, barely taking a moment to acknoledge the room was empty before he leapt at the computer to disable the turrets.

However, before he could press the button, the sounds of gunfire doubled, and Shutter paused as he heard explosions and battle ring throughout the stable.

"...Hold on a sec...all the stable dwellers should have gotten in cover by now, and the foals were probably the first ones to scamper out of harms way. Who the hell is shooting back? Let alone causing explosions?"

Shutter moved his hoof away from the keyboard, as he then selected 'Turret Controls'. He wanted to see if there was a camera option, so he could get to the bottom of this mystery...

Bakewell had started moving towards the door the moment it opened, but the sudden sound of gunfire made her yelp, snatch up Lemon Drop, and dive fully into the room as quickly as she could. Thankfully, the fact that she wasn’t perforated like swiss cheese seemed to be a good indication that the room was safe enough to stay in. For now.

After getting into the room and making sure Lemon Drop and Flash were okay, Bakewell quickly made her way over to the terminal. She knew all too well from past knowledge and the filly’s frazzled appearance that Violet had most likely just been hitting things in desperation and hadn’t checked anything concerning the system or whatever the fancy words Scrap Parts always used were. The mare was still having trouble thinking straight, and so her number one misplaced priority was not on surviving, not on escape, not on finding the others, but instead was to keep her purple friend from being embarrassed. That meant Bakewell had to mess around with the terminal before Flash inevitably asked Violet to do something else with it and realized that Violet couldn't actually see terminals. Bakewell tried to trigger the new message. It was better than the horrible sounds of her fellow stableton ponies getting torn to shreds by turrets, and she was positive that the sounds of gunfire and rending flesh belonged to her friends. Who else would be firing back?

"Wait wait wait!" Starry exclaimed, as Shutter started checking the terminal. "What did that message say?" Starry reopened the message, and read through it.

"Shutter! Do you know what this means? Not even the overmare believed the experiment was true! The only other pony to ever disbelieve it was my father. I know this isn't the right time for this, but this might mean something BIG! There are answers in this Stable, secrets that have been hidden from us our entire lives!"

Lightning simply looked away from Bakewell and tried to get his mind thinking back on the job at hoof. The next thing he knew, Violet had gotten the door open. The words Lemon Drop had said made the pegasus think. If all the foals had security Pipbucks, then maybe he could use Lemon Drop's Pipbuck and move through the Stable! However, that thought would come too late though as when the door opened, gunfire erupted.

Somehow, by sheer luck, there was no turrets in their current area. However, to his dismay, the turrets could be heard in other places of the Stable, the sound of ponies dying accompanying it. When the gunfire erupted, Lightning had reacted quickly and drew his 10mm SMG, his head whirling around quickly to search for threats. When he realized where the sounds of gunfire and dying really came from, it hit the pegasus hard. He slowly holstered his weapon before swallowing a small lump that had suddenly forced at his throat. They caused all this...their friends...his parents...all of them...getting shot at right now. Backing into the room, his anger just seemed to grow larger by the second. No more. If he was going to die here. He was going to die fighting.

Lightning whirled around and quickly made his way over to the small pile of guns that Violet had accidently dispensed. Assault rifles. A nice gun to defend (or more like terrorize in this case) a Stable like this. Lightning picked one up and immediately ejected the magazine to check if it was loaded before slamming the clip back in. And then he picked up another gun, ejected the mag, and began to fill his bag full of assault rifle clips. There was a lot so there was almost no worry of running out of ammo but the issue was more of how much he could carry and when Jack and the other foals will get wise and come kill them. Or how long they had until the radiation killed them. One way or the other, Lightning was ready to fight and survive and that was all it mattered right now.

"Message opened, playing message." the terminal declared, as Bakewell interacted with it.

"Hello! This is Scootaloo, vice-president of Stable-tec, but you probably know me as CEO of Red-Racer.... If you're hearing this message, it means that you've volunteered to try a very experimental drug, "Pace". Testing was never completed on the substance, but with further development, we're hoping to create a drug which can pacify ponies' violent behaviors. That means anger, jealousy, all the things that make us go to war, while simultaneously boosting our positive attributes; love, compassion, kindness.... There's a problem, though. The drug isn't finished. Ponies who have taken the substance have been known to.... go crazy. That's why we need heroes like you. We've chosen to continue developing the substance, in secret. The ponies you see in this room are the only ones who know this experiment exists, not even the overmare knows about this. We've told the overmare that somepony has been injected with a drug which will make them crazy, in the unfortunate event that the drug finds its way into the rest of the stable. You cannot let word of this experiment leave this room. Good luck!"

The medical chair and the three skeletons littering the room might seem far more significant now, given the previous revelation.

Bakewell listened as the recording played. She wasn’t sure how to react anymore. What was the needed emotion for this? Anger? Probably anger. But she just couldn’t sum it up. All of these years spent hating an anonymous official for spreading the lie into her stable when it first opened, and now that she finally had a voice to associate with it she just couldn’t make herself care. Bakewell looked over at the skeletons and in her customary way wondered who they had been Who they ha- wait. Drug delivered in secret? Where would they store it? Who delivered it if these three dead ponies were the only ones who took it? And why were there guns in here and not turrets? How could this little terminal be so sure that was the drug would be delivered and taken, did the Stable itself force the drugs into these skeletons? Oh no. Couldn’t be. No.

Yes.

“Violet, you just said th- Everypony, out! Out! Don’t breathe!”

Sky had nodded to gear as he rushed down to maintenance, only to het a face full of hitting something midway. Which caused sky to get a bloody nose and fall to her haunches, only to see something flicker and reveal a pony, a red eye pony. Then the shotgun was pointed straight at her, "you got to be bucking kidding me!" Sky yelled out as in the little time she had, moved towards the buck with the sawd off shotgun. Hoping to be able to fight him for the gun and use it against him.

(Fight buck and take his weapon, then use it against him. Crappy post )

Arc looked at Gear with concerned look, not exactly feeling alright with leaving the battered earth pony alone. Still... they were running out of time.

"Alright then Gear, just lay low. You've done more than enough, okay?" Arc spoke in a tone he considered reassuring, already galloping with Sky away.

Arc lost the track of the time as they ran through the corridors. He soon caught up with Sky and took a lead, knowing this part of the Stable better than her. Right turn, left turn, down the stairs, around the corner with that faulty food dispenser that always offered apple juice instead of pancakes. Through the pressure bulkhead, down another stairs.

Arc leaned against the wall, heavily breathing, exhausted from the run. He wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and swept the droopy mane from front of his eyes. He looked up, looking for the copper red markings that announced entrance to the maintenance level. Just as he looked up, a loud noise filled the tunnel, sounding like a thousand rugs being ripped apart. Fuck fuck fuck fuck... that was far too close Arc...

Sky trotted past him, lightly panting from the mad dash, seemingly not winded much. Friggin pegasus. Arc got up from leaning on the wall and caught up with Sky again. The something stopped her, like she just hit a glass pane. Suddenly several small electric arcs, accompanied with a sizzling noise. A split second later, the arcs vanished and in place of them, a pony wearing a metal armour with a Red Eye emblem on it appeared instead, pointing a shotgun at Sky.

In times as these, one's brain takes control of one's action from the conscious mind, acting on instincts. As Arc's eyes delivered the information of the scene to his brain, as his grey matter started to process the scene, his legs were already moving, running towards the slaver and preparing to jump. His mind caught up, trying to concentrate on the back of the armoured head pointing a gun at Sky.

(
Unarmed 15, trying to tackle the the slaver
Magic 32, casting Arcanic Blast:Frost [ Magic document ] on the head of the slaver, provided you use spells, if not, trying to pull away the slaver's head from aiming at Sky with telekinesis,
Luck 6
)

The second Starry was done reading the message, Shutter would go straight back to his searching the computer for a camera option, either on the turret controls, or just some sort of feed to the security cameras.

"Starry, I won't lie, that is interesting, and once this is done, I'll be happy to discuss it with you and Jazz and hopefully solve this mystery. But right now? I'm hearing explosions ringing out there, and I severely doubt things like grenades and other explosives were standard issue for any Stable security! I want to know what the heck is causing that, and putting up such a massive fight against the turrets!"

Shutter would mutter, focused on the computer.