Slaving Away (Group A) [Closed] [Finished]

Sanctity awoke slowly, drifting out of his dreamless sleep and back into reality softly. He rolled out of bed and groaned slightly, his body aching in muscles he hadn't known existed until yesterday. He wandered around for a few moments, bleary eyed, as he stretched his limbs back into working order. As he slowly woke up, he walked to the remnants of their fire and pulled a lump of the black ash from it, hovering it in the air slightly. He hesitated for a moment, before deciding that if he was ever going to do this, now was the time. He rubbed the black ash into his cream mane slowly, darkening it to a shade barely above that of his fur. It was rudimentary camouflage, at best, but it was decidedly better than nothing. He looked around whilst stifling a yawn.

"Good morning everypony" he called, hoping to wake up anyone who was still sleeping. They needed to be up and ready to rock as soon as they possibly could be. It was going to be another long day ahead of them.

Sanura just kinda blinked at him when he started talking to the picture as if it had spoken to him, there was... definitely something wrong there, her ear quirking before she shook her head, "Well I'm sure I'll manage to keep her from getting too green." she decided not to say anything about it. After all she hardly knew Mek and challenging something like that could wait until... well until there wasn't danger of setting him before the job was done, maybe afterward, at least that way if she made him mad it wouldn't be right before a possible fight.

She finished straightening out her main and repositioned the headband before smiling to the ghoul, "I'm gonna make sure everypony's gettin' up, should stretch that leg of yours out a bit hmm? Don't want it drying out and breaking off." she teased lightly, certainly seemed to be in a better mood, maybe it was just having something to do. In any case, she'd trot around, trying to make sure everypony was waking up and getting ot moving, though she left Ginger and Hopscotch alone since they had each other covered. And of course, Sanc calling out would probably make that job a lot easier. She tried anyways though!

Damn. Just Damn. Mad Mek wasn't usually the guy for staring at mares, but Sanura didn't exactly make it hard for him as she walked away. Taking up the borrowed rifle, he stood up off of the concrete slab, immediately regretting the decision as the leg he had been lifting up the entire night immediately went stiff. He couldn't feel pain anymore, but he recognized a massive leg cramp when he felt one. His weight shifted onto his pneumatic foot, and an incredibly loud hiss came from his leg, along with a massive gout of steam and a clanking noise. He quickly regained his posture and clanked over to the red-haired unicorn's sleeping bag and dropped the rifle on top of him. "' 'Ere's yer rifle, Smoothhide."

Marcus woke with a start as he heard somepony calling out "Good morning". He stood up and blinked away the the night's sleep, going about stretching out his limbs one by one. As he did this, he took note of the others in the group. Mek was walking back from his guard postion, though he was doing it a little stiffly. Sanura was walking around, checking on the camp. Sanctity looked like he had a rough night, but he was awake. Xeshir was still asleep, an issue that would need to be fixed. Diesel was nowhere to be seen, which was concerning to Marcus. Ginger was still laying down; he would need to be woken up soon.

And the Slaver...

Marcus' pupils shrank as he saw the slaver standing above Ginger, completely unbound. Several thoughts raced through his head as he saw this and none of them were good. He lowered himself into a fighting stance and scuffed a hoof menacingly while glaring at the Slaver.

"If you value your life, Slaver, you will step away from Ginger."

Ale opened his eyes with a groan, He wasn't one to be woken up by another, he much preferred to wake up at his own pace but at least he was awoken to the sound of good news. "Well i guess that's good to hear." Ale said in a groggy tone. Before he had a chance to get up and properly welcome the slaver into their little gang, Marcus was making death threats. "UH it is too early for this." Ale stood up and placed himself between marcus and scotch. "It's alright mustachio, he's agreed to help us." He turned back to the slaver, "But that don't mean that I trust you, if I catch even a hint of betrayal," Ale leaned in closer to the buck, "I will not hesitate to put you down."

Ale trotted past hopscotch and over to his saddlebags. His horn flared up and all of his belonging began to levitate into the sacks. With his things packed away, ale threw the bags on his back and reached over to the rock that he left his hunting rifle resting against. His eyes widened when he only grabbed air. Turning he saw that the gun was gone. "OH HELL NO!" He yelled as he scanned the group for viktor. In his mind the damn dog had run off with his rifle again. This however was not the case, mek walked up and handed over the hunting rifle that he borrowed for his night watch. Ale understood why he took the rifle but he still didn't like it, If there's one thing that gets under his skin, it's somepony, dog, whatever taking his stuff, And it didn't help that mek was a ghoul. Ale had been quiet about his hatred for zombies this whole time, mostly due to mek having proven to be useful and the fact that he was a slave the day before. But this, this put ale over the edge. "Damn it scar, next time ask before you take! If I had caught you with your paws on my stuff then I would have cut them off." He grumbled as he pulled the rifle closer to himself. "Now I got to go wash the smell of rotting flesh of my rifle."

The word "Scar" was really starting to annoy Mad Mek. He felt like he should start referring to Ginger using some derogatory term as well, but Mek wasn't known for his tactful thinking and eloquent speech. He was known for not taking shit from anybody who liked to talk up to things nearly twice their size and think they're going to get away scot-free.

"Ah'd like ya see ya try dat, runt. Ah'm gonna guess dat you'z a sniper, what with all da fancy gubbins an' fings ya got on yer rifle. Pull a knife on me, an' ah'm gunna make ya wish dat you was 50 feet away, and not right in fron' a me. They'z gunna hear the screamin' of sum git gettin' his legs torn off all da way in Stabletin."

Xeshir had been awake for a good while by now, she was simply too busy thinking about a possible plan than bothering to get up from her bedroll, but once she noticed everyone was up and moving she herself got off and packed it in her saddlebags again, but before they kept moving she needed to know more first.

The zebra walked towards Hopscotch and tapped his shoulder to get his attenttion. "Hopscotch, I need to ask you a few more things. Could you describe Grace in more detail? How would the slavers react to her death? How many slaves are there with explosive collars?" Maybe, if she pulled this off right, there would only need to be minimal bloodsheed to accomplish what they needed, and hopefully that blood would be the one of evil ponies.

Hopscotch frowned at Marcus’ threat. “If I valued my life, I wouldn’t be helping you take down my old boss.” His ears fell when Ginger idly threatened to kill him at the slightest hint of betrayal. “Does that count betraying Grace?” he turned and started walking back to the firepit. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He turned around when Xeshir tapped him on the shoulder, nodding as he listened to her questions. “Grace is the only minotaur anypony’s ever seen round these parts. He pretty much runs the slaving ring with an iron hoof. Or an iron fist, I guess. I don’t think many like him much, but he’s plenty scarier than you ponies are. More than enough to keep ‘em loyal, I think.” He tapped his chin. “I guess if Grace was to die, things would fall apart pretty quickly. Most would probably grab what they could and hightail it; dealing with that sort of thing ain’t worth the trouble.

“I think we collared most of the slaves.” He stopped, and lowered his head. “Even Marigold,” he murmured. He blinked and looked back up at Xeshir. “Uh… sorry. The children are kept unbound, but they’re unlikely to go far, anyway. The slaves are locked up in cells on the ground floor.

“That about cover your questions? I’ll give you a bit more of a rundown about the layout once we’re closer.”

He gave a heavy sigh as he looked about the makeshift camp. “We about ready to get going? We’re gonna want to get there soon if we want to meet that midday deadline.”

Sanura looks between everypony that was already starting to get up in arms about this and what. Marcus and Hopscotch and Ginger and Mek, "Can we just... get over this whole fighting with each other thing and just get this over with?" she said to them, trotting semi-between them as best she could.

"Marcus, he's going to help us and everypony's already agreed on that so just let it go for now. If he wanted to really do something he could've done it while we were letting him go when I untied him last night." she said before looking toward Mek and Ginger.

"And there's no reason for either of you to be getting all worked up, nothing happened, the rifle's back and everypony's safe so let's just -" motioning toward Hopscotch with her horn, "Get packed up and move out, I want to go home already." she huffed.

Marcus stepped back in surprise when Ginger stepped in to vouch for the Slaver. He had assumed that Ginger was heavily against Slavers as well, before now of course. Now, he wasn't too sure what to think. Especially after the Slaver's response:

“If I valued my life, I wouldn’t be helping you take down my old boss.”

Sanura brought up a good point though... If it had intended to kill or capture them, he would've done it when he had the chance. It wouldn't wait for the group to be awake once more. His ears folded back as he addressed her in turn, bowing as he did so.

"Forgive me, I was not thinking clearly. I let my anger guide my thoughts. It will not happen again, this I promise."

This did not mean that Marcus would trust the Slaver by any means. If the group was willing to accept the risk of letting it join them, Marcus would follow. He would keep a close eye on the Slaver as much as possible, yes, but he would go along with the group.

With this in mind, Marcus straightened to his full height and slapped his hat back on, looking around the group once again. Marcus wanted to reach the Slaves as soon as possible, which meant moving right away. To make matters worse, the Slaver had mentioned a noon deadline, which meant time was of the essence.

Also... a Minotaur? Marcus wasn't too quick to believe such a claim, but if they were dealing with a Minotaur then they would have to expect a difficult battle was ahead of them. Marcus shuddered to think of what such a fight would be like.

"We must make haste, fellow wasafiri (travelers). We cannot waste too much time."

Sanctity nodded at the earth pony as he shrugged his packs on. They could eat on the move, they couldn't rewind time. Well, as far as he knew any way. He picked up his rifle and reattached it to his back, wishing he'd've set the sights to his eyes before moving out. He looked over at Xeshir and called out to her. "I changed my mind. I can scout again". He still didn't feel a confident as he had yesterday but.. He felt like he needed to redeem himself. To prove he'd learnt.

Mek's face was lit up with a giant grin. Forgetting about Ginger, he turned to the rest of the group with near-childish glee. "Ah knew it!" he loudly yelled, pointing a finger directly at Hopscotch. His laugh was groundshakingly powerful as he danced around, the sound of hissing steam and clanking filling the area. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the male zebra shuddering to himself. He figured this was as good a time as any to get his name.

"Don' worry yerself, Zebra. Put enuff bullets inta sumfin', an' no matta what it iz, it dies. No ifs, an's, or buts."

Diesel let out a low growl as he walked back into the group. "Everyone stop fighting against each other and let's get moving, unless you want to go more rounds with me." Giving everyone a long hard look he turned towards Hopscotch. "Show me the way to the camp then Scotch," looking back again, "I'll fight Grace hand to hand and the rest of you can give me cover fire." With out looking if the group was following him he turned to start walking towards the camp with Scotch.

Sanura nodded some to Marcus, "It's alright, everypony just seems all itchy to get rough." she said and nodded once more with a smile before spying Mek do his clanking, hissing, bouncing little cheerful dance and she couldn't help but to giggle and shake her head, such an odd sight to see a massive canine ghoul with a whirring leg dance about like that. She sobered up some when Viktor spoke though, sighing softly.

"Make plans after seeing the situation, Viktor... don't think I've ever seen a minotaur before but it might need more than you dodging your own people's bullets while they shoot around you." she warn idly as she trotted after him, pulling out her meager two potions and one set of bandages, just to make sure they were still there before putting them back in place.

Marcus trotted after Diesel and Hopscotch, keeping a close eye on the Slaver as it walked. He heard Diesel say that he would be the one taking care of Grace. He wasn't too sure who Grace was, but if he was saying that he would need covering fire while fighting Grace one on one, that could only point to one possible target: the Minotaur.

He brought himself up next to Diesel and began addressing him.

"Mister Diesel, you are very brave to face such a dangerous opponent in close combat. Be warned, a Minotaur is a very capable fighter, even if weakened. Do not stop until you are sure it is put down."

Mad Mek started after the group, taking up the rear as he slipped on his gauntlets and took his pistol from its holster. He took up a steady rythm of metallic thumping and kept a close eye on the windows as he walked. "Vikta won' be da only wun clobberin' da Minotaur's teef out. Ah'll be right up there wif 'im!" He said as he slammed his weaponized knuckles together. Did these Smoothhides honestly think he was going to miss out on a chance to get a pair of Minotaur horns? They were sadly mistaken.

Ale had ignored mek's threat, he was too busy checking his rifle for any damage or misuse the dog might had done. His ears did perk up when scotch explained who grace was. "Well at least he will be easy to spot." ale commented. When the two dogs started going off about how they were going to beat the minotaur in a round of fisticuffs ale sighed, "You two sure that's the best option. I mean if this grace guy is out in the open then I could just take his head off from a distance. And if slaver boy is right then the resulting chaos will make the job easier as the non-loyal flee." ale pondered about how to get the slaves out however. If most of them were fitted with collars then all it would take is a trigger happy slaver and a lot of lives will be lost. Ale's eyes lit up as he had an epiphany. "I may have an idea but I need to see what the layout of the compound is first." He turned to sanctity, I'll come with you to go scout the place out. Two sets of eyes might be able to spot something that one would not."

Xeshir turned to Sanctity and smiled as he accepted the role of scout once again. "Good to know Sanc." She then looked at Viktor and Mek, both talking about how they would kill the Minotaur. She hadn´t heard a lot from them and what little information she had talked about a bipedal creature with the legs of a goat and the body of a bull. She herself would like to battle against such a beast...Too bad she wouldn´t.

"I´m afraid I´m going to have to cut this whole chatter about "Let´s kill Grace." For two reasons. One: Grace is probably going to be protected from about twenty slavers. Covering fire or not you may most likely die, and Two" She said with a slight smirk. "Because I have a plan, and if it works then there will be minimal bloodshed, and I think that´s what we all want." She lifted her saddlebags and signaled the group. "Argue with me if you want, but mind to do it while we move towards the slaver camp?" She then turned towards Hopscotch again and said. "One last thing. Where is Grace usually located? How are the slave collars triggered? And does the camp have an armory where all the big guns and such are located?" Things were looking in favor of the plan. Hopefully they would remain like that...

Diesel nodded to Marcus as he walked, he knew it would be a tough fight ahead of him. As the walked on he heard Mek add in that he was going to be fighting with him, the idea of two DD fighting together brought a smile to his face as he laughed a little inside. But then Ale spoke up, stopping dead in his tracks Viktor turned around and stared at Ginger directly in the eyes. "We all know where your shooting gets us Ginger, just do us all a favor and kill any slaver you see trying to run away okay? I'm sure you can do real good at that." Turning back around he paced onward, now in a sour mood from Ginger.

As Xeshir spoke up about the gaurds Diesel let out a billowing laughter, "And you my fine zebra mare, have forgotten that we Diamond Dogs can dig through the earth havn't you? We can just dig past all the gaurds taking Grace by surprise and quickly ending him faster then your plan could. At least try to remember what everyone in your team can do if you make a plan okay?"

Xeshir turned to Viktor with a smile. "Actually, that´s the thing. You can dig tunnels, and that means you can get the slaves from under the slavers noses and guide them through the tunnels to freedom. Digging under a Minotaur that can still very much kill you even if you caught him by surprise, not to mention he´ll probably have bodyguards that won´t hesistate to shoot a canine that shoots up from the earth and starts fighting her boss." She turned around and kept walking, her mind still thinking about the plan. Hopefully the others wouldn´t act like Viktor when they heard about it.

Diesel frowned as he heard what his job was going to be. He had done a lot of things in his day, even a few he wasn't proud of. But escorting a bunch of ponies as he let some asinine pony like Ginger take credit for killing a bloody minotaur? That is something he would not do at all, as they walked he paced next to Xeshir. "I may dig the holes for their escape, but you have to promise not to let Ginger anywhere near Grace. Otherwise I'm going to drop everything and join in on the fighting, that is my only term. It wasn't an offer, either you agree or Mek can dig all the holes for you if you think he will listen."

Xeshir rolled her eyes. "Fine, I promise you that Ginger won´t be anywhere near Grace, and if you want to kill a few slavers so bad then there will probably be a few when you pop up on the cells of the slaves. Have fun twisting their necks." Was everyone on the team going to be so bloodthirsty? She just wanted to do this with minimal bloodshed, was that so much to ask?

Mad Mek overhead Xeshir's plan for him, and made a noise similar to a generator breaking down. He knew he could dig fast, but could he tunnel under the cages fast and silently enough that it would go unnoticed in a firefight? Stealth wasn't his style, but there's a first time for everything. He increased his pace until he was walking besides Xeshir. "If it'z any comfort fer da lot of ya, Ah'll dig da slaves out from unda their cages." He suggested, pointing to himself with his thumb.

He realized that in any other situation, participating in combat would be good. But he couldn't risk going into psychosis when surrounded by relatively helpless slaves. Not only would he never be able to live that down, but Sanura would despise him for it. Gaining the hatred of the nicest pony in the wasteland would probably drive the old ghoul to suicide.

Diesel could only shake his head as Xeshir spoke, "I never ment to come off as bloodthirsty, I mearly do not want that smug pony saying he did all the work when things come down to it. I said that I would take him on in hand to hand so that we could distract them while some one cleared the ponies out. Do not go so fast to think that all I want is death, I was a guard for my whole life. Death is the thing I make sure doesn't happen."

Sanctity nodded silently along to Xeshir's plan. The theory behind it was very sound. Hopefully the whole thing would reduce the spilling of innocent, or at least, not evil blood. It'd definitely be safer than fighting their forces head on, which would be nigh on suicidal.

"There anything you need me to do?" he asked, seeing that she had obviously thought this plan through. He tightened the buckles of his mercenary outfit underneath his cloak absent mindedly.