The Beginning of the End [Closed]

Techno sighed and walked back to the table that had provided him and Cross cover. "Of course I'm still mad about Stableton. You pretty much razed it to the ground." he said, throwing a glare at Cross. "But for the moment, you're in the same situation as us and are part of the team. If one of the team is hurt, I patch 'em up." he said, softening his gaze at Cross from a glare to a casual glance. "Besides, you're still useful here." he finished, now walking back over towards the group over near the control room.

And quite the secret it was, should Grey Mane somwhow find out about all of this no doubt there would be some serious consequences.

"Want you ta' look for a way to get these collars off." Kes whispered his voice just loud enough for Blue to hear.

"Hack terminals, look for notes, frequencies, codes. Hell flirt 'n chat up Malachite. Kid looks like he looks like he could turn with the right persuasion. N' keep all this quiet, its no good if grandpa to find out." the gryphon said standing up again to his full height and giving a nod to the filly beside him.

Again the bird had spoken more than usual, but this plan needed to be explained in detail. Hell Kes' tongue hurt already from the earlier speech, what was one more little bout of dialogue gonna do to him?

Cross sighed, it wasn't really Cross who set everything on fire....it was the damnable dregon, but there was no point in pleading for forgiveness now, seemed like Techno had none to give.

Cross redonned, his hood and tried to find Malachite, and Cross staggered over to the pony and tried to hide the pain, "Are you alright Malachite?"

Starry nodded to Kes. She happened to be an expert on science and on all things that explode, so these collars should be right up her alley! Still, she had never seen one before. It would take some careful observation, and hopefully she could deduce how the things worked by observing similarities from other pieces of technology she had worked with, and knew everything about.

"Uh oh! Mr. K, did you get hit in the back of your neck?" Starry asked him, making sure the other ponies could hear her. "Here, let me take a look at it for you.

Kes grunted out in 'protest' but sat down without a real fuss. If the mare thought she could do something about the damned collar so she was welcome to try. As long as the bird did not end up getting his head blown off in the process, she was free to do whatever.

Starry began by brushing away the feathers, and inspecting the collar very closely. She was looking for any external clues about how the collar might operate internally. She was at the distinct disadvantage of being unable to open one up, and for obvious ethical reasons, could not trigger a detonation to observe the effects. She would also be unable to experiment with disabling the mechanism, as it undoubtedly had some form of tampering protection, which might set it off.

After carefully noting every single detail she could get from the collar, she backed away from Kes. "Oh, never mind. It must have been nothing." She then trotted off toward Techno.

"Hey doc, I've got this shot in my side here, do you think you could do something about that?" she asked him.

Zestari looked relieved she learned she wouldn't have to try and fight the turrets as Starry's grenades performed excellently. And when the final robot shut down she calmly walked over to it and pushed it over. She left Scrap Parts to loot any useful items off the smoking remains and reloaded her firearm and re-holstered it. She then went over to the others and raised a confused eyebrow as Starry poked around at Kestrel's neck before Starry declared she'd found nothing and wandered off for medical assistance.

Zestari squinted at the console. "So it shuts down the robots, what about turrets or other defences?" she turned towards Malachite, hoping he'd have the answer. "Is there anything else we should worry about?"

Shutter would just...stare at the Robot's cannon, eyes wider then they had ever been.

"...That plan...did not work..."

He muttered, as he slowly stoof up, and shook his head, attempting to refocus himself. When he heard Techno call for the wounded to give a shout-out, Shutter gave himself a quick once-over, seeing that his luck had pulled through again...

He had to admit, while he didn't really WANT to get hurt, he was starting to feel guilty about the fact that his friends kept getting injured, and yet most of the time? He tended to get through combat with little more then a scratch...

Malachite walked out of the hallway as Cross asked if he was alright, the green unicorn turning to him as he holstered his plasma pistol.

“Yeah, I’m fine....But I can’t say the same for you....” Cross’s wound might be treated, but he was still in obvious pain. Malachite opened up his saddle bags and floated a syringe of pain killers to the hooded unicorn. “Here, this should help a bit.”

He turned to Zestari as she questioned whether they’d have to face anymore defenses. “No, that should be it. The other robots and turrets should be down....Although, we should probably still be careful when we enter the main chamber, just in case.” he noted.

Scrap’s scavenging of the bots was very successful, not only did he get a lot of scrap metal and undamaged crystal components, but he even managed to scavenge parts from the robot’s magical energy weapons. Those may come in handy...

Starry’s attempt to discern how the collar functioned went pretty well, considering the circumstances. The exterior was fairly featureless, only the blinking crystal on the side giving the metal collar any distinguishing features. However, on the inside, Starry could sense a complicated bundle of magic brimming inside. The spell matrixes in this thing are obviously very advanced.

Kes rejoined the group shortly after Starry had left to seek medical attention. For now the bird was content to let her wander off on her own, maybe after she got healed up she could hit up that Malichite boy for some details about what was to come.

The mention of the defense systems being offline was a postive note on the schedule fore sure, still Malichite was wise in saying that the group should be careful.

Kes was not stupid or green enough to think that just because the systems were offline that meant that he, or the others, were safe.

Things were never that easy.

Scrap was a happy pony.

Scavenging the bots was the most fun he had had since Starry's party. The pain from his wound wasn't even bothering him-much.

Yanking open panels and telekinetically fussing with the interworkings of the robots, Scrap was having a ball as he found usable pieces of crystals and scrap metal. When he managed to find a couple working portions of the robots's weapon system Scrap let out a small squee of joy over the possibilities.

Unfortunately Scrap ran out of robots to salvage and was thrust back into cold reality.

"I guess I'm ready to move on again..."

Starry was trotting slowly toward Techno, before she caught a glimpse of Malachite stepping out of the hallway. She completely forgot about the medical attention, and rushed over toward Malachite.

"Oh! Malachite! Hey! Hey! Malachite!" she called to him excitedly. When she stopped near him, she spoke far more softly, trying her hoof at seduction. She stepped in dangerously close to him.

"Oh, hey, Mister Handsome, I know you wanna do the right thing because you're handsome and strong and big handsome strong guys are always nice to everypony, right?" Starry said, before fluttering her eyes at him. "So uh, how do these collars here work?"

Techno took notice of Starry and started walking over to where she was standing near Kes. She started a conversation with Malachite, inquiring as to how the collars worked. He was wondering why she was checking out the back of Kes's neck, since he hadn't gotten hit there, or at least from what he saw. Starry, however, had been hit in the side, and it had left a mark that looked painful. "Starry, your shmoozing with Malachite here can wait a minute. C'mere." He pulled out his canteen, now almost empty, and repeated the same process he had used on himself and Cross. "Alright, now you may continue." he said, turning to the others. "Anypony else hit?"

Malachite's face began to once-again redden as Starry got close to him. Despite Starry's rather pathetic attempt at seduction, it seemed to be working...Until she mentioned the collars, after which Malachite sighed and backed away, turning away and looking down at the floor.

"Look," he began "I promise, this is almost over, and when it is, you'll all be let go." he turned back to them. "Gray Man can be cruel at times, and untrusting, but he always keeps his word. And you can trust me when I say that what he plans to do will change Equestria for the better, you'll see."

Starry seemed visibly displeased with Malachite's refusal to explain the collars. So much so, that she audibly 'harumph'ed as she turned her back on him. "Fine, keep your little secrets," she told him, "Shutter is far nicer and more handsome than you'll ever be!"

Shutter would glance over at Starry, hearing her flirt to Malachite again...
Letting out a light groan, Shutter was about to wander over and go talk to Kes for a bit, hoping a bit of convversation about anything else would distract him away from Starry's flirting...really, he didn't know why he was so annoyed with it, she teased him all the time, as well as others...why was her flirting with this Unicorn any different?

Then he heard her mention his name, and upon hearing Starry's comments about him, felt a massive blush coming over his face, which he quickly proceeded to try and hide by swapping directions to look away from where Starry was, and pretending to take interest in whatever was in front of him.

...Wow, What a facinating...wall...

"Heey, whatcha lookin' at, Shutter?" Starry asked. She hadn't spoken with Shutter much since she had awoken in the bunker, and she should probably get around to doing that, since it didn't seem like they might get another chance, what with the mission and all.

Shutter choked back a gasp when Starry came over...

"..Er...ah...the wall, apparantly...no real idea why..."

Shutter mumbled, as he futily attempted to hide his blush from Starry, really not wanting the Mare to ask why his cheeks were once again lit up like a red light. Instead, he decided to quickly change the subject, and try and get his mind off of what she had said.

"So! Er, apparantly it's not a good idea to aim at those targeting matrices, eh? Gonna have to apoligize to Techno for that when I get a chance..."

"Hmm, yeah," Starry told him. Not that she wasn't interested in targeting matrices, she loved robots, Starry was fascinated by that stuff! Right now, though, she felt like talking about something else.

"So, that photo shoot, we never really got around to it. It's a shame, really, first I get kidnapped, then when I get back we're all busy preparing for an invasion, and after that I'm busy replacing all of my lost blood! So, I was thinking, let's have that photo shoot right after this mission! I've already got you another camera back at my shack, and I want to get publishing as soon as possible!"

"Er...Yeah...the photo shoot...Starry, are you SURE this is a good idea? I mean, maybe if we do this...we should just keep this between close friends, you know? ...if we can publish this stuff...then do we really want loads of ponies looking at these pictures of you and Sky? It might be safer if we tried to make sure this stuff didn't fall into less...trustworthy hooves, at least for the moment..."

Shuuter mumbled, he had been thinking about this, and he wasn't too sure this was the best idea at all...but as he had noted before, once Starry had an idea, she had an idea, so he figured a compromise might be the best option to avoid any danger that distributing softcore images of yourself in these lawless wastes could cause...

Starry sighed, and placed her hoof on Shutter's shoulder as she explained herself. "Shutter, I know you don't like the idea of ponies getting their hands on this magazine, but how many ways can you think of that will help me shine across Equestria? Ways that don't involve killing a bunch of ponies? I've wanted to help the ponies of the wastes ever since we left the stable, to make a positive impact. I can't remember the last time I heard a story on the radio that wasn't about some tragedy or another. Even if it's going to attract the attention of some nasty ponies, I want to help. I want to make ponies smile, I want to make them laugh."

Starry smirked, evidently she had just humored herself. "Plus, I want to be a sword mare!"

While Starry and Shutter talked, Malachite turned towards the large, heavy steel door on the opposite end of the room, walking towards it, before glancing back at the others. "Come on, we're almost done, and then you all can get out of here."

He turned a few knobs on his Pipbuck, before plugging it into an outlet next to the door. There was a small whine, followed by a beeping sound, before the entire door shuddered and opened with a loud *Thuum!*, revealing a large and long hallway. Malachite silently lead them down, taking them to the door on the other end and pressing the open button.

The large door opened up with a clank, revealing the primary testing area. The room was large, perhaps the largest one in the complex. Terminals and magitech machinery lined the walls, most of them burned out by now it seems. Laying in the center of the room where five more sentry bots and two Mr. Gutsys, thankfully disabled.

As the group looked around, Malachite’s eyes only seemed to be focused on a large device in the center of the room, a look of awe on his face as he approached it. “Here it is...” he muttered. “After all this time...we’ve finally found it...” he turned to the others. “I know you guys were forced to do this, but thank you anyway. You don’t know how much good you’ve just done for Equestria....I better go radio Gray Mane.”

As Malachite trotted away to inform Grey Mane of the group’s success, the group took a closer look at the device that he was so awed by. It was a large, and obviously advanced piece of techni-arcano engineering, lined with dozens of dimly glowing gems and glowing lines of magic. Nopony in the group could recognize what it was or its purpose however....save for one. Cross Roads, with his experience in the Twilight Society, was able to recognize what the object was almost immediately.

The framework for a Megaspell.

Shutter looked down at the ground, as he listened to Starry's reasoning...eventually, he gave a weak nod. "...Okay...fine...I guess we could use some good news, and I really doubt I'm going to be changing your mind...
It's just...the Sword Mares magazine was a really suggestive thing! Maybe, at the very least...we should come up with pseudonyms before it starts getting published across the wastes? I can easily aim the camera to avoid showing your cutie mark, and...well..."

Shuuter let out a deep sigh. "You know...it probably dosn't matter...I'll just follow your judgement on this one Starry..."

He said weakly...he was clearly still concerned for Starry's safety, but he wasn't going to try and ruin their plan...he had to admit, it would probably shine across Equestria most definitely...but he was worried about what the reason it shines across would be, and he didn't want to see Starry's good name hurt...

After having said what he needed to, he would move along after the group, giving a nod towards Malachite when he thanked them...he just wanted this to be over...

As the group shuffled into the room Zestari was impressed by the massive space and the incredible volume of technology that lined the walls. She pointed out the defunct machines to Scrap Parts. "More robots for you to scavenge from."

She watched Malachite with suspicion as he seemed awed by a device in the centre of the room, and once he wandered away to contact Grey Mane got closer. "What is it?" she asked the others, "If they want it this badly I want to know what we're handing over."

She reached out a hoof to poke it.

Starry approached the machine cautiously. She looked over the gems, and memorized the patterns. "What the heck is this thing?" Starry asked, not getting too close. It was clearly a very sophisticated piece of machinery, and Starry didn't want to break it, or set it off, by tripping or bumping over something she ought not to.