The Beginning of the End [Closed]

The hellhound looked at the two ponies standing before it, silent, as if it was considering what the two were saying. It opened its wide maw to say something, but its head snapped to the side as Cross Roads insulted it. It let out a loud growl, before it began turning to the unicorn, ready to charge at it and rip it apart. Cross was spared a messy death however when Starry quickly tried to calm the beast. The hellhound stopped for a moment, giving Cross a piercing glare, before turning its head towards Starry.

“Speak quickly pony. Tell me where these ‘Scientists’ are before I consider ripping your friend apart for his insults.” he rumbled.

Kes stopped backing up at this point glad that the beast had seen reason. He had heard that Hellhounds could be reasonable, but this was the first time he had ever found evidence of that however; he immediately began taking mental notes on the situation. At least for now Kes wouldn't have to try some crazy maneuver to get to a house, pull out his rifle, and shoot this beast in the head or neck.

All was not peaceful though. Kes was still going to hurt Cross after this was over.

"Oh, well, we're not exactly positively sure where they are just yet, but we're most definitely getting close! Come with us, and we can find him together! My name's Starry Night by the way, wait, did I already say that? Anyway, it's nice to meet you!"

Starry looked back at the rest of her group and winked at them before turning back to the hellhound. The power of friendship prevails yet again!

"Oh!" she said to the hellhound, "and when we find them, please try not to hurt them, because number one, it isn't nice to hurt ponies, and number two, we're all sorta wearing these explosive collars here," Starry pointed to her own collar with her hoof, "which will explode, killing us instantly, if his heart rate stops, and we really don't want that to happen!"

Scrap let out a internal sigh of relief after Starry somehow managed to calm the hellhound down, thus preventing the entire group from being converted to messy piles of organs and other bits. He kept his pistol out though-not that it would do much.

Traveling with a hellhoud was like walking around with a thing of explosives strapped to your back-one thing goes wrong and BOOM.

Cross peaked out of the house....and was completely and utterly shocked that Starry and Shutter were somehow able to communicate with the beast.

Ummm now Cross felt like a real jackass....Cross looked around the small house he managed to reached and went through the kitchen, finding what he needed.

A cake.

With his magic he picked it up and left the house, remembering to set his mask back to passive mode beforehand...

"Um Mr. Diamond Dog sir, I'm really sorry I tried to make you mad, I really thought you were going to try to hurt..." *Shudders* "...My friends, and I didn't want to just stand there while they got hurt ......would you like an apology cake?"

Sky stared at cross, was he willing to give a cake to a hellhound? This will go more smoothly than a pony sitting on a bench, But hell, it might work or might not. Either way, something is going to happen. Or not.

Cake. Cross was offering the Hellhound a cake. Did the unicorn not know that most hellhounds were carnivorous? All that time studying magic must have left no room for common sense and street smarts.

Well no time like the present to teach Red a lesson.

Walking over to the Unicorn, after the Hellhound either took or rejected the cake, Kes reared back a fist and slammed it into the back of Cross' skull. He didn't put enough force into the blow to knock out or kill Cross, but it would no doubt send him reeling.

Not to mention it would hurt like a bitch.

"Next time, think." Kes said, his voice as calm and cool as a frozen lake in winter. No doubt the move would upset the unicorn, and no doubt Kes didn't give a damn.

The hellhound stared at Starry, a grumbling noise heard in its throat, before he finally spoke. “I am Lorg. And I make no promises pony, if these ‘scientists’ do not have a way to return me to my home, they will pay with their lives.”

Lorg turned to Cross as he approached with his offering. He growled a bit as he took the cake in a massive clawed hand, before looking down at the cloak-less pony.”I can not eat this...But the gesture is accepted regardless. I will not kill you...for now."

And then Kestrel punched Cross out, which didn’t seem to phase the hellhound as he threw the cake away.

The townsponies silently watched as these strange ponies conversed and reasoned with the horrible monster that appear in their town. Before any of them could make a move however, they screamed in shock as another temporal sphere opened up in the middle of the road, depositing six giant orange ants that quickly began scuttling around. The ponies nearby tried to run away, but one of them tripped, and was soon burned alive as one of the ants releases a stream of scorching fire that roasted the poor stallion alive. The screaming only got worse after that as mass-panic broke out.

As the group prepared to combat the bugs, Shutter saw out of the corner of his eye one or two other temporal bubbles opening up in the sky, far off in the distance. They looked like they were releasing bloodwings, although they were too far off to be a threat yet.

Meanwhile, the unicorns in the group would feel the corrupted energy was now constantly in the air, although spread very thinly. Occasionally the energy would bunch up and form the temporal bubbles that were depositing stuff, but otherwise the energy concentration was harmless. However, Cross could tell that it was building up, ever so slowly, but building up nevertheless.

Scrap let out a small chuckle when Kes whomped Cross on the back if the head. The chuckle quickly turned to one of exasperation when another sphere thing dropped a bunch of fire ants into the middle of town.

The horrific death of the townspony phased Scrap for a second before he pushed it and the odd magical feeling out of his mind, and took aim with his lightning pistol soon loosing two shots of electrical death towards the fire ants.

(Rolling to shoot first fire ant, energy weapons 50)

Kes did not bother waiting for Cross's reaction, the sight of the giant ants warping in and attacking sending him into action. His claws reached back and grabbed onto the stock of his sniper rifle, seat it properly within seconds.

Kes took aim at the nearest Ant, the same that Scrap had shot at, aiming for its body, and fired once. Then the gryphon moved on to the next ant. This time he fired twice, aiming to 'double tap' the insect before moving on.

Overall he shot at three of the ants, aiming for the body, two shots for two of them, and just one shot for that first ant.

Out of ammo then the Gryphon began to reload, already busy with picking out his next targets.

(Guns 75, 5 shots fired at 3 ants.)

Seeing cross get hit in the head was a funny site, Sky was about laugh, when a weird energy sphere appear out in the road. And out came giant ants, six to be exact. All headed towards the town, only when one pony tripped and was burned alive did Sky realize, these weren't ordinary ants. They were fire ants, big nasty fuckers that will kill alot of ponies, if they weren't stopped.

Sky took out her SMG, readied it in her mouth. Sky was already in the air, ready to fire death upon those ants. Sky fired her SMG into the ants, not caring which ones she hit.


(Guns 60: rolling to hit ants)

Zestari nearly swallowed her tongue when the hellhound resisted chasing down Cross and instead seemed to negotiate with the group. She barely even blinked when Kestrel gave Cross a rather fierce blow, so stunned was she by the success of negotiation. She didn't have long to consider the fact when a group of fire ants were vomited forth from another rift and quickly set about roasting villagers.

Ants were something Zestari could stomach fighting against, although the others were quicker to react than Zestari and the nearest fire ants were quickly being pelted with gunfire.

Instead Zestari decided to prioritise protecting the villagers and intercept the ants from continuing their massacre. At this point she didn't even care if the villagers noticed she was a zebra. If they did, it was something she'd deal with later.

Spotting a likely candidate she put on a burst of speed as she ran towards it, and utilising some of her Fallen Caesar style martial arts, flicked a hoof towards the ant's head to knock it away from spewing fire on a slow-to-run pony.

(Unarmed 48, Aiming a hoofkick at an ant.)

As it turned out, Scrap didn’t even need the second shot, as the first shot blew the ant’s head apart. The gun’s fire rate didn’t even seem fast enough for that kind of double-tapping anyway. Kestrel meanwhile was having similar luck, blowing apart two more ants with his sniper rifle.

As Sky took to the, well, Sky, one of the fire ants tried to roast the pegasus with a stream of flame, with Sky rolling out of the way in just the nick of time, although those flames were uncomfortably close. She whipped around and opened fire with her SMG, ripping through two more ants.

As Zestari moved to protect one of the townsponies from a ant, the insect released a jet of fire that scorched her back, although that didn’t stop her from kicking the ant right in the head, sending it flying through the air and landing several feet away, dead.

That wasn’t the end of their trouble though, as another bubble opened up, this time leaving a snarling Manticore in its wake. As the group prepared to tangle with the beast, Lorg was already on the move, dashing right up to the thing and impaling its face on his claws. The beast was instantly killed, the creature slumping to the ground as Lorg removed his claws with a *squelch*. He turned back to the others, shaking off the blood.

“I suggest we find these scientists of yours, quickly.”

Shutter gave a gulp, as he saw the Bloodwings decend from the vortexes, before he turned see the fire ants that had also appeared had been dealt with by his companions.

"Lorg is right, we don't have time to screw about! There's more vortexes opening ahead, and probably even more we can't even see from here! If we don't find a way to stop this, then simply put, Littlehorn isn't the only place that's going to be the subject of a massacre!"

He then turned to Cross and ran over, practically grabbing him by his shoulders with his hooves.

"Cross! You seem like you at least understand a little bit of what's going on! Do you have any idea what Malachite and Grey Mane are up to? Better yet, can you think of anywhere where they could be?!"

Starry had just been preparing her missile launcher to fire on the manticore when Lorg killed it. "Whoo hoo! Great job, Lorg! You show that manticore!" Starry cheered. She was certainly happy to have this hellhound for a friend.

Starry looked up, and spotted the bloodwings. Things were getting worse by the second, they needed to find Malachite and Gray Mane, and fix this fast. Starry rushed after one of the fleeing civilians, and tried to tackle them.

"Old guy, Gray Mane, long robes, green assistant, name's Malachite, seen them? This is important!" she shouted.

Scrap was ecstatic when he saw his shot hit the ant. He had actually hit something! Maybe his bad luck streak was over!

His celebration was cut short by the sudden appearance of the manticore and the near immediate and violent death of said manticore by Lorg.

"Thank Luna that he's on our side!"

Kes slammed home another magazine, reloading his rifle to full before seating it on his back once again. He appraised the skill of the Hellhound, giving a rumbling grunt in approval before putting his rifle back into its holster.

Starry was looking for a way to locate Grey Mane, at the first sign of knowing where to go Kes would be off. He would hold up the back of the group, offering supporting fire with his rifles when necessary.

Cross shook his head, all the crazy stuff had to happen to him....This probably wouldn't be happening if he had just stayed with the society....if he ever got out of this, ....perhaps it would time to pay them a visit...

Shutter shook Cross asking him what the buck was going on, phff, Cross was smart but right it appeared someone flipped over the chessboard and decided to play the game of goddesses.....

"It appears that the spell binding from the megaspell is leaking into this time, beginning to fuse the two although I'm not sure where we'd be in scenario like that, I'd need more information to make sure, that was probably one of the weakness's of using only 2 unicorns, although they could fuel the spell, controlling it was another matter." Cross brushed Shutter's hooves off his shoulders....

"Are we on a date? Sure we might die Shutter, dying's easy, but this is no time to go getting too intimate with each other....also" Cross used his magic and slipped his hood off from Zestari and placed it back on himself, snuggling the hood back over his mane

"You won't be needing this Zesteri, a common zebra won't take up too much attention.....Now..." Cross turned to Lorg.

"Mr. Lorg, if you would kindly follow me, I believe I have a good, general idea where the scientists MIGHT be....." Cross raised his hoof and signaled towards the general direction of Luna's school

"Quickly, this way!"

Sky quickly loaded up a new magazine into her SMG, after she killed the two ants, That one tried to scorch her. Thank Kestrel for the SMG, and Luna too. Sky quickly saw the hellhound kill a creature she wasn't familiar with, with just a clean swipe. Sky will not mess with that thing, even if he is an ally for now. Cross already had an idea for where they might be, She just hovered around and followed Cross.

The tackled pony cowered as Starry talked him, shaking as the crazy pony screamed at him.

“I-I-I don-don’t know!” he stuttered, completely terrified.

Luckily Starry didn’t have to further interrogate the poor pony, as Cross knew the way, leading the group out of the town and towards the long trek to the school. Lorg stayed in the back, ready to spring into action if necessary and his menacing form scaring away any ponies they ran across.

They didn’t go far, a mile maybe, before being accosted by the bloodwings that Shutter spotted earlier. There were a dozen of the screeching things, spotting the group and diving down towards the group at startling speeds.

"What obnoxious little dregglings...." Cross stated outright, He held his hoof back to indicate that the group hold back, he stepped forward, inhaling sharply.....the outline of his mask revealed itself and the Fire Ruby began its ignition sequence.

Then he exhaled, blowing his hood abit, kicking up smoke, and a sent a wave of heat over the ponies behind him

(Energy 25, Fire attack on the Bloodwings)

Despite the fact that they had only gotten a about a mile, Scrap was suprised it had taken this long for them to get attacked again.

It was that kinda day.

So he drew his Lightning pistol and sighed up on one of the bloodwings and fired.

(Energy Weapons 50)

Kes squinted his eyes a bit, pulling out his repeater this time. It had more rounds to spare and was not as taxing on his .308 supply. He waited until the Bloodwing's began to dive before he opened up with his Repeater. Firing five rounds into the swarm.

On another note it was nice to see that Cross was showing some Intelligence now and using that little mask of his properly. The flames would no doubt soften up the swarm for the others, and Kes, when they opened fire.

(Guns 75, firing 5 times.)

a group of blood wings, as they were called. Began their decent to the group, flying in a some what tight group as Sky believed it was. Her SMG popped out of its holster, and She aimed at the group of bloodwings.

She fired a spray of bullets into the group hoping she would get a few or alot.

(Rolling to hit bloodwings: Guns 60)

Starry face-hoofed herself. She had already used all three of her grenades and one of her missiles. all she had left was the single missile loaded in her launcher, her sword, and six firebombs, and none of those would be of much use against flying killer bat things. She should've taken the 10mm from Kes when he was offering it.

Starry pulled out her sword. It might not be a very effective weapon against a horde of flying enemies, but if one of them attacked her, she might get lucky and slice it in half before it ate her face.

(melee 25)