The Beginning of the End [Closed]

Zestari put on a forced smile as Techno came over, the need to talk about her debt weighed heavily on her mind. "Yes, I'm feeling much better, thank you. The healing potion seems to be doing its job." She said as the group walked towards the distant school.

"But...” She drew a deep breath, not sure where to begin, "There's something very important I need to talk to you about." She clicked her tongue as she considered her next words, "You saved my life, Techno, as a zebra, and as a result, I owe that life to you. You must now consider yourself responsible for my life, until such time as I am forced to take that responsibility away from you."

She forced another smile at the unicorn. This wasn't what she wanted, or hoped, but she considered herself an honourable zebra. And who knew, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad.

Techno just stood there and blinked at Zestari for a small moment. "Wait, so for saving your life, I'm now responsible for it...? Does that make me sort of a... parental figure, of sorts or something...?" he asked, quite obviously confused.

Kes quirked a mental brow at Zestari's pledge. It had been a long while since he had seen something like that go down; and even then he had only seen it once before, back in Fillydelphia. Kes was not one to claim expertise on the subject, but he understood the basic principals behind it. A life for a life.

Poor Techno didn't seem to get it though. He sounded like he was thinking this was a sort of 'you saved me, teach me your ways' plea, but instead it was more of a 'You have proven yourself worthy enough to guide my life. Lead it well, or I shall take my freedom back.'

"Guess again Tech." Kes rumbled out in his usual detached, gruff, monotone.

Starry slowly got up on her hooves, testing her limits as she tried to keep up with the group. She poked a hoof at her chest... still sore, but it looked like everything was in place. Breathing didn't hurt either. "Ahem," she said. No violent coughing, either, it looked like everything was in working order, that meant there was nothing holding Starry back.

"Wow! That was awesome!" Starry exclaimed, "Those things were like, so scary looking, did you see them? They were all, 'Get the ponies!' and I was all, 'over my dead body!' and then one them was all, 'Okay!' and then Scraps was like, 'Not on my watch!' Thanks, Scraps! And then Techno was all like, 'Hold on! I'll save you!', that was awesome too, thanks Techno! I should've said something like, 'No! Go on without me!' that would've been cool! Wasn't that cool?! Hey, where are we going, anyway?"

Sky just looked at Starry, amazed at the energy Starry had. She nearly died, and All she could do is talk about how cool it was to attack something we don't even know. Sky just looked at zestari, who had silently thanked her. And back again at Starry, "how does she do it?" Sky muttered to herself. She looked around to see the reactions of everypony around, they all probably thought the same as she did. Sky just sighed, and thought this was just starry. A happy energetic mare with an endless supply of energy, and probably the happiest mare in equestria.(aside from pinkie)

"Urm...your welcome..?" Scrap mumbled, taken by suprise after Starry thanked him in her outburst of words. "So I take it were all ready to go..?"

Sighing internally Scrap stashed the weapons and ammo that he could carry in his bags. He had leave the minigun behind though, which pained him because he hated to leave a good weapon behind, even if he couldnt use it.

She nodded sombrely at Kestrel. He seemed to understand, she wasn't sure if Techno did, and sought to clarify it.

"My foolish actions and failure to consider and protect my life would have resulted in my death if you hadn't intervened and saved my life, and I now owe that life to you and thus am indebted to you. Therefore, upon the honour of my ancestors and myself, I place the responsibility of guiding my fate in your hooves." She sighed, “But don’t abuse the intent of what I grant you, or I shall be forced to reclaim it.”

"I suppose if you wish to consider the arrangement like that of a child and parent, then that is your choice."

So Cross helped get everypony fixed up, it wasn't that hard, he just remembered his basic medical training from the guards at Tenpony tower, still now Cross was getting agitated.

Seemed like he was fading into the background, and there was no way he would have any of that.....he's been trying to be nicer, but all thats been getting him the cold shoulder....was this still even worth it? maybe he'd be best on his own anyway....he had a pretty good idea how to take care of this.

Cross just sat quietly waiting for everypony to hurry their flanks ups and get going. Evantually Cross got fed up and looked at Lorg.

"Come on....we better keep on it..." Whether the others followed, was completely up to them.

Techno nodded as Zestari explained the arrangement. "I see. Well, I guess I'll try to guide you as best I can. I hope you'll find it satisfactory." he said, giving her his word. "So, shall we get moving, then?" he said, gesturing towards Cross and Lorg, both of which wanted to get going.

Seeing that Cross and Lorg were preparing to move along Kes locked his gaze on them. Before they could get to far away the big gryphon would start to follow. As always he said nothing, he just walked along and kept his eyes peeled for anything suspicious.

"That's all that is required of you." She said with a nod as Techno offered to guide her to the best of his abilities, and she fell into step beside him. "Very well, let's go," and they began to follow Kestrel whom was in turn, following Cross and the hulking hellhound, Lorg.

The group started plodding along the road towards the school, Lorg still hanging in the back and ready to attack anything hostile that came towards them. Luckily, that didn’t seem necessary, as the group wasn’t suffering any more attacks.

After a few more miles of walking, the group finally saw it, Luna’s School for Gifted Unicorns. The school was only a couple more miles away, they were almost there! Unfortunately, before any cheering or sighs of relief or such, the group’s attention was turned behind them when they heard the sounds of snarling.

Whirling around, to their horror they saw a pack of five vicious looking....Hellhounds? No...these weren’t hellhounds. They looked a lot like them, they were big, nasty looking, and had long razor sharp claws that looked just as deadly as a hellhound’s, but they had no fur, long horns, tanish-gray skin, and longer limbs. Whatever the thing’s were, they didn’t look friendly, in fact, they looked like they were about to charge and begin ripping and tearing the group apart.

Lorg outstretched his own claws as he prepared to meet the not-hellhounds head on, while the rest of the group drew their own weapons and took aim. However, before the not-hellhounds could even begin charging a loud burst of gunfire echoed throughout the plains as several bullets came out of nowhere and tore one of the not-hellhounds apart, the source of the bullets coming from the south. The group turned and, to their puzzlement, saw another one of those giant green mutant things, this one wearing a much nicer set of piecemeal metal armor with a distinctive orange right shoulder pad. In the mutant’s hands was a silver minigun, a weapon that at first glance those with experience with guns could tell was a much higher quality weapon than almost anything they’ve seen, and certainly better than what the previous mutants were using. It also should be noted that he lacked the perpetual scowl that plagued the other mutants they saw earlier.

The group didn’t have long to consider the implications of the mutant helping them, as the not-hellhounds were on the attack, three of them charging towards the group and the remaining one running towards the mutant. Lorg quickly dug under the ground and came up behind one of the charging not-hellhounds, knocking it to the ground before lunging with his claws. As that fight went on, the remaining two continued to charge, leaving it up to the group to take them out. And fast.

Cross's pupils dilated as he gazed on the graydregs, they looked incredibly vicious, and unfortunately since Cross was leading the way, he was taking point....Tempted to just fall back and let the others handed it, he decided he could at least stand his ground one last time. Cross's eyes began to glow, his mask's outline came to light, and he put all his focus into the fire ruby contained inside and jetted to the far left, away from the group.

He swallowed his breath and blew towards the greydregs, washing them in flames and attempting to bring them away from the group....Once Cross was sure he had spent enough of his breath on them, he continued running farther to the left and hoping they didn't follow him, began to pull out his grenade rifle.....(2 shots left total)

(Fire attack on Deathclaws, then running past the left of them, and getting the buck out of there)

Starry pulled up her missile launcher. These things looked scary, and she couldn't afford allowing one of them to reach her or her friends. She fired the missile, hoping to hit both of them in the same blast.

She wanted to help the less-scary-looking green thing, but she was far more afraid for her friends' safety. Maybe the green thing could defend itself until they had handled these two hairless hellhounds?

Regardless, Starry tossed her missile launcher aside after she had taken careful aim and fired. That was her last missile, and she only had three firebombs, the prism blaster, and the sword. She had a feeling the firebombs wouldn't work too well, and she didn't want to get close enough to hit with the sword, so she'd pull out the prism blaster.

(Explosives 65)

Kes didn't bother with thinking, he just let instinct take over. His muscles firing on long ingrained instinct, reaching back, grabbing his rifle, shouldering it, then firing five times in rapid succession.

Kes knew damn well his rifle would be useless for any major damage, but he could slow them down. That's why every round he fired had been aimed at the charging creatures' waist/legs.

After his magazine was empty Kes tucked his rifle into its holster and did the next best thing. He ran. Now dont fool yourself with the notation that he did this because he was scared. Far from it. No Kes was smart, he knew that Hellhounds were some of the meanest, toughest creatures in the wasteland.

These things looked bigger, and tougher.

There was no way in name of the Abyss that Kes was going to try sticking around. He was kind enough to speak his mind this time to the group at large as well. His tone was even, though elevated so as to be heard over the sound of a roaring minigun.

"Move. Now."

The goal was in sight, they were almost there. So of course one last time bubble thing had to open up near them, once again depositing things Scrap couldn't identify near them.

Scrap was getting ready to shoot the things when a mutant like the one from earlier started to shoot the things. This distracted Scrap for a second but only a second as he quickly regained his composure and fired off a shot towards the first charging deathclaw, followed immediatly after with a quick evasive manuver to try and get out of its path.

As the horrid beasts came towards them Zestari was not too proud to admit that she was terrified. It may have been her generally more cautious nature, or the fact that only minutes earlier she was barely clinging to life with bullets being wrenched from her chest and the memory and evidence was still rather fresh on her mind.

Wide-eyed she made an alarmed noise and skittishly danced behind Techno. Fully prepared to run should the group decide to do so.

Except they didn't. Instead she watched as they quickly moved to engage the couple of monsters heading towards them.

"What would you have me do?" She asked Techno, a quaver in her voice.

Starry glanced behind her, and noticed several of her allies making a tactical retreat. Not wanting to be fodder for these monsters, Starry quickly followed behind them. She left her missile launcher on the ground, no need to burden herself with it. She just ran as fast as she could to put some distance between herself and the monsters.

Shutter had already tried to fire before on the green giants, and his handgun had seemed to do nothing...and looking at these monsters, he couldn't help but think that firing at them with his peashooter, would be the equivalent of stabbing someone with a toothpick...and even then, he was pretty sure he was being generous towards the weapon...He needed either something a LOT better, or a strategy...

Quickly, he turned tail and ran, trying his hardest to stay ahead of the beasts until either someone had a plan, or some luck came their way.

Sky saw those things, they were monsters with a malice in there eyes. As they charged up towards the group, She did the only thing she could. She unfurled her wings and took to the sky, With SMG in her mouth. She attacked them from the air, bullets just flying out of the barrel of the weapon. Sky wondered if bullets would even have an effect at all, small caliber fire for something that huge. This was going to turn out badly, if they didn't think of something quick.

Techno's horn sparked as he readied it to fire whatever he needed as the Deathclaws started running up the hill. Starry fired her missile and retreated a bit as Kes fired his rifle. "Zestari, we need to put some distance between us and them. Looks like their only weapons are their claws, so if we can keep them at long range, we're good!" he explained, after a quick lookover of the beasts.

"We need the heavy hitters up front to keep them back. Cross and Starry, that's you!" he called up, coming up with a plan. "Everyone else, aim for the head!" he finished, firing a burst of magic from his horn at one of the deathclaws.

(Magic 45)

Fire swept over the not-hellhounds, Cross’ mask setting them alight. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to do much, and only served to make one angry, as he redirected his charge towards the unicorn. Unfortunately, Cross wasn’t exactly the most graceful of ponies and ended up tripping over his own hooves and landing flat on his face. Before he could get up, the not-hellhound was upon him, racking its claws across his back and sending burning white-hot pain throughout Cross’ body. There was blood everywhere, and the not-hellhound would soon finish the job. It rose its second claw to remove the unicorn’s head, when a bolt of lightning struck it in the back of the neck, blowing up the creature’s head and spraying gore and disintegrated not-hellhound all over Cross, shortly before the beast’s body fell on the downed and dying unicorn. The pony who killed the beast? Scrap Parts, who was now running for his life away from the second not-hellhound.

Meanwhile, after both Sky’s attack and Techno’s bolt proved ineffective, Kestrel aimed at the second not-hellhound and shot all his rounds into it, not doing much to slow it, besides one that hit its knee that made it stumble. The beast continued his charge however, until Starry’s missile hit it right in the chest. It fell over backwards from the blast, chest charred and blackened. It wasn’t completely down yet though, as the beast was soon back on its feet and charging again, which prompted the rest of the group to run the hell away after Scrap took down the other not-hellhound with a lucky shot.

Kestrel, however, ended up stumbling a bit as he ran, which was a fatal mistake, as the not-hellhound was right on him as he turned to look. Before he could even cry out, his entire body was consumed with pain as the not-hellhound lashed out, before Kestrel found himself falling to the ground. Laying in front of his face was one of his wing, severed from his body. Looking, he saw that both his wings were completely cut off his back, and his front right leg, while not severed, was completely mangled. And on top of that, there were probably deep cuts in his back. Suffice to say, the blood was everywhere.

Before the not-hellhound could finish the job, another burst of automatic fire was heard and the beast let out a screech of pain as bullets tore through one arm, rendering it useless. It whirled around to see the mutant, smoking minigun aimed at it before the mutant smashed it into the face of the not-hellhound he was fighting, before dropping his weapon and grappling with the thing, grabbing it by the wrists to avoid getting disemboweled.

Techno's eyes widened when he saw what the beasts were capable of. "Holy Celestia above, Zestari, go get that thing off of Cross, I need to go help Kes!" he called, rather horrified at the extent of the damage that the beasts had done in just one strike. It was not fun having to reattach limbs. Especially in the middle of combat.

He ran over to Kes, the other beast occupied with the other green guy, and promptly collected both of the severed wings. "Kes, I don't give a damn what you think, but if you move, I suspect there will be more negative than positive results." he said, trying to keep the machine-like griffon down so he could help. He whipped out some gauze and went about closing the long gashes on his back.

((OOC So now I have to deal with two fatally wounded characters, one of which is missing limbs. Fun. Also major creds to Cross for the new vector! Thanks!))

Normally Scrap would have been ecstatic that his shot had taken out the thing in one hit, but a the moment he was too terrified and preoccupied with running to do much of that.

When he finally stopped and glanced back, he saw that the second thing was busy and the first one was collapsed on top of Cross. Scrap headed over to see if he could help Cross.

Using the obviously best strategy for testing if a pony was still alive, he poked a bit of Cross that was sticking out, which then twitched. Satisfied that Cross wasn't dead he tried to use his magic to lift the things body up.

Sky only watched as kestrel was mortally wounded,having his wings torn off must be one of the greatest pains there is. Sky looked back to see mutant had saved kestrels life but now the thing was getting attacked by other thing, that looked like a hellhound. Sky reloaded her SMG, and flew to the two who were into close combat. The thing could use a hand, Sky thought. She flew towards the two who were fighting, Sky aimed at the beast and fired away.


(rolling to help out the mutant, by shooting the deathclaw he is fighting.)