The Beginning of the End [Closed]

Cross and Techno quickly worked to stabilize Zestari, her wounds weren’t look too good. The two actually went through pretty much all of their remaining medical supplies fixing the mare, bandaging oozing wounds, injecting med-x, and forcing healing potion down her throat. Within five minutes time, they managed to patch up most of the wounds and reduce the chances of the zebra bleeding to death. However, unless she woke up soon, somepony would have to carry her.

Starry and Shutter, meanwhile, went over to the mercenaries. Surprisingly, only a hooffull of them were injured, the rest were either completely fine...or dead. And there were quite a few dead. And for the most part, the mercenaries seemed to be fixing up their own wounded pretty well. One of the hunting rifle-wielding unicorns, Eagle, was over by the surviving spear-pony, doing his best to patch up the wound inflicted by the ripper. He looked up at the two as they approached. “So, time travel, huh?” he glanced over at the bodies of the...things, his mouth opening as if about to say something, when another tidal wave of energy erupted from the school, sending splitting headaches into ever unicorn in the group. This wave was much more powerful than the last, the ground itself actually shaking as it passed. Things were looking less then optimal.

“Hmm...I suggest we move on quickly, that last wave was much worse than before, which can only mean reality is deteriorating even more.” grumbled Lorg as he looked up at the school. However, before a move could be made to head inside, an monstrous roar was heard outside the school walls, one that caused Lorg’s ears to perk. He quickly ran over to the school gates, with Marcus and several mercenaries following. The hellhound peaked his head out the door, his next words not the least bit comforting. “That...is not good.”

Outside the school, was a large group of hellhounds. And unlike Lorg, they didn’t look like the type to sit down and talk. No, these looked more like the kind that’d rather like it rip you into little pony bits instead.

Marcus simply raised an eyebrow as he readied his minigun. “Friends?” he questioned the hellhound, who grumbled in response.

“Hardly. They’re from a rival tribe, a very aggressive one. There will be no reasoning with them.” he glanced over at the increasingly-weary group. “And in your condition, you will not last long against them. Not only that, we do not have the time to fight.”

Marcus turned towards the hellhounds slowly approaching the school, spinning up the barrels of his weapon. “Well, I’ll be able to take on at least six of them, what about you?”

“...I may be able to take on several myself. If they are who I think they are, their tribe is not known for having particularly skilled fighters. Brutal and vicious, but not skilled.”

Marcus nodded. “Right.” He turned towards the group. “We’ll hold off these ‘Hellhounds’ as best we can, you eight hurry and get inside. Stop all this before it gets any worse!”

The mercenaries, meanwhile looked at the approaching hellhounds with a mixture of fear and trepidation. Many murmurs could be heard throughout the merc group, ranging from “Fucking Hellhounds!” to “I didn’t sign up for this shit!” to one colt in the back murmuring something about “Game over man, game over!” All this was silenced however with a single word from their leader Sharp.

“Quiet!”

In the silence that followed, the stallion swapped out the clip on his assault rifle with a new one, loaded with armor piercing rounds. “I won’t pretend that I know exactly what’s going on at this point, I’m still a bit confused by all of this.” he told the main group. “But I know that some bad shit is happening, and if you eight need to get into that school to stop it, me and my men will hold the line for you and watch your backs. We won’t let those monsters out there stop you.” Lorg growled at that comment, although did nothing else. “Now you all head inside! We’ll keep these mutts busy long enough for you to do whatever it is you need to do! Come on men, lets send these hounds to Tartarus with us!”

The mercenaries, some reluctantly, took positions near the gate, loading armor piercing ammo into their weapons as the hellhounds roared at the opposition, charging full sprint towards the gate. It would be wise for the group to heed their advice and quickly run the tartarus away and into the school.

Kestrel was not the kind to give good opportunities a second glance. Without a word he stood himself up and moved forward, offering himself as a makeshift stretcher for Zestari's wounded form. If Techno and Cross did not help in putting her on his back he would put her there himslef before walking towards the school behind the group.

Time to finish this and go home.

Let the others make their sacrifices. Kestrel and his team needed to get out of here, and they needed to get out of here now. Otherwise the others sacrifice would be in vain.

Sky saw how Marcus, Lorg, and the mercs were willing to help out the group by slowing down the hellhounds, They were a good bunch but now she has to help out her own allies. Sky saw kes walking towards the school and so she did the same, with the Smg at the ready. No telling what might come their way.

Scrap nodded a farewell to Lorg, Marcus, and the mercenaries as hw moved onward quickly towards the school.

He would have liked to learn more about the universe that Marcus was from but saving the one he was from was a bit more important.

Cross gritted as he managed to get Zestari stable, they were running out of time and he wasn't about to let a comrade die on his watch ...not here, not anywhere. He wanted to be different? Then he figured this would be a very damn well good place to start.

Using his magic he hoisted Zestari across his back and dug her into so she woundn't fall off, with all the other gear he had loaded it was pretty easy to balance her. Trying as much as he could, he brought himself to begin moving forward to get the group in the courtyard so they could end this.

Now

Tears were welling up in Starry's eyes as her new friends declared their intention to part. Starry didn't know if any of them would make it through this, but she knew that her and her sword weren't going to change anything in a battle against hellhounds, and that her calling was coming from within the school.

Starry gritted her teeth, and lifted her hoof to salute her short-term comrades, as she fought back the tears in her eyes. "Goddesses be with you, or whatever other psuedo-scientific entities you ascribe to!" Starry shouted to them with strong conviction, before following the group into the school.

Giving an appreciate nod towards the mercenaries, Lorg, and Marcus, Shutter chased after the group into the school, alongside Starry.

It didn't take him long to notice the hint of tears in her eyes, and he moved over next to her as they ran.

"Hey, don't worry Starry, they're much more skilled then us in fighting! I'm sure they'll make it out okay..."

He said, trying to comfort the mare. He didn't know if what he said about them being okay would be entirely true, but he really hoped it was...

(God-Modding Techno more for this bit. If you have problems with this Techno...Well, you should actually be posting then. I can’t help that you haven’t posted in the last two rounds, you’ve had ample amount of time.)

(Also minor god-modding for the group as a whole, but I’m sure you want to get this done so I’m speeding things along by assuming you follow the pained moans.)

The group rushed into the school, leaving their newly-discovered comrades and allies outside to face the Hellhounds. They shut the doors behind them, and were greeted by...

...Eerie silence. The place was deserted, not a foal, teacher, or monster in sight. The entrance wasn’t exactly clean though, papers and trash were strewn around the place, it was clear that there were ponies here, and they were probably in a hurry to leave. Where they went, nopony knew, although hopefully it was somewhere safe.

The group started moving through the school, intent on finding Gray Mane and ending all of this, if it was even possible at this point. They could only hope that it was.

As the group searched the building, trying to find the old buck, they heard the they heard the first noise they heard since entering the building besides their hoofsteps and breathing, a pained moan coming from an adjacent hallway. Looking for any sign of their target, the group followed the noise down the hallway, turning a corner to find a familiar green-coated unicorn on a labcoat, a plasma burn going through his labcoat and combat barding, hitting one of his lungs. His breathing was ragged and from the looks of things he wasn’t conscious, it’s doubtful he would survive long without treatment.

Techno, being the good medical pony that he was, rushed to give the buck said treatment, pulling out his medical supplies as he set to work, injecting med-x and pouring potion down his throat. The pained breathing started to die down as Techno stabilized him, but it would be at least a few minutes before the unicorn would be able to stabilize him. Maybe then they could get some answers.

The utter lack of sound and motion inside the school freaked Scrap out, even screams or sounds of panic would've been welcome to break the eerie silence that filled the halls. As they continued through the empty halls, hopefully towards Grey Mane and a way back to the time period he came from, Scrap started to panic a little. It was too quiet, and nothing was popping out at them.

The discovery of Malachite staved off full blown panic as he watched as Techno treated him. Scrap had managed to calm himself down until he realized that Malachite being wounded like this probably ment that Grey Mane was really close to accomplishing hia goal, whatever that may be.

"This isn't good. Grey Mane is probably really close to his goal, if he did this or let something do this to his assistant..."

Kestrel, with his cargo of Zestari on board, kept a distance from the others. But seeing Malachite like this did get his attention. It however did not suprise him all that much. The burn on his chest no doubt came from some kind of plasma rifle.

And no doubt the shooter was Grey Mane. And why do you ask, does Kestrel know this? Because he would do the same damn thing to someone that got in his way.

Starry quickly galloped toward Techno's side, to offer what medical expertise she had to assist. She wasn't exactly a medical professional, but lent her aid however she could, be it wrapping gauze or cleaning wounds, or whatever was within her abilities.

"Oh no! Malachite?! Are you alright? What happened? Are you still looking for a marefriend? DID GRANDPA GRAYMANE DO THIS TO YOU?!"

Starry was reasonably upset at the possibility that Gray Mane might hurt her prospective coltfriend, but thinking of Gray Mane reminded Starry of the explosive collar around her neck.

"Can you get these collars off? We're all eager to save all of Equestria, but I'd like to keep my head on my shoulders for this adventure!"

Sky just stayed silent at the burn at malachite, looks like he did something grey mane didnt like. Sky pulled the 10mm smg out of her saddlebags, never know when grey mane may pop out and attack the group. But in the mean time she let the group go to his side, they can heal him while she looked and waited for the old pony to come out of hiding.

As Malachite was quite out of it at the time, he wasn’t all that able to respond to many of the group’s queries. However, the last remaining health potions, bandages, and several shots of med-x, were soon able to fix that.

“....H-huh....Wha?” murmured the stallion as he regained consciousness, eyes blearily opening to see the group gathered around him. Groaning, he turns his wrist and looks at his pipbuck, eyes flicking to the time indicator. He blinked once in recognition, before his eyes widened in panic.

“Oh no....Oh nononononononono! I have to-” he started to get up before being forced down by Techno, who said something about opening his wound. He opened his mouth to say something before getting cut off by a rapid-fire question assault from Starry. He blinked.

“No, got shot, no, yes, yes.” he grumbled quickly as he flipped a switch on his pipbuck. All their collars beeped once, before popping open with a hiss and falling off their necks, clattering onto the floor.

With everyone distracted by that, Malachite telekinetically shoved Techno away and stood himself up, grunting and gritting his teeth, doing his best not to shift the wound around too much.

“I’m...Glad to see you all...I thought something like may have happened when I saw you get caught in the wake of the megaspell...I’m assuming you’re here to stop ‘us’?” Another shudder shook the building as the unicorns felt another jolt of pain through their horns, Malachite included. He shook away the pain before continuing. “Well, I’m with you. We need to stop Gray Mane, now. If my calculations are correct, and they are, reality has already started to fall apart. Literally, we have less than an hour left, maybe even only half that. I tried to explain that to Gray Mane but...he’s obsessed at this point. It’s how I got this.” he pointed at his wound. “He’s been working on trying to do this for longer then most of us have been alive, I don’t think he can handle seeing it collapse around him...” he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “Come on, follow me, I know where he is.” He turned around and started limping down the hallway, expecting the others to follow.

Scraps started to follow Malachite down the hallway, his turning over the information the unicorn had given them in his head as he walked. Unfortunately for him, his psyche, which was already battered severely by this whole ordeall wasn't taking the fact that their universe had an hour, at max, before it collapsed, very well.

It was in fact waging a war upon itself, with one side attempting to convince him to devolve to a quivering mess on the floor, to quit, to give up and break down and the other side preaching that he should keep going, not just let the world end around him.

The problem was that the first voice was winning, and if they didn't find Grey mane soon, he was going to devolve into a crying, shaking mess on the floor.

"Are we almost there?"

Sky could only nod to Malachite, but what she just heard from him. The universe was already messed up and it will continue if the group didn't get Grey Mane quick, her mind didn't break down as the things outside showed her. There more messed up thing she couldn't understand, So she just stopped thinking so she wouldn't hurt her brain from the thinking.

Sky only followed Scrap and Malachite through the hallway, wanting to go end this already. As jumping time and fighting things from another universe were bad enough, that was going to suck if they kept going through time and stuff.

Kestrel gave a grunt at Malachite's eagerness to get this over with. Normally Kes would not be all for rushing in and doing this, he was the sort to take his time and do things right.

But right now he couldn't care less about that. He just wanted to get out of here. If Malachite's words were true, that seemed to be the best course of action anyway.

Starry galloped valiantly after Malachite. The pain in her horn was confirmation of her universe-collapsing hypothesis, which at this point was well on it's way to becoming a theory.

Regardless, there were two critically important pieces of knowledge that Starry would need to act on right now, aside from saving all of existence from destruction.

First, Gray Mane hurt Malachite, and that was unforgivable! Well... actually, Starry was a pretty forgiving pony... but she was certainly gonna give Grandpa Gray Mane a piece of her mind! It's not proper to shout at your elders, but this was a special case!

Second, Malachite clearly agreed that he was looking for a marefriend, and that means that Starry needed to make a good impression! "Come on, everypony! Let's solve this thing!" she shouted back toward her group, as she followed Malachite. She leaned in close toward Malachite as they went, and whispered, "Don't worry, my green-coated friend, this Sword Mare will look out for ya!"

Malachite didn’t respond to Starry’s proclamation, he was too busy gritting his teeth as he limped along. While the med-x was helping, it was obvious the colt was still in pain from his plasma wound, and was having trouble moving. He pressed on though, and as the group followed they started to hear...Something, off in the distance, the sound of somepony talking. As they got closer, the voice became more clear, and it became apparent who it was. The unicorn stallion that got them in this entire mess.

“No no no no no...This can’t...I have to...I HAVE to fix this!” came the voice as they got closer. Malachite waved his hoof down to order the others to be quiet, before pointing a hoof at a door. He went up against the wall as he approached the door.

“I’ve worked too long...Too hard...To have it end like this....There has to be
something...ANYTHING...I can’t let it end like this...”

If anyone tried to peak around the door, they would see Gray Mane frantically working at several terminals, occasionally looking at his pipbuck and flipping a few switches. His robes were flung to the side and his shiny Recon Barding was clearly visible, as was the plasma rifle on his back.

“Maybe...Maybe if I can...Yes...Yes...YES! THIS COULD WORK!”

Gray Mane started pulling random wires and crystals out of the terminals, wiring it all up to his Pipbuck and doing...Something. What it was wasn’t clear.

“Ok, there he is.” whispered Malachite. “On him somewhere should be a crystal-based device, I’m not sure exactly how it works, but Gray Mane said it should be able to reverse the effects of the Megaspell if anything went wrong...Except he doesn’t seem to be willing to use it at this point...” he said as he sadly looked at his old mentor. “If we can get that from him...And if he was right...We should be able to reverse all of this...If we can get past that Plasma Gun...I’ve seen what that thing can do to ponies, it once blasted through the armor of a Steel Ranger with one hit, if we fight him it won’t exactly be easy...”

Scraps had glanced around the corner after Malachite had said for them to be quiet, getting a view of what they were going to have to deal with. The plasma rifle especially concerned him, even more so after Malachite said that it had shot through steel ranger armour in a single shot. In a rare moment of clarity on this adventure Scraps brain decided to not make him run in blindy and get mauled by plasma fire.

"I think attacking him full frontal may be out of the question, if that gun is as powerful as Malachite says then it'll rip us to shreds. We need ro come up with another plan. Are there any other entrances to this room we could use to sneak up on him?"

Sky stayed close to the group as they came up to the room with Grey Mane inside of it, only to hear about the crazy situation that's awaits them. She was about to take a peek when she heard Malachite talk about Grey Mane, but the one thing that concerned her most about was his plasma rifle. One that even killed a steel ranger in one shot! No way they would be able to take him, he would probably take most of the ponies before they killed him. Sky only hovered above them with her 10mm Smg ready, "I'm good with what way you all come up with, not much of a plan type of pony." Sky said to them all and listened in.

Kestrel remained silent as he stood there, Zestari on his back still. The big black griffon was still a bit out of it because of the bloodloss, but even then he knew what needed to happen.

Assaulting Grey Mane was suicide, the only thing that could possibly fix this was...talk. The group had to talk him down, convince him that this was wrong, that this was not the way things were and that changing the past was not possible.

Sneaking in was also pretty much out of the question. If they all dropped in on the guy he'd probably open fire. They needed to approach from an open area, slowly, and carefully.

In other words they needed to walk through the door and do this. But Kes couldn't do this alone, he knew that. He needed some backup, and he knew just the two to take with him.

"Blue, Malachite, follow me. We're finishing this." Kestrel said coldly, kneeling down and setting the zebra on his back down on the ground. No need to carry another into this...especially considering what happens if it backfires.

With Zestari secured and the two he needed notified Kestrel began walking forward, reaching up and carefully opening the door. Normal procedure would have been to bash it down and start firing, but this time Kestrel just walked in; eyes scanning for his quarry and locking on him.

Hopefully Starry and Malachite were behind him...otherwise this wasn't going to end well.

Cross tightened his telekinetic grip on a pair of the otherworldly rippers he took off the apes. He stood silent as Kes indicated they should talk Grey Beard down. In all it was probably just as risky as anything else they had planned, but Cross hoped that if it came down to it, they'd at least manage to get that crystal device and figure out for themselves.

If anything went wrong, Cross could put himself behind Grey in a heart beat. But Kes took the first step forward, awaiting Malachite and Starry to follow his lead. Cross kneeled by Zesty, and tried to check on her wounds and make sure she didn't sustain any injuries as they arrived here. Wary, he kept an eyeing glance towards the door, his ears perking up for any sign of trouble that'd he'd be needed.

(Medicine 52, improve Zesty's condition)

Starry trotted alongside Kestrel, to confront Gray Mane. Starry did love to make friends, and even a pony like Gray Mane, who enslaved her and her friends and forced them to risk their lives fighting killer robots for to try and erase themselves from existence for the sake of stopping the mistakes of the past before they happened, was still worth redemption.

"Grandpa Graymane?" Starry asked in a somber tone from a distance. She didn't want to draw in too close and appear a threat. "I know you're trying to make this work, and we're not going to stop you. I just want to talk to you."

Starry exhaled nervously, she had been holding her breath, trying to cope with the tensity of this confrontation. "I-uh, I just wanted to say, we're all trying to make the wastelands a better place, you know? Those of us from the stable, we've lived the sort of happy lives that the ponies here have, and we're trying as hard as we can to make sure that other ponies can have that sort of life too, but we can't solve our problems just by making them disappear. We've learned from the mistakes of our past, and we're working to make the present better right now."

While Kestrel, Malachite, and Starry went to confront Gray Mane, Cross turned to help the still unconscious Zestari. The unicorn, using his relatively basic medical knowledge, goes over the zebra and makes sure she didn’t sustain anymore wounds during their trek through the school. He doesn’t find much to fix, as Kestrel didn’t exactly give her a hard ride. However, shortly after he was done with his checkup, the zebra began to stir.

Meanwhile, the trio slowly trotted into the room, the elder unicorn not even appearing to notice them at first. Before Kestrel or anyone else could take advantage of this apparent opening however, Starry opened her mouth.

The instant she did so, the plasma gun was whipped into the air by a telekinetic field and leveled at the three as Gray Man whirled around. Now that they were in the room they got a much better look at the venerable stallion. His hair was disheveled, matted in sweat and sticking out in multiple places, his eye’s were bloodshot, and his expression carried a combination of anger and despair, with a tinge of insanity.

“You...” he snarled, although who he was indicating out of the three was unclear. His plasma gun gave an ominous hum as the crystals on the weapon began to glow a bright green. That didn’t seem to stop Starry though, who continued to give a little speech about how ponies from her Stable tried to help other ponies and make life everywhere like the life in their Stable was. Gray Mane actually relented from simply shooting them as she spoke, but when she was finished the stallion simply snorted, clearly not convinced.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” growled the buck. “I’ve lived in The Wasteland all my life, for the past 87 years. And in all my years watching it, trying to fix it and make something good out of it, it has never changed. Ever. It’s a lost cost, no one pony can change anything, and unicorn mare that couldn’t of been out of her stable for more than a year with her friends certainly isn’t going to be the one to change it.” he said with a snort. “All these factions and groups sprinkled around the Wasteland? They’re all selfish, only looking out for themselves and not caring what happens to those outside of their little circles. Nothing is ever going to change, the Wasteland is forever going to be a degenerate hellhole, where everyday is likely going to end in death for all but the most well-off or well-equipped. Ending it like this and making sure it never happens is a mercy, one that none of you are going to prevent.” he finished with a growl, turning towards the terminals briefly and checking the readings. If anyone tried to rush him now, there’s no guarantee they wouldn’t get a their faces vaporized by plasma.

(Yes, I left a little piece of irony in the there. It seemed a golden opportunity and it just came to me.)

Something is poking you, her groggy mind said as Zestari awoke into a state of disoriented, confused nausea. She could feel the cool of the ground beneath her, and she forced out a tired groan, rolling her head to the side as she attempted to revive her out-of-it body.

Opening her eyes and standing on weary hooves, while trying to get ahold of the current situation, her body chose this moment to try and rid itself of its nausea and she vomited onto the ground. Finishing and look all the more miserable, she finally felt well enough to understand what was going on around her.

Flicking her eyes around, she noticed some of the ponies she had been trapped with earlier, and they were in some sort of building. She tried to piece together what had happened, the most recent memory being from outside and attacked by a dog. Obviously she’d been rescued by the others and brought… somewhere? The school was her first guess, but hopefully one of the others would help fill in the gaps in her memory.

Focusing her eyes, she took a breath, “Where am I, and where are the others?”