Ponyshock: "Raven" Squad

Kestrel narrowed his gaze and growled menacingly at the pony in his hands. Which considering his partial feline nature was quite effective at breaking ponies down into crying sobbing messes.

"Who is Doctor Gene?" Kes asked next, his voice dead calm.

He could hear something happening in the corner, and he turned. Blazen was writhing like a fish out of water as his body seemed to change drastically.

He turned back around and slammed the pony in his hands against the ground. Hard.

"What just happened to him? What did that syringe do?" The gryphon asked again, voice still eerily, unnatrually calm.

Mona would simply have been watching Kes work...it was a little facinating, seeing how easily the Gryphon broke the pony to the point of tears. However, one thing they said stuck with her.

...Wait a second...That Doctor said this was a stable...and this Filthy Rich guy lost a Daughter 'during the War'? ...Is he referring to...

Mona stepped up, as she spoke. Her words straight to the point.

"He's lying or stupid. If he's referring to the war between Ponies and Zebras, then this Filthy Rich would be over two-hundred years old."

She stated, hearing a twitch from behind her...but glancing back, she saw it was just the Brown Earth Pony had injected himself with something...if he was stupid enough to do that with an unknown substance, then so be it. More supplies for the others.

After the sound of gunfire quietened and the fight won, Zestari cautiously poked her head out from behind the crate. Taking a quick glance at the fallen bodies of the enemies, she holstered her pistol and came out.

"Good job, everyone," She said quietly, stepping over the spilt viscera of one of the crazed pony like things, she had a strong stomach, but still scrunched her face at the sight, and winced slightly. She watched as Kestrel deftly scooped up the survivor he'd wanted and began applying pressure. The survivor gave a garbled and panicked explanation.

Zestari tried to ignore what Kestrel was doing, as she wasn't entirely comfortable with the action, and instead quickly trotted over to Dash to look at his injury. With a click of her tongue, she dressed the hoof injury, applying a salve to dull the pain, and then more properly checked the shoulder injury, cleaning the wound she again drew her tin of pungent cream and slathered some on, then applied a dressing. She was going to have to prepare more soon, still, she had the potions should combat become worse.

She tried to avoid even looking in Kestrel's direction, and instead watched as Blazen, casual as you like, jabbed a bottle of unknown liquid into himself.

"Blazen, what are you..." he collapsed, "Blazen!" She raced over as he began to spasm. She looked up at the rest of the group. "Somepony help me here, and hold him from hurting himself!" She grabbed the drained bottle and spun it in her hooves, trying to determine its composition. She turned to the obviously suffering prisoner of Kestrel's whom he’d slammed into the ground and she added with a sad grimace at his apparent suffering "Not only what it did, what is the stuff this foal has injected?"

Kes heard both Zestari and Mona's comments on the current situation. Mona's being the one that got the most attention. Kestrel had noticed that inconsitincy himself but had said nothing. Now unless Filthy Rich was a gryphon or a dragon there was no way that he had survived this long on his own.

Either there was an imposter working in his stead, or something else was going on behind the scenes.

And what was this battle between Dr. Gene, Filthy, and whoever else was mentioned in that previous argument? What the hell was going on in this city? And why the FUCK were Kestrel and the others here?

"I suggest you start talking." Kes said to his prisoner, his eyes starting to glass over with a sinister emptiness.

"My ears! My dear, beloved ears! What kind of sadistic arsehat thought it would be a good idea to shoot guns in closed rooms?!"

After a while, Arc's ears stopped ringing and his middle ear started to give him some information about balance, he walked into the room where the carnage took place. There, he has seen the results in full glory. Kestrel "interrogating" the survivor, Blazen spasming on the floor with Zestari trying to calm him, and almost, but not completedly scrapped turret. He trailed his eyes arround the room, and decided that medic should do medic's stuff, Kestrel should do... Kestrel's stuff, and poor scared engineer should do poor scared engineer's stuff on the turret.

(Repair 40, Luck 6 on the turret to fix it)
(Science 50, Luck 6 on the turret to reprogram the IFF on the turret)

Amity said nothing as Blazen passed out in pain. He never though of just injecting himself with questionable liquids at a whim. Look what happened to poor Blazen. He wished he could help the buck out with something, anything. But with his lack in medical knowledge he would probably do more harm than good.

Instead he opted to head over to where Kestrel was interrogating the creature. With a quick flap of his wings he made the short distance to the two and landed the leap with a resounding thud as he stood perfectly still next to Kestrel eyeing the creature with a stone cold emotionless foraged by time. He wanted some answers as well. Mostly regarding where they were and if there were more like them. He opted though to keep silent and let Kestrel do all the questioning.

Instead he held his katana firmly in his mouth and had his knives at the ready as he observer their surroundings for any other signs of trouble. He periodically shot a gaze at the others to check on there progress with Blazen while also keeping an eye on the door if any other creatures decided to invite themselves inside.

The technology used to build the chair turret was alot different from that of the wasteland, however, with a bit of determination, luck, and a bit of 'whatever' Arc managed to get the entire turret in tip-top shape, it looked clean and shiny, appearing even better than when the group walked in. Arc even managed to find a way to hack it and bring it over to the group's side. The device was still off however, but Arc would be able to atest to its condition and what might soon be its performance...

"You don't know Dr. Gene...? hes the buck who came up with Arcana but said the shit would never work...I don't know how it works....uses seahorses or something...he's gone into hiding since the shit happened and everypony got fucked HHAHAHAHHA" The splicer broke out into a wailing nervous laughter, nearly screaming in pain at Kes's touch, but as he heard the sound of Arcana being taken, he turned his head and his eyes popped at Blazen's fallen figure

"Thats what you wanted right!?! The Arcana! he's gots it now, I can go right....?" Sensing Kes wasn't letting him go anywhere he continued on.

"Its Arcana, it magically rewrites his genetics but you already know this right? Problem is once you start you can't stop...I may be ugly but I'm not too crazy ...yet... but if he hasn't had exposure he won't be able to able stop looking for Arcana. He's one of [i]us/] now" He spat, blood washing his saliva ...and chuckling at his last statement like it was a cruel joke.

"As for Filthy I don't think he's that old, sure we been here awhile...but I think the last time I saw him was like ....3 or 4 years ago...?" The splicer stared off into the ceiling with that last syllable, he continued on like that for several moments...the tears stopped and his breathing lowered, his body relaxed...

The splicer brought up his legs, and bucked Kes, sending him tumbling backwards. The splicer then lept at Zestari and his teeth sank into her shoulder, rendering blood and flesh...

Amity reacted quickly by spinning around and attempting to knife the creature in the back. Whipping free his knives he threw both at the creatures body in an attempt to kill it. He then used his wings to propel himself over to the two and try rip apart the thing from Zestari's shoulder.

(Melee 50, Throwing knife x2, Luck 4, Strength 4)

The Splicer would find that Kestrel was more like a stonewall than a gryphon, and the kick to his chest did not have any effect on him.

It was enough however to get a reaction out of the big gryphon. Before the splicer could reach Zestari Kes already had his revolver out and was taking aim at the things chest. He was not fast enough to prevent the thing biting her, but it would be little trouble to line up the shot and end both her torment and the creatures life.

It had served its purpose, and now it was time for it to die.

(Guns 100, Scoped .44, One shot to the things chest.)

Arc Weld has observed splicer's escape as in slow motion, and strarted to panick. He turned around and fumbled with the turrets controls to bring it alive againts the splicer.
(Turned online the turret)

.357 (6/7)

'7 rounds...' Dash thought, 'Better save it for a dire situation.' he concluded. He looked as Zestari bandaged up his two wounds. He was a little surprised that he didn't have to even ask for it. He didn't say much of anything as the zebra worked. He had seen plenty of Zebras before, but he had never worked with one. He had never really found work that would involve the type of skills a Zebra would typically have... well... The type of skills that he thought a Zebra would have.

He blinked as Blazen appeared to go into some kind of fit later, though, "What happened with him!?" Dash asked, but then another thing happened, their supposed prisoner splicer suddenly went at Zestari and began biting her furiously. Having no other weapon as immediately in his grasp, he took aim with the .357, but from his angle, it looked too hard to get a clear shot on the deformed pony.

As soon as the splicer latched onto Zestari, Amber managed to get one knife into its spine, but all that seemed to do was make it bite down harder, tearing flesh from her shoulder. Kes, catching site of the shaking splicer but it pulled away as his shot went past...

In his panic, Arc decide to switch on the turret, it spotted the Splicer and opened fire... slamming bullets into its skull and sending it flying away as Zestari was left standing there with a huge bleeding bite in her shoulder.

Kes watched the turret tear the splicer apart. That thing would come in handy...the group should keep it around if they could find a way to move it about quietly.

Seeing that their medic was hurt Kes holstered his revolver and began to move. His massive form darting across the room with nary a sound or effort.

Reaching Zestari the bird began to look her over, that was a nasty bite. Just what the hell were these ponies doing to themselves? Being herbivores they did not have sharp teeth, the bite should have been harmless.

And now the teams medic was injured. Great.

Kes was not a doctor but even he knew what to do. Looking down at the mares wound, Kes did the only thing he could do. He fumbled around in her saddlebags until he found a health potion and then he presented it to Zestari to drink.

Blazen was still KO on the floor, and Kes honestly had no clue what to do about his injury. The ARCANA stuff sounded strange, and if the name was anything to go by Kes guessed it had to do with magic. That was beyond his expertise in terms of healing.

As Zestari listened to the creature explain the origin of ARCANA and the likely side effects that Blazen would experience, she frowned sadly. Would fixer work on this stuff. Changing one's genetic structure was hardly something that could be remedied by strong words and discipline. She tapped her hoof on her chin lost in thought, wondering if the ARCANA also had degradation issues and that was why all the ponies they'd fought seemed so monsterous.

Then the thing had jumped at her.

She wasn't prepared for it. The best she could manage was a backwards shuffle, eyes widening and shrieking in alarm. Her shriek only got louder when it buried its teeth into her shoulder, and by the loud sounds of gunfire, was promptly dealt with by the party.

She stood there looking at the wound quivering. She hated this place. She hated its denizens, she hated its construction. It took a moment for Zestari to realise that Kestrel had rummaged through her bags and was offering one of the party's valuable health potions to her, and after looking at it a moment, greatfully accepted it.

Drinking it helped calm her. And she forced a smile and thanked the group quietly for coming to her aid so quickly. Turning to the still unconscious form of Blazen, she asked, "What are we going to do with him?"

Arc looked outside his cover behind the turret, where he has hidden during the fight. Apparently, the turret has been quite effective, a useful thing to have around, and deadly to be against were it mantained in it's full capacity. This bothered Arc, because the turret could not be moved around, being bolted to the ground, and leaving it here to be possibly hacked back to it's hostile behaviour seemed tactically unwise, they may have to retreat back this way. Complete destruction of such wonderfull device also seemed as a waste of good resources, but perhaps the thing could be stripped off it's more valuable parts and it's weapon and ammunition? Still, this was not his decision to make, they elected a leader, so he should be allowed to lead.

"Kestrel, what should i do with this? Should i leave it behind as a booby trap, or dissasemble it for ammo, parts and maybe it's gun? I do not really see a way for this to move around, i mean, i could try to rip it from it's mount, but it will be of little use without it.", asked Arc.

Then he finally noticed Zestari.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..."

But Kestrel obviously managed to keep stronger presence of mind than Arc, as he already stuffed Zestaris muzzle with a healing potion, her wounds starting to mend. The sudden realization hoewer did not bode well with Arc, causing him another wave of panic. He fell onto his haunches, leaned back against the turret and held his head in his hooves.

"Arc, you incomepetent, bloody idiot! It's all your fault, you should have turned the turret on the moment you could."
"No... no i could not, the targeting talisman inside would have recognized that... that thing as hostile and would vaporize it before Kes could get any info from it. No, i did right... right?"
"Right. Right, i did right. Now calm yourself you idiot. You're still needed."

Arc rose back onto his legs.

"Zestari, i'm really sorry for this, but i could not turn the turret on, it would kill it before Kestrel was done with it."

Arc massaged his forehead with his right hoof.

"Godesses, i need a fucking drink.", he said quietly.

"Scrap it n' learn all you can about it." Kes said to Arc, chucking the used up health potion away and turning away from Zestari and Blazen.

The gryphon spared a glance over at the unconscious form of the young buck. He had been stupid enough to get himself into this situation, and Kes honestly believed that he should be left to suffer in his mess.

"He's dead weight now. You decide." was all he said before he walked off and began reloading all of his weapons and preparing to move. He didn't care what they did, right now he just wanted to get out of this hell hole.

And so Arc got onto his work on the turret.

"A'right, so how do we do this... the thing has probably several separeted systems, something to control the gun,power source, something to aim it, something to detect targets, something to control it all.

Valuable parts? Gun and ammo, obviously. Power source, most likely could be used for energy wepon if we acquire one. The motion system could be useful, it appear to work in full circle, not just ninety degrees as the EFS... if i could remove it undamaged and power it with battery, maybe it could prevent additional ambushes... and the rest... probably a CPU and few servos... not much of use of that, at least for now."

(Repair 40,Luck 6:Dissasembly of the turret)
(Science 50,Luck 6:Construction of portable motion sensor)

After finishing his work, Arc moved on to the electric junction box, but as he walked to the other room, he stopped and took the syringe Blazen used. It still had blood on the needle, and probably few traces of the liquid as well.

"Poor bastard... well, at least we should find out what he poisoned himself with"

"I'll take the syringe for future reference, we should find out what it was."

After that, Arc began his work on the electric box.

(Science 50, Luck 6: Rerouting power to A5-X06)

Zestari smiled with her eyes closed, as the healing potion went to work on the gaping wound left by the creature in her shoulder, the cooling wave of healing rippling accross the wound.

She opened her eyes, "No, that's fine Arc. Even Kestrel didn't expect it to try and attack me, and there's no way you could have either."

She frowned towards Kestrel's back. "Well, we can't leave him here. You'd have him beset by any manner of these things?" She pointed to one of the splicers on the ground. "No, we must hold ourselves to higher standard, there may be a cure." Even to her own ears, she didn't sound very convinced about that last part.

With a sigh she went over to the buck. And wondered how she was going to lift the buck along with her already weighty saddlebags. "Could somepony help me?"

Dash let out a heavy breath as the splicer was at last put down. He would have liked to have shot him, but he hadn't wanted to risk hitting the Zebra. He winced at the look of the wound the splicer had left on her, but she took a healing potion and afterward appeared to be alright. He looked to Blazen as Kestrel and Zestari both made their points about his apparent affliction. He didn't agree with just leaving him to the splicers either. As Zestari asked for help, Dash trotted over and nodded, "I'm not all that strong, but maybe I could help?" he said.

Kes re-holstered his guns and got back to his feet, ready to move along now.

"Give em to Dae." Kes said nodding towards the Diamond Dog in the back of the room. He was eaisly the strongest among the group, carrying a buck like Blazen would be no issue at all for him.

Kes was in no mood to argue, and if he had to break his code to prevent that headache so be it.

Looking around the office Kes attempted to locate the original reason for coming here in the first place. That damned powerbox, whatever it was.

He found it on the back wall. Next to a door leading no doubt to the room with the consoles where the group was supposed to download something.

"Arc, rewire the box. Get the power to A5-X06." He said, moving towards the door to the next room. Carefully the gryphon opened it peeked inside, double checking the place for booby-traps and the like.

If it was clear, he would proceed inside.

(Sneak 100, Perception 7. Checking room then proceeding)

"I have to agree with Kes that the idiot is little more then dead weight now."

Mona stated, adding her own two cents as she took the chance to check her rifle and load a replacement round into the weapon.

"Even if there was a cure, is it worth helping someone who is foolish enough to inject themself with a random syringe full of an unknown liquid without even a second opinion? It's a miracle he's even survived to life this long with those sorts of sensibilities, and we don't have time to add looking for a cure to our list of things to do here. It might be cold, but I say leave him, and increase our own chances."

Amity said nothing again as the group discussed the matter of Blazen. Instead, with a flap of his wings, he bounded over to the places where his knives had been thrown. Reaching the hideous creature that hit Zestari he slowly pulled the knife out and wiped it clean with a cloth. He then proceeded to go fetch the other knife that had veered of into the distance.

After picking both up and securing them to his legs, Amity trotted over to Kestrel and took up a position behind him ready to advance with the griffons movements. The faster they moved, the faster they would get out of this goddess forsaken city.

She looked at Mona, who also thought leaving Blazen behind was the best plan, and Zestari frowned sadly. It was the pragmatic decision and as well as that, on the other hoof... She shook her head; no she couldn't let such thinking influence her.

Then Kestrel told her to get the Diamond dog, Dae to carry the buck, and she visibly relaxed. "Thank you, Kestrel." she said to the griffon's back, not expecting any reaction in return.

Zestari looked over at the Diamond Dog. "Would you please carry him?" She asked politely, and stood back to allow the diamond dog to pick the buck up off the ground.

Finally, she turned to watch as Kestrel and Amber prepared to enter the next room.

Arc managed to deconstruct the entire turret in short time, even successfully managing to put together a short-range motion sensor and link it to his pipbuck in very short time. Once he had that down, he set the generator's to power another district from the far side of the city....to another, as specified by Dr. Gene

Kes, examining the the room next door, didn't notice much but the noise of the generators kicked started, and the lights came on in a small control room, aside from a burned out corpse on the floor it seemed normal....

Loot Obtained:
-Short-Range Motion Sensor

Loot in new Room:
-Holotape
-2 beers
-A fire extinguisher

Kes felt the presence of Amber behind him as he moved forward into the room, there was next to nothing here.

The Holotape on the floor caught his attention though, and he quickly connected it to his pipbuck and began to play what was on it as he continued to look around. No reason he couldn't keep moving and listening.

The consoles on the wall caught his attention next. He knew these to be the computers that he was supposed to download data from. But that could wait, right now Kes was listening to the voices on the holotape.