Ponyshock: "Guardian" Squad

Cross had opened his mouth and was about to thank Bake for covering his back but she already read his intentions. Still he wasn't about to give her any more fodder against him, without looking at her, he quickly and nonchalantly spoke.

"Thanks...." There wasn't any time to talk, Cross had a monster to kill. Rather than use magic to reach the creature alone, he charged along side Bakewell, ...trying to find a way to return the favor. Gentle was still getting dragged off and Cross wasn't about to let lose ANYPONY under his charge... DIgging through his items again, he pulled out his grenade rifle and set about aiming at the base of the vines holding Breeze.

(Explosives 60, Luck 8, Last two rounds of 40 mm grenades on destroying the creature)

The vine pony turned and stared at Breeze for a few moments before nodding at her and answering her questions. “Game? I take my work very seriously. And to kill you would be such a... terrible waste.” He grinned devilishly, his eyes narrowing at her. “No, you are far too good a speci–”

His head jerked violently to the side as Dawn Blaze’s bullet struck home. The creature’s step faltered; his pace slowed to a crawl as he regained his balance. A stream of amber fluid ran down the side of his face, which was twisted in anger. “Don’t interrupt!” he shouted out. “You bunch of–”

Grenades erupted beneath his pony cargo, tearing viciously at the vines and plants holding Breeze aloft, and they unceremoniously dropped her before retreating underground.

Sawdust continued hopping between safe spots of ground until she finally reached an excellent position to attack the plant pony from, even better was the fact that she seemed to have made it there without anyone, or anything, spotting her.

Kira patted the splicer down but didn’t find anything, so she took to the air to catch up with the others. Both she and Lucky spotted it about the same time as the creature finished its angry yelling. Kira noticed it as the leaves in the trees began rustling; Lucky spotted the lifting and shuffling of the roots. The trees that littered the garden seemed to slowly move behind the group, trapping them from escape.

"Well. Shit."

Lucky skidded to a stop as the trees moved to block the way behind, his jaw dropping in sheer amazement.

"Guys, you might wanna stop shooting it, I think it's a LOT bigger than it's letting on..." The buck said with an apprehensive tone. He shuffled away from the wall of trees, and moved closer to the group. He looked at the mutant, which had a bullet lodged in the side of it's head, and was still smoldering where Cross's grenades had struck it. He couldn't be sure if it was still breathing, if it even needed to breath at all.

Lucky prepared for some sort of attack, realizing that any kind of vegetation could potentially lash out at him or somepony else.

Dawn ran for a different position as soon as he saw his bullet hit the thing, his hooves barely making a sound. angling his gun for another shot at the enemy, its anger clearly visible by its expression. Aiming once more, his eyes widened as two small trails of smoke landed under his target, Dawn's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates the two explosives going off in an array of noise and destruction.

Falling back into the shadows, he noticed that Breeze had been set free from her vine-like confines, Dawn ran from his cover and approached her, grasping the health potion that sawdust had shoved at him earlier, "are you okay, did he hurt you?" Dawn was worried to say the least, seeing that his medical knowledge was non-existent at best....... But it was worth a try if it was necessary.

[Intelligence:7, Luck:5, Medicine:23, try to heal Gentle Breeze only if needed]

Kira did not like this fighting plant ponies something she could handle but actual trees that was a bit to much of this gryphoness to handle. She could probably blow them up with her dynamite if things got nasty, but she could not be sure that it would be that effective against trees.

"I think we made the trees angry." She looked over at the plant pony thing that was bleeding some kind of amber like blood from its bullet wound. Then an idea stuck her, it was a stupid idea but she could not think about much ells at the moment and if they did not get this monster dead well they would not be walking out of this city.

"Cover me." Kira said just before the changed forward hoping that the other in her group could keep her safe enough to get close. She moved as quickly as she could avoiding what ever this thing could throw at her she needed to be quick and stupid if this where to work. When she got close enough pulled out one of her sticks of dynamite and made a quick pounce towards him aiming the now lit stick of dynamite at the bullet wound to jam it in there and hopefully finishing this thing once and for all.

[Agility 8, Explosives 85, Unarmed 55, Move up to the plant pony avoiding attacks and jam a stick of dynamite in the bullet wound.]

Bakewell heard Cross’ thanks, but didn’t respond. This wasn’t the time for such things. Still, the fact that Cross had quickly leapt into action to save Breeze without trying to tell the party to leave her in favor of heading to some objective somewhere made the earth pony feel… relieved? Glad? Maybe a combination of the two. Not too much though. There was probably an ulterior motive behind his quickness to help; maybe he felt that the rest of the group would ditch him. Maybe he was afraid that he would be unable to find Winter on his own.

As the vines dropped Breeze Bakewell quickly tried to dash over to the mare to try and get her out of there. She didn’t notice the trees on her own, and by the time she her brain would manage to interpret what the others were saying she would already be at her destination barring any issues.

Sawdust stood still as a statue as it became apparent to her that she wasn't being watched. Moments like these were precious, being able to watch without being watched. It meant that she could keep an eye on the group and if potential threats rose up, she'd be able to fire on them first and tear out their skull with her 9mm SMG before they could do any more harm.

This pleased the duster clad mare immensely, she could protect some ponies from further assault while not being seen to be judged or attacked herself. A matter that to her was of the utmost importance. Of course this attitude changed rather quickly as she noticed the trees moving to block their escape, maybe... Maybe somepony should have let the evil plant creature finish its monologue?

Seeing though as the group had this pseudo-under control, fighting hoof to hoof would not be a good idea, and the fact that he did not trust himself in any other forms of combat, Nix trotted up to the rest of the group and shifted the shades on his face as he took a gander at the situation they had fond themselves trapped in.

Seeing though that Breeze had finally been dropped from the vines, Nix wasted no time to prep his bag and trot over to the three and as Bakewell began to drag her out of harms way he spoke.

"I know like this might seem like an obvious question, but are you hurt?" Athanix said with the most comforting smile he could manage at the moment. He began to pull out some bandages from his bags as he began to-

Oh wait.

"If anyone else is in the need of some medical assitance you should look elsewhere, but I'd be happy to help! Just say something if somethings really buggin' you!" Athanix said to the rest of the group as he refocused and started to apply a bandage or two to Breeze. He didn't want to waste anything if he wasn't absolutely certain.

(Intelligence 8, Luck 8, Medicine 47, Apply a bandage or two only if the situation warrants it. -Do you need to even roll to apply a bandage?)

Breeze had fallen with only some minor cuts and bruises, but she did have a few gashes on her. "Thank you," she said to Athanix as he placed a few bandages on her worse cuts.

She stood and brushed herself off, pulling out a few thorns. What was the Vine Pony about to say when it was attacked?

Well, now it was angry. She pulled out her 9mm and prepared herself in case she needed to use it.

While the rest of the group took care of helping Gentle Breeze, Cross glared at the surrounding foliage. Whatever was out there was out to get them. So he trotted over to a spot that wouldn't put the group in danger. He let out a deep sigh. It was a same he'd have to destroy something as beautiful as this... but there were monsters lurking with in. Still... he couldn't help himself and set about to gathering and storing as many plants as he could and once he packed as much as he could carry. He had wrapped them carefully and sighed sadly...that he couldn't carry more without compromising his ability to store other things later.

And thus he set about to torching various directions to make sure to flush out anything lurking beyond there. Once he made sure that was clear, he would return to the others and help them search the area.


(Perception 7 to keep track of foliage and any threats)

Lucky prepared his revolver again, keeping an eye out for any sort of plant-based attack. Apart from the trees continuing to shuffle as they slowly enclosed the group, nothing immediately shot out of the undergrowth.

While the plant pony thing was distracted by the destruction of his verdant appendages, Kira made her move. She shot through the air, deftly avoiding the occasional vine that took a swipe in her direction. As she drew close to her prey, she held the dynamite in her beak while she produced a lighter to ignite its fuse. Don’t worry, she knew what she was doing. Probably.

As Kira did her thing, Bakewell and Blaze quickly went to Gentle Breeze’s assistance, dragging her away from the expected blast radius. She turned down the proffered healing potion; she wasn’t all that banged up, after all. They dragged her into an open area and watched to see how the plant pony would react.

Like a bolt of lightning, Kira’s talon forced the primed dynamite into the creature’s gaping wound-hole, waiting only a fraction of a second to ensure that it was stuck fast. The plant pony gasped and roared and bucked at her, but with a powerful pump of her wings, she went rocketing backwards too fast for the thing to catch her. Only when she was at a safe distance, however, did she notice the stick of dynamite, fuse nearly burnt all the way down, fall out of the side of the thing’s head and land on the ground at its feet.

Athanix trotted over to the crouching trio of Breeze, Blaze and Bakewell and knelt down. He quickly set about applying his bandages where the vines had bitten most deeply or left tears in Breeze’s flesh from vicious thorns. She’d be right as rain in no time.

Sawdust remained alert for danger, ready to pepper with hot lead anything that might leap out of the writhing foliage.

Cross pocketed as many plant specimens as he was able to collect in such a short moment – he found a particularly interesting sample of purple flower that he recognised as beneviolet, which was supposedly rare even before the End of Things – before liberally spraying an area with fire, killing and charring all of the foliage in a wide area. The lack of agonised screaming, however, suggested that the effort was in vain.

Before Kira could even think about rectifying her slight miscalculation, a white flash and a crack of thunder momentarily engulfed the plant pony sending smoke, ash and shattered earth showering through the air. The malevolent gardens around them, as one, spasmed violently, as if in sympathy. When the column of smoke finally cleared, the intrepid squad saw what was left of their foe.

Lying in a slowly spreading pool of amber fluid, his front legs and most of his rear legs shattered or disintegrated, the plant pony shuddered feebly. With a hollow, saddened voice, he cried out, “Please... look after the plants. They need... care. They can’t survive down here without... somepony to tend to them.” He gave a gurgling cough. “My workbench is... towards the back; it’s where I kept... everything. Please.” His head flopped to the ground, his eyes struggling to stay open, stay focused. His devastated barrel rose and fell with hoarse, laboured breaths.

A pang of guilt and sympathy struck Breeze's heart as she approached what was left of the Vine Pony. "Why did you go after us?" she asked the plant pony. "M-maybe we can.... h-help you...?"

It had something it had to protect... and here it is, begging for us to continue its work for the good of something else.

Breeze instinctively wanted to save it, let it live, but she doubted at this point that she could. She fought her emotions, trying to keep herself from crying.

Lucky had seen Kira jam the bomb into the creature's head, but before he could object, it was mangled horribly by the explosion.

"Goddess damn it! When I say don't shoot it, that doesn't mean to fucking blow it up instead!" The buck yelled as he ran toward the crater.

He came near and saw what was left of the mutilated thing. Even with his basic knowledge of medicine, he could clearly see that there was no concievable way this thing was going to survive. The fact it was even able to speak was amazing. Hurriedly, Lucky asked it a question.

"Where are we? Tell us as much as you can."

Athanix just blinked lightly as he took the glasses from his face and wiped them down with a spare cloth from his bag.

"By the stars. You really messed this guy up." Nix said blankly before he tossed his hooves up in pure shock. "Who am I kidding? You blew a giant god forsaken hole in the thing." Coming back down to all fours Athanix trotted up to Lucky hoping to listen in on anything that this creature might have to say. This begged him to ask the same exact question. "Yeah... Where exactly are we..? You seem well acquainted with the rest of the facility. Would you mind filling us in and getting us in the know how?" Athanix really didn't know what to expect after that. The fact that it was able to speak was a feat within itself. He really expected no less since the thing basically had a bomb strapped to it moments ago.

What he did notice though was the amber fluids pooling around the newly formed trio. Curiosity really got the better of him this time as he plopped his bag down onto the ground, knelt next to it and proceeded to hoof out a small glass vile, cork, and a pair of tongs. Then carefully with booth hooves he picked up the vile with the tongs and carefully scooped up some of the amber fluid until a good bit of it was in his vile.

"This probably is a bad idea, but hell, if anything I might be able to do something useful with this... Maybe... Kind of... Not really..." Nix said as he corked the thing. "I really don't know if this would be a good idea, but then again, it's not like he is going to be using this crap anytime soon eh?" Nix said pulling out a couple more viles from his bag and setting them on the floor.

"Oh yeah and could someone go check that bench over there? Just be careful though, booby traps and other perilous things. If you find any medical supplies or anything that might even remotely apply in the field of medicine could you wait a bit before stuffing it in your bags, drinking it down, or possibly injecting it into yourself." Nix said with a serious look on his face. "And don't look at me like I'm crazy because I've seen my fair share of strongjaws that have let their assumptions run every aspect of their lives. Needless to say their lives only lasted a bit longer that it took me to ramble out this sentence."

“He’s dying, and you’re asking him to give you a lecture on where we are with his dying breath?” Bakewell asked in disbelief. She didn’t remotely like the abomination, the vine monster had given up its rights to such things the moment he attacked the group and tried to run off with Breeze. Still, there were just some things you didn’t do. Casual deathbed interrogations were one of those things. Most ponies deserved to leave the world with as little to worry about as possible, right? Even this… thing.

“Don’t worry. Your plants will be safe. We’ll take care of them.” She reassured, creeping carefully around the spreading fluid that the party zebra was storing for some reason. Eeuuuugh.

The earth pony wasn’t at all sure that she would be able to keep her words, and was even less sure that this wasn’t some sort of last minute trap. She didn’t want to go view the workbench, but the possibility of medical supplies did sound useful. She needed a second opinion, a wary eye knowing what kind of a trap to expect and a cautious mind to, uhm. Be cautious she guessed? Unfortunately there wasn’t anypony in the group that the beige pony felt fit that description; Sawdust had suspected the explosive trap earlier when Bakewell had been clueless, but had still set it off. Bakewell wasn’t completely sure where Sawdust was at the moment anyway. Kira had walked right into an obvious trap moments before, so that was a definite no. Athanix wore glasses, that meant he had trouble seeing, right? Everypony else was a complete hit and miss.

There wasn’t a single pony that Bakewell would want to die a slow and painful death alongside her, but Cross Roads was the closest thing. He would have to do.

“Cross. Come with me to find this workbench?”

"It was a monster!" Kira objected and she watched the other gathered around the remains of the plant-thing that where slowly bleeding out in front of them. "If I had not done killed it then it would had killed us all or worse." She looked over them not understanding why they reacted as the had. If something tried to kill you, you kill it that how simple it was.

The gryphoness sighed as she walked over to the workbench, cautious of her surrounding to not get ambushed again or walk in to a trap. Athanix was right that it might be something useful they could find. They were in real need of health potions and magical bandages and it would be good to find anything that resembled medical supplies.

Cross angrily stared at the purple flower, he preserved that one most of all. But he couldn't help it... It brough back memeories, ...and those memories made him angry, so he set a small part of the forest on fire. ...He had to... there could still be those 'things' out there... but nonetheless he was furious for what he lost.

Had he been cohesive, he never would've thought of destroying all this... he could've taken it back to the society....green plants were extremely rare.... But no, Harmony's loss would be his loss as well. Only once he had torched everything he could from the spot he had dug his hooves into, did he realize what he was doing. Disappointed he sadly lowered his head and returned to the group, using his magic to bring Gentle Breeze back onto her hooves.... Without turning off his mask the metallic voice spoke.

"Are you alright?". Cross turned his head as Bake spoke to hmm, he felt a little better that she at least trusted him a bit more now, or at least seemed to..

"Yea lets go....."

Managed to set it off! Managed! Just cause... Err, well that's what she'd contend if some pony were saying it and not thinking it. In any case Sawdust lurked for a little while longer, then assuming Plant Monster died soon and no manic laughter filled the area; Sawdust jumped down from her perch and came up to Bakewell and Cross. She did so because they were the only known elements to her, Kira and the others were unknown or out and out untrustworthy in her opinion.

She piped up, "That was freaky." ... "Well yeah it was also amazing," ... "Yeah that's a good question, do you two know what Arcana is? I bet it has something to do with that monster, ya know, since it mentioned it and stuff."

Oh, that’s where Sawdust had gotten to! Bakewell would keep pace with Cross, but noted that Kira had also gone to look for the workbench. Best not to get too close to the griffon, just in case…

“It was pretty freaky, wasn’t it?” She answered, assuming that Sawdust was talking to her. It felt a bit awkward when the yellow mare kept talking, but Bakewell just assumed she had missed something obvious and skipped to the last bit.

“I’ve never heard of Arcana before, it sounds magicky, though.”

Breeze just felt unsure of everything, and even slightly depressed. She watched Cross torch everything, and that just made her even more upset. Why did they have to kill it, Breeze asked herself. I'm pretty sure it wasn't going to kill us.

She kept herself from crying, thinking about everything she had done. What if she had escaped the Vine Pony's grasp? Would she have been able to save it?

She held up her left front hoof some, having twisted it a little in her fall. She put it down, putting some weight on it. It hurt a bit, but not too much.

The pool of amber fluid began to cool at the edges as the mortally wounded plant pony’s breathing began to slow. He looked at Breeze for a time, as if it took a while for him to process her words. "My pretty little flower,” he said quietly. “You've... already helped me enough.”

His eyes rotated towards Lucky, and with a wince, he responded, "You're in Harmony... in the gardens.” He blinked tiredly as he coughed out a wheezing laugh.

He turned to Bakewell, giving her a slow, solemn nod and an appreciative smile as his head lowered to the ground.

As his eyes began to close, they caught the light of Cross’ flames engulfing the gardens. A few tears trickled out onto the grass as his shallow breaths finally ceased.

Cross, Bakewell and Kira were the first to leave the body and begin searching for the workbench the plant pony had mentioned. The others followed soon afterwards. With nothing but 'towards the back' to guide them, they set off in the most likely direction: toward the back. After a few minutes of travel, dotted with wary glances at strange-looking trees and alarmed reactions to rustling grass, they stumbled across something that seemed to fit the description.

In the middle of nowhere, two long, low sets of free-standing shelves ran parallel to each other, a pair of large, rusty storage cabinets sitting at one end. In the middle on one side, the shelves were interrupted by a workbench a few yards in length. From high above, at the ceiling of the great dome, a couple of thin cables descended, ending in two large lights that illuminated the workbench and immediate area.

From their distance, it was clear there was a fair volume of stuff on the shelves.

Breeze found herself giving a choked sob at the viny pony calling her its pretty little flower. She placed a hoof upon the viny pony's neck, and cried for a bit.

"You shouldn't have had to die," Breeze whispered. "I'm so sorry."

She was the last to follow to the workbench, but she did so with tears still streaming down her face.

Athanix had already gotten a few viles of the random amber fluid that came forth from the wounds of the creature. He took not in his ledger that when they went topside, he would begin his study on this interesting bit of- whatever the hell this was.

They had now been walking for some time, Nix constantly checking the surrounding foliage whenever something so much as sneezed in the trees. He didn't like being in here for reasons to obvious to state and wondered when in seven hells were they going to get to the bench. His questions though were more or less answered as he adjusted the glasses on his face. Seeing the shelves and the workbench out in the middle of nowhere was kinda creepy and ominous. Not to mention the two lights that hung above it really did nothing to cheery up the atmosphere in the room.

"I don't know guys... I may need glasses, but from the looks of it that entire area has the word 'trap' written all over it in about 7 different languages..." Athanix said as he slowly began walking towards the thing making sure to keep close to the group. "Although I may be dead wrong. Let's find out! Any of you crazies want to follow? I advise the sane to stay behind."

"I'm feeling nowhere near sane at the moment," Breeze announced.

I'm fairly sure that this isn't a trap, she thought to herself. I trust that viney pony probably more than I should.

"Any other crazies want to follow?"

He looked back at the dead tree pony, Dawn questioned whether his actions where moraly correct, whether what the group had done was right, noticing not only had they killed the thing but litteraly burned all of its hard work right before its eyes as it died.......... Talk about overkill. Though the best interest of the group had to be put forward and it did attack, capture one of our own, and not to mention tried to kill us too.

" I'll would like to come too" Dawn trotted along, putting in a synthetic spring in his step. Hoping to livin up the situation with some sort of enthusiasm. "Kinda' keeping my eyes open for some extra ammo, maybe a newer gun" he said,"or maybe we can get some info as to what happened in this hell hole." Dawn finished, more grimly then he had wanted it to sound, but if he knew anything, he knew that information was everything.