I Can Have a Dark Side IC (Closed)

Marcus was shivering in fear as he sat there, almost too frightened to move. He didn't pay any heed to Radiant's words. What did she know? She may speak in a language of the Zebra, but she knew nothing of what he saw. Nothing at all.

Then Xeshir walked up to him and whispered to him.

"Don't panic Marcus...I had a vision too, of a copy of myself...But for now, stay calm until we can find the source of this."

Marcus actually let out a great breath of relief at this. Another had seen something strange as well. She was right, of course. He couldn't think rationally if he was terrified. Not that he could control that. Terror wasn't an easy emotion to control. Of course, her next sentence was like a splash of water in his face.

"Now buck and be jasiri!"

He straightened up and gave her a brisk nod. "Yes, ma'am Xeshir. Kuwa jasiri (be brave)."

He looked over at Arc as he called Xeshir before speaking to her again. "You should stick with them. Look out for anything else that happens. I fear this place will try to tear us apart."

With that said, he gave her a grateful smile before making his way back over to his group. He gave a brief look to them all before closing his eyes and saying, "So what comes now?"

As Dash gave Amber the .45, she'd look at it for a moment with a curious stare, then shaking her head, giving a muffled comment about disliking guns as she trotted on down towards the next level, finding everypony else all clustered around.

A raised brow and a simple glance towards Dash, Amber spat her hammer back into her saddlebags. "So, where to? This place has enough ponies as is."

Radiant saw Amber upon her arrival and smiled. "Ah, Amber. You look much nicer now, but I'd like it if you could go check the reactors.... I'm not sure which level they're on, so check with Star or somepony with a pipbuck. Or follow the signs. We're going to check the infirmary out unless Cross knows anywhere else he'd like to check first?" Looking to Cross questioningly, Radiant could hear Xeshir talking to Marcus, giving a little smile as it seemed to work.

Meanwhile, Amber looked at Dash and then around. "Know anypony with a pipbuck?" She asked, not exactly taking note of everypony who had a pipbuck in her surroundings.
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The stand off between Bone Head and Ami wasn't going well either. After what Bone Head said just now, the alicorn-like AI seemed to be at her limit for putting up with this feathered bastard. A quick sliding of bolts and the sound of something locking came from the door itself.

"You shut up! I'm locking the armoury down and not letting anypony in now!" She spoke, sounding quite distraught as she said what she did.

"Do griffons not understand how it is to lose people you call friends? This is exactly why we didn't have any griffons in the Stable, none of you are worth the negative emotions you bring with you. At least zebras actually care about things other than themselves and their stupid magpie-like greed!" She shouted now, the guns sliding away into their hiding spots as she stomped her hooves and de-materialized, the lights around the door having shut off now and leaving the raider in the dark.

Whilst in the dark, if he remained, Bone Head would hear the clacking of talons in the still-openable door of the screening room for the armoury...

How suspicious...
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Up in the kitchen, with the cook and her comrades, Ami's projection started moving more fluidly once more and she wore a smile as she gave a nod to what Scrap said. "I locked the armoury down, if he wants to get in there, he either needs a balefire bomb or a pony able to over-ride my control over the door... Now, lets get back to this cake!" She said, adding a cheery afternote to the comment.

And then they would proceed to work on baking a cake, the main parts being done by Bakewell due to her saying she was a cook. Scrap was permitted a few things, just to keep him occupied and not accidentally breaking anything. And Violet was kept away from anything electronic.

Once the main part was done, and all the sponge layers of the cake were baking, Ami continued her smile. "I will let you three know when the cake is done and I'll take it out to cool. When you're ready come back up and we can do the icing and all of that!"

This had taken just about as much time as everypony else took clustering around in the entrance to the infirmary.
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Arc's group would once again be accompanied by Bada Boom as he had finished his own bath not long ago. "What did I miss?" He would ask with a non-chalant tone before looking at the group in confusion. "...Where'd Rad g-" Before he finished, Rad would cut him off, eating from a box of sugar bombs that was more or less stuck to his face. "I found Sugar Bombs!" The buck sounded cheerful, and he seemed quite content eating the sugar bombs.
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In the medicine storage, Cuppa looked around, seeing a large range of medicinal tools and supplies. "Whoa... There's a lot o' stuff in 'ere." She muttered to herself, slowly walking through until her ears perked up, hearing something moving around one of the shelves of supplies. "Somepony there? Ah heard ya, if yer tryin' t' play a game wi' me, ya ain't doin' a good job o' it." She called towards where there had been movement, watching and listening for anything at all...

But there was nothing else, not yet. "Whoever the hay y'are, ah'm only lookin' around." She then added as an afterthought.

Rad's adventure for Sugar Bombs lead him down to the third level and through towards the maintenance storage, his nose leading the way. The closer he got to that room, the stronger the smell of Sugar Bombs got.

Rad looked at the door, no way was it getting between himself and some sugar bombs! he bust open the door without hesitation and saw the glorious reward for his clever nose, several boxes of Sugar Bombs just sitting there, innocently waiting for somepony to eat them... It was almost too simple. But simple just meant he could do it easier!

Rad got stuck in, opening up one of the boxes and shoving his face in happily, a grey hoof Exactly like his own Suddenly wrapped around his neck, trying to choke him into unconsciousness. Rad spat half chewed sugar bombs as he flailed for air, and freedom, at the same time wondering why he was choking himself, and why he had a fifth hoof. He also realised he wasn't going to get the sugar bombs, the whole reason he came down here, and now he was going to choke himself out of getting them.

And then it all went dark.

Scrap nodded when Ami told him that she'd locked down the armoury to keep Bone out. He was glad that his advice had been followed, mainky just cause he didn't trust that gryphon, since in the little interaction that they had he didn't come of as the sort of guy that one would want to hang around with much. Plus the name Bone Head didn't exactly inspire confidence.

That whole situation was quickly forgotten as he was given new, cake related, tasks. He was pretty much aware that he was being given ones tuat required minimum skill and effort, but he wasn't complaining-he'd take simple cake-making tasks over the usual dodging bullets and other various wasteland horrors that normally went with any adventure he had.

Soon enough the cakes were baking and they were out of jobs to do for now. Smiling happily at Ami when she told them that she'd call them when they were needed again, he nodded a quick okay and turned to Bakey and Violet.

"So what should do while we wait? Probably should go find Cuppa, since she was part of our group."

Bone frowned when he was left in the dark. "well that was uncalled for." He said to the now empty space that once held ami's image. He wasn't going to get into the armory anytime soon now. All because the stupid computer's emotions got the better if it. "Why even give a computer emotions if it's just going to get in the way of it's job?" He asked himself. He really wanted to find the pony resposible for that part of ami's design and punch him. Repeatably. In the face.

As bone head turned to leave he heard the sound of talons clanking on metal floor. NOT his talons. But bone was the only griffin in the group that came here. And the alicorn did just say that there where no griffins in the stable's original populous, so not a survivor. The large griffin looked in the direction of the clanking. The screening room. He pulled Lil miss off his back and slowly approached the open door. He didn't know what he would find but he doubted he'd like it. "Hey maybe someone might have left a gun or two in there before they died." He said to himself as he walked through the open doorway.

(Drawing Sledgehammer -5AP
Entering screening room and looking for source of clinking. If it's hostile "THEN SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!"
Melee-54, 2 Swings -24AP
7 AP remain
If no hostiles then check for loot)

Bakewell nodded as Ami got to work. “Better safe than sorry, I suppose.” The mare had to admit that, despite constantly trying to remind herself not to trust the AI, she was starting to enjoy the thing’s company. Why hadn’t her stable had one of these?

The cake baking was a bit hit and miss at first as Bakewell re-learned all of the information the mare had considered forever forgotten about stable cooking, but she got the hang of it before long. It felt good to revisit a task from her past with her new friends.

“Cuppa was in the showers, right?” Bakewell asked Scrap in response to his suggestion as the cakes were baking. “She has taken quite a while just to get cleaned up, now that you mention it… surely she would have come right back to us when done, right? So that we wouldn’t worry if for no other reason?” Bakewell frowned. "Ami, how and what is everypony doing?"

Nova looked to the others as she listened to Arc's plan. The sudden reappearance of Rad startled her a bit but didn't seem too out of the ordinary to warrant attention. Besides, they had to focus right now. Nova thought a moment on Arc's plan, before stepping forward a little.

"It's a good plan, Arc. But isn't it better safe than sorry having someone watch the hallway? I mean, we don't even know if this place has any damned robots running around." Nova looked around, thinking. "This area is more open than it would be in there, better line of site. If you want, I can wait out here, not as if anything will be able to find me if it comes to that anyway."

Nova adjusted her rapier slightly, making sure that it was still where she left it. Nova had hoped this would be a much quicker job, Being underground after recent events was not high on her to-do list. She never really liked enclosed spaces like this anyway, they just infuriated her with their low ceilings. Bloody non-sensical space conservation.

"Or, we could all pack ourselves into the rooms together for less maneuverability and slower response time if it comes to something like that."

Dash followed Amber as they went along and joined several other ponies. Before he could answer her question she talked to another pony, he thought her name was Radiant. He waited paitently as they spoke and then Amber asked him if he knew anypony with a Pipbuck, 'If only I had a Pipbuck.' Dash thought a little dejectedly, "Well, Lightning and Spectrum both have ones. They're up in the Administration area with Cyber Star, though." As a pony who wasn't all that well practiced in technical skills, all Dash knew he could do was guard duty. It was all fine by him, however.

Arc never noticed that Rad was gone, but somehow, the pegasus returned with his muzzle stuck into a box of Sugar Bombs. Arc decided he will not comment on this. Somehow, he knew all the profanities he would scream at Rad would be wasted, and right now, they did not needed the pony who apparently led them to freak out. Arc decided to leave that for a moment when he would be alone. That would work. Just alone in a room, screaming at the walls.

Bada Boom was back as well. Yaaaayyy... thought Arc. Still, now he had six ponies and four rooms and one hall to secure. He wasn't about to let pony eating a cereal into medical environment, and apparently Nova disliked the whole place. And then there was of course the whole assignment of dividing six people in twos so they would not do something stupid. Arc grumbled on the inside, his headache getting strong again. Screw it. Rad and Bada are family, and I won't leave Nova with Xeshir. Hopefully the bloody zebra has some knowledge of alchemy, or chemistry in general.

"Alright. Now that you all are here, we'll divide in twos. I'll take Nova and we will search the burn ward. Bada and Rad will guard this hall for anything hostile, and Lucky with Xeshir will look into the paediatric ward. Let's go."

Arc slowly pulled himself from sitting against the wall to his hooves, stretched his back and trotted to open the door to the burns ward.

Xeshir was hardly paying attention to what ponies were saying around her. She was still in deep focus on what had happened to her, and what Marcus had apparently seen. She tried to rationalize it, maybe it was an hallucinogen in the air that only affected zebras? But that wouldn't explain how she felt...Something make her trip. Perhaps it was the AI messing with them? But why would she do that? Last time she had looked mostly friendly. Hell, wasn't she baking a cake right now?

Her thoughts were cut short as she heard Arc's words. She nodded once and prepared her power hooves, making sure they were crackling with energy before going to the ward and opening the door, her muscles tensed.

(Opening door to pediatrician ward. Using all AP to dodge if I find something hostile.)

Lucky was at the ready behind Xeshir, clenching his .44 in his teeth. It was loaded with a full cylinder. He never particularly cared for the use of melee weapons in the wastes, but he was definitely not going to argue with somepony who owned a set of power hooves, and so was content to sit in the back for this one.

"I got your back," he said around the pistol, just to make sure that his partner knew he had his weapon drawn. Hopefully she'd get the message and be careful not to get shot on accident.

(Anything hostile that goes after Xeshir, if there's anything, I'll use 24 AP to fire three shots at it. If nothing happens, then I don't shoot)

Nova shrugged slightly and nodded to Arc, following after him and waiting for him to open the door. Nova would've preferred to watch the hall rather than be stuck in a small space, but the sooner things got done the sooner they'd all get paid and go home. Nova trotted up next to Arc and tried to smile reassuringly to him.

"Sooner we're done, sooner we get out of here."

Ami gave Scrap and Bake a questioning look as they mentioned Cuppa. "You mean your brown-coated unicorn friend? I can find her if you like, it'll take a second if you have the time to wait." The alicorn offered, waiting for an answer from them, but blinking in surprise and suddenly furrow her brow.

"There are power fluctuations in random spots in the lighting... I don't understand why, but I will need to inspect the reactors and try to find the cause of that problem. The lights have worked without flaw apparently for two centuries now, so them going now makes no sense." Then she looked to Bake, Scrap and Violet. "I'll quickly search for her now, alright?"
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Bone Head would step in, the room fully lit and bare of anything aside from scanning equipment and other such menial things. Most of the larger machines were off for now, if only to save wasting any power on unneeded machinery.

Genuinely there was nothing of interest other than a foot-locker tucked under one of the large scanning machines. His scavenging desire would surely lead him to opening it, only for him to see a pair of razor claws incredibly similar to his own, if not wearing a far heavier staining of blood, despite looking otherwise clean.

A flicker of lights would probably not phase the griffon, but perhaps more clacking of talons would.

"Really, Bones? Who in Tartarus would bother leaving their possessions in here? Should've been more considerate to that AI." Bone Head would hear his own voice darkly mocking him, but it was difficult to discern his location due to him throwing his voice in random directions.

As he was taunted by himself, the door leading out of the screening room slid shut, making a clunking similar to the locking of the armoury door.... It seemed he was to be trapped in here with himself.
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Amber gave a thoughtful nod, smiling at Dash. "Then let's go get them, we can get Star at the same time and take a look around as a group. Should be fun!" The orange earth pony chimed before trotting towards the stairs upwards once more. "The sooner we do it, the sooner we get to explore!" She then threw in afterwards, seeming quite excited now, perhaps she was wanting to find the reactors and such.
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In the medical storage, Cuppa was constantly looking around in suspicion as she was waiting to see if anything would come out.

Then there were flashes of light that shocked Cuppa half to death, the mare taking deep breaths as she tried to calm down. "What're ya doin', poppin' up on a pony like that? Ah almost had a heart attack." The bean-butt pony asked, causing Ami to snicker a little.

"Sorry, I was just looking for you, as your friends Bakewell, Scrap and Violet are wondering where you are. I'll let them know you're down here though."

"Uhh... Thanks. Ah jus' thought ah shouldn't interrupt 'em whilst they were bakin'. So ah came down t' the infirmary t' see what ah could find. Should really consider tellin' somepony when ah intend t' do summint... Uhh...."

"Yes?"
"That all ya wanted t' know? Ah'd like t' be able t' make use o' some o' these medical supplies if possible. Would ya mind if ah did that?"

"Well... You aren't classed as medical staff, so... I can't really, sorry." Ami explained, frowning a little. "If I could, I'd assign ponies with higher clearance, but I'm not really allowed to, even now. Need to follow Stable protocols as much as possible."

At the denial of these supplies, Cuppa frowned and lowered her ears in disappointment. "'S okay, ah'll find more elsewhere."

"I'll let your friends know you're here and tell them what you said. I think you had them a bit worried, but I'm not sure." Finishing at that, Ami vanished in a small flurry of fading-out lights.

And Cuppa was alone again. No sounds around her, and everything seemed fine. Maybe Ami's appearance had scared off anything in here for now.
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Xeshir and Lucky would see a colourful ward, as would be expected of a paediatrics ward, though the colour had faded over time, they could both see it was of smiling ponies and happy clouds. Generally anything that was the norm for keeping young foals happy was here.

There was literally nothing wrong with this room at all, the pair could tell that from the beginning. No weird shifting of light, nothing at all.
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Arc and Nova would step into the burns ward, they would see a nice, shiny, very sanitary room. The duo could see machines that could only assumingly be required for the gradual treatment of burns, as removing the skin and magicking it back to health worked, but no pony liked the idea of having a chunk of skin cut off and grown back. Not back then at least.

It would also, like Xeshir and Lucky's experience with the paediatrics ward, nothing seemed amiss at all, as if everything had been tidied away perfectly... Which was understandable considering an AI had been keeping it all clean and dust free this whole time.

Dash nodded to Amber. It seemed like a good plan. He still wanted to trot on the side of caution, he always did. But he could appreciate the enthusiasm she had for a bit of adventure. It was something that was sparse and very far between. With Cyber Star and Lightning potentially joining them, their chances of survival, should they encounter anything went up that much more.

"Alright." Dash said, replacing his Carbine to his back. He followed after Amber. Of course, he still kept an eye out of any sort of threats and the items he hoped he could acquire in this Stable.

(Perception 6, keeping an eye open of anything out of the ordinary.)

Bone stared down at the gauntlets. Again if there where no griffins in this stable then why are these here? No pony could use them. Then he would hear the voice. Mocking him, and doing a very good impression of his voice. If it wasn't for the fact that what it was saying was wrong then he'd might have mistaken it for an inward thought. He grabbed the razor talons before standing and turning back in the direction of the door just as it closed. "Trapped, great, this will be fun." He held out the talons and said. "Well i'm guessing you in tartarus would. Considering these are a griffin's tools and you sound like the only other griffin in the stable." Bone head then switched up the conversation by speaking in the griffin tongue. This would both confirm if the other presence in the room was in fact a griffin as well as free him from speaking the distressful eqquish of the ponies. "Now how about you come out of hiding and we can have a nice talk, griff to griff."

(Grabbing razor talons out of footlocker. Using all AP to block or dodge any incoming attacks.)

Ami froze up for a short span of time, her motions and animations jerky before they smoothed out again, the alicorn image smiling to the trio. "Your friend is downstairs investigating the medical supplies in the infirmary. She said she didn't want to disturb you or ruin the cake-making." Having relayed the message, Ami's smile continued.

"I'll let you be on your way, if you want to find Cuppa. Though she should still be down in the medical supplies room." She said to the three, now it was up to them to decide on what to do.
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The voice chuckled a little at Bone Head's answer. "Well, aren't you the witty one today? Where did you get that response from, a foal's book of edgy comebacks?"

There was silence for a time before the clacking of talons was heard yet again. "Though, what is up with this whole raider nonsense? If you'd been like me, you'd be a bit more respectable, you know, ponies would actually like you. Scary, right?" The voice joked, though it sounded like the clacking was coming from either near the machinery or the door. Whoever it was, they weren't bothering to attack just yet.

Lightning yawned as he sat in a chair with a pencil in his mouth. A blank book was set on the desk in front of him in the Administration room. The pencil moved across the page in a rather quick manner as the pegasus was writing a new journal entry to himself. It had become his new past time and a way for him to cope with his stress without resorting to chems or alcohol.

That unicorn, Cyber Star, if he heard correctly, was typing away at a terminal nearby. His gaze went up to see what he was doing but he was blocked by the form of the pony. Lightning looked down to write a couple more sentences before looking up and motioning for his marefriend, Spectrum who he knew that she was very observant, to come over. If she did, he would ask, "Hey, what is the unicorn doing?"

Bone stood his ground as the voice responded. He was starting to hate this voice, odd considering it sounded so much like him. "Raider is just a term that the ponies of the wasteland have given me." Bone head retorted again in griff. "I much prefer the title of warrior." The griffin heard the clacking come from near the door and turned to look that way. "And really, why would i wan't to be liked by inferior ponies when feared works just as well. Feared is whats given me a reputation out there. Feared is why others have flocked to me, looking for glory." Bone head smiled. "And feared is why your hiding in the shadows like a damned coward. So i'll ask again. Come out so we can speak, face to face." He scanned the room once more. "and i can punch that face in." he thought.

(All AP for dodge or block.)

Scrap thanked Ami and turned back to Bakey and Violet, relieved that nothing odd had happened to Cuppa whike they were baking. The fact that the lights were failing suddenly after they arrived was weighing on him, though. He knew it was probably nothing, but the timing of it was suspect and he didn't like that.

Speaking up he asked. "You guys think we should go grab Cuppa?"

Marcus fidgeted as his group sat around. He wasn't optimistic about being in the Stable anymore and kept flicking his eyes at the walls, expecting them to start bleeding again. Moving would help, yes, but he didn't want to stray from his group, nursing the idea that there was strength in numbers against the evil he felt was around him.

Be brave...

Marcus took a breath and looked at his group. "We should be moving. The others have already moved on."

Bakewell gave a shrug as Scrap asked what to do.

“We may as well, I guess. Unless there’s something else you or Vi want to do.” She said, casting a glance at Ami from the corner of her eye. She was pretty darn sure by now that Ami could see the ponies as they moved. If she was going to get watched, the earth pony would rather being able to see who was watching. At the same time she still didn’t want to seem suspicious. The AI was growing on her, but she still couldn’t let herself trust it. It felt too dangerous.

A last thing to consider, however, was that while Ami could clearly be everywhere at once, she seemed to have at least a little trouble doing so. That meant the more attention the computer had to put on Bake, the less attention on whatever Cross Roads or Arc Weld were messing up and the less chance that the AI would kill them all.

“How about you, Ami?” She asked conversationally. “Care to walk with us? Maybe point out the sights? Or will the lights be keeping you too busy?

Cross blinked at Radiant in disbelief for her disregarding the loud explosion down in the lower levels, expressing concern for what could very well be a dangerous scenario.

"Don't you think....we should arm up and investigate the explosion?" He looked to the others around him for volunteers to search. "We should make sure the stable is secure before we start collecting ...supplies" he rolled his eyes as he signaled towards the door that would take the group to the lower levels, if a grenade round had really gone off, it should've set of alarm's in any sane pony's head.

Nova looked around the clean, almost unnervingly so, room. There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. At least to Nova's eye. She honestly didn't have a clue if anything would be out of place in here as she was not exactly familiar with the layout and maintenance of a burn ward. Still, Nova guessed the cleanliness was something to be expected after the caretaker of this place had nothing else to do. Nova simply shrugged and turned to Arc.

"We check the other one then?"

Arc slowly panned his head around the room, looking over the machines. Yeah. Burn ward, it checked with the map. That was good, and this place was even intact. Arc looked at his pipbuck and brought up the map. Looking at it, he nodded.

"Yes, I think so. Those machines... I would like to move them to Stableton if we could. I'm sure... I think... Winter would probably appreciate them. But... well, that is a discussion for a later time." He looked up from the hoof computer and smiled at Nova. "Anyhow, room across should be a simple medical ward. If that checks, we will be sure the map is at least partially true, and then we can discuss our further advance. Lets go."

(Arc leads him and Nova to the medical ward across the corridor.)

Marcus nodded to Cross. "I agree. An explosion is a sign of something dangerous. Whatever reason there is for the explosion, it can't be good."

Marcus stood up and walked to the door, peering inside of it. "I am... neva (nervous) about going deeper in this Stable. But, if we need to, I will help search."