I Can Have a Dark Side IC (Closed)

Violet nodded back at Arc when he indicated he was hiding. She wasn’t exactly sure why he was hiding, but she let him be and decided to ask him about that later.

Besides, she had other things taking her attention, such as the unicorn that just teleported right in front of her, Bake, and Scrap. The sudden burst of magic blinded the filly’s magic-sensitive eyes, obscuring everything in a veil of white. “Gah!”

Her reaction went mostly unnoticed however, mostly because Bake and Scrap were just as surprised by it, and because Cross Roads came by and shoved past the too. Violet’s vision had recovered by then, enough that she saw Cross’ actions and shot a glare at his retreating form, although he obviously didn’t see it.

“...I liked him better at that party months ago.” said the filly. “Although I think he was pretty distracted by whatever that stuff I got Starry to drink did to her...”

She shook her head. “Anyway, that was pretty cool Cuppa!” she said to the mare, some of the cheer returning to her voice. “There aren’t many unicorns that can actually pull of a teleport! Neat!”

Scraps meeped and attempted to hide behind Bakey when Cuppa teleported in front of the them. Realizing what happened a split second later, he laughed, embarrassed, and moved back to where he was standing, just in time to be bumped out of the way by Cross.

After shooting a glare at the pompous jerk, he turned his attention back to Cuppa and the others he was standing with, and spoke up to answer her.

"It's pretty impressive Cuppa. Teleportation is really hard spell to do, plus its even harder to find something or somepony to teach you. How'd you learn?"

Bone head glared at the mare as she hinted to his financial status, not that the griffin was poor, far from it, but he did not take kindly to be insulted. If it wasn't for the seer amount of ponies here that would react to his "Answer" then he would have caved the unicorns head in with his sledge. Instead he simply moved on, opting to try and pass the time by conversing with a lone earth pony who seemed to be staying away from the main group. "Hello drunken one." the griffin mused as he smelled the alcohol on lucky. "Here to earn some beer money i take it."

Lucky wasn't in the mood for crap from anyone today, but he turned to the gryphon who had addressed him anyway. When he recognized who it was, his mood worsened just that much more.

He knew about Bone Head, and he knew about the 'hunts' that this particular waster was privy to. Having just come out of a similar situation himself only a (relatively) short time earlier, he was even less enthused about being near such a creature than he normally would be. As it was, he decided to try and keep the peace as long as he could, which actually meant him keeping a head level enough for just long enough to keep from shooting the gryphon outright and move along with his life.

"What I do in my time is my business, raider. Shouldn't you be off torturing some poor bastard for no reason, or raping a small filly, or whatever fucked up hobby you have?"

“…Yeah.” Bakewell muttered absentmindedly, her eyes remaining on the last spot she had seen the yellow unicorn as Cuppa tried to cheer her up and Violet mentioned liking Cross better at some party or other.

“of course.”

Cuppa went back onto the subject of her new spell, something that was definitely extremely amazing. Scrap and Violet were pretty energetic to get back onto the subject as well. Bakewell listened with a quiet interest. She didn’t know much about magic. Certainly not as much as the three unicorns in her company at present. She would let them talk about it as much as they wanted and simply remain quiet and unobtrusive.

Cuppa swelled with pride as both Scrap and Violet seemed to react well to her new spell, though when asked where she lernt it, Cuppa gave a sheepish smile. "Ah found a book whilst ah was in this ol' mansion, checkin' the library cause ah was allowed to, when ah spotted a dusty spellbook written by somepony way back b'fore the war... Ah think 'is name was "Starswirl the Bearded"? Or summint like that." She explained, taking a moment to breathe.

"Anyway, when ah found it, ah started readin' right away an' ah was tryin' t' get it t' work the whole night ah was there. Ah'm sure there are more spells in there ah could learn."

Xeshir looked confused at the unicorn until he mentioned "Favor" Even for the clueless zebra it was fairly obvious what he was talking about. "Oh...It was probably a drunken one night stand that." She said as if it was something ordinary, which, considering the zebra´s lifestyle it probably was for her.

"I still don´t remember much though, so if you could refresh my memory a bit that would be welcomed..." Said the stripped equine. Xeshir hated not remembering things, even if they were unpleasant.

Arc nodded to the unicorn and looked around at the group. Since noone seemed to listen to their conversation, Arc probably had the advantage of being allowed whom to pick for his group. That also meant he would not end up with Cross Roads, Bakewell or Scrap if he could help it. Lucky would probably wouldn't mind following him. Wait... did he just called that griffin a raider?

That may change things a bit. Still, Lucky would be his choice. Next would be Nova, and as much as Arc hated to admit to himself, he would probably ask Xeshir too. Despite being terrified of her on some basic level, there was that certain aura of certainty around her. Experience, and not just in the... slapping flanks department. And maybe Rad. He liked Rad.

Arc turned back to Cyber. "Alright. I'll lead one group. Download the map please." Arc stuck his left right hoof out to Cyber, to have the map added. Arc was already preparing the words for offering to lead the ones he decided to ask.

Cross sighed as he pressed his hoof against his temple, Radiant playing around with that fake sadness. He took a deep breath and glanced back at the others before continuing.

"You don't know who most of these ponies are...what they want....nor know whether sending them into the breach will produce any fruit at the cost of lives. Not to mention if we do find any technology if they will simply desire it for themselves." He huffed as he shook his head, getting a bit annoyed at Radiant pretty accurate to all the times they've worked together. By no means did he have disdain for her, he simply did not like the lack of attention she had for detail.

"Me?...as for myself, I've been dealing with a slaver issue...a friend of mine was captured so i had to 'negotiate' for her release." A look of disgust came over his face as he spoke about his last situation. "Slavers in this area are idiots, but I digress. I am here, because we shouldn't be using random ponies to do our work, ...not to mention its unsafe that you broadcasted this location with such a large order of caps, we have our own mercs at Tenpony, some of the best in the wasteland, not sure why you chose to leave them behind." Cross paused

He heard something and looked towards Lucky and some weird griffon he's never seen before. He gave a glaring glance towards Radiant. His eyes carrying most of the words, she knew the price just as well as him, as well as how much she had to lose if she gave one such as him caps.

"Well...I think that proves my point a bit...we should probably tell the others for this little issue don't you? Dregs be damned, you know the price if Tenpony were to ever find out about this"

Scraps gave Cuppa a look before laughing a little after he heard that she found out how to teleport from a book, secretly wishing that he'd found it, mainly cause whenever he found an intact book in the wastes, it was always something worthless-like a torn up manual or something equally as bad.

"You're gonna have to let me borrow that book sometime."

Hearing one of their hosts ask for volunteers with pipbucks, Scraps had a thought, turning to the others in the group, he spoke up again.

"I'm gonna go volunteer to lead a group, that way we can go together."

Trotting over to the pony who had asked, ignoring Arc, who happened to be standing there, he said.

"I'll volunteer to lead. We get to choose who's in our groups right?"

Rad sat with his cousin, nervous as he was, if there was one thing he could do it was ramble on about what he had been up to. "Well, just these last few weeks huh?" He had in fact only been out of Manehattan for a few months, and only now did he realise that was possibly the busiest few months in his life.

"Well, i've been shot up a lot, stabbed... My wing got damaged so I can't fly for too long... Or too fast no more, i'm gonna miss flyin' at reckless speeds... I also got caught by some slavers, uhh... That would actually have been the second time. But I got out with the help of some friends, and clever plannin' on my part. And i'm still here! I got caught because I was sleepin' out in the open wasteland... prob'ly a bad idea in hindsight. Most recently I was out lookin' for some clean water or somethin'... Don't actually remember, but while in some old underground place, we found some ghost's, an' they thought I was their captain... Certainly was interestin'."

Rad paused for a moment... And figured he had got everything he could think of for now. "So how 'bout you?" He would probably remember some more soon. he often found he would spontaneously remember things...

Marcus had started hopping in place as he waited. So far, all of the others who had shown up had broken off into their own little groups and started conversing. Thinking back, it might've been a good idea for him to get to know everyone who had shown up before moving into the Stable, but it was a little too late for that. There was no need to interrupt conversations simply to introduce himself. Those introductions would inevitably come later.

No, for now he would keep waiting for Radiant Waves to give the signal for them to enter in. Of course, waiting around was boring, so Marcus elected to continue his hopping and count out how many he could do before they entered.

"Moja... Mbili... Tatu... (One... Two... Three...)

"My the drunken one has a temper." bone thought as the earth pony verbally assaulted him. "Ah yes your business." The griffin mused. "I do hope those missing caravans haven't put a dent in your cap flow. I'd hate to see a good merchant goes out of business because some scoundrels are praying on his supplies." Bone said with false concern, clearly attempting to bait lucky into throwing the first punch. The waiting was getting to him and a fight would certainly help those three remaining minutes pick up the pace.

Dash nodded to Bada, "I'll just go over my equipment some more." he said. Dash set to checking his Carbine one final time, it being the most complex weapon he was carrying right now. First Dash made sure the safety was on and that there was no bullet in the chamber. He then pulled the charging handle rearward and locked the bolt in place by pressing on the bottom of the bolt catch on the left side of the lower receiver... Dash had performed a field strip on the Carbine enough times to maybe be able to perform it blindfolded, although he wouldn't ever risk such, with such an expensive, important, valuable weapon.

After completing the field strip Dash used used a few Q-tips to get any dirt he found in the mechanisms before quickly putting the weapon back together.

Clean Cut looked a little bit disheartened at Xeshir's response to what he said, frowning somewhat and lowering his head. Regardless he gave a nod as she asked for further explanation. "Well, it was in Appleloosa, if I remember rightly I was only there for a little drink to calm down from my duties at Tenpony. Then you came in, after a few more drinks I had a try at talking to you, and any conversation we had was a blur to me." He then gave a meek smile. "What followed that night was fun, I must admit, but I was shocked when I woke up. I was meant to be heading back to the tower by sunrise and it was noon by the time I awoke... Hopefully that's cleared things up for you." He finished, seeming slightly awkward now, perhaps because she didn't remember it.

-------------

Bada Boom was rather surprised as Rad explained what he'd been through. And admittedly, he seemed quite impressed by what Rad had been through, despite how traumatic some of it sounded. He almost chuckled at Rad's small comment about ghosts. "Wow... My little cousin's been up to a lot. Pretty impressive compared to me, got to say." He said before giving a tired sigh, glancing towards his comrades. "I've been stuck with a bunch of egg-heads for years now, occasionally I get to do fun stuff like this, but it's mostly trying new spells they want to try or trying to track things down. Not as fun as it is cosy. At least somepony in the family is having an interesting time." Bada lamented, frowning a little at his own situation. "What about you, buddy?" He asked, nudging Dash with his hoof. "We're all friends, share a little something."

-------------

Grimacing as Cross explained his own situation at the time, Radiant tried to seem a little sympathetic for him. "No offense to them, Cross, but if they think it's a good idea to try and take anything in that vault when we finish up here, nopony is getting out. Star said that door will lock itself again if we close it, so we need him to be able to get back out at all. They should understand that situation if it comes to that. And assuming they're not wannabe heroes, they'll do as they're told too." She said with a confident smile upon her face.

"You think I didn't notice him when he arrived? Raider or not, he's either so stupid he doesn't realise anypony will off him at the drop of a hat, or he's smart enough to know murdering and rape wont get him anything here aside from a heavy dose of agony and death. He's getting nothing if he survives this excursion. Inform the others about it, I should round everypony up and get them ready to go in." She said, glancing just past Cross and at Bone Head for a moment before she focused on him again. "Make sure they know he's not a priority in terms of safety."

---------------

Star raised a brow at Arc as he said he'd be a leader and to upload the map, then a second unicorn followed and said he'd lead a group too. "Alright, guys. All I've got is the first level, I think there are four levels to this Stable, so expect the rest of the place to be a mystery to everypony." He said as he tapped a few buttons on his pipbuck, wirelessly uploading the map to their pipbucks with the broadcaster attached to it.

"Go sort out your little team of buddies, I need a few more volunteers. Anypony else with a pipbuck?" Star finished, raising his voice to try and grab everypony's attention again.

V FOR ARC AND SCRAP

Spoiler:

Lucky inwardly smirked at Bone's sad attempt to goad him.

Squinting his eyes menacingly, he said,"Don't think you can intimidate me Chicken Nugget, the only reason I haven't put a bullet through your brain yet is because I want to get paid for going against whatever hell is in this place."

He then brought his pipbuck up to where he could use it and made a personal note: Watch for ambush on further trade runs.

Dash looked up at Bada as he tapped him on a shoulder, "Me, eh... Not all that much to tell." Dash said, "I've been living in Stableton after my little brother was captured by 2-bit slavers..." Dash sighed heavily, "2 bit slavers who've managed to evade me at every turn. But anyways..." Dash continued, "I'm from Friendship City, like I said. My father was born up above the cloud layer. He was a soldier for quite a while before he met my mother. She's a unicorn from a Stable. I'm not sure which one, but she had left it because its power core had failed."

Scrap nodded to Star, still continuing to ignore Arc, before trotting back over to the group, half looking at the map that had downloaded onto his pipbuck, quickly familiarizing himself with the basic layout of the first floor. Turning back to his circle of friends he said.

"Alright, so they gave me the map of the first floor; also they said that the stable should have four floors. I'm thinking we should stick to floor one till we know it's safe. Also I though we should head to administration first, it'd probably have maps fir the other floors of the stable, and probably a good description of what we could expect to find in the rest of the stable. Sound good to you guys?"

Xeshir listened to what Clean Cut said attentively. Yeah, that did sound like something she would do. A small thought started spreading through her mind, which made her subtly smirk. "Well, I wouldn´t really call it "fun"..." She said with a thoughtful look as she turned around, her tail suddenly shooting up and smacking the unicorn in his rump and the zebra winked at him. "If it really had been "fun" you wouldn´t have woken up for a few more hours, and would have trouble walking." She then trotted away to regroup with the others, laughing to herself.

After reaching the group, she waited around the Stable door for it to finally open up, checking the ammo on her weapons as she did so.

Arc checked the map. Seemed that everything was in order. "Alright. Thank you Cyber. Oh, and by the way, I apologize for earlier. I'm Arc Weld." Arc nodded to the unicorn, and with a wide berth around Scrap, took back to the others. Now to his group then.

Arc sat and looked around. Well... he seemed he could choose. Why not abuse it to the fullest then. He was sure he wanted Nova. For the group. Yes, for the group. That was what he meant. Next on his list would be Lucky, if only to keep him from the raider. This... issue could be solved when they get out of here. After Lucky, he would like to have Rad, the pegasus proved to be adept at opening locks and having surprisingly high toleration for bad luck situations. And finally... Arc hated to admit it to himself, but he would ask Xeshir. The zebra seemed like someone who could keep cool, and make others do it as well.

Arc took a deep breath. Well, let's roll. Arc looked up. "If Nova Surge, Lucky Draw, Rad Boom and Xeshir could come to me? Please?" he spoke up in moderately loud, but firm voice.

Provided they would listen to him and join him, he would continue. "I would like you four to be my group for searching the Stable. I have a map of the first floor in my pip-buck, so we will not get lost, but we would have to stick together, at least until I lead you to the first map. Is this acceptable for all of you?"

Rad had sat listening to Bada, and then to Dash. The things he had told his cousin seemed to go down well, maybe this member of his family wasn't going to disapprove of how he lived. He realised that he would have to say something soon, and once more he felt that panic returning... Until he heard Arc call him over. Thank you! "Sorry Cuz... I gotta go, we'll talk more later?" Though before Bada could reply Rad had dashed off, leaving the other two where they were.

He skidded to a halt in front of Arc, almost hugging him. "You have no idea how pleased I am to see ya right now..." He sat and listened to what Arc told him. "Sounds simple enough. It'll be jus' like last time! Except hopefully this time the zebra won't trap us underground eh?"

Nova had managed to regain her composure, and was relaxing by leaning on the rock once again. As she heard he name called out, she let out a little sigh and decided to take a few more moments for herself, letting the breeze gently ruffle her feathers once more. Nova slowly rose back up and looked over to the source of the calling, noting that it was Arc.

As Nova trotted over and listened to what Arc had to say, she nodded. Made sense, and was pretty straightforward. Nova smiled slightly as she looked at the others.

"I'd be more than happy to Arc." Nova decided to moentarily resume her elaxation against a nearby rock. "Just let me know when we move out."

Xeshir finished reloading her Cowpony Repeater as Arc called her out. She quickly slung it over her neck and trotted over, wondering what he might want.

Once Arc started talking, Xeshir momentarily wondered why they were splitting up, wouldn´t it be safer if there was just one big group? Her doubt was quickly erased as she remembered that there were no "life signs" in the Stable...Although that could mean there were robots inside or something, but not much she could do about it. "Sure! Count me in!" She said with a nod.

Bone chuckled. "Chicken nugget. Haven't heard that one before." bone glanced down to the revolver in lucky's holster. "And the only reason I haven't broken you is because I to wish to get paid." The griffin had another reason as to why he was holding back and it wasn't due to lack of firepower. "of course there would be plenty of time for a hunt once this job was done." bone thought as he sized up the capabilities of the earthpony. Bone heard the sound of a unicorn calling for lucky. "looks like your friends need you. Do watch your step in there. Stables can be a dangerous place, and i'd hate to hear that you died to some decrepit security system or scientific monstrosity." The raider said with a slight smile on his face as he let lucky go.

"I'll be sure to. It would be most unfortunate if it was one of those stables with the high caliber machine turrets embedded in the walls... Would kind of suck to die to a stray bullet from a corridor you weren't looking down, wouldn't it?"

With that, Lucky turned to where he had heard Arc call his name. He looked at who else had been picked, and then grinned when he realized that he'd been chosen for what appeared to be one of the better group configurations this motley crew of mercs could be assembled into.

Smiling slightly, he looked at Arc and said, "Yeah, alright. How much longer until we go in, again?"