974 replies and 25 files omitted.
>>163807>>163907If it wasn’t obvious, Silver has surprised them, and while at least “Gritty Grief” was expecting expecting a hostile force to come through that door, Silver is quicker.
[1d20+6 = (9+6) = 15][1d20+6 = (10+6) = 16][1d20+6 = (10+6) = 16][1d20+6 = (14+6) = 20]>>163907>>163909The sight of the bodies angers Silver, and steels his resolve. To commit such atrocities against civilians, innocent ponies! These changelings will pay, all of them. He will send them to the Great Mother with more holes than they started the day with.
He immediately levels the rifle at Gritty Grief upon seeing him, flips the switch to full auto, and with a roar unleashes a burst of his Jenny's kick.
>>163910tat tat tat tatA flick of the fire selector to right, and Silver’s rifle is fully automatic. Silver lets out a four round burst. It’s his first time to fire the Jenny fully automatic. The gun is a full pound lighter than the old service rifles, and with a vastly more powerful cartridge than the submachine guns he’s fired before. You could say th rifle kicks like a mule, but it’s a bit of a lighter touch than that. Like a female mule.
With only a very short distance between Silver and Gritty, at least three of the four shots hit, with the first perhaps being low.
>>163912Silver can see a small splatter of blood out of gritty, and then a smaller one, and another small ripple. The first shot seems to have hit something important. He stumbles, and falls down.
[1d20+2 = (14+2) = 16][1d20+2 = (11+2) = 13][1d20 = 15] >>163912>>163913But the other creature turns towards Silver, and fires his own gun
[b]Tat tat tat tat tat tat[b/]
[1d20 = 4][1d20 = 2][1d20 = 11][1d20 = 17][1d20 = 13][1d20 = 12] >>163915Silver feels a firm, sharp pain beneath his otherwise protective layer of floof.
[2d8 = 13] >>163915>>163916A bullet has shot right through his protective jacket and has caused fairly significant injury. Fortunately the other shots have missed, though Silver certainly heard at least some of them as they wizzed past.
>>163917>>163915Silver gets the next shot
>>163916>>163917>>163918The sharp pain makes him take in a gasp of air, but it only makes it worse. He worries it may have hit a lung.
Through the pain, he aims for the grey pegasus and lets loose what he thinks is a burst of fire. Two shots are let loose from the end of his Jenny's barrel before he hears a distinct sound of a gun running on empty. If possible, he pushes through the intense pain to make for the cover of the train.
>>163920MissSilver misses both shots. Gun is empty, bolt holds open.
[1d20+2 = (9+2) = 11][1d20+2 = (20+2) = 22][1d20+2 = (9+2) = 11][1d20+2 = (19+2) = 21][1d20+2 = (4+2) = 6][1d20+2 = (8+2) = 10] >>163921>>163920A wave of shots, and two hit Silver’s assailant.
>>163924>>163922The creature is at least wounded, and stumbles.
>>163925The creatures they're fighting, are they on the platform same as Silver and Spec are, or are they separated by train tracks?
>>163926It’s all the same platform. Maybe a dead body or so, but otherwise there is nothing separating them.
[1d20+10 = (5+10) = 15]>>163927Silver knows this is going to hurt, but the alternatives are reloading in the open or diving for cover and leaving Spec exposed. He braces himself for pain, thanks the foresight to affix his bayonet earlier, and charges the grey pegasus.
>>163928Silver charges forward towards the perhaps unsuspecting creature, and hits it in the neck above the jacket and below the mask. Silver can’t see the creature’s facial expression because of the mask. But from the way it stands there, leaning to reduce the weight on a wounded leg, staring at Silver as he charges, he must surely have been surprised.
>>163931>>163929And Silver stabs it into the creature’s neck. Right before him, it flashes green, and when the flash recedes, those parts that were grey fur are now chitinous black. Blue blood slowly starts to seep out of the wound. It starts to fall backwards, and then down onto its legs.
>>163934>>163932>>163931But silver has no time to celebrate as he is hit twice in the side.
>>163933>>163934>>163935Silver stumbles, and falls halfway down onto his side. He's not yet dead or dying, but it feels like it. Silver has been hurt bad. His lung has definitely been hit, judging from how much it hurts to move or even take a breath. Blood begins to leak from him at an alarming rate, staining his fur and armor crimson. His vision starts to go a little blurry as he looks for his mystery assailant.
>>163936Normally this would be straightforward, but these are exceptional circumstances.
Roll spot.
>>163938>>163937Silver can see that his assailant came from a shot out window inside of the train, two cars down.
>>163939Is there a way for Silver to get out of the sightlines of the changeling?
>>163941Silver is almost immediately next to the front entrance, though the angle means he’d want to get halfway down if of more to be sure he’s out of line of sight.
>>163943The end is only a few tens of feet away.
>>163944Silver decides that of the options currently available to him, the best in his current state is likely to play dead and hope the changeling thinks he has succumbed to his own wounds. Perhaps then he'll get a chance to reload his Jenny when his focus goes elsewhere.
Silver's legs visibly shake, and he collapses into the small pool of blood forming beneath him. He stares blankly ahead, as if looking at something nopony else can see, and halts his breathing. Internally, he prays to Celestia the changeling will buy it. He did, after all, get shot three times this engagement.
>>163945>>163946After a solid second and a half of shooting, Silvers hears clopping, and then is jerked
“
Silver! Are you okay?!”
>>163947Evidently, from all of the shooting, Spec must have laid into the remaining changeling with everything he had. Suspecting that currently there are no remaining opponents, he allows himself to start breathing again and looks at his son with a weak smile.
"No...but I am alive."
The unicorn coughs up some blood and groans in pain. He is in a sorry state. He is bleeding profusely from three fresh bullet holes, and the puddle of his own blood that he laid down in has stained a good portion of the floofy pony. Despite his light grey coat, Spec can swear his father looks pale.
"Get me up...I do not...think I can...on my own."
>>163948“You’re alive!”
Silver’s son, an old man now in his own right, hugs him. He takes a moment, then pulls away.
“Uh, yes.”
He helps him up.
>>163949Silver strains and groans to get up on all four hooves, but with his son's help he does. Standing, he hugs his son tight, even at the risk of staining his coat with his own blood.
"I am sorry to...frighten you. Thought playing dead...give me moment to reload, take bastard...bug out."
>>163950“Are you sure? You’re bleeding.”
>>163951He lets go of his son, clearly still a bit unsteady on his four legs and still clearly bleeding profusely.
"Well...it may have only been half-playing dead..."
>>163952“Oh… heh. You really need help though.” He says, moving back, and smiling awkwardly.
>>163953"Yes...can you search bodies for ammunition? I need to...report massacre over radio. Get instructions."
>>163954“Uh… yes…” he moves away, and over to the downed Changeling.
>>163955Silver gets on the radio, and speaks into it.
"This is Silver Sword and Spectral Streak at...Jasmine Flower Station. It is massacre. Changelings disguised as Homeguard, gassed entire station and train...executed whoever was left. No survivors."
cough "We got roughed up bit, but changelings that did this are dead now."
>>163956“They did?”
“She was right. Those bastards really would do that…”
“Glad you got them? Is the area secure?”
“Is the track clear? We have a train heading north at 30 miles per hour.”
>>163957"Area is secure. We are working on moving train out of way right now."
>>163958“It’s on the tracks? Get it out!”
>>163959Silver puts the radio away, and looks to Spec.
"Come on...we need to get train out of way."
>>163960Spec nods, and changes out the magazine on his Jenny.
“Last mag.”
>>163961Silver changes the mag on his Jenny as well. Didn't the changelings have Jennies as well?
>>163963Quickly, before they get on the train, Silver checks the two downed changelings and their guns on the platform for any magazines.
>>163964He’d have to be
really quick. Gritty has/had one more magazine, and has also turned black. The other drone does not. Both drones have functioning rifles with some amount of cartridges in the loaded magazine.
>>163965>really quickSilver just grabs the magazine off of Gritty, and moves as fast as his injured body will let him onto the train. He heads for the front of the train where the controls are.
>>163966Silver presumably enters through the last car.
Entering the train car, Silver can already see that the door furthest on the end is closed off. Moving into the car, Silver can see a sky blue earth pony mare lying dead on the floor near the connector with vomit around her, a red stallion stalion dead lying on his back across the seat in the middle of the car with large amounts of blood, and one, two, three, four ponies gathered by the other door, all bleeding. These include a mare, a foal, and two adolescents, both of whom seems to have died pressing against the car door. By the connector, and past the mare, a white unicorn stallion in full blue police uniform lies dead, ingloriously hanging half on the chair and half off. There are a number of spent cartridge cases on the floor, and even more trails of blood, some of which lead in lines out of the car.
>>163967"Bastards!"
Silver pushes through all of the death around him, feeling increasing anger towards the changelings that did this. Death was too kind for them, when they did all of this...
He gets to the door, suspecting it must have been barricaded from the other side if the changeling was there and these ponies couldn't get in. He tries it to be sure.
>>163968It opens with a simple pull.
In the next car are many more bodies. Notably some of the windows on the right side are wholesale missing, while some are shot up. On the floor, Silver sees many more bodies of ponies. There is a small aqua foal on the ground by the door Silver has to walk over, and then a maroon mare on the side who has her hooves placed over her head. There is an adolescent orange filly in a seat leaning over, next to a black pegasus colt with a hoof over her. Silver sees, laying on the ground in a comparatively controlled fashion, a black drone, wearing a gas mask, a uniform, and khakis while losely still holding onto his rifle with his right hoof. Further beyond, a grey bat pony holds a handerchief over her mouth. A neon green mare lays on the ground next to the door. Some of the bodies have visible bullet wounds, but many do not. There is both blood and vomit on the floor. Some in trails, some not.
>>163969This is...this is evil! How, how could anyone do this? This was completely senseless, completely without reason. These ponies, stallions, mares, colts, and fillies, none of them did anything to these changelinges except apparently exist. How could anyone do this to so many innocents?
He pushes further onwards, hoping these changelings have gone to their species' version of Tartarus. He tries his best to avoid the sick these ponies threw up as the gas claimed their lives while he moves onto the next train car.
>>163970Silver quickly runs into a problem - the door into the next car will not open. Through a window, Silver can see why - there is a large pile of corpses at the door.
[1d20+2 = (1+2) = 3]>>163971Strength: This hell Silver has borne witness to hasn't ended yet. The bleeding Silver doesn't have much strength left after that last fight, but he sees if what he has left can let him force the door open.
>>163972Silver presses his weight against the door, slips in vomit, and falls
But maybe that's a good thing
[1d20 = 17][1d20 = 8][1d20 = 20] >>163972>>163973Not quite
Bang Bang BangSilver feels another sharp pain. He is shot
[2d8 = 6] >>163974As Silver screams in pain on the floor he tries his best not to swallow any of the vomit he has found himself in.
He really is nearing the end. What little life he has in him is rapidly bleeding out in the traincar, and the only thing really keeping him going now is the singular desire to not die here, not in this hell. He won't become part of the ocean of bodies.
>>163975Silver lays there for a moment on the cold, steel floor.
Then he hears a
Ching Ching Ching in three seperate, distinct chings, followed by another
Ching Ching"Silver!"
Spectral Streak comes up behind Silver much as before
>>163976Silver looks weakly at his son, and can only offer up a series of terrible coughs in response. Silver desperately tries to get up to no avail, but he is just too wounded to do so on his own.
>>163977Spectral Streak picks him up, and places him on a bench.
"Okay... This has to be quick..."
He takes a medical kit that he seems to have pulled out while Silver was going through the train.
He starts by wiping clear a wound. Then another. And then another. Then he tries, as best as he can to bandage the wound.
"This... won't really hold. You need more than this. But this will work well enough for now."
Then he pulls out a magical potion, and places it to Silver's lips, relunctantly removing Silver's gas mask. It isn't clear that this is the right move, and he only does it for long enough for Silver to swallow the potion.
"Just take this"
Then he injects something with a needle. And then something with another needle.
"Okay... Morphine, and Adrenaline. The Adrenaline will cause you to bleed out faster, so you will need blood or at least plasma very soon. But not right now. Get up. You can do it."
>>163978Silver makes sure the mask has been applied properly, then gets up unsteadily, perhaps with Spec's help. The painkiller numbs the worst of what he is feeling fairly quickly, leaving dull, achey reminders that has been shot in rather important areas. The bandages, even when working against the adreanaline, seems to at least help slow the amount of blood he's losing. As the adrenaline begins to take effect, his weak and unsteady legs begin to stablize and stand sturdy again. His breathing is still rather pained and weak, but he's still breathing.
"Thank you...is bastard bug still alive? Where is he?"
>>163979Silver knows that he is not in a good position. At all. The pain is slowly numbing, and his heart starts to race. But between the pain, his feeling of weakness, and the numbness, he feels as if he is nearing an almost somnambulant dissociative state.
"Behind you. He was pretending he was dead and ambushed you. Don't worry. I took care of the fucker."
>>163980"Evil creatures did this. I hope their souls rot."
He tries to shake his head clear, before looking at the door.
"Bodies...there are too many. I can not push through it to get to next train car."
>>163981"Well we have to. Because the control panel is at the front of the train, and we have to move it. Come on. Let's move this door."
Spectral Streak places his hooves on the door. He's at least as strong as his father. Certainly more so now, with Silver being so injured.
[1d20+2 = (15+2) = 17]>>163982Strength: Silver stands next to his son, places his hooves on the door, and tries again to force it open.
>>163983>>163984Silver pushes with great strength, as does his son. But Silver pushes with perhaps a bit more strength. The pile is moved aside.
Silver immediately notices a few things. The first is that this car is foggy, filled with gas that lowers the visibility.The second is... the carnage. Silver has gone through two cars, and corpses outside. But in every location he's seen four bodies, or five, or six, or seven. Something like 20 overall. Not even enough ponies to fill a single train car at rush hour. Trails of blood always implied more wounded who got away. But... not this car. This car is different. It is
dense. Silver can see what happened here. Gas was laid in the car and ponies started to flee. Evidently, the front of the train was a no go because the trail of ponies is towards the rear, with the most ponies caught at the door. It looks like there was a stampede, making it impossible to pull the door mechanism (which mostly opens to the side) enough to move the door. Many ponies are entirely on top of others, and some may have been crushed to death. There must be a dozen at the door alone. Further in the car, some are collapsed on the floor, some lay hunched over themselves holding their heads, and many more are crawling against the windows, evidently trying to figure out how to open them. Some windows are covered in trails of vomit-soaked hooves streaking against them. Some are streaked in blood from hooves that pressed hard. And somewhere near the end of the car, underneath a pile of purses and newspapers, gas emanates.
>>163985If it wasn't for the gas mask and the risk that throwing up inside would carry, Silver would want to vomit as well. There is no doubt about it now. The changelings that did this, they
are evil.
Stepping carefully as to avoid disrespecting the dead any more than they have already, he closes in on the pile of purses and newspapers, and uses his magic to move them aside.
>>163986As he does so, a puff of gas comes up. Silver can see that it is a metal device with two tubes that come together to produce gas. It is still smoking, and now more so.
>>163987The smoke obscures his vision, but he lifts it up in his magic and looks quickly to see if there's a way to shut it off.
>>163990The device works by mixing two precursor chemicals together to make gas that automatically seeps out of slits past the mixing chamber. To do this, break a seal in the mixing chamber, and break a seal holding back aerosols that move the chemicals into the mixing chamber. This process is automatic and cannot be stopped.
Unless you break a precursor tube...
>>163991Silver figures that the best way to do this is to use his magic to beat it against something hard until the precursor tubes break. Such as the train itself.
>>163992Another wisdom roll for the telekenisis.
>>163994Silver smashes it against the steel, and it breaks, releasing a liquid chemical onto the floor. But it stops producing gas.
>>163995"There we go. Gas will remain, but it will disipate now."
With that done, Silver goes to see why the front of the train was a no-go for the doomed ponies.
>>163996Silver, however, is still cooped up in the car.
>>163997So, Silver makes his way through what remains of the bodies between him and the end, and tries the door that leads to the front of the train.
>>163998This one opens simply.
Looking into the next train car.... Well, it's an improvement over the last car, but that is all that can be said for it. One window is missing, and that window has a pile of bodies around it. Silver can see an apple green earth pony, a blood red unicorn, and a young purple bat pony mare in the pile, the later of whom has a small bat pony foal in her hooves thrust towards the window.
Elsewhere in a car a few dead ponies, including a stallion, a mare, and two foals huddled together in a group, with the stallion around the edge and the foals in the center, using items of clothing to cover their mouths. This room includes a black bat pony stallion in a police uniform, shot dead on the ground.
>>163999Silver's heart aches for the bat pony mare, who tried desperately to have her foal escape the slaughter...and failed. He goes towards this pile of bodies, gently moving them aside to look down out of the missing window.
>>164000Silver can't really move them aside, but he can tell that below the window is the raised section of track
>>164001Can he see down there? Are there any bodies?
>>164002Looking out another window, Silver can see a couple bodies on the edge of the raised platform near the window, although separated from it and not directly beneath it. The edge of the platform is a couple feet wide, and beath that is a 25 foot drop to the street level
>>164003It was a false hope for them, then...Silver sighs to himself. He pushes onwards on this seemingly never ending hell train towards the controls. He wonders to himself just how much more suffering has been committed on this train.
>>164004Silver moves into car number five, the first car of the train, and more importantly, the one with the cab.
This car is less populated than the last two. Near Silver's side, there is a device spewing gas. But further away are many, many shattered windows, and more with bullet holes. Near Silver is a dead black uniformed officer, maybe a security guard. It's a grey unicorn, who left a revolver on the ground nearby, and has a hoof over his mouth. A little further down is a brown earth pony half hanging out of a shattered window, and a couple foals lying on the ground with a mare over top of them, hooves spread out. Halfway through the car, Silver can see a Jenny battle rifle, lying next to spent cartridge cases on the seat. And further down, much further down, next to a cut and bloodied dead stallion, is a dead drone in a pool of blood, that is half red and half blue. He has a mask that is half on, and half pulled off, and wears a uniform and khakis the same as everyone else. Behind him is the cabin.
>>164005This stallion must have fought back, and with his dying breath made sure to bring one of the changelings with him into the darkness. He can't say this is a proud moment when looking at all of the death around him, but it certainly is a small light in Silver's eyes to know that this stallion fought to his last.
Like before, Silver takes the cannister spilling gas into the train, and uses his magic to try to bash it and break the precursor tubes.
>>164008And it breaks, spilling a trickle of a chemical on the ground.
>>164009With the second of the two cannisters broken, and gas production halted, Silver moves to the cabin to get the train moving.