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Warning! This series contains strong language, strong sexual themes and extreme gore, it is not for filly's or colt's eyes! It also may contain spoilers to Fallout: Eqestria! If you are are young or uncomfortable with these things turn back FOREVER (or until you are 18)
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Chapter 2: Wools
“Kindness, it's an easy feat.”
The hallway became a energy beam filled, alarm ridden, red portal to hell. The two tarnished ponytrons gave warnings in their soulless metallic voices as the pony-like robots slowly stepped forward, thudding on the tiled floor, shooting their deadly beams of magical energy at the terrified mare in front of them.
Reck Lass filled with a sickening terror and dashed down the dilapidated hallway, tearing off several worn tiles with her horror filled hooves in the process. She heard herself screaming above the ear-splitting alarm as she fled for her life. You should have left, you greedy, air-headed bitch! her thoughts screamed at her as the beams of energy whipped by her head like bolts of red lightning. The mare felt a beam of magical energy plant itself on the back of one of her battle-tested combat bracers, causing the armor to shine red with heat and burn Reck Lass's leg as if she had given Celestia a high-hoof.
The mare reached the end of the crumbling hallway, her screaming now a mixture of terror and pain as her own armor seared into her skin with a white hot feeling of absolute pain. As Reck Lass threw herself into a roll around the cracked corner, she felt another beam of magical energy sear the air right behind her, even burning off the tip of her red tail, putting the vile odor of burnt hair in the stale air. The mare was unable to stop her uncontrolled roll across the dusty floor, and slammed her shoulder into the wall, causing a shoulder shaped dent to form with a small explosion of pale grey paint, looking like a cloud of blood in the flashing red lights of the alarms, in the weak wall.
The winded mare violently coughed, the wind knocked out of her and even more dust in her lungs, as she unsteadily pushed herself up from torn floor. Reck Lass felt herself shaking as she lowly turned her head to look down the dark, destroyed corridor, and she saw a tarnished dark grey, heavily armored, pony-like figure looming over her, 4 red dots in the place of were eyes would be, glowing ominously.
“Security lockdown in effect! Hostile target acquired!” The sentry bot boomed in it's metallic voice that resonated across the time worn hallway, despite the blaring of the alarm.
The metallic horror lowered it's tarnished silver magical energy minigun from it's side with a loud clank, aiming the deadly weapon at Reck Lass as she scrambled in panic. The mare knew that she would be removed from existence in a storm of magical energy and her own screaming, disintegration into a grey cloud of ash destroying her, if she allowed the sentry bot to continue, but she saw no way to escape of her imminent death. Reck Lass reacted the only way she manage to could think of, doing something insane enough to keep her alive.
She took a desperate lunge forward, causing her wounded shoulder and burnt leg to scream in protest with a burst of hot pain, and landed right in between the 4 thick legs of the aiming sentry bot. The bot immediately attempted to recalibrate it's devastating magical energy weapon, attempting to aim in between it's steel legs and reduce the pony weaving around underneath it to a glowing pile. Reck Lass desperately tried to avoid the sentry bot's deadly legs as they turned with the screech grinding metal, knowing fully well that they would crush her into a red paste, she wove about in random patterns, which forced her to run her blistering leg across the cracked old floor along with her black bruised shoulder, which now was slowly leaking a crimson stream of blood down her back,staining her white shirt and beginning to paint the hallway's floor a dark red.
Reck Lass saw the sentry's bots 4 sensors momentarily flash a bright red, blending with the light emitting from the tripped alarms, as soon as it had locked onto the squirming pony beneath it. The robot added it's own deafening sound into the mixture of alarms, ponytron warnings, and pony screaming, the high pitched whir of a magical energy minigun. Reck Lass felt the heat from the beams as they hit the already damaged floor in front of her face and the sentry bot's own legs, which seemed to chip into a shimmering pile of metal flecks under the force of it's own devastating weapon.
Reck Lass couldn't help but give a small grin when the magical energy minigun stopped, it's weapon having riddled the cracking floor beneath it with small red holes that still faintly glowed red. Reck Lass's grin melted from her face along with the hope from her body as she heard the ravaged floor beneath her give a groan followed a grey rain of paint and tiles. The brown mare let out a screech that burnt her throat as she pushed herself back off the quickly falling section of floor. The office floor gave out with a ear-splitting crash and hail of ancient grey paint, and Reck Lass felt a surge of terror go through her body as the floor dispersed underneath her hooves, and she was only able to put her hooves out, leaving hanging herself by the forelegs at the ledge and cement lightly, but painfully, cutting into her forelegs. The mare gritted her teeth and began to pull herself up, causing small drops of red to drop from her forelegs into the hole she hung into, but then she spotted the lumbering forms of 2 ponytrons.
“Violence will not be tolerated.” The two robots synchronized in their choppy voices, their heads glowing as they prepared to annihilate the hanging mare. Reck Lass looked at the two worn robots, and let her panicked gaze shift to the hole she was hanging into. The sentry bot had fallen though the floor she was currently standing, or rather barely hanging, on and the one below her, it even lay below in a hunk of twisted metal and dancing yellow sparks. I am a complete idiot, Reck Lass scolded herself, and then pushed herself off of the ledge.
As she fell she saw beams of magical energy above her, and heard the blare of the alarms become ever so quieter. Reck Lass cried out in pain as her shoulder slammed into the 1st floor with a sickening crack, and she instinctively rolled to the side to escape the pain. Right into the destroyed hole in the flooring next to her. She hardly heard her scream from the residual ringing in her ears from the alarm, but she heard as her bloody body crashed into the former sentry bot, cutting her body in every place and making everything flash. She wasn't sure if she cried out or not, but she looked down at her body and saw several wounds oozing dark red blood onto the remains of the sentry bot. She tried to move, but her limbs would not respond, and she screamed in agony as she felt her broken ribs rub the magical energy minigun. The world sounded as if it were underwater, and then everything slowly slipped into a cold blackness.
** ** **
The cold, cyan medical gurney pressed up against Reck Lass, providing an oddly soothing sensation on her burns and cuts. Where the hell-I'm supposed to be dead,Reck Lass thought as she slowly pushed herself to a sitting position, which sent an ache throughout her entire body. The mare looked down at her own body, which lacked her barding and every other piece of equipment, and her green eyes grew as wide as they possibly could. Not one cut. Not one burn. She slowly ran her hoof down her chest, she could not believe her eyes.
Reck Lass's head snapped up as she heard the sound a low burr, almost like a torch. The med-bot looked almost like a floating metallic spider, and was painted a pale shade of yellow, three pink painted butterfly flew over his spider like body, not one peeling. Reck Lass recognized the paint-job. She had seen it a few times before on the many pre-war posters she had collected, it marked him as property of the the Ministry of Peace, one of the major pre-war Ministries that focused on medical advancement.
The mare let her eyes momentarily leave the med-bot to scan the surprisingly well preserved room she was in. The walls were covered in a pale pink, with only a few sections peeling. The room held two cyan gurneys, one of which Reck Lass lay on, and several aged but well preserved wooden and glass cabinets full of bright red healing potions in tall, glass bottles and several doctor's bags with the same coloration as the med bot in front of her.
At the final two items the mare's already wide eyes expanded. That was more medicine than she had seen in her entire life! Her mind raced as she considered looting every healing potion and yellow doctor's bag on that shelf, but her dreams of scavenging was interrupted by a metallic, but surprisingly chipper and accented voice.
"Good morning ma'am!" The yellow and butterfly marked med-bot beamed in it's proper Canterlot accent, it's yellow eyes stocks lowering with whirr, and putting it's flickering orange eyes in front of the mare. Reck Lass ear's perked up, a nice robot. That was new.
"W-well ,uh, h-hello there mister..?" Reck Lass stuttered as she rubbed the back of her now healed neck, she really was not sure what to say to the oddly proper robot that had just saved her life. Regardless, the chipper med-bot did seem offended in the slightest.
"Doctor Wools ma'am. But feel free to call me whatever suits you best, I am programmed to respond to any name positively!" Wools happily responded to the question Reck Lass was not aware she had inadvertently asked. The mare pushed herself off the cool metal medical gurney, Wools' flickering eyes carefully scanning her every movement.
Reck Lass's hooves clicked as she landed on the clean white floor, and suddenly realized with a sense of dread, all of her equipment was gone. She put on a pained expression, and scanned the clean room, and saw nothing but the preserved cabinets stocked with more medicine than a caravan and the cyan medical gurneys.
The mare's gaze slowly shifted over Wools, the med-bot's orange eyes almost face to face with Reck Lass's.
"Looking for your possessions ma'am? I am truly sorry, I nearly forgot! These old circuits must need a little TLC, don't you agree? Regardless madam, you equipment is safely stored in that safe." Wools responded, referencing with one of his spider like yellow arms to a shining silver safe in the white tile ground Reck Lass had failed to spot in her panicked initial scan of the clean room.
The mare let her gaze linger on the gleaming safe for several awkward moments, though she was unable to stop her vision from darting to the well stocked medical cabinets. Reck Lass awkwardly pawed the ground for several seconds, beginning to trot towards the silver safe, the low clicking of her hooves filling the medical room. The mare abruptly stopped when she reached the clean silver safe, turning her head to Wools with a questioning expression on her face.
"So, t-thanks for the, uh, s-saving my life and stuff. Should I just take my things and..." Reck Lass stammered, and mentally sighed at her own sentence. Even as a young filly, she had never been good at social encounters. As her mother said her "head was up with the Enclave in the clouds". She gave a resigned sigh, out loud this time. Her mother had been wrong about a lot of things, but she was afraid that there was a bit of truth in that statement. The mare was pulled out of her thoughts by a metallic voice tinged with, was that disappointment?
"Oh," Wools sighed, as much as a robot could sigh, his yellow arms drooping slightly. "I was hoping that we could stay here and converse for a short while. It has been ever so long since I have had a pony to speak with Ms., oh, I am afraid I did not catch your name ma'am." The med-bot asked with a questioning tone, his yellow eye stalks lowering curiously towards the nervous brown mare.
"Lass, uh, Reck Lass, yeah, that's my name." The mare sheepishly muttered, raising her shoulders and slightly blushing. The yellow medical robot seemed to perk up at that, his eyes stalks and metal arms rising.
"Ms. Lass, a wonderful name! Well, are you ready to take you leave Ms. Lass, or will you stay humor a conversation with an old med-bot?" Wools asked, hovering over right in front of Reck Lass, his propulsion system causing a slight mirage of heat hinted with a fiery orange.
As much as she felt pity for the kind robot, Reck Lass could not stop her scavenger's eyes from locking onto the large quantity of medicine, and the med-bot noticed.
"Ah, I see you notice my medicaments. I am quite afraid that I cannot afford to grace you with them, I do need them for other patients ma'am. You must understand." Wools stated, proudly raising his arms as he said "patients".
Reck Lass consciously prevented herself from sighing, not wanting to insult the doctor. He had saved her after all, the least she could do would be to let him keep his medical supplies. Though she suspected she was the first to treated by the yellow medical bot in a very long time.
"Uh, yeah, of course. I completely understand," Reck Lass confirmed, nodding her head, with a slight explosion of red mane due to her lack of fedora. "And I will stay to talk to you. It would be nice to sit down with a robot not trying to incinerate me. But could I, uh, put my clothing on first?" She finished, summoning the happiest voice she could.
Wools entire yellow body seemed to rise after that, and Reck Lass imagined if he was a pony, a warm smile would be overtaking his entire face.
"Marvelous! And why yes, of course ma'am! My medical office is your medical office!" The robot beamed, his eye stalks practically shaking with excitement.
The young mare let a smile find it's way onto her face, and brushed her messy red mane out of her eyes as she trotted to the safe, flipping it open with a louder clang than she expected. As soon as she saw her equipment, her smile changing to an expression of surprise. Her gear was spotless. It was not just clean but cleaned with the perfectionist obsession that only the classy ponies of Canterlot were rumored to have before the bombs fell. Her jaw slightly open, Reck Lass turned turned to Wools, her expression now between happiness and awe.
"I see you noticed I took the liberty to clean your garments! Do not feel obligated to thank me Ms. Lass!" Wools beamed, raising his yellow eye stalks with pride.
The mare gave the med-bot an awkward smile, her red hair lightly brushing her face again. She retrieved her now cleaned garments, from the shining silver safe, her barding shining so bright the mare was forced squint.
"So," Reck Lass nervously began as she slipped on her soft, clean shirt and shining barding, which provided a nice rub against her previously burned and mangled coat. As she threw her trusty brown satchel over her herself and planted her tested fedora on her head, she could not help but crack a slight smile "How long have you, uh, worked here?"
"214 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 14 hours, 33 minutes and 19 seconds Ms. Lass." Wools answered in his metallic voice as if he had been born, or rather crafted, to answer the question.
The bot steadily hovered towards Reck Lass, the soft sound of his glowing propulsion engine emitting a faint sound that synchronized with the subtle whirr of his antenna adjusting. Reck Lass rubbed her hoof at the back of her soft, now healed neck as she considered what to say to the strange robot next.
"So Ms. Lass, may I implore as to why you choose to grace this fine establishment with a visit?" Wools curiously asked, lowering his eyes to be even with Reck Lass's nervous green orbs.
"Uh, it's a rather c-complicated story, Wools." The mare stuttered, not sure if the yellow med-bot would cut her open if she reveled her real reason for being it the long abandoned office building.
She mentally kicked herself for the thought, scrunching her nose and staring at her brown hooves on the clean white floor as she criticized herself. Wools had saved her from unceremoniously bleeding to death in a pile of grey scrap metal, if he wanted to kill her for infiltrating the decaying office building, or this relatively persevered underground area she had apparently stumbled into, he would've left her to bleed out. And , for some reason, the robot obviously had...feelings, as ridiculous as it sounded. The least she could to thank the gentlerobot was not suspect him of tearing her apart over some chip.
"Well, I was sent her on, a job to..recover a..treasure, yes! A treasure!" Reck Lass beamed, though she felt herself redden a moment later. That sounded far less...well... dumb as fuck in her head.
Reck Lass swore she heard the robot chuckle, a metallic sound similar to a broken toaster feeble attempting to eject a piece of toast, as he slowly turned his eye stalks towards the surprisingly heavy-duty silver door to the clinic.
"Treasure Ms. Lass? As far as I am aware this was a office and secret date collection bunker, with all data unfortunately transferred quite some time ago. And a singular not-mad robot endlessly attending to his rather tedious task." Wools lowly said, a clear note of sadness ringing out in the last sentence.
The mare's expression immediately softened, and she had to consciously prevent herself from patting the pale yellow insect-like body of Wools. She felt genuinely bad for the robot, and, in an odd way, he reminded her of herself. Alone, desperately trying to do what fulfilled him with no rewards, and no friends to speak of. Reck Lass looked the lonely robot in his flickering orange eyes, an idea forming in her head.
"To be specific, I am looking for an old office. And, well, rather a chip in a safe in that office. It used to belong to somepony named "Sweet Swirl" I heard from, uh, something." The mare said, her own gaze shifting to the heavy clinic door, slightly gleaming in clinic light.
"Oh my," Wools exclaimed. The med-bot seemed surprised, though Reck Lass slyly grinned a she recognized the familiar sound of wanderlust in his ringing metallic voice. "Leave the clinic? That would be terribly improper of me..I have not left, well, ever. But I supposed a brisk excursion may do my old circuits good..." He trailed off, his eyes perking up as he considered the obviously alien, but invigorating idea. "Ms. Lass, I would be exceptionally honored if you would allow me to partake in your...treasure hunt!" The med-bot finally beamed, excitedly floating over to his aged but well preserved medical cabinets, his metal yellow spider like arms opening them and taking out several slightly glowing red healing potions, their contact sounding like a glass wind chime.
"Great! You can show me around, and maybe lead me to Sweet Swirl's office?" Reck Lass asked, an excited smile splayed across her face.
The mare was glad that she now had a guide in the office, bunker, whatever the hell it was, but she there was something else that made her feel giddy about the med-bot coming with her. Her entire time alone in the unforgiving wasteland, she had always traveled alone. She crossed the dusty, ravaged landscape with nopony but herself. And Wools, well Wools was one of the only ponies, or robots rather, that had ever bothered to help her. Perhapes she had found...a friend? The brown mare was pushed out of her thoughts by the sound of healing potions relentlessly pushing each other inside of a crude bag made from the white sheet of medical gurney held by a silver metal grasper at the end of a pale yellow metal arm.
"Are we ready to set off Ms. Lass? I am rather intrigued at this treasure you expect to find in Ms. Swirl's office." The travel ready med-bot asked, his propulsion device driving him towards the oddly heavy clinic door. Reck Lass raised an eye brow as she heard Wools say "Ms. Swirls" with a heavy tone of recognition is his proper robotic voice. Reck Lass slowly trotted forward, locking her gaze on the med-bot before she pushed open the shining clinic door.
"Did you, know her?" The fedora wearing mare questioned, unable to contain her curiosity. The robot almost seemed to slightly drop out of the sterile clinic air, his sheet-bag momentarily brushing the white tiled floor with the unpleasant chime of glass on tile.
"Yes ma'am, I did know Ms. Swirl. Quite well indeed. A fine pony, a good pony," Wools sighed, his robotic voice full of mourning. "Regardless ma'am, I would recommend we take uttermost caution in our little excursion. Many of the other units in this complex are experiencing...let us call them slight complications." The robot finish, rising to his original height in the air, briskly floating toward the heavy door with purpose.
Reck Lass slowly nodded her head, reaching into her old satchel and retrieving her now heavily, almost obsessively, polished grey .22 revolver in her mouth.
The mare cautiously pushed the door open with her shoulder, cautiously stick her head out into the dusty hallway and her green eyes carefully scanning the crumbling grey and silver room in front of her. The ceiling was partially collapsed in, causing several small heaps of cement and gleaming metal to fill up the hallway, including the large entirety of the hallway to her right, which was entirely consumed by the rubbish. The old floor was tiled in a way similar to the clean clinic, though Wools had obviously not taken the responsibility of cleaning the filthy, now decaying, floor outside his place of work. The mare's green eyes went wide as she heard a familiar soulless metallic cry ring out from left, down the still function hallway.
"Intruder alert! Prepare to be forcibly removed!" The tarnished ponytron boomed, steadily lumbering forward it's head glowing with it's sickly pale yellow light. Reck Lass steadied her breathing, preparing to line her shining .22 up and cover the wall with sparks and circuits of the worn robot, until she saw a yellow med-bot rushing down the destroyed bunker hallway.
"Good morning unit! Execute resignation software for employee #221, Maple Fall." Wools beamed at the robot that had nearly incinerated the mare behind him earlier that day. The old ponytron stopped in it's tracks, slowly swiveling as it intensely studied Reck Lass's form in the clinic doorway.
"Hell-hello Map-Map-Maple Fall, have a n-nice day." The ponytron electronically stuttered after several nerve-racking moments of scanning the terrified, but battle ready mare, thudding off down the dilapidated hallway. Reck Lass let out a breath she way not even aware she was holding in, looking at the oddly clean and shining, yellow med-bot in destroyed hallway, with no small amount of amazement in her gaze. Wools causally floated over to Reck Lass, his body spinning and his eye stalks lowering to Reck Lass's height.
"Well ma'am they may be have errors, but that is no excuse to destroy them like ruffians now is it?" Wools stated, turning with a noisy whirr to watch the ponytron as his worn form faded into the darkness of the ravaged bunker hallway.
"I, uh, s-supposed." Reck Lass nervously answered, her cheeks reddening, now feeling slightly sheepish with the firearm in her mouth. The brown mare pulled her worn satchel up, depositing the revolver in with the rest of her things, listening as it found it's place at the bottom of the tested leather bag.
"So, you mentioned this place was a 'data collection facility'? " Reck Lass questioned as she trotted down the destroyed bunker with Wools floating besides her, his eyestalks furiously moving as he studied the corpse of the bunker.
"Well," The robot began, tearing flickering orange eyes away from a empty room with filing cabinets without drawers. "Near the end of that dreadful war this office building was re-purposed into a central location to store everything known about the..." Wools suddenly stopped, his yellow eyestalks shooting up, then suddenly lowering as if the med-bot were confounded. "How odd, I can not seem to recall the name of the project." He stated, his metallic voice ripe with confusion.
Reck Lass slightly turned her head at that, inadvertently taking in a foul, dust filled breath. She shook her head, it didn't matter. She just needed to get the chip, get paid, and buy herself a nice bunker. One without creepy secrets and killer robots. Suddenly the mare saw a worn wooden door in front of her, it once possessed a fine window but it had long ago shattered, leaving behind a sharp glimmering pool of glass. She stopped and looked above the old door, at the worn bronze plaque.
Sweet Swirl, Project Leader
She looked to Wools, who merely hovered in front of the door, slightly pushing his eyes though the former window.
"That was a rather quick treasure hunt," The yellow robot stated, no small amount of disappointment in is metallic voice. "I supposed I should just return to my office then." He solemnly finished, steadily hovering back down the destroyed bunker, the way the duo had came. The mare felt her heart slightly skip a beat, and she hardly registered putting her hoof on Wools spherical body.
"No, wait," She said, her vision darting back to the aged office. "Could you just...wait for me out here? I doubt anyone will need you in the clinic." She finished, gently lowering her hoof from the robot. Wools stopped moving, rotating his body to face the mare.
"I suppose I can spare a bit more time. Press on then!" Wools beamed, casually levitating over the gleaming broken glass. Reck Lass gently smiled, following, albeit far more carefully behind the med-bot. Sweet Swirl's office had the appearance of someplace that was designed to be pleasing to the eye, without the consent of the owner. Several mound of now rotting and destroyed papers littered the entire place, along with several shattered pieces of furniture, their shards half reduced to dust. In the middle of the room their was a steel desk, obviously designed for somepony of much lower station, a nice but long destroyed silver terminal resting on it. Though the real item that sparked the brown mare's interest was causally tucked into the dusty corner of the old room, a black safe, it's heavy door ever so slightly propped open. Reck Lass's trot disturbed the thick layer of dust on the ground with small puffs rising, but she hardly noticed as she trotted to the safe, her hoof quivering as she slowly open it.
Inside rested the best thing the mare had ever seen, a small silver and purple computer chip, gleaming in the faint light, next to a black opal with a singular crack running along it.
"Jackpot"
Footnote: Level Up.
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