[Helios Station]

The marines were all dogpiling on the lunar princess, and we sprang into action. “Get off the Diarch you idiots! She’s a VIP in relations between Hyperion and Equestria!” Fragtrap shouted as he started shooting as high as he could and still hit them without endangering Luna, his mechanical precision allowing such a thing with ease as we closed in, and each of us tackled our own target. Well, each of us except for Wilhelm, who just picked up and punched a guy, causing him to practically explode. The rest of us tackled them off Luna, and then summarily dealt with them in our own preferred melee methods.

For instance; Jack punched the visor of his target in, the thankfully magically reinforced green-aura punch protecting his hand from the broken visor. Nisha apparently had a whip, and she quickly coiled it around her opponent’s neck, choking him as she sat on him like a sadistic cow-pony. Claptrap had killed his target outright with his tackle, the impact of his body enough to crush the marine. Same with Athena but it was more because her sword was in the guy’s chest. Aurelia though….

“Ugh! WHY must they always EXPLODE when I slap them?!” Aurelia had outright picked her chosen victim up by his suit, and when she slapped, yes, SLAPPED, his head, the thing exploded in metal, glass, and blood and...it was just nasty. Was kinda like Wilhelm’s punch, but aimed higher. “Sometimes my glorious draconic heritage is a drawback….” She griped as she then began sucking the blood off her claws. “Mm...tasty though.”

“Okay...not at all attractive for any reason….” Jack tried get his mind away from the suddenly more appealing dragoness and turned to the downed princess, offering her a hand. “Hey, uh, Your Majesty? I’m one of the guys you hired.” Luna merely looked up at him for a moment, and he fidgeted. “What?”

“N-nothing, thank you.” Luna accepted his hand, and when she stood, she was easily a whole foot over him at 7 feet, putting her bountiful bosom blushingly close to his face and he backed away out of courtesy. “These ruffians! We haven’t the foggiest where they’ve come from or why, they just attacked out of the blue, killing innocent workers! We ask of thee; help us retake the station. With us and thou, surely we can push these hooligans back!”

“I don’t know about that, there’s a lot of them, and only seven of us. Quality versus quantity may win out more often than not, but that’s still a lot of them.” Athena brought up, and we all more or less looked around in agreement.

‘In the game...you ended up not even needing that damn robot army. It doesn’t show up at all! But here...I...don’t feel confident in taking on ALL of these thugs with just us.’ Jack thought to himself, and nodded. “It’s a shame the Loaders aren’t equipped with the right software or we’d at least have something.” Jack offered, and Luna wilted a bit, before she huffed.

“Well, we shall at least cause them trouble as we make our escape. Let us use our access codes to activate the station’s automated defenses.” Luna said as she walked over to a nearby panel and started typing away at the console. “In a few seconds, we shall have turrets, lasers, and all sorts of fun things to keep these ruffians at bay.”

“Critical Failure. Helios defence systems are being jammed.” Came the cheery disembodied voice of the computer.

“What? Explain!” Luna shouted at the computer.

“Jamming signal originates from Elpis, Pandora’s moon.” The computer supplied as two turret pads folded out of the rails above and lowered down.

“No-no-no! Destroy the turrets!” Luna panicked, aiming her laser bracers at them and joining us in firing at the two suddenly hostile turrets that digistructed on the pads, blowing them up easily. “A-alright then...new plan! We make a hasty retreat for the escape ships and beg Hyperion and my sister for help!” Luna declared before taking wing towards and exit, and the rest of us without wings unlike Nisha and Athena used our Oz kits for a ‘double jump’ to follow after.

“We must take this ground!” Came a voice over the general Echo channels that was, obviously, the voice of the one leading these assholes against Helios. The picture card on the reciever pop-up showed a horribly mutated doberman woman with glowing purple eyes and purple cracks running over her head.

“Just who is this bitch who dares to harm us?” Luna demanded idly as she was punching in a code to the door out of the control center.

“No clue. Sounds military.” Wilhelm stated.

“Indeed, this is not a pirate raid, it is too coordinated to-blast it! Ugh, why must there be such security measures if attackers are going to just blow the doors-.” Wilhelm quickly moved forward, reared his robot left arm, and struck with a force that made the door warp inward, tearing it off it’s tracks and it fell out onto the floor. “Thank thou Wilhelm, thou hast proved our point.”

“Gladly.” Following Wil’s succinct statement we all followed Luna down the hall to another set of doors that thankfully opened automatically.

“There! The escape shi-oh, you spawn of a Taint!” Luna cursed as a DAHL combat suit rose up onto the platform via elevator, revealing the mutated doberman bitch within it.

“Hello Luna.” A title card thankfully splashed in, introducing her as Colonel T. Zarpedon: Leader of the Lost Legion. How are these title card things real?! Her battle suit’s hatch closed, protecting her as she turned around, and promptly destroyed both of the taking-off escape ships with two shots each from her suit’s arm laser.

“THOU BITCH! Those were innocent workers!” Luna screamed as she aimed both of her lasers at Zarpedon and fired rapidly, only for a disturbing and...oddly attractive alien of sorts to flip in front of her, and hold up a hand, causing the beams of light to refract around her and Zarpedon like she had a prism in front of her as she wagged a long index phalange.

“Naughty~....” Title card: ????

“And just WHAT is that?!” Jack panicked. “Weirdly hot, but shit, not facing what looks like an actual Eridian! Luna, get in here!” Jack shouted as he got next to the door console, dragging Frag with him as they quickly pried the panel off while the alien and Zarpedon approached.

“Nay! We shall stay and fight this-”

“Nope!” Wilhelm stated before extending his robot arm out the door and grabbing Luna by the back of her dress before forcibly dragging her back in. “Close it and lock it.” The way the door slammed shut so violently it shook the immediate area said that, even if they blasted it; the way the door was jammed it would take more than the standard amount of force to get through.

“Unhand us foal!” Luna growled, managing to snap the back of the strings holding her dress up, and she blushed as she held the front to her bosom. “L-look what thou did! This dress is a Platinum Classic!”

“Oh? Don’t worry dear, if we get a moment I’d be willing to spare a cheap dress for your modesty.” Aurelia surprisingly offered, but then again women often stuck together in these situations, and Aurelia seemed to have a similar figure to Luna along with being the same height, save her thick dragon tail in comparison to Luna not having more than the dock of her ether tail.

“Screw that, aren’t you hooked into the New-U’s and the Customization Stations?” Wilhelm asked casually. “Those things should just repair or digistruct new ones.”

“And devalue a designer dress?! Thou truly art a barbarian!” Luna shouted indignantly, and Aurelia and even a bit of Nisha and Athena all looked at Wilhelm like he was an idiot. “Regardless, tis ruined, and since it isn’t registered in the New-U-.”

“Wait, WHY are you wearing a designer dress? On a space station? Doing business?” Jack asked, and Luna began turning redder.

“N-no reason! None at-!”

“Hey Luna! What’s with all the alarms I’m getting from Helios?” A shockingly familiar voice came on over the Echo, which was accompanied by an even more eerily familiar face, especially to Jack.

“N-nothing John! Nothing at all! E-everything is-!” The sound of Zarpedon slamming against the door reminded us we were trying to escape, and we all bolted down the other hallway.

“As much as we’d love to chat, cutie, we gotta get moving before some crazy bitch kills us.” Nisha interjected as we made a corner and Luna started punching in a code one-handed as she held her dress up with the other.

“Whoa, whoa! What crazy bitch? Luna, that station is there in a diplomatic mission of faith between Hyperion and Equestria, if something’s happening we need to know so we can send help!” The man apparently named John replied, and Luna groaned in dismay as she gestured for Fragtrap to get the door open, and he did so as she backed off.

“Some doberman named Zarpedon is leading a force of DAHL soldiers on Helios. They’ve already claimed control of most of the station, killed most if not all the employees, and now there are no more escape ships, and we’re too far from any Fast Travel stations to use them before we’d be overrun.” Luna reported sadly, and Jack decided to add to it.

“Not to mention this really weird alien chick. She just deflected laser fire with her mind man.” Luna looked paralyzed with fear, and suddenly everything felt tensely silent. “What?”

“Luna...why is there someone who looks, and even sounds like me with you?” John sounded accusing, and she blubbered, trying to get out an explanation as she shrank away from Jack, and Aurelia sighed as she approached her and pat her shoulder, as if she understood. “Luna, just because I don’t see a relationship working out between us isn’t a reason to have someone become my body double.”

“Whoa, hold it there hotshot! I’m nobody’s body double! Name’s Jack, buddy!” The doors slammed open when Fragtrap touched some wires together. “I should ask who the hell YOU are!”

“I, am John Thymine, Vice President of Hyperion Corporation. Now tickle me curious, but humor me; what’s your last name?” John asked as we exited the door, surveying the walkway and seeing DAHL jet fighters around, meaning the moment we left the cover of the railing they’d be on us like white on rice.

“Don’t have one. I was put in an orphanage when my mom died giving birth to me on Hephaestus. No clue about my last name-.”

“Hold the phone! Hephaestus? That trap out in the space boonies? My parent’s shuttle went down on Hephaestus on the way to vacation on Aquatos! Mom was pregnant with my unborn little bro!” John informed with excitement, and Jack began to tear up, feeling an unfamiliar sense of astonishment and amazement he’d never experienced before.

‘H-holy shit...I AM his little brother! I’m not...what happened at that fucking CON?! What happened to the real Jack?!’ Jack screamed in his head, feeling torn between relief and horror at the realization.

“Yay, let’s all focus on family that we lost and possibly found!” Wilhelm said, snapping Jack out of his thoughts. “I’m sorry, but we have a job to do, Jack. Now get your head back into it, will ya? I don’t plan on being killed here, or anywhere else.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it. Hey, Jack, get off that station via the Moonshot Cannon! It can get you down close to Concordia I think. There I’ll try to meet up with you and get a test to see if you’re really my little bro or an honest to gods doppelganger. Angel.” W-wha?

“Yeah dad?” Holy...shit….

“Can you manage to hijack the Moonshot controls? Get all of them in it in case the auto-firing sequence is damaged so nobody has to stay behind?” John, you are worlds cooler than Handsome Jack ever was!

“Sure dad, no problem...why does one of them look like a younger you?” Angel’s question had Jack sighing out his nose as we crept along the railing, ducked down hoping none of the jet fighters flew over us.

“I’ll tell ya later pumpkin, just help them get Luna off Helios, I have a...ugh...a sudden meeting to make with Tassiter.” John hung up, but the receiver popup now showed a very familiar Siren’s mane-do and she looked like a mare version of Jack, save all the blue tattoos over her.

“Okay, I’m your operator now I guess. You’re lucky I’m a Siren, especially one whose powers specialize on technology. Updating your Echo’s map, follow the path I’m highlighting to reach the Moonshot control center.” Angel informed us as the...hey, it’s 3D! The 3D map on the upper-left of our Huds suddenly had a trail highlighted through it, and it seemed we were on the right track as we bolted from cover to the nearby door, and the jet fighters started firing on us as they approached.

“Hey, thanks! A Siren! Damn Hyperion has some special people on payroll.” Nisha crowed as Jack and Fragtrap focused on closing the door while the rest of them focused on firing out at the marines and fighters shooting at us, until the door slammed shut, and we breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Okay, I may be John’s brother, Angel might be my niece, John ISN’T behind triggering these events and Luna is, ugh there’s so much new crap! I can’t...I hope we can rest soon, I have a lot to think about….’

“Come on, guys. We gotta get to that Moonshot Cannon!” Wilhelm belted out as he ran out from cover, this being the third area they’d had to pass through, shotgun firing at any unfortunate Dahl Soldier that graced his vision, the highly-accurate weapon’s low spread making ranged shots ridiculously effective. He glanced back at the others who were still hiding behind cover. “Get moving!” ‘And to think, these are the mercenaries that I prefered over any other game.’

“Well sorry if we’re not half robot, tin-man!” Nisha growled out before she took out her pistols and spread her wings, taking into the air to quickly lay down some cover fire, drawing attention to her and letting the others make a mad dash for the next door away from the open area and the associated bombardment by Dahl jet fighters and their deployed crews.

“Except me! But I just had a software and wheel upgrade! Claptraps are fragile! And I’m an original! I’m lucky I’ve even operated this long!” Fragtrap griped as he took potshots as his wheel brought him closer to the big tough cyborg.

“That’s just an excuse, little guy. You have a gun and a shield and the OS to use them both! Now get to supporting Nisha!” Wilhelm screamed at the augmented and glorified Claptrap unit that was on his team. “I’ll cover you while you get closer. Jack, you get out your doubles to protect you as you get a door open, get us a place to actually get away from this shit. Athena-” Wilhelm stopped as he watched Athena drop down from above with a dead soldier on her blade. “- You keep doing what you’re doing. Let’s move people!”

“And all our clients keep complaining about you being so unofficial!” Jack joked as he grabbed the aimless Princess Luna’s hand, who squeaked as she held her dress up with the other hand and followed, her modesty demanding she use at least one arm to keep herself clothed, while Aurelia wasn’t bothered not having a directive, she was pleased as punch to be haughtily aiming a sniper rifle one-handed at her targets and getting headshots, other hand on her hip as she grinned cruelly.

With that settled, Wilhelm followed through on his orders, covering Fragtrap as he ran for cover closer to where Nisha was flying about. The second he felt Fragtrap was safe, he turned his attention back to the ships that were carrying in troops by the dozens. “What’s the progress on that door kid? We could use a different location, and NOW!”

“Damn it I’m not Fragtrap! I just need a few seconds and Luna’s pass-got it! Get in!” Jack shouted as his magical digistruct copies suddenly flickered and his horn sparked, sweat dumping down his face. “I-I need some air….” Jack admitted as Luna helped move him inside while the others all began moving towards the door too, having to keep their backs to it and return fire.

Nisha screamed in pain when a spray of bullets took out her shield, and almost shredded off her left wing, making her fall next to Athena, who promptly grabbed her and dragged the bleeding mare under a pit as she held her aegis up, while Nisha, who was blinking past tears to see well enough, managed to keep firing.

“Aw, shit.” Wilhelm blurted out as Athena brought Nisha into the ‘safe’ room. “Jack, can ya fix her up? I need to cover the door.” ‘Damn it. This is the last thing we need right now.’

“G-got it!” Jack blurted as he managed to stumble over to Nisha in mana-drained exhaustion. “Got meds, here….” Jack panted while his Echo’s menu screen opened in front of him as Fragtrap quickly got to the console on the inside, and after shooting it off, reached in, touched wires, and the doors slammed shut, buying them time. “Okay, just jab this wherever.” Jack produced a red medkit bag full of healing hypos, and gave one to the intensely pained and thankful mare, who stabbed the thing into her flank, getting a hiss before her wing rapidly sewed itself together, but she whimpered at the missing feathers.

“It’ll take days to grow new ones….” Needless to add; this meant Nisha was grounded unless she paid a C-Station to refresh her condition.

‘Perfect.’ “Alright, Fragtrap, cover Nisha until we get to the Moonshot. Got it? I don’t want her getting any more screwed up than she is now.” Wilhelm commanded as he turned his attention away from the doorway he was guarding. “In fact, I want all of you to buddy up. I don’t want us getting screwed over more than we are. Jack, you guard Luna.” Luna squeed a little, getting Jack to tilt his head at her reaction. “Athena, you’re with Aurelia.” Wilhelm leaned in close to Athena’s face. “May god have mercy on you.”

“I heard that! I may not really care if any of you die, but let’s at least try to have a marginally nice working relationship, hm?” Aurelia growled. “Don’t worry griffoness, I shall cover you.”

“With how good a shot I’ve seen you to be, I think I’m just glad you’re not aiming at me.” The assassin’s praise made Aurelia beam with pride and pose with her gun, getting Athena to blush almost imperceptibly.

“Wait a second, what about you? You said everyone gets a buddy.” Fragtrap pointed out. “Who is pairing with you?” Wilhelm looked at the little robot, and held up the deployment beacons for Wolf and Saint.

“You say that like I don’t have these two to help-” Wilhelm stated before being interrupted by a soldier’s shout and a series of explosions against the door Fragtrap sealed almost buckling it inward at them. “Okay, we need to move NOW!”

We all moved up to the top of the room, wishing we weren’t so pressed for time to have to ignore the helpful loot in the containers that we could’ve used, but we dropped down a broken lift into an open area and-. “BE CLEANSED WITH HEAT!” A sonorous voice echoed down into the open area, and drew our attention up to the source, being that of a four-legged dog-like robot that was coated in red matte paint, and breathing fire, but it seemed to have sustained some significant damage from Helios’ defenses, likely early in the siege.

The piloted robotic giant dog leaped down into the area as Luna imperiously pointed at it. “Um, Kill that dog! I guess?” Luna lamely added, spawning a title card. Hellhound: Kill this dog!

We all split up into our teams, Wil being alone of course, well, minus Wolf and Saint.

“Let’s get to it, guys!” Wilhelm shouted, opening fire on Hellhound and sending Wolf to go attack him. And almost the moment everyone else opened fire...the thing just...fell apart. “Uh...I could tell it was about to break, but really? It can’t be this easy….”

Wilhelm’s assumption was answered by the wreck blowing apart, and a ludicrously tall and lithe jackal in red pilot’s fatigues bursting free of the ruined combat suit. “For the Legion!” He shouted before grabbing a couple things from the wreck, and actually swinging a ridiculously huge flamethrower up, said weapon must’ve been the very same one formerly in the mouth of the destroyed suit. “Embrace the flame!” Hellhound shouted before he actually LIT HIMSELF ON FIRE, and then laughed like a mad dog as he rushed towards Wilhelm, flamethrower spewing hot death at him.

“Luna! Aurelia! I need you to help him chill out!” Wil shouted as he rapidly backed away from the cackling mad jackal, all bullets that hit his fire-infused shield slagging and not even reaching him, and what molten metal did just seemed to make him happy, his fur not even singed. ‘Fucker must’ve mutated like a skag or something!’

Wil was glad normal shields can resist fire as Luna blasted him with her cryo laser braces and Aurelia sicced her dragonfire-infused magic gem on him, rapidly cooling the shield around him until normal bullets started eating away at it, and when it went down, he yelped as bullets met his ridiculously thick hide and turned tail to the ledge, where several Dahl fighters were delivering reinforcements. “Oh HELL no!” Jack shouted in anger, and panted and groaned as his horn sparked, and with a yell of exertion, it lit up and his Echo flickered before his copies formed. “C-can’t...hold it for long….” Jack grunted as he raised his shock laser bracers up and started bombarding Hellhound specifically.

Thanks to a few minutes of ridiculously concentrated fire, and Jack’s double’s helping maintain pressure on the reinforcements, Hellhound eventually finally died with a clipped howl of pain when Aurelia finished him with a headshot that actually managed to breach his tough flesh and bone from all the pounding he’d taken. But hopes he was gone for good were dashed when his shield and other gear vanished off him, meaning a New-U somewhere was respawning him. “Shit, thought that fuck was good and gone like a lot of those marines.” Nisha grunted in frustration, moving around to keep limber.

“Agreed. That one as a real badass, taking all those bullets.” Athena conceded.

“Woo~! Hey guys! Look what I found!” Fragtrap exclaimed from the wreckage of Hellhound’s combat suit, causing everyone to turn and see him holding up an orange painted rocket launcher. “This is great! It’s a-whoa~whoa~!” Frag lost his precious balance and fell backwards before accidentally firing it. The rocket took on a strange flight path as it soared out of the barrel, then curved back downwards, colliding with the upper part of a nearby elevator in a small mushroom cloud, which suddenly caused the elevator to come down to their level. “Eh heh, oops.”

“Give me that!” Wilhelm yelled as he snatched the nuke launcher from the downed robot. “Do you even know how to use these kinds of weapons?!” ‘Holy hell that thing would’ve vaporized any of us if Fragtrap wasn’t ungodly levels of lucky!’

“My OS does, but not my current hardware apparently.” Fragtrap admitted as he tried to get up, but he fell sorta off-level, and his boxy design was keeping him stuck.

“Kid, hold this while I ‘scold’ Fragtrap.” Wilhelm said before handing the launcher to Jack, who toppled to the ground because of its weight, grunting and gasping as he tried to lift it off of himself. “Oh, right; Torgue weapons are heavy as shit. Work out buddy.”

“Maybe YOU should...lay off the...enhancements!” Jack bit back as he wormed his way out from under the ridiculously heavy launcher, and sighed as he struggled it up onto his shoulder and held it at the ready. “Shit. I don’t think any of you girls can use this either, or am I just weak?”

“I could, but launchers are for peons and people with good explosives skills. Unfortunately, I do not have such.” Admitted Aurelia as she used the lull in action to help restring and tie the back of Luna’s dress.

“Do I look that strong? I’m a griffon, not a minotaur.” Athena deadpanned. “Besides; assassins are trained in more refined techniques. I’m used to leaving demolition to the experts.”

“Yeah, sorry hotness, no chance.” Nisha declined, and Jack turned his dismayed face to Luna, who couldn’t resist the pouty lips on that chiseled muzzle, and rolled her eyes.

“This once, will we hold such an uncouth weapon for somepony else.” Luna acquiesced as Aurelia finished tightening her dress, and the princess moved forward and easily moved the huge weapon from Jack’s shoulder to hers, and she inspected it. “Hm...a Nukem. There’s only, what, seven in existence?”

“And that one’s mine now.” Wil, having chastised Fragtrap against future excessive stupidity to his satisfaction, took the heavy weapon off the thankful princess, and stored it in his Echo. “Now lets get up and out of here!”

We rushed over to the elevator, and Jack paused at a console before telling them to get in the elevator first. “Gotta cycle the Moonshot cylinder. I don’t want to have to go up there and find this function’s broken at the remote terminal when I have the direct one right here.” Jack informed and got the cylinder loaded, before taking the elevator up with a shudder. “I hate. Elevators.”

“Well you’re all going to hate this a lot more.” Angel called over the Echo. “Now, you all get to take a possibly fatal ride in a moonshot to Elpis. Your primary chances of survival hinge on using any shield spells you may know to lessen the impact, and then you have to make it to an air bubble or you’ll die. Simple.” Angel informed as a container was pushed onto the loading platform. “Get in.”

“Okay, this is either going to be our deaths, or incredibly fun.” Athena commented and we all filed into the container, which closed behind us and it loaded us into the cylinder.

“...Wil?”

“Yeah Jack?”

“I fucking hate you for accepting this contract.”

“Love you too, buddy.”

Then we were slammed into the sealed doors of the container, and everything went dark again.

[???]

It was still, and nobody was moving when Wilhelm came to from the sound of a polite and cheery voice. “Hello? Hello? You’re going to die.”

Author's Notes:

Yay~ nother chapter! Me and DJ are kinda stuck in crossover limbo with our stories at the moment, so this was the only thing we could do for now o3o