Starlight pulled her head back into the story as Sunset watched on in awe.

"Did you just go outside of the story to yell at the author?" Sunset asked worriedly.

Starlight placed a hand upon her friend's shoulder. "Don't worry about that, the in-universe ramifications of breaking the fourth wall are very minimal once the fourth wall is repaired. Speaking of, the effects should be reverted right about..."

Now. With the fourth wall now repaired, we can get back to the story with the only causality being the narrative.

Placing the RED intelligence on the desk with the BLU, Starlight wondered what she would do next. After all, if the entire point of all this was just to their intellegence, where would that leave her and Suns-

"ALL BLUS REPORT IN IMMEDIATELY," crackled the intercom system. "WE ARE BEING ATTACKED BY ROBOTS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL, I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Starlight turned to Sunset with a false sense of weariness upon her face. "No rest for the weary, am I right?"

"You and me both," she nonchalantly replied. "Now let's go kick some tin cans."

Rushing out of the BLU intelligence room, they encountered a robotic double of the Scout. A quick shotgun blast to the face quickly shut it down, but two more quickly flanked in wielding bats. Sunset took out the one closest to her with a single pistol shot to the knee, watching in delight as it collapsed into scrap. Starlight meanwhile, used another two shots to down the robotic speedster, one to the arm holding the bat and the other straight to the face before it could realise it had no arm.

"Hmm, do you think we should split up?" Starlight asked, wiping oil off of her jacket.

"I think we should, that hallway is pretty cramped." Sunset agreed. "Wanna see how many robots we can take out solo?"

"Hell yea!" Starlight obliged, before starting to charge up the spiral hallway, Sunset taking the other route.

Up and up she went. Taking out more robot Scouts with nary a care in the world. She wondered why they were all RED coloured though.

Reaching the top, she spotted the Medic struggling to fight off a robot Heavy. Using the opputunity to flank, she simply walked up to the heavy and shot it in the back of the head, causing it to collapse.

"Danke comrade!" Medic shouted gratefully, before charging off to find teammates to heal. Now in the main hallway of the base, she made her way to the courtyard outside. The sun still burning in her eyes, she leaped onto a metallic Demoman's shoulders and slammed the butt of her shotgun into the head, pushing it and shutting it down, allowing her to get off easily.

No sign of Sunset, though. This was odd. But with some axe wielding Pyros on the way, she had no time to look. Rushing towards the first one, she simply blasted its face off and tossed it aside before aiming at the second one.

*click click*

"Aw, buck." Starlight noted. She was out of ammo. Swiftly retreating from the axe wielding maniac, she decided to scavenge her own fire axe from the rusting bucket of bolts she just took out. Wrestling it from its grip, she swung wildly at the nearest Pyro, catching it clean across the torso and launching it into the hallway, hitting a few more along the way. She had no time to celebrate, as another Pyro approached her before it swung.

With no time to dodge, Starlight elected to block it with her own axe. While it did block the attack, the sheer force of it snapped the wooden axe handle in two, leaving her defenceless for its next swing. Electing to make use of the head as a makeshift throwing knife, she went straight for its metallic skull. Against all odds, it hit straight through the brain and made it fall over backwards.

Looking around, she still saw no backup. Damn. Electing to grab another fire axe, she was suddenly slammed while her back was turned, sending her flying into the wall.

Disorientated from the heavy blow, she took a look at her attacker while the dizziness wore off. The being stood at about her height, wore similar but robotic versions of her clothing (Including her beanie) and instead of having a right arm, had a stump with a strange blaster on it. Probably what it used to hit Starlight with.

Still, a robotic double of her? Whoever's been making these robots clearly knows who she was already. Not letting this faze her any longer, she staggered up, before grabbing the nearby axe and swinging for her own robotic double.

To her surprise, it dodged perfectly, before pointing its stump aim right at her and it glowing a familiar teal color. The blast sent Starlight right up to the top part of the courtyard, leaving her daze again. Despite her lack of awareness again, she could hear the metallic clanking on wood as it stomped up the stairs. Before she knew it, she was being lifted up by the robots left arm and pinned against the wall by her throat, leaving her unable to scream for help.

The robot's unfeeling blue eyes pierced into her soul, not caring who it was attacking or the fact that it was similar to her in every way. It simply pointed its blaster arm to Starlight's own left arm and charged one more time. For several agonising seconds, she could hear it gradually get louder and higher pitched, as the glow on it increased in brightness.

Suddenly, a searing pain entered just before her left shoulder. Choking cries of pain escaped Starlight's mouth as she continued to be pinned to the wall. Looking at the ground for some reason, the robotic Starlight turned her blaster right towards Starlight's face. Once again, the agonising sound of it charging entered her ears as she closed her eyes silently hoped that someone would save her, while silently and heavily crying in sheer agony.

Thankfully, before it could blast Starlight's face, a mighty explosion rang through the air and Starlight was released from the robot's grip, now being launched to the grate door nearby the BLU spawn. Opening her eyes again, the robot's arm was still around her neck... But was no longer attached to the rest of her body, as the grip loosened and fell to the ground.

A kilt entered her vision, as two arms picked her up and leaned her gently towards the wall, allowing her to get a better view of her saviour. She recognised the general shape of his body, it being the Demoman, but she had never really seen his full face due to wearing a blast mask. He was also remarkably sober. But he was sporting a hat with a tuft on it that had the words "Black Watch" engraved on it. He was also wearing a bagpipe on his back.

"Aye lass, are ya alright? That robot thing did a number on ya." he asked, gently yet firmly.

"Yeah, I should be fine." Starlight said, trying to wipe her brow with her left arm. It was still in searing pain around her left shoulder, but aside from that, she couldn't feel a thing. She tried moving it again. After that , she tried her right arm, but it was okay. Looking down to her left, she noticed why she couldn't feel her left arm.

She didn't have a left arm.

"Hmm." Starlight put her remaining arm under her chin. "Think I'm going to change my answer." Before the shock finally caught up to her, knocking her out cold.

Starlight awoke, her brain a mess. She tried to focus on what happened what felt like a minute ago, but couldn't. Had it been all a dream?

"Are you sure she'll be fine, Medic?" a voice she thought was Sunset's asked worriedly.

"I'm sure she'll make a full recovery as soon as she uh, finds out." Medic answered, seeming to pause before the last two words.

"Alright then, I'll go back to Canterlot High and report everything to Princess Twilight, she must be worried sick." Sunset spoke again, before walking what was seemingly towards her. She felt a hand on her right shoulder. "Starlight, I'm going to have to go back to Canterlot High a bit. After what happened earlier, I think we'll need all the help we can get now. Stay safe and uh, try not to freak out."

The sounds of her walking go quieter, before a warping-type noise occurred, presumably her going to Canterlot High. She then opened her eyes. The world was blurred and confusing and her left arm felt... Off somehow. After her eyesight cleared up, she noticed a few things.

One, she was in some sort of hospital bed. And two, Medic, Solider and Demoman where here. Their expressions were one of concern, though.

"So uh, what happened?" Starlight asked simply.

"How do I put this... " Solider brefily pondered, before placing a hand on Starlight's bed. "A business competitor has bought out RED team and is now planning to wipe us out with robots. The first "Wave", so to speak caught us off guard, but we managed to find out where they're being mass produced and the likely location of their next attack." Solider explained in a caring tone.

"Wow, I missed a bit of fun then." Starlight noted weakly, before trying to lift herself out of bed. She was stopped by the soft but firm hand of the Medic.

"Mein Fraulein," he stated bluntly, yet in the same concerned tone that Solider and Sunset had. "We can't let you back into the battlefield just yet."

"Why not? I'm perfectly fine, Just had a bit of a broke arm, no big deal.. Unless what I thought was a dream was real?" Starlight's voice was now full of trepidation.

"Just... look at your left arm, Starlight."

She looked. It was the same one that her robotic double had pinned her against the wall with. Aside from the occasional part where the metal shone, you could barely tell it was a fake. Giving her arm a test wiggle, she was surprised to find it moved naturally.

"Huh. So I did lose an arm. Why did you replace it with my double's, then?"

Medic stepped forward. "I can't regrow arms. Broken bones, sprains, bullet wounds, knife wounds, any kind of wound I can handle fine. That's just mostly regrowing the damaged skin. But even I can't repair a destroyed arm."

"By the time we pushed them back, we found you unconscious with Demoman keeping an eye on you." Solider stated before he realised what he said. "Uh, no pun intended."

Demoman simply pointed towards his covered eye socket and said "Eye."

"Even if we had gotten back sooner, the arm was too damaged by your double slamming into it," Medic noted sadly. "It's miraculous that you have a left arm at all at this point, really. You don't just find robotic limbs that happen to fit you willy-nilly."

Starlight inspected her arm some more. There were bolts and screws in there, but it fit her like a glove. She could even somewhat "feel" the weight of it. Although due to the metallic nature, it was nowhere near as touch sensitive. Clenching her fist, she stared right at Medic and Solider. "Do you think that a simple arm replacement will stop me? Before, I was having fun, if a little hesitant about killing people. Now that it's robots, that fear is out of the window. And this," she outstretched her left arm as it glinted in the light. "This is simply a reminder of my own failure. It won't happen again!"

"No, it won't. Because you're retired." Solider stated firmly. "After Sunset comes back from this Canterlot High place, she's going to send you back to your homeworld to recover."

"Why!" Starlight slammed her metallic fist into a nearby table, causing the wood to splinter and crack. "Don't you see Solider, you're going to die to that... Thing that nearly killed me! I need to make sure that bucket of bolts never hurts anyone again!"

Despite her anger and lashing out, Solider remained calm, almost stoic. "Starlight Glimmer. You're our friend. We're just trying to do what's best for you. Now please, rest up. We hate doing this as much as you do, but we're not sending a body back."

The three mercs left Starlight in silence. Looking back at her arm, Starlight's eyes blazed in anger.

"If I'm going to die alone, I'm taking that fucking robot with me."

Author's Notes:

Speaking of casualties, how fast did that go downhill? Lost an arm, her allies and probably most of her sanity too.

So what happens next? Will Starlight simply give up and go home?

I have nothing to lose now. Let the oil flow...

... Swear I closed that fourth wall.

You did. Just enough wiggle room to crash the Author's Notes. Be glad that's all I can do.

You're freaking me out.

Just let me have this.

Demoman (Sober)