//------------------------------//
// The first wave. 
// Story: X-COM Ponies 
// by Sneaky Breeze 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 11: The first wave.

-Crow’s Nest. Medical wing.

Cotton stared over at Trixie’s weak form as she struggled to get comfortable. She had awoken two days after the Christmas party incident and was nearly in perfect health. The only thing she continued to suffer from was migraines that kept her in the med wing.

“So you never heard the voice but you remember everything else?” Cotton asked as he shuffled out of his bed, slipping on his duty shirt.

“I remember my horn scratching something into the wall, but after that I only remember waking up here,” Trixie mumbled as she struggled to get out of her bed. Once out she collected a small vanity mirror that had been one of her Christmass gifts, in her magic. She soon felt another migrane but kept herself from showing the discomfort as she examined her hair in the small mirror.

“I’m sure the science crew can find something out. Come on, let’s go see what surprise she was waiting to give the team,” Cotton said as Trixie joined him when they left the medical wing.



-Training room/firing range.

Vahlen had waited until the Doctor said Cotton was combat ready before she unveiled her Christmas gift to the team. Her and the rest of the ‘laser squad’ waited in the training room with several pop-ups of Sectoids standing still ten feet away. Once Cotton entered he was greeted by all of his men.

“Okay everyone, I’m fine. Let’s just get back to business,” Cotton said as he looked to Vahlen and Shen, each standing before a crate. Vahlen turned to her metallic crate and typed in a code on a keypad.

The crate opened with a hiss and Vahlen reached in, pulling out a large rifle with glowing red pieces and a beautiful chrome finish.

“I present to you, the mark six laser rifle,” Vahlen said as the members of the laser squad stared in silent awe until Sneaky Breeze held up his hoof.

“What about something for the ponies?” he asked and Vahlen nodded to Shen.

“I have something just for you,” he said as her waved Sneaky over before opening his crate. Sneaky sat down in front of Shen who pulled out a strange rig with a modified laser pistol on it. The rig was tied to Breeze’s right arm.

“Sneaky, go to the range and aim the pistol at a target.”

Sneaky obeyed and hovered above the ground over to the firing range. He lifted up his right hoof and aimed down range, what came next seemed almost natural as a short, bright red beam came out of the weapon and burned a hole in the stomach of a wooden Sectoid target.

“I did it!” Sneaky shouted and pumped an arm in the air, accidentally firing another shot that blew out a light. Sneaky blushed and lowered his head in embarrassment as the light flickered and Shen called for one of his engineers to find a replacement. 

“Sneaky, only prime the laser pistol when the enemy is near,” Vahlen said with her teeth clenched as she handed a laser rifle over to Cotton.

“Alright, Cotton. It is your turn,” Vahlen said to Jack as she handed out another rifle to Sato.

He took up a position on one knee as another Sectoid figure popped up. He pulled the trigger and a long continuous beam came from the rifle, setting the popup on fire and creating a hole where the beam made contact. The rest of the combat team, ponies included, gaped at the power of the laser.

“That is setting one, focus mode,” Vahlen began as she looked to the laser squad, who could now truly live up to their name.

“The second setting is called rifle mode. It fires shorter, faster blasts from the lens that tend to be weaker but you can get more shots out. The switch works similar for your projectile rifles, right next to the safety.” She said as Cotton flicked it to R mode. The rifle’s whine of energy changed slightly and another target rose.

“Fire when ready,” Vahlen said as the commander pulled the trigger three times and three laser blasts came out. They moved at a much faster speed out of the rifle and reminded Ramos of the Fallout 3 laser rifle as he watched. The blasts set the target on fire again but instead of burning holes through the wooden target, they left scorch marks that didn't quite fully penetrate.

“As you can see, each fire mode has advantages and disadvantages, but that is only for the rifle version,” she said as she waved Boris over.

“I am sure you will know which one is yours,” she said as Boris approached the crate while Shen made sure to tie another laser pistol rig onto Rock Fist’s arm. 

“Alright miss hooves, it's your turn,” Shen said to Derpy who shook her head.

“No, I’m fine with my stun pistol and med-kits,” she said and Shen nodded, deciding to keep the spare pistol as a replacement since they already had one prepared for Trixie if she got better. Shen then waited for the ponies to head over to the firing range before he followed them, to help them test out the rigs.

“This, I like,” Boris said as he held up a heavy laser canon.

“It only has one fire mode, which is automatic. If you will notice its design is similar in some ways to a mini-gun. This is because the energy and heat created by the laser to fire such powerful shots at such a rate of fire requires multiple lenses to keep the barrel form melting. Try it out,” she said and Boris obliged eagerly, He aimed down range at the popup of a thin man and pressed the safety off with his thumb before pulling the trigger. The blasts from the heavy laser barely bothered Boris as he watched the wooden Thin-man be turned to ashes. The recoil was far less than he had expected. 

“Doctor Vahlen, you are a genius!” Boris said as he carried his new toy to the firing range for more practice. Ramos stepped up next with his never ending well of energy.

“Do I get a present too, missus Claus?” Ramos asked as he tried to imitate a young child while putting on his best puppy eyes.

“As a matter of fact you do. Yours was the hardest to get manufacture since the concept of a ‘laser shotgun’ was very difficult to get right,” Vahlen said as she handed Ramos his new scattergun, which to his eyes looked almost like a flamethrower. 

“I’ll be back,” he said in a mock Arnold voice before heading to the firing range with the others.

“Chavivi, it is your turn,” Vahlen said to chavivi who shook his head.

“No thank you doctor, the most important thing about a sniper is not being seen, a bright laser beam that gives away my position is not something I will use unless concealment is not an option in a mission,” Chavivi said as he picked up his weapon anyway.

Soon the entire squad was firing their weapons, losing track of time as they reduced dozens of wooden and cardboard targets to ashes. By that afternoon the squad had stopped to take a break and let their weapons cool down when the alarm rang. Centrl called out over the intercom soon after. 

“Attention laser squad, report to combat stations immediately. Gear up and head to the Skyranger, we have an X-com base under siege,” Central said as he looked up to a screen in the situation room. On the front was a member of the South American X-com in Brazil. He was covered in blood, dirt and plasma burns.

“They found us! We need help, there are too many! They are a new enemy type, our weapons barely have any effect!” the message said before the signal cut out. 

“Bring up global view of that base,” Central said to two technicians before him, watching as they traced the signal to its location. The Brazil base was the largest base in South America and acted as their headquarters, just as the NORAD base was for the North American X-com. 

When the satellite image came up Central was horrified. The base was engulfed in smoke and flames with destroyed Skyrangers, interceptors and local vehicles adding to the plumes of black smoke climbing into the sky. Charred bodies, both human and alien, littered the landing zone as burning trees obscured the old Spanish fort that the base had been built underneath of.

“What about the other SA bases?” Central asked one of his officers who was in contact with them.

“They say they're busy with aliens. Their teams were already engaged when the attack happened, Sir,” the officer said.

“Dammit. Alright I will brief the Commander, you try and relay the message to NORAD,” Central said as he got on the comm with Cotton and briefed him.

“Jesus, looks like we got this new gear just in time,” Cotton said as he slapped the new armor that Shen and Vahlen had been waiting to give them.

"Laser Squad! Armour up!" Cotton said before everyone took their own armor, which had their name on it, from the armour rack and began dressing up, slipping some of their armor over their own clothes.

The carapace armor was a shiny silver and blue that made the laser squad look like old medieval knights. The armor was made out of the alien metals and the lining in between the metal plates that protected the vital organs was a stitching of Nanofiber, adding extra protection so the team didn’t need to wear their own Nano vests. Once they were done the teams raced to the erquipment room and armed up.

“Alright everybody, pack as many grenades as you can. We don’t need clips anymore so this allows us to be more flexible with our equipment,” Cotton said after he slipped on his helmet that had remained largely unchanged with all the new upgrades.

“Derpy, bring your Arc Thrower,” Sneaky said to the female medic pony as she stretched her wings out of the slots on her carapace armor, the pony version resembled the royal guard armor from what seemed so long ago. Derpy then slipped on a helmet with her nickname ‘ditzy doo’ inscribed on the side, mostly the helmet was given to her because she continuously tended to bump into things.

“Why?” she asked she packed her saddle bags with the advanced med-kits and a small bag of muffins.

“Because we should capture one of these new aliens,” Sneaky said, thinking more and more like an X-com agent.

“He’s right. Trixie, you pack one too,” Rock Fist said as he slipped on his armor and the laser pistol rig on his arm. 

“I don’t need one, I have my magic,” Trixie said but Rock shook his head.

“No, no magic for a while. We don’t want you passing out in the middle of a fight,” Rock said as Trixie let out an angered grunt.

“Fine then, but Trixie gets to sit as far from the door as possible,” she said with her nose turned up.

The team loaded up on everything they could. Sato and Lewis also packed their med-kits with them since no one knew how many injured would be at the combat zone. The squad moved out to the hangar bay as both Raven 2 and 3 were being spun up to provide an escort in case more UFOs decided to pop up. The squad boarded their transport armed to the teeth with their base’s most advanced weapons and armor, save for Jack and Lewis who did not have their new equipment finished in time.

“Alright, this is Big Bird taking off,” the main pilot of the Skyranger said as the ship began a vertical takeoff through an above hatchway into the morning sun. The skyranger’s wings adjusted as its extra engines activated for the first time. The transport took off at such speed it would arrive at the base in little over an hour.

The two interceptors flew at the transport’s sides, escorting it along the way. The trio of aircraft observed radio silence, taking every precaution to keep the enemy from knowing that help was on the way.



-In the Skyranger.

“Commander, what kind of enemy types can we expect?” Rock fist asked as he struggled to remain in his seat as the transport moved at high speed.

“We don’t know, Rock. All we do know is that the base was attacked and a new enemy type is present that appears to resist our projectile weapons,” Cotton replied as he checked his laser rifle. 

“Mister Cotton, I thought we were supposed to be a secret?” Derpy asked from her seat.

“She’s right, sir,” Jack said as he checked the double magazine for his XM9. The magazine seemed better suited for a machine gun but given the situation, Jack and Lewis would need the extra rounds.

“I hadn’t thought of that….well just tell them that they are robot ponies or something, pack mules,” Cotton said before holding a hand up.

“No offense guys.” 

Sneaky then lifted his head and held his arms out to his sides.

“Beep boop. I am a robot, I cannot be offended, beep boop,” he said, bringing a few chuckles from the other team members. The rest of the flight was rather uneventful until the interceptor’s received a message. 

“Sir, more alien ships entering the atmosphere near us, permission to engage.” Lyons  asked as he pulled down his HUD visor.

“Permission granted, good hunting,” Cotton said as Raven-2 and 3  broke off to go engage the UFOs

“Good luck Chelsea,” Sneaky mumbled under his breath.

“Good hunting ravens.” The interceptor pilot said as he boosted the speed of his craft while activating a small set of rockets hidden under the nose of the ship, not enough to chase off a UFO but enough to keep them away for an emergency landing if the worse should occur.





-South America.

The Skyranger raced across the sky and made a sharp turn above the secret landing zone for the base that was titled ‘El forte de los angeles’, the angel’s fort. The aircraft landed down in the dense south American foliage, its thrusters blowing dust and leaves in the air as the transport completed a safe landing at the hidden runway.

“Alright, everyone out and keep your eyes open!” Commander Cotton shouted as he moved out with his men. The commander scanned the trees with his laser rifle as the ten other X-com operatives formed a semi-circle around the Skyranger's landing zone. The area was littered with the destroyed pieces of UFOs and Earth vehicles. 

“Big Bird, take off and fly to the base in Mexico . We’ll call you for anything.” Cotton ordered his sky ranger and made a hand signal for his men to move forward. When the sky ranger had taken off, the cloud of dust it left was just enough cover for Cotton’s next orders.

“Sneaky, Derpy, fly up and drop motion trackers ahead of us.” He knew they had understood his orders when he saw the two Pegasus ponies fly up into the air and dropped motion trackers in a destroyed hangar nearby and at the tree line leading to the base.

“All clear, sir,” Sneaky reported before stopping as he looked at the base almost a mile away, he could see the plasma and gunfire exchange and hear it clearly.

“Looks like the base is surrounded, sir. But the enemy has not gotten past a certain point,” Sneaky said before returning with Derpy to the main group.

“Good job. Alright, everyone spread out, stay out of everyone’s fields of fire but make sure you can see your team mates. I don’t want 'Predator' to kill any of us when we aren’t looking,” Cotton said and felt like frowning when only the americans on his team seemed to understand the movie reference.

The eleven X-com agents moved in a staggered line across the airfield as they headed to the base. The team encountered many dead humans and pools of green blood, but no alien bodies until they reached a dead Heavy who had sliced the head off of one of the new alien types with a machete. His blade seemed to have been made of sharpened alien alloy.

“Look at that!” Ramos said, pointing his scatter gun at the dead body of a scaled alien who closely resembled a snake.

“Hold your positions everyone,” Cotton said and moved towards the dead alien while the rest of his team crouched down and scanned the area. Cotton moved over to Ramos and kneeled down nearby, examining the dead alien. It's torso resembled a human in the fact that it had two arms and a head but nothing else was similar. Its body was covered with brown scales, some of which were cracked and punctured by bullets, exposing the soft green insides.

“Freaky. Just one of these did all this?” Ramos asked as Cotton looked around. 

“No, not possible,” Cotton said before turning back to the scene, he reached over to the dead heavy weapons expert who lay on his stomach. Cotton turned him over and instantly wished he hadn’t, the soldier’s entire face had been melted. The fallen trooper’s face was nothing more than a skull with one intact eye with his mouth hanging open in an eternal scream.

“Let’s move on, we got people to save,” Cotton said as he set the dead body down and made a signal to his men to move on. The X-com team moved up through the jungle and were met with more scenes of carnage, it appeared that the flight crews and other personnel at the airfield had tried to run back to base but were chased down. Luckily there were also many dead alien bodies, some of which seemed to have succumbed to gunfire, while others had been beheaded by the alloy blades.

“I don’t see the other team!” A voice came up over the laser squad’s radios as they arrived at a fence that had a sign warning of electrocution, a few dead Snake men seemed to have not heeded the warning.

“Just keep on fighting, I'm sure help will arrive,” another voice said before Cotton activated his radio.

“Attention, this is Commander Cotton of the North American X-com. What's your situation?” 

“Oh thank god help is here. We are under attack by snake aliens, they keep making pushes towards us from all sides in swarms. We are running low on ammunition and fighters, some of our scientists and engineers are even shooting now,” the other voice said.

“Alright, don’t worry. we brought med-kits, explosives and some new weapons. We are at the perimeter fence to your facility on the northwest side and are entering now,” Cotton said as the sound of fighting continued and his team moved through holes created by plasma fire.

“Do you have an entrance we can use?” Cotton asked as he and the others stepped out onto an empty field devoid of trees or plants, a mine field, but a large number of the mines had already been cleared out by the aliens, allowing Cotton and his team to reach the wall of the large fort that seemed like something out of the history books.

“One of my snipers saw you, you have donkeys with you?” the man asked as the ponies fought to keep their protests silent.

“No, they are robots to carry our gear,” Cotton said and hoped his bluff worked.

“Fine, fine, whatever. I'm sorry, but the only way into the base is through the front gate, which is currently swarming with the enemy. The only other way is through a hole they blasted in the side of the base which is even worse off.”

Cotton turned to his men. “You all feeling ballsy today?” he asked and received strong acknowledgments from his team.

“We will clear out that hole in your wall. Just make sure you're ready to seal it up once we get in,” Cotton said and moved with his team down the base’s wall, every now and then dodging falling brass from the rifles being fired above them.

“Are you insane, American?” The other voice said.

“Maybe, and the name is Cotton.”

“And mine is Gabriel, like the angel. Fine. If you think you can do it then go ahead,” Gabriel said as he slammed his fist into a wall, his staff running about in a panic, unsure of what to do as more injured were brought back into the base.

“Gabriel, tell your men not to shoot my ponies because were almost at the hole,” Cotton said as they moved around a wall and met with the sight of dozens of Snake men moving towards the hole blasted in the wall with dozens more emerging from the tree line. The Snake men moved very slowly and just from that seemed a less dangerous enemy. But considering they had rapid firing heavy plasma rifles and seemed to take an ungodly amount of damage made them formidable.

“Alright. Chavivi, Boris, put some fire on the aliens coming out from the trees and give us some space. Everybody else focus on the snakes already closing in on the base,” Cotton ordered and switched his rifle to focus mode.

The X-com crews inside of the old Spanish fort looked on in wonder as bright beams of energy struck the snakes, bringing them down far faster than their own weapons. Combined with the fire from the fort, the snakes never stood a chance.

The Crow’s Nest team moved forward one step at a time while letting loose a near endless stream of laser blasts. Their beams struck the Snake men as they attempted to turn and fire their heavy plasma rifles at the new attackers. Cotton lined up a shot through the sights of his rifle and held down the trigger, a concentrated beam hitting a Snake man in his chest and causing him to scream in pain at the intense heat.

Sneaky flew slightly above the others and fired his laser pistol at any Snake man that seemed to be trying to get up, ensuring a clean assault pass up to the entry point. Trixie was blasting her pistol and her magic, making a few of the Snake men fire on their own, despite Rock Fist’s earlier warnings he was glad that she was using her magic.

Jack and Lewis were positioned as close to the wall of the base as possible since they had weaker weapons, but that didn’t stop them from opening up on Snake men whose flanks were exposed. 

“Alright team, move up inside the base. Jack and Lewis, you go first!” Cotton ordered and the team arrived at the hole the Snake men had blasted in the wall, nearly being shot by an overeager soldier when he spotted them.

“Make room, trooper!” Jack shouted and quickly moved inside the room the hole exposed. It was an old storage room so luckily there was plenty of boxes and lockers to use for cover.

“Cotton, are you there? My men say you pushed the enemy back. I am fairly impressed,” Gabriel said as he watched from one of the few security cameras left on that side, amazed as Cotton’s team push the aliens back for just a moment.

“No worries. Now where do you need our medics and where do you need our gunners?” Cotton asked before standing between the surviving trooper in the storage room and his ponies.

“Our injured are great in number and we have started a triage in our mess hall. We could use some defenders in the breach you just secured.”

“Got it. I’m sending three medics to you, and be sure to tell your men one of them is a robot that looks like a pony,” Cotton said in all seriousness before turning to Boris.

“Boris, set up your heavy laser and lay down some suppressive fire on the snakes from here while we try and set up a better barricade.”

“No need, Commander!” Trixie said proudly before her horn began to glow and a barrier appeared around the front of the breach.

“It is much stronger than a full sphere spell because I just have to focus on one portion,” Trixie said.

“Good job, now can you make a hole in it for Jack and this trooper to shoot through?” Cotton asked as he pointed to the startled and confused defender in the room.

“I'll try,” she said and holes appeared that gave both soldiers a good 90 degree view. They rushed to their gun ports and already took up firing just as the Snake men resumed their charge.

“Keep it up, Trixie. Okay Sato, Ditzy  and Lewis, find the base entrance and start helping out the injured,” The Commander ordered and then looked to the remainder of his group.

“The rest of us will spread out and help in whatever way we can,” Cotton ordered and moved out the door with his soldiers, being met with a sight that reminded him of the ‘Whiskey outpost’ scene in Starship Troopers.

Chavivi ran up to the wall defenses above the breach to help keep Trixie’s barrier up. Other soldiers stared in awe at his laser weapon as he kneeled down and took aim at one Snake man’s belly. He pulled the trigger to his rifle and shot out a beam of focused energy that burned through the snake, spilling out what looked like green spherical organs. 

Sneaky stayed close to Cotton and Rock Fist as they charged to the front gate, a large steel door that had holes burned into it from which some soldiers fired out from. It looked like the door would not hold much longer.

“ Buck me, what can we do?” Sneaky asked, as he kept his wings tucked close to his body.

“Just stick close to…wait...” Rock fist said and looked up to a hole near the top of the wall, he then tapped Cotton’s leg.

“Sir, I have an idea. Sneaky can go up to that hole in the door and put some laser fire on the enemy.” He said while indicating the puncture to the commander.

“Good thinking. Sneaky, make it so,” Cotton replied and watched as Sneaky flew up and hovered as he aimed out, shooting down at the aliens.

“Okay, Rock, stay here and see if there is any heavy lifting you can do,” Cotton said as his radio clicked.

“Commander, your men are a big help here. You brought some needed morale to us and were killing aliens almost twice as fast as before,” Gabriele said as he stood in his base’s situation room, watching the battle turn for his side and the Snake men begin retreating, very slowly.

“Do you know where they came from? I could almost count a couple hundred of these bastards out there,” Cotton said and paced around his position, watching some of the soldiers cheer and holler as the battle came to an end, he also noticed how many dead bodies were littered about. Some charred beyond belief and others missing body parts or dead from holes burned completely through them.

“I don’t know. These things came out of nowhere before the UFOs attacked us. Neither us nor the other bases picked anything up on our systems.”

“This is bad. If we can’t detect them we will be really screwed,” Cotton said.

“I sent a team out in the early stage of the attack to see where they came, maybe find a landed ship. They reported finding something before we lost contact with them. I have their coordinates if you think you and your men can go, but I need your sniper and medics,” Gabrielle said as he typed up a message to the other bases, finding their teams were still busy fighting off the same snake like aliens and had requested local military support.

“Understood. Send someone down to start cleaning up the breach, I’m taking my shield generator with me,” Cotton said before changing channels.

“Alright, Ramos, Sneaky, Trixie and Rock. You are all coming with me, we are going to find a second team and the source of this attack. Meet me at the front entrance. The rest of you keep doing what you're doing,” Cotton said as he hung up his radio and began pacing again. Something wasn’t right about all this. 

“This battle was too easy, too quick,” Cotton said, something tingling at the back of his neck as he hoped he was wrong.



-Skies above South America.

“Target in gun range!” Chelsea shouted as her fighter let loose three bursts of explosive rounds at an alien fighter class UFO. It was in a similar design to other UFOs but with the circular disc seeming cut in two sections, where the exhaust was and where the plasma guns fired out from. The portion where the Sectoid pilot was located resembled a bubble turret from old bombers.

Chelsea watched as her rounds struck the UFO on its wings and then its cockpit before the entire ship ignited in green flame.

“Scratch one flying hubcap, how many more?” She asked and turned her fighter around, the powerful G forces making her feel like she was in a rollercoaster as she flew through smoke from a burning building. The aliens had been attacking a small fishing village in massive numbers. It would be very hard to cover up this attack since the combat could be heard miles away.

“I count about fifteen fighters and another troop transport.” Lyons said as he checked the weapons of his interceptor. They were down to only five Avalanche missiles.

“I don’t think we can handle them, the other fighters are either too injured to continue or out of fuel and ammo.” Chelsea said as she flew next to her fellow interceptor.

The two fighter craft flew directly towards the incoming alien ships expecting to face immense amounts of enemy fire. Only to see the aliens turn around and leave.

“They gave up!?” Shouted Jones, Lyon’s navigator.

“This is weird. Central the aliens have given up.” Chelsea said as she Lyons chased the aliens for abit longer before returning back to the mainland.

“I guess they realized they failed their mission, head to the Mexico base for refueling and rearming then return to the Crow’s Nest.” Central said as he watched the alien contacts disappear off the Holo-globe.

“If they wanted the base gone why didn’t they just bomb it with their ships?” central said, eyes focused on where the laser squad was.

“Why waste the ships and troops on this operation and then just give up?”
“What game are they playing now?” he asked himself once more.