It was late night now, and Nomad was moving to board the airship as he had been instructed. He spent a while exploring the ship's features, finding many seemingly modern, along with many more rather primitive weapons on the ship. He examined them closer, seeing that each was made to kill. He shuddered slightly at the thought, despite the many fights he's seen, they've been with his mentor and have been directed specifically for being humane, and to treasure life whenever he has the choice to. At least, that is what Damos had instructed him to do.
"How long will we be there?" Nomad asked few hours into the ride.
"We're fighting a war right now, Nomad, expect a few weeks at least," a pony said to him.
"Weeks... I pray that the fox will be alright," Nomad said.
"Come again,"
"It was just some ramblings about what I need help with," Nomad said.
"Okay, well, Spitfire may want to see you now, she'll brief you on what's going on and what you're gonna do,"
He nodded, then made his way down to the lower decks of the airship, finding the speedy pegasus sitting in a chair waiting for him. Nomad made his way in, stopping a few feet in front of the desk with his hands behind his back in a formal manner.
"So," she began, "you're the little creeper I was looking for back in the Everfree, huh?"
"... Pardon?"
"You can disappear, and based on the hardware you've got with you, you're pretty well set for a fight, aren't ya?"
"I... Ahem, could you restate that?"
"What're you? Thick?!" she shouted, causing the young monk to take a step back, "You've got skills others of us don't have, and right now, we're getting ripped apart by the griffin military, you're gonna be our secret weapon against them,"
"... Understood..."
"Listen, here's the job, clanker, the Crystal Empire is currently under occupation by the griffins, if you can get us through the enemy lines, we have straight shot at making it to the current military leader holed up there and take the empire back!"
"... Is that it? Infiltrate and exterminate?"
"Ha, you make it sound easier than it is, they've got some kind of weapon that's tearing our ground forces apart, and their air force is impossible to penetrate, unless we have you,"
The ship was suddenly full of activity, soldiers bustling hither and thither to make preparations.
"Looks like we're here, be sure to impress, clanker, cause we'll have no use for your corpse," Spitfire finished.
Nomad gratefully removed himself form her presence, "Damos was much kinder when he sent me into battle," he said.
He looked out at the sky, seeing bombs going off in the sky off to the distance. It frightened him, he had never seen so many bombs in use before.
"Why are there so many explosives?" Nomad asked.
"Cause they're trying to shoot us out of the sky," the same pony replied.
The ship was jostled, being grazed by a deadly missile in the hull.
"Ha, best get the hell off before we take a hit to the hull!" the pony commented.
Taking this advice to heart, he leaned over the edge, examining the fall. Mustering up his courage, he leaped from the ship, plummeting downwards at dangerous speeds.
"I musn't open my wings, they will break them for sure," Nomad said, "I'll have to make the landing,"
He adjusted himself so he was in a diving position towards the ground. He went down at terrifying speeds. He adjusted himself for landing, hitting the ground extremely hard and making a slight crater where he struck. Throughout his bones were a series of complex shock absorbing rings wrapped around them, made for the very purpose of landing hard, yet, safely. Having activating this useful augmentation with a proper landing, he rose from the ground ready for the task at hand.
"The nine-tailed fox is counting on me," he grabbed his rifle strapped across his back, "I must get this done so that I may take care of her as soon as I can,"
He grabbed a mag, hidden inside his robes, and placed it in inside the rifle. He then cocked the weapon, watching blue tipped, plastic rounds get loaded into the weapon's chamber. He began to review his mission in his head.
"Find the griffin military leader and defeat him, they said he'd be in a fortress of some sort," he said.
He looked around, finding the huge castle that marked the crystal empire. Knowing his goal on first sight, he rushed his way for it, moving at the truly insane speeds only Kamido were capable of. Around him, the griffins were in a frenzy, moving into the crowds of freshly deployed ground forces to maul them with their claws. Those who flew, were equally brutalized, often getting their wings severed or even a cut in the throat from the piercing weapons they were murdered with. Nomad was horrified, all the carnage that was unfolding on the field, taken as a casual thing by Princess Celestia. The cost of all life was very high to Nomad, and he wasn't ready to resort to this cruel method. Some griffin flyers noticed him gawking at the slaughter before him, and dived in to engage the monk. Seeing the attackers speeding towards him, a spark went off.
"I am the disciple of a Cyber God!" he said.
In a single, impressive backflip, he easily dodged the two assailants, firing several tazer rounds into their backs and incapacitating them. He landed on the ground hard, the winds of the blizzard casting frost on his dancing robes. Displaying himself as a severe threat, many griffin soldiers were pointing at him and converging on him.
"Break beneath the weight of truth!" Nomad shouted, back handing a griffin to send him off course into the snow.
Others were on their way to engage him, and, knowing he couldn't fight them all at once, avoided them all and ran for a nearby house. He skipped up and clung to the edge of the roof, throwing himself up to the top. From there, he was able to down a few griffins with his rifle before they were able to close the distance between them. The feathered warriors easily flew to the top of the house, engaging Nomad in a deadly, close quarters fight. Nomad countered this with heavy strikes from his rifle's stock, typically laying the soldier sprawled out on the ground and unable to fight.
"You destroy yourselves with your evil!" Nomad cried, landing a powerful kick in a griffin's chest, breaking a few ribs.
Their numbers were getting greater, and despite his efforts to dodge all the thrusts and slashes from spears and swords, he was still grazed here and there by them. In an attempt to gain breathing space, Nomad lowered his body to allow for higher kicks, eventually resting his head on the frosted floor and spinning on it in a whirlwind of hard-hitting cyber legs. The griffins were cleared out, and many retreated back to avoid the peculiar tactic. Nomad quickly returned to his feet, being greeted by the griffins drawing ranged weapons, looking much like muskets, and aiming them directly for the monk. He raised his arms in a defensive stance, taking several rounds into his cybernetic body. Fortunately, Nomad's cybernetics provided a permanent energy shield over his body, but even they couldn't protect him entirely from the lead that peppered him. His shield was broken after the first volley, throwing him back off the roof of the house he was on.
"Ah! I must hide until my shields return!"
Nomad threw himself back onto his feet, running for cover among the advancing pony forces. Hiding behind a crystal pillar jutting out of the ground, he stashed his rifle and pulled a sawed off shotgun from his robes. He checked the shells inside, lethal, carbon alloy slugs. He pulled out the shells and replaced them with non-lethal pressurized air rounds. He looked at his black armored arm, seeing the transparent blue screen of his shields reform around his body. Recharged and reloaded, Nomad poked his head form behind the pillar, locating an open sensitive point to exploit. Using advanced optical enhancements, Nomad spotted an ammo dump on one side of the far away griffin entrenchment, along with barrels of fuel for their artillery not far from the ammo dump. He took notice of how lightly it was guarded compared to the huge castle he had tried to breach earlier.
"If I could dispose of the munitions and fuel, not only will that be a heavy blow, but it will distract them long enough for me to slip into the crystal fortress,"
He noticed more and more killing on the field, causing him to cringe up and cower.
"If I could do this quickly, I could also help stop this bloodshed," Nomad said to himself.
He summoned his cyber wings, gliding slightly above the thick snow at great speeds. He went straight for the fuel dump, hoping to ignite it to destroy it and the ammo near it. It nearly no time at all, he was already at the entrenchment, dodging musket fire from a small group of griffins guarding the fuel and munitions. Upon reaching a trench dug into the ground, a soldier popped out, thrusting a spear right into Nomad's wing and shattering it. He yelped in pain, quickly retracting his wings to prevent further damage, as he landed inside the trench. Five soldiers cornered the young fighter, pointing spears and musket barrels directly for his head. Nomad had few choices, his rifle was nearly empty and he couldn't draw the weapon in time, he had to introduce another advantage to the battlefield. Focusing his vision on the barrels of fuel, he thrust his palm in their direction, mustering up his psionic power and causing them to suddenly burst into flames, thus decimating the fuel and ammo supply. The five soldiers dived for the floor, trying to avoid the shrapnel thrown in all directions. This was his chance, he activated his cloaking, and rushed off to the crystal fort, leaping up to a low balcony hanging off the side. Just like that, he was in. He grabbed his rifle and fastened a fresh magazine inside it, loaded with the same non-lethal plastic rounds.
"If I were to hide in a tower with a war beneath it, where'd I go?" he asked himself.
He looked around, seeing the battle rage from beneath, arrows flying around haphazardly. He noticed that the tower lacked a sufficient bunker to reside in.
"The top," he said, and began his ascent upwards.
He checked his cyber wings, still damaged from the earlier attacks.
"I can't fly like this,"
With this limitation, Nomad reactivated his cloaking, then leaped onto the walls, clinging to it like a spider.
"My climbing claws will be most useful in this endeavor!"
With great speed and grace, Nomad scrambled up the walls, going past staircases that hung off the walls, and leaping onto pillars in different rooms to reach higher ones. He didn't see any soldiers inside the tower, and it worried him that there were none.
"The leader may have ordered all the troops to defend the outer tower from the ponies, I must not assume that he did not spare a few for himself," he said, still climbing.
His ascent went smoothly, being completely invisible and moving through the castle swiftly. It wasn't long before he finally found the top floor, having a single door leading to a single room. The throne room. Resettling himself on the floor and relieving his cloak, he made his way to the door, debating his method of entrance.
"They most likely are waiting for me, I must be swift, come like the wind, and go like lightning,"
Approaching the door, he grabbed a small, circular item from his robes, then placed it on the door, pressing a few buttons in rapid succession then retreating back to the side of the door. He armed a grenade, made to electrocute targets until they go unconscious from the shock, and then pulled a switch from his robes.
"For the preservation of life," he said.
He activated the switch, causing the charge he placed to blow the doors open, where he then tossed his grenade into the room. Hearing many agonized screams, Nomad slipped inside, being encountered by two guards left unscathed by the sudden assault. Nomad was fast to counter, blocking the punches of the first guard, and laying him out cold with a single strike to the head. The second, swung for his head, which Nomad ducked beneath, then swiped his leg while he was bipedal and struck him hard in the stomach as he was falling to the ground. Both were effortlessly incapacitated, and all that was left was the griffin military leader.
"You," Nomad began, "pull back your attack, you have spilled the blood of enough already!"
"So," the leader replied, "you're the ponies' secret weapon, never thought you'd look this ugly,"
Nomad recoiled slightly, "I will not ask you again, pull back your forces and leave this place for its rightful owners!"
"You're mistaken, alien, the Crystal Empire belongs to the griffins, we've placed our flag here,"
"Then I will tear down your flag, your thirst for conquest is wrong in the eyes of the innocent!"
"Look at you, such a great warrior, you could have everything, wealth, women, fight for what's right, alien, fight for us, in our vision to remake the land,"
"I fight to maintain order and peace, which is exactly what men of great power should strive for. You cannot continue with this, you cannot try to justify the killing of others, pull back your forces and lessen the blood that weighs upon you,"
"I am cleansing the land, purifying it from all this mediocrity! I thought you'd know better, I thought you'd realize that this is the best for everyone!"
"The best for everyone is the freedom of their choice, griffin, to have peace among each other is less demanding of life and blood,"
"War feeds its people better, alien, I figured you'd know that, now either join us, or die by our claws,"
"Listen to yourself, griffin, you haven't given me any choice of walking away in peace, simply to die for you or by you. This is how demons come, griffin, this is a way to bring them to you, and be devoured by them. You have the chance to stop all this, but nothing will happen unless you pull your soldiers back, and leave the Crystal Empire in peace, do not be one who is evil,"
"Me? Evil? You've insulted me, alien, you are the one who is evil, preventing us from achieving our destiny! To be the greatest race in all the land! You are slowing us down, creature, I offered you the highest honor of joining our ranks, but I'm sorry, you must die now,"
Nomad tensed up, beginning to rush the leader as he turned away from him non-nonchalantly. Nomad heard a clicking sound, then an explosion suddenly caught him from beneath. He was knocked several feet into the air, the explosion singing his robes and shattering the level he was on. He was thrown off the tower, falling from extreme heights. He had no control of his fall, meaning he wouldn't be able to activate his landing implant, and from the height he was falling, he would surely die.
"Bravo, we've got eyes on a falling target, know what it is?"
"Negative, but it's not a pony for sure,"
"Copy that, open fire,"
Nomad intercepted communications from his allies, hoping to get help from them. Instead, he was greeted to a barrage of missiles heading his way.
"Please be ready," he said, unfolding his wings. They were fully repaired.
Activating the thrust on them, he stabilized himself and flew away from the missiles now chasing him.
"Whoa, Dragon, this thing's moving faster than anything I've ever seen!"
"How fast are we talking, Bravo?"
"It's probably breaking mach 15 without a sweat, that's impossible as far as I know,"
Nomad looked back at the missiles, the distance between him and them slowing widening, "Let's put these missiles to use,"
Nomad looked around the battle below him, finding nothing of interest to destroy.
"Contact, we've got contact with an iron golem, we're getting hammered down here!"
Nomad's interest was piqued, as he began to locate the golem beneath him.
"I've got a surprise for that golem," he said.
"Dragon, tell me you can lend us some air support!"
"Negative, Echo One, we've got our hooves full here,"
Nomad was on his way, soaring at great speeds to the metal golem on the tundra floor. He was getting closer and closer, with the missiles still pursuing him from behind. The golem was a great black machine, wielding blood stained maces and crude, heavily battered armor.
"Peek-a-boo," he said, pulling up and letting the missiles strike the golem in the back.
It stumbled onto the snowy floor, then dropped face flat into it, confirming its defeat. Nomad was invigorated, explosions were often a real treat for his still young mind.
"Golem is down, repeat, golem is down, we're moving in to storm the castle,"
"Copy that, Echo One, Bravo team, do you have eyes on the griffin leader,"
"We saw him flying out on his own, he's retreating,"
"Bravo, stop him at once, we cannot let that bastard get away again,"
Nomad looked back, seeing a dark shape far, far out in the distance, "You cannot hide in the north's frost," he said, "I will end this battle, even if it means drawing griffin blood,"
Nomad was off in his direction, speeding off to catch the fleeing general. He was determined, and, slightly angry too. Now it didn't matter about bringing justice, it didn't matter about aiding the fox, all that mattered was that he had a score to settle.
And he would not rest until he won.