The Lone Survivor

by JTHailstorm

Bad Luck AJ

I was caught peeking into the room by Twilight; she told me she’d explain everythin’ later. What I saw was nothin’ much jus’ a suit of armor with new attachments and other stuff. They’re bound to let us have the new models soon enough.

A few days later we were called out to run another mission. From what I read on the HUD, we are breaking into an invader facility to obtain a secret machine, from there we’re going to destroy the facility. It was a night mission so it should be easy to stay hidden. On the ride to the drop zone I sat on the helicopter and went over my weapon.

“Hey RD, how long before ya get locked up on this mission.” I laughed.

“I’m not going to get locked up.” Rainbow Dash said. She checked her weapon. “If we can stay out of sight we’ll be good.”

“That is ‘til we rig it ta blow.” I said.

“That reminds me.” Twilight Sparkle said. She sent us other orders. “These are your individual orders. We will be broken up into pairs to carryout other objectives.” I checked mine over.

“Applejack! We’re on demolition duty! This is so exciting.” Pinkie Pie said.

“Wait, they’re letting Pinkie do the demolition stuff?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yes, she is the demo expert.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Why is AJ on demo duty?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well, Pinkie needs a lock pick specialist to go with her and get her into places. The designated Lock Pick specialists are: Applejack, Rarity, and me.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Is that really a specialization?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yes, you realize the training you have to go through? Okay well it’s not that long but you have to memorize different locks and how to bypass their mechanisms.” Rarity said.

“Really?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Jus’ let it go.” I said.

“But…” Rainbow Dash said.

“Not another word.” I said. Rainbow Dash sat quietly for the rest of the trip. When we arrived we made our way to the facility. We stopped some ways away to get in sync.

“Alright girls, spread out and we’ll meet back here in a two hours for extraction. Sync.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Sync.” Everypony said. Each of us broke off into our pairs and made our way to our specific points. The others proceeded on their objectives while Pinkie and I hung back for a while to observe the enemy movement.

“Hey Applejack, do you think they’ll notice us?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Maybe, it all depends on certain things. Ah think we’ll be fine.” I said.

“Well let’s go throw these bad guys a party.” Pinkie Pie said. We infiltrated the facility and made our way to the first entry point. I started picking the lock. The lock was a standard key lock, something I could pick without any problem.

“Ah’m almost done…jus’ a few more seconds.” I said.

“Okie Dokie.” Pinkie Pie said. Finally I picked the lock and opened the door. The room was a generator room. Pinkie looked for a place to place the explosives. She found a spot near the main generator in the room. Carefully she started placing explosives in a crevice between the main generator and another one.

“Are ya done with this one yet?” I asked.

“Yep.” Pinkie Pie said. She skipped over to me. “On to the next one.” We made our way to the next room. I got us into the room and she set the explosives. The next few were exactly the same way until this last one.

“Well this is the one is gonna cover our tracks.” I said.

“This is the one will be bigger than the others. It’ll be like fireworks.” Pinkie Pie said. I started picking the lock.

“Well that’s one way of puttin’ it.” I said. When I was nearly done the door opened and standing on the other side was Rainbow Dash.

“I knew I could hear somepony talking. Rarity it’s just AJ and Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash said. Rarity walked over carrying an object.

“Is that what you two were supposed to get?” I asked. The object wasn’t that bulky but it was pretty big.

“That? Yeah…apparently it’s light enough that Rarity can carry it and pick the locks.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Have you seen the power core for this facility? We’ve only been to the generator rooms.” Pinkie Pie asked.

“If I do recall, we did find a room with a peculiar lock on it.” Rarity said.

“What kind of lock?” I asked.

“Looked like a holographic lock.” Rarity said.

“Great…” I said. Though I was decent at what I did, I didn't like holographic locks. They jus' took too long to pick an' quite frankly they set off silent alarms.

“That’s probably the room.” Pinkie Pie said.

“It is the room. Why else would ya have a lock like that?” I said.

“Just to be awesome.” Rainbow Dash said.

“No.” I said.

“Can’t you just blow the door off?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Nope, if any sign of intrusion is seen it could spell trouble for us.” I said.

“In each of the doors there are mechanisms that transmit a silent alarm if it is triggered. An explosion, even a small one can scramble all sentries to that area.” Rarity explained.

“And if we blow the door off we could set off all of the other explosives all ready set and make us go kablooey.” Pinkie Pie said.

“Okay, I get it. So we’ll blow up if you blow the door open. Then don’t plant it.” Rainbow Dash said.

“We can’t do that. We were instructed to blow up the facility, if were only to detonate the explosive charges we have set it would blow up part of the facility. The goal is to make this facility unusable.” Pinkie Pie said. If this will end Rainbow’s questions that would be great but that’s probably not gonna happen.

“We’ve gotta git goin’, ya know we’ve only got an hour to plant the last of the explosives and get to the extraction zone.” I said.

“That is right, Rainbow we should get going.” Rarity said.

“Okay. We’ll catch you two later.” Rainbow Dash said. Rainbow and Rarity quietly made their way to the extraction point. Pinkie and I made our way to the door with the hybrid lock. I started picking the lock and Pinkie kept watch.

“Applejack, I noticed that this door has a camera pointed at it but there are no enemy sentries rushing to our location.” Pinkie Pie said. There was a gun pointed at my head. “Oh there they are.” The cheer in her voice was not soothing at all.

“Step away from the door.” The Sentry said. He was the guy with the gun to my head. I glanced over to him and the smirk on his face was sickening.

“Ah don’t think Ah could do that fer ya.” I said.

“Applejack…” Pinkie Pie said.

“Listen to your friend.” The Sentry said.

“Go ahead an’ shoot me. I mess up this lock an’ this whole facility will blow.” I said. Hopefully he won’t see through my bluff. Luckily I have a helmet on an’ it’s coverin’ my face.

“It won’t trigger it.” The Sentry said.

“Ah have it set to detonate all the explosives online.” I said. I hoped that somepony would save us. Then a loud bang went off beside me. Blinded and my ears were ringing, and I couldn’t keep balanced. Somethin’ carried me off or at least that’s what it felt like. Slowly my senses returned to me.

“Applejack.” Fluttershy said. My helmet was off and I was on the extraction ship.

“Huh? What happened?” I asked. My head was swooming luckily I was strapped in. “Where am Ah? Where’s Pinkie?”

“It’s okay…Pinkie is with Twilight. They are finishing the job.” Fluttershy said.

“So everythin’ is okay?” I asked.

“Well Twilight and I had to take care of the sentries but overall Pinkie came to her senses a lot sooner than you did. Then again the flash bang landed next to you.” Fluttershy said. Then Rainbow Dash hovered next to me.

“What were you saying earlier?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Hey, at least mah armor didn’t git locked up.” I said.

“Well…well you got knocked out.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Can you go one day without fightin’ with one of us?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Well stop turnin’ things into an argument.” I said. She looked at me dumbfounded then landed.

“…Okay.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Anyways, Twilight and Pinkie should be back any time now.” Fluttershy said.

“Ah guess I’m lucky y’all saved us back there.” I said.

“Why didn’t you have your tracker on?” Fluttershy asked.

“It must’ve malfunctioned. It was fine an’ dandy when we made our way to the different areas.” I said.

“Wait a second. Why didn’t you see us when you were opening that door?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yeah, both you and Pinkie showed up on our trackers.” Rarity said.

“Ah didn’t see a thing.” I said.

“I’d recommend getting your equipment checked out.” Fluttershy said.

“Ah will cause that ain’t good.” I said. Then Pinkie and Twilight entered the ship.

“Glad to see you’re all right AJ.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“There should be an explosion soon.” Pinkie Pie cheered. She waited for the explosion but the ship closed up. “Aw…I wanted to see my work in action.”

“You’ll hear about it.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“I’m not happy about that.” Pinkie Pie said.

“We’ve got another call.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Don’t we have to drop this stuff off?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well the stuff is on the ship right? We were only asked to get the stuff.” Twilight Sparkle said. Everypony put their helmets on. The new orders appeared on the activity HUD. I read the orders over and it said we’ve got to assist some soldiers in a nearby town.

“So the ship is going to drop us off in a hot zone?” Fluttershy asked.

“No, we’re going to jump.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Sorry to say this but not all of us can fly.” Rarity said.

“We don’t got any of the right equipment to make the jump.” I said.

“You’re right but we have fliers who can carry others.” Twilight Sparkle said. She looked at Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow you carry Applejack, Fluttershy you carry Rarity, and Pinkie you are with me. Sync.”

“Sync.” The rest of us said. Twilight checked to see if the stuff we got was secured. When she returned the back opened up. Rainbow and I walked to the edge and looked down.

“We’re going to be in a hot zone?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yes.” Twilight Sparkle said.

“So when do we jump?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“In about 30 seconds.” Twilight Sparkle said. Rainbow Dash clipped a safety leash to one of the hooks on my armor.

“Try not to flail around too much.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Ah won’t.” I said. She grabbed me and we made the jump. We fell at a faster pace than the others main cause Dash was divin’ down. “Ah don’t think we should be goin’ this fast.” Rainbow’s wings opened and she pulled up.

“Just think this is the first time I got to use my wings in combat. It’s so exhilarating.” Rainbow Dash said. We soared above the city at a fast pace.

“Ya better slow down so we can find the…” I said. Then Rainbow let go of me as she banked to the left. Luckily we are attached together usin’ a safety leash.

“My wing!” Rainbow Dash screamed.

“There’s a building over…” I said. A bullet severed the safety leash and I fell. “Well this the worst way to die…ever…of all time.” I fell through the roof of a building. Everythin’ went black but the good thing was I wasn’t in that much pain.

Author's Note:

Let me tell you this. Writing the chapter sucked, it was easy when I could get the time to sit down and type. Between work, school, and other obligations, this was added to my chaos.
Anyways this chapter is only the beginning of the many troubles AJ faces with dysfunctional equipment. At least armor lock works. Just to be clear, RD is okay and you'll find that out next chapter. Which means, AJ survived the fall...you'll understand later.
Like always, remember to like, comment, and other stuff. Hope ya enjoy reading this.