The world was in slow motion.

            Well, not exactly. I blinked once at the little sniper scope icon in my H.U.D., and the world slowed into a sluggish crawl as I targeted the lone zebra charging at me, and took it out with a well placed shot to the head, it's brain matter splattering the rubble in the street behind it.

            I clenched my throat, activating my larynx mic, and mumbled clearly:

            "Tango down, sector seven dash two. Where the fuck is Colgate?!"

            "He's down for the count. KIA. Lost is end route to you, over."

            I started to respond, and promptly began choking on my mic, and swallowed it. Using these things required you to surpress your gag reflex, a talent, that, apparently, I did not nor ever would possess. I turned on my ear bloom instead.

             "This is Lost Star. Rendezvous with me at point E3, OK?" Yelled the Zony. "It'll be a while, I'm pinned down at the moment. Remember, E3!"

             I always sucked at Battleship.

             I started sprinting down the ruined city street, roughly south-ish of where I started. My E.F.S, or Eyes Forward Sparkle,told me that my destination was about five clicks away. Along the way, I observed the city ruins. Almost every window was shattered, and as I ran farther, I noticed that the buildings were almost crumbling into gray dust at points. I skidded to a stop as my huge PipBuck began clicking like crazy, alerting me that the radiation levels were at about 3 rads per second.

             "Gaffer!!!" I yelled. This was the challenge word. Only a teammate of mine would know how to respond.

             "Sundown!" Came the response. Lost Star, in all her glory, stood up directly in front of me. She had been blending into the ground using stone dust. She was almost as good a camoflauge as she was at melee, which is saying something.

"What a quaint little town. We should go here on vacay sometime." Her usual frown curved up at the edges, some of her native Zebra accent coming out.

               I looked around. Although I wasn't exactly the smartest pony, I could still tell sarcasm when I heard it. The entire city of Baltimare was a wreck, somehow managing to be both creepy and endearing at the same time. Sometimes I found the wasted, broken teeth of the charred, scorched buildings to be emvued with incredible beauty.

               Eh. I'm probobly just losing it.

               "Yo. Cy. Snap out of it." Said Lost, clapping her hooves in my face. "Half heart and Char are pinned down to the north.

               "Let me guess. We gotta go get their asses out of the heavy fire, right?''

               "Do not use such vile language around me. Luna will not tolerate it."

                Oh yeah, Lost and her language. She had no tolerance for any swearing or innuendo of any kind.

                ''Let us go." We sped down the block, into the radiation.

                Yeah, we were all fucked.

                We were just coming over the last rise when the heli came into view.

                "Shall we take it out?" Said Lost.

                To be honest, I was completely torn between yelling "Fuck yeah!" and charging, and cowering under my childhood blanket. The thing was huge, firing grenade bursts on full auto down into whoever was below, killing indescriminantly between Zebra and Pony alike.

                "Lost, buy me some time." I said with a gulp.

                 I got out from the shell of a truck we were in, and looked at Lost expectantly. She nodded and moved toward the courtyard where the battle was taking place.  I moved towards the largest sniping post I could see, the old clock tower overlooking the yard.

                 I spread my wings, taking flight towards the clock tower.

                  Bad idea.

                   The zebra gunner in the heli had seen me, and opened fire with the grenade machine gun. I went into SATS, trying to dodge. Each individual grenade went whoshing past me, flying into the distance. In the Zen of SATS, I could even seen the contrail of each grenade as some of them came so close that I could feel them brush my coat. I saw that they were all flechette grenades. Even at slowed-down time, however, they were still moving pretty fast. I tucked in my wings, slow-like, and fell, dodging most of the grenade burst. However, one clipped my wing, and detonated several feet behind me, propelling me down into the courtyard.

                    I saw the fight in the courtyard as I went down. Lost was fighting two zebras hoof to hoof, while Char put on the heat with massive gouts of searing flame from BBQ. I opened fire with my belt-fed shotgun battle saddle, clearing a landing space. The massive gun strapped to the left side of my body turned the courtyard into a living blender, the anti-personnell flechettes teraing apart flesh and bone.

                    I crashed with a sickening CRUNCH.

<--simuation terminated-->

            Fuuuck.... it hurts. Mommy, don't make me get up. Five more minutes... OW!

            I woke up with Colgate's face in mine.

            "Huh. Would've expected Char to go before you."

            My headache was going to overpower me!

            "Yeah, me too. You watching from the monitors?"

            " Yeah. Halfheart's in the observation room."

            About then, Char and Lost came out of thier pods, and Kilowatt a few seconds later. The objective of our simulated mission was to distract the Zeebs, while Voltage planted explosives on an ammo depot.

            "Effin YEAH!" Shouted Char. "we took out that heli!"

            My jaw dropped. "How!?!? Wait, no. On second though, don't tell me. I don't need to know.

             Jeez, this headache was starting to get out of hand! I felt like someone took an eggbeater, shoved it in my ear, and turned it on max speed!

             "Anyone else developing a migrane worse than anal sex with razorwire? I asked politely.

             Everyone agreed.

             Kilowatt piped up. "I... think I'm gonna hit the john. Back in a sec." He sprinted away.

             And as my luck would have it, a klaxon alarm went of at that exact moment.

             You know how in movies, when a klaxon alarm sounds, everyone runs in circles and panics?

             Well, the movies were wrong. They hardly even did the real thing justice! Almost every resident scientist in the q underground facility was running for their lives. It was total chaos. And nobody was even thinking about us, Equestria's only hope.

             My PipBuck's HUD interface, projected directly onto my retina, displayed a message.

<---ALL-EXITS-SEALING-IN-TWO-MINUTES--->

             Way to help prevent chaos and disorderly conduct. This just fanned the flame!

             And the cliche would not be complete without.....

             CRACK! A support beam from above us dislodged itself. And began falling. Right towards me.

             My last thought was: "really....."

              mmmmmmm. Cheese. I love cheese. Moldy milk... milky milky moldy........

My vision went fuzzy and I blacked out again.

              Someone was yelling loudly. I could see the crumbling hallway around us. I attempted to move, and I was in a stretcher.

              "Not agaaaaain...."

               I woke again.

               I saw the titanium walls, the elegant weapons hanging on the wall.

               "The Skreex...."

                I lifted my head up from my resting place.          

                THUMP!

                 "Stasis pod. Hm." I said aloud.

                  Get out get out now don't just ignore it outgetoutnow

                 I had no energy. All I could do was listen helplessly as the oxygen drained from my pod.

Hiiiiiiiisssssss.......