MagiWars!

by Draco Loco

Gun Crazy

The Faierie, Canterlot's oldest pub, was currently playing host to only one occupant, a woman dressed all in black. A ringing sound started playing from within her pocket. She pulled her phone out, and read the text that she had received.

H.H.: Trojan has been gifted.

She smiled to herself, taking a sip of her wine. As she was savoring the flavor, her phone started to ring. She picked it up and answered, "Report."

The person on the other end was keeping their voice down, as though they didn't want to be heard, "Ma'am, the scientists here are building some crazy stuff. Most of it looks like what they already showed us, but the rest-NoNo. No, please NOOO-" he was cut off with a sickening crunch, followed by a thud.

After a moment of silence, a deep, menacing voice took up the line, "You would do well to focus your resources, and spies, on your assignments." There was a cracking sound, then nothing but a dial tone.

She listened for but a few more seconds before ending the call, clenching her jaw in anger. She then took a few calming breaths before making a call. "Trojan has been planted. It's only a matter of time until project 'Lucifer' is put into effect."

"Excellent. What of our 'divas'?"

"No luck. It's almost as if they fell off the face of the planet."

"Keep looking. They are an asset we cannot afford to substitute."

"Understood," she then took a breath for what she needed to say next, "There is, one other thing. There is a body in need of disposal at the labs."

"It's already being taken care of." and with that, he ended the call.

She sat there, silently looking at the phone in her hand, feeling powerless for the first time in years. "This all better be worth it," she hissed, then knocked back the rest of her wine, and ordered something stronger.

---

"About time," Cinch said as the girls exited the building into the shooting range, "Honestly, how long does it take to put on a simple uniform?"

The girls chose to ignore her, with Rainbow Dash shooting her a glare. The enclosure the girls found themselves in was about the size of a football field. It had concrete walls on either side, and a metal one on the far end. There was what appeared to be a large shed off to the side.

The door to the shed opened, allowing a man to exit. He was dressed in the same uniform as the girls, was holding a tablet in one hand, and carrying a duffle bag in the other. Not looking up from the tablet, he set the bag down and said "Alright, the simulators are ready for 'Applejack' and 'Rainbow Dash', through there," he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the shed.

"Sweet! Come on, AJ!" Rainbow was already racing towards the shed.

Applejack gave a small chuckle, said "I'm comin'," and followed Rainbow.

The guy then looked up from the tablet and addressed the remaining girls, "Hello. My name is Sure Shot, and I will be handing you your temporary weapons, and helping out any way I can. Now, any questions?"

Sunset half raised her hand, "Uh, yeah. What do you mean 'temporary'?"

Sure Shot looked at Sunset before answering, "These weapons are nothing more than the functional prototypes used in that god-awful commercial. The final product, and your permanent weapons, will be ready by the time the first competition starts. They'll have the same functionality as these, but they'll look more like their own gun, instead of a mish mash."

"What of us whom acquired a gun without mixing parts?" Rarity inquired.

"They'll have enough of a design difference to differentiate between them and the ones that shoot bullets. Anything else?"

"What do you know about how the guns are built?" Twilight asked.

"Just that they use some new energy discovered by some scientist from overseas."

"Oh," Twilight said despondently.

"That everything?" When no one made an attempt to ask another question, he knelt down next to the duffle bag, saying "Alright, then I'll hand out your guns." He opened the bag, pulling out a pistol, "Looks like first up is a glock pistol. Who's this for?"

Twilight took a hesitant step forward, slowly raised her hand and said" U-um, t-that'd be m-me, sir."

Seeing her hesitate in coming towards him, he held the gun out impatiently, saying "Come on, we haven't got all day."

Twilight started towards him, feeling her breath coming faster every time she thought about the magic inside the gun. When she was within arms reach, she slowly reached for the gun. As she did, her chest felt like it was in a vise, slowly squeezing tighter and tighter. As her hand wrapped around the guns handle, a odd, almost imperceptible sensation traveled up her arm, then her neck, and ended at the base of her skull. When the sensation dissipated, her breathing returned to normal, and the pressure in her chest began to lessen. After she had grabbed it fully, the panic she was feeling had left, replaced by a sense of confusion. She was snapped back to reality when Sure Shot asked her "Have you ever shot a gun before?"

Twilight looked up at him, "Huh? Uh, no, no I haven't." Sure Shot then proceeded to demonstrate the proper way to hold her gun, as well as pointing put the location of the safety.

After he handed Twilight back her gun, he picked up his tablet, touched the screen a few times, and a target popped out of the ground around thirty yards away. "Whenever you're ready, start shooting."

"R-right," Twilight began shooting, hitting the inner third portion of the target. Wherever one of her shots landed, the target glowed red for a few seconds, before returning to normal.

As Twilight was practicing her aim, Sure Shot went back over to his bag and pulled out another gun, "Looks like a combination tommy gun and grenade launcher."

Pinkie Pie jumped up and said" That's mine! But there should be two of them."

Sure Shot looked back through the bag and pulled out another gun identical to the last one. He looked at Pinkie and asked "One for backup, or both at once?"

"Both at once."

Sure Shot then proceeded to do for Pinkie what he did for Twilight. When Sure Shot brought up the target fifty yards away, Pinkie fired off a barrage. When she was done shooting, everything within thirty feet of the target was glowing and starting to dim, except the target itself. "Oh, come on! How'd I miss?" and then a shot sounded from her right, hitting the target dead center. Pinkie looked to the source of the shot and said "Wow! Nice shot Fluttershy!" she took a look at the gun, "What type of gun is that?"

"Oh, um, a long range tranq' rifle." Fluttershy said.

"That is not something I would have expected you to choose, Rarity," at Sunset's statement, everyone turned to look at what Rarity chose.

Rarity was holding a rather large rifle. In response to the looks of confusion everyone was giving her, Rarity said "Well, the AS50 happens to be the firearm I am most familiar with, courtesy of my father. Honestly, the only thing he loves more than guns is football."

Before anyone could say anything else on the matter, Sure Shot spoke up, "Since you're using a sniper rifle, you'll want to climb that ladder over there"-he pointed back towards the shed- "to get to the snipers nest. We'll start you off with targets at the end of the range, then move you onto ones set-up on top of nearby buildings," as he was talking, he tapped on his tablet and set-up three targets at different positions at the end of the enclosure, and two that popped out of the metal wall.

"Oh. Very well then," Rarity slung her rifle over her shoulder, keeping it in place with its strap. She then went over to, and started to climb, the ladder.

As Rarity was headed to the nest, Sure Shot handed Sunset her gun, "An FN P90 with an AK 47 barrel, and the full range selective fire option. An impressive piece of hardware."

As Sunset grabbed hold of her gun, a sensation entered her body. The sensation registered to Sunset, and her eyes widened at the familiarity, staring at the gun. A shot from the roof of the building snapped Sunset out of her trance, followed by the sound of a body falling over and Rarity saying "I'm okay!"

Sure Shot sighed and shouted up to Rarity "You need to either brace yourself or lie down when using a sniper rifle!"

"Thank you!"

"Hey, Sure Shot, got any moving targets?" Sunset asked, a smile growing on her lips.

Sure Shot taped on his tablet a few more times, an several new targets popped up, some moving left and right, others moving in an arch on an axis. Sunset closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her smile turning all too familiar to the other girls, minus Twilight. As she breathed out, she opened her eyes to look out at the targets with that old smirk of hers. She brought her gun up, prepared to fire, and pulled the trigger. She hit the outermost portion of one of the targets, took aim and fired at another target, hitting it closer to the center. She continued on like this, getting closer and closer to the center, until she was hitting dead center every other shot.

"...crying?"

Sunset blinked, and looked to were the voice came from, seeing Pinkie and Fluttershy looking at her, concerned and confused, "What?"

"I said 'why are you crying?'" Pinkie said.

"I'm not..." she trailed off as she lowered her gun and ran her hand over her cheek, seeing it come back wet. "I'm fine. Let's just shoot some more and get out of here," she said, with a small smile.

"Actually, I think it'd be better if we left now," Twilight said as she came over to them.

Sunset looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Why?"

Twilight looked up at the roof, were Sure Shot had gone to check on Rarity, "Just, trust me. We need to leave."

Sunset gave her a sceptical look, but them sighed and said "Alright." She then looked up to the roof and cupped her hand over her mouth, shouting "Hey Rarity! Time to leave!"

"Alright! I'll be right down!"

By the time Rarity and Sure Shot got down from the roof, Pinkie had retrieved Rainbow Dash and Applejack, telling them they were leaving.

Sure Shot picked up his bag and held it open, "Alright, put your guns back in the bag."

"Why?" Rainbow asked, looking confused.

"Corporate espionage." At the confused looks she received, Twilight adjusted her glasses before going into an explanation, "If the prototypes get out and into the hands of a competitor, they can reverse engineer them, know how to sabotage the final product, and adapt the technology for themselves," she then placed her gun in the bag.

After they had all returned their weapons and left the building, with a not too pleasant goodbye from Cinch, they all piled into Fluttershy's van. After Fluttershy had driven awhile, Pinkie nudged Twilight with her elbow, "Stop fidgeting. We got what we needed."

"You mean we stole it," Twilight mumbled.

"Potato, tomahto. The bottom line is we got it. Aaannd I got a little something extra," Pinkie said with a sly smile.

"What are you two talking about?" Rainbow asked as she leaned over the back of the seat to look at them.

Pinkie reached into her hair with both hands and pulled out a gun with one, and a laminated card with the other. "I grabed a couple things to help our investigation," she said as-a-matter-of-fact.

"Wait. Yah stole somethin'!?" Applejack exclaimed in surprise, looking at Pinkie.

"I'm gonna give 'em back!"

"Doesn't matter, yah still stole 'em!"

Twilight interjected before the situation could escalate, "Yes, it was bad to steal them, but this is our best chance to find out why and how they're using magic in their technology."

"Twilight's right, AJ," Sunset said, "Twilight, after you dissect that gun, let me take a look at your notes. I have something I wanna check."

"Can you do anything with this employee I.D. card I grabed?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight grabed the card and looked it over, "Actually, I should be able to access their servers with this and, maybe, find out were they got the magic from."

"Alright, get on that as soon as you can," as she said that, Fluttershy pulled up in front of Sunset's house. "Meanwhile, I have something to take care of," she got out of the van, bade her friends farewell, and went inside, "Time to get to work. I just hope I remember enough."

Author's Note:

Apologies for the long delay with this one, I had a little trouble with the internet and ended up having to write it with my phone.

Notice any mistakes, let me know, and I'll fix them.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

On the fence about adding adventure tag.

...Well, if it makes any difference, I think it needs one.

[EchoWing]

The person on the other end was keeping their voice down, as though they didn't want to be heard, "Ma'am, the scientists hear are building some crazy stuff. Most of it looks like what they already showed us, but the rest-NoNo. No, please NOOO-" he was cut off with a sickening crunch, fallowed by a thud.

You meant "here" and "followed".

Not sure if there's anything else, but I'm glad that you're keeping up with this.

[Draco Loco]

7579091
Fixed, thanks for pointing those out.
And I'm not giving up on this anytime soon. I have plans.