“So we ended up getting mixed up in the whole Intangibles deal, and...well, that could’ve gone better…

“We hung around for a while, not completely sure what to do. I know Gentle wanted to leave, but she never said so, as if she wasn’t completely sure.

“Me? Honestly, I wanted to stay. We’d done cool things before, right? Maybe we could do the impossible again.

“But our choice was made for us…

They stayed all day, and through the night. The Intangibles always attacked during the day - according to Stack, they liked having a good fight rather than assassinating ponies while they slept. So it was safe enough to sleep in the hospital, as long as they left very early the next morning if they wanted to leave before the bloodshed.

When she awoke the next morning, Gentle instantly picked up her saddlebags and began to look around the hospital for Cobalt. The Intangibles hadn’t attacked yet, but they would soon, and she didn’t want to stick around for it. It hurt to know that she was leaving these ponies to their death, but at the same time, she refused to be a part of it.

“Decided to leave?”

She whipped around and saw Stack. He had donned some light leather armour in preparation for the Intangibles’ attack, and from the look in his eyes and state of his mane, he hadn’t slept all night.

Gentle sighed sadly. “I’m just looking for Cobalt, and then we’re...we’re leaving. You said yourself that staying here was suicide.”

He just nodded. “We’ll defend the hospital until one side is all dead, regardless of which side. I understand your desire to leave.”

“Do you know where Coby is?”

“The kid? Last I saw him, he was chatting with Ten Mill - the mare who left the Intangibles. They’re up on the fourth floor.”

Gentle nodded in thanks and began heading for the nearly-broken wooden stairs. She was on the first floor, meaning she had a lot of climbing to do. She sighed-

-and fell backwards as somepony charged down the stairs, knocking her over.

“They’re here! They’re coming already!”

Suddenly, the calm and quiet room became one of panic. Some younger ponies tried to find hiding places despite carrying weapons, while other stallions and mares began yelling questions at the pony who had delivered this news. Stack was trying to calm them all down with little success.

Gentle, meanwhile, left it all behind as she galloped up the stairs. “Cobalt!”

Ten Mill, or Millie as she asked to be called, was everything Cobalt expected a former member of one of the most feared gangs of the Wasteland to look like. She was a dark orange colour that bordered on brown, with a pitch-black mane almost completely covered by a metal helmet. The rest of her armour, which covered her entire body sans the face and tail, was similarly metal and dark. She had an assault rifle next to her, a pistol attached to her armour, and what looked like grenades attached to a belt around her hip. All in all, she looked like the kind of mare who could either save or destroy any town she waltzed into, making Cobalt believe the Intangibles’ dangerous reputation even more.

As fearsome as she looked, though, she seemed perfectly willing to talk with him. For some reason, the other ponies in the room looked shocked when they noticed this. Then again, the sight of an armoured pony shooting the breeze with a little colt would probably catch anypony’s attention.

However, whatever they were talking about was interrupted when a sniper by the window was suddenly blasted in the head, falling over backwards with the rifle still in his grasp. Everypony else at the windows ducked down, and one ran down the stairs to warn the other ponies in the building.

Millie grabbed her assault rifle instantly, glowering at the windows. “Already...”

Cobalt looked concerned. “What is it?”

“The Intangibles. They’re here.” She trotted over to the window, and Cobalt followed. “Now we just sit and wait to die.”

“Can’t we talk to them?”

“Not likely, pal. Even the reasonable ones like me are hard to...well, reason with, especially when they’re on the warpath like they are now.” She sighed. “I’d suggest you run away, but aside from the windows, there’s only one way into and out of this hospital. And it’d lead you right into their gunfire.”

“What about fighting? Can’t we fight them off?”

“Not unless you’ve got a missile launcher to blast them all from this distance. And the reflexes to do it before they snipe you. Trust me, they never miss a shot.” She sighed. “The best you could probably do right now is hide, hope they don’t find you, and sneak out when they’re done ransacking and murdering. Otherwise, you’ll-”

“Cobalt!”

The purple colt was suddenly grabbed by his older companion, startling both him and Millie. “We have to go, now!”

“Calm down there, lady,” Millie said with a firm but calm tone. “As I just got finished telling your son, there’s no point running now.”

Gentle glared at her. “He’s not my-” She stopped as what the former Intangible said registered in her brain. “What do you mean, no point?”

“Head out the front door, you’ll get shot even from the distance they’re at, and that distance is closing every second. There’s no back door, and there aren’t any windows that aren’t boarded up except the ones on the fourth and fifth floors, and I don’t need to tell you that if you take those as your way out, you won’t be doing much running away.” Millie shook her head. “Just hide somewhere in here, hope for the best, and sneak away when they’re gone. That’s all we can do now.”

While the discussion happened, Cobalt had wrestled away from Gentle’s grip and trotted over to the sniper that had been shot no more than two minutes ago. Ignoring the corpse, he picked up the sniper rifle itself and propped it up against the window so he could look down the scope at the oncoming attackers.

“Coby, get away from that window! You’ll get shot!” Gentle moved to pull him away, but Millie blocked her way.

“Give him a second,” Millie said quietly. “I know that look.”

There was silence for all of three seconds, then another shot rang out. However, this one seemed to be from below, as it was quieter than the one a few minutes ago. It was followed by several more shots, along with screams of pain and anger.

“They’re here!” Gentle cried, moving to grab Cobalt again. Before she could, he pulled the trigger on the rifle.

BANG!

From below, there was a scream of pain, and a fair amount of the gunfire ceased. Gentle and Millie exchanged a look of confusion and worry while Cobalt turned back to them, grinning.

“We’re fine.”

“Don’t give any ground!” Stack yelled, ordering as many ponies as he could forward. He held his hunting rifle, but didn’t use it quite yet, as the Intangibles had yet to get into the hospital itself. However, it wouldn’t be long before they did. All the ponies he was sending out were either retreating quickly, or getting riddled with bullets instantly and collapsing.

That’s not to say the entire population of the hospital was being torn apart. A quarter of them ponies were hiding, while others like Stack waited inside the first room. A few were scattered around on the higher floors, preparing their equipment. As it was, maybe a third were actually going outside. But to Stack, that was still a third too many dying or being injured.

Another stallion staggered over to Stack’s side. He had taken several bullets to the side and one of his legs, but his armour had saved him. He growled. “I don’t know where they’re coming from! They can’t be shooting that fast!”

Stack raised an eyebrow. Deciding to see what this stallion meant, he grabbed a helmet and prepared his weapon, heading for the front door to join the firefight. He barely got out the doorway before he saw what was going on - or rather, didn’t see.

Half the Intangibles were several feet back, picking off who they could with ranged rifles, though they were also being dealt with by the snipers a couple floors up. Getting up close and personal were about two dozen of them, armed primarily with shotguns or hunting rifles. In his quick glance, he noticed only two of them with assault rifles.

So where’s this barrage of bullets coming from?

One bullet coming from an apparent mystery source dug into his leg, and he hissed as he struggled to stay standing. Remembering his own weapon, he began firing at the ponies, not sure if he was actually hitting anything or not.

BANG!

A sniper shot from the top floor of the hospital suddenly rang out, and in a split second, Stack realized what was going on.

The bullet seemed to have been aimed at nothing, as it didn’t hit anypony - anypony visible, that was. However, as it dug into what must have been its target, an armoured unicorn stallion suddenly became visible right in that spot, wielding a minigun in his magic. Or rather, he had been, until the bullet took his horn clean off.

The rate of bullet fire diminished a fair amount, especially since the other visible ponies mostly stopped firing to look over at their decloaked companion, surprised at what must have been a lucky shot. This gave precious seconds for the Winterstar residents to open fire without much resistance, taking out several of them, including the formerly invisible minigun-wielder.

But the battle was still far from over. The torrent of bullets resumed, only a bit slower. One invisible Intangible was taken out, but there had to be more with the same firepower, and it was too unlikely that whoever shot the first one would score another lucky-

BANG!

Another invisible pony became visible, this time with the bullet piercing their skull rather than just their horn, knocking them over dead almost before their cloaking wore off.

“Son of a Changeling!” one of the visible Intangibles cursed. He stopped firing. “Intangibles, fall back!”

The gang followed orders, firing less as they focused more on trying to get away. Another sniper shot rang out, hitting the leg of a cloaked pony, rendering them visible but not hindering them too much from their escape attempt.

What did hinder the Intangibles was the sudden appearance of...a floating cannon, attached to a screen. There was no other way to describe it. It looked like a gigantic gun, floating about a foot off the ground, with a terminal screen on top.

One of the Intangibles aimed their hunting rifle and shot at it. The bullet bounced off the screen harmlessly. As if that was the cue, the gun suddenly clicked, and a robotic voice echoed from the terminal.

“INITIATING INCINERATION SEQUENCE.”

Walls of fire poured from the gun, engulfing every last one of the Intangibles. Screams of pain quickly died out, but the flames persisted as the floating gun continued to spray the area, its robotic voice continuing to drone on.

“INITIATING INCINERATION- INITIATING INCINER- INCINER- SEQ- INITIATING INCINERATION SEQ-”

The Winterstar residents quickly took shelter back inside the hospital while the living flamethrower continued to attack the ponies that had already been cremated. Eventually, it ran out of fuel, and continued clicking and droning at the piles of ashes and scorched earth.

The door opened, and a bulky earth pony stepped out, walking stoically up to the floating gun. He looked at it for a moment, then turned and bucked it in the side. The terminal shut off, and the gun fell to the ground.

“Still gotta work out the kinks,” Break chuckled, grabbing the machinery and dragging it back towards the hospital. “Alright, safe ta come out now, ya wimps! He ain’t gonna hurt ya!”

Quest Complete
THE INVINCIBLE INTANGIBLES

Footnote: Level Up (9)
New Perk: Wavy Air. Not so invisible after all! Ponies or creatures using technology to appear invisible will still be easy for you to see when looking through a weapon's scope.