//------------------------------//
// Introductions 
// Story: Lost planet: Equestria 
// by MoonShine 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1: Introductions


“Shit, get her up, her harmonizer isn’t kicking in, this isn’t good. We’re pinned down.” A voice shouts out in the darkness as a pink mare in armour with a large thermal backpack on lays in the snow while her helmet is half missing and blood staining the snow around her head, the voice shouts again, “Command, we need back-up, evac or anything, just send us anything, we’re pinned down by ex-NEVEC soldiers. We have two dead, one more badly wounded with a harmoniser failing and we have only four other troops send anything.” The voice this time sounded different, more feminine, the pony that the voice belonged to lifts up and leans onto a rock that they are behind and aims her rifle at a soldier, waits for the best moment and takes the shot then quickly aims to the right to take out another soldier before taking another shot at it to confirm the kill, she then falls back down behind the rock.

“Treacle, where is our support, we can’t last out here forever, we’re starting to run low on ammo and our thermal supplies won’t last forever either.” Another pony shouts, this time it definitely was male, the first, female pony with the rifle turns to face him, he’s behind another rock about 4 meters away from them.

“Don’t you think I know that?! How much thermal do you have left....everypony, thermal check NOW!” she shouts, quickly everypony falls down behind cover and checks their harmonizers to check their thermal levels, the male then shouts out.
“Treacle, I have plenty, 3000+ units.”

“Good to hear Nix!”

Another female pony shouts out to her, “I have 1200+ units.”

”Right Claire. Copy that”

The third pony, a male goes to check after taking a couple of shots at the soldiers but it caught by surprise as a soldier vaults the rock and over him only to aim with his gun down at him in one hoof and fire the entire clip into his head, the harmoniser glowing as it tries to heal him but then suddenly cuts off as his life signs go null. 

The soldier lands not far ahead of him and uses his anchor to latch onto a structure just to the right of him, the anchor then retracts lifting him up and along while the others turn and open fire on him, Treacle managing to get a lucky shot at him causing him to collapse as soon as he gets to end of the anchor, she then takes her time to get as steady aim as he crawls away, she gets the shot and takes it, the bullet flying right into his cranium and out the other side, the nearby wall getting a new paintwork.

“Good shot Treacle!” Nix shouts to her before pulling out a rocket-launcher, “One rocket left, hope this helps.” He says to himself before standing up to look over the rock, launcher on shoulder and aims over by a bunch of soldiers taking cover by a destroyed VS, as soon as he goes to squeeze the trigger the ground shakes slightly but over by the soldiers it must be shaking more as they fall over and panic.

“Treacle, what is that? An Earthquake?!” he shouts to her, she looks over to him and shakes her head.

“No, it can’t be!”

“Then what is it?”

“I have a feeling it might be...” she says at the right time, a Chrysalis then shoots out of the ground just in front of the ex-NEVEC soldiers and lands facing them, “AKRID!” she shouts, they all slam against their cover to hide from it, the Akrid turns to look about as the soldiers open fire on it and scatter from their cover and fire on the orange points on its legs, the Chrysalis then faces the soldiers as it shrieks in pain from the bullets impacting on the weak point, it jumps up and slams down on a soldier with one of its front legs, it then lowers its head to look at him before its entire head splitting into three pieces and grabs the soldier’s upper body with it, clamps shut and pulls, the abdomen part of the acrid coming under heavy fire from all directions, it pulls up quickly to have the soldier be ripped in half completely, even to the point of his legs still wailing about on the floor as the snow turns red around them.

Treacle peeks over the rock to see the soldier be spat out by the Chrysalis and it swings for another soldiers, “I’m low on thermal Nix, only got 400+ units, share me some of yours!” she shouts to him, he looks over to her after resting the rocket-launcher on the rock and then pulls out a medium sized pistol, he aims it at her and pulls the trigger, the barrel starts to glow as his thermal energy is drained from him and into his gun, he gets up to 1000 units in the pistol and releases the trigger, the orange coloured energy bullet shoots forward and hits Treacle, her harmonizer absorbing it quickly, she checks it and her T-Eng levels now at 1400+, she pulls out a similar pistol and aims at the pink mare on the floor.

“I hope this works.” She says.

“Me too, or else that’ll be a waste of thermal, we need her to help us.” Nix shouts at her as he grabs his launcher and slides it down the face of the rock towards him to behind it.

She pulls the trigger and allows it to reach 600 units before letting go and the energy shoots at the body of the mare, the energy hits the body and forms a pool around it for a brief moment, Treacle watching and sighs as it hasn’t worked, she turns to face over the rock and fires at the abdomen of the Akrid as it still tries to fend off the NEVEC soldiers, now down to two left.

She watches as the Akrid swipes and hits one of the soldiers, the last ex-NEVEC soldier dives forward into a roll to end up under the Akrid and uses his anchor to latch onto the abdomen, it pulls him up and he rides on the back of the Akrid as it squirms about to shake him off, multiple round whizzing past him from Treacle and the other male pony along with Nix.

The Chrysalis finally manages to shake off the soldier as it throws him off into a wall and stomps on him, his harmoniser not getting a chance to even activate before he dies, it then turns to look about in the direction of Treacle and Nix but they had already taken cover behind the rocks, Treacle looks over to Nix who gets ready with the launcher, she then looks the other way to see the other male pony running for the structure to get the high-ground to snipe the Akrid if it were to get close to see them, she looks to see the dead pony on the floor, then watches as the ex-NEVEC soldier drops from the structure.

The Chrysalis sees the body and slowly makes its way over to it, Treacle and Nix shuffling round the rocks as it moves to keep out of its sight. If it were to look down at them now it wound definitely find them as it stands practically over them. 

Nix slides round the rock slowly so that he can get a clear aim at one of the legs of it while Treacle slowly heads the other way and creeps up on the abdomen area, just as she goes to run up to it a shadow blacks out the area around her and she looks up to see a pony jumping over her.

“WOOOOOOO!!!!!!” it shouts as it lands just ahead of her and charges at the Akrid which has now turned to see them, Nix fires the launcher and it hits the leg blowing it clean off, it flies up and as it falls to the floor it turns to pure ice and shatters upon impact, the pony jumps up into the air at the Akrid squirms about in pain, it goes to swing for it but the pony uses its anchor to attach onto the abdomen area and pulls itself onto it, as it rides the Akrid it pulls out a shotgun and fires on it before letting go to be thrown up onto the structure safely.

The Akrid limps over to Nix as it spots him first as he runs over out into the storm, it closely following him, Treacle firing with a machine gun on its other leg to try and slow it down, she looks back at the structure to see theta the pony is in fact her sister the one dead on the floor earlier, the thermal energy worker, her harmonizer worked.

“Moonshine give us covering fire!” she shouts to the pink mare who ducks down and then reappears holding a rocket launcher, she then charges at the Akrid while firing on its leg, Nix quickly dives into the snow where a pile is covering something, he starts to dig quickly as if he could see something he likes, the Akrid goes to swing for him with its other remaining arm but is stopped as Treacle jumps up and lands on its abdomen and goes to fire but it quickly shakes her of and she lands down next to Nix, she rolls over and starts to dig too, Moonshine takes aim just as the Chrysalis faces back at Treacle and Nix, the other pony firing his rifle on it, she pulls the trigger and the Akrid turns just right so that the rocket impacts the abdomen, it starts to glow bright red, an indicator that its getting weaker.

“Yes, just what we need.” Treacle says as she turns and fires and the leg of the Akrid, Nix stands up quickly with a Gatling gun in his grasp, he spins himself round and spools it up while turning, as soon as the Akrid comes into sight he opens fire, the first few rounds whizzing past it then they start to impact on it and rips apart the abdomen, soon the Akrid roars with pain before going to eat Treacle as she runs under it but it starts to freeze up as it gets close to her, the head freezing last as she slides to come out the other side and roars in achievement as they finally kill the Akrid.

Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support.

Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base.