Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun 4: Tetralogy
Admiral Biscuit
Amethyst Star regarded the human warily. Thus far, her experience with humans in this world was that they were all trying to kill her. It had turned out that most of them weren't that good at it, but she hadn't survived this long without being cautious, which was why her first thought was it's a trap.
Nevertheless, she didn't fire her rocket launcher right away.
“Stay where you are,” she demanded, in a voice which brooked no argument.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Mark insisted.
I'll be the judge of that. “Paws where I can see them.”
He nodded eagerly and stepped forward. This was the dangerous part; if he did have friends who were using him as bait, now was when they'd strike, when her focus was on him.
“Why should I trust you?”
Mark stopped and considered this. “Because we're on the same team, and only noobs kill teammates.” He pointed to a banner on the shoulder of his uniform, which was the same as the one she had on her shirt. It hadn't been hers to begin with, of course, but she was willing to let that misunderstanding stand, at least for the moment.
Just the same, it could still be a trap. She took a side-step, putting herself a little bit closer to a conveniently large rock.
She was going to take him at his word, though; she already knew that. Maybe she'd known it the moment she saw him—he wasn't like the others. Sure, he was wearing a uniform like they were, but he reeked of cowardice. Or else he'd wet himself.
Aside from the first soldier, she hadn't spent any time talking to any other people, so there was still a lot she didn't know, and maybe he'd be the one to answer her questions.
Mark didn't notice the mental debate that she was having; in truth, he was kind of clueless when it came to interacting with other people, and he had no real chance when he was talking to a unicorn. As far as he was concerned, the ear-flicks and occasional tail-swish meant nothing; anyways, he was more focused on the fact that she appeared to have one of every weapon in the game strapped to her somehow.
“I know my way around the game,” he offered.
“Game?” Amethyst narrowed her eyes. “Is that what this is to humans?”
“Well, yeah. It's a game you play on a computer, except that somehow I'm stuck in it.” Mark absently put his hands back in his pockets. “And I guess that you are, too.”
She snorted. “What kind of person would consider this a game?”
“EA, I guess. Lots of people play it.”
People are weird. But she knew that already, of course. Every one of the people who had come to Equestria before—besides Chell—were a pain in her flank.
“I'm Mark, by the way.”
“Amethyst Star.” She giggled, for the first time since she'd arrived in this Luna-forsaken hellhole. Mark. Appropriate enough. “A lot of ponies call me Sparkler, though.”
“So you've never heard of Battlefield?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Mark's eyes narrowed. “Well, I'm like an expert at the game. One of the best, really.”
“Is that so?”
“Yup.”
Then why are you hiding rather than fighting?“So how do we get out of here?”
“I guess we complete the objective.”
“And you know how?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, there's a couple of different ways, you see. It depends on what the objective is. Like, sometimes you have to capture a building, or defend one. You can capture a flag, or protect someone.”
She nodded. It was nice to know that there were rules, and a way to win. “Tell me everything.”
• • •
“You're going too fast!”
“I am not!” Mark turned to glare at her. “Anyways, it's better to be fast—they can't shoot you when you're fast.”
As if they'd heard, a hail of bullets peppered the ground just behind the Jeep, one of them actually hitting the spare tire and deflating it. Mark twisted the wheel and the Jeep slid around a corner, scraping against a building before it dropped back to four wheels.
“Anypony who knows how to lead won't have a problem—“ Her thought hung, unfinished, as the front of the Jeep dropped into a mortar crater and caught its bumper on the other side, flipping it ass over teakettle. Sparkler, no stranger to seatbelts, remained in her seat for the brief duration of the ride. Mark, who was too much of an expert to need one, was flung completely clear of the wreckage, and launched impressively high into the air before limply flopping back down like a rag doll.
Sparkler angled her head down until she could see the seat belt and lasered through it with her horn, twisting as it broke free so that she landed on her hooves.
She'd hardly gotten herself untangled before a soldier sprinted around the corner of the building, intent on finishing what Mark's bad driving had started. She saw him just in time, and ducked back under the Jeep, quickly weighing her options. Of course all the good guns had gone flying when the Jeep rolled, but she still had a flare gun, and the jerrycan off the back of the Jeep had landed right by the soldier.
Flare guns weren't terribly accurate, since they'd never been intended to be used as a weapon, but it was accurate enough, and the resulting explosion was rather satisfying.
She got clear of the Jeep while flaming bits were still raining down, and grabbed up as many weapons as she could find on her way to rescue Mark, who was out cold in the middle of the street.
Sparkler considered leaving him for dead, but instead wrapped her scarf through his armpits and used it to drag him around a corner, bundling him up between a couple of crates until he regained consciousness. As hiding places went, it left a lot to be desired, but then Mark hadn't been very draggable, and beggars couldn't be choosers. Maybe his next plan would be better.
• • •
The two of them huddled in an alleyway, studying the fortress in front of them.
“All we gotta do is get up that flight of stairs,” Mark assured her. “'Cause this is one of the buildings that has a flag in it sometimes.”
Sparkler looked at the stairs. Every instinct was telling her that to just gallop up them was a sure way to die—they were open on three sides, and anybody could be at the top, shooting down. Up a floor, around a landing, then up another floor, maybe ten seconds of complete exposure. “Isn't there a better way?”
He shrugged. “Not really, not unless you've got a helicopter. I think that the other guys have them all, ‘cause I haven’t seen any where they usually appear.”
“I don't have a helicopter on me, but I know where one is.” She'd seen it before, but it was of little interest to her—Sparkler's skills didn't extend as far as flying a helicopter. “Should be easy enough to get, too. There was only one man guarding it, and he's not very alert.”
“Let's get going, then.”
• • •
It didn't take them too long to get to the chopper. Once Sparkler had described the location, Mark took off, his injuries not slowing him too much. Sparkler just followed along—he was making himself a rather large target, although she didn't really mind. If there was an ambush, he'd find it, and the more time she'd spent with him the less certain she was that he actually knew anything useful. He was better than no company, but only just.
By some miracle, they made it all the way unscathed. As they approached the last corner, Sparkler tugged Mark back with her field—it wouldn't do to alert the guard that they were there, after all.
“We've got to be subtle,” Sparkler hissed. “There are other soldiers around besides the man guarding it, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mark leaned around the corner, getting a view of the helicopter. “So what are you thinking, just sort of creep up there and knife him?”
“Garrote,” she said. “It's much quieter. Trust me, people scream a lot when you stab them, and slitting throats isn’t all that quiet, either. And it’s really messy.”
“Got it.” Mark reached back and grabbed a coil of shoelace off her back. “I'm on it—he'll never know that I was there.” He stuck his head around the corner for a moment and nodded. “His back's to us—time to Leroy Jenkins this shit.”
Before she could even ask what a Leroy Jenkins was, Mark was gone, racing along the road. Sparkler sighed and screwed a silencer onto her sniper rifle. She had a terrible idea how this was going to turn out, and she needed him to stay alive long enough to fly the helicopter.
It was a good thing that she did, too. Among the many skills which Mark lacked, garroting was apparently on that list. The guard had been inattentive; he'd never seen Mark coming, but he'd noticed as soon as the loop of shoelace dropped around his neck, and hadn't been willing to stop struggling until Sparkler finally got him through the head.
Of course, that had brought plenty of unwanted attention, and she'd spent the next five minutes picking off soldiers one-by-one until the entire area was littered with their bodies. Mark had contributed somewhat by getting aboard the helicopter and firing its minigun until it ran out of ammunition, successfully killing two soldiers.
Sparkler stowed the sniper rifle—it was bolt action, and not all that great a weapon for a mare on the run—and galloped to the helicopter, leaping aboard before somebody sniped her. “Come on, let's go, before reinforcements come.”
“Uh, I usually man the gun.”
“You’re gonna be the pilot. I thought you knew how to fly one of these.”
“Well, yeah.” He looked into the cockpit. “I mean, how hard can it be? I just thought, since it was your idea. . . .”
“If I knew how to fly a helicopter, I'd've already been flying it.” Sparkler glanced around, hoping that maybe there would be a new box of ammunition for the gun that had somehow survived all the carnage. Sadly, there was not.
“Make me do all the work,” he muttered, sliding into the pilot's seat.
Sparkler ignored his gripes as she slipped on a parachute. She was beginning to suspect that he flew as well as he drove.
After what felt like an eternity, the helicopter coughed to life, and once the rotor got up to speed, took to the air like a schizophrenic turkey. It cleared the nearby buildings, barely, and then began an erratic, crippled flight over the battlefield, lurching up and down in the air until Mark finally got the hang of the controls, and then it shot up skyward fast enough to pin Sparkler to the floor.
“Gotta stay clear of rocket fire,” Mark shouted.
• • •
The plan had been to drop down and hover right next to the door, which Sparkler had every intention of opening with her rocket launcher before leaping into the building and finishing off anybody who was still standing. And the first part of the plan had gone flawlessly—the helicopter had indeed performed a perfect drop. There had been no opportunity to perform the second part, due to Mark’s piloting skills; the helicopter slammed into the ground in a spectacular manner. Sparkler, holding the rocket launcher, had no time at all to prepare for a crash landing, and accidentally triggered the rocket when the helicopter hit the ground. Luckily, the side door was open, and the rocket flew harmlessly down the street, bringing down the pitiful remains of a bakery.
Mark, undaunted, climbed out of the cockpit through the shattered windscreen, and Leroy Jenkinsed his way up the undamaged stairs, while Sparkler struggled back to her hooves.
Mark is an idiot, she though, not for the first time.
• • •
“So this is it.”
Mark nodded. “Last building we haven't explored. There are maps in there, see, and if you get them, then you win.”
“And you're sure of that.”
“Yeah.”
“Like you knew how to fly a helicopter.”
“It's easier in the game,” he said defensively. “Come on.”
Without waiting for an invitation, he kicked the door, which didn't open. A few more kicks proved entirely ineffective, and Mark reached for the chainsaw that was strapped across Sparkler's back.
“I have had enough,” she announced. “All this time, I've been doing it your way; this time, we're doing it my way. Stay behind me, and keep your mouth shut, unless there's somebody sneaking up on us.”
“But I know—“
“Shut up.” Sparkler eyed the door. One good buck . . .
She came into the room like a charging rhino, two guns in her field. The men inside were ready for an assault, mostly, but they weren't prepared for an angry unicorn with guns. In less than a second, all eight of them were dead, and it had only taken her nine bullets. She reached across the room with her field and jerked the next door off its hinges, rolling a grenade into the hallway as she dropped the guns she'd been carrying.
“I fucking hate this place,” she muttered, firing a shotgun to her left. “I hate every sun-cursed soldier who wants a piece of my hide.” A short burst from her M1 cleared the room to her right. “I hate how every single vehicle I've ridden in for the last day has crashed.” The firing pin on her M1 clicked as it hit an empty chamber, and she threw it at a soldier and grabbed the Desert Eagle off her back. “And I'm starving.” She kicked open the next door and casually picked off the four guards while turning to her next target.
“I would happily kill someone for a cheesecake.” Every knife on her tactical vest flew forward in her field, pinning a hapless soldier to the wall like some exotic species of butterfly. “Or a ticket out of this Luna-damned hell-hole.” She absently chucked a pair of concussion grenades to her left and right, down the wings of the next hallway.
“Seriously, is that too much to ask?” She glanced back at Mark, who was just watching her, mouth agape. “What's a mare gotta do, huh?”
“I don't even,” he muttered, as Sparkler reloaded her Desert Eagle. “I have so many questions.”
“Learn to live with disappointment,” she spat, emptying the gun into the next room. “Are those the maps on that table?”
“Yeah.”
“And they’re still useful, even with a little bit of blood on them?”
This time, Mark just nodded.
“That was surprisingly easy.” She grabbed them with her field. “And I didn't have to endure crashing in a Jeep or a tank or an armored personnel carrier or a helicopter to get them.” She tucked them under her tactical vest, right against her fur. “So now what, do we have to evacuate?”
“No, it usually ends right after you get the maps.” Mark pulled a chair towards himself, and then saw the blood and guts sprayed across it and decided to remain standing.
“Are there any other ways of winning the game that you forgot to tell me, or that we haven't tried yet?”
Mark shrugged. “I thought this was all. Maps, escort, the flag . . . well, there's survival mode, too.”
“Which is?”
“Last man standing wins.”
Sparkler strangled him with her scarf.