//------------------------------//
// 20. First Mission 
// Story: Force of the Falcon 
// by Omega6047 
//------------------------------//


--Chapter 20--
First Mission



Another week has passed with not much happening. The only thing that's worth mentioning is the decline in condition of remaining unconscious clones. Due to none of them being used to having magic flow through their bodies the way crystals that keep them asleep did, their condition started to worsen. Crystals were disabled, but not before causing enough damage to keep Flint and Cipher knocked out for a bit more time.

This wasn't a big problem though. The problem war Rook. He was barely alive even with the magic support from the crystal. But now that it was gone, and with the damage it managed to cause, he has to be under constant supervision of a doctor. They have to make his body adapt to magic quicker in order to rebuild his body to a level when he will be able to stay alive when they turn off the life support. The whole process is not really pleasant. He's visibly in pain whenever he has to go through one of many sessions that are ahead of him, and the actual rebuilding will be even worse.

Despite being small, ponies are actually more resilient than humans when it comes to handling pain. Physically at least. Psychologically most of them are crybabies in Falcon's opinion and Tracker's opinion about that aspect of their society is far more extensive

Thanks to that additional resilience combined with bodies naturally adaptive to magic, procedure like that is a minor nuisance for a pony whose magic will simply adopt and numb out the nervous system enough to cope with it.

Sakri managed to fit into the town quite well, and even found a good friend in Rainbow Dash, but considering they both share a lot in common, that's not surprising. Rainbow thought she can get Sakri to make Falcon go easier on her during their training sessions. A big mistake on her part. Not even Sakri would dare to disobey Drill Sergeant Falcon.

They both ended up getting the harshest treatment out of all trainees.

Another matter was HK-47 salvaged from the wreckage in the Everfree. Shaw has reassembled him enough to go through his data banks to find out more about his way of turning magic into regular energy without using a spell. He succeeded, and as he worked on reassembling the rest of him and looking through the data banks, Twilight was continuing her work on the Ectoplast they've been developing for the past weeks.

They were the only ones not in the Everfree. Everyone else was watching a fist fight between a clone commando and jedi padawan.

Tracker threw a punch aimed at her right shoulder. She dodged it, sidestepping, but was immediately hit in the chest as Tracker threw another punch. She didn't let that stop her and tried to lift him by the arm and with a bit of assistance from the Force throw him behind her. This was another mistake on her part though. Tracker kicked her straight in the face the moment she lifted him. She was thrown away by the force of the impact. "Come on, you can do better than this!" Tracker screamed as he returned to standing position. Meanwhile Rainbow was cheering on the padawan as she was getting up.

She dashed towards the commando who jumped away seeing her fast approach with her fist lifted. He did so in just the right moment, as it allowed him to grab her extended hand and pull her closer and give her stomach a quick introduction to his knee.

She ignored the pain that spread through her body and hit Tracker's side with an elbow. This didn't do enough damage to make him back away, but he did slow down for enough time to let her throw another punch, this time at his chest. He threw a punch himself in to same moment she did, but while she managed to dodge, he didn't.

This time he took a step back. "Come on girl, kick his butt!" Rainbow yelled. She was in a middle of doing push-ups with Pinkie sitting on her back as a punishment for cheering too loudly. Fluttershy was also doing push-ups for the same reason, only with nopony on her back. And now that Rainbow started cheering again, Falcon sat on her back instead.

Cheers didn't help much though. Despite getting a moment of advantage, Sakri was not able to press on fast enough. Tracker kicked her in the stomach again before even standing up which slowed her down only a bit, but it was enough for the commando to quickly rush towards her and after grabbing both of her arms smash his head against hers. She rolled back, ready to take on any attacks he might have prepared.

First two punches were blocked, but the third opened up her guard and fourth got her in the shoulder. After that she bounced back only to take another punch to the same shoulder. This time she pushed on though, and managed to work her way behind Tracker. She used the opportunity to jump on his back and wrap her arms around his neck.

This was not enough though. She was quickly smashed against the nearby tree, and forced to let go. Tracker then sent a few punches she had no way of defending herself against. To finish things off, Tracker pushed her onto the ground and held her armtwisted behind her back until Falcon counted to ten. "Heh, you're still not quite ready for that gundark, kid." He helped her get up.

"If I could use the force I would win."

"You did use it though."

"But not as much as I normally would."

Knowing she will not admit to cheating no matter what, Tracker dropped the subject and walked over to Fluttershy, who was lying flat on the ground after a series of push-ups with Abuyin on her back. Falcon decided Rainbow could use a friend in misery. Despite how much he didn’t want to train her at first, he had to admit it was pretty entertaining to see her go through a commando training. Falcon did a really good job getting her in shape. She would have problems keeping up with what he had her do otherwise.

As Tracker continued the torments Falcon started, the commander himself went back to drilling the others. Sakri included.

The padawan couldn’t believe how much Falcon could change when he goes into a role of drill sergeant. She still remembers how her master told her to join clones that Falcon was drilling. He yelled her into submission faster than Master Windu’s glare could. ’What are you doing you failure! Get that ass down when doing push-ups, you’re not in strip club to shake your ass!’ ‘Faster you maggot! AT-TEs are faster than that!’ ‘Listen here. You’re supposed to me a man among a bunch of ladies here, right? So push harder, damn it! What is that supposed to mean!? You’re worse than cadets on Camino!’ ‘Up… and down… up… and down… see just 100 more left. Move it, or I’ll add 200 more to that!’ ‘What is this you blasted maggot!? Show some spirit damn it! I’ve seen old mad fuck harder than you move!’ ‘Wake the fuck up, little girl! What are you dreaming about? A big flopping donkey dick in your mouth?’.

Her master was usually looking as Falcon pushed her to the limits, always smiling as if looking at a good movie. He wasn't there to just smile though. He would make her legs feel heavier with the Force, making her use the Force as well in order to make moving easier. The problem was, that every time she would push back, he pushed twice harder in return. There was even a time when Falcon made her keep her balance on one leg while standing on the tip of the top cannon of AT-ET that he was rotating around and at the same time, her master was releasing one force wave after another. She smiled at the memory.

Unfortunately, Falcon noticed that. “Oh, I see someone’s having fun here. I think this someone should make a run around the castle and report to me whether there’s a Krayt Dragon hiding there. Move it, you have 10 minutes to get back and give me a full report!” She mentally slapped herself in the face as she got up and run towards the castle gate. Falcon's drone was following her, so there was no way she can cheat this time.

Falcon turned back towards others after Sakri disappeared in the castle, but he didn't start yelling again. he noticed that someone was running towards them. Lucid Brush, the changeling joiner he got to know over his time on this world was running towards them. "Dad? What are you doing here?" Applejack asked her father. Lucid would sometimes join them when they went to the castle to train, showing a level of physical competence comparable to Falcon and Tracker, but this time he specifically stated that he's can't go because he has to report into the Hive Mind he's connected to. He didn't explain much about his business with the rest of his Hive, only that he's been partly separated from his hive's collective consciousness and wanted to come back for a while. Only mentally of course. Changelings can communicate over vast distances.

"Commander! I need to ask for your help!" Ignoring his daughter, Lucid lowered his head in front of the commander. His voice was calm, but Falcon picked up a bit of panic in it.

"What is it? did something happen to your Hive?"

"No. Or at least not yet." He raised his head and took a deep breath before speaking again, his eyes went back into blue orbs of a changeling, meaning he fully connected himself to the Hive Mind. "Chrysalis has made her move. We have spotted her drones on our territory. They were handled accordingly, and we sent our own drones to investigate Chrysalis' territory." His voice became emotionless as the whole hive spoke through him.

"What did they find?" Falcon asked. Everyone else has stopped whatever they were doing and gathered around the joiner. Falcon was even sending the audio to Sakri through his drone.

"She is preparing her drones for another attack." Everyone's heart skipped a bit. "Drones that were scattered around Equestria have returned to their home, and Chrysalis herself was laying many eggs for the past months. Now her hive is even more numerous than it was during the attack on Canterlot. Our hive is small in comparison. All of our joiners spying within her hive have been discovered and killed, but they gave us the information about the time of the attack."

"How much do you have?"

"They will start to move within the next week. The way to our Hive will take then at least a day."

"What about my mother?" Applejack suddenly said. "A-And my sister. She's there too right?"

“The love of the one you know as Lucid Brush, as well as his daughter are safe. They cannot leave though. None of us can. Our Have is in the mountains. There is only one safe passage from it, and it will lead us straight into Chrysalis’ hooves. Our Hive is not known by its strong wings. The mountains are too high for us to fly out, and we would have to leave our young behind.”

Applejack immediately turned towards Falcon, her eyes were flaring with determination. “Falcon, I don’t care what you say. I’m going there even if you won’t. There’s no way in hell that I’m going to leave my family to die.”

“I don’t plan to stay idly either. I remember allying with their hive against Chrysalis and I’m not going to make a habit out of leaving allies alone in time of need. Hell, I’ve been left without reinforcements myself.”

“Yeah, and I still can’t believe you actually pulled that off.” Tracker said with a laugh. Five hundred clones defending an island base from 20 thousand battle droids for seven days. And they actually won. With barely any equipment to begin with, and mostly using weapons they collected from droids they forced the clankers to retreat.

“Yeah…” Commander turned back to the Joiner. “Anyway, as I said we will help. Keep us up to date with any information about enemy movement you get while we prepare for deployment.”

Lucid’s body bowed. “The Hive is in your debt commander Falcon.” With that said, the connection to the hive disappeared, and Lucid’s eyes went back to normal. “Thank you commander.” He said, feeling a bit dizzy after the connection has ended. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get ready and beat those damn bugs. Tracker!” He called out to the commando. “For now you will be in charge of drilling those ladies into fighting shape.”

“Yes sir!”

“Lucid, you go back to the farm and get me a report on everything your Hive knows about Chrysalis. Some data about your own Hive would be nice too. Deliver it to the warehouse. I’ll be there to discuss some stuff with Twilight and Shaw.” With that said, Falcon left the training ground in the Everfree forest.





“Alright, I get it. About time I’ll get to see those bugs. Can’t let you be the only clone to fight then, can I? Now, what exactly do you want us to do?” Shaw said after Falcon explained the situation to him and Twilight.

“First, tell me about your progress with that Ectoplast you two have been talking about all this time.”

“Well…” Twilight said, clearly happy about something as shown by her smile. She turned her head towards the room she and Shaw were using as a testing area. “How about you see for yourself?” She walked into the room with Shaw following her. Falcon wasn’t far behind. “Ta-da!” Twilight yelled with a happy smile on her face as she pointed her hoof towards the other side of the room.

There, Falcon saw a training dummy like the ones he used when teaching his recruits how to use weapons. However, on its chest was a white plate with few black markings on it. “What you see here is the first successfully made Ectoplast plate. The combination of our armors with native’s magic. True, on its own it is less durable than normal plastoid armor, but is extremely adaptable.” Shaw started.

“Anyone who knows how to enchant objects on a moderate level can adopt the armor to pretty much any environment or situation. Ectoplast can be adopted to be lighter, withstand heat or cold, change coloration to better blend into the environment, and even protect against damage; to a certain extent at least, our weapons can only be stopped by really powerful magic, but it can completely stop a low level attack using magic. Plastoid itself can withstand any attack using weapons currently used by Equestrian military with no issue. Unfortunately we don’t know about weapons used by any other nation, thanks to Celestia’s borderline isolationist policies, but we doubt it can be much of a threat.”

“Nice.” Falcon commented. “Now as for your assignments. Since that thing is ready, I assume you will be able to prepare a set of armor for the rest, right?”

“Of course.” Twilight answered. “I’ll just need to ask Rarity for help and get some manuals from the pile Tracker has stolen… sorry, ‘borrowed’ from princess, and I should have no problems.”

“Then get to it. On the double, you have a week at best.” He now turned to Shaw. “As for you, I need that HK working again.”

“Are you sure sir? I won’t have the time to reprogram it if the week is all I have. The most I can do is put it back together, the thing is really well secured, and I’m not specialist in that department. Cipher might be able to do something but… well, he’s kinda asleep. And we don’t really have equipment to handle this level of security.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. We’re going to face an invasion force bigger than the one from Canterlot, and that was 10 thousand at least. We’ll need every gun we can get. And besides, I don’t think it lied when it said it wants me to be its master.”

“Another Force thingy?”

“Maybe, I’m still not quite knowledgeable enough in the area to be able to tell. Anyway, get this thing working again. Just keep the restraining bolt on. I’ll need to talk to it first.”

“Sure, I’ll get to it.” Both he and Twilight disappeared in their lab where HK was stored. Falcon turned back and walked into the armory to check the equipment. He radioed Tracker to send Rarity in here after Twilight requested so. It was an hour before Lucid came in with the report Falcon requested. He gave him a full description of his hive’s defense capabilities as well as a surprisingly detailed drawing of the area around the hive, and its inner structure.

There was not much data about Chrysalis’ hive. Her hive was always isolated from others, but when she took over, not many would survive trying to reach them. She had exactly 13 344 drones specialized in fighting on her side, while they had merely 1910. Lucid’s hive is small by comparison, and is not specialized in fighting. Each changeling hive has developed in its own way. Some are better fliers, others have stronger magic, and some develop in completely different direction. Lucid’s hive falls into magic category, but their magic is not suited for combat, rather for healing and remaining hidden.

Chrysalis’ hive’s specialization is mind control. Ability not seen in any other changeling hive. Chrysalis can take a hold even on strongest minds given a chance, and every drone in her hive is able to manipulate thoughts given enough time to spread pheromones around the victim. Pheromones have to be concentrated in one area over long period of time however. Drones don’t produce nearly enough to randomly take over ponies in the streets, but in groups they can make ponies around feel dizzy.

The one advantage they have over Chrysalis, is the location of the fight. As the hive said through Lucid before, there is only one way inside. Whether Chrysalis will decide to go for a frontal attack or attack from the air, in the end she will have to enter the hive. And with only one way in, they will be able to effectively defend it even if Chrysalis will throw everything she has at them.

But it’s not going to be that easy. One way in also means they can be easily locked inside. Chrysalis will just wait until they run out of supplies. This means they must meet their assault head-on, and fall back if they get overwhelmed. And looking at the enemy’s numbers compared to theirs, they stand no chance in a straightforward fight. They will have to prepare a trap or two in order to lower their numbers before the fight.

Luckily, Falcon had a few ideas.





”What do you want from me?” Shining Armor’s voice was oozing with hostility. Falcon arrived to Canterlot the day after starting to work on the plan. His objective was easy. Convince the Captain of Royal Guard to help. Not by borrowing some of his man of course. Falcon never liked the idea of throwing cannon fodder at the enemy. What he was interested in, was his shield making abilities. From what he heard, his shield withstood a combined attack of Chrysalis’ whole invasion force when his magic was severely weakened after several days of mentally struggling against mind control. “Princess Luna said you have some proposition from me.”

“And she would be right. I just happened to know the time and target of next Chrysalis' attack, and I would like you to help stop it.” Falcon answered straightforwardly. Shining Armor's eyes almost popped out of his eyeholes as the shock hit him. He was just about to get himself in line again, and yell at the commander for not telling him sooner, but Falcon continued speaking before that happened. “She's planning an attack on another changeling hive. The one that helped in stopping attack on Canterlont. I agreed to help them, but you could say that we're in highly unfavorable position.”

“If that's the case, why did you go to me? You're in good relations with princess Luna, she can get you support of my men if you just asked her. And she herself would be more of a help than the whole Royal Guard together.”

“You know, when the head of an army says that one person is stronger than all of his forces combined, something's wrong with his army.” The comment seemed to annoy the captain. “Anyways, I didn't come here to get some cannon fodder to throw at changelings, I'm here for you Shiny...”

“Don't call me-”

“Shiny...”He repeated, enjoying the reaction he gets out of him. “I heard about the shield you managed to set up for the invasion. I was really impressed.”

“So the only reason why you want me to help are my shielding abilities.” He sighed. “Well, what would you have me do if I agreed?”





Shaw took a deep breath as he placed a tool he was using just a moment ago on a table. “Are you sure about this?” He said approaching a power switch.

“You already asked me this. More than once.”

“I know, and I'm still not sure if activating this droid is a good idea or not. I mean, it may not have arms and legs attached at the moment, but you plan to give it weapon and get into a fight, which means taking off the restraining bolt off. Who says it won't turn on us the moment it gets its hands on a rifle. You remember how hard it was to take the thing out, right?”

“Of course I do. That's why I want it on our side. And it's not like we're going to just take the bolt off with no reassurance.”

“Yeah, the fact that you placed a grenade inside its chest really calms me down.”

“Stop complaining. Turn the damn thing on.” Shaw sighed as he powered the HK-47 up. Droids eyes slowly started to shine with red light as a few sparks flew out of it's disassembled limbs. Some parts inside started to move as its systems rebooted, and finally it rose its head.

“Diagnostics: HK-47 reactivated. Running checks through primary systems... Running checks through secondary systems...
Assessment: It appears I have been dismantled by an organic Meatbag with questionable skills as a mechanic, only to be put together by the very same unskilled Meatbag.” Shaw frowned at the insult. “But, seeing as I detect a grenade next to my memory core, I believe it would be better not to further insult your low skills, Meatbag.”

“Wise choice. Now, would you mind going back to our previous conversation?” Falcon approached the droid as Shaw leaned against the wall, staring at the droid.

“Statement: Ah, yes. The one rudely interrupted by your purple friend. If it wasn't for her, this might have ended without a single shot fired. I must say, I'm thankful. So many years without any threat to my functioning certainly made me a bit rusty and bloodthirsty. I also didn't expect to see a Jedi use blaster rifle. And certainly not with your level of competency. The use of battle armor is also surprising. Tell me, what changed the order enough to make Jedi actually use their abilities in a war? From my experience, council usually sits idly instead of acting.”

“I'm not really a Jedi, I just happened to have a lightsaber on me. But you would be right to say that Jedi are not staying out of a war this time. They're acting as generals in a war that's been going on for past three years.”

“Query: A war you say? Would it be too much t o ask for, if I wished to be immediately moved to a nearest battleground so that I can squash some meatbags?”

“Seeing as we crushed on this planet like you did, that's out of the question for the moment.” HK almost looked sad after hearing Falcon's words. “There is however an opportunity for you to fight in a battle...”

For a short moment the droid looked at the commander. “Statement: I'm listening...”





A scalpel flew across the room, wrapped in Abuyin's magic. She had a white mask over her mouth and clean white lab coat on her body. The scalpel soon cut into a body of dead harpy that lied on a table. There were few more ponies in the room, but they seemed much more repulsed by the smell of death that filled the room. Princess Luna has secretly sent two more doctors and a vet to help her with dissecting the harpy, but is seemed she's going to be the one to do the real job after all.

“Alright, what do we have here...” They already knew what killed the harpy. The mysterious black bird that flew into it's eyehole and released a small magical pulse that turned the brain of the giant bird into a mush. When they looked more into it, it also turned out that the harpy's magic was attempting to regenerate part of the brain, but was stopped by even stronger magic.

Harpy's magic was strong enough to recreate parts of it's body within a moment. A lost eye would be back in it's place after 10 to 20 seconds, and brain would be restored after a minute if something didn't stop it.

The other bird released an overwhelmingly powerful current of magical energy through harpy's magic and nerve systems. The spinal cord was was almost completely melted and nerves all over the body were burned almost completely. Magic systems were not much better off. The harpy's magic was putting up a fight, but was ultimately overpowered and a further havoc was caused all over the harpy's body.

Magic system is very similar to nerve system, only it isn't physical. It's spiritual in nature, but it can influence real world if used properly. That's why ponies can use magic. Harpy's magic system was extremely well developed, and yet it was completely overpowered and destroyed from within. This caused more explosions within harpy's body, destroying internal organs. After this, there was no chance for it to recover.

Getting back up after having it's brain turned into mush was unlikely to begin with, but harpy's highly developed magic system would be able to take over brain's functions after it was destroyed, at least for some time.With it gone, Harpy was just a lump of meat with no right to continue living.

Moving on, the team under Abuyin's leadership looked into all of harpy intact parts. Nothing was out of the ordinary though. It seemed that harpy's abnormal strength and durability were purely a matter of it's magical abilities.

And based on those abilities they'll be able to make quite a lot of progress.





“Rarity... eh... How should I say it... That's not exactly what I had in mind...” Falcon said as he looked at the first version of Ectoplast armor made by Twilight and designed by Rarity. It was... a bit too artistic. “You do know that armor is meant to keep you alive on a battlefield, right? Not to be an exhibit in art museum.”

“But does it mean it can't look good at the same time?” The mare argued, defending her creation.

“It can, but not at the cost of functionality.”

“Oh, please. What could possibly be wrong in this design?”

“...Chestplate is reduced to a few narrow stripes, there are artificial wings that only limit your movement and add mass, boots have high heals on them, the stomach is completely exposed, only the left flank is protected, there are pointless patterns engraved all over the armor, helmet exposes too much face, the armor is too thin, it would take help to even put that thing on... Do I need to continue?”

Rarity was still unfazed by the criticism of her work. “Oh, come on dear, don’t be so dense. I even made one for you, see? You can't possibly say you wouldn't look simply marvelous in this attire.” It's true that she also made armor for him, but to say he would look good in it is not. At least not in his eyes. The only part worthy of attention is a robe that was made using Sakri's padawan robe as an inspiration. He could technically wear it under the armor like general Heskri did, but he sure as hell isn't going to put on the rest of the attire.

“Rarity, this thing has no right to be shown on a battlefield... I think I told you to model that thing on our armors, didn't I?”

“Darling... the boom on simple clothes that started after your arrival ended few weeks ago... It's already sooooo out of fashion...”

In this moment, HK-47 who was standing idly in the corner of the room spoke up. “Critique: Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that it must be changed every couple of weeks.”

A silence followed.

Broken by a barrage of insults and screams from Rarity's end.