“Stop me if you can!” For a moment, the memory flickered and they were all treated to a repeat of Paz taunting Snake and Twilight again. It didn’t help the Equestrians seeing it for the first time sort out their thoughts any; there were all still at a loss for words that Paz had not only been an agent the whole time, but she had also taken control of a walking tank equipped with a nuclear missile and planned to use it in response to her offer being turned down. It had to be a mistake, a crazy scenario pulled from the depths of Twilight’s mind. It couldn’t actually be something that had happened.
Much as they wanted to cling to this hope, it didn’t stop the memory from continuing. ZEKE sidestepped to the right and Paz yelled, “Take this!” before firing the machine guns beneath its head towards past Twilight and Snake. Twilight managed to regain enough of her composure to dive to her left before the bullets reached her while Snake turned and ran the other way. Once he was clear, he turned and aimed his M16 up at ZEKE’s AI pod, opening fire as he continued to move to the side while Twilight ran over to the wall after she got up, pressing up against it. Fortunately for her, Paz stayed focused on Snake, turning to continue firing on him as he moved.
When the shooting stopped, they heard Miller say over the radio, “You have to stop Paz before she can launch that nuke!” After he finished speaking, Paz let out a sinister laugh as ZEKE hopped to the side to avoid Snake’s fire. A few seconds later, eight panels on the deck rose up, all of them on an angle to the ground. “We’ve activated the hatches up on deck. You can use them as cover so long as they’re open,” Miller said.
It seemed like it was not a moment too soon, as a few seconds later, Paz spoke, “Time to wrap this up.” As she was speaking, ZEKE bent its knees and jumped up backwards towards the deck behind it to the right, landing with only a slight buckle in its right leg. The Equestrians could only stare in shock at how effortlessly it made the jump; the legs had to be strong to support its upper body, but they certainly didn’t think such a behemoth could jump like that. ZEKE straightened up from its buckle and hunched over forward a second later, its railgun pointing at Snake as he ran to hide behind one of the hatches and Paz said, “Soon you will witness true Hell.”
While Snake crouched behind the hatch, the Equestrians could see electricity gathering around the railgun as it charged. It fired a second later, an explosion going off against the hatch at the same time as the sound of the gun firing was heard. The explosion was a result of how fast that single bullet had been going before it hit its target, less than a second passing between the firing and the impact. It was at this point that everyone realized what a destructive weapon the railgun was; the only downside to it that they could see was that, even though Paz was able to fire several more rounds right away, it was slow to charge afterwards.
Although he was pinned down, Snake was able to peer out from behind the hatch and noticed one of the control panels at the edge of the deck, specifically the one that had a blue background on its screen. He looked over at Twilight and gestured towards it, his gestures becoming more agitated when she didn’t move right away. At the moment, Twilight was caught in a crisis, shaking a bit as she looked between Snake and where she knew ZEKE was. She knew what he was trying to communicate to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.
Rainbow turned to her Twilight and, in between the railgun firing, asked, “What’s he pointing at? And why were you just standing there all that time?!”
Twilight answered, her voice flat and her expression stoic, “I was stuck. I didn’t want to hurt Paz, but I didn’t want her to win either. Unlike the Boss, I was still in shock. You’ll see what he was telling me to do in a few seconds.”
As Twilight said, her past self managed to snap out of her confusion a few seconds later and began to run towards the control panel, a shot from ZEKE’s railgun forcing her to leap back behind and narrowly avoid it. She was able to reach the panel while the railgun’s charge was depleted and she hit the button on it with her hoof. Almost immediately afterwards, they heard Miller say, “Supplies are loaded in the transport catapult!” as several cardboard boxes came flying over ZEKE’s head, breaking apart when they hit the back of the deck.
While Snake ran to get the scattered supplies, they heard Paz say again, “Time to wrap this up.” Looking back towards ZEKE, they saw it jump back to the main deck, though it didn’t set its sights on Snake; it turned to Twilight instead. Her eyes widened at this and she began to run towards the back as Paz yelled, “Die!” ZEKE then charged straight towards her, placing both feet on the ground and sliding towards her with its left leg in front as it got close. Twilight managed to avoid the sliding attack, but ZEKE had ended up closer to her than she realized and was kicked to the side across the deck while it was swinging its left leg back to stand normally.
Twilight landed hard on her side in the center of the deck. She groaned as she rolled onto her front, her wings splayed out at her sides. Between the kick and the landing, she felt disoriented to say the least, her head pounding and making the pain worse. She held a hoof to her head as she tried to shake it off, but it was slow going. Her mind quickly cleared up, however, when a stomp from ZEKE was followed by her eyes going wide for a moment before they clenched shut and a loud, pained scream escaped her mouth.
Rarity put her hooves in front of her mouth. “Oh my goodness!” she gasped, horrified. She wasn’t the only one; the others could only stare mortified at ZEKE’s left foot intentionally stepping on past Twilight’s left wing, her scream telling them all they needed to know about the damage that had been done. As ZEKE lifted its leg and moved it back, they could already see that the wing was bent at an angle it wasn’t supposed to be. Twilight, meanwhile, continued to stare straight ahead, the same stoic look on her face. That had been a horrible moment for her in this fight, but she knew it wasn’t the part yet.
Past Twilight managed to raise herself up after a few moments and raised her left wing to look at it, staring aghast at her broken wing. She didn’t get long to look at it as her attention was redirected when ZEKE raised its right leg and Paz said, “I’ll crush you flat!” Twilight turned to look up at the foot above her head, but before she could move, Snake suddenly rushed in and stood over her, raising his hands and catching the foot as it came down, stopping it.
Discord stared unimpressed as, for the moment, nothing seemed to be happening. “Are you serious?” he asked in a bored tone. She was toying with him; she had to be. Surely a man with no special powers of his own couldn’t actually be stopping something so big and heavy himself.
With a sudden thrust upwards, Snake was able to push the foot up and back and ZEKE staggered back a bit as it tried to regain its balance. “Impossible!” Paz cried, saying aloud some of the others’ reactions to the spectacle. Before she could recover, Snake took the RPG-7 he’d retrieved from the supplies off his back and fired it up at ZEKE’s head, causing it to stagger back more as Paz let out a cry. “Damn you, Snake!” she yelled before she made ZEKE leap towards the edge of the deck.
Twilight looked up at Snake in surprise. “Snake!” she uttered.
The man grunted as he loaded a new grenade in the end of his launcher. “No time to get that treated now! Patch it up as best you can and walk it off! We can’t let Paz use ZEKE’s missile!” he said. Once he was finished reloading, he ran towards ZEKE again, Paz once again focused on him. Taking advantage of the moment, Twilight stood up and looked down at her broken wing. Thinking quickly, she used her magic to rip her T-shirt off and wrapped it around her as an improvised sling or brace, tying it tightly against her right side to keep the wing pressed up against her while extended. It wasn’t ideal, but given the situation, it would have to do for the time being.
With her wing secured, Twilight rejoined Snake, using her magic and the weapons she had to attack ZEKE. It seemed Paz stomping on her wing was all it took to clear her mind and make her decide that she needed to be stopped as soon as possible.
After a minute, ZEKE leapt to one of the back decks, though instead of bending forward and charging the railgun, it stood up straight as Paz yelled, “¡Venceremos!” Almost immediately afterwards, ZEKE fired missiles from its back that homed in on Twilight and Snake, forcing both of them to keep moving in order to avoid the explosions when they hit the ground. Paz fired another round of missiles at the two before she began charging the railgun again.
While she was in the middle of the charging process, everyone heard Miller say over the radio, “Put Mother Base’s gun platforms to good use! The control panel is on the edge of the deck!” Noticing that Paz was focusing her fire on the hatch Snake was hiding behind, Twilight darted out from cover and made it to the panel before Paz noticed her. She pressed a button on the keyboard and the red background on the screen changed to yellow.
Twilight crouched down and moved to press up against the wall behind the panel to avoid a round from the railgun and reached into one of her pouches, looking for something. The wall was beginning to wear down under the repeated fire from the railgun, but Twilight stayed where she was and soon pulled out a small handheld device from her pouch. She glanced in ZEKE’s direction and, when it sounded like the railgun was charging again, she peeked out from cover and pointed the device at it, clicking it on to reveal it was a laser pointer, the pointer hitting the side of ZEKE’s front. “Target acquired! Fire!” Miller yelled a moment later, one of the gun platforms on the deck next to ZEKE rising up and firing a volley of missiles at it.
The attack caused Paz to let out a cry and threw ZEKE off balance, but only for a moment. It turned towards the gun platform as Paz yelled, “Don’t do that!” ZEKE leapt over to the platform and began stomping on it, trying to destroy it. The distraction gave Twilight and Snake a chance to open fire without retaliation. They managed to knock ZEKE off balance again when it turned back to them, causing Paz to scream, “How?!” before ZEKE stood up and leapt to another deck. While it was doing this, Twilight ran back over to the catapult control panel and typed on it, supplies from the reloaded catapult being launched over to the deck again.
Paz kept ZEKE on the deck and tried to hit Snake and Twilight with the railgun for about a minute, punctuating one last shot with “You have got no one to blame but yourself.” She then leapt back to the main deck and prepared to fight them up close again, but as she was turning around to face them, Snake fired another RPG up at ZEKE’s head. This one seemed to do the trick as ZEKE staggered back as explosions began to go off across its body, Paz letting out a loud prolonged scream as this happened. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut at the scream, trying in vain to block out what she knew was coming while her friends and family watched ZEKE shaking and staggering a bit to try to remain upright, the explosions coming to a stop as smoke rose from its battered frame.
Inside the AI pod, Paz struggled to regain control of ZEKE as alarms blared, the entire pod lit up red from the alerts on her screens. After trying in vain for several seconds, she pulled her arms away as she said, “It is no use. ZEKE is out of my control. …This is where it ends.” She then addressed Snake, Twilight trying to block out the words as she spoke, “Listen to me, Big Boss… As long as your army is needed, the world will never know true peace.” More explosions began to go off on ZEKE as she continued, “The peace you know will be fleeting, illusory. They will use you, disgrace you, and then, finally, discard you like they would a cancer to society. This is the path you have chosen!”
Suddenly, Paz let out a gasp and Twilight squeezed her eyes tighter at the thought of what was coming next. An explosion erupted from the AI pod and Snake and past Twilight, along with everyone else, could only watch as Paz was sent flying backwards, a shriek escaping her lips as she fell past the deck and ZEKE crumpled to the ground. Snake let out a grunt and Twilight cried, “Paz!” as they both ran towards the edge of the deck. They made it just in time for a large spray of water to shoot up from below, marking the point of Paz’s splashdown.
On reflex, Twilight used her magic to tear her shirt away and tried to spread her wings, but before she could do anything, Miller suddenly appeared and grabbed her hind left leg. She looked back at him in surprise and he said, “Forget it, Twilight.” She struggled a bit to get out and he pulled her back roughly, saying, “That’s enough! …She’s already gone.”
Twilight’s wings slumped and she looked down sorrowfully at that as she realized that he was right. Miller released his grip on her, seeing all the fight drain out of her. Snake looked over at her and, not knowing what else to say, told her, “You’d better get over to the Sick Bay and have that wing looked at, Twilight. You don’t want it to heal improperly.” Twilight nodded softly and turned, beginning to make her way to the Sick Bay. As she walked away, she could faintly hear Snake murmur under his breath, “Paz…”
All of a sudden, the memory began to go black…