“Tahiya, Look out!” I tilt my battle-saddle and fire multiple blasts through somepony that appeared out of a doorway behind her, briefly lighting up the hall as the red lasers manage to pierce his armor.
Tahiya turns around to find the dead pony on the grounds and nods thankfully towards me, charging down the hall once more, shooting at anything that comes into view. We had successfully left our room and wandered the dark halls until more of the white armoured ponies appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
I watch enraptured as she single hoofedly wipes out a wave of them almost all by herself, weaving left and right as those that aren't immediately killed by her superior aim desperately fire on her, hoping to get a lucky shot as she tears them apart.
I, meanwhile, run damage control, covering her rear from anypony smart enough to wait for her to pass before trying to get her from behind. I keep to a slower pace, not sprinting like her but rather just running down the hall, shooting anyone that peeks out, occasionally checking my own rear as well. Somehow, i always get lucky because whenever i look behind me someone is just peeking around the corner, and i manage to hit them with a clean blast before they can set up their shot.
Eventually they seem to pull back from us, giving us time to recuperate, Tahiya taking the chance to rest from her crusade while i loot the nearby bodies, dumping our empty batteries for fresh ones, taking the chance to try and take some of their armor, which has proven resistant to our rifles, but it's too dark to get off their body and leg pieces, so i just snatch their white helmets and return to rest with Tahiya.
“You did a good job Steel.” I blink in surprise at her praise, causing me to fumble one of the batteries for a moment.
“Are you kidding me? You were fantastic! You tore through their ranks with ease, I just followed behind you!” I gushed at her, and I wasn't overreacting in my opinion, she was truly a force to be reckoned with. She snorted at my praise, obviously caught off guard.
“I thank you for your kind words Steel, now hand me one of those helmets, I wish to see the armor of our enemies.” she responds, causing me to remember the helmets and pass one to her as i try on the other one, fitting surprisingly well. Just as i put on the helmet the visor lights up, letting me see the now blood covered walls properly for the first time.
“Wow, these things got night vision!” I spout in amazement, Tahiya sliding her helmet on too, looking over and giggling at my look of amazement, seemingly able to overlook the amount of bodies in the hall.
“You know, you look cute when you're excited.” she smirks at me as I blush in the darkness, the high quality night vision easily letting her see the blood flood to my cheeks.
“And easy to tease too! I like that.” she gazes into my eyes as she leans her blood soaked face close to mine. My eyes staring back for a moment, before I break eye contact looking for a way out of my embarrassed position, only for the noise of combat to erupt nearby, her head snapping to the doorway it’s coming from, quickly getting on her hooves and jogging towards the door. I follow her as I thank the universe for getting me out of that, not exactly keen to make out covered in blood and surrounded by bodies.
I catch up to her at the door, the sounds of fighting much louder now, yet still sounding distant. Tahiya and I glance at each other briefly and she opens the door to be greeted with…
Nothing.
Well, not nothing, but not the heavy combat i was expecting. The sounds of combat are much louder now, but all I see is a wide room, connected at the two sides by a bridge and a bunch of Ponies wearing crude metal armors and wielding swords, axes and maces. The ponies seem to be trying to sneak around as they place these sacks around the bridge, one of them spotting us.
“Synths! Our covers busted!” The mares voice yells out, pointing at us as she throws off the sack and draws her axe. We are charged by the rest of her Allies, Tahiya counter charging while I hold my ground for the best accuracy.
Tahiya once more tears through their ranks, this time opting to drop the laser rifle once she gets in close and ripping swords out of her opponents hooves, slicing in a beautiful display of skill while I slowly advance, providing fire support with clean shots.
I quickly reach the halfway point on the bridge as Tahiya is forced to hold her ground as a sort of choke point at the end of the bridge. I watch as she knocks someone over the edge and as i look down i finally realize where all the sounds of combat originally came from.
I look over a warzone going on below us, a horde of crudely armored ponies like the ones we are fighting and ponies wearing what seems like blue uniforms with green armor pieces on their bodies, both engaging more of the white armorclad ponies we fought before. As the body smacks to the ground I see a whiteclad pony standing next to somepony in power armor look up at me, making eye contact with me before he turns to shoot off a Metal clad pony holding onto the back of the Power armored pony.
I snap back as I hear a scream, Tahiya landing at my hooves with a massive cut across her side. I look up to see an absolutely massive pony wreathed in Thick Metal wielding a Large sword and shield, he has a massive wingspan, but unlike my feathery wings his looks to be made of white leather, standing out from his black fur, his tail with a white stripe through it as well, his fanged maw grinning at me savagely from under his helmet.
“Greetings pegasus! I haven't seen one of your kind in anything but old books! I thought for sure you were extinct!” he smiles widely as he licks his blade of Tahiyas blood, staring me in the eyes
“Allow me to fix that.”