Chapter 11
Jero laid at the edge of the forest, the afternoon sky beating down on his face. He didn’t like what he was seeing; a mile from where he and the others were was an enormous facility, fences topped with razor wire circling the perimeter. The anti-magic field not only stopped Unicorn magic, but also made it where Pegasus couldn’t fly, as he’d already found out when trying to use his own wings.
He turned to the ponies around him, a large group of Bronies who had volunteered on their own to assault the Bastille. Each having their own reasons for being there.
Calypso laid on her side, a radio in her hoof, waiting.
They were ready. As soon as they got the go ahead from Scamp, they’d start their attack. The Bastille would see them coming and call for help, but as long as the Queen isn’t the one to respond, then they will be able to handle anything that is thrown at them.
“Problem,” one of the ponies said, running up to Calypso and Dribble. “A convoy just entered the Bastille, and it looked like Strawell and his Enforcer’s were a part of the convoy.”
“Why are they here? Did they figure us out already?!” Jero asked in a panic.
“No,” Calypso said with a shake of her head. “Strawell makes random visits here to interrogate prisoners, we just happened to pick a day when he decided to show up.”
“Good,” Dribble growled. “If I can’t kill the Queen, then he’s a good consolation prize. He’s mine once we’re inside.”
Calypso didn’t comment on this, instead going back to staring at the radio.
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“You look so badass,” Greg said with a large smile, eyes bloodshot.
Scamp only grunted in response, adjusting the rifle on her side and the armor around her.
“It’s just…” he says looking her over, the red Dragon’s Skin armor that covered her entire body looking familiar. When she put on the helmet, he smiled awkwardly. “It just looks like a buddy of mine.”
“Yeah,” Scamp says, her voice sounding slightly deeper through the helmet's speakers. “Bronies make armor from Dragon’s in this world, and it’s a lot stronger than most other armor available. Even at OEA.” At his still uneasy look, she adds. “Yes, this is armor made from Malbatorus.”
“Fuck me, I’m sorry Mal,” Greg said, patting the helmet, raising a blunt to his lips and taking a heavy hit.
She ignored him as she tested the suits systems, putting the combat drug into an injection port on her right side, and placing fifteen of the blue syringes into another two ports. That way she wouldn’t have to take time to stop and take them.
The claws on each of her hooves extend and retract at a thought, the benefits of using magic to connect the user to their gear. Every part of the armor and systems could be activated with a simple thought, allowing for extremely fast reaction times.
“Can you use the powers with all that though?” Greg asked, playing with the Cover All! blanket he had.
She teleported behind him and bumped him with her shoulder. “Yep. And it doesn’t restrict my movement at all.” She grabs her side, her injuries seeming to flair with pain with each movement.
“Sweet, bruh,” Greg smiles, holding out his hoof to her.
She smiles and lifts her hoof off of her side to bump hooves with him. “But what about you? Can you function while under the influence?”
“Pst,” he waves her off. “Of course I can. I think I’m actually better off like this, like I can really focus.”
“I hope you're an important part of this mission.” She walks to the window of the room they were in, a hotel overlooking the front gates of the palace, where four guards stood.
“Speaking of that shit, I’ve thought of something cooler. Black out the whole city, it’s super easy.”
She looked at him doubtfully, but shrugged. “Sure, we can try it. If not, we’ll just stick to covering the palace only.”
Greg only snort laughs as he walks to the window, humming to himself.
Scamp picks up the radio and walks to the window, not sure if she was ready for what was about to happen.
There was a moment where she thought about calling this off and sparing anymore death.
“Fuck it, do it, Greg,” she said, keying the radio over and over again, signalling the others to begin. Her eyes staring straight at the four guards across the street.
“Hippy Hoppy, black out!” Greg yells, adding flair to his spell. His horn flashed, and the electricity flickered for a moment. The guards below began looking around confused, one of them tapping his ear piece.
“All you,” Greg said as he threw the Cover All! over himself, disappearing.
Scamp grits her teeth as she injects the combat drug into herself, feeling adrenaline pump through her body, and her mind sharpened, becoming aware of more around her.
She then clences her eyes as she injects the blue painkillers into herself. The burning and tearing like pain in her midsection slowly receded till she felt better than she’d ever felt in her life.
Music started playing inside her helmet as she pressed a button, a song from the human world that always pumped her up.
“Oh boy, here we go!” she exclaimed as she suddenly jumped through the window and soared across the street towards the guards.
They reacted in complete panic as they tried to ready and use their weapons, but she suddenly appeared next to the middle two and used the Dragon talons to remove both of their heads. She spun around and fired her rifle, removing a chunk of one's neck. She kicked her back leg back, impaling the last one on her talons.
Wasting no time, she teleports through the gate and along the ground towards the front doors of the palace. The guards around her panicked and tried to hit her with their weapons, but the erratic teleporting made it impossible to get a lead on her.
The entire time she was teleporting, she was firing a shot from her rifle, dropping guards all around her. It only took her six seconds to cover the distance between the front gate and the front doors, but she’d already killed twelve guards in that time.
Instead of trying the door, she slams through a window near the door, cutting down a guard on the other side. She then began galloping down the hallway, accurately gunning down any pony who entered the hallway, be it guard or servant.
“Main hallway!” came a yell from around a corner up ahead.
Scamp rounded the corner and took a bullet to the side, which caused her to stumble, but she pushed forward. The armor doing its job.
The twelve guards ahead of her dropped into firing positions and opened fire. But she had already appeared in the middle of them and turned into a spinning ball of blades and death.
She came out the other side of them, covered in gore and leaving heaps of pony parts behind her.
The next few hallways and corridors she ran down ended in the same way.
After cutting through a small crowd of guards she slid into a room and stumbled to a chair, hissing in pain as she injected more pain killers, her third dose since starting.
“Are you okay?” Greg asked, still invisible. He sounded sick to his stomach.
“Yeah,” she grunted as she stood up. A bullet pinged off her helmet, ringing her ears horribly. She spun around and fired her rifle, killing a young servant who had picked up a guard's weapon. “I’m just fine.”
“Oh shit, this is Twilight’s study, dog,” Greg said as a book lifted up and disappeared as he pulled it under the blanket.
“We don’t have time for this, Greg!” Scamp hissed as she moved for the door. A few bullets smash into the door frame as she starts to exit. Her response was just to simply remove a grenade and toss it down the hallway, causing all of the ponies outside to scream. They were cut short as an explosion was heard.
“I have an idea, I’ll catch up with you,” he says, moving around the room unseen.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Scamp commands, but she pushes out of the room regardless.
She gunned down or cut down anyone she came across, hoping she’s doing enough.
“Sergeant Scamp!” a voice suddenly boomed throughout the building. “Attacking me?! In my palace?! HOW DARE YOU KILL MY LITTLE PONIES!”
Scamp just laughs at this, not sure if the Queen could hear her. “Shut up ya dumb bitch.”
She turned a corner and came to a stop. At the end of the very long hallway stood a large purple pony, wings flared and horn glowing.
“There you are!” the Queen bellowed.
Scamp immediately teleported backwards and began to do her best to evade the Queen, not wanting to face her.
“Magic?!” she heard the Queen bellow angrily.
While moving erratically down hallways, she appeared in the middle of a large group of guards, scaring them and herself. Time came to a halt as she went ballistic, talons and wing blades tearing through anything that stood.
Time resumed as she was still cutting her way through them, causing a massive amount of panic. Some of the guards started firing wildly. The guard Scamp was about to attack was suddenly shot through the neck by a guard near him.
It didn’t take long for her to finish off the remaining guards, but she didn’t linger, knowing the Queen was looking for her.
She made her way down another hallway, and appeared near the front doors, where a few Enforcer’s stood, looking around.
“There!” one yelled as they all turned on her. Unfortunately for them, she teleported next to each of them, her talons easily cutting through their armor.
As the last one fell, she saw a large group of them moving through the courtyard, heading straight for her. A bullet slammed into her flank before she could react, she jumped back and blinked away.
She took a step and limped, cursing as she realized the bullet must have penetrated. She could only take another injection and use a medical foam to plug the hole.
The Enforcer’s began to enter the palace, so she took a few shots at them, killing the first three through the door. She backed off as they began returning fire.
Scamp retreated down the hallway, still killing any who she came across. Behind her she could hear the clanking of the Enforcer’s metal hooves on the floors of the palace.
It wasn’t that she was scared of facing them, but she needed to prolong this fight as long as possible.
After a few turns, she jumped into a random room and closed the door. Soon after, she heard a few metal clad hooves run by her. She gave it a second then hoped out, catching a trio of Enforcer’s off guard. They didn’t stand a chance as she basically passed through them, running in the opposite direction.
She rounded a corner and was suddenly slammed into the wall next to her by an unseen force, and then flung upward hard. On instinct alone she caught herself with her wings and teleported back the way she’d come.
“Killing you isn’t enough, little pony,” the Queen said in the distance, in a calm and almost loving voice.
Scamp ran the opposite direction, taking an injection as she coughed up a bit of blood onto her inner visor. An internal system activated and wiped the blood free of the visor.
A bit of panic was starting to rise inside of her, the Queen terrifying her beyond anything she’s ever faced before.
An Enforcer stepped out of a doorway ahead and fired their shotgun, blasting Scamp directly in the face. She tripped over herself and slid into a room, out of sight of the Enforcer.
Her hooves shot to her helmet, panic rising. From behind her she heard four more blasts and felt each one hit her back and side. She spun around and fired blindly with her pistol, running it empty. No more gunshots came her way and she went back to trying to get the helmet off, its visor shattered.
As soon as she got it off, she saw a few trails of blood running from her face, the pieces of the visor stuck in her face. She glanced to the door to see the Enforcer dead, the 10mm armor piercing rounds mercifully penetrating the armor.
She pulled herself across the floor, the armor on her body broken and bent uncomfortably in all the wrong places, hindering her movement.
Her wounds from the ambush almost screamed at her as she moved, blood oozing through the dressings.
“Shit,” she groaned as she got behind a couch and started removing the broken armor. Thankfully, none of the slugs from the shotgun had penetrated, but they’d been enough to bend the armor, ruining it.
It took some effort, but she was able to get out of the armor, leaving her with nothing but her talons, pistol, and wing blades. She grunted as she removed the remaining injections and pulled the last of them from her pouches. With a bit of effort, she jammed two into herself, feeling instant relief.
Now that she wasn’t moving around, she started to realize she was feeling a trembling feeling in her legs. She didn’t have time to worry about the effects of mixing the combat drugs and injections. That's tomorrow's problem.
If there is a tomorrow that is.
She lifted up one of the flash bangs she had and put it under her wing for safe keeping, taking one in her other wing as well.
With a grunt and a groan she stood and walked out of the room, thankful to see no one.
“Alright, here we go,” she began moving down the hallway, keeping her eyes ahead and ears open.
“It’s a maniac!” A pony inside a room whispered, “They’re just killing everyone! Even servants like us!”
Scamp kept moving, deciding against entering the room. A guard ran around the corner up ahead, carrying a wounded guard.
As he came to a stop, eyes wide, she flung the flashbang she had ready towards them. As soon as it went off, she fired the pistol, killing the one standing and finishing off the wounded one.
An Enforcer came around the corner, clearly pissed at her actions. But he didn’t expect her to appear next to him, and his head falling from his body was also not what he expected to happen.
“Don’t think, just act,” Scamp muttered, falling back on training as blood obscured her left eye.
A weird feeling washed over her and her eyes widened, before she could react she let out a loud scream as an intense pain sheared through her body, surpassing the injections threshold.
She teleported ahead and snapped around, dread spreading through her as she saw her right wing being held in the air by purple magic.
Then as if in a horror movie, the Queen’s head slowly came around the corner, a loving look on her face. “It’s just starting, Scamp. But don’t worry, I’ll be there, by your side through the whole thing.”
Scamp teleported back over and over again, breathing hard and wanting to be anywhere but here.
The Queen only chuckled at this and fully rounded the corner, walking after her as if she was a mother following her toddler.
“You crazy bitch!” Scamp spat out as she finally hit the end of the hallway and took off running down a new one, breathing hard as she really just wanted this to be over.
Out of nowhere a pony tackled her and took them both to the ground.
“I got her!” the young colt yelled. “Queen Twilight, over here!”
Panic coursed through her body as she teleported to the side by a few feet and jumped up, the surprised colt looking up at her, his mouth wide.
She spun around and bucked hard, feeling and hearing the talons shred him as he was kicked away. She didn’t look back at the body as she took off galloping again.
“Come on,” she hissed, wishing for the others to appear and give the signal to leave. “What’s taking so long!”
“Who are you talking to, love?” the Queen suddenly said, her face appearing an inch from Scamp’s.
Her body reacted on its own as she swung her right hoof up at the Queen, going for the kill.
Then she found herself laying in the throne room, and fell face first onto the floor.
Confused, she tried to stand, but found she couldn’t get her legs underself. Then it dawned on her, and her heart sank. Her right foreleg was gone from the knee joint down, looking like it had been ripped free with great force.
“You killed a colt,” the Queen said from across the room. “So no more games. No more running around playing hero. You’re staying here. With me.”
Scamp grits her teeth as she pulls out a magical seal from her IFAK and places it over the bleeding stump, taking another injection in the process.
She was down to four more, not enough at the rate she was taking them.
“Oh honey, there’s no need for those weapons.”
The talons on the ends of her hooves were suddenly ripped off of her in all directions, causing her to fall flat onto the ground. The pistol had also been taken. She was now weaponless, with the Queen staring her down with an out of place caring look on her face.
“So,” the Queen says sweetly, using her magic to grip Scamp. “Where should we start?”