//------------------------------// // Rainbow Dash vs Rage of the Metagame // Story: Ponies Versus Starcraft // by ambion //------------------------------// Premeptive notey thingies - Some of the PvSC’s are great, some of them...not so much. But all of them thus far have been written on the premise an understanding of the game is unnesscary. If you’re aware there’s aliens and stuff, you’re practically set. This one is a little different; in that while such an understanding is not quite necessary, knowing the workings of gameplay will -hopefully- make it that much more rewarding. To anyone who does know such mechanics and stuff, I invite you to shred this simulacrum to pieces and point out the flaws that I’m sure there will be in builds, response timings, etcetera. I did take a few minor (wings of) liberties, of course. The blue pegasus inspected the last marine in the lineup. She prodded him in the steel-clad chest and shouted. “Let me see your war face!” “Sir? We’re wearing helmets.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well duh. I just always wanted to say that. But practice that war face anyway.” The marines were cool with this whimsy. They were cool with a lot of things, provided it was Rainbow Dash pulling them. Because she was cool, and when she pulled a stunt, it stayed pulled. She’d proven herself fully worthy of those three little letters, and if had ever thought it odd to call a girl ‘sir,’ they certainly didn’t anymore. Not after Jenkins. Poor, poor Jenkins... “Right then. You SCV’s, start gathering, and you guys- APOLOGIZE FOR PLAYING THAT RACE. In an instant Dash’s eyes narrowed and with a flick of her wings she was up in the air. “I ain’t apologizing for nothing!” With no clear antagonist, she flitted back and forth. YOU COULD APOLOGIZE FOR BEING BORN, FOR A START. JUST ANOTHER BRAINLESS IDIOT. Rainbow Dash howled with frustration and zoomed about manically for her disembodied antagonist. “Sir! With all due respect sir, he’s just trying to get under your skin and distract you!” The marine next to him nudged his shoulder. “No, I’ve seen this guy before. ‘Adri.’ He’s actually just an asshole.” Dash still fumed and muttered as she circled overhead. “Really? I thought it was just a psych-out thing. I could almost respect that.” “Nope. Asshole.” “Huh.” Dash disappeared into the command centre, only to reemerge in the same breath with her signature badassery shades. She seemed calm, unnaturally so, until you recognized that her fury had merely gone from hot to cold; and intensified at that, like a collapsing star. The marines stood straighter at attention as she approached them, every inch and feather a commander. “You know, all the Elements of Harmony stuff has taught me a few things. Compassion. Perspectives. Respect. And that there’s usually a way to win.” She grinned. “Sir?” “What can you tell me about this Adri, other than that he’s an ass?” “Sir! Not much Sir! Very much an ass, sir! Favours macro style and large composition pushes!” Dash nodded, her sunglasses glinting without an apparent source, as it was a temperamental, overcast sky. “Alright then. Here’s the plan, boys and girls!” She turned up the audio piece by her ear and mouth until her voice resounded through the fledgling base. Dash licked her lips; she always liked busting out the jargon, it made her feel smart. She didn’t need to feel fast or brave or strong, with those she just knew. “Then we’ll micro our way under his macro steamroller before it ever gets up to speed. I want a Destiny Cloud Fist build to do it. A fourth minute two blue flame worker harass, cloak first banshee on the eighth; priority on queens. Marines to base and natural defence, push out on the twelfth with a transition to siege tech and stim drops. You got that?” “That’s a tight order sir! This guy ain’t a push over!” “That’s why it’s us doing it! Now, you guys lock down the base and get to it, I’ve got something to see too...” “And if things go pear-shaped, sir?” “Then just fall back and hold out, and I’ll pull your keisters out of the fire. That’s a promise.” It didn’t have to make sense that their commander was leaving them at the most vital stages. If Rainbow said she was there for them, then it’d be easier to chew through steel than deny the statement. She didn’t just command them, or even just their respect. She upright commanded their loyalty. When anybody else said they’d do the impossible, they laughed. When Rainbow Dash said she’d do the impossible, the marines made sure to turn on their helmet cameras. The nasty, debasing voice continued the occasional spout of meaness, but for the sake of it they won’t be shown here. Suffice to say Dash was not overreacting and was nurturing a strong sense of vengeful anticipation. “Keep me posted,” was all she said before zooming off into the sky. “You heard the leader! Get to it!” Dash flew high, then higher still, until the air was thin and cold as hoarfrost. A non-pegasus would feel faint, but they weren’t Rainbow Dash, not by a long shot, and she wasn’t even pushing herself. So far below her that only the structures were visible nestled her industrious little base, while ahead lay the splotchy purple of a zerg cluster. A splattering of ridges and plateaus separated the two, it’d be only a brief matter of time before each met in a decisive clash. Dash flinched as her earbud radio crackled; the signal was always sketchy at the best of times. “Just got the factory laid out, we’ll have it up and running in a jiffy.” “You got a bunker down behind the supply - rax wall in? “‘Course we do, sir. Wouldn’t want a run by, now would we?” Rainbow Dash smiled. “I knew you were good for something after all. Keep it up.” “Will do, commander.” She had time, but not much. Her strategy would slow the enemy down, and enrage him, but the longer this drew out the more inevitable a crushing defeat would become. She didn’t sweat it. Sure, she didn’t have much time, but wouldn’t need much. With a renewed burst of speed the pegasus blasted towards the zerg base - not as a destination, but as a place to start her search. A secondary, smaller node of growth alerted her to the enemy’s plan. “New intel boys, he’s gone fast expand, no six pool. I repeat, no six pool.” “We read you sir. We’ll get a marauder suited up for the roach assault. What’s your plan?” “Just a bit of horseplay, boys. Just a bit of horseplay.” Another abusive message bombarded her sensibilities, but rather than vent her frustrations, Dash cracked her neck and shoulders. The cold winds buffeted her feathers, elating and elevating her. “Stay frosty.” “Roger that.” She centred herself over the zerg base and - reigning in her own compulsiveness - began a methodical, spiraling search outwards, her eyes peeled. The hellions were still being repaired of gouges and deep acid burns their marred their hulls when the banshee arrived. Several evil looking spines were embedded in its plating, but the craft was still reporting operational. The field sergeant directed the pilot to fly defense over their main entrance, which had been hard pressed to chase off the counter attack after the hellion excursion proved less than successful. A marine in the foremost bunker spoke over his shoulder as they emptied another round of ammunition. “You’d think we’d have some kind of bug spray by now, huh?” “Yea-” His speech was lost to the howling gout of blow flame that roared it’s way past the bunker, scattering the shrieking monsters back and away from’ it’s hellish light. The marines paused only to reload. “Suppose that’s pretty good too.” “Sure is.” A roach braved the flames, only to get a pair of backlash missiles from the banshee in the face. It took the hint and joined it’s compatriots in a rushed - if merely temporary - retreat. The’d come back, and there’d be more. “We got this. For now, anyway. Don’t lay off. Sir’ll pull through. She always does.” JUST GIVE UP. YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Such messages had been fraying their combined nerves this whole time. “You know, I wish whoever was sayin’ that got a real good ass-whoopin.” “Me too, bro.” It is the nature of wishes to be whimsical. Nobody would have believed that of all the wishes that might have been made and might have come true, this rather petty, if understandable one was the one. Rainbow Dash didn't believe in wishes either. That kind of thing was so namby-pamby, but she did believe in the undeniable badassery of herself. Her search had yielded a certain little hidey hole of interest, and she flung open the door now, revealing a pasty, sun deprived, underfed, hate spewing monster stooped over a control console of some sort. It displayed a bird’s eye view of the terrain, and as Adri caught Dash’s reflection in the screen, he whirled about, caught between compulsive anger and uncertain fear. Dash grinned, cracking her neck left, than right. “Trash talk me, will ya?” Grinning wider, she stepped into the monster’s lair. A veritable swarm was amassing just outside the perimeter. Any minute now it’d break, and the troops - with all their mechanisation - would be hard pressed to fend it off. Again, the antagonising voice flailed at their nerves. YOU JUST UTTERLY  6 CXB FR VCV CXXDCXGTFGFDDDDDD- Something switched it to audio, because it carried on into: “Not the face Not the face!!” and then even words gave up and listened to the grunts and shouts of someone being vigorously mashed - and from the familiar cries of excitement and great satisfaction for a certain blue pegasus - against a computer of some sort. A few bashes later and the circuitry died out, leaving only static. Zerg and trooper alike waited anxiously on more. HEY. GUYS. YOU GETTING THIS? IT’S ME. “That you. sir?” SURE IS. TOUGH GUY AIN’T SO TOUGH AFTER - YEAH, HE JUST TRIED TO GRAB ME “You alright, sir?” YEAH. ADRI MIGHT NEED A MEDIVAC THOUGH. WE GOT ONE IN THE AIR YET? A peek out the bunker confirmed the negative, and the speaker said as much.  NO RUSH. I’M SENDING ALL THE ZERG AWAY FROM HERE. IS IT WORKING? A peek out the other end of the bunker yielded an overwhelming stampede of the positive. GREAT. SHEESH, THIS GUY’S A REAL CRY BABY. I’D ALMOST FEEL BAD FOR HIM. I’LL GET HIM A PACK OF FROZEN VEGETABLES TO PUT OVER HIS EYE IN THE MEANTIME. OH. HEY. HE’S GOT A CASE OF BEERS IN THE FRIDGE. LOOKS LIKE THE FIRST ROUND IS ON ME. “I love her.” ... ... I HEARD THAT.