//------------------------------//
// One Chance 
// Story: Just a weapon 
// by I Vicious I 
//------------------------------//

The forest had a damp and earthy odor to it, with the uneven ground made it difficult to walk. Silver flew overhead, just above the tree line to get a baring of our direction, but low enough to not be spotted. It was only a couple miles, but I could have sworn it was nothing short of a death march in terms of distance. This was the most important mission, or likely event of my life, and I was feeling more than just a little nervous.  
 
Silver quietly flew down and landed next to me and raised her hoof and pointed. “There” she said, pointing at a clearing near the edge of the woods. “Maps that Intel provided confirm that this will be the best position to take the shot. We will be sitting at the top of a hill that overlooks their base of operations at a distance of one mile from where we believe the target will be standing. There will be some tree cover for hiding, and the angle of hill will make it harder to spot us.” I stepped out of the forest and looked down at the encampment. Changelings could be seen moving about the depot and from this distance. They looked liked black ants from up here, and they scurried no differently.
 
“Now we just need to wait” I whispered, you and I will sit at the the top of the cliff and try to spot the target and Chrono will wait in the tree line until we call her”. Silver gave a small grin and stepped forward to take her place beside me. Chrono, finally showing the smallest glimpse of emotion, frowned. She stood there for a moment before turning and walked back into the woods, taking cover behind some foliage. I hovered a set of binoculars to my eyes and hovered a second set from my bag over to Silver who grabbed them with her wing and placed them up to her eyes. “Once the shot is made, we will have to flee. They’ll immediately know our exact position.” 
 
Silver and I lay on our bellies at the top of the hill and scanned the base below us silently, searching for our target. Even without a photo we would recognize him in an instant. He was infamous among ponys for leading the initial assaults on the Equestrian border. He had taken a significant amount of territory quickly, and he rapidly got a reputation for poor treatment of prisoners of war and civilians in annexed regions. 
 
We lay there for some time, scanning the base below for our target for some time before I broke the silence. “Why didn’t you tell me you failed out of the Wonderbolts?” I whispered to Silver, never taking my eyes away from my search. 
 
She sighed. “This isn't an appropriate time for this Azure, and I... I was embarrassed, ok? Everybody sees me as such a good flyer and leader, and I still wasn’t able to make the cut”. Her voice had a tone of sadness to it. I was so used to Silver just saying something crass when confronted with anything personal as a deflection that it genuinely surprised me. 
 
I tried to hold back my next question, but it still managed to slip out out. “How did you not make it? You’re one of the fastest flyers I’ve ever seen, you have a huge wingspan due to your... well... being huge for a pony.” 
 
“Yes, that’s the issue, I’m extraordinarily fast, but because I’m so big my acceleration is terrible, and they couldn’t overlook that problem. They tried to get my acceleration rate up because they saw potential in me, but I didn’t reach the bare minimum for the program; so I was kicked out.” She paused as though she was deep in thought. “Honestly, I consider that to be the biggest failure in my professional life”.   
 
I had never seen this side of her before, and it felt so strange to feel sad for somepony that had seemed so perfect to me, but she was my friend and I felt the need to be there for her. “Silver I...” 
 
“There.” she whispered with urgency in her voice. “He’s by the barracks on the left side of the base speaking with some low-ranking officers, but we have a problem. He's at a far greater distance than intel predicted. That’s almost one and a half miles away, intel had him at 1 mile. This shot will be only a little less than a world record distance.” Chrono who had been listening intently emerged from behind some plants. “Chrono, can you make the shot?” 
 
She stoically nodded and took a few steps past us, and looked down at the base. I pulled from my back pack the special long range scope and held it to her eye. She braced her back legs, and began to charge her horn for the shot, at first we only heard a small hum, but it became louder as her horn became increasingly bright. 
 
As a spotter I didn’t need to do much. A bullet takes time to travel, the wind can change its path, temperature can affect the rate at which it falls, distance is accounted for as the bullet falls as it travels as it's not immune to gravity, and even the rotation of the planet under hoof must be considered when calculating a shot at this distance. However, with magic-based weapons, the beam of energy was instant, and immune to most physical forces, making such calculations no longer matter. I had identified the target, and now my job was to follow the commands of the shooter. 
 
we gritted our teeth as the charge reached it’s apex, the sound and light became increasingly intense until a sudden silence. “THOOOOOOOM!” a deafening roar ripped through the air as a lavender beam of light lit up the base and cut a path to the target. I frantically searched for the target through my binoculars to confirm the kill as I waited for my eyes to recover from the blinding light, and my ears from the deafening sound. Finally I found the target, I could see Trimmel. His front right leg was missing. She had missed. 
 
I shook my head. “He’s not dead, we can hope he bleads out, but we to go now”.
 
Right on cue, gunfire could be heard in the distance as approaching changelings fired in our direction. Their weapons lacked the range to effectively reach us, but this would quickly change as they closed the distance. I heard a familiar hum start to fill the air again. I looked over at Chronos. She was charging for another shot. 
 
“Chronos, stop. We don’t have time, and now he’s going to be moving now, that shot is impossible, we don’t want you killed, you’re too valuable as an asset”. This got an actual response from her; she glared at me intensely out of the corner of her eye, with what was the first real emotion I’d seen from her. I could tell she wasn’t going to move. I took a deep breath and hovered the scope back to eye as silver stood paralyzed while she took in the situation. 
 
The hum and light grew louder, barely overshadowed by the roar of gunfire as bullets sped past us. Their rifles were still out of range, but it only took one lucky bullet for that to not matter. The charging horn grew louder, as did the enemy weapons, but even with the chaos around me, all I could hear was the beating of my own heart. The charging horn reached its peak, and the lavender beam of light shot across the base with an ear splitting "THOOOOOOM"
 
This snapped Silver out of her daze. She flew towards us, grabbing one of us with each leg and kicking off the ground hard. Flapping harder than she ever had in her life she bolted in the direction of the teleportation specialist. As we flew the sound of bullets faded as the distance between us and the enemy increased.  
 
“The target was eliminated” said Chrono meekly. This caused both Silver and I to turn our head towards her as she had finally spoken, causing Silver to narrowly miss a tree as she returned her focus to flying.  
 
Something felt wrong. I felt... wet. I rubbed my hoof along my fur and found a sticky substance. My heart dropped. Had I been hit? I frantically searched my body for a bullet wound but found none. I turned to Chrono and saw that she was holding her hoof tightly to her neck. She had been clipped by a stray bullet and was bleeding profusely. “Chronos, are you ok?” She was able to shake her head only slightly “no”. 
 
Silver landed next to exit zone, setting us both down next to her. Chronos collapsed to the ground and curled into a ball. Seeing the urgency, Daybreak immediately teleported us without saying a word with a familiar popping noise. I felt my body stretch and strain as my body passed through the ether.