"Where is the Lincolt bridge anyway?" the Doctor asked.
"It was here." Blithy said, flying between two stumps either side of the huge river, both ends on fire. It would seem something set off a chain reaction that took down the bridge from one end to the other.
"She's going underwater." Doctor Whooves warned.
"Aha." Blithy said, turning the plane sideways and slipping under the ocean.
Not many planes wondered into these depths- because not only did they have to worry about their enemies, but also the extremely hazardous obstacle course that is the ocean floor. It was also a shark infested region, so it could cause a few big problems if you slam into one at over a few hundred kilometers an hour.
The Wasp flew low over the sea bed, just above its uneven and sandy surface. There was a ship wreckage ahead- and it seemed like one of the old science faction cruisers that went down during the old wars. Val flew straight for it- its flak turrets and various trenches on the hull should be enough to flip the battle.
Blithy followed, heading towards the downed ship. She traced the clouds of bubbles that the Wasp's engines left behind, weaving through the hazardous hull of the downed cruiser.
"Boy is this exciting! On all my journeys, I've never done this before." the Doctor said, and Blithy ignored him. "Mines! MINES!"
Blithy yanked the Horizons to one side, avoiding the underwater mines that the Wasp left behind. Too bad they were proximity sensitive.
"Buck!" she cursed as one of them went off, the shockwave rocking the Horizons and rippling through the cockpit. It held together quite well though, considering.
"Can't take much more of those." the Doctor said.
"Well no sh-" Blithy stopped midway and brought the Horizons up into a steep climb, then flip back down into the labyrinth again. They looped over a mine, their engines scraping the surface of a disabled flak turret.
The Wasp flipped on its side, and squeezed between two look out towers.
"Screw that." Blithy said, flicking the switch on a torpedo and blasting one of the towers apart. She flew through the resulting cloud of sand.
"There goes the paint job." the Doctor said.
"Would you stop being such a bucking BACK SEAT PILOT!!" Blithy roared, firing a torpedo at Val.
"I usually am the main pilot. But in the TARDIS only." the Doctor muttered.
The Wasp suddenly dove down into a hole in the cruiser's breached hull- it looked like the reason that the cruiser went down in the first place. Probably from a powerful mammoth spell by one of the older alicorns.
The torpedo failed to curve down in time, and hit the far wall; blowing both to scrap metal.
The Horizons arched down, and flew through the dust cloud- but Blithy didn't know there was a mine hidden there by Val.
"Mine!" the Doctor yelled as he spotted the round metal object.
"Shuck-" Blithy cursed, trying to swing the Horizons out of the way- but she's way too late.
The Doctor fired the turret at the last second, blasting the mine away from the Horizons. It blew apart somewhere else, taking out a good chunk from the downed cruiser.
"Well that's never happened before." he said as they flew through the dust cloud.
The Wasp suddenly made a turn, and headed into the cruiser.
"What the hay happened to this thing?" Blithy wondered as they followed Val into a huge tunnel that was ripped right down the cruiser.
"Some special type of mega spell. Must've torn right through this thing like a drill." the Doctor said, gazing up.
The Horizons performed a lock-on, and Blithy shot a torpedo at Val.
"Honestly-" Val growled, turning on the PDP shield. The torpedo slammed into the back of the Wasp, but failed to do any damage.
Then out of the dust cloud a prism beam came flying out, and clipped one of the Wasp's engines. The hull was damaged, but all internals were still intact and functional. But a few more hits in the same spot- and this plane won't be flying for much longer.
"Quit running!" Blithy grinned.
"Soon enough." Val said.
The Wasp launched two torpedoes, knocking a hole in the hull in front of them. It flew through the dust cloud and back out into open waters.
"Careful. She probably hid a mine in there." the Doctor warned.
"I see it." Blithy said, putting a prism beam through the explosive.
They flew out into the vast ocean, with nothing in sight. The darkness stretched on forever, shielding everything from light. Blithy quickly swung the Horizons around and to the side as two prism beams from Val grazed the hull.
"As expected of you." Val sighed.
Blithy boosted the engines, sending the Horizons flying forward. Val turned on the shields, the Wasp glowing a bright yellow. The Horizons tilted to the right and flew past the Wasp, heading towards the sky.
It broke the surface, streaks of water being dragged away from the surface. The Wasp followed soon after, sending two missiles spinning in a spiral towards the Horizons.
Blithy tilted the plane, the two missiles flying past either side. She took them out with her prism beams, shooting them out of the sky.
She flew low above the ocean surface, headed back towards Manehatten. Water was forced away from the engines, going up in an inverted rain behind the Horizons.
"Aaaand- back in Neigh York!" Blithy said, rolling the plane to the side and off the ocean. The plane slid between two buildings, then swung down over a highway.
"Still right behind us." the Doctor said.
Several missiles overshot and slammed into the cement roads in front of the Horizons, lifting chunks of the material into the air with small clouds of dust and dirt. Blithy heard a few chunks slam against the hull as she flew through the explosions- but no damage was done.
"Tracking missiles! She's got us!" the Doctor yelled.
"Hold on-" Blithy said, bringing the Horizons ever closer to the highway. Now the engines were barely half a meter off the ground. The force of the engines cracked the age old roads, leaving behind a trail of dents.
There was a bridge up ahead. Limit: five meters, it said.
"Well, buck." Doctor Whooves said. "Crazy. I like."
The Horizons flew under the bridge, the top of the hull grinding against the bottom of the bridge and causing sparks to light up the shadows. Then Blithy forced the plane's nose up just as it exited the bridge, the g-force almost forcing her against the windshield for it not her seatbelt holding her down. The plane was still heading in the same direction, but it was vertical.
Bubbles of disrupted air trailed behind the Horizons as it continued on its trajectory. The missiles earlier curved up with the plane, however hit the bridge and blew up in a huge fireball, taking down the bridge and sending chunks of it flying high up into the air.
Blithy flipped the plane back around, making it fall backwards and do a small loop, all the while heading in the same direction. The nose scraped on the cement road, sparks leaping away and an eery screech echoing around inside the cockpit.
"Bahaha! That was great!" the Doctor laughed.
Then a prism beam from Blithy shattered something on the side of the road.
"What was that?" the Doctor frowned, looking behind them- but he couldn't see through the small dust cloud.
"Speed camera." Blithy said, and the Doctor shrugged.
The highway was just miles of open area- and the chase was quite dangerous for the running side, which in this case was Blithy and the Doctor. But they had their advantages as well.
Blithy flicked the button on a torpedo silo, dropping it out of the plane and resting her hoof on the remote detonation.
The torpedo fell out of the silo and hit the ground, tumbling away and way behind the Horizons. Its irregular shape caused it to suddenly fly up high in the air, the outer shell dented from the tumbling.
"What the-" Val raised an eyebrow as the dark grey object suddenly bounced up right in front of her cockpit windshield. Then her eyes widened. "Oh sh-"
Blithy slammed the button, the torpedo blowing up in a huge fireball. It was one of those explosions where one second there was nothing, then the next there's a huge ball of fire, smoke and debris spanning twenty meters right in the middle of an empty highway.
The Wasp busted through the ash cloud, the PDP shield shimmering.
"Bleeh! That's why I don't smoke." Val coughed, waving a hand around and clearing the smoke inside the cockpit.
"I bucking hate that shield." Blithy growled, spinning the Horizons around and flying it backwards.
She started firing prism beams at Val, all of which she managed to dodge. She shot a missile at the Horizons, and Blithy managed to roll it out of the way just in time.
Blithy dropped another torpedo, forcing Val to activate the PDP shields. But that was part of the plan to disable them. The Doctor kept raining Val with ammo from the turret, keeping her in PDP mode while Blithy centered the prism beam on her.
Val saw what they were doing- but was near powerless to stop it. So she slammed a hoof down on the booster.
"What the hay is she doing!?" the Doctor yelled, holding down the turret triggers.
"Kamikaze." Blithy growled. "Sorry Doc, don't forget how to deploy the parachute."
"Wait, wha-?"
Blithy slammed down the eject button for the Doctor, shattering the windshield and sending him rocketing out of the cockpit in his seat.
"Well this has a nice view." Doctor Whooves sighed, the parachute hidden in the seat deploying and slowing his descent.
There was a loud click as Blithy deployed a knife from the back of her wrist, hidden inside the robotics. She dug it underneath her seatbelt, and cut it loose. She moved all joysticks backwards, flipping the plane and tipping its nose towards the sky.
Val cut her own seatbelt apart, and kicked the cockpit windshield away. She stood up on her seat and launched a back hoof down onto the eject button, and felt the thrusters underneath the seat suddenly come to life. She rode the seat and flew high up into the air, above both the Horizons and the Wasp.
Blithy leaped out of the cockpit and climbed along the Horizons, then stood up onto the tip of its nose.
The Horizons and Wasp collided, and without its PDP shield- both exploded into one huge fireball. Blithy kicked off the Horizons and towards Val just as they blew apart into a million useless shreds, her arm mounted knife catching a glint of light.
Sparks exploded as the knife collided with Val's right hand. They were in mid air, thirty meters off the ground and five meters above a huge growing fireball.
Blithy activated the gravity generators embedded in her back hooves, and swung upside down and stood on the bottom of the seat. The thrusters had turned off, but it was still quite hot to stand on.
Val did the same, both hooves sticking onto the small surface area of the seat. There was a loud click as she deployed a knife of her own.
Their knives clashed again as they spun through the air and towards hard ground. Val launched a kick into Blithy's chest, sending her falling back. She grabbed onto the bottom of the seat and swung back around, a sideways swing already prepared.
Val blocked it with a robotic arm, then aimed a fist at her face. Blithy blocked it with a hand, closing her fingers around the fist and twisting the arm down.
Suddenly Val kicked down on one end of the seat, spinning it. Blithy learnt why the hard way.
They hit the ground, and because the seat spun Blithy ended up at the bottom. Sparks flew everywhere as the robotic half of her face was dragged along the rough highway cement roads. Then her hooves left the seat as she slowed down, and she tumbled out of control as her arm clipped something. Probably that one step that goes up to a sidewalk. Then she felt her left leg snap against a street light, sending her spinning in another direction.
Then the ground left her as she tumbled over the edge of Manehatten at eighty miles an hour, the sky and the sea spinning around her.
Val had ridden the seat, and it flew high up into the air as it clipped the edge of the sidewalk. She leaped off it and looked down, her robotic eye searching for Blithy.
"Ah." she said as the words 'Target Locked' appeared in her mind, and somewhere on one of the cruisers a flak turret swung around.
The words 'Lock-On Detected' appeared in Blithy's head, and she sighed and curled up into a ball.
"Strike!" Val cheered as the flak turret fired, letting out a huge puff of smoke and one big projectile.
A large dust cloud exploded over the ocean surface as the projectile hit Blithy dead center, exploding into a million little pieces. The force knocked the mare straight out of the sky and into the water. Still she kept going, her wounds already healing as glimmering pixels attached themselves to her injuries.
Val got a small boost from the jetpack built into her back, and did a little flip. A missile came by, and she used the gravity generators in her hooves to attach herself to it. It flew right into the ocean, in pursuit of Blithy.
"Seriously?" Blithy tried to say, but only bubbles and gurgles came out of her mouth.
She opened her palm, the muzzles of two micro machine guns popping out from under a plate. She fired a spray of bullets at the missile, blowing it up underwater.
'Way to go busting my ride.' she received a text message from Val in her head as Val was blown off the missile.
'GTFO.' she replied.
The force of the flak projectile hitting her was still lasting pretty well, and the missile explosion amplified that. She was sliding through the water at almost fifty miles an hour. It'll take forever to hit the sea bed at this speed- so she used her jetpack to help with that.
They were directly above ATLANTIS- the glow of the underwater city slowly seeping through the shadows.
"The city has almost been fully evacuated! We are ready to send our infantry on evac too!" the radio operator yelled.
"Hold your ground! Valkyrie is coming- capture her at all costs!" Blithy said in her mind, and sent it as a voice recording file.
"Roger." the radio operator said after a moment.
"Prepare an ambush! Make sure our Crawlers are ready to seal everything off!"
"Copy!"
Blithy swam to the side, her jetpack giving her a sudden boost. She landed on a Striker, and smashed the windshield open. Two shots from the micro machine guns took care of the pilot, and she dragged his dead body out of the plane and jumped in herself.
She swung the plane around, firing prism beams up at Val- who was zig-zagging through them, her jetpack blazing. The Striker continued flying backwards into deeper waters, and they started feeling the pressure build up. It wouldn't crush them though, being ultimately enhanced cyborgs.
Val was losing her breath. They had both been holding it for quite a while now, and even though it couldn't kill them- it still was very uncomfortable. But of course, Val doesn't care.
Then out of nowhere a huge prism beam from a Crawler struck the Striker, tearing it in half. The explosion sent Blithy plummeting down towards ATLANTIS.
She felt her back break through the ice cold water and into warm air- she must've breached one of the bubble shields in the hangars.
She heard several surprised yelps and gasps as she tumbled through the air. Her head made a hollow crack against the hangar floor, and she continued rolling several meters before resting by the far wall. There was a large dent on the spot where she landed.
"Lieutenant- if you don't mind giving me a hoof." she said, sitting up- but her head was at a ninety degree angle to her side, and stuck there.
One of the officers came up to her and slammed a hoof across her head, bringing it back to normal orientation with a sickening crack.
"Not quite there yet." Blithy said, and the Lieutenant slammed her on the spine. Her neck cracked back into place, and she sighed in relief. "Better." she said, turning her head and making several more clicks.
She stood up as if nothing had happened, and tried her best to ignore the pain. She couldn't help but at least make a face though.
Something breached the bubble shield again, and Val came flying out of the ceiling. She landed somewhere behind where Blithy did, making a loud thunk as she landed hooves first. Following the sudden motion was simple stillness- she didn't slide a few meters, didn't flinch at her cracked bones. Within a few seconds those wounds healed, and she stood up grinning. She was a tad shorter though because of the dent in the floor she made with that landing.
"You guys did a pretty good job with the place." she grinned, looking around at the huge hangar. "Sadly I'll have to confiscate it because you guys were misusing it."
"Shoot her!" somepony yelled, and a small squad of infantry started firing their rifles at Val.
Val didn't even bother dodge the bullets. She let them rip right through her, tear her up. She took a step back, but didn't fall down. Through the blood her grin still remained, and she started laughing when the squad had to stop to reload.
"Haven't felt that refreshing since forever!" she laughed loudly, nano bots in her body cleaning up the blood. She flicked out her palm, two barrels popping out.
"Take cover!" Blithy yelled, quickly running between Val and the squad.
The bullets hit her- they hurt like hell, so how the buck does Val ignore all of this? She screamed, in the blinding pain falling over. Soon the pain was gone as her wounds healed, and she spat some blood on the ground and wiped away some tears.
"Heck, Blithy. Endurance- I thought you had some." Val said, grinning as Blithy got up.
"Evacuate infantry. I'll take care of Val." Blithy sent the voice message to the radio operator, and got ready to fight Val.
Val shrugged, and looked around to see what she could use. The first thing she saw was an Apollo, so that's what she chose to use against Blithy. Not exactly the way it was meant to be used though.
"What the f-" Blithy said as Val lifted up the Apollo, and threw it across the hangar at her.
Blithy shoved the Lieutenant out of the way, and slammed a fist into the Apollo. She felt her own bones crack, and clenched her jaw so she wouldn't scream at the pain. The Apollo got a huge dent in it, and tumbled back at Val.
Val kicked downwards at one of its engines, sending it flying high up over her head and slamming back down again at the far wall behind her. But in that brief moment, Blithy had already darted right in front of her.
She spun and launched a powerful backwards kick into Val's stomach, sending her flying back ten meters before hitting her back on the Apollo.
"Bucking hell." she said, reaching into her chest and cracking a rib back into place. The outer wounds healed with the inner wounds, and she stood up. She had made the Apollo's hull cave in, and a lot of its internals were visible. She reached in and grabbed something out.
"Uh-oh." Blithy said as Val threw a missile at her.
Of all the things she could've done, she decided to kick it. She could've easily dodged it, but she wanted to test her luck. The missile tumbled through the air, and exited the bubble shield. It blew up there, sending a fresh splash of water into the hangar, washing the squad of infantry away to the side.
"Sorry." she looked back at Val, who seemed to be doing something to one of the engines.
She aimed it at her.
"Ah buck-" Blithy quickly ducked down, but just a little late.
The bottom of the engine scraped the top of her head, and she fell over with a cracked neck. She groaned, putting a hand on the back of her head and clicking it back to the right position. She got up, and scanned around. Now where the hell is Val?
Then there was a loud thunk behind her, and she turned around- Val had held onto the back of the engine. She kicked off the destroyed engines, knife flashing at Blithy.
Blithy met the slash with an upward swing, knocking Val off balance and changing her trajectory. Instead of going straight like she kicked off as, she was now arcing through the air.
She landed with a loud clang on the metal, her hooves sliding on the water and sending her back several meters.
"This is gonna be a long day." Blithy sighed, flicking out her palm and open firing.
"Tell me about it. And I was going to take a nap." Val said, deflecting the bullets with her knife.
She ran forward, rolled under a stream of bullets and sprang back up again with the knife.
Blithy met the knife with her own, then kicked Val in the side. She seemed to have expected it though, as she stood her ground and didn't go flying.
She hooked a hoof behind Blithy's remaining leg, as her other had performed the kick; and swiped it out from underneath her with all the ease of pushing over a tall log. She stabbed the knife into Blithy's chest, drawing a fresh gush of blood as the sharp tip pierced her heart.
Blithy didn't even have enough air in her lungs to scream.