"And when do you plan on returning?" An armored alicorn asked, her eyes glowing a dim white in the darkness surrounding her and the other pony that was significantly shorter than her. Her armor had a sort of dark gleam to it, reflecting her shimmering mane that drifted in a non-existent breeze and seemed to show the stars in a night sky.
"I don't plan to until they need me. There's no need. I shall remain by your side for the time being." The bat-pony said, one of her eyes glowing a light green and the other covered by an eyepatch.
"You still need to be careful, huh." The alicorn sighed, looking up at the night sky. Although, it was pretty much night here all the time- since this place in particular didn't have much of an atmosphere. The only reason they were still alive right now was because of a spell the alicorn had cast over the surface.
"I do. Still need more practice with my skills... Using only one eye is proving to be a much larger difficulty than I first imagined." The bat-pony looked down at her hooves, and dug at the grey dirt there. "Depth perception has been completely thrown off. I'll have to rely on a lot of guess work."
"And in your line of business, I do see how that could be a problem." The alicorn nodded, still looking up at the sky. Something blue reflected in her eyes.
The bat-pony looked up too, and for a moment the both of them were mesmerized. Then she chuckled.
"Look at us. They all think we're dead- and what are we doing with this opportunity? Nothing." She shook her head.
"We're waiting." The alicorn kept her eyes on the blue object hovering thousands of kilometers away from them in space. "When the time is right, we will reveal ourselves. Celestia's fall has proven to us that timing is crucial. Charging straight into battle would only get us killed. She may have accumulated a large sum of troops, but her timing was way off."
"Speaking of troops." The bat-pony's left ear twitched. "How are ours doing?"
"Resting. They'll need the energy." The alicorn nodded. "We're over twenty five thousand strong now."
"Seriously? How did they all fit on this bloody little piece of space rock?" The bat-pony raised an eyebrow.
"A few spells did the trick, but that's as much as I can manage now." The alicorn sighed, shaking her head slightly. "You think this'll be third time lucky?"
"Luck has nothing to do with this." The bat-pony sighed. "Although, I wish it did. That would make things so much easier."
"I agree." The alicorn nodded.
For a moment they both stared, mesmerized; at the blue object.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" The alicorn sighed sadly.
"It is. I'm surprised that it's still blue... And has green too, after all that happened."
"Comes to show that we've still got a chance then." The alicorn said, turning away and trotting into the darkness. "Soon, my subjects. Equestria will be ours again."
"It shall." The bat-pony nodded, casting Earth one last look, and following the alicorn into the shadows to hide.
*
"Why... Why did you unchain me?" Blithy asked, sitting on a metal foldable chair next to Val, who sat on her throne.
"Because there really isn't anything you could do. The moment you make a move I could just send a signal to that little torture device of mine- or yours. You invented it after all." Val shrugged. "Also, I have some business to attend to. And it's kind of boring when you aren't here, admittedly." She said matter-of-factly.
"I don't think I want to know what kind of business." Blithy shook her head in disgust.
Val ignored her. "HEX, put up a screen for me." She said, and a large holographic screen appeared in front of them. "Now, track our dear friend Rainbow Dash's position, will ya."
"Tracking." An artificial female voice said, and the screen suddenly zoomed in on a satellite image of somewhere near Canterlot.
"Ah, lovely." Val grinned.
Blithy's eyes widened. "How on earth...?"
"You'll know soon enough. The barricade wasn't everything you know, although I'm still quite pissed about that." Val muttered, and sent a short signal to the torturer.
Blithy suddenly went into a violent spasm for just a second, and almost tipped out of her chair. She was left panting once the odd feeling left, but didn't say anything- she learnt to keep quiet, as much as she didn't want to. She could try ripping out the device, but there wasn't much point. Where the hay would she go after that?
"You know, I find it funny how much thought you guys have put into this war- and yet you've missed so much." Val grinned. "Is there really nothing else you could see? The small details, most aren't even that small. You guys just dismissed them as minor."
"Like what?"
"Pffft." Val leant back into her throne. "Like I'm going to tell you. But you'll find out soon enough."
*
Thyme looked up just in time to see the rocket fly towards them.
Then it was hammered straight out of the sky by a prism beam that came from above, searing through the metal and slicing it in half. She looked up to see a huge gun ship, its silent anti-gravity generators keeping it hidden all the way until it got here.
"Reinforcements inbound." The gunship's pilot radioed. "Head straight for the med evac. We've got you covered."
"Copy... Er...." Thyme squinted at the words printed across the gunship's hull. "Copy Albatross." She said.
"Little help here?" She heard Pulse's strangled call through the comms, and quickly turned her attention to him.
Pulse was still clinging on, trying to take off some of the g-force on his hip by tugging himself forward. He wrapped the cable around his arm, and shuffled along.
Thyme reached out with a hoof, but Pulse was still too far away. Pulse could use his gravity boots and latch onto the hull, but that would mean increasing the surface area heading against the wind. Drag would increase significantly, and that could put a lot of tension on the cable. The last thing they needed was for it to snap.
Except, the cable wasn't their problem right now.
Pulse felt his stomach lurch as he dropped back a few feet.
"What the hay was that!?" He yelled, frightened.
Thyme quickly looked behind her. The handrails the cable was hooked onto were getting ripped out of the ceiling.
"Oh crap. SECURE IT!" She screamed, and dived at the handrail.
It broke free, but then flew right into her hooves. She used its momentum and swung it around, then with a loud crack stuck it in a small gap between the door and the outer hull.
"I thought I told you guys to make sure the damn thing was SECURE!" She screamed at the rest of her team.
"Bucking hell. We didn't see it until a second ago!"
"KEEP AN EYE ON IT." Thyme growled, turning back to Pulse. She leant out the side, and called out: "Can you keep climbing!?"
"Buck'n trying!" Pulse groaned, the muscles in his arms burning as he hauled himself forward against the winds.
"There's gotta be a better way..." Thyme sighed frustratedly, looking around for anything she could use- but there really wasn't anything.
A walker leaped up with a boost and flew into the air above them, about to land on the opposite building when it got hammered straight out of the sky by a heavy shell from the Albatross.
"Get him back in for Celestia's sake! Can't accelerate to full speed until he's in!" The pilot yelled.
"You don't think I'm trying!?" Thyme yelled back.
Suddenly something exploded behind them, and there was a loud crack as the cable snapped from the stress.
The shockwave carried Pulse forward a few meters, his cable whipping about.
Thyme reached out and caught his hoof, and he was left dangling there with no safety cable.
The rest of the med team quickly ran forward and grabbed them, and hauled them in. They tumbled into the cabin, and Pulse kicked the 'close' button for the doors. They slammed shut, and they were left to catch their breath on the floor. Thyme banged a hoof on the pilot's door.
"We're all in!" She breathed.
"Gotcha." The pilot said, and launched the drop ship forward and at maximum speed, weaving through the buildings.
*
Vinyl slowly creeped along the second floor, constantly aware of the darkness behind her and the light coming in from the hollow windows.
She could hear some talking- probably just some troopers setting up a small camp. Sounds like pirates- this shouldn't be too hard. Take them out, and move on.
She swung out the window, her light brown jacket sweeping up a tiny cloud of dust from the surface. There was a whoosh and thud as she dropped down, alarmed yelps coming from the pirates around her.
She flicked her wrists, rings of light fizzing to life and circling her hooves. She ducked under a stream of bullets, and slammed a disc into the pirate's stomach. It burned clean through, and she sliced it sideways and tore his insides out. She quickly swiped his hooves out from underneath him with a leg before he could fire any shots.
She quickly dashed to the other, rolled under machine gun fire and leaped back up again. A bright ball of electricity exploded as she slammed a disc into his chin, knocking him back.
Then what followed was a large mess of colorful lights as she sent electricity through his body by slamming the two discs fifteen times into various parts of his body before he hit the ground. There was a loud thud as he hit the ground, lifting up a small cloud of dust. Vinyl stepped over his body, eyes and ears scanning for anyone else in the vicinity.
"You're clear." She heard Frostbite say through the mic. "You've got a few walkers on the roofs on the next few buildings. Stay put and wait for my signal." He said.
*
Frostbite tucked away his rifle, and leaped over the gap between the roof he was on and the opposite one with relative ease as he stretched out his wings. He tuck rolled onto the dust, skidding a few meters. He stood up and kept running, with the two walkers in his sight. They probably weren't expecting a griffon to turn up.
He sneaked up on the first walker, and stuck a grenade in one of the gaps in its armor, where the leg joints were. He quickly flew off the edge of the building, diving down as the grenade went off. He felt the heat of the explosion on his back, but the building had blocked all the shrapnel.
He flew back up again, but the other walker had already spotted him before he could circle around. He beat his wings against the air and launched forward. The walker shot at him, but the bullets failed to keep track of him as he zipped through the air and closed the distance.
Frostbite tucked into a ball and rolled in the air, then launched both back feet into the front of the walker. It caved in from the impact, the metal bending and denting inwards. Frostbite bounced back and landed on his claws and feet, skidding back a few meters on the layer of dust. The walker fell over and hit the floor with a loud bang, and Frostbite pulled out his rifle.
A few beams of kappa radiation punched through the walker's weapons systems, disabling it. Part of the gun's barrel clunked to the ground, useless. Frostbite quickly flew up to it, ripped off the hatch, and fired a few shots into the cockpit. That's the pilot taken care of.
He looked around, seeing if there were more. The roof tops were clear.
"Proceed, Vinyl. And track down the secondary objective." Frostbite said, then narrowed his eyes as he spotted something. "I've got visual contact on the primary objective. Looks like the reinforcements are here too."
*
"Copy. Proceeding to track secondary objective." Vinyl said, sneaking through the labyrinth of buildings.
Suddenly she heard a loud click behind her, and sighed. She raised her hooves above her head, her body tense and ready to spring into action any second.
"The hay are you from, aye?" The pirate raised an eyebrow at her odd clothing and equipment. He prodded the barrel of his rifle at Vinyl's back.
"I'm from OH SHUCK WHAT'S THAT!!??" Vinyl screamed. The pirate didn't quite fall for it, but was startled and confused for a second there. And that's all Vinyl needed.
She flicked her wrist, and a laser disc formed around the barrel of the pirate's rifle. She spun around and yanked it sideways, slicing the rifle in half.
The pirate open fired, but with half the gun missing the bullets were simply falling out of the front end of the gun, still in their shells.
Vinyl launched a back hoof into the front of the gun, sending the stock digging into the pirate's stomach. She used the rifle as something to step on, and took a big step into the air. The last thing the pirate saw was a blur of white as Vinyl brought her back leg up and kneed him in the face. But she wasn't done.
She grabbed him by the head, and rolled past him. There was a crunch as her momentum spun his head 180 degrees, and she landed with a light thud on the ground behind him. His body thumped to the ground, followed by a light clatter as the rifle followed.
She looked around- no alarms set off. Time to keep looking.
*
"Med team is almost at the cliff. They're going to rappel down the side, and we're going to provide cover fire while they do so. Obviously the gunship will be covering them from above- so we'll be taking to the ground. Keep all enemy forces, pirate or science; away from the cliff." Neon said, speaking over the loud groaning of hydraulics as a large door behind her dropped down to form a platform. "Check your jet packs!"
"Check." Asty said, and the others nodded.
"Well come on then ladies!" Neon waved, and the cadets sprang to their hooves.
"I've always wanted to do this, just saying." Rig grinned, and back-flipped off the side. Asty followed with a slight turn, waving back at the gunship as she fell down. Inkie and Blinkie failed to add fun to it though- they pretty much just stepped off the edge.
"Thunderlane! We clear on the plan?" Neon looked behind her at the cockpit before she readied to jump.
"Kill everyone?" Thunderlane gave a hooves up from the cockpit.
"Essentially. Watch for friendlies, two reported in the area." Neon said, and with that she dive rolled out of the gunship.
Suddenly her ears were filled with the loud roaring of the ship's anti-gravity generators, then that quickly faded away as she exited range. The ship became smaller and smaller in the sky, but then started circling back around again to provide fire support.
"Buck. They've spotted us!" Rig yelled, quickly pulling out his rifle and firing a three-round burst into a missile. Too bad it was right in his path, and he flew straight through the fireball. He emerged coughing and spluttering. "Darn it! These suits should come with gas masks."
"They do, dumbarse. You just didn't turn the function on." Asty sighed.
"Ah buck. They're blocking our way to the cliff!" Rig ignored Asty and yelled.
There were a line of walkers and troops across the street and blocking their passage. They were the ones shooting missiles at them. There was one primary assault walker, heavily armored- that would be their biggest problem. There was also another one on the roof below them.
"Asty! Pass me a grenade!" Neon yelled.
"You won't be able to throw that far!" Asty replied.
"Just give me one!" Neon commanded, and Asty threw one across the air at her. She caught it in a claw, and leant forward.
Now she was directly facing the line of defense head on. She activated her jet pack, and gave it a forward boost. She was ripped out of her original falling trajectory and shot straight towards the walkers.
In mid-air she removed her jet pack, pulled the pin on the grenade, and stuffed the latter into the former.
Using the jet pack one last time facing sideways and in her claws, it sent her into a wild spinning motion. She timed it, turned the jet pack engine fully on, and threw it across the street at the walker on the roofs.
The jet pack hit the walker's thick armor and bounced off, dented and broken. It clattered to the floor, useless. But a second later the entire roof collapsed as the grenade went off, taking the walker with it.
Neon was still on her original trajectory, heading towards the lead assault walker at fifty miles an hour.
The walker shot at her, but she avoided it by angling her body sideways. The distance between her and the walker closed enormously, and she quickly rolled forward so that she would hit the walker with her back hooves instead of her face.
All Rig saw was Neon zip towards the walker, and then the walker and her along with a ten meter radius of troops and surface area suddenly explode into a huge dust cloud with a metallic bang.
"What the hay was that...?" He didn't know what to make of what just happened.
Then suddenly he saw Inkie fly towards him, and the next thing he knew he had a knee in his face.
He tumbled across the air, Inkie having flown somewhere else. And then he noticed the missile that would've hit him from the side.
"Ouch, my face." He muttered. "Thanks."
"It was the only part of your body within reach that I could get you out of the way from."
"I can see how that could've ended even worse." Rig mumbled under his breath.
"Stay in formation!" Blinkie yelled. That was the first time anyone other than her twin heard her raise her voice at all. "See those buildings? Land behind them for cover!"
"MISSILE!!" Asty screamed.
"No worries. Air support inbound." Thunderlane said calmly, and hammered the missile out of the sky with a prism beam.
Asty quickly angled herself and flew out of the fireball's way.
"ETA five seconds to ground level!" Rig yelled. "Activate counter thrusters now!"
Inkie swung her back legs forward, small thrusters at the bottom of them slowing her descent only by a few seconds. A spring system popped out from underneath her boots, and as she hit the ground they absorbed the force of impact. The system popped back in, and she immediately dove behind cover.
She pulled out a small device the size of a pistol, which quickly sprung into a full length sniper rifle.
"Move up move up!" She yelled, peering through the thermal scope. The dust cloud from Neon's impact was still floating around, so visibility was low. The only things that could get to them through the clouds were the thermal scopes and advanced targeting systems that didn't require direct visual contact. Which could also be a bad thing, since the damn walkers will be shooting rockets at them.
There were a few bangs as Inkie picked off a few shooters in the dust cloud, giving the team more time to land and get to cover.
Then a bullet came zipping out of nowhere and busted right through her right arm. And clearly it was a high caliber- as it ripped her entire arm off directly from the shoulder.
She screamed, and fell down into the dust, her own thick blood mixed with bits of flesh dropping down all around her. There was a dull thud as her severed arm dropped, followed by a clang as her rifle fell.
"SHUCK! MARE DOWN! MARE DOWN!!" she heard Rig yell, somewhat distant.
Then someone rolled her over, and she saw a vague image of Blinkie. She was yelling something at her face, shaking her. But she couldn't see through the blurriness, nor hear through her dulled and ringing ears. The only thing she knew was this was bad- really bad.