Pinkie Pie had managed to get some good images of their perimeter defenses, and was more or less finished by the time Applejack called her back. Her reconnaissance had pretty much not seen any conflict thanks to the so far successful cloaking technology.
It was night time, and Luna's moonlight faintly lit the field, by the time she made it anywhere near the other side of the fields on her way back. Wondering where each of her team, and friends, were she pulled up the map of her heads-up display and ran a search for the transponders they were carrying.
The results showed three of them further away, green dots marked RBD, FLS and APJ, the device saying they were all atop the hill, and two more fairly closer but behind her, marked TWS and RTY.
She turned and visually inspected the general direction in which the device indicated they were from her, but she could not see them at all.
Stopping where she was, she laid down to the ground.
"Twilight, Rarity, do you copy?"
"Twilight here. Why are you breaking radio silence?"
"My HUD says you're somewhere behind me but I can't see you"
"Right, give me a sec" Pinkie waited.
"System tells me you're approximately to our one o'clock, about one hundred fifty meters ahead"
"Pulse your torches at me"
In a couple seconds of waiting she spotted two individual lights pulse four times in the distance. She flashed hers in response.
"Gotcha guys" she said without transmitting.
After a couple more pulse flashes Rarity and Twilight had finally rendezvoused with Pinkie Pie and they progressed further together.
"Halt. Check your motion sensors" Rarity said as they got to the hill, putting her hoof out to signal a halt command "I just had a blink forward of our position"
"I saw it- there's another" confirmed Pinkie
They each brought up one of their hooves which had a small gun strapped to it and aimed in the direction of the blips.
The blips started moving closer, and closer, until the bushes started rustling and they heard the laughter and foreign-tongued conversation of two Ized troops; they looked up and the amused smiles quickly departed their faces, being replaced by ones of shock and dread.
They stood still, frozen in place, not making any sudden moves to provoke any of the three ponies into firing.
Pinkie had her barrel set on the one on the left who, to her, looked more suspicious than the other. Rarity and Twilight also split their aim among the two Izeds.
"Steady, boy..." Pinkie whispered to herself "We'd hate to have some of that filthy blood poison our oh-so-precious Equestrian earth now wouldn't we?"
The one she was staring down glared back at her; he'd now tried to put on a steely, determined face, but Pinkie saw right through it to the fear that kept growing inside him.
The whole thing happened almost instantly.
He swung a hoof around behind him in an attempt to slide his hoof into his weapon's brace which he then intended to use.
He got as far as swinging the hoof back before Pinkie fired off one round at him, scoring a critical hit on the individual.
What little armour he had on posed no challenge to the incoming projectile, which blasted its way through his upper chest, shattering the scapula, the shrapnel from which proceeded to, when he hit the ground, sever vital arteries as it was moved around inside due to his writhing in pain.
The sudden, unordered gunshot left Rarity and Twilight dazed for a slight moment, but long enough for the remaining Ized to attempt to escape back into the bushes to alert his allies.
Twilight recomposed herself and brought her hoof back up, and her horn glowed, using her magic to concentrate her aim on the moving target as he galloped away.
Rarity at the same time attempted to line up her gun to the escapee and quickly fired, only to miss and land her round in a tree.
Twilight was certain she had the shot, and she let it go. The gunpowder ignited, spinning and propelling the lead pellet down and out of the barrel.
The bullet traveled across the small gap between its firer and its target in an instant, striking with deadly accuracy.
After a moment the quiet of the night returned.
Pinkie moved forward to inspect Twilight's handiwork; when she saw the results she whistled in admiration of her precision marksmanship.
"Yeah Twilight, I don't think this one will be getting back up any time soon"