//------------------------------// // 64: We will stand tall, face it all together. (Hv) // Story: Xenophilia: Further tales. // by TheQuietMan //------------------------------// We will stand tall, face it all together. Chapter published 29th November 2013 *************************** At just ten body lengths above the treetops, twelve figures flew at speed above the Forest of Yore. From below they looked like nothing more than a disturbance in the early morning sky, a barely perceptible shimmer disturbing the light of the last remaining stars and distorting the view of the occasional wisp of cloud. From above it would be almost impossible to tell them apart from the rustle of the leaves or the wind whistling through the furthest reaching branches. By the time you saw them, they were already gone. But these were no wisps, no ghosts, no trick of the light or flights of fancy. They were The Shadowbolts. *********************** Ten minutes out from their objective, the twelve flyers split into two teams, one team banking left to approach the objective from the west, the other banking right to approach from the east.   As their target grew ever closer, the first rays of the sun rising behind them casting the days first few rays over the treetops and the far distant crystal mountains, the youngest member of Bronco Team readied herself for what was to come. They had all trained for this day, trained over and over, for the day that the members of Princess Luna’s Special Aero-tactical Squad would be called into action for real, the day when the call would come and it would not be a drill, not an exercise, not even a run-though. No, this night, for the first time, the last ditch option that was the Shadowbolts Initiative had been fired in anger. And they were ready. Scootaloo - Shadowbolts service number thirteen - cast her eyes across her five squad-mates, all six ponies flying together in a delta formation, the five others ahead of her as the young pegasus herself brought up the rear. She had spent months - or years in the case of two of her team-mates- training with these ponies. If there were any other individuals out there that she would rather be flying with tonight, she knew not of who they would be. Directly ahead of her was her was the team captain and squad leader, Shadowbolts service number twenty. To the captain’s left were the squad’s two ‘kitbashers’ - service numbers seven and ten - they hauled the squad’s heavy equipment and provided the muscle for their team. To the captain’s right were the team’s two scouts - service numbers one and two - providing the team’s reconnaissance and fast strike capabilities.   One of the kitbashers she’d known since childhood, though back then he hadn’t been known as ‘The Brick’. To the untrained eye he looked like an unintelligent - and unintelligible - wall of muscle; but to those who knew him, they saw instead a stallion of great honour, compassion and intelligence. He may not have been one for long speeches, but when he had something to say then by Luna you shut your cake-hole and you listened to every word. The other kitbasher - a surly and unapproachable pale green mare only known by the codename ‘Snake Eye’ - she’d only known this last year. Apparently she’d been a border guard back in the day, before being dishonourably discharged from the service. After that her history got kind of hazy, right up until Princess Luna herself had brought her into the Shadowbolts Initiative in a move that had caused no small amount of friction in the upper ranks of the organisation. The princess had eventually declared that a pony must be given a chance to redeem themselves of past misdeeds and that, if this were not the case, then surely if her time as Nightmare Moon was to be taken into account, she herself should never have been given the chance to retake her throne. Even when the kerfuffle had died down, Rainbow Dash had made it quite plain that Scoot was to keep well away from the older mare when they weren’t on the job, and the young pegasus was sure that a similar conversation had been had with Snake, though possibly using both smaller and louder words. The first scout, and indeed the mare with the honour and distinction of being the first ever Shadowbolt to be awarded her commission, was possibly the fastest pegasus Scootaloo had ever seen. Well, maybe the second fastest. A petite bright-orange pegasus by the name of Dodge Charger, she hailed from an earth pony family and had shown herself to be both as tough and as strong as earth ponies far larger than herself, and to be as fast on the ground as she was in the air. If you needed to out run ‘em, out fly ‘em, out buck ‘em or out sass ‘em then Dodge was your go-to girl. Next to her flew the team’s tall - supermodel tall even - second scout, who was as different to her fellow scout as night was to day. While Dodge was all about speed and power - ‘buck first and ask questions later’ was her motto - Blue Fire was, without question, the brains of this little duo. This wasn’t to say that she was without speed or power herself, far from it. No, Blue Fire had the body of a highly trained athlete, it was just that she used this body primarily as both a means to move around the mind of a brilliant tactician and strategist, and a tool with which to put her deviously laid out plans into action. Strangely, these two totally disparate ponies were so in-sync that more often than not they even finished each other’s sentences. Left together for any length of time, this unlikely duo would soon become the terror of wherever they were to be found; which was unfortunate for the Wonderbolts as both of them had, as their ‘day jobs’, positions in Captain Soarin’s ‘Fighting Falcons’ squad.   With a slight tingle at her neck, the voice of squad leader come to her ears via her personal Scratch Crystal which was embedded in the collar fastened tightly around her throat. Scoot wasn’t one hundred percent sure how Scratch Crystals worked - Auntie Twilight using big words like “Application of Acoustic Resonance” and “Thaumic Entanglement” whenever she asked hadn’t helped - but she did know that it used her own skeleton to make it seem as if somepony was actually talking to her from within her own ears. The fact that no other pony could actually hear any of it all just made the whole thing extra cool, and spooky... and then extra cool again. If only the average pony knew just how many of the new high-tech toys hitting the market were the unclassified offshoots of the output of the Shadowbolt Initiative's equipment labs - or the Scratch Labs as they’d come to be informally known around HQ. From the goggles and outfits they all wore to the collars and belts around their bodies to the tools and gadgets the kitbashers carried in their packs.   Some of the nation’s greatest - and weirdest - minds were hard at work churning out some of the greatest - and weirdest - stuff this planet had ever seen... though admittedly a large portion of it was either inspired by, or based squarely upon, the human-tech that Uncle Lero had brought with him tied up in his brain. “We’re coming in for landing, ETA three minutes,” came her captain’s voice, “You all know the drill, I ran you all through it back at the academy enough times that even your ancestors should remember how it goes by now. Let’s do this quickly and cleanly. Scoot, you're on tail; Fire and Dodge, secure the breach, we’ll be sixty seconds behind you.“ Without another word, the two scouts peeled away and accelerated towards the target. Their objective was a small hole in the forest floor which would take them into the changeling’s hive. Their job was to silently drop into the small cavern directly beneath the opening, neutralise any targets they found within and then signal back when they had secured the room ready for the Captain and the Kitbashers to follow them in. As the four remaining members of Bronco team silently circled above the opening, the pair of scouts disappeared into the darkness of the cavern below them. After a tense sixty seconds, Fire’s voice could be heard over each of their crystals informing them that the infiltration zone was secure. As Scoot remained hovering above the hole, just above treetop level as the team’s eye in the sky, first their captain dropped through the hole, followed by Snake and Brick. Taking one last look around the forest before she too dropped through the hole, Scoot could see how this hive had gone undiscovered for so long, as far as it was from civilisation, totally blending in with the rest of the forest, residing deep underground, safe under the feet of the forest’s unsuspecting animal population. But now these changelings, they’d kicked the hornet’s nest and they had no idea what kind of beast they’d awakened. They’d taken her friends, hurt her family, foal-napped her niece. But that was about to change, the Shadowbolts were here now and they’d put a stop to whatever plans, whatever schemes these creatures were hatching. There was no way that they’d get away with this, not while there was breath left in her body. She just prayed it wasn’t too late. And not just for her family’s sake, but for the changeling's sake as well.   ************************* As her last team mate dropped through the hole in the cavern’s roof and silently touched down behind her, the squad leader lifted a forehoof to her collar, the second scratch crystal mounted within connecting her to the leader of the other team. “Apple Team, this is Bronco Team leader,” she hissed, “We are in. Repeat, we are in.” As she waited for a response she reached up and adjusted her goggles, re-setting them for low-light use. As the world around her shifted from dim colour to brighter black and white, the voice of Commander Spitfire echoed in her ears as the camouflage enchant on her uniform dissipated, letting the outfit revert to plain black all over. “Bronco Team, this is Apple Team leader. We are also in. Repeat: we are also in. Proceed to point B, Apple team will proceed to point A. Repeat: proceed to point B, Apple Team will proceed to point A. Report any enemy action or any sightings of Objectives Purple, Red or Green immediately. Apple Team Leader out.” After acknowledging the command, the squad leader cut the connection and turned to her team mates. “Okay, ladies,” she said quietly. “We’re going straight to target point B, so no sight-seeing. Fire and Dodge, grab your clubs from the kit bags and take point. Stealth is the name of the game so keep it nice and quiet, if even one of these bugs spots us then the whole sun-damned hive’ll know we’re here in like five seconds flat.” The two scouts nodded before using their wingtips to grab a single club from each of the two packs of kit, giving both of them a pair of short, sturdy weapons, one held in each curled wing. “We found that,” Fire motioned towards the mangled body of a changeling laying towards the back of the cavern, an expression of mild disgust on the white pegasus’ face, “looks like it’s been dead a good few hours.” “Yeah,” the captain remarked, barely looking at the body of their fallen foe. “Objective Green dealt with that particular changeling during my escape. Nasty stuff. Ignore it, let’s keep our minds on the here and now.” With the scouts moving to cover the doorway, the captain turned to the rest of her squad, “Brick, you're with me,” she said, “Snake and Scoot, take tail.” Snake started to move towards the younger pegasus but the captain caught the larger mare by the sleeve of her uniform. “Don’t buck this up again,“ she hissed at the pale-green pegasus before taking Brick and moving after the scouts. As the two point-mares disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, the captain’s goggles giving off a soft magical whine as they compensated to cope with the diminished light the further she moved from the cavern’s breach, she turned and addressed the dead air of the cave. “I told you I’d be back.” And with that, Captain Rainbow Dash, Squad Leader of the Shadowbolts’ Bronco Team, headed back into the hive.