//------------------------------// // Preparations // Story: Vanguard // by Material Defender //------------------------------// Orion could hardly believe it. Not one moment he was on the ground in pain, and after what felt like an eternity, he found himself swinging through the air of some world, one that he didn't recognize. He could barely make out the snow that covered the entirety of the ground as the purple barrier blinded his eyes before him. His HUD was flashing red as the alarms beeped that his barriers were out. But that was impossible: he was staring at the damn wall of purple right in front of him! Just what happened? He figured he didn't really have time to think about it as he was falling towards the ground at terminal velocity. Cursing to himself, he activated his barriers, hoping that whatever state his shields were in could help protect him from the impact... for what good it might do. "Holy shit. You see that one?" The Alliance marine pointed at something in the sky, appearing just a little beyond the crescent of the outlying moon. Another one walked up behind him, trying to make the best out of the strange object in the sky as the snow continued falling. "Just what the hell is that thing?" the second one asked. "I don't know. But you'd best warn the boss. Like, right now," said the first one. The second nodded and ran off into the building. The lone marine continued observing as the strange purple comet fell from the sky and crashed in the courtyard of Corsica Communications Relay Station. "...is he... what could he... N7...?" "No idea... purple comet... damn sky..." "He's moving... coming to... buddy... hey, buddy... you hear me?" "He's completely out of it... might have some serious trauma..." Orion stirred. Those damn voices. He opened his eyes to find three Alliance marines standing over him. Two were standing away from him, and one was crouching directly over him. His barrier systems were beeping like mad. The noise pained his ears. "You think he's alive? I mean, you saw the impact. He was practically... floating or something. Like something caused by a mass effect field, right when he hit the ground!" said one of the standing marines. "That's some really bleeding-edge tech if he can completely nullify a terminal velocity drop by putting a mass effect field in front of him! Check if he's still alive, maybe that impact still did him in." The crouching marine nodded. "Hey! Hey, buddy! You awake in there?" He tapped Orion's faceplate. "Yo, N7. You alive? Just... uh, do something, I guess." The marine looked over to the two standing behind him. "I don't think this guy's alive, boss. I mean, he practically just fell out of the sky just now... I have no freaking clue how his barriers managed to do something like that, mass effect field or not... this guy should be a pancake right now." Orion groaned and tried to move his arm. Alliance marines? Just what the hell were they doing here? "Whoa... WHOA! He's coming to! Goddamn it, this crater is huge..." shouted one of the standing marines, scrambling towards him from the edge of the crater. "Whoa, now, just stay down. I'm a medic. You took one hell of a beating there, uh..." "Orion... Lieutenant Orion... N7..." Orion said. "Right. Well, El-Tee, I'll get you patched up in a jiff. Just hold back and let me get in some medi-gel. That was some pretty crazy stuff you did back there. Some new N7 drop method?" The medic laughed as the gel filled his life support weave, administering painkillers. "No broken bones, just some bruising. That's amazing. All you N7 types will be dropping out of the sky like angels of death before long, though it looks like you still have some quirks to iron out. Well, that looks good. Let's see if you can stand." The medic and the other marine helped Orion to his feet and helped him out of the crater that he'd made with his impact. He stepped around groggily as he tried to get his bearings. "Where... am I?" Orion asked. "Whoa, now. They send us reinforcements, but this guy doesn't even know where we're at? He must have hit his head harder than I thought," said the marine. The medic punched him in the side and gave him a look. "You're in Corsica Communications Relay Station, Lieutenant Orion." The third marine stood in front of him, arms crossed. "Come on. Let's head on inside so we can talk. Don't want to freeze in this damn snow." Orion sat down in the waiting lounge and took off his helmet. He looked around. Alliance blue and the familiar triangle-and-three-stars insignia of the Navy hung around the walls. He blinked for a few moments as his head throbbed. What was he doing beforehand? There was... the eezo... and Jayce... and Canterlot! He straightened himself. Just a damn perfect time to get teleported again. He didn't even know how long he'd been out, or if there was some sort of temporal distortion between their universes, not to mention the problem of Nightmare Moon still being on the loose. He deliberated on staying at Corsica, conflicting with his thoughts on how the Equestrians would deal with Nightmare Moon without him. He ultimately decided that the Equestrians needed his help more, what with Shepard and his merry little organization of fleets going around and winning victories, and began to think of a way to get back, until the sound of an opening door broke him out of his trance. "Welcome to Corsica, Lieutenant Orion." The familiar voice of the third marine came up from behind him. He walked to the seat across from Orion's and sat down, and took off his helmet, revealing a familiar face to him: a youthful, but grizzled face, smiling. "Hey, Matty. Been a while since the academy, huh?" Orion squinted, then blinked. "Who... Will? William Dempsey? From E-Class at the Academy?" "That's Chief Engineer William Dempsey to you, Matty." He held out his hand and Orion shook it. "Man, when I heard they were going to be sending reinforcements, I didn't think they send in a one-man army to help me deal with this shit." "Wait... what? Reinforcements?" Orion asked. "Yeah, reinforcements! Shepard's rallied the whole bunch from all the Council races, and now they're going around kicking some serious ass. They said they'd be sending a whole group of Alliance and turian reinforcements our way!" Dempsey's smile disappeared as he noticed Orion's confused look. "You're... not reinforcements?" Orion shook his head. "Damn. I guess the reports were right, after all." "What's going on, Will? This place is... what's with the talk of reinforcements?" "They were ambushed en-route from a deployment order from the Crucible. None of them made it. How the hell did you get here, then?" "I... don't know. One minute, I was trying to... use my biotics, and then another minute and I'm falling out of the sky and hit the ground. I'm lucky I'm not dead. That impact definitely would have killed someone." "So it wasn't some crazy new N7 stunt?" Dempsey raised an eyebrow at him. "No." "Hmm," Dempsey had a hand to his chin in thought. "Well, since you're here now, we need your help." "Yeah... what's going on?" "Reapers. That's what's going on. Corsica's been our primary communications relay for all operations for four entire operational sectors. We did a good job on trying to keep this place a secret, but it was only a matter of time before they found us. And they did. I'm going to lay it out straight for you, Matt. They're sending a Destroyer our way." Orion could hardly be surprised. Reapers here... like they were everywhere else. "What makes you so sure it's heading here, to Corsica?" "Because it wiped out our advance guard elements of the 124th Alliance Marines and the 5th Turian fighter wing. We're up in a bad place, Matt. We need all the help we can get. I'm not going to bother asking how the hell you fell out of the sky like that, but I need your help. We're getting in trickles of survivors from our various observation posts, and our numbers aren't looking good." "Well, what's so dangerous about this one Destroyer?" Orion asked. "What isn't? It's been stonewalling every major offensive we've tried to pull in this sector for over half a year. It's stalking our men across the continents and now it knows where we're mobilizing from: here, at Corsica. It's not going to stop until either it is dead, or we are. We're lucky it's just one Destroyer. It's like the goddamn Reapers just left this single asshole just to mock us since they know we don't have any fleet support. Well, we've had enough. I've made a direct appeal to Admiral Hackett, and he's sending the Alliance cruiser Barcelona here, in secret. We'll trap that sucker and then we'll bomb it to pieces." Orion couldn't follow. "I don't think the Destroyer's just going to stand there and take the hits. You guys thought about using an uplink laser painter?" Dempsey shook his head. "No, the interference is just too damn crazy. I'm in charge of this whole operation, you see, and I argued against them that we couldn't just set up a goddamn trap on this freaking icebox world. But Command wouldn't have it, and, well... here we are." "Any ideas, then? Otherwise, we're all walking dead men." "Yeah, just one, but it's pretty ballsy. You might have heard that Shepard brokered a truce between the quarians and the geth, right? Well, the geth dropped us some pretty damn useful tech. Specifically, a gravity tether that was used to hold asteroids in place for mining. We'll lure the Destroyer right on top of our trap, spring the tether and lock it in place, and then sit back as the Barcelona blows that son of a bitch to pieces from orbit!" "And what's just stopping it from blasting the tether and stomping us all?" "Simple. We placed the tether to activate right on top of the old array socket. See, we already relocated the array weeks in advance. It's still going full power, just in another sector, and this whole operation is a big trap. What we plan to do is to lure that sucker in from the northwest through the valley, trap him on top of the socket, and then blast him to bits while he's on there. It'll also destroy the hatch on top of the socket, which means it'll fall straight in and be a sitting duck while we hit it from orbit." "Yeah, yeah, I know. But what about the tether?" Orion was quite sure that a Destroyer's beam could cut through most things after the feeds from Earth came in... "The geth have loaned us a special anti-Reaper shield, designed specifically to protect from an instantaneous large power transfer via dark matter, specifically, a Reaper weapon. That means that we have no worries so long as the army that the damn thing is bringing with it doesn't get too close. I'll have soldiers guarding the tether through the operation." Orion figured it very handy that the geth had been researching anti-Reaper technologies since before the advent of the war. "What's the army composition?" "If anything, they're bringing in the whole nine yards for this one, Matt. Banshees, brutes, cannibals, and husks, among other things. I don't know if my Alliance boys will be able to hold the line, but we have you here. You've fought these things dozens of times. Maybe you can advise us on how to deal with these assholes. I can tell you right now that we have a huge ordnance stockpile ready to be used on this operation since we've been expecting this for months." The answer was plainly simple to Orion. The soldiers here weren't N7, and were probably green at worst. "Use any and all ordnance on any banshee when you see them, same goes with the brutes. Cannibals and husks we can deal with at range. Make sure the front line soldiers have assault rifles and shotguns, they're going to need them for the husks. Do you guys have any advanced training?" Dempsey shook his head. "Sorry, Matt. Everyone here is just 100% Alliance grunt, and the Turians hold the air, with whatever's left of their fighter wing. No biotic firepower here... well, except for you, of course. We do have some extra vehicles we can put to use, though, about three Makos and two Hammerheads. Most of the area around the array is snowed-in forest. We can take the advantage there." Orion looked out the observation window as the sky grew slowly dark, the snow being the only visible thing beyond the glass. "Keep the Makos around for station defense, and have the Hammerheads deploy in the forest with some infantry units to stem the flow. Use hit-and-run tactics." "Shouldn't we build up defenses in the forest, just mow them down as they come?" Dempsey asked. "No. We put up entrenchments and the Destroyer will just mow them down. We have to keep mobile, use the tree cover to our advantage. If everything goes right, the damn thing won't be able to get in range of the station, but I'm damn sure the goons coming along with it will. That's why we need some soldiers and the Makos here." According to the view Orion had before entering the station, the array socket was around two miles away from the relay station, and around the corner of a mountainside, which would keep it out of view of the soon-to-arrive Destroyer. "I'll tell my men to get ready, then. Let's hope all those Hydra launchers will come in use... Best get those defenses ready, intel says that thing will be on us in around a week. With any luck, we'll be prepared for them," Dempsey said. He slowly stood up, and gave a quick look out at the nighttime snowfall before nodding to Orion and leaving. Orion merely waved him off, laughing. "Trust me, Will, if you've fought a banshee, the last place you want them to be is right next to you..." Jayce's makeshift welding mask glistened in the dark storage room as he fired together two pieces of metal underneath the landing gear block, creating an impromptu handle. He'd been working through the past three days nonstop on trying to complete the missile launcher. There was a knock at the door. "Jayce..." Luna said, peeking her head in. "I do believe you should get some rest." She walked in and continued watching as Jayce welded metal to metal through a line of white-hot flame. "I can rest when I'm dead," he responded. "Orion was our trump card in this battle, and with him gone, I don't know how things will turn out. We need as much firepower as possible, because I don't want to find out what happens if we're under-equipped." His apprehension was not unfounded: Orion, as the only trained biotic there, was the only one capable of seriously harming Nightmare Moon. Jayce could still barely manifest a proper barrier field around his fists, and could only manage to crack boulders with some minor damage; he would need more time, but with Nightmare Moon ready to appear at any moment, he figured he'd rather take his chances with the missiles instead. Additionally, Luna was facing off against her alter ego, and was most likely on even ground, assuming that Nightmare Moon hadn't already become more powerful in her absence. "Please, Jayce..." she said pleadingly. "You need sleep." "Yeah, yeah... I know. Just... let me finish up here." The crackling of the flying sparks broke the silence as Luna waited for him to complete the day's round of tinkering. "Well... I guess that's going to require some testing, and it definitely won't pass any weapon certifications any time soon..." He dropped the mask on top of the table, taking off the heavy apron and industrial oven mitts he had appropriated to fend off the heat. "Hey, you done?" Bolt said, coming in. "Oh, my apologies, Princess, I didn't know you were here." "It is fine," Luna replied. "You need your sleep, Jayce," she said, turning to him. "Uh... what?" Jayce said, rubbing his temple. "Oh, yeah... I'll head back now. What time is it?" "It's been several hours since I've brought the moon up, Jayce." That meant that a good number of ponies were already sleeping, or about to go to sleep. And he'd been up for the past three days straight. Even though he'd had a lot of experience working with as little sleep as possible, three days of working coupled with an ongoing stress of an evil entity lurking somewhere out there actually put Jayce on an edge that he'd not felt for the longest time. Then again, having only C-Sec and bounty hunters on his ass would work very well for a good night's sleep right about now. "Whoa, Jayce, you don't look so hot," Bolt said. "Yeah, I know, I fucking get it," he growled quietly. "I need my sleep, and I'll just head back to my room now to get some, alright?" He walked out the door as the two ponies followed him out, Bolt locking the storage room as they left to prevent any curious pony from checking out the human equipment and possibly blowing themselves up. Once they reached Luna's chambers, he bid Bolt and Luna good night, and found himself trying to fall asleep on his bed to no avail. The fatigue was coming too slowly, and he could hear his heart pumping blood as it rushed through his ears. He began to recall the events following Orion's disappearance. Celestia had mobilized all the royal guard units into overtime training, with one General Steelshard at the helm. Jayce hadn't personally met the stallion, but the way the guards were being shaped into an actual coherent fighting unit that actually had some semblance of tactics and strategy indicated to Jayce that they might not be dead in the water, after all. They began stockpiling arrow-based weaponry, some of it actually high caliber, to prepare for the impending battle, as well as creating provisional retreat centers for population centers that might be affected by the attack. Luna had specifically requested several pegasus guards be put aside for her reformed Night Guard, and Jayce was one of the eleven newly-appointed members of Luna's personal guard, led by one Captain Blackwing. He had his own authority as a Knight of the... well, Night Court, and was given operational freedom to do as he liked, unchained by the limits of command, which Jayce amusingly recalled being similar to his time in Cerberus. Blackwing seemed a competent enough Captain, and got along well enough with Luna's personal knight. Jayce was just content with having teammates he wouldn't have to drag around or infuriating enough to warrant kicking their asses. Celestia had told Jayce that Orion was supposed to have been formally knighted her own Knight of the Day Court, but given his absence, it made sense that they could really do nothing except hold off on his formal induction until after he returned... if he returned. That son of a bitch better have not gotten cold feet, or he'd personally go back to Earth and kick Orion's ass with Shepard as his witness... Jayce fell into a snore as the moon began to rise above him, his mind having been calmed by falling back into his usual crude antics. "That's it? This is all we're going to get?" said Alliance medic Caroline. It had been several days since the reports of the Destroyer's breach through the last remaining outer fortification had come in. Once it broke across the mountain pass that guarded Corsica, it would be upon them through the valley, where the array socket was located. "Fuck..." Dempsey swore, standing in front of Caroline and Orion, looking out the observation bay window. They had only a paltry number of a little under two hundred men, now gathering in the courtyard as the remainder of the reinforcements came in. Most certainly not enough to hold back a Reaper tide, let alone one that had a Destroyer. "Yeah, that's not good..." said Corporal Melendez. The three were present at the time of Orion's arrival, and they'd quickly gotten acquainted with the N7 operative as an adviser on Reaper combat. And they would most certainly be requiring his expertise in the battle to come. Unfortunately, the extent of the tactics used against Reapers had essentially been 'don't get killed', 'big guns work wonders', 'distance means survival', and 'shoot the damn thing in the face until it's dead'. "What's the ETA on the Destroyer?" Orion asked. "Since the winds and snow are particularly bad this week, I'd wager it'll be around five days, seven days tops, until we see the top of that ugly ass walking out of the mountains," Melendez said. "I suppose that's one good thing that's come out of this icebox, I guess. They can't advance too fast or else they risk freezing in the gale-force snowstorms all over the place. Thank god this valley's surrounded by mountains, otherwise we would be freezing our asses off, too." "And what about the soldiers?" Orion continued. "What's going to be the split between here and the forest?" "Some of these guys have seen some decent combat. Those that can handle the run-and-gun tactics will be sent out in the forest along with the Hammerheads; I'd wager that's about half of them. The rest of them are either too fatigued or too wounded to continue moving. Those that can still hold a gun will hold the walls, and we'll have the Makos provide heavy defensive support," Dempsey said. "Any more defense we can soup together, boss?" Melendez asked. "I mean, short of covering the whole damn valley in proximity mines, I think this is the best we'll get out of what we have. I mean, sandbags, walls, tank traps, and all that. Corsica's only got one route up the hill to this place, so it's going to be a gritty fight." "Then we'll just have to make do. Will, who do you have on tether duty?" Orion asked. "I have Echo Squad on it. They're the only squad remaining that still has all their members in stable condition. They number around six, and they'll be in charge of protecting and activating the tether while the rest of the forest units try to hold off the Reapers." "Good. And me?" Orion hadn't been given a particular role yet, but he figured it would be something well-suited to his talents. "Simple. You hold the entrance to the station, at the bottom of the mountain between the forest and the beginning of the road. If worst comes to worst, we can divert you to help the units in the forest, but otherwise, you'll just be helping the guys on the roadblocks hold off the oncoming tide," Dempsey said. "No contact from the Barcelona yet, but according to Alliance datanet, it's just a single sector jump away." Orion nodded, accepting the task. With any luck, the units in the forest will be able to fend off the Reapers while Echo Squad holds the fort down at the tether. Some of the Reapers will most likely divert from the forest, or break through it, and attempt to disrupt the support and coordination allowed by the relay station, which is where Orion will be providing his support at. "So, about those Hydras..." Orion said. "Don't worry. Every squad that we're sending into the forest will have at least one Hydra on each of them. If those banshees are as dangerous as you say they are, they won't have any problems mowing them down. Goddamn asari and their inherent biotic abilities..." "Any air support for when the operation begins?" Dempsey nodded. "Just a single fighter group left. The turians will do their best to give as much support as they can, but I doubt it'll do much. At most, I suppose they can do strafing runs, because going up against that Destroyer is suicide. We keep the fight going on the ground, and hope that the Barcelona shows up on time." "And now we wait, tend to the wounded and see if we can't crank out some battle-ready men before the Reapers show up," Melendez said. Jayce looked upon the courtyard where the lines of guards stood at attention as their commanding officers barked off instructions at them. Another day of waiting meant another day of training, and Celestia had been adamant in maintaining the daily drills, at least until the threat was dealt with. The groups then dispersed into pairs to practice hoof-to-hoof fighting. Most of it revolved around bucking and dodging the opponent's attacks. Jayce had to suppress a smirk, remembering just exactly how well that training had worked against him. Unless they were going to cover Nightmare Moon in a giant mass of royal guard, he figured that they'd most likely be mulch. "Think this is going to be enough?" Bolt asked, walking up with Aegis. There were too many guards training at Canterlot now, so the platoons switched every other day. Bolt's and Aegis's just so happened to be on their off day. "We've been putting the guards through the wringer," Aegis said. "I hope we have something to show for this when everything's all over." The rest of the guards, or at least those that had arrived at Celestia's call to arms first, had completed their relocations at the various towns throughout Equestria, from Ponyville to Appleloosa, from Manehattan to Las Pegasus. It went without saying that this time, the population definitely knew that the stakes were higher, following Celestia's official statement just a few days back regarding Nightmare Moon's return. A lot of the press nearly had to brought out on stretchers when they realized that Nightmare Moon wasn't going to put on a show at a party this time to get her point across. At this point, Jayce had nearly finished configuring the missile launcher. Putting the damn thing together was an easy task, but to get it working properly with the confounded targeting system to work with the weapon was a pain in the ass. And equally annoying was the load system as the missiles were easily as large as his arm fully extended, with a weight and bulk to boot. He'd probably need a helper with that to carry the extra ammunition around. He'd looked into Orion's suggestions about using the fighter cannons, but like he already explained, they were integrated into the fuselage, which made removal extremely time-consuming, even more so since Equestrians didn't have anything on hand that could easily cut into metal, unlike machine shops back on Earth. If by some miracle of chance, Orion ended up bringing back a cutting laser from wherever he was at, Jayce would be thankful. In addition, he'd met with Shining Armor, another Captain of the Royal Guard, albeit one of the more well-known ones. They'd discussed guard deployment schedules and plan of attack in dealing with Nightmare Moon's attack. He'd shown good knowledge in how to deal with threats, and it pleased Jayce to know that at least there was someone competent in charge of the royal guards, or at least a good number of them, judging by the number Shining had under his command. By this time, deployment to the smaller settlements like Dodge Junction had been accomplished, with checkpoints on the roads connecting cities and towns and a consistent pegasus patrol pattern to make sure that Nightmare Moon couldn't show up anywhere without being seen. Even with all the security on the road, the sheer number of royal guards still present at the Canterlot castle astounded Jayce; that there were even enough unicorns and pegasus guards in Equestria to fill the entire courtyard and castle was no small feat. "Well, I think I've wasted enough time here. I'm off back to put together that damn weapon of mine," Jayce said, waving to the ponies as he left. "Don't overwork yourself now!" Bolt shouted as Jayce rounded a corner. With any luck, Jayce would have the computer fully operational by the end of that day. Hopefully. Electronics liked to be flimsy like that. "Enemy sighted in range of the valley! It's the Destroyer!" shouted the comms tech on the PA system. "This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill! All hands to full alert! Reapers inbound!" Orion jumped to his feet and snapped on his helmet as he ran outside to meet Dempsey, who was directing the wounded-but-combat-capable soldiers to the walls. The rest had already been deployed to the forest a day prior in advance to the estimated arrival time, and there were already sounds of gunfire coming from the forest. "Will!" Orion shouted, running out into the courtyard. "Sitrep!" "They've just made contact at the outer forest edge! Stop screwing around up here and get your ass out there, Orion! I have to get back to the station to command this damn mess!" Dempsey said as he ran back into the station. The skies roared a single group of Turian fighters took off to aid the forest squads in their defense. "What about the Barcelona?" Orion shouted. "She's on her way! Just one more FTL jump and she'll be here! We just gotta hold out till then!" Dempsey said, as the door closed in front of him. Orion nodded and proceeded out the gate alongside the last of the road defenders. He made his way down the hill as Alliance soldiers took up position behind various metal wall-offs placed in leapfrog patterns down the hill as stockpiles of Hydra launchers were littered all over the place. The communications were alive with the sound of orders, gunfire, explosions, and static. "...Delta Squad pinned down at west forest..." "Alpha Squad proceeding to Kilo Squad's position! Banshees sighted...!" "Hammerhead Anvil One initiating contact with Reaper forces, brute sighted..." "Bravo Squad here, holding the line! They're coming in hot, but we'll try to hold 'em off as long as we can!" "Sniper team Gamma reporting Reapers advancing down west flank to the tether! We need support down here now...! "Copy that, sniper team Gamma, Hammerhead Anvil Two moving to engage, over." "This is Delta--holy shit, they're all over the damn place! We're pulling back! Gamma, cover our ass!" "Contact! Contact at base!" shouted a marine crouching behind a metal barrier, as Orion continued down the hill. The sound of rifle fire and the explosions from the Mako cannons began popping up all around him. He continued sprinting down the hill, hoping the marines at the first line of the road defenses could hold out until he got there. "There we go... and that goes with that... link that... and done!" He pulled up his welding mask and observed his new piece of work. He activated the targeting systems using his omnitool, and the diagnostic scans read all green. He hefted the heavy launcher on his shoulder, and tested the firing mechanism, which reported with a loud 'thwack' as the projectile launcher worked just as intended. "Now to just test this thing..." He went over to the ordnance hatch for the fighter, and wheeled out the missiles. Orion never had a chance to use the fighter in combat, which meant that the missiles were mostly intact. Jayce had thought that the initial damage and unsteady landing would have at least damaged some, but all thirty missiles were in mint condition. Unfortunately, it meant that he had to use one of the missiles to test the weapon. No point in bringing it out to battle with all its weight if all it ends up being is a really dangerous paperweight. So with that, he carefully removed one of the missiles, loaded it into the launcher and sealed the load hatch with a heavy click, and closed the ordnance hatch on the fighter, and with some difficulty, exited the storage room. As he locked the door with his key, Bolt walked up to him, having been curious to his progress. Jayce had the launcher, which was roughly about 5/8ths of his size, strapped on to his back, carried in the same weapon slot where Orion usually had his M-920 Cain. "Whoa! So you finally managed to put it together?" Bolt asked. "...are you on your way to try it out?" Jayce smiled. "Can't call this a proper weapon if we don't know if it works yet, right?" "Should I go set up a training area in advance?" "If you can spare it. Oh, and make sure there's a lot of room. And I mean lots of it." "Understood." Bolt quickly saluted and headed back up the stairs as Jayce slowly walked up behind him with the launcher impeding fast progress. There was a chatter outside as Jayce exited the basement stair doorway and entered the courtyard proper. Bolt had apparently set aside half the grassy grounds for testing, leaving a giant rock at the end for Jayce to fire at. Bolt was arguing.with some instructors over the sudden denial of the grounds for training. Jayce quickly approached them, pulling the large launcher intimidatingly over his shoulder. "Excuse me. I had Bolt here cordon off this area for me. Hope you don't mind." The instructors closed their mouths as they saw the bulky human standing before them carrying a weapon as equally fearsome as himself, and moved aside. "Thanks." Jayce took a knee and aimed the launcher at the boulder, which was pretty far downrange. There were murmurs as guard platoons broke out of training to see what exactly the human had in mind. He even noticed Luna out of the corner of his eye as she stood at the entranceway leading back into the castle, interested in seeing what the weapon was capable of doing. "Here goes nothing..." he said to himself. There was a shrill beep as Jayce set the target to the boulder, and then a series of shorter beeps ticked along until the lock was achieved with a single high-pitch beep. "Target locked! Anypony out there, clear the range, I repeat, clear the range!" He looked behind himself. "And move your asses, you don't want to be behind this thing when I fire." The guards standing there quickly scrambled out of the way as the single long beep held the target lock. "Firing!" With a single pull of the trigger, Jayce could feel the launcher pull back as the missile exploded out of the barrel with explosive force, and a giant puff of smoke obscured the backblast. It flew directly towards the boulder, then slammed into it, exploding with a force that shook the entire castle grounds, causing most of the guards to flinch and some to fall to the ground in panic, and what few who hadn't been paying attention to turn their heads towards the noise. There was silence as the smoke cleared and the sound dissipated. "I guess we can call that a success," Jayce said, letting the magnetic locks on his combat armor hold the weapon as he dropped it on his back. "I'll say. That's certainly something you humans have got there," Bolt said, shock prevalent in his voice. "Unfortunately, that cost me one missile to do. And I don't have an infinite amount of these damn things... but I sure as hell wish I did. At the very least, I suppose it'll give Nightmare Moon something to cry about. You available for some help, Bolt?" "Sure. What do you need?" "I need someone to help me load the missiles onto a mobile pallet so I can move them to the field. I expect to be using all of the missiles, but I guess we'll see about that." "Right. Let's head on back then, and I'll ask around to see if we can't make something that can hold some missiles." "That would great. Let's go." Jayce and Bolt exited the crowd of stunned guards, who were fluctuating between watching the human leaving, and the destruction he had caused with his new weapon. "You think that's bad?" Jayce laughed, walking up the stairs with Bolt. "You should see what Orion's big gun can do." "This is most excellent, Sir Jayce," Luna said, appearing before him. "It would seem that your weapon is a success." "Well, I can't say this is going to win the battle in one fell swoop, Princess. But I'll be damned if it can't at least do some serious damage." There was the sound of quick running as a pegasus guard ran up to Luna. "Your Majesty!" "What is it, my subject?" she asked. "I-it's Nightmare Moon!" he huffed. "Sh-she's been sighted... out over near... Dodge Junction! Just a few miles out from it! She's... already approaching the town... and we've evacuated the civilians! Another guard has already sent word to Celestia, and we're already mobilizing!" "Thank you," Luna said, turning to Jayce. "I shall prepare transportation, and arrange a large chariot for your weapon's needs. It shall be awaiting you at the northwest tower balcony. Now I must rally my guard. Do not tarry, Sir Jayce." "Don't you worry, Princess. I wouldn't miss this party for the world." Jayce looked at Bolt. "You and me, to the missiles, right now." They had a lot of packing to do.