“How much longer until we get there?” Shining Armor asked.
The Osprey had been flying for just over ten minutes, the endless white landscape passing by through the view port.
“Razor, eta?” Roland said over the comms.
Razor chuckled over the comms, “Look out your window.”
Roland opened the door and everyone inside was greeted with a panoramic view of a steaming jungle. There were some mountains close by and the fleet of Ospreys were flying over a large lake.
“Wow....” Pinkie said breathlessly, looking out over the landscape.
“Things have been warming up lately...” Roland said, “Makes it easier to get t-energy.”
“Heads up, Akrid activity ahead, a lot of it,” Razor called over the comms.
That was unnecessary, however; everyone could see a massive swarm of trillids flying up from the jungle canopy and heading right for the fleet.
“That’s a hell of a lot of akrid!” Mike said, standing up and attaching his grapple to the osprey.
He and Roland grabbed their rifles and started shooting at approaching arkid.
Soon, the sky was in chaos; Osprey’s were exploding, sending shrapnel and whirling blades flying through the air. Trillid swarms were weaving between helicopters, searching for open doors and soft spots to skewer. Mercenaries were trying desperately to shoot down as many as they could, but the swarm was too much.
“Damnit!” Roland swore, “If this keeps up, we risk losing the whole operation!”
As the fleet began to break down into a panicked mass, those pilots who could manage dropped boats into the water before attempting to flee.
“We need to get out of here!” Riggs shouted, picking up his rifle to help out.
Shining Armor made a force field around the Osprey, “I don’t know how long I can hold this against so many.”
Mike and Riggs attached grapples and lowered themselves down into a boat below along with Pinkie.
“Sparky, let’s go!” Roland cried, attaching his own grapple.
At that same second, a nearby Osprey took a trillid to the air intake and on of the engines exploded, sending the flaming mass tumbling towards their Osprey.
Shining Armor stood ready to try to hold it back but Roland didn’t give him the chance. He detached his grapple and tackled Shining Armor right out of the Osprey, sending them plunging into the water below as the two Ospreys above collided in a massive fireball before crashing into the water.
After a few moments, the two surfaced and swam over to the waiting boat.
“Cutting it close there, aren’t you, boss?” Riggs said, hauling Roland into the boat.
Roland gave him a look as Pinkie helped Shining crawl into the boat.
After the two sopping wet soldiers were inside the boat, Mike started up the engines and they started heading towards the shore among flaming debris from the fleet.
“Is this normal?” Shining Armor asked, shaking the wetness from his mane.
“Hardly. There shouldn’t be this many akrid around,” Roland said, checking his rifle.
“Something’s got them more active,” Riggs said.
“That just means more target practice,” Mike added, steering the boat to shore.
“Pink- I mean, Firefly, are you alright?” Shining asked the usually bubbly mare.
For a good ten seconds, she said nothing, just looked out over the water at the wreckage of the fleet. Then her mane and tail slowly deflated, going straight and smooth.
“Uh oh...”
“What’s wrong with her?” Mike asked.
“I’m going to kill every last one...” Pinkie said darkly.
“Pinkie...?” Shining Armor began, but was cut off by her grabbing a shotgun that washed up on the beach and cocking it.
“It’s party time,” she said in a malicious voice.
“I’m starting to like this one,” Mike said, turning towards the jungle.
“Alright people, our mission is to break through the enemy lines and get to the mining facility deeper inland,” Roland said, looking over a small digital map. “After that, we sabotage the mine and head to the designated location for extraction.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Riggs said.
Mike and Riggs fell in behind Roland as he lead the way into the jungle. Shining hesitated as he watched Pinkie stalk off behind them and brought up the rear.
He had read a letter from Twilight about the happy-go-lucky mare’s dark side, but this was more frightening than he imagined it. He’d have to make a mental note to never, ever, get on her bad side.
As they began getting into the trees, they could see a few trillids weaving between the trunks of the trees, while three legged sepias crept across the ground.
“Looks like we’ll need to do a little exterminating,” Mike said.
Roland and Riggs fired off a few bursts at the trillids, bursting the fragile akrid with little trouble.
Shining Armor fired his own volley at a pair of sepia but only managed to get their attention.
Seeing the two akrid approaching, Pinkie let out a battle cry and charged at the tripedal creatures. They seemed almost perplexed as they stopped their advance, though they soon decided she was a threat after she leaped at them, firing her shotgun twice.
Everyone could only watch as Pinkie destroyed the two akrid. They weren’t stunned by the ferocity of the pony, they weren’t even stunned by the large smear that was left afterwards. Everyone could do nothing but watch because the shotgun that Pinkie was using shot lethal blasts of confetti.
After the colorful confetti settled, everyone was staring at Pinkie, and after a moment, they let out a collective, “Damn.”
After that little demonstration, the team began to move on, taking are of the small packs of sepia and trillids.
After running through a sizable pile of ammunition, the team came upon a clearing where another team was catching it’s breath.
Roland walked up to the other squad’s leader while Riggs and Shining armor went over to a small red metal post.
“What’s this thing?” Shining asked.
“It’s a data post,” Riggs explained. “It can map the area and gives us a place to communicate and regroup with the rest of the force.”
“And they’re just sitting out in the middle of nowhere like that?”
Riggs kneeled by the post and started to activate it, changing it from a cylinder into a mini antenna. “Most of these are leftover from when this planet was a mining colony.” He stood up and checked that the map was updated with the post’s information. “But that was a long time ago.”
“And they’ve lasted this long?”
“Yeah, these things are pretty-”
Riggs was cut off by the sound of an Osprey appearing above the canopy and descending to drop off a fresh batch of mercenaries.
“Do you feel that?” Shining asked.
“Feel what?”
Before he could answer, a large clawed arm burst from the ground right underneath the Osprey. As it batted aside the helicopter, the rest of the beast followed, revealing a very large chryatis covered with bright red armor spikes.
The clearing burst into panic as the chryatis let out a scream and began attacking the mercenaries. Many of the mercenaries stood back and shoot at it in panicked bursts; however, Roland sprang into action and shot his grapple at a nearby tree and ascended to get a better angle on the beast.
“Hit the weak spots on the arms!” he screamed as he shot at the chryatis’ head, drawing it’s attention.
Riggs and Shining Armor began shooting at the large glowing spots on the beasts large, scyth-like arms while Mike charged out, clad in a suit of power armor that had been left nearby. Riding on top of his shoulders was Pinkie, both of them firing their shotguns at the creature’s glowing abdomen.
The chryatis took notice and swung around, sweeping one of it’s large arms at the two.
The blow hit Mike square and sent him rolling backwards while Pinkie jumped off and latched onto the arm.
Roland kicked off from the tree as the akrid tried to shake off the pink pony and landed on it’s back.
“Eat this!” he shouted as he anchored himself to the creature’s back and shoot at the weak point in the leg that Pinkie was attached to.
The chryatis screamed as the bullets ripped through the soft flesh and the arm tore from it’s socket, falling away and falling to the ground. It began thrashing in an attempt to throw off Roland.
By this time, Mike had gotten back to his feet and lobbed a grenade towards the creature. “Roland, heads up!”
Roland saw the glowing orange sphere and shot it out of the air, creating a blast right in the beast’s face, though it sent him tumbling off.
The chryatis turned to face the armored shotgunner and charged at him, attempting to trample him. As it passed the arm it left behind, Pinkie jumped up and grabbed onto the brightly glowing abdomen.
“Tough son of a bitch...” Mike said as the chryatis stopped short and began thrashing to dislodge the pony.
The chryatis gave a screech of rage and spun around, charging at a large tree. At the last second it turned on it’s good forelimb and smashed it’s abdomen, and Pinkie against the tree.
“Pinkie!” Shining cried as the limp pony slid off the abdomen and landed on the ground with a thud. He galloped into the clearing, firing his rifle as he ran, peppering the creature with bullets.
As he passed a fallen mercenary, he picked up a second rifle and rolled onto his back, sliding under the beast and unloading the full fury of his rifles directly into it’s abdomen.
The creature screamed and writhed as the bullets tore into it. It’s convulsions soon ceased as it’s boy began to freeze, leaving a large ice sculpture standing in the clearing.
After a few moments, the body cracked and shattered, letting a large pool of t-eng flow out onto the jungle floor.
Shining Armor got to his hooves and ran over to Pinkie, where Roland was already stooped over her.
There was blood dripping from her mouth and her eyes looked clouded with pain. The few plates of armor she did have were cracked and missing chunks. Her back right legs looked completely dislocated. To top it all up, it looked like her entire ribcage had collapsed, and her breaths were shallow and ragged.
Roland could see the look of horror in Shining armor’s wide eyes and put a hand on his shoulder. He pressed a button on Pinkie’s harmonizer and it began to whirr to life, a bright green ring lighting up.
“She’ll live.”
Shining looked at him in disbelief, “What?”
Riggs walked over and began charging something, “I’ve seen people survive worse.”
Shining looked between the two of them like they were crazy. “I’ve seen ponies get hurt before! They don’t recover after something like this!”
“They’ve never had a harmonizer...” Roland said as the device on Pinkie’s foreleg quieted.
Shining Armor looked at Pinkie with shock. Her legs was back in it’s socket and her chest looked healed. She still looked like she was in pain, but her injuries were all healed.
“Just as I thought,” Riggs said, shooting a beachball sized orange orb at her.
“What are you doing!?” Shining Armor cried as he tackled Riggs.
“Relax, Sparky, I gave her some more t-eng. She’ll need it to get back into fighting shape.”
Roland showed Pinkie the button on her harmonizer and she pressed it weakly, activating it again. In no time at all, she looked to be in better shape than before.
Shining got off of Riggs and went over to Pinkie, “Are you okay?”
She surprised him by lunging forward and hugging him.
“Looks like it,” Roland said.
She then turned to him and tackle hugged him in turn, her mane and tail puffed up again.
“Thank you so much for saving me! I was so scared I was going to die!” she sobbed.
Roland was trying hard not to fall over backwards at the extra weight, but supported the crying pony. “As long as you’ve got thermal energy and a harmonizer, dying is going to be pretty hard.”
Shining Armor looked at his own harmonizer and saw a small readout with numbers showing his t-eng reserves. 306 units. The four digit readout made that number look small.
“How much had it taken to heal Pinkie...” he wondered.
“Alright, alright! Enough of the water works. We still have a mission to do,” Roland said, setting down the pink pony.
Pinkie wiped her eyes and nodded.
“Alright everyone. This setback is going to cost us. Riggs, how is the operation going?”
“Looks like the other groups are running into some heavy resistance. Our rout looks a lot clearer,” he replied.
“Alright. There should be a small encampment of snow pirates ahead, so be ready.”
“Let’s get going then,” Mike said and reloaded his shotgun.