//------------------------------// // Courage (Wave 3) // Story: Twilight's Experiments: The War of Mann Co. 2 // by MIKEANTHONY321 //------------------------------// “Is everyone okay?” Twilight asked worriedly. The frazzled unicorn waited patiently for her friends to reply. In a matter of a few seconds, pained groans echoed through the rubble to Twilight’s eardrums. Her friends answered her call by grumbling as they struggled to climb out from the piles of twisted metal scattering the landscape. Upon counting all of them with her hoof, Twilight sighed with relief when she found that everyone was alive and present. The second wave had been a disaster. The ponies had lost communication during the fight for some reason, which led to incoordination and confusion. Rainbow Dash had missed a third of the credits, so the defenders were starved of funds for decent upgrades. Many ponies came within inches of permanent death, due to the scattered state of the team and Fluttershy’s physical limitations. … As the ponies approached the frontlines after purchasing what little upgrades they could afford, they tiredly assembled their lineup close to the way they had it before. Many giant Rainbow Dash bots were going to be present in the upcoming third wave, so Applejack was forced to position her sentry gun in the middle of the bridge in order to block their path in case they broke through. “How is everypony doing?” Applejack asked. The farmer’s question was not answered with words. Big Mac practically dragged his minigun on the ground as he approached his spot on the battlefield. Spike sat on Pinkie Pie’s back to reach the front rather than having to walk or blast jump. Rainbow Dash walked instead of running or flying. Overall, Twilight seemed to be the only one with the energy to keep fighting. Only two waves had passed, and the defenders looked like they were ready to throw in the towel. Fluttershy walked past Applejack. “How are you feeling, Flutters?” The engineer asked. Fluttershy, without raising her head, glanced up at Applejack with red, exhausted eyes. She maintained this gaze for an eternity of seconds, and then walked on without an answer. Applejack bit her lip. Twilight waved her hoof from her position to get Applejack’s attention. When Applejack looked at her, Twilight mouthed the words, “Is she okay?” Applejack simply shook her head. It seemed to the two like the rest of the team was already winding down. There were still four waves to go, so it was not time to give up. If the robots managed to deploy the bomb, the ponies would be done for. Without a respawn, the explosion would surely spell their end. Not only that, but it would destroy an important Mann Co. manufacturing facility. … A thought came to Applejack’s head. She raised her left hoof, and looked at her wrist device. Perhaps if she could figure out how to contact their mercenary friends at Rottenburg, she could get a hold of Red Medic in order to console Fluttershy. Fiddling with a few buttons, Applejack tried to find a way to send a signal to the team in Rottenburg, Germany. Initially, she was just glad that she was able to even turn the device on. With a few minutes of experimentation, the orange earth pony actually managed to put a signal out. “Hey y’all, I think I got it!” She exclaimed. Her teammates turned around and glanced up at her, confused. A few of them cocked an eyebrow. “The hoof device! I think I figured out a way to call our friends!” She added. Out of curiosity, some of the ponies looked down at their respective hoof devices, and tried to find a way to contact their comrades. Fluttershy, hopelessly unable to configure her monstrous amounts of gadgetry, simply glared over at Applejack. … Applejack kept looking down with hopeful eyes at her hoof device as it tried to establish a connection. After a few seconds, it became apparent to her that Fluttershy was staring over in her direction. She looked up at Fluttershy with a smile on her face, and used her hoof to gesture the pegasus over. Curious, Fluttershy stood awkwardly for a moment before walking over to Applejack to see what she was looking at. She blinked absently as she turned her gaze to the screen on Applejack’s hoof. “Ah think Ah might be close to contacting our mercenary friends at Rottenburg. Hopefully then you’ll be able to talk to your doctor pal!” Applejack beamed. Keeping a straight face, Fluttershy opened her mouth solemnly, and said, “His name is Red Medic.” Applejack raised her head slowly, and looked at Fluttershy face to face. Those were the first words that she had said for at least the last hour. Now, Fluttershy was usually quiet, but to be completely and utterly silent was unlike her. Taking the initiative to speak only to make a correction about her companion, additionally, displayed its own meaning. “Listen, sugarcube…are you alright? You’re startin’ to worry me and Twilight a bit with your behavior.” Fluttershy shrugged. “Would you feel better if I said that I was alright?” “Well…yeah, but……not if you didn’t mean it or anything…” “Then yes. I’m fine. There’s just a lot of work to do around here…that’s all.” The medical mare explained softly. … Applejack’s wrist device loaded for just another few moments, and then it suddenly stopped. A small error message showed up on the screen, saying, “Failed to establish a secure connection.” “Well, that sure doesn’t look good. Look, Flutters, I’m sorry this didn’t work out. Maybe we can try again after the wave.” Fluttershy shrugged again. “Don’t feel bad, Applejack. It really doesn’t matter. I’ll be better soon.” Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Wait…didn’t y’all just say that you were fine?” “Well…yes, but that’s different. I’ll be much better very soon.” Fluttershy assured. Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Fluttershy, what are you…” …………………………………………………………… “We’re under attack! Man your positions, and prepare for defense! The robots will arrive in ten seconds!” The Announcer cut in over their headsets. Upon hearing the announcement, Fluttershy quickly turned away from Applejack to get in position. Frazzled, Applejack lowered her goggles over her eyes, and picked up her wrench to start the wave. Rainbow Dash jogged by Applejack’s location. “Hey, what were you talking about up here?” “Oh, ya know. Just stuff.” Applejack casually replied. … “5…4…3…2…1…” Barely giving the Announcer a chance to finish the countdown, the first robot of the third wave showed its metallic face over the horizon of the mill gate. Upon close inspection, the ponies gasped when they caught a glimpse of a giant Rainbow Dash bot, sprinting full speed toward the ponies with the bomb on its back. “Holy guacamole! That thing’s moving quick!” Spike interjected. “Buckle down! That thing could tear right through us without harming any one of us! If it reaches the hatch, everything will be gone in one swift second!” Twilight commanded. A stern expression on his face, Big Mac spun up his massive minigun. Not giving in a single second, he opened fire the moment the bot touched the ground in the battlefield. The ponies immediately gave everything they had at the giant sprinting machine. As the bot, hooves ablaze, sprinted around the corner of the gas tanker near the front lines, another one of similar nature came scrambling out the door of the gate. Everyone except Rarity noticed its existence. While watching her defending teammates rip the hell out of the first bot, the stealthy unicorn backed up against the wall at the tip of the front lines with her sapper out. She could not give it the chance to sprint at the same speed as the first bot, or the ponies wouldn’t catch it in time. … The first giant Rainbow Dash bot sprinted under the bridge next to the ramp, and proceeded to scurry up with the bomb in its grasp. The defenders breathed heavily as they struggled to chase it down from behind. Spike’s rockets were virtually useless, as not a single one was able to keep up with the bot’s menacing speed. Zecora also found herself at a disadvantage. It was Applejack’s turn now. The farm pony’s sentry gun was all that stood between the first bot in the wave and the free opening of the rest of the map. Immediately, her sentry unleashed its power. The bot, mostly undeterred by the bullets, ran full-speed up to the sentry gun. Once it reached its spot on the bridge, surprisingly, it became stuck. Applejack’s sentry continued to fire as the bot attempted repeatedly to sprint around or jump over the device. The rest of the defenders jogged up behind it, and began shooting relentlessly at it until it finally reached its end. Nuts and bolts coated the ponies as the bomb was dropped in front of Applejack’s sentry. “Not a bad placement, there, farm-gal.” Rainbow Dash chuckled. Applejack rolled her eyes, and smirked. … Not wasting a moment, the ponies turned their attention to the front lines. To their shock, all they saw was Rarity standing amidst a pile of nuts and bolts similar to the one that they themselves were covered in. Upon noticing her comrades, the fashionista giggled. “What are you all looking at?” She asked with a false sense of genuineness. “H…How did you…?” “Oh, that old, tacky Rainbow Dash bot? Why, it was easy. Once I planted a sapper on its hoof, backstabbing it a few times was the cat’s meow. I think you needn’t worry about it anymore.” Impressed with Rarity’s cunning work, the defenders leapt down from Applejack’s ledge. With a refill from her nearby dispenser, the ponies lined up in prep for the next group to emerge. Instead of a few more giant bots, a swarming mess of Big Mac and Spike bots flocked out of the gate. A collection of Twilight bots entered simultaneously from the high-rise. … Twilight, understanding the common order of strategy, raised her rifle to handle her metal counterparts. The rest of the ponies organized their lines at the bottom for defense. “Hey guys, those Spike bots seem to be sporting some banners above their heads. Should we be worried?” Rainbow Dash asked from above. Hearing the pegasus’s announcement, Twilight turned her scope to the bots entering the field. She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think those banners mean they have mini-crits, though, so watch your cover. I think the Big Mac bots have them, too.” The bots dropped into the battlefield on cue. The buffed Spike bots blazed their rockets abroad, while their assisted-buff Big Mac bot companions opened fire on their mini-crit miniguns. Caught out in the open with her flamethrower, Pinkie Pie was quickly torn to shreds. Fluttershy quickly received note of the disturbance. She stopped healing Big Mac, and two-stepped in the other direction to revive Pinkie Pie. Crouching in the shadow of the gas tanker and an adjacent pile of crates, the medic found an opening in which to aim her healing at the hologram of her pink friend. Directed rockets flew to her right and to her left, but were unable to hit her from the distance they were being shot from. In a matter of seconds, Fluttershy brought Pinkie back from the dead. “Step back here! It’s safe!” She pleaded. Shrugging, Pinkie Pie turned towards the pegasus that had saved her life for the umpteenth time that day, and leapt behind the gas tanker from the opening. Other injured calls started ringing through Fluttershy’s ears as the effects of the mini-crit bots started to grip the defenders. She trotted off in a rush, leaving Pinkie Pie behind to resume her own defense. … Upon entering the required range, the boosted bots started getting pummeled by Applejack’s sentry gun. Beaten defenders, such as Spike and Zecora, stepped back underneath the bridge to find cover from the attacking drones. Within the context of a few seconds, Fluttershy swung back past them to patch them up quickly. Using Applejack’s sentry as a barrier to keep the bots from entering this under-bridge “safe zone,” the defenders began to tear apart the mini-crit bots at an efficient pace. Rarity remained the only one behind robot lines with her disguise. Unexpectedly, Applejack herself was put in immediate danger as a bullet whizzed by her ear, taking off some of the cartilage. She interjected. “Ouch, dang it!” She yelped, clutching her ear with her wrench-hoof. “Twilight, aren’t you handling the snipers?” Twilight shot off a round, sighed in frustration, and scoped up for another shot. “I…I can’t! They’re moving constantly; I can’t get a hold of them!” “Fluttershy, get your hind end up here and give me a stitch! Tell Rainbow Dash to follow!” The injured mechanic ordered. Sighing, Fluttershy reluctantly listened to Applejack. She tapped Rainbow Dash on the arm, and gestured for her to follow her up the ramp. Upon reaching Applejack and her sentry, the pegasus shot her healing at Applejack’s punctured ear. “Rainbow Dash, go up there and get rid of those pesky Twilight bots! They’re putting a wreck on my buildings!” The earth pony commanded. “I’m lagging on credits, you know. We can’t afford to lose much more…” “Forget about that now! I’ll have us worry more about money when our defense is not in danger! Now go up to the dang high-rise, and give poor Twilight a hoof with those parasites!” … Rainbow Dash groaned in exasperation, and turned to take her sprint up the secondary stairs to the high-rise. Next, Applejack called down to Rarity. “Rarity, we’re falling behind on credits over here, so do you mind going out of your way to grab some of what you find? With your fancy disguises and such, it should be safe for you.” Without even a reply, Rarity followed orders. She jogged around the enemy lines in disguise, picking up spare credits that were sitting out from the recent bot slaughter. The rest of the defenders sat under the bridge in the safe zone, ready to pick up on whatever Applejack’s sentry missed. They remained comfortably enveloped under Fluttershy’s medical support. “Great job so far, guys. Really picking up here so far.” Spike announced. … Suddenly, the battlefield fell quiet. No one moved for a few moments as the unexpected silence deafened them for some reason. Peeking out from the safe zone, all that could be seen again by the ponies was Rarity amongst a pile of scrapped metal. “Okay everyone, I must assure you, I was not responsible for it this time. I’m not THAT amazing.” She chuckled. Ignoring her clever remark, the defenders lowered their weapons as they tiptoed out from the spot under the bridge in the safe zone. “I…Is that it? There’s no way that’s it.” Twilight stuttered, resting her rifle on her shoulder. “Well…the Announcer said nothing about the wave being over. What do you think?” Applejack asked. From her positioned spot on the high-rise, Rainbow Dash practically jumped out of her horseshoes shortly after Applejack’s question. “Oh man! It’s not over, guys! Incoming!” … Directly after Rainbow Dash’s warning, three more giant Rainbow Dash bots bolted out of the gate at high speed simultaneously. The defenders’ hearts skipped a beat. They raised their weapons quickly, and prepped for the worst. Peering through the scope, Twilight announced, “They’re carrying Force a Natures!” “…Aw feathers…” Big Mac grunted. The giant bots sprinted ever closer to the drop-off, where they would enter the battle and start attacking. Rarity looked down at herself, and panicked when she realized that she hadn’t reapplied a disguise. The bots fell into battle, punctuating their presence with a hard shot to Rarity’s chest. Rarity screamed with terror as she soared high above the ponies’ heads toward the very back of the mill. The ponies looked above them in horror as their Spy flew gracelessly through the air, arms and legs kicking wildly. Flinching hard, the ponies recoiled when the sound of rupturing bones echoed through their eardrums upon Rarity’s impact with the back wall. Immediately following the crash, she fell fifty feet to the ground, resulting in an instant death. Fluttershy tottered over to Rarity’s broken body, and awkwardly began to heal it back to life. Just as the three giant bots sprinted into the sentry range, Rarity popped back to life with an annoyed look on her face. “That’s some, uh…strong knockback there, huh?” Fluttershy chuckled quietly. When Rarity’s face didn’t even twist into a smile, the stricken pegasus just shut her mouth. … “Hurry up! There are still three of them, and we’re running out of space to push them back!” Spike cried. The ponies, if unable to stop the giants, expected them to sprint up the stairs, grab the bomb, and bolt past Applejack’s sentry toward the hatch. They were shocked, however, when the bots turned to the left and began heading away from the bomb toward the towering A gate behind the lines. “What the hay? Why are they ignoring the bomb?” Applejack asked. “Who cares?! Just hurry up and stop them!” Rainbow Dash yelled, chasing after them in high pursuit. Invigorated by Rainbow Dash’s diehard boldness, the defenders began to scramble in the direction of the giant bots. The doorway in which they traveled led to a path to the left that led up another ramp to the A gate. Upon reaching the top, the ponies observed the three giant Rainbow Dash bots swarming around the gate as if they were waiting for something. “Why aren’t they doing anything?” Rarity asked curiously. … Loud sirens began to blare throughout the mill. Slowly, but surely, the gate back at the front lines began to close. The A gate next to the giant bots began to rise upwards, opening a new entrance for the bots to take. “Stop them!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Spreading out in a quick effort, the defenders began to let loose on the giant bots. Taking cover behind objects, they tried occasionally to avoid taking fire from the bots’ scatterguns. One hit from those Force a Natures was enough to send a poor defender through the sky to their doom, as was the fate for Rarity. With enough directed effort from all of the ponies at once, the first giant bot closest to the ramp was destroyed rapidly. The remaining two, however, successfully managed to open the A gate fully. A bell similar to a fire alarm began to sound, signaling the new entranceway that the bots were going to take. Applejack jogged back to her sentry gun, picked it up, and carried it to the new front lines to keep up with the battle. “This is crazy…” … Regardless of the newly-opened gate, the defenders still stubbornly continued to attack the giant Rainbow Dash bots. Spike repeatedly kept blast jumping into the air, hoping to get some rockets to make impact on the bots’ heads from up above. His health came, again, from Fluttershy. As the ponies stood bluntly in front of the bots, Rarity jogged up behind to place a sapper one of the bot’s legs. Upon doing so, energy from both of them started being sucked away at a steady pace. Their speed dropped dramatically. With the bots now moving at a pitiful pace from Rarity’s assistance, the ponies found it much easier to terminate with accuracy. In only a few more rounds of bullets and explosives, one headshot from Twilight was enough to destroy both giants from the damage transfer. The battlefield, for a short amount of time, became quiet once again. Twilight giggled a bit from relief. “Those future bots are going to have a hard time getting to the bomb from their new location, am I right?” The bomb still sat on the bridge in the previous room next to where Applejack’s old sentry location. The new gate, as well as the battlefield in front of it, was outside of the mill between the entrance and a large stack of metal crates. Resting at the very back of the long hallway was the B gate, sitting dormant for the time being. Beyond that was only a short stretch of walkway and another bridge before reaching the hatch. … After tiredly chugging her dispenser up the ramp from the mill where it was before, Applejack spoke up to the team once everyone was together. “Alright everypony, make sure your tidings are in place, because I don’t know what to expect from here on out. We need to be on top guard, and we need to stick together. If anyone’s too far away from the group when they die, none of us may ever see the poor soul ever again. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Am I clear?” Various volumes of murmurs could be heard from the group in response. No one was feeling very confident, but everyone was feeling motivated enough to keep on fighting. After all, virtually no case scenario would’ve been worse than an exploding bomb killing everyone permanently and destroying one of Mann Co.’s most important outposts. That they could all agree on. … Applejack swallowed her words completely when the next sub-wave of bots appeared behind the gate. The ponies who happened to be watching the gate gasped in horror. Applejack leaned toward a certain somepony. “Uh…Fluttershy?” “Y…Yes?” “You DO know how to deploy your shield, right?” “Um…no…” A massive scuttling horde of full-crit Big Mac bots began to swarm in from behind the gate. Their miniguns glowing an electric teal blue, the drones stared evilly as they approached their target from beyond the gate. The one in front carried a second bomb, adding to the one already in play next to Applejack’s old sentry location. A collective, horrified silence was shared between the ponies as they watched the tidal wave of crit-shooters appear from behind the gate. A few defenders took an uncertain step behind them, prepared to break for it if things got out of hoof. As the bots buzzed slowly toward the battlefield, Applejack turned to Fluttershy again with a quiet, death-seeing voice. “Fluttershy…now…you need…to find…your shield!” Fluttershy’s breathing picked up as she struggled to search for the mechanism on her body. “I…I can’t find it! Oh…oh dear…” The first couple bots made it to the edge of the gate. Fluttershy gave up on her search, and dove through the air behind the cover of a barrel. “Everypony…TAKE COVER NOW!” Applejack suddenly screamed. … The deafening sound of spinning-up miniguns filled the air around the hopeless defenders as the bots revved up for attack. Wasting no time, the punch-packing metal monstrosities opened fire on their devastating crit-weapons. Left in the open from her recent announcement, Applejack was caught in the blast. Her end was spelled quickly. Dazed from the shock of the events, Twilight was caught in the blast. Nothing could save her. Hovering in the air from a desperate rocket jump, Spike was caught mid-air in the blast. His punctured corpse smacked into the ground with a loud thud. Failing to take sufficient cover out of the bots’ viewing range, Zecora was caught in the blast. Her bloody end was nearly painless. Confused amongst the panicked cries of her fellow defenders, Pinkie Pie was caught in the blast. She never had an official final breath. Forgetting again to apply a disguise after her last recent attack on the giant Rainbow Dash bots, Rarity was caught in the blast. Her screams were drowned out from the rumbling gunfire. Too high on health and defiant to take cover, Rainbow Dash was caught in the blast. Her extraordinary overheal only managed to prolong her searing pain before the bullets overtook her medical advantage. Too large and too slow to make it to sufficient cover in the time he was given, Big Mac was caught in the blast. The only part of him that was intact upon hitting the ground was his minigun. Fluttershy, already behind cover, was completely alone. The crit-boosted bringers of hell stopped firing their guns, unaware that the yellow pegasus was present. Loud rattling continued to be heard throughout the darkened battlefield as her equipment shook on her quivering body. … Time stopped. Each passing second registered to the medic as ten minutes. She was the last one alive. She only had between ten and twenty seconds to revive everyone, or they would never return to finish up the wave. Roughly two and a half dozen possessed, metal Big Mac reapers were hoarded around the corpses in tight guard. She’s born. She looks around the hospital room and cries, frightened from the biting cold and the expansive reach of the unknown around her. She grows up. She falls from the sky in a rush of speed, screaming all the way down, frightened for her presumed end. She is caught by a stream of butterflies. She earns her cutie mark. As a colorful streak blinds the skies, she discovers her special talent of communicating with animals. Her joy is unmatched. She meets her friends. Collecting the Elements of Harmony, she learns the true meaning of friendship with the greatest ponies ever known by her side. She leaves her world. In a sprawling pit of consuming darkness, she awakens in a strange world inhabited by humans. She fights. She fights courageously by the sides of the ones she loves, intermingled with a totally new group of companions. She trusts. The only being to ever share her passion for the injured enters her life. She finds herself falling hopelessly in love for a being unlike her kind. A being that is in great danger, and unable to be accessed. She learns. Her tools are blessed with the unspeakable power of life and protection, and only she can be trusted to use them for the sake of defense and righteousness. She falls. All of her friends are finally taken from the universe, and only she has the knowledge, the ability, and the experience to correct the wrongs. They still have time, and that time rests solely within her abilities. She must act immediately. In the time it takes to blink the eye, Fluttershy’s entire life flashed through her head. Her eyes suddenly opened, heavily bloodshot and focused on the task at hoof. She stood up from behind the barrel, and turned sharply to face the mob of death-bringing Big Mac bots. … “How dare you…” The bots did not move. “How…DARE you?!” Almost simultaneously, the bots aimed at Fluttershy, and began spinning up their miniguns. “You do not—I will repeat—You…DO NOT…hurt…my friends! You metal b…bastards!” She seethed. The bots opened fire with their crits. Not letting a single bullet touch her body, Fluttershy quickly flipped the switch on the bottom right side of her medi-pack, activating the life-saving shield that she couldn’t use before. A massive, red, translucent wall deployed in front of her, blocking every bullet that came her way. Using the few seconds she had to her advantage, Fluttershy charged forward at rapid speed. Seemingly unaware that their attacks were being debunked, the bots continued firing into her shield. Not taking any time to stop, Fluttershy sprinted up to the group of bots with her shield in front of her like a suicidal lunatic. The frustrated medic was suddenly forced to stop moving as her protective shield slammed into the front of the mob. Closing her eyes tightly, she grunted and groaned while attempting to press forward anyway. Her shield pushed hard into the bellies of the bots near the front of the mob, but Fluttershy did not stop for anything. Straining with every fiber of her will, she tried harder and harder to push forward into the bots. The front ends of the bots caught in her shield began to vaporize slowly. Fluttershy let out a smooth sigh, breathed in again, and kept pushing. Clear beads of sweat built up on her forehead. “Let’s see how you like this…” She grunted. Her shield gave way just a little bit, and the entire front sides of the first few robots disappeared. Once the shield bashed into their unprotected heads, Fluttershy was met with more steel resistance. She breathed in some more, and added more strain to her body to increase the pressure. “Come on…just a little more…” She wheezed. The bots stopped firing. The mechanisms in the bots’ delicate arms began to suffer corrosive damage from Fluttershy’s push. The mob began to dispel steadily as the bots in the front began to get shoved to the back, moving the bots in the back towards the sides. Refusing to open her eyes, Fluttershy gathered every ounce of her strength into one last rush of strength. She pressed on harder, adding a little more pressure to the push. Blood started leaking from her nostrils. With one last final strain, the bots suddenly gave away completely. Fluttershy found herself flying forward with unexpected speed as her resistance vanished into thin air. The bots were atomically pulverized by her shield. … She planted her hooves in front of her to halt her charge, and stood panting heavily amongst a fine powder of molecular waste material. Finally free of her concentration-induced strain, her nose began dripping blood rapidly. “I…did it…! I…can’t believe…I actually did it…!” She moaned between heavy breaths. Stark reality slapped her in the face when she took a look around. Left and right, the red holograms of her obliterated friends dotted the battlefield. She had wasted maybe eight or nine seconds on that push, and couldn’t waste any more time. Hitting the switch on her medi-pack, Fluttershy activated the Quick Fix Ubercharge that she had been saving since the beginning of the wave. In a flurried frenzy, she began scrambling around the battlefield in a desperate attempt to catch all of her deceased friends before their souls were gone for good. Scurrying back towards the barrel that she had been hiding behind, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Applejack. She was now revived. Turning around quickly behind her, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Twilight. She was now revived. Scurrying up towards the very front of the battlefield, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Rarity. She was now revived. Leaping down next to the wood grinder to the left side of the battlefield, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Zecora. She was now revived. Turning next to Zecora at close range, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Spike. He was now revived. Bounding up the stairs near the sniper’s ledge, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Pinkie Pie. She was now revived. Sprinting down to the near-cover of the crate tunnel, Fluttershy aimed her Uber at Big Mac. He was now revived. Roughly a second and a half remained on the clock for her last friend. Pouncing out near the front lines in a last-ditch effort for life or death, Fluttershy pulled the lever on her last ounce of Ubercharge to aim at Rainbow Dash. With the last miniscule moments ticking on Rainbow Dash’s life, Fluttershy successfully outlasted her Uber to bring the pegasus back to life. … The newly revitalized group of defenders stood around Fluttershy like they were staring at a legend. And, in a way, they were. Against every odd there ever could be, the ponies’ most timid friend stared Death right in the face…and sent him running. Eight young souls were available for the wrath of Death that day, and one lone-standing warrior stood defiantly in the way. The doom-dodging power of the Uber shield existed as her weapon of defense to protect her closest friends against Death’s metal army. “My Lord, Fluttershy.” Twilight whispered quietly. Fluttershy turned to Twilight with a quick whip of her head. Sweat was pouring down her face. “What? Huh?” “There really is nothing you can’t do, is there?” “Do what? You didn’t…see any of that, did you?” The panting mare asked. Rainbow Dash chimed in. “We saw all of it, Flutters. While our bodies are down, we can still spectate you, remember? We’re not dead until we’re dead, you know?” “But…but…how…” “I’m sorry any of us ever doubted you, Fluttershy. I’ve never seen such an incredible display of courage.” Applejack commended. Not giving Fluttershy a chance to answer, the defenders standing around her all began to applaud. They stamped their hooves on the ground wildly, and cheered with echoing whistles. Standing in the middle of all the praise, the true safety and security of the moment began to strike the overworked medic. As the realization began to flow into her, Fluttershy smiled genuinely for the first time in the last few days. It wasn’t just a gentle, amused smile. Fluttershy smiled with the safety and security of her entire being. Was there anything she could not do? The battle wasn’t necessarily over yet, though. To be Continued…