Most of the trolls – however many there were – still seemed to be moving in a pack, but there were clearly some rogues that had parted ways with the others. Twilight slowed her and Kyle's progress to a walk so she could do some spellwork in her head; her recollections of Haywind's notes were almost as useful as her actual experiences. Inside half an hour, she had modified an existing tracking spell to home in on trolls. By the end of the day, three more renegades had been located and put down. More importantly, Twilight confirmed that they were very close to a large group of trolls, exact number unknown.
“We should probably rest for the night and analyze the situation in the morning,” said Twilight, possibly thinking of more unsolicited snuggling.
“I disagree. We should attack now.” Kyle's unit had a motto: “Attack Now.” Once they had even had a sign made with the motto on it, and it had stood proudly on a shiny pole outside some building or other back at their assigned base... until someone had blown it up. “They'll never expect us to come after them after dark.”
“They're probably not expecting anything at all,” Twilight pointed out reasonably.
“All the more reason to attack now!”
The pony rolled her eyes. “Is there a plan?”
The human looked thoughtful. “A plan? That might be useful.”
“Exactly! Are we going to try to draw one of them away from the group so you can take care of things? And then keep doing that again and again?”
“That's actually a good idea! No.”
Twilight's mouth tightened and her eyes closed. She knew that some ponies found it helpful to count when they were frustrated, but linear sequences were for wimps. Instead, she began muttering square numbers. “One, four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five...” By the time she got to 400, she realized she actually did feel a little better. “Okay, so what are we going to do?”
“It's almost sundown,” Kyle said, pointing out the obvious. “With those tiny eyes, they probably don't see very well in the dark. We need to find some high ground above them, then have you ruin their vision even more somehow with your magic. While you do that, I'll be picking them off with a sniper rifle.”
“Back in a moment,” said Twilight just before flying straight up. She returned moments later. “We're in luck. There's a ridge over that way, and if we make our way to the top of it, it'll eventually take us pretty close to where the tracking spell is putting the largest clump of those things.”
“And then we'll have an overlooking position?” asked Kyle.
“We should, yes.”
“Perfect.”
The light in the sky had dimmed considerably by the time Kyle had climbed the slope marking the start of the ridge. Fortunately, the moon was beginning to rise at that point, giving him some visibility, and the top of the ridge was treeless, cutting down on obstacles he had to worry about. He jogged along steadily, making certain he avoided the very sudden drop-off to his left.
Far above, Twilight was practicing some skills that she had really only observed before, since they were unavailable to her prior to her ascension. Gathering the clouds together wasn't difficult at all, and even combining them wasn't that tough. Where she was having trouble was compressing them to make them darker and denser. She eventually settled on a maneuver that involved folding her wings and twisting her upright body sideways at the last moment before slamming into a cloud; she looked like a human trying to shoulder open a locked door. It had the desired effect, however, and before too long she was pushing along a massive storm cloud with her front hooves.
After some time, she parked her cloud in mid-air and skimmed down to join Kyle at the top of the ridge. He had cleared a patch of ground and was stretching out full-length upon it. The OmniBoom had shifted once again while she had been away from him; it was now absurdly long and had attached to it what looked like a telescope that she would be proud to own.
A cluster of around to sixty to seventy trolls were gathered a short distance from the base of the ridge. Some ambled about aimlessly in circles, others simply stood still, and two of them were engaged in what looked like a head-butting competition. With no apparent reason for doing so, one of the formerly motionless trolls twisted its shoulder back and leveled a massive cinderblock fist. It then delivered, to the jaw of the troll standing next to it, a haymaker that would have flattened a dozen ponies. The second troll reeled, somehow maintained its balance, and clenched its own fists for retaliation. The first troll held both hands in front of it, palms outward and fingers spread. It rumbled, “Juh-kuh, lahl,” which seemed to settle it, as both of them went back to imitating statues.
Twilight folded her legs, dropping to her belly next to where Kyle had assumed a similar position. She felt a strange thrill as he reached out with one beefy arm and drew her closer.
“Are you ready?” he said softly. When Twilight nodded, he continued. “So, I'll start shooting when you… what? Call down that cloud?”
“No, no… I'll push it down until it's just over their heads. That'll block out most of the light from the moon and stars. I'll get it started raining, too, which should also make it harder for them to know what's going on. There may also be some lightning, but I don't know if it will hurt them or not.”
“Rain, that's good. I like that. It'll make them easier to pick up on the infrared,” he said, patting the scope on his sniper rifle. “And you won't be in any danger?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, not at all. I may not be able to break the sound barrier, but there's a hot-air balloon back in town that can outrun these things. I'll be fine unless something unexpected happens.”
Kyle let go of his pony companion and returned to lining up his first shot. “Then let's hope nothing unexpected happens.”
Twilight returned to her storm cloud, centered it over the troll cluster, and then began bringing it downward as quickly as she dared. Once it was in position just a short distance above the ground, she gave it a good stomp to get the rain started. A lightning bolt leapt between cloud and ground, catching a troll in its path. The crack of thunder that followed was accompanied by a shattering noise, and chips of rock came flying up through the cloud. Got one, she thought.
She then heard the now-familiar sound of the OmniBoom, although strangely muted compared to when it had been used before. There was a loud noise like a wall toppling to the ground, so she knew Kyle had taken care of another. She stomped on the cloud again, and again, and again… and then gave up on stomping and just started dancing. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, rain splashed, gunfire lashed, trolls were trashed.
Then something unexpected happened.