Spotlights shone down on the red, white and blue hero as he charged into the magic fire--shield first--bracing his shoulder against the shield as dozens of shots bounced off of the disc. He could hear shouting coming from ahead as he raced up the stone steps towards the main base stationed in Manehatten, knowing that at any moment his team would be in position.
A quick roll to the side prevented him from running into more guards. The three he did meet next to the iron doors had the opportunity to have the Captain's shield introduced to their faces. "Dust, I'm in position. Where's that air support?" Rogers called into a small radio.
"On its way, Cap!" her voice replied just as the soldiers unloaded onto the Captain again. Captain America crouched down behind his shield, eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder to see gargoyles landing on the outskirts of the outpost with him. He weighed his options before racing towards the gargoyles, hurling his shield at one of them before driving his shoulder into another. The moment his shoulder impacted the stone, he drew an explosive from his belt and planted it dead center on the gargoyle's chest.
"Watch out for falling rocks," Rogers saluted before diving out of the way. The gargoyle glanced down at his chest right before the explosion detonated, raining pebbles upon the enemy forces. Rogers snatched his shield on the rebound and shifted it to his left arm, just in time to be tackled from the side by a gargoyle.
"Think yer a funny guy, eh?" the stone sentinel snarled as he cocked a fist back, giving the Captain plenty of time to duck behind his shield. He heard the stone strike vibranium, which was followed by a howl of rage and pain from the statue pinning him down.
"I'm getting better at it. Dust! Support! NOW!" The moment the words left the Captain's mouth a burst of wind-tearing speed hurled itself into the stone gargoyle, shattering him to gravel in a single blow. The cerulean mare crashed to the side, stars dancing around her eyes as she struggled to get up. "You can take a rest later soldier, we've got to finish this," Rogers shouted at her as he rolled up to her, placing his shield over the mare to deflect the magical bolts.
Dust shot to her hooves while using the Captain as cover, the both of them dashing to the metal door while magic tore apart the area around them. Dust unstrapped the explosive from her back and began to fasten it to the door. "It's gonna blow! And that means it's time for us to go!" Rogers nodded back at her as the pair fell back, confusing the soldiers for a brief moment before the doors exploded, hurling pony and metal alike in every direction.
"Double time, soldier!" the Captain instructed as he rushed inside, Dust flying beside him as they plowed into the command outpost. More resistance met them in the main room, yet with a combination of flying hoof kicks and shield to the mouth, the pair made it through with little effort.
"Belle, we're inside. Time to bring the heavy stuff," Cap instructed into the radio, smacking a minion down with the front of his shield. A brilliant flash of blinding white light erupted next to the pair, signaling the arrival of Belle. She cast a glance around the room while dropping off two duffle bags that were filled to bursting with explosives.
"You didn't even make it into the communication rooms yet? Faust, I thought you were good at your job," she snarked at the Captain, who didn't pay her any mind as he grabbed hold of one of the straps for the bag of explosives and hoisted them onto his shoulder. Lightning Dust followed his example and snatched up one of the bags as well, following after the Captain as he raced out of the room and further into the base. "Fine. Just ignore me then."
More magic and bolts resisted the Captain and his team, forcing him to drop his bag so he could hurl his shield with better accuracy. The shield bounced down the narrow hallway and struck one guard in the side of the skull, but the other had enough smarts to duck the shield before it could take a piece of him as well. He quickly took aim at the defenseless Captain before a white aura surrounded him. He had just a moment to understand what was happening before his head was driven into the wall beside him, putting an end to his obstruction.
"Do I have to do everything for you?" Belle snarled at the Captain while she secured his bag with her magic, but yet again the Captain ignored her and instead chose to press forward.
"Main room should be right here," Rogers instructed the pair as he kicked open a pair of doors at the end of the hallway, which fell onto one unfortunate soul who had been taking cover behind them. Numerous consoles with a multitude of lit up buttons on them greeted the trio, who were given just a second to take in the room before Rogers was at the consoles. "Explosive."
Dust nodded and tossed her bag to the Captain, who swiftly emptied the bag and placed each explosive in a specific place. When the first bag was empty he tossed it aside and held out his hand for the other one, waiting a few seconds before turning towards Belle with an annoyed look on his face.
"You could say 'please'," she snarked at him. Rogers didn't reply. Instead, he snatched the bag from her and quickly placed the rest of the explosives. With the two bags empty, he then pressed a button on the side of one of the explosives. A red number that started at thirty appeared, before it quickly counted down to twenty nine.
"Time to go," he instructed the both of them, taking off at full speed with both mares following behind him. To the annoyance of Belle, the Captain also grabbed as many of the fallen enemy as he could, with Lightning Dust getting the ones he missed. "Belle, grab as many as you can."
"Feh," she snarled before dragging the rest with her magic. As the trio escaped into the coolness of the nighttime air, Rogers turned to look back at the building while silently counting to himself. He then piled the unconscious guards together behind a carriage before dragging the two mares together and hiding the both of them behind himself and his shield.
"Three...two...one." An explosion of unmatchable might tore apart the mostly silent night, practically turning the night to day with the copious amounts of light that was generated by the giant ball of fire, where the main base within Manehatten had once stood. Rogers looked over his shield to find that the shrapnel had stopped raining, allowing him to smile at the destroyed building as Dust and Belle peaked out from behind him.
"One down. Plenty more to go," he smirked before picking up his radio. "Cap here...what do you mean "Superweapon"?
/ \
//A\\
/// \\\
Smoke, wind and shards of ice all ripped into the Captain's suit as he pushed himself forward with his shield up, doing his best to remain standing atop the train cars under the heavy fire. He glanced over his shield to find that the pony made entirely of ice seemed to have no such problems standing on the moving cars and was more than happy to sit back as the Captain struggled.
"Cap, do you read me?" the voice of Brighteyes spoke through his radio. Rogers found he didn't have the time to answer the call, as the stallion that could control ice had just turned the tops of the cars from metal to a skating rink. Rogers feet slid out from under him and he landed on his side hard, though the pain was quickly forgotten when the Captain slid off the ice and off of the car roof.
"Can't talk. Losing grip," Rogers curtly replied as his free hand shot out and grabbed an icy railing, the serum in his veins all that was keeping his grip from slipping. He slowly shook the shield off of his arm and caught it with his left hand, managing to slip it onto his magnet without dropping it into the chasm below.
"But Cap, we found the bomb," Brighteyes spoke up once again. "But...but it's far larger than our intel led us to believe!" Rogers sighed with a tilt of his head as he wrapped his free hand onto the railing, planting both feet onto the side of the car. A kickoff allowed him to vault himself back onto the roof of the train cars, where he sprinted up towards the icy stallion before he had a chance to react.
Rogers plowed into the stallion and drove him into the second train roof. The roof collapsed under their combined weight and shattered into hundreds of icy shards, sending both pony and hero tumbling into the car. Rogers and the pony both shot up at the same time, with the pony changing his left forearm into a sharp ice pick while the Captain brought both fists up.
The Captain ducked the first attempt to impale him before firing off three quick blows to the sternum that made the pony stagger back. Mist steamed from the stallion's nose before he lunged forward again, but this time the Captain rolled backwards while placing both of his boots into the stallion's gut. Using the combined momentum of the two of them, Captain America kicked the pony head over heels into the iron door on the empty train car. The door crumpled under the impact and the stallion was sucked out of the train, plummeting into the abyss below them.
"Brighteyes, I've got time to talk. What's going on?" Rogers spoke into his radio, yet the only response was the sound of magical bolts and rifle fire. Taking up his shield once more, the Captain braced his shoulder against the cool vibranium before charging like a battering ram at the other door at the end of the room. Iron met vibranium as the Captain collided with the door, but with the shield being stronger the door folded instantly. Another door quickly fell to the might of the shield, giving the Captain the entrance to the large train car that Brighteyes had mentioned.
First, he observed the massive machine that hummed with an unholy sound. A superweapon. Then he glanced over at the stallion made of metal that had pinned Brighteyes to the floor. A target. And last, there was the giant, flaming and metal gargoyle that towered over the metal pony. A problem.
"Kill him," the metal pony instructed, getting a strange groan from the metal and fire monster that lunged at the Captain. Metal jaws slammed into the vibranium shield and once again the shield proved superior. The gargoyle howled as his shattered fangs fell to the floor. The howling didn't last long as the Captain punched the gargoyle in the face with the edge of his shield, cracking the creature's skull. A second blow put the creature down for the count, allowing the Captain to change focus and drive his body into the metal pony.
"Damn that Sombra, his creatures become more and more useless!" the stallion snarled as he kicked the Captain off of him, driving a metal hoof into the side of the Cap's head to knock him flat. "It's almost like he doesn't care anymore!" Rogers groaned slightly as the metal stallion grabbed hold of his throat and began to strangle him, yet just as the Captain was beginning to resist a shot went off and a beam of light passed through the metal pony's skull. He collapsed to the floor without another word.
"Nice shot, soldier," Rogers said to Brighteyes as he picked himself up and raced over to the superweapon. "I have no idea what's making this thing tick, but it looks like it's going to detonate the moment it reaches Trottingham."
"Can't you stop it? Maybe hit it with your shield?" Brighteyes suggested, but Rogers shook his head in reply.
"Hitting bombs with shields is generally a bad idea. Time to get out of here, this train's about to make an unscheduled stop." Brighteyes followed Rogers back out the way he had entered. Rogers pulled himself up onto the roof before reaching out a hand to Brighteyes, taking the hoof she gave him to drag her up as well. "Belle, this is the Captain. I need you to crash this train immediately. Preferably somewhere where no one is around."
"What's the magic-?"
"NOW!"
"Well...there is a massive drop right beneath the both of you," the voice of Belle replied after a moment. The pair then lurched as the support columns to the bridge began to collapse, informing them that time was up. "If I were you, Faust forbid, I'd get out of there now."
"Can do. Lightning?" Rogers then scooped Brighteyes into his arms as the bridge collapsed in front of them. Brighteyes' signature eyes widened as the train ran off the tracks and began to plummet into the chasm below, but without any hesitation the Captain held a hand to the sky. A moment later a blur grabbed hold of the Captain's hand and yanked the pair into the air. "You were almost too late. Did you stop to get a snack or something?"
"Cut me some slack. You're both alive, aren't you?" Lightning Dust snapped back.
"If you don't hurry, we won't be," Brighteyes pointed out, getting a snarl from the Pegasus.
"Great. They're teaming up on me now." Cap watched as the train fell farther and farther down the chasm, before it landed nose first into the stony quarry at the bottom. The moment the train impacted the ground, the whole area erupted into an explosion of cataclysmic proportions, nearly knocking Dust out of the air as the shockwave it generated reach them in half a second.
"Belle! Teleport!" Roger shouted into his radio as Dust struggled to remain airborne. His eyes narrowed as the full force of the explosion chased them down, yet right before it could catch the three, white light made them vanish into thin air and the explosion just narrowly missed them.
/ \
//A\\
/// \\\
"...Alright, to recap. Ya managed to drive out the Three's forces in Manehatten when ya got a call that some sort of superweapon was being driven by train to Trottingham," Applebloom began as she and Scootaloo looked over the Captain's report, with Rogers standing in front of them with a serious expression. "So then ya and yer team went after this weapon and stopped it...by destroying the train and anything else around it in a five mile radius. Wow, and all in one day too."
"Manehatten is free and Trottingham is safe. I think that's a fair trade-off for the destruction of one train," Rogers put forward before he narrowed his eyes. "But once again, the Three show that they're willing to wipe out millions of innocents just at the off chance that it would hurt us. Our spies told us that the reason for the superweapon was because there were reports that the Crusaders were hiding in Trottingham."
"That weapon sounds like Sombra's work. That maniac was always the one that came up with the most dangerous inventions," Scootaloo informed the Captain before walking over to Applebloom and glancing over her shoulder at the report. "Yep, that flaming gargoyle is right up his alley. Good job taking that down, by the way."
"Thank you. What's the next mission?" Rogers asked, getting him two concerned looks from both Scootaloo and Applebloom.
"Cap, you've been working on missions non-stop fer nearly two weeks now," Applebloom reminded Rogers, whose face did not change despite the new information. "Ya stopped a doomsday weapon from wiping out the last remenants of the dragons in Equestria, led a charge against Tirek's forces of the damned when they laid siege to the ancient city of magic, and today freed Manehatten and stopped a superweapon from wiping out Trottingham."
"And?" Captain America asked when Bloom had finished speaking.
"We want you to take a break, dude," Scootaloo spoke up when Applebloom cast her a glance. "You've been full throttle for nearly two weeks. Even Rainbow Dash knew that she needed to take a break every once in awhile or she'd crash. You should probably take one to."
"I can rest when I'm dead," Captain Rogers replied.
"See, you dead is what we're trying to avoid. So take a break. Let Scootaloo and I handle the next mission. My orders." For a moment Rogers considered arguing, but then he sighed with resignation and saluted the two, who saluted him back before he turned and exited their office.
'A break huh? Well, I have been looking forward to...' Rogers stopped his train of thought when he exited the room, to spy Belle leaning up against the wall, a look on her face that made the Captain groan inwardly. "What can I do for you, Belle?"
"Nothing much. Just noticed that lately you haven't been putting up with me the same way you used to," Belle pointed out, leaving the Captain to nod his head. "Not that I'm offended or anything, honestly I expected you to treat me this way from the start, but now I'm curious as to what caused the change." Rogers stared down at the mare for a long moment, with eyes that were more sympathetic than they were angry.
"Belle...I know that you're hurting, despite how much you try to hide it. Your friends told me how much you lost on the day your nation fell," the Captain reminded Belle before his gaze hardened. "But now I have a war to win, and I can't have any soldiers disobeying my orders or jeopardizing the lives of others because of attitude. So I know that you're hurting, but so is every other pony here. So, when we're on the battlefield, you leave that baggage here. Am I clear?"
To the Captain's surprise, Belle nodded without any lip. Rogers nodded in reply before walking past her, leaving the belle to watch him go with sinking eyes. 'Heh, afraid that my attitude might get somepony killed. Well, it wouldn't be the first time somepony died because of me.'