//------------------------------//
// Act 2: Infiltration 
// Story: Metal Gear Twilight : Magical Espionage Action 
// by DJ-Otakon 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 2: Infiltration

I felt the floor return underneath my feet as the spell finished its purpose. The world quickly fell back into place around me, and I stepped out of the portal into what looked like an old bedroom. This must be what had been Celestia’s old bedchamber.

I looked around at all of the room’s contents, and took note of all of the signs of age that everything showed. The bed that was in the corner next to the window had fallen in and all of the sheets had long turned to dust, leaving the broken frame of the bed with what was left of the old mattress.
There was also an old armoire in the corner. I walked over to it, curious as to what was inside. There was less dust on it than anything else in the room. It looked like it had been opened recently enough for something to have been placed inside. 

I opened it up to find that there was a visor attachment and a piece of cloth. I levitated it to my face and unraveled it.

It was a bandana with an infinity symbol inscribed in white. I wrapped it around my forehead and ears. The ends of it were threadbare, but it fit comfortably.

The visor attachment slid over a little connector built into the bandana above my right eye. Once I had it in place, a green square appeared in the top-right corner of my vision. It wasn’t very obtrusive, but it is going to take some getting used to. The little square then filled with a semi-detailed map of the room, and what appeared to lie beyond.

Then my codec started buzzing for the first time. I fumbled around with the little screen on my wrist, but then realized that all I had to do was press the green button below the screen. The screen flickered to life, and then the image of the Princess came on the screen.

“I’m glad to see that you made it there safely, and that you found the rest of your equipment,” She said. She shifted around until she was closer to the screen.

“About that, what exactly is all of this?” I asked.

“Well to start, that visor contains the radar equipment that will give you all of the map data that you should need about your surroundings. It will also provide information about where your enemies are. It’s all a part of the security system that was built into the place,” She replied. She waited a few seconds then continued, “You were going to need something to attach the radar equipment to so I thought you wouldn’t mind using the bandana. I don’t really suppose that you’ll need the mask.”

I took everything off of my head in one motion. It all slid over the top of my head smoothly. I then tied the bandana back on, and reattached the visor. Its screen flickered back to life as it had the first time.

“Well, that’s more comfortable. Where do I go from here?” I asked.

“There should be a ventilation shaft that drops into the facility below. The reason that you will need to use that as an entrance is that the terrorists have locked down all outside access to the facility,” She said as the map in my visor scrolled forward, showing the path.

As soon as the map returned to its original position, a voice suddenly squeaked into my ear, “Oh hiya Twilight! I thought I would pop in and explain why I’m here.”

It was Pinkie Pie. Of all of the ponies the Princess could have picked she was the last one I would have figured that she would have turned to.

“Um ok...” I replied.

“I’m here to save the game…” She started.

“Game? What game?” I interrupted.

“Oh...Nothing,” she replied, and then continued, “I’m also your information and moral support.”

Well at least the Princess did pick the right pony for those jobs. I sighed while looking back to the screen on my wrist. The little pink pony was grinning from ear-to-ear. “Well Pinkie I’m sure that I’ll, uh, be in touch?”

“Oh yes Twilight, I forgot to explain that we had that radar system earlier,” the Princess said as she came back into view, “That radar is linked to the facility’s maneframe. That’s what monitors all of the facility’s systems. It will provide a simple mapping interface and vital sign information. That’s the green bar at the top. Though, if you are seen or put the system on alert for any reason it will deny you access to it. So watch out.”

“So I shouldn’t let the enemy see me if I like having a sense of direction?” I asked rhetorically.

“If you need anything else just give us a call. Both of our codec frequencies are registered,” She said before switching off from her end. The codec screen faded back to black, and beeped quietly in my ear as the call finished.

I walked up to where the door would have been. The door must’ve rotted away a while ago from age because only the lower half was still attached to the hinges. I pushed what was left of the door out of the way and walked into the spacious hallway that was outside of the Princess’ room.

The walls were covered in evenly spaced tattered banners. This would probably have been the perfect place for an ambush had there been anypony who had expected me, but it was all quiet. The only sounds to be heard were my hooves softly padding against the worn carpet that lined the middle of the stone floor. The end of the hall branched out into a “T”, with the left leading to what seemed to be the eating area, or maybe a banquet hall. The right path lead to, according to the radar, a staircase that went down to the underground portion of the castle.

I took the first flight of stairs without needing my illumination spell, but as I left the landing of the first flight, all of the light suddenly disappeared. Darn. I was hoping to be able to maintain a stealthy entrance.

There are three rules to being stealthy:

Number one: Keep to the dark as to best let nopony notice you.

Number two: Keep a light step. Don’t run around or stand up and act like a spastic idiot. Keep a nice slow pace that will reduce the sounds that you make while you walk.

Number three: The final and most important rule is to keep yourself as streamlined as possible. Don’t pick up unnecessary things that will weigh you down, and make you easier to see.

I read that in a book one time. (surprise surprise, right?).

But there are things more important than stealth sometimes. Such as safety. I just hope now that there is nopony down here waiting on me. That would make my entrance much easier and less dangerous of course.

I reached the final landing that opened into the basement. The room was very tall and filled with pillars. It was also illuminated with yellow lamps that were hanging from the sides of the pillars.

In the center of the room, there was a guard, but either he was lying under the desk or was behind the pillar next to the desk so I couldn’t see him. That’s convenient for me though. It also means that he didn’t see me enter the room.

I cut off my illumination spell and walked over to the nearest set of pillars. I crept behind them and then rolled over to the next one as stealthily as possible. I got to the pillar that ran in parallel to where the guard was located on my radar, and peeked around the corner.

He was snoring... Loudly. I figured that they would have guards that were more serious about their posts. I crept over to him, and looked over the equipment that he had.

He had some sort of suit that was made out of a scaly material on the outside, and a hood that had been taken off. There was no mistaking it. He was definitely a zebra. He also had a machine gun...wait. Didn’t those use actual bullets? They don’t even mass produce these. I wonder where they got it, and I wonder whether the rest of their personnel carry them.

That got my mind to wondering, but I snapped out of it as soon as the guard started to come around. He awoke with a start, but was very still once I shoved the pistol in his face. I quickly added, “Drop everything you have and get down.”

He shook everything free of their harnesses and into the floor. Still pointing the gun at him I said, “Get over there and lie with your muzzle on the ground.”

He shuffled over to where I had gestured to beside the pillar, and made sure to get on the ground as instructed. I walked over to join him, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Well I should be asking you the same thing.” He replied in a deep voice.

I stared at him hard, “Yes, well I’m not the one with the gun pointed at his head now am I?”

He gulped, “No. I don’t suppose you are, but that doesn’t mean much to me.”

He jumped up, and started to swing around with his hind hooves, but I was quicker since I already had my pistol drawn. I jumped back, and squeezed the trigger three times. He thumped back to the ground sound asleep.

I walked over to the equipment pile, and found the radio that they used. I hooked it into the codec. This should be useful for listening out for alerts, and checking up on the enemy’s status.

I pushed the button on the codec and selected the Princess’ frequency. The codec beeped a few times then she appeared on the screen.

“Hello Twilight,” She said.

“Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I made it to the ventilation shaft,” I replied.

“Oh, Ok well was there any difficulty getting there?” She asked.

“They need to pick a more attentive guard, or put a pair of guards out so that the one they have doesn’t end up waking up to a gun in their face,” I laughed as I joked around.

“Ah,” She chuckled, “Ok well were you able to determine their intentions from him?”

“Well considering I had to put him down so quickly after he tried to take me out. I think that they are pretty serious about their weapons, and he seemed to know some pretty serious hoof-to-hoof combat moves,” I explained.

“So, do you think that you should change over the gun to its lethal mode?” She asked.

I looked down at the gun on my flank, and the memories from the previous combat experience flooded back. The usefulness of the gun as it is might provide good interrogation material, but it does leave the danger of the victims waking up. That would draw attention. Killing them requires a louder and brighter beam.

“I can switch the gun dynamically depending on the situation without breaking it right?” I asked.

“I’m sure that it wouldn’t cause and issue. It was built to be able to switch so it should be able to take the changes.” She replied.

“Ok well then I’ll be on my way. If anything else comes up I’ll let you know immediately.” I said, and then turned the codec back off.

I walked over to the ventilation shaft, and pulled the cover off. I slid inside and started to crawl on my belly down into the narrow opening.  I looked straight ahead and noticed that there wasn’t any other path, but to go straight.


[Loading...]


After about five minutes of crawling through the shaft there was an opening with a grate over it. I pulled the grate off, and then peeked my head out over the edge to check for anypony around my only exit. As I looked around I noticed that the opening had a ladder that led down to a catwalk which happened to be empty.

I dropped down from the hole and clattered to the floor of the catwalk. The guards that were patrolling the ground floor looked over in my direction, but I had already hidden away behind a pillar. A lone guard came up to check on what had happened, but he didn’t notice me pressed up against the pillar.

As he walked away I got back down to a crouching position. I waited as he went back down the stairs, and then quietly darted towards the doors at the opposite end of this portion of the catwalk. The doors quietly slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and I went inside. The room was piled to the ceiling with boxes. I pulled one of the flattened cardboard boxes off of the floor. There was also a set of infrared goggles.

I also found some magical energy grenades. I clipped those to my side, and proceeded to the door. Then I noticed that my radar had a flashing red mark over what appeared to be the elevator. It was a different color than my marker and the enemy marker so that must mean that it is some sort of objective marker.

I walked out of the room, and checked the corners for guards. As soon as I cleared the catwalk again I proceeded out of the room, and then slowly walked down the stairs. The room was stacked with large containers which provided an easy cover for me as I proceeded towards the cargo elevator.

There was a sudden red light and alarms flashing as the elevator started up. Somepony was coming up from the main part of the facility. There was silence as the elevator clicked into place. The pony on the elevator walked over to one of the guards, and took him over to a yellow box on the wall. They opened the box, and I eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Generator No.2 is giving a hard fault down here so I thought I would come up and check out the breaker,” The pony said as he took out some electrical equipment.

“Well, so far the only problem that we’ve been having down here is that the AC won’t kick on right, but I just assumed that was because the air vent up there was pulling air from the outside.” The zebra replied.

“We’ve never had that problem because that vent is directly connected to the AC system around the facility,” The pony sifted through his toolbox.

I used the racket that he was making to get into the elevator, and start its descent into the facility below. The alarm started, 	and the elevator shook as it started its slow descent. I hid in the front corner of the elevator behind the metal shield that covered the control panel. I just hoped that the others in the room would simply dismiss it as somepony called back to the lower floors.

Since nopony had raised alarm, I assumed that they hadn’t had the notion that there might have been in an intruder. I let out a sigh of relief, and then realized that I probably should not just stand in the middle of the elevator as it arrived at the bottom level. There wasn’t an alarm on this side of the elevator, and I arrived in silence as the noise from a behemoth of steel passed by. I flattened myself against the wall as it passed.

The tank had a large turret on the front and was covered in angled plates, and had two turrets on top. It was heading for a ramp that lead to a blast door. It was being closely followed by some kind of transport vehicle.

I left the elevator as soon as they passed; there was a room next to the elevator. I went into the room and spotted a terminal. Numbers flashed across my visor. I typed the numbers into the terminal and surprisingly it logged on. I logged back off and looked at the door in the corner. I really wonder whether they had bothered to change the door codes. That would make my job here really easy.

I tried the same trick with the door in the corner, but it simply beeped twice and a message came on the number pad beside the door that said 'Access Denied'. 

I flinched as I was startled by the door, but there were no alarms ringing so I returned to the terminal. I logged on, and looked through the directory for any memos that might lead me to where Applejack or Fluttershy were being held.

There were three notes on the terminal: 

The first was about an apparent network outage that had brought the facility to a halt, but it was dated from three days ago so I assumed that it wasn’t related to the attack.

The second note was dated for last night so I opened it up and read:

‘Due to the outside access privileges on the door maneframe, we will be setting the doors to M.A.N. (Magical Area Network) cards only so that, if anypony breeches the facility and has been granted access privileges, they can be locked out of most of the facility’s more important parts. The only doors to be left unlocked will be the elevators and the common area doors. These are simply too much of a hassle to lock and unlock each time, and therefore will not be considered a security threat.’

That explains why the door didn’t respond to my password. I would need one of those M.A.N. card keys. I closed the second note and opened the third.

I looked at the final note and it read:

‘The two hostages, the engineer and the President, have been separated. The President of PeaceTech has been moved to the holding cells until further investigation on her passwords can be achieved. The engineer from Ironmare Inc. has been locked in her room until further notice, and will be continuing her work into the metal gear’s programming. Neither one is to be let out of their quarters for the duration of our occupation of this facility.’

So Applejack and Fluttershy were here! That second sentence was a problem to me, though. Poor Flutters was alone, locked in a cell. She was probably a nervous wreck. I just hoped that they weren’t doing anything worse to my friend.

With that information still in mind I switched the radar over to map mode. The objective marker was still over the elevator, but now another was blinking over the blast door that the tank had gone through. I switched the map over to the 3D plane and saw that the facility had other floors above this one, and that the objective marker led to the what appeared to be the holding cells two floors up from this one.

Since the cargo elevator that I used earlier only had and up and down switch I’m going to assume that it only goes between the cargo area and here. The other elevator in the room was on the other side of the room.

I switched off the terminal and walked to the doorway of the office. To get down to the ground floor, there was a set of stairs that led off of the platform. There was a camera at the bottom of the stairs, and two guards patrolling the open floor space. I watched the camera for a minute until I figured out the timing, rushed down the stairs and flattened myself against the wall in the camera’s blind spot. As soon as the camera went for another pass I ducked under the stairs, and then went into the cover of the darkness that the walkway above provided.

I reached the far side wall of the room when the walkway ended. I was stuck waiting for the guard to turn back around, and continue his path in the opposite direction. Once he turned back around I rolled over to the first container.

I followed the length of the container, and stuck my head out to check if the other guard...

“Who’s there!” He exclaimed very in a booming voice.

Well...crap he saw me. So much for stealth. I ran to the other side of the container and unfolded the cardboard box. I slid it over myself, and pushed it up against the containers side.

The guard walked over to where I had been and was joined by the other  guard. The one who had originally spotted me said, “Well, I must be seeing things. Did you see anything over here?”

The other guard looked around and replied, “Nah, must’ve been your shadow or something.”

As the other guard returned to his position he said under his breath, “I swore that I saw something.”

With that incident over I slid the cardboard box off, and folded it up. I remembered to check my radar this time to check their range of vision. He was on the other side of the room when I finally made my move. I rolled to the second container and then waited for the guard to go back around.  Once he did I crawled along the wall over to the elevator. I slid out the cardboard box once again and hid next to the elevator. I pressed the call button with my magic and waited. 

Soon after there was a rumbling sound, and a ding as the elevator came down to this floor. The guards seemed to ignore the arrival of the elevator, and as they passed by me I slid into the elevator and closed the door.