Night Patrol Ch 19
By Foxgear
Applejack and Rawhide were in the thick of it when Overheat crashed down from the sky like a meteor and took out a dozen ogres with his landing alone. The six-legged fire stallion quickly went to work on the enemy forces, reducing a chunk of the enemy line to ash in seconds. Honestly the display left Applejack feeling a little outclassed. At least Rawhide’s tunnel worked out, and their fellow soldiers could cross the battlefield with minimal safety.
“Save some for us, will ya?” Applejack hollered over the noise as Overheat bucked a stone cyclops in two. The thing was still alive as it tried to charge a magic beam, tried being the keyword since she smashed her hoof through the thing’s eye before it could get the shot off.
“Take what you can, cause I always lick my plate clean,” Overheat said with his usual cocky grin. At least Aj assumed he was grinning, it was hard to tell when he was a flaming skeleton.
Whatever he was doing didn’t really matter to her, she was glad he was here. Having any of the monster ponies around in a fight made everything easier, fight a monster with another monster as they say. It was about as good as having one of the princesses with you. There didn’t seem to be anything the night hunters couldn’t takedown.
A pony tapped her shoulder, Applejack turned to see it was Rawhide, and he didn’t look thrilled despite their impending victory. She looked around and saw the field was almost cleared, so what was making him so sour?
Then she felt it, it was coming from the shadowed entrance of the factory, a chill ran down her spine like when she met Sombra back in the Crystal Empire. Vaguely she noticed the waves of monsters coming from the factory had stopped, filling the air with an eerily silence.
“Everypony get ready for anything!” Applejack yelled her hoof cannon charged and ready, everypony followed her lead, feeling the same mounting dread she did. They took aim for the entrance. The fear building as the “KUNK KUNK” of something massive stomped toward them. From the shadows emerged a gleaming dull gray hoof, followed by a longhorn, shrouded in orange magic.
She gave the command to fire before the creature could fully come into view, “FIRE!”
At least fifty blasts hit the entrance, of those that actually hit their shadowy target was uncertain, but they defiantly caused some damage. There was a crater for crying out loud! Yet, Applejack couldn’t shake the fear off her skin.
“Recharge and fire another volley!” She ordered, retaking aim, only for Overheat to move in front of her. “What are you doing? You’re in the way!”
Overheat shook his head, “No, you’re in my way, get out of here, all of you! This opponent is something else. Something you can’t handle.”
“We can’t just leave you here alone with that thing! Whatever it is…” Applejack protested.
Overheat eyed the thing in the smoke warily, it was awfully patient, or perhaps it was toying with them, he didn’t know or care to find out with everypony standing around and NOT doing what he told them to do.
“You and Rawhide might be of some help, but the others? They’ll just be cannon fodder. Get them out, and then you can come back and help me, now GO!”
Rearing up Overheat bellowed a stream of scathing fire at the metallic pony, which fired a blast of orange magic to counter his attack. The two attacks met and sent fire flying everywhere!
(At least it got them moving) Overheat snorted side trotting as the thing charged him, smashing the ground where he once stood, rearing back he struck the metal beast's flank with his four front hooves, each strike creating a shower of sparks, overall though it seemed ineffective, so he leaped back to grain some distance and reexamined his enemy.
The thing was a tall, if not a little taller than him, with a longhorn (about as long as Celestia’s) and wings perhaps? Then there was the thing’s metal skin, he didn’t know what kind of metal it was, but it was damn hard. His horseshoes hadn’t even made a dent, which meant melting it would be his best option.
“Well then, come on and get me!” He taunted, earning the thing’s attention. It charged its horn as he rushed it, galloping at full speed.
An attack, from the ruined factory entrance, sent him stumbling though, a red blast of magic caught his right front shoulder. Trotting on five legs Overheat veered left, avoiding several more explosions from both attackers. Ducking behind some broken stone cyclops he took a moment to catch his breath as a second metal pony joined the first.
(Ok, I could really use Applejack and Rawhide now, these ponies are something else.)
While debating on what to do, the two metal ponies start blasting his position, breaking chunks of the stone cyclops away with each blast, it wouldn’t be long before his cover was dust in the wind.
As Overheat was about to make a break for it, the firing stopped, followed by a loud ‘clang’! Peering over his defenses, he was glad to see Rawhide and Applejack in the fray, both earth ponies were going to town the metal ponies with all their might, Applejack with her four glowing hooves and Rawhide with his glowing pickaxe (When did he learn to do that?) together they pushed the two metal ponies back, their sudden rush catching the two metal beasts off guard.
Spurred on by their display of might, Overheat rushed from his cover aflame, taking his skeletal form. With a mighty leap, he jumped into the air and fell like a meteor on the red metal pony, burying the thing into the earth. The orange pony charged up an attack, but Rawhide stuck his pickaxe into the thing’s eye socket, causing its shot to veer off in a different direction.
“Think that did it?” Applejack asked as they regrouped at the factory entrance. The two metal ponies got back up almost instantly, looking none the worse for wear.
“I think that would be a resounding no, time for a change in tactics,” Overheat tapped his gem communicator, “This is night hunter Overheat, requesting the deployment of the AT-1, time to test out that new toy Gadget.”
“Roger that, AT-1 will deploy in five minutes.”
“Why is it always five minutes?” Overheat grumbled under his breath, preparing for the next round. He hoped they could last that long.
“Let’s go, let’s go! Get this thing moving!” A pony yelled as he climbed to the top of the AT-1, his name was Howitzer, an earth pony from the backwoods of Equestria and the AT-1’s test pilot. He studied Gadget’s manual thoroughly in preparation for this day. All he needed now was his crew to arrive, and they could deploy.
Opening the hatch, Howitzer vaguely noticed the tank begin to rumble as it came to life. He brushed it off, thinking somepony got here ahead of him. When he got inside, he was in for a big surprise.
There in the driver’s seat was Nightingale, who by his memory should be at the castle recovering, next to her reading the tank’s operations manual was a very nervous looking Dusk, who should also be at the castle.
“That starts the engine, and that’s the gun, and this is the throttle. To go forward you-“
“I think I got it.” Nightingale grinned, revving the throttle, “Now let’s stretch this thing wings or tracks or… whatever, let’s rock!”
“Wait, I want to AGGGHHHH!” Dusk screamed as Nightingale gunned the gas, propelling the tank forward to the edge of the lowered ramp, The Moon Cutter still airborne by the way.
Howitzer felt his body leave the floor of the tank as they drove off the ramp, free-falling to the ground at high speeds.
“Hit the parachute for Luna’s sake!” He screamed as he moved through the cramped cockpit and mashed the release button. There was a soft “Floosh” as the shoot deployed, followed by a soft jerk as the tank’s descent slowed.
“What in Luna’s name are you two doing in here?” Howitzer demanded as he tried to regain control of his tank, but Nightingale pushed him away, keeping him from the driver’s seat. He growled under his breath as they touched down on the ground. Eagerly Nightingale drove them ahead, leaving him little choice but to man the main gun.
“Well, the plan was for me to join the battle and for little Dusky here to meet up with Gadget, but we both overslept… a lot. We woke a little bit before the battle, but Dusk was too scared to get out and face her dad, understandable really, so she started reading the manual to calm down, and I was pretending- I mean learning how this thing works.” Nightingale explained excitedly as they neared the battlefield, “Now, are you going to work with us or keep whining like a foal?”
Howitzer scoffed, “Fine, but don’t be crying to me when Gadget chews your ears off.”
Looking through the telescope, Howitzer spotted their targets, “Dusk, I need you to load the cannon, while I aim and fire, Nightingale you’ll drive, try to keep us steady, but don’t let us get hit too often. This thing can take a hit, but she’s not unstoppable.”
“Alright, let’s do this!” Nightingale cheered, pushing the throttle to max speed.
Peering through the scope, Howitzer lined up his shot on the metal menaces attacking their comrades.
“Get out of the way!” He barked over the coms, Overheat, Applejack, and Rawhide quickly retreated from the two beasts, giving him a clean shot at the two. The sound of the cannon’s breach closing signaled that he was locked and loaded and ready to fire.
Unlike the ship's cannons and the hoof cannons, the AT-1 fired gem tipped projectiles, much like the air unit’s missiles, and while they only had limited ammo, each shot pack a lot more punch! With a raise of his leg, Howitzer stomped on the trigger, firing the round.
The round screamed out of the barrel, rocketing through the air at subsonic speeds, through his scope, he tracked the shot. The projectile impacted behind his targets, a miss, pleating them with chunks of earth. He cursed and adjusted his aim as Dusk loaded another shell.
“Incoming attack, move left forty degrees!”
Nightingale bit her lip as she maneuvered the tank, the sound of two magical blasts impacting behind them made her nearly draw blood. It was unnerving driving when she couldn’t see what was happening. Howitzer was the only one of them that could actually see clearly in this metal contraption. Everything relied on his guidance.
“Straighten out, don’t let them get a lock on our side or they might track us, and then we’ll be in real trouble!”
“Roger that!” Nightingale yelled, turning the tank.
Howitzer turned the turret slightly to get a bead on the enemies’ flanks, they didn’t seem too concerned as they moved their heads for another attack, keeping the broadside of their bodies in his crosshairs. He was about to show them how worried they should be as he fired another shot.
He fired again, this time he was right on target and caught the orange one in the side, and sent it flying from the impact! Right into the bottom of the factory! The red one turned away, rushing to the aid of the other.
“Can I get a confirmation on the target? Have we caused damage?” Howitzer radios, the dust from the impact completely blinding his vision.
“Target hit, but no way to confirm any damage. AND WOW that’s a big hole!” Applejack reported over the coms. “Woah! Oh, boy, he doesn’t look too happy!”
“Applejack, please come in Applejack.”
“Ah’m a little busy!”
Looking through the scope, Howitzer saw that three engage the red metal pony again, giving him no clear shot. He moved to the hole made in the side of the factory and zoomed in, finding no trace of the orange metal pony. Still, he wanted to be sure.
“Load the blue-tipped round,” He ordered Dusk. “We’re going to put that metal monster on ice.”
Blue round loaded, Howitzer fired into the hole. A moment later the hole was sealed entirely in ice.
“Drive us closer and position us beside those rocks there Nightingale, we’ll hold our position there and provide artillery fire on demand. Did you get all that Applejack?”
“Roger that, we’ll get you your shot. Give us a moment to wrangle this guy down, he’s getting awfully feisty.”
“Sounds like he’s quite the opponent,” Nightingale chuckled as she positioned them by the rocks. “Wish I could be out there right now. Maybe I should go join them?”
Howitzer glared at her, “We need a minimum of three ponies to run this thing. You’re not going anywhere. Now cut the chatter and be ready to move on my command.”
“Aye, aye captain,” Nightingale saluted with a cheeky grin. Howitzer grumbled under his breath, watching the battle through his scope. Since they were kind of stuck for the moment, Nightingale took a second to glance towards Dusk to see how the aged up filly was holding up. Overall she seemed fine, minus the trembling, the heavy breathing, the… ok, maybe she wasn’t doing so great.
“Hey, you, ok?” Nightingale whispered, placing a comforting hoof on Dusk’s shoulder. The black-eyed filly looked at her, eyes swollen with held back tears. Making Nightingale feel terrible for dragging her along on her little adventure. She should have pushed the younger mare out of the tank for her own sake if nothing else, but she didn’t. That was a real lapse in judgement in hindsight. Of course, it’s hard to remember how young Dusk actually is when she looked no younger then Nightingale herself.
Dusk nodded and tried to smile, but it wasn’t a compelling one. Nightingale patted Dusk's shoulder and offered her best smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll make it through this, I swear, I’ll make sure you do,” Nightingale promised, though she hoped it was one she could keep.
“Look alive, time for some action!” Howitzer said, firing a shot. Nightingale and Dusk quickly got back to work as Howitzer barked his orders
“Fire!” Applejack yelled over the coms as she ducked behind some rubble as the whistling sound of a gem shell flew over her head, it slammed into the red metal pony. She quickly crawled up to peek at the damage and cursed as a shimmer of red magic encased the metal pony in a protective dome.
Roaring at the top of his lungs, Rawhide attacked the metal pony from behind, his pickaxe glowing with magic as he strikes, remarkably it pierce the dome, but it was still too far away to do any damage. The metal pony dropped the shield and kicked Rawhide with his back hooves, sending the earth stallion flying into the wall.
Snorting angrily, Applejack rushed in low and swept the metal pony’s legs out from under him, rushing to Rawhide’s side as Overheat came in and stomped on the metal pony’s face before it could get up.
“You ok?” Applejack asked, fearful as she looked over Rawhide’s body for injuries. There was a stream of blood coming from under his helmet. Carefully she removed it, only to regret it as more blood flowed down and covered his face. She placed pressure on the wound and reached for her com.
“This is Commander Applejack, I need a medic pony at my position, ASAP, I repeat, I need a medic pony. We got a pony down!”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Some Pony replied, in the distance, she saw some movement back by their barricades.
She sighed with relief, thankful there medic ponies stationed so close. She just hoped they could make it here and back with Rawhide safely, the battle was really starting to heat up.
Overheat was going hoof to hoof against the metal pony, both were so close to each other neither could really use their fancier moves or magic, so it was down to a good old brawl of brawn, which Overheat would probably win, if not for the fact he was facing down a literal wall of metal.
The night hunter smashed his barrel against the metal pony’s, trying to tackle him to the ground, but the metal pony wouldn’t give and pushed back nearly bringing Overheat down, if not for the fire stallion digging in with all six of his legs, he would have been squashed. With a grunt, Overheat pushed back, freeing his front claws, which he used to grip onto the metal pony’s neck. Giving him enough leverage to knock the pony over and give Overheat some breathing room as he trotted away.
“What are you waiting for? FIRE!” He shouted over the coms.
The sound of the AT-1’s cannon firing was comforting as the shell hit the metal pony, sending it skidding across the ground, barely missing the factory wall, unlike his kin before him.
“Whoahoo, that’s the stuff!” Overheat celebrated as the medic ponies emerged from the tunnel. They quickly tended to Rawhide, while Applejack fussed, he was about to go join them, confident the metal monster wouldn’t be getting back up again, but as he trotted away, he heard a groan from behind him. Stopping, he turned to the metal pony, whatever shell the tank team had used left a mark in the form of a massive hole in its barrel, but the metal monster was still alive and kicking and really pissed off now.
“You ingrates dare bring me to my knees, dare to lay a hoof on my beloved cousin, and expect to get away unscathed? I will see you hung by your entrails for such offenses! No pony makes a fool of Ruby Redblood!”
Overheat scowled at the metal monster, this was one of the nobles? (What happened? More importantly, what was that crazy red aura behind him? It looks like an Alicorn.)
“Take this!” Redblood screamed madly, firing a colossal blast of magic at Overheat.
The night hunter expelled a stream of fire to counter the spell, but it wasn’t a very even match up. He quickly found himself overwhelmed by Redblood’s attack and was losing ground rapidly. He summoned up all the magic he could muster and pushed back, gaining an inch for his efforts, an inch he quickly lost.
“Damnit!” Cursed Overheat as he tried to put more power into his attack, but alas, he was maxed out. In the background, he could hear Applejack screaming his name, probably rushing to help him, but she wouldn’t make it in time. Not that she could possibly do anything anyway. This pony, this metal monster of a pony, was too much for them.
Applejack ran for all she was worth, but she knew she wouldn’t make it in time, regardless Applejack charged up her boots with as much magic as she could muster, hoping it could do something, anything to that metal monster. As she drew closer, Redblood’s attack was about to engulf Overheat, Applejack screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to gallop even faster, but that wasn’t enough, Then a familiar voice spoke over her gemcom and nearly caused her to trip from surprise.
“GET AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!” Nightingale screamed as she rammed the AT-1 at full speed right into Redblood, smashing the metal pony right into the wall of the factory!
“You crazy mare!” Howitzer yelled as the tank bucked from the impact. “You’re going to get us killed!”
“Shut up and fire!” Nightingale screamed savagely ramming the noble with the tank over and over again.
“Dusk, load an armor-piercing round, the silver one!” Howitzer ordered as they back off, he fired, point-blank into the noble’s face. Nightingale rammed the tank forward, only to stall as a blast of magic hit them head-on. The armor plating buckled under stress, bolts popped out of the walls, and ricocheted in the cab, one bolt hitting Howitzer in the chest.
“Come on, Nightingale,” He gasped, “It’s just a scratch! ONWARDS!”
Nightingale screamed, slamming the tank forward again, Redblood was unprepared for the assault as he thought he disabled them buckled as they pushed the metal noble right through the wall of the factory, blasting away as they drove deeper and deeper into darkness.
“Nightingale… Nightingale to you read me? Nightingale?” Applejack frantically called over the coms for her friend and received static as a response. Cautiously she walked to the hole the tank made and peered inside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the machine or the putter of its engine. Instead, she heard an explosion!
“NIGHTINGALE!”
“Applejack, what’s going on? What’s happened?” Gadget demanded over the coms, “Applejack, report!”
Applejack steadied herself against the broken wall of the factory. Taking long deep breaths to try and calm down.
“Nightingale, she-she was driving the tank. She…” Applejack explained what happened.
“I see, I’ll be right down with princess Celestia, you stay there and wait for us. Do not go in until we get there, do you understand?”
“Ah, do,” Applejack replied. The earth mare bit her lip, uncertain if she should tell Gadget or not yet, but decided it was best to tell him soon then later. “Gadget, there’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Ah think, Ah heard Dusk in the background over Nightingale’s com. I think she was inside the tank.”
There was silence, and then a ‘POP’ of magic as Gadget appeared beside her via teleportation. The greying unicorn had a mad look in his eyes like when he interrogated Redblood’s guards. Before she could speak a word, he ran into the darkness of the factory.
“Gadget wait, you can’t go alone!”
“DUSK!” Gadget screamed, completely ignoring her.
Celestia appeared in a flash, “Come on, Applejack, after him!” The Princess of the Sun gave chase after Gadget, leaving Applejack straggling behind as she ran full bore to keep up with the two.
“Wait, who in charge of the moon cutter?” Applejack asked, coming up beside the princess.
“Firefly is in charge,” Celestia told her as they swung around a corner, a trail of fire as their guide. “Things may be worse then I fear, we haven’t had any contact from Luna in the past half hour, I’m worried she may be in trouble as well as the assault teams.”
“Then, let’s pick up the pace then!” Applejack hollered, sprinting past the princess. She ran down a darkened tunnel that led to a larger chamber, from the looks of the ruins it was the factory’s engine room. In front of her was Gadget, staring down into a dark pit. She moved next him as Celestia joined them. They all stared in horror at the burning wreckage of the AT-1 down below.
“Dusk…”
Luna groaned as she felt her body bounced her hooves dragging across the ground. She felt tired like somepony had drained all the magic from her body. When Luna opened her eyes, there was only darkness. Being the Princess of the night meant being able to see in the dark, but everything was still only a vague shape to her right now. She then realized she was being carried and by Nico Vega of all ponies! Something that would be almost laughable given his size, if not for the grave situation they were in.
“Nico… what… happened?” She rasped, her throat dry.
The Rinin hummed, uncertain how to explain what happened, “I’m not really sure. You and this metal pony fell down a shaft and were fighting. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t going too well for you, but I’ll give you props for the cool looking aura you had up.”
“Aura?”
“Yeah, you had this black shroud thing hoovering around you, tearing everything around it to shreds! I didn’t know you could do stuff like that. Still, it didn’t seem to be working and the metal pony-“
“The metal pony is Yellowblood,” Luna informed him.
“Yellowblood, huh, who would have guessed that. Anyway, things weren’t going so well, so I jumped in and gave him a swipe in the eye with this thing.” Nico held up his claw equipped with the weapon he stole earlier. “For whatever reason, it managed to hurt him, I had hoped hitting his eye would let me hit his brain or something, but there was nothing there. Still, it seemed to hurt him, and you know what Killing Perfection says, if you can hurt something, you can kill it.”
“When did she say that?”
“Go patrolling with her sometime, and she’ll say a lot of things like that,” Nico answered, smiling. “She’s kind of a chatterbox when you get her alone.”
“I find that hard to believe… Nico, look out!” She grabbed the Rinin with her legs using her wings to propel them upwards as a blast of yellow magic zoomed beneath them.
Yellowblood caught up to them.
Luna turned them around, so they were facing their enemy, and she had to say she was impressed with Nico’s new toy, the gaping hole that once the metal pony’s right eye was a glorious sight indeed. Even if magic was spewing out of it like a broken faucet, giving Yellowblood a very menacing image.
The metal noble snapped his jaws angrily, charged another blast, and fired. Luna brought them upwards again, but a second blast escaped from Yellowblood’s horn and brought them back down to the ground.
Luna winced feeling the sting of the blast through her armor. She pressed her hoof against the wound blood stained her boot. Looking down, she saw a big tear in her armor. The metal was folded inwards, digging into her chest.
As Yellowblood stomped towards them, she felt Nico struggle to lift her up. She tried to get off him, to at least allow him to escape, but her body froze and went stiff again. Magic Exhaustion, she had magic exhaustion!
“Dammit,” She cursed as Yellowblood stood over her, hoof raised for a final strike.
“And so ends the mightly Princess Luna.” He chuckled.
Luna glared at him refusing to close her eyes, and with what little movement she had huddled her body tighter around Nico in a vain hope to shield him from the attack. As the metal hoof fell towards her, she noticed something strange in what would probably be her final moment.
A pebble bouncing on the ground, suddenly, the entire room began to shake as the sound of steel groaning and stone crumbling became a constant roar.
“What is that?” Yellowblood shouted, too distracted by the noise to finish his attack.
The wall next to them broke, shattering into a hail of debris as what had to be the biggest pony Luna had ever seen in her life gallop right at Yellowblood and smashed the metal pony into the adjacent wall.
“You look like you could use some backup Princess.” A voice said a sound she was overjoyed to hear.
“SIXES!” She cried; happily, the black Rinin smirked as he was joined by Fierce Fury and several other ponies she didn’t recognize.
“Allow me to introduce the new recruits.” He grinned as the strange ponies gathered around her in a protective formation. The giant pony from earlier came flying backward and smashed into the wall next to Sixes, they all glared at Yellowblood stomped out of the hole toward them.
“Night Patrollers,” Luna rose to her feet, unimaginable pain bombarding her senses, but she stood firm. She needed to show strength for her new soldiers, “ATTACK!