It was another fine day for Zecora within the Everfree Forest. The poison joke was, thankfully, not in bloom this season, so she was free to gather to her heart's content, her stores filling up with an effervescent variety of herbs and flowers of many different colors and appearances. Today would be no less different, and this time, she had decided to venture closer to the former castle of the Royal Princesses to gather some special flowers there.

She quickly gathered her saddlebags from the corner of her home, and then she went outside. Though she couldn't exactly fathom why, there had been something... painted on the side of her house. It was a rather crudely painted circle with a letter 'B' within. Just what manner of prankster could have done this, or for a better question: why?

They were strange blue-clad beings, wearing unusual clothing and masks, equipped with what she assumed to be weapons. The presence of knives as the group quickly ran up to her treehouse and began scouting it out seemed to indicate so.

"Report in, team." It was like they were... they were speaking directly to her mind! They were communicating with each other in front of her, but how could she hear them?

"Got nothing at--B! They've got the bomb!" Bomb? Bomb! Oh, dear, what manner of events was unfolding before Zecora's very eyes?! She quickly turned to see another group, this one clad in tan clothing and also wearing masks, entering the small clearing that made up the majority of her home's front property.

The two groups seemed to stand off for what seemed like the longest time... then Zecora had realized that it had only been a split-second since the two groups had run into each other. And then the sounds came! The knives on the hands of these strange new beings had been replaced by strange L-shaped objects, and now they were using them against each other! The shock only multiplied ten-fold as Zecora stared, wide-eyed, at the first casualty, one of the blue-clad beings that had first arrived at her home.

It was a standoff between ten of these beings, five on each side. What were they doing here? What could they want?

She didn't have much time to contemplate that decision, however, as the firefight quickly came to the final throes of battle. One of the tan-clad had taken out another one of the blue-clad, and only one of each side remained. They began firing at each other, seemingly striking each other's limbs and other spots, their blood splatting across the floor. Then the blue-clad finally scored a killing shot on the last tan-clad, and then all was silent.

Followed by a single booming voice, spoken as if everypony were meant to hear it.

What were these things? No sooner than they had appeared, they immediately disappeared, practically disappearing into thin air! The bodies and blood had all but vanished, and she quickly shook herself off, believing that may there was something more potent than poison joke that she had run into recently.

She continued along the quiet path towards the derelict castle, trotting along and humming to herself, only to notice one extremely specific detail: the birds weren't chirping. That usually meant that some manner of predator was nearby, or she scared them off. The former was more probable than the latter, but she continued anyway. Most of the creatures of the Everfree Forest didn't give her much trouble, and if they did, she knew how to deal with them thanks to Fluttershy's lectures.

She began to climb up the hill leading to the gates of the castle as she heard some rustling in the bushes. Turning to her left, she saw that same group of tan-clad beings running towards her! She quickly cowered in fear, but noticed as they completely ignored her and ran up the steps into the castle. Curious, she followed them, taking peculiar notice of the strange painted 'A' on the outside of the doorway.

One of the tan-clad began to crouch down in the atrium of the former castle, sitting in front of a broken waterfall and a large statue of Celestia in her former days. Then she realized what the blue-clads had said: the thing he was planting was a bomb! And no sooner than she had realized it, then...

"I'm gonna hole up here." The five figures quickly dispersed into various corners and hideaways in the atrium. They were going to ambush the blue-clad beings when they attempted to stop them! She couldn't allow this to pass! She quickly charged for the bomb, only to stop when she realized that she had absolutely no idea how to stop the thing that stood before her. She tried to push and hit the strange object to no effect: her hooves merely passed through the object as if it were a ghost!

Before long, she could hear the telltale sound of steps coming up the hill, and watched as the group of blue-clad beings, now armed with even larger objects than before, enter the room. The firefight quickly commenced again, as the groups traded their shots with each other, bodies falling in the corners and the doorway. Then things were silent, and Zecora had noticed one of the blue-clad walk up to the strange bomb and crouch over it, staring at it while doing nothing.

She didn't realize it at first, but she noticed that her heartbeats were pacing quicker and quicker as the beeping of the bomb became faster. The bomb was going to explode, and this blue-clad being is doing nothing! Then the being, the last of the ones still alive, drew his knife again and began running! That coward! He was going to let the bomb explode after sitting there doing nothing?!

Zecora broke into a pace, running alongside the strange being, who ignored her while she shouted expletives at him. The beeping had completely stopped as they quickly bound down the hill, before a final beep in quick succession resulted in the explosion of most of the castle grounds. How terrible! She turned her head to yell at the figure, who was now seemingly trying to knife her unsuccessfully, but was interrupted by the omnipresent voice yet again.

Zecora stopped arguing with the insane being as his form disappeared. Just what in the name of the Celestia's flank was going on here?! Okay, she had been shouting at the air. That was most certainly it. There were no strange beings here, and it was just all in her head. She turned towards the castle, and it was actually... intact? The castle was intact, or rather, from what she witnessed, restored? It made no matter to her, she could now obtain her ingredients now.

And maybe perhaps visit Ponyville later to make sure she wasn't going insane, and talk to Twilight about it. She trotted up to the gates again, quickly poking her head in the door to make sure she wasn't seeing things again, and then walked around the atrium, enjoying the open sky and picking some rare flowers that grew here. She picked the last of her bunch when she heard the sound of footsteps again.

Slowly, with her eyes closed and steadfastly praying it wasn't those beings again, she quickly turned around and tried to fool herself. Again, it was the tan-clad beings, but this one was alone. She could hear the sound of fighting going on outside using those infernal contraptions that they used in their battles, and then, there it was again.

No, no! Not again! She quickly ran for the bomb, again swiping at it fruitlessly. The strange being, seemingly devoid of any emotion in its face, simply sat in the corner with its strange weapon as Zecora continued yelling at it. The fighting outside had long since stopped, and she simply resorted to moving away from the device before it decided to destroy the atrium... again.

A blue-clad being charged in through the door, and with quick attention, immediately killed the tan-clad one sitting in the corner, before running to the bomb. Zecora rolled her eyes: the damned being did the same thing it did last time. He just sat on his flank and stared at the damn device! She began to start for the door in her head start to get away from the explosion before she heard the voice again.

She turned around to see the being aim his weapon in the sky and fire in random directions while spinning at an unusually insane rate, and switching between his weapon and a knife at the same time.

Zecora ran through her thoughts as she left the castle. She had what she needed, so there was no reason to stay. The being had again disappeared before her very eyes, so she began to piece together the puzzle. These beings here were at a point of conflict, the blue-clads wanting to stop the tan-clads from either killing them off, or succeeding in detonating a bomb. Oh, buck, can this sound any more insane?

She would just go home, take a rest, and visit Twilight within the next fortnight, and perhaps get a treatment at the spa, and binge at Sugarcube Corner, and maybe get a nice visit to Canterlot and be surrounded by other ponies. Just about anywhere else would be practically heaven compared to the less than half day's worth of insanity she had just lived through.

At least the damage they caused seemed to be only temporary, but it certainly scared the living daylights out of her when she had first seen the castle go up in flames. And what was with those strange paint markings? A? B? They were most certainly designations given by the strange bipedals, and it was hard to think of much else. The castle and her house were the only points of interest within the forest.

Oh, there they go again. Most likely at the castle, or at her... buck. Oh, what was the point? It would just reassemble itself anyway. She continued her walk, musing on her strange happenings and perhaps how to best present this issue to Celestia so it could be avoided in the future. As far as things went, these 'counter-terrorists' and 'terrorists' were seemingly benign to ponykind, but extremely detrimental to each other and various important buildings.

The sounds of fighting could be heard in the direction of her home: various pitt-patts of fire and some really big booms, no doubt caused by the ever-advancing arsenal of weaponry the beings had. They always seemed to return even more well-equipped than they had before, most likely to get the drop on the other side with superior firepower.

This time, however, it would seem that the fight had been drawn out a lot longer than previous engagements. The sound of the bomb quickly dwarfed the staccato cracks of the fight, and Zecora knew immediately that her home would be up in flames, and most likely completely fine by the time she returned. She would have to avoid being in her home during these times, and it would be fruitless to try to cook up any potions since there was a good chance that they'd all be destroyed.

This would make it the fifth time now, if the beings actually did show up. Much to her disappointment, they did. They immediately began firing at each other out in the clearing as she dug through her belongings. It seemed that anything destroyed in the attack was immediately replaced whenever the beings disappeared, most likely to where they ran from.

She could hear the sound of things hitting the wall and subsequent explosions, and probably though it best not to check. She'd already lost too much of her sanity today, and taking a bath in poison joke was actually sounding like a very appealing option right now. The duration in which these strange and peculiar beings would stay here was unknown to her, but she hoped it wouldn't be too long.

Her thoughts were interrupted for the umpteenth time as one of the tan-clad ran into her home and into the back rooms, where he hid in a corner. A few of the blue-clads followed in and began searching. Zecora examined them, gauging them to see if they were actually aware of the tan-clad that awaited behind the curtains in the next room.

Much to her surprise, the tan-clad actually inched out of his hiding spot, crouching with a strange silver weapon that looked like it was slightly too big to fit in his hands. In quick succession, he aimed and fired at the heads of the three blue-clads, and apparently won his side another win.

Zecora watched as the strange being walked up to the one of the blue-clad bodies and began crouching up and down above the head. What this strange ritual was exactly, Zecora was unsure of, but it was plainly obvious that this was an attempt to show dominance of some sort.

Trixie had been trudging through these woods for the longest time now, unsure of her whereabouts and just exactly which direction town was in. She quickly pulled out her rations and sat down, ready to enjoy yet another day's rounds of barely-passable food. It was such a disgrace to her, but she had finally relented to learning how to forage from the zebra, and was on her way back to see what else she could learn from her, and perhaps share lunch.

The surprise was plainly written across her face as these strange blue-clad beings armed with black, brown, and green objects ran past her, completely ignoring her. She put down her sandwich, rubbing her eyes to make sure she hadn't just seen the most strangest occurrence she'd ever seen in her life just walk past her as if she were nothing. Hah, how ironic. Now even her hallucinations were giving her the cold shoulder.

There was the matter of hearing those loud noises coming from this general area of the forest earlier, but she'd just chalked it up to random creatures within the Everfree being... well, themselves. She hadn't actually expected it to be, well... this. She quickly scarfed down her sandwich, trying to ignore the chatter from the beings in the distance.

Trixie looked as group of bipedals split, two going one way, and three the other. Unwilling to let even her hallucinations get the best of her, she followed the group of two, eventually catching up to them as they were just about to head up a hill. On top sat a castle, most likely the one that she'd remembered hearing about in the old books. What could they be doing in there?

"The bomb is at A--oohhh, boy!" One of the blue-clad soldiers immediately flew backwards, dropping his weapon as Trixie saw a plume of blood shoot from his head.

"Sniper!" the other one shouted, shortly before backing away, only to have a tan-clad being run outside and gun him down.

Trixie was absolutely confounded by the appearance of these beings, and now completely terrified as it was obvious that they just killed each other without the slightest hint of hesitation in cold blood. What was she supposed to do? She could feel her legs shaking as she stared at the lifeless bodies of the two beings as she heard the sound of footsteps.

"The bomb's at A!" one of them shouted, running up the stairs and throwing a handheld metal object inside the room. There was a bang and then a giant cloud of smoke as the other two members started throwing in theirs, as well. Then they charged in, and the sound of booms and bangs was evidently clear as the smoke began to fade away.

"The bomb site's secure, ready to defuse the bomb." She inched her way up to the gates, nervously peeking around a corner to find two of the blue-clads hanging around the corners of the castle, and one crouching directly over a small green box with wires sticking out of it, seemingly staring at it for no good reason.

Oh, goodness, was that what the box was? She hadn't even noticed. Her current attentions were elsewhere, however, as she noticed the three blue-clads pull out what seemed to be knives, haphazardly swinging them... as they charged straight for her. Her pupils narrowed into pinpricks as these seemingly insane beings were going to cut her up and eat her for dinner! She could feel her consciousness fading as she began to faint...

...and she was out cold before she even hit the ground. She was not conscious, however, to notice that the figures had disappeared, nor to learn that they couldn't actually hurt her. The Great and Magnificent Trixie lay on the ground before the gates, having unceremoniously fainted like a little filly.

Zecora looked around. Well, the now-present 'voice in the sky' was still around, so that certainly meant that the strange beings were, too. She heard the notice about the bomb being planted, and it pleased her to see that the 'counter-terrorists' had again saved the castle from yet another temporary untimely explosion, since it was obviously it wasn't here.

She stirred her pot once more before quickly pouring out the hot mixture. This potion, in particular, was one made to steel a pony's nerves. She felt that she could definitely use one given the madness going on around her. After pouring the brew into a dozen small flasks, she quickly grabbed one and guzzled it down. The feeling of her nervousness disappearing was a much-welcomed one.

And like clockwork, the beings had returned. Zecora quickly stuffed the bottles into her bag, throwing it on her back, and slamming the door open. She stood face-to-face with one of the blue-clads, who merely walked inside and examined her home in case of any hiding tan-clads, though she already knew there were none.

"Sector clear." The group of blue-clads began to make for the path leading to the castle. Zecora could already guess what was going to happen next. Really, why hadn't anypony else noticed this? No pegasi, or anypony at all from Ponyville had even noticed. Perhaps this madness was merely contained to a single area, unknown to everypony else?

Well, wasn't that a surprise? Zecora watched with dulled interest as the blue-clads ran around the corner, out of her sight, and out of her mind. She decided to go down by the river and pick some of the aquatic plants around there. Maybe if she was lucky, she'll even meet a bear, or even better, a manticore.

She ventured in towards the river, the body of water actually being the only obstacle between her treehouse and the castle, besides the forest. The frogs and fish in the river dove around as she quickly began pulling a few roots, giving a passing glance to the blue-clads who were making their way up the road across the river. They stopped, though, as the tan-clads quickly descended, and one of the blue-clads threw a strange black-and-red-dotted object, bouncing off a tree and landing right in front of Zecora.

By Celestia! Whatever the thing had been, it was loud, and it was bright, and induced in Zecora such a terrible fright! She quickly fell backwards, the oblivious to the gunfire in her ringing ears, and tried to pick herself up. The disorientation was made to be a temporary one, it seemed, but while the ringing in her ears cleared up, the whiteness within her eyes took longer. She stumbled around a bit, leaning against a tree for support, holding her eyes shut as her balance returned.

When she came to her senses, the bodies of four of the tan-clads had fallen into the river in front of her, as well as two of the blue-clads. She frowned: that would normally have taken a while to clean up, but the bodies of these strange new intruders had a habit of disappearing, and then they all show up, completely fine, so she paid it no mind. She just hoped they wouldn't stay here forever.

She sat down by the river, pulling out a small cask of tea, and sipping it while she waited for the whole thing to blow over. If it ever did, that was.

Trixie's eyes shot open. She didn't know what was going on, nor... wait! The beings! They were going to chop her up, eat her as food! Oh, Celestia, she would renounce all of her ways and became a paragon of love and peace and friendship! She would have to go see Twilight soon and repent for her mistakes. She was too pretty to die!

She quickly got to her hooves, determined to find Zecora and hasten her escape from this absolutely dangerous forest before the beings returned to exact their hungry vengeance upon all of ponykind! Yes, that sounded... important. The Great and Magnificent Trixie shall become a savior!

She quickly began for Zecora's hut, running across the roads and through the small brush that led to the clearing. Yes, she knew where the castle was, so knowing which way the hut awaited her was foal's play. She quickly bound around the trees, hearing the telltale sound of fighting again. She entered to clearing and was greeted with an explosion of light and sound.

She'd been blinded! Oh, no! In her bid to try to save Zecora, the hungry bipeds had ended up springing a trap on her, knowing that she'd come to rescue the zebra! What if they already ate Zecora?! The thought was absolutely unbearable to Trixie, but she stood her ground, knowing that she must bring word to Ponyville if Zecora wasn't alive.

Trixie could hear them speaking in the background as the ringing wore off. She quickly flared her horn, trying to grab any object near her and began throwing them in random directions. If they were going to eat her, she wouldn't go down without a fight, help or not!

She could feel her magic's grasp on the rock collide with something. Haha, she'd done it! She'd bested one of the beings, and could stand proud and tall as Trixie Lulamoon, savior of Ponyville! She opened her eyes to see that she had incapacitated the last of the blue-clads with a rock she had grabbed from her right... or had she?

She was proven wrong as a tan-clad walked up and shot the stunned blue-clad in the head, leaving Trixie to again reconsider the consequences of her decisions as he continually kept firing into the corpse while hopping around it like a bunny, much to her horror and fragile state of mind.

Zecora had heard all the noise coming her hut. No doubt they had engaged in another fight again, and it ended rather quickly, too, judging by how the voice in the sky had quickly declared a victor. The games that these beings played were sure unusual. She couldn't even begin to comprehend the kind of magic needed to be able to reconstruct something after completely blowing it up. A most strange type of magic indeed.

She entered the clearing, noting the lack of bodies and blood again, as usual, when she spotted a huddling blue figure at the edge. It was Trixie! Zecora quickly trotted to her, attempting to say something, but the only thing she could hear from Trixie's lips were dreadfully fearful things about jumping and bunnies. Zecora shook her head: the poor thing must have been exposed to the antics of the bipeds. Not even Trixie's ego could save her this time.

Picking her up and putting the manic Trixie on her back, she quickly trotted towards her home, only to see the blue-clads entering and searching it again. This had gone on, long enough! Zecora swallowed hard before reaching into her pack and downing another emotion-dulling hit, and ran inside. Within, she began packing up her things for her trip to Ponyville. The Elements of Harmony and the Princesses needed to know what was going on within these woods, even if they were harmless to ponies!

She heard footsteps as she saw a tan-clad walk straight in front of her cauldron, and crouched down with the small green box.

This was madness! She was still in it! Despite the effects of being able to return buildings to normal, Zecora wasn't really entirely sure about testing to see if that applied to ponies, as well. She quickly grabbed everything the essentials like her potions and some cloth for sleeping and stuffed it into her saddlebags. The beeping had begun, and the tan-clad again retreated to the back room to wait for the blue-clads.

Well, of course you were, you idiot! Zecora allowed herself that single thought, before tossing the manic Trixie on top of her saddlebags. This was going to be quite a trek with all the things she was bringing, but hopefully with Trixie as an eyewitness, there would be better weight in this story when she presented it to the Princesses.

She quickly hopped out the door, beginning in a trot for Ponyville as the sound of gunfire again broke through the skies around her, as well as the sounds of hissing from those strange smoke-emitting canisters and the sounds of a pop from those blinding and deafening objects that they had. Before long, the gunfire had died down, but not without a few more pops and more gunfire.

Trixie opened up her eyes as she became aware of the sound of hooves clopping on the ground.

"The... the... the beings! I remember! They walk on two legs and they have knives! Knives! We have to warn Ponyville! They're going to eat them all! They were going to eat me!" She began sobbing.

"I know it was a most terrible sight, but now to Ponyville, we must take flight."

"Yes... yes..." Trixie cleared her throat. "Let us hope that we can convince the ponies of this threat. I wouldn't want to go down in history as the madmare who cried wolf. I fear the extent of our story may already seemed too deluded to begin with."

The sound of gunfire in the distance indicated that the bipeds were far from being finished with what they were doing. However, the resulting explosion in the distance, definitely from the castle at this distance, seemed to indicate that their influence wasn't entirely far-reaching. The voice in the sky could not reach them when they were this far away.

She could do with a good vacation right about now... with any luck, they would be able to find some peace and quiet in Ponyville. That was definitely something that both of them could look forward to.

END MATCH SCORE:

Counter-Terrorists: 5
Terrorists: 5

MATCH RESULT: TIE

MAP ROTATION:
Current Map: de_everfree
Next Map: de_ponyville

Equestria: Global Offensive

by Material Defender

de_everfree