The team quickly came up with a plan.
“We’re running short on assets,” said Twilight. “If we make a lightning attack now, we can gain a foothold into the building. After that, it’ll be an uphill battle - literally. AJ, Rainbow, go for the encirclement. Pinkie, you set up the surprise attack. Fluttershy, once we’re in, you need to defuse the bomb. Spike, I’m sorry but you’ll have to come with us. We can’t spare anyone to guard you.”
“Can I at least get something to protect myself?” Spike asked.
“You can have my pistol. I’m carrying the RPG,” said Pinkie. She handed it over.
“Ready?” said Twilight.
Applejack and Rainbow took off sprinting for the other end of the building. The others grouped up and made their push.
Pinkie fired the RPG through the open door, shooting past the bomb and blowing away anything in the room beyond. The others charged in to claim the area.
Fluttershy slung the rifle on her back and crouched nervously in front of the bomb. “Um…”
“It’s up to you, Fluttershy. You’ve got the training!” called Twilight as she and the others covered the entrance to the ski slope, standing among fragged bodies.
“Spike, can you help?” Fluttershy asked.
Spike rolled the d20. His pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. “One…”
Coming forward to assist Fluttershy, Spike tripped. The gun in his hand went off and he shot himself in the foot.
The rest of the group groaned.
“It’s still up to you, Fluttershy,” said Twilight. “The rest of us are going to go now. If you get that thing defused, come find us.” She, Rarity, and Pinkie ran out onto the ski slope and out of the blast radius.
Faced with the bomb, Fluttershy gulped. “Um, I think I’ll cut...this wire.”
She winced, but nothing happened. She let out a long breath, closed her eyes and whispered, “I'm a lover, I'm a fighter, I'm a UDT Navy SEAL diver.”
“That’s great, Fluttershy,” said Spike between gasps of pain.
“Oh my! You need help!” She quickly turned to him and began to bandage his foot.
In an attempt to remain conscious, Spike kept the conversation going. “So how is it you know so much about explosives?”
“Guns are scary,” Fluttershy admitted, “so I signed up for all the specialist courses which didn't involve guns.”
“Aren’t bombs more scary, though?”
“I...didn't know that at the time…”
Spike lay back and activated his earpiece. “Team, the bomb’s disarmed thanks to Fluttershy’s freaky knowledge of EOD.”
“Good to hear,” replied Twilight. She let of a burst of nine millimeter rounds at an enemy who had appeared over the bunny hill.
“Good thing we didn’t put Pinkie on the job,” said Rarity, providing cover fire while Twilight reloaded.
“Hey, I could have defused the bomb!” Pinkie argued.
“I fail to see the benefit of putting together an egghead like Spike and a jarhead like you.”
The staccato of Twilight’s MP5, the sharper crack of Rarity’s M4, and the boom of of Pinkie’s shotgun carried up the ski slope, audible even over the AK-47 rattle of their opponents. Crouching over an access hatch in the roof, Applejack and Rainbow prepared to make their entrance.
“What does the Airborne perk get me?” Applejack asked, contemplating her next move.
“You’re good at falling,” said Spike.
The two of them got the hatch open. There was nothing they could use to climb down to the floor fifteen feet below. Applejack lowered her body into the hole, hanging onto the edge.
Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and two enemies ran in. Applejack took one hand off the edge and yanked her Beretta, cutting down the first gunman. The other ran forward and Applejack let go.
“Rangers lead the waaay!” Her boots hit him in the face and cushioned her fall.
Looking around, Applejack realized she was in the room at the top of the slope where the ski lift equipment operated. A sudden idea came to her and she chuckled.
Rainbow peered down through the hole. “What’s so funny?”
“Well, these are big winches, right? What if we lifted the Suburban up here? I bet they wouldn’t expect that!”
“This is stupid.”
“Roll, Spike!” Applejack ordered.
“Seventeen!”
Rainbow had to admit that if it was stupid, but it worked, then maybe it wasn’t stupid. At any rate, Applejack couldn’t be dissuaded. They hooked a thick cable to the front tow hooks and winched the truck up the side of the building and into the room.
“Your chariot,” Applejack said. She grinned.
Rainbow got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. “All right, let’s do this!”
She let Applejack borrow her rifle and punched the gas. The Suburban crashed through the wall and out onto the ski slope.
Down the hill, the others advanced. “It looks like our plan to encircle the bad guys is working,” said Twilight.
“I’ll say!” added Rarity, seeing the black Suburban tearing up the snow. A few startled bad guys got plowed over and a few more caught bullets fired from the passenger window.
“There’s some bad guys coming this way!” Pinkie pointed out. Apparently the distraction of a full-sized SUV indoors hadn’t been enough to draw them all.
“How many are there?” Pinkie asked.
“Three,” said Spike.
“I’ll use the RPG to take out the group.”
Spike rolled the d20. “Seven. The RPG misfires. The warhead just barely pops out of the tube and…” he rolled again “...lofts towards Twilight.”
“I, um, attempt to catch it safely,” said Twilight.
“Ten. You fumble it, but it doesn’t explode.”
“I’ll try to catch it safely,” said Rarity.
“Nine. You fumble it and it goes back towards Pinkie.”
“Ooh! I put up the launch tube so it will go back in and I can fire it a second time!”
Spike rolled. “Two. Sorry Pinkie. You miss. The warhead lands at your feet and blows off your right leg.”
Well, it was all fun and games until someone lost a limb. Twilight screamed into her mic, “Fluttershy, we need you here now!”
“I guess I shouldn’t have tried that,” said Pinkie weakly. “If I tried to argue that it was a good idea, I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Get it, because-”
One of the three bad guys opened fire, drowning her out. Rarity returned fire as Twilight tried to drag Pinkie into a more defensible position.
Fluttershy came sprinting up the slope. She hit her knees and slid across the ski surface, her momentum not slowed in the slightest. Sliding into the fight, she raised her rifle and hammered half a magazine into the nearest bad guy, turning him into pink mist and using the recoil to slow herself to a stop right beside Pinkie.
The whole table was in awe. “Wow, Fluttershy,” said Rainbow.
“That’s what an eighteen gets you,” said Spike. “Now as for me, I'm not trained for combat. I pretty much need a eighteen or more just to hit the next bad guy, let alone actually cause damage.” He rolled the die. “Nineteen! Lucky us.”
Limping behind Fluttershy, Spike raised his borrowed pistol. His hands were shaking and he definitely hadn’t done anything like this before. Still, his friends were in trouble and computer nerd or not, he had to help. He squeezed the trigger and managed to put a bullet into the next bad guy. Not expecting shooting from that direction, it caught the enemy by surprise and he went down.
That just left one more.
“This is all my fault,”’ said Pinkie. “I got everyone into this mess by getting my leg blown off. I should help.”
“We’ll figure something out,” said Rarity.
Pinkie shook her head. “Nope. I have to do this even if it kills me. I attack.”
The d20 rolled. “Twenty!”
As the last bad guy reached them, shouting and holding his AK-47 at the ready, Pinkie grabbed her own severed leg by the ankle and smacked him across the face with it. He lost his balance and fell. Now that he was down to her level, Pinkie didn’t let him recover, beating him to death with bloody smacks from her thigh and femur. The snow for ten feet in every direction turned red with spatter. It was a good thing Fluttershy had already completed the tourniquet.
Everyone else stared, speechless. Pinkie giggled weakly. “You should see the looks on your faces.”
“She’s stable,” said Fluttershy. “Twilight, Rarity, get going.”
The two of them continued up the slope. They met up with Applejack and Rainbow, who’d cleaned up the enemies at the top.
“We think Sombrero’s in this last equipment room,” said Applejack.
“All right,” said Twilight. “Let’s finish it.”
The burst through the door. Sombrero was alone. He raised a gun. Twilight maneuvered to get out of the way, but tripped and fell facefirst against a stack of supply crates. The whole pile tumbled over on Sombrero and knocked him back into an electrical panel.
“That’s not what I meant to do!” said Twilight. “Such a fickle die.”
“Well, let me see what kind of damage he takes.” Spike rolled. “That’s enough to kill him.”
“Well, either way we’re at game end,” said Applejack. “We took care of Sombrero. Did feel a little unfulfilling, though.”
“But I feel like we should have taken him alive,” said Twilight. “Maybe to give just a bit more feeling and meaning to this game of otherwise wanton destruction.”
“Well, I’ve got my Rescue perk,” said Rainbow. “I could try to get him out.”
Sombrero was starting to smoke. Hundreds of volts would do that to you. Rainbow broke open one of the crates and found a nylon rope. After tying a quick loop, she tossed it around him and pulled. He fell forward and lay limply on the floor, smoke rising from his back.
“Fluttershy might be able to fix him,” said Twilight. “Rainbow, do you have any medical training?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, my job gives me a little, to stabilize people. I might even be able to heal the surface injuries of someone who’s already been fried. The emotional scarring is all Fluttershy’s deal.”
Fluttershy nodded.
Twilight said, “But she isn’t with the rest of us right now. We need another way.”
“I have an idea,” said Rarity. “My Teatime perk offers a bonus to stats. With all of us attempting first aid to Sombrero, that might just put us over the top.”
Spike rolled. “Sixteen. Not quite.”
“Well, how are we administering it?” said Rainbow. “We could shoot it straight into his veins.”
“With what?” said Twilight. “Not only does that sound like a bad idea, but where do we get the needle and tubing?”
Rarity smiled. “I’m very prepared for tea parties.”
The smell of the brewing tea and the caffeine seemed to improve everyone’s mood. Particularly Sombrero, who regained consciousness. He was definitely not in the best shape, but alive.
“All right, great,” said Twilight. “Let’s get him out of here and complete the mission.”
“Not so fast,” said Rarity. “I didn’t make this tea for nothing. We’re going to sit here and enjoy it.”
So they forced Sombrero to have a tea party with them. He seemed uncomfortable.
“We should get going soon,” said Rainbow. “So, you know, Pinkie doesn’t bleed to death.”
“Oh, all right,” said Rarity. “But don’t you dare pour that cup out.”
They tied up Sombrero and put him in the back of the Suburban. Rainbow drove them back down the hill with one hand on the wheel and the other holding a teacup pinkie out just to keep Rarity happy. They picked up Pinkie, Spike, and Fluttershy near the bottom of the ski slope. Pinkie had improvised a peg leg from the RPG launch tube.
They drove out the double doors at the bottom of the slope. Sitting in the passenger seat, Twilight pulled out her Toughbook to write the after action report. “What an operation.”
“Yeah, we operated pretty hard,” said Rainbow.
“It’s what elite operators like us do,” added Pinkie.
The strike into the ski resort had taken long enough that the sun was now beginning to set. Rainbow put on a pair of sunglasses and drove them off into the sunset.
“Into my what?” said Sunset, coming in. She smiled.
“You just missed the ending,” said Twilight. “Definitely one of the stranger campaigns we’ve played.”
“I think you mean awesome,” said Rainbow.
“Well, if you liked that, I have a few other games I’ve been putting together based on my experience,” said Sunset. She showed them a box. “This one’s called High School and Hoes.”
“Farming?” said Applejack.
Rarity started to speak in correction, but decided it might be more fun to let her find out for herself.
“Well, we’ll pick a game to play next week,” said Spike. He looked around the table. “Who wants to be game master next time?”