Royal Commandos

by Silverfox117

Hatch to Hell

"Before we go in, remember to turn off your speakers." Turntable said. The helmets had speakers so they can speak out loud. Otherwise they have two channels. A private channel that they can speak with another squadmate, and a public channel so they could talk with the entire squad.

Turntable was the first to go down the hatch, and the rest of the group followed suit. Inside the hatch was an intersection leading to a series of tunnels. The tunnels were completely dark. The only light for the commandos was this kind glowing slime on the walls of the tunnels.

“It’s dark in here, sir. Should we turn our flashlights on?” Cherry asked.

“No, that would get rid of our element of surprise.” Turntable responded.

“Can we use secondary vision.” Bonfire asked while inspecting the tunnels.

“Secondary allows us to see light coming from magic, it does not allow us to see in the dark.” Cherry said.

“Dumbass,” Twister added in.

"Holy shit, it is hot in here sir." Dixon complained. "What I don't understand is why the science department gave us cup holders, yet we don't have an air conditioner. It's like 120 degrees in here."

"Just deal with it." Turntable ordered. He was starting to get tired of Twisters and Dixons constant shenanigans.

Bonfire walked towards one of the wall to feel it. When he touched the wall. It stuck to his armor, almost like glue. It was also wet and dripping like saliva.

Twister walked behind Bonfire. "Changelings are gross creatures."

Bonfire ran to Turntable who was currently surveying the cave. " Sir, what is up with Twister? Is she always like this?"

Turntable turned around and stared directly into Bonfire's visor. "Yes and no."

"What do you mean yes and no?"

Turntable gave out a sigh. "She has always been like this, but to say this lightly. She wants every changeling on the planet dead.”

"Why?" Bonfire asked bluntly. He barely knows any of his squadmates. He is a rookie after all.

"Changelings killed her parents. Also next time you have a conversation like this you should really put this on a private channel. Don’t be afraid to ask her things. It may not look like it, but if you give her a chance she is a completely different person then what she is showing you." Turntable said bluntly while deciding which tunnel they should go down.

Bonfire wasn't sure if everyone else heard that conversation, or it was just him. He really felt like an idiot though for not putting it on a private channel. His opinion of Twister also changed. No longer does he think of her as a complete ass-wipe, but someone who had a real messed up childhood. In fact, he pitied her a bit. He also decided that he is going to talk to her when the time is right. Maybe she would show Bonfire a different side to her.

“Well there is a crap ton of tunnels.” Dixon said while looking at each tunnel. “They seem to go on for a while too.”

Clock walked too Turntable. “Sir, should we um, split up.”

Turntable paced for a bit. He wondered how this was going to play out. If they split up and one of them runs into trouble nobody will be able to help. “No I have a better plan.” Turntable’s horn shined a brilliant blue. A blue mist shot out of his horn, and it slowly crept its way up the tunnels. It split itself according to the amount of tunnels. Then the mist flowed into the tunnels like water down a canal. The mist drained slowly away from his horn. Turntable suddenly collapsed.

Quickly Cherry used her body as support for the falling Turntable. “Th-Thank you.” Turntable sounded quite out of breath.

“What was that?” Bonfire asked. “I have never seen magic like that.”

“Can you put me down?” Turntable asked Cherry. Cherry slowly nodded her head letting him go. He wobbled a bit with the sudden loss of support. “That is because the spell was made by me. It is supposed to map the entire perimeter for me, but to be frank that was the first time I cast that spell in a non control area. It also takes a lot out of me to cast it.”

“Are you sure that was a smart thing Turntable?” Twister asked. “I don’t want my squad leader dying in an engagement.”

“As squad leader I don’t want my squad wandering about aimlessly for hours on end.” Turntable said sternly.

“Okay what do we do now?” Bonfire asked, tilting his head a bit.

“I would take about a minute to return to me.”

---

The mist finally returned to Turntable who is now feeling much better. It returned directly into his horn. He backed up a bit and a map of the entire hive shot itself out of his horn. It was much bigger than what Turntable initially thought. The hive was a complete labyrinth of tunnels and caverns. However, the tunnel down the middle lead to a large room.

“Well I guess the center tunnel our best guess. Lets go and stay in formation.” Turntable warned. The group walked in the tunnel being careful of not making too much noise. They stayed close to the walls in case any changelings passed by. The tunnels were extremely tight. The squad could only go thru it in a line leaving barely any room to squeeze by.

Bonfire was picked to lead the group into the tunnels. Bonfire really hates the darkness and he could really only see about ten feet away from him, so the chances of him falling into a trap were very good. Bonfire kept on seeing these shadows dance across from wall to wall. He would always jump at that, but it would be just one of his squadmates behind him.

“It’s okay Bonfire, just relax and breathe.” Bonfire took a deep breath hoping to ease his stress. “Yeah, that didn’t help at all.” Bonfire isn’t scared of changelings, but he couldn’t help the fact that something bad was going to happen.

The farther they got into the tunnel the more cocoons the squad saw. Bonfire started wondering to himself if their coming to the nest area. Bonfire tried carefully to not bump into one of the cocoons. He wasn’t sure if they would pop or anything if he touched them, and he doesn't want to find out. The weirdest part of this tunnel though is how the squad haven't seen a single changeling.

After a long walk the squad can start to make out a large amount of light. Before the squad moved further, Turntable reminded the squad to be like the shadows and to surround the perimeter. Then wait for his cue to attack. Everyone nodded and moved on in.

...

At the end of the tunnel was this large circular room that have many candles in a pentagram shape. There were about twenty changeling bowing down and chanting hymns to one changeling in the center talking to a blue ghostly figure that was standing on its hind legs. The creature had many holes in its body, revealing the organs sloshing around in its' body . Blood trickled down a large gash on top of the creatures head. The creatures skin was burnt in some places revealing tissue that was partially torn.was torn. Bonfire had to hold back vomiting at the sight of this creature, Turntable was pretty horrified of this creature, but he still gave out a hoof signal. Fear would have to wait. The squad surrounded the changelings, and now they were waiting for Turntable's signal to attack.

Even though Turntable was scared he wanted to see this though. He wanted to see what the changelings were doing. According to his knowledge of Equestrian lore this isn't how most changelings act. It just seemed so alien.

A beep went off in Turntables ear. He put his hoof on his helmet and pressed a button. "Yes Cherry?"

"Sir, I don't think this is how changelings are supposed to act at all." Cherry sounded a bit worried.

"Yeah I know. It's like they're worshiping the thing. I can't hear what their saying though. I'm going to get a closer look."

"Good luck sir." Cherry sighed.

Turntable stealthily crouched past the changelings being careful to not bump into one. One of the changelings felt a disturbance next to him. He turned around only to be shocked by seeing a slight reflection of itself next to him. The changeling didn't know how to react. This hesitation gave Turntable enough to cast a amnesia spell on the black creature. A blue aura surrounded the insect. It then had a puzzled look on its' face then turned around and started shouting hymns.

Turntable's face was covered in sweat after that close call. "Celestia, that was close."

Turntable was almost next to the center changeling now. He could kind of make out what they're saying now, but they're not speaking common anymore. They were speaking in some weird language he hasn't heard of. When he got close to the center of the room the blue figure made a glass shattering screech that made both the changelings and commandos cringe then it vanished. The blue apparition left behind in its place a bronze pendant. The crowd started to cheer wildly.

The cheering was cut short; when the small pendent started to glow. The changeling knew that something was off, and by the looks of it so did the others.

The center changeling grinned. The pendent started to make a loud hissing noise as it flew into the sky. It then attached itself to Turntable. Then the commando’s camouflage went away.

Sweat started running across his face as Turntable grinned inside his helmet. "Hello."

Quickly he shot a ball of fire at the center changeling catching it on fire, knocking it back into the crowd of changelings.

The crowd stared at their fallen leader. Then they all growled and started to charge at Turntable. Turntable made a motion with his hoof then teleported away from the center bewildering the angry legion. A second later, the ambush was sprung.

The first commando to attack was Twister as she dove down from up above the crowd of angry and confused changelings.

She started to spin her spear creating a whirlwind effect pushing all the changelings into the wall. Clock then pulled his two katana blades making short work of the changelings that landed next to him. Dixon and Bonfire took care of the drones that landed next to them with ease. Meanwhile from across the room, Cherry was casting powerful spark spells at the disorientated changelings.

The very few changelings who were left alive after this initial assault got up and desperately ran straight towards a tunnel, only to be met by Twister who landed in front of them- spreading her wings across she made herself appear about twice her normal size, striking fear into the changelings heat . She quickly stabbed one with her spear, pulling her spear off her prey before the others could react. She swung her spear letting out a lighting bolt that hit the four changelings frying them to death.

Twister put her spear away. She knew her work was done.

"Wow, that was a bit too easy." Bonfire was completely surprised by the efficiency of his squad. "How did you do that Twister?"

"I am one of the only pegasi that can manipulate weather without clouds. It is the reason why I am Commando. Well that and my 123 I.Q. helps out."

Turntable wasn't interested in what they had to say. He started searching where the blue ghoul was at. He wanted to know what that pendent was. In fact, he wanted to know what the hell they were doing down here. Turntable picked up the pendent and examined it.

'It seems just like a normal pendent, but why did it do that.' Turntable thought to himself as he was twisting it and shaking it a bit. He couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary though, so he gave up on his attempts.

"Okay lets go guys. Are there any survivors left?” Turntable asked while looking in all directions.

“No, they're all dead sir. We exterminated the bastards,” Twister said with a bragging tone in her voice. She looked like a ghoul with changeling blood splattered all over her cloaked body. In certain parts of her body you can see right through the green blood, and in others you could see a green reflection of the walls on her too. If she wasn’t on Bonfires squad he would be horrified.

“Cherry leave a present for the rest of the changelings here, but make it snappy. Chances are there is more changelings and they probably heard the fighting." Turntable said this as he cast a fresh cloaking spell on himself.

Cherry started engraving two holes with a very concentrated spark at the entrance of this room. In the holes she cast I.M.Bs in them. "Presents in check sir.”

Turntable nodded, "Okay lets go! Stay near the walls and let the changelings pass through the middle."

"Yes sir." The group said back.

'I need to give this pendant to Celestia herself. Maybe she knows what this is.' Turntable thought.

The squad sidled up to the walls while Bonfire and Twister were flying near the ceiling. Tons of changelings were running through the tunnel they were in. Predictably, they didn't notice the cloaked commandos at all. They just ran past them to the circular room. A few moments later, a loud explosion rattled the tunnel complex. Bonfire was pretty sure that made Twister’s day.

Backtracking, they reached the hatch. Turntable quickly climbed on top of it and opened the hatch. He scanned the area and saw nothing. He motioned for the rest of the squad to come out. Turntable and his squad quickly started to run for home base. There mission was officially over. Now, they could go to base and contact Celestia about the Changelings. Turntable was starting to think that this was too easy. There was a couple reasons for this. One, the base wasn't protected very well. Two, there were hardly any changelings in the base. Three, this almost seemed like the trap scenario when they trained him as a commando.

Once they made good distance between the complex Turntable uncast the cloaking spell. They wouldn't’ need it anyways.

---

After a bit of running the squad could see smoke coming from the distance.

“Is that coming from the base? No it can’t be.” Cherry said horrified. She started to run as fast as she could. The rest of the squad could barely keep up with how fast she was running.

“Wait, slow down!” Dixon yelled to Cherry. But Cherry didn’t respond. She didn’t want to respond.

When they got there though, the sight horrified them. The entire base was in flames, and something was written on the wall.

It was written in blood. "You killed my family. Now I'm going to kill everything you hold dear. FRIEND.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Dixon yelled at the top of his lungs.

Turntable was scouring his mind to find out what just happened. He ran from place to place. Only to see dead ponies everywhere. There were even stakes with pony heads on them.

Twister started shaking her head. “Did a dragon attack the base suddenly.”

"Why... how... In the name of sweet Celestia." Turntable sounded completely broken.

“All these good ponies gone.” Cherry said horrified and stunned.

"What the hell happened?" Bonfire asked worryingly. Suddenly he felt as if time started to slow. His vision started to get a bit hazy. He could hear shouting, but the words were so slow he couldn’t understand what was being said. He felt a warmness coming from his stomach. He looked down and there was a green blade with black markings covered in his blood coming right out of his stomach. Bonfire could feel blood crawling its way up his throat. He coughed up huge chunks of blood on his visor blocking his vision. Then it realization hit him... hard.

"Fu...ck." Bonfire fell unconscious.

Author's Note:

Hope you like it. I like the ending a bit. Makes everything way more crazy if you know what I mean.

Quote of the day. "I'm going to fuck you so hard that my penis is going to come out of your mouth." My friend told me after I drank the rest of his soda.