My Little Starcraft: Friendly Fire is Magic

by DuncanR

D11: In the front, with the gear

Private Applejack’s SCV burst out of the command center’s main bay, leaping through the air and activating its hoof-mounted hover-thrusters. The mech stormed through the tiny outpost at full speed, swerving between the other buildings like an ice-skater. It reached the edge of the wilderness and swept over the flat, arid plains. Jack scanned the horizon, and her eyes fixed on a small, dark speck. The object arced high into the air and landed on the ground: even at this distance, the ground trembled under the impact.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. She sped directly towards the object, leaning into the wind. A few moments later there was a deafening explosion and the object leaped high into the air. It sailed almost a kilometer towards the outpost, close enough for Jack to make out the details. Rainbow Dash’s megatank was much as it was before—a massive siege tank with an equally oversized fighter jet fused to the top, with V-shaped electric guitars for wings and a pair of mirrored aviator’s sunglasses attached to the front of the cockpit. The artillery cannon was new... a pair of massive rails arranged side by side, with arcs of electricity playing between them. Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed over the plains, singing triumphantly:

Revvin’ up your engine; Listen to her howlin’ roar!

Metal under tension, beggin’ you to touch and go!

Jack’s eyes narrowed. Her gaze fixed on the Megatank’s left track, damaged beyond repair.

You ain’t invincible, girl.

She brought the SCV to a sudden halt and reached up to keep the over-sized stetson from falling of the mech’s head. She watched the Megatank swivel its main cannons away from her. She took a moment to scan the distance and judge the wind, then hovered backwards a few dozen yards. She took a deep breath and pressed her hooves firmly against the controls.

The Megatank fired its main weapon and the sheer force of recoil catapulted the entire vehicle through the air. Jack watched it loom closer, but held her position: only now was the Megatank’s true size apparent: it was as large as a barracks.

The Megatank slammed into the ground like a meteor, but the SCV’s hover-boosters rendered it immune to the shuddering quake. The tank gouged a furrow in the ground as it skidded along, and sent up a thick tidal wave of dirt and soil. Jack leaped forward, surfed against the curving wave of earth, and leapt onto the top of the massive tank tracks.

The SCV’s communicator blinked and Twilight Sparkle’s voice came through, slightly scratchy. “Jack, are you okay? Did you make it?”

Jack hopped between each of the individual treads, wringing every drop of agility she could out of her clumsy engineering mech. “Still alive,” she said, “but I’m a little busy at the moment. Keep it quick.”

“Right. According to this sensor device I just made, Rainbow Dash is definitely using mid-eighties karaoke to increase the awesomeness of her vehicle’s reactor.”

Jack leaped over a series of chainsaws inexplicably built into the side of the tank. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know!”

“The problem is that she’s shoved it into overdrive! If you don’t stop it in the next fifty five seconds, it’ll go super-critical!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “As if regular-critical wasn’t bad enough.”

“Don’t be silly,” Twilight said, “a reactor is supposed to go regular-critical. That’s the whole point. It reacts.”

Jack somersaulted under a series of flaming exhaust ports. A heavy metal strut swung out of nowhere and slammed her against the wall: her wide-brimmed hat flew off and vanished from sight. She struggled to free herself, and her mech’s hull warped and bent. “Now’s not really the time, Twilight!”

“Right! Sorry! Is there anything I can do to help?”

Jack managed to free one of her legs, and used the cutting torch to slice through the strut. “Just tell me where Dash is! I gotta find her!”

“That’s easy! She’s right—”

The Megatank’s main cannons fired and the vehicle launched into the sky with the force of a million atomic bombs. Jack stabbed her SCV’s rock drill into the side of the tank and braced herself, but the force nearly ripped the SCV’s limb apart. She swung around, extended the other limb’s heavy vice-gripper, and clamped it around a chunk of exposed pipe. She worked her way along the armored hull of the fighter jet, meter by meter, even as they hurtled through the air.

This whole thing is gonna roll when it lands... things’ll get mighty ugly for me if I can’t find some cover by then. She glanced around, but saw nothing. No luck there... I’ll just have to make my own luck.

She reared up on her hind legs, using the SCV’s magneto-clamps to keep steady, and extended a full set of tools from the front hooves. A compartment opened up in the SCV’s back and crates of minerals ejected straight up: Jack juggled the crates in the air, slicing and molding them into shape and slamming them against the Megatank’s hull. She danced around the structure with the speed of a mongoose, jabbing with her tools and slamming new struts or plates into position.

She complete the bunker and dove inside without an instant to spare. The Megatank crashed to the ground nose first and tumbled along for several seconds. The roof of the bunker crumpled inward, but Jack braced herself against it to keep it from collapsing entirely.

“Not mah best rush job,” she said to herself, “but It’ll do. You still there, Twilight?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Megatank’s main controls are located in the cockpit of the fighter jet section. You can’t miss it.”

Jack stepped out and climbed onto the roof of the bunker. “All right then. Let’s—”

A gust of wind and dust blew over her. The SCV’s vice-grip snapped out and plucked her stetson out of the air as it fluttered past, and she set the torn and dirt-stained hat on the SCV’s head.

“Much better. Now then... where was I?”

The SCV marched along the back of the fighter jet, pulling the violin case off her back as she approached the cockpit. She snapped the case open and pulled out a six-meter long Thompson submachine gun with a drum-magazine and a finished wood stock. She then ripped the machine gun in half in a spray of wood and metal splinters, revealing an oversized five-string bluegrass banjo hidden within. She plugged a cable from the banjo into the side of the SCV’s shoulder and slammed her fusion torch against the strings.

Rainbow Dash sat in the Megatank’s spacious cockpit, surrounded by impossibly complex controls and displays. A series of loudspeaker towers fixed behind the chair filled the enclosed space with crushingly loud music, drowning out any sound the interface was making.

“Out along the edges, always where I burn to be... the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity!” Rainbow Dash shoved both throttles forward and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Hiiighwaaay to the danja zooooo—”

The speakers let out a momentary burst of static. Dash scrunched her eyes shut and her ears twitched. “What the!?” When her senses recovered, she heard an unfamiliar audio sample playing overtop of her music. It was hard to make out anything through the jumble of competing noise, but as her eyes adjusted she heard a familiar voice... a brutal, guttural scream from the back of the throat.

Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-A-lam; Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-A-lam!

She really gets me high, bam-A-lam; You know that’s no lie, bam-A-lam!

She’s always ready, bam-BA-lam; She’s all rock steady, bam-BA-lam;

Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-BA-lam; Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-BA-lam!

Dash activated a rear-facing view camera, and the display screen brought up a video feed of Jack’s SCV. She was standing just behind the cockpit and picking away at an electric banjo: the tune was lightning quick and pitch perfect, but the instrument had a lazy, arrogant attitude about it.

Dash flicked the external speakers on. “Hey! Buzz off! You're harshing my style here!”

“Oh yeah? Well why dontcha come out and make me!”

Dash slammed a hoof against the control panel. “I’m not falling for that!”

“Well then I guess I’ll just sit here and mind my own business a while longer. I’m sure y’all appreciate good music, after all.”

“Good music!? That’s—” Dash scrunched her eyes shut and sighed. “It’s not gonna work!”

Dash focused on her own song, concentrating on the synthesizer and the overdriven guitar, the clean, over-produced melody and the pulse-pounding drum beat... but the twanging, curly notes of Jack’s five-string penetrated her mind at every opportunity. The Megatank’s movements became slightly more sluggish. Dash glanced at the reactor core readout and watched the needle slowly drift lower.

“Would you just shut up for a second I’m trying to concentrate here!”

Jack continued playing. “This fight’s already over, Dash. You’re the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet, is all.”

“You think the fight’s over!?” Dash broke open a glass panel and yanked a switch down. “We haven’t even started yet!”

Jack gasped as the Megatank rumbled and shook beneath her. The lower tank-body began crumbling into a cloud of wreckage, and the fighter jet’s turbines came to life with a burst of flames. The top half of the Megatank flew up above the ground and soared into the sky. Jack clung to the armor as the aircraft looped and rolled. The ground and the sky wheeled around her wildly, shattering any concept of up or down.

The Megajet executed a series of tight barrel rolls. Jack clung to the hull with her vice-clamp and the SCV flailed back and forth. “Yer only makin’ it harder on y’self, girl!”

“You still haven’t given up yet? Fine... let’s finish this your way!”

The Megajet’s nose tilted up sharply. Its guitar-wings extended fully and the strings crackled with electricity, replicating the guitar notes in the song Jack had played. Jack slung her banjo once more and engaged her commander in an all-out, no-holds-barred, one-on-one duel. They played together for minutes that stretched on like hours, filling the upper atmosphere of the planet with devastatingly powerful chords. The jet continued to streak straight up, its controls locked into place, and the two guitarist’s notes began to blur and intertwine.

Rainbow Dash’s voice was strained with exertion. “You’ve... got some moves... don’t you?”

Jack shook some of the the sweat off her mane. “I didn’t want it to come to this, Dash.”

“I know what you’re doing,” she said, “but it’s not enough! Why won’t you just get the message!? You’re still not as awesome as me, and neither is Twilight! ”

“Message!?” Jack spit her toothpick aside. “Oh, I got your message, Commander, and frankly... I don’t care what you have to say about awesomeness! You damn pegasus hipsters are all alike: don’t know where yer loyalties lie!”

Dash clenched her teeth. “W-w-what did you say?”

“We’ve got a galaxy to save, and all you care about is your own dang self!” Jack redoubled her effort and her music quickened. “You coulda been the best commander there ever was! I woulda been proud to follow you into certain death! Now here you are, thinkin’ everypony in the world is out to getcha: I trusted you, Dash! The Confettiracy trusted you! And now that you broke that trust, yer nuthin but a traitor!”

Dash’s eyes widened and her pupils shrank to tiny dots. Her hooves stopped moving over the controls, paralyzed with tension.

...Loyalties?

She clenched her jaws tight. A scream of pure agony caught in her throat and she slammed both hooves against the controls, smashing the buttons and dials apart. Eventually, her hoof came down against the biggest, reddest button in the cockpit. She continued destroying the control panels all around her, ignorant of the blaring sirens and flashing red lights.

The Megajet swerved wildly off course. Jack looked down at the vehicle’s hull: the thrusters were sputtering out flames and the guitar-wings wobbled erratically. Bits of armor plating peeled away to reveal the delicate machinery beneath. Jack stopped playing and struggled to keep her footing, but there was nowhere to stand.

“Twilight? You there?”

She tapped the SCV’s comm unit, but got only static. She looked out the window and gasped in shock at the world below. The Megajet’s locked-out controls had carried them just beyond the highest reaches of the mesosphere, eighty kilometers up... the surface of the world below had the undeniable curve of a sphere, covered with wispy layers of cloud. The stars behind her were clearly visible despite the full light of day.

The hull of the jet shuddered violently, and her attention snapped back into focus. “Dash! Are you still there? Talk to me, Dash!”

A voice came back, scratchy and faint. “Get away! It’s gonna blow any second now!”

“I’m not leavin’ you here, Commander!”

“You don’t have much choice!”

Jack stabbed the SV’s rock drill into the hull and crawled her way towards the cockpit, one meter at a time. All around her, armor plates peeled apart and flew into space. A halo of pressurized fire formed around the nose of the jet as they plunged further into the atmosphere.

“Almost... I’m almost there! Jest hang on!”

Jack reached for the cockpit, but an explosion of force knocked her to one side and tore the SCV’s leg out of its mechanized socket. Jack tumbled away and her view spun wildly, occasionally giving her a glimpse of the crumbling Megajet: its wings had broken off and begun to burn up, and the central chassis was glowing red hot.

Jack jabbed at her comm unit, desperately. “Twilight! Pick up, Twilight! You gotta find a way to teleport us outta this! There’s no time to waste!”

The comm produced only static. Jack scanned the control panel and saw over a hundred damage indicators light up: the outer hull of the SCV had been melted into slag, destroying all of its tools and support systems. The mech’s micro-reactor exploded with enough force to snap the SCV in half, and the cockpit immediately lost all power.

Guess the hover-boosters wouldn’t have been any help anyways, she thought as she leaned back in her seat. I’m sorry, commander... sorry I couldn’t save ya.

The SCV continued to disintegrate around her, absorbing the brunt of the atmospheric pressure in the process, and the auto-eject system propelled Jack away from the razor-sharp wreckage. The chair snapped apart and left her to flail about in the air, with only her flack jacket and worn leather vest to protect her. She glanced up at the wreck of the Megajet above her, still plummeting in a ball of fire.

Things were happening too quickly to think about... but for a brief moment she caught sight of a glint of light. The next instant, a multi-colored band of light streaked down at her. A silhouette of a pegasus drew close, wings outstretched, forelegs reaching out. Jack reached out towards the shape but their hooves slammed together clumsily, inadvertently executing the most epic bro-hoof ever shared between two ponies of differing races. The ruined Megajet’s core reactor exploded at just that moment, framing them against the backdrop of a cloud of incandescent fire the size of a small city.

Their hooves locked together at the ankles, hard and fast, and they glided down together. They landed on the ground and tumbled a short distance, then collapsed from raw exhaustion. It took several minutes for Jack to regain her breath.

Finally, she propped herself up and looked at Dash. “Now that’s what I call a danger zone,” she said with a chuckle.

Dash rolled onto her side with a strangled groan.

“Dash?” Jack shot to her hooves and bolted to her side, ignoring the pain in her legs. “Don’t worry, Dash, I gotcha! You’ll be fine!”

She turned Dash onto her side and spread her stylish leather jacket open: the sweat-stained cotton shirt underneath had a bright red blotch on it. Jack stared at the stain as it grew in size.

“Medic! Medic!”

She turned to look at the vast, empty plains all around her. There was nothing insight. She leaned down and hugged Dash’s head.

A shadow slid over them and blotted out the sun. A field of sparkling energy gathered around them, forming a cylinder of pink and purple light. Jack ignored the light entirely, as well as the snap of dimensional energy that followed it: it was all she could do to hold her friend close.

Comments

[Loeden]

The epic brohoof from the sigs! Much awesome..

[BlueNinja]

six-meter long Thompson submachine gun

A gun ... taller than my two story house. ... Actually, that's rather tame by this point.

Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-A-lam

Now if only AJ could play two of them, she could do Dueling Banjos and completely overwhelm Dash.