My Little Starcraft: Friendly Fire is Magic

by DuncanR

D01: Those dang, dirty dirt ponies

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Private Rainbow Dash grabbed the handles of a massive rotary assault cannon built into the door of the transport gunship. She pointed the weapon at the ultra-dense metropolis below and unleashed a stream of armor-piercing explosive hardcore discarding-sabot plasma-charged depleted-plutonium cyanide-tipped fin-stabilized bullets. A thick chain of explosions wracked the skyscrapers and multi-level highways below: clouds of wreckage and plumes of smoke scattered through the air around them. The weapon’s muzzleflash strobed against her face.

“Take that, you blasted Dirt Ponies!”

A pegasus behind her, dressed in a massive suit of powered armor, shouted over the noise of wind and bullets. “How many hostiles are there?”

Rainbow Dash looked back at her without releasing her grip on the trigger: the stream of bullets flailed aimlessly into the dark clouds above. “Whaaat?” she shouted.

“I said, how many—” She waved a hoof. “Could you turn it off for a second?”

Rainbow Dash released the trigger. “What?”

“How many enemy forces are there on the ground? How many hostiles?”

“Hostiles...?” Dash quirked an eyebrow. “Y’mean dudes? Haven’t seen any so far. Why d’you—compressed gas silo!!”

She spun the weapon around and unleashed another storm of explosive, radioactive metal. A collosal ball of fire bloomed up from the city and a flash of light and heat momentarily washed over their heavy assault dropship.

“Eat that, you Dirt Ponies!” Dash shouted. “That was for my father!”

The pegasus commando clamped a large box-frame rocket launcher onto the oversized shoulder-plating of her powered armor. “Isn’t your dad still alive?”

“Yeah, I know. It just sounds so cool when I shout it, y’know?” She let go of the weapon and began rummaging in a nearby stack of armored crates. “Hey, we got any more belts left? Starting to run low.”

The pegasus commando rolled her eyes. “You really gotta learn to conserve, Dash. We only have so many—pigeon!!” She spun around and fired a guided micro-missile from her shoulder box, missing Dash by mere inches. The launcher splashed the rear wall with a fiery jet of backblast and filled the interior of the vehicle with a cloud of acrid smoke.

Dash coughed for a few seconds, but the smoke quickly drained out the open door. “Gimme some warning next time, will ya? Not all of us have gas masks.”

The commando ran to the door and looked outside. “Did I get’em? Did I?”

They saw a sharp explosion in the air, twenty meters away, accompanied by a brief, startled squawk.

“Bloody rats with wings.” The Pegasus commando took out a marker and added a line to her left shoulder. “Anyways, you gotta learn to conserve ammo. That’s all we have for the operation.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dash hauled over a massive belt of bullets and fed one end of it into the cannon. “Hey, you think they’ll have any dudes to fight? I haven’t shot up actual dudes in, like, forever.”

The commando shook her head. “Just an empty, undefended base. Nuke and pave.”

The door to the front cabin opened up and the pilot waved at them. “Sensors are picking up ten squadrons of elite infantry dudes, dead ahead!”

“What?” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

“What?” the pilot shouted

Dash tapped the side of her helmet. “Use your comm-unit!”

The pilot frowned for a moment, then tapped a button on the side of her own helmet. “We have comm units!?”

“Yeah. What was that you said before?”

“Sensors are picking up ten squadrons of elite infantry dudes, dead ahead. Prep for a hot drop!”

“Wait a sec, there’s dudes?” Dash frowned. “Wait a sec. We have sensors!?”

“The assault dropship will be hanging around to give the commando team air support,” the pilot said. “I want that giant-ass gun-thingy spun up and ready to rain hot metal in thirty seconds!”

“Sorry, sergeant! Ammunition is running dangerously low. We’ve only got one belt left.”

“Low!? Were there any hostile dudes on the way?”

“Well, there were some buildings,” Dash said, “and sometimes dudes go inside buildings. So there coulda been dudes. I guess.”

“Good point. Better safe than sorry.”

“...And there was a compressed gas silo.”

The pilot gasped in shock. “A silo!? Did it get blow’d up?”

Dash issued a salute. “It blow’d up good, Sergeant. Real good.”

“Excellent work, soldier.” The pilot frowned. “Wait... sergeant? I thought I was a captain. I pilot a thingy, don’t I? Pilots are always captains.”

Dash scratched the side of her head. “I... guess?”

The pilot turned to the commando. “Hey, what’s better? Sergeant, or captain?”

“ ‘Captain’, Captain.”

“Yeah, that one,” she said. “I’m totally a captain. Anyways, get that gun warmed up and ready for air support. We still got one belt left.”

The commando stood up and pointed out the open door. “Wait a sec. My squad-dudes are all flying commandos: we can just jump out of the ship now, then fly over there and shoot ’em up. Why are we bringing the dropship all the way in?”

“Change of plans,” the pilot said. “They’ve got a ring of missile thingies around the perimeter of the zone of the area of the sector. They’d tear your forces to pieces before you ever got close. Fortunately, missile thingies only shoot flying dudes: we’re going to drop you off directly onto the ground, and then you’ll be safe.”

“Good idea, Captain!”

“Of course it’s a good idea!” she snapped. “I’m a freakin’ captain! We’re all, like, super-geniuses and stuff. Now prep for battle!”

The pilot went back into the front cabin. Rainbow Dash double-checked the ammo feed, while the commando finished sealing her helmet shut.

Dash frowned. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I, uh... I feel like there’s...” Dash scrunched her eyes shut and tapped her head. “Okay. So. Missile thingies...”

“Yeah?”

“...Only shoot flying dudes.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re... in a dropship.”

“Yeah? So?”

They stared at each other for awhile.

“Don’t dropships fl—”

An explosion rocked the aircraft and knocked them both out of the gunnery compartment, tumbling through the air and screaming in panic. Their transport veered away with a broken thruster and crashed into the side of a nearby skyscraper, destroying itself in a ball of greasy black fire.

The pegasus commando’s wing-mounted thrusters burst to life and she immediately leveled out of her mid-air tumble. Rainbow Dash waved at her, frantically.

“I don’t got a parachute!” she screamed. “Ya gotta catch me!”

“You can fly!”

“Fly!?” Dash set her hooves on her hips and frowned. “I don’t have a freakin’ commando suit! What am I supposed to do, just flap my...”

She paused. The air was quiet for a moment, except for the deafening howl of wind.

Rainbow Dash snapped her wings out and leveled off. They swooped low over the city’s sixty-lane highway and caught sight of their destination: a massive artificial island of steel and concrete suspended over the volcanic hole that led to the city’s subterranean geothermal generator. The island supported only a single structure: a colossal command center, bristling with enormous sensor dishes and communication towers. A ring of relatively tiny missile turrets spun to face them and a swarm of missiles streaked through the air, leaving slender grey contrails behind.

“Land-land-land!” Dash shouted. “Everypony land, right freakin’ now!”

Dash and the six surviving commandos landed on the ground and crouched low, hiding behind chunks of concrete or the rusted wrecks of age-old tanks. The swarm of anti-air missiles swept overhead. They came around for a second pass and hovered in place for a while, peeking around corners and into alleyways. They finally shrugged to each other and wandered away.

“Good call,” the pegasus commando said. “What next?”

She glared at her. “Whaddya askin’ me for!? What do I look like, a super-genius captain or something?”

“Hey... where is the Captain?”

They all looked up at the burning chunk of twisted assault dropship imbedded in the side of the skyscraper.

“Whoa,” the commando said. “I guess the boss-mare got... blow’d up.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Dibs on promotion!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

Several of the other marines lifted their hooves. “Di... aw, dangit!”

Rainbow Dash reared up and kicked at the air. “Aww, yiss... too slow, girls!”

“So, Captain,” the commando said, “are you gonna give us orders?”

“Orders? You want orders!?” Captain Rainbow Dash pointed down the main highway. “I say we march right over there and blow up all their dudes! And then, we blow up all their... thingies! And then we’ll take all their mineral crystals and use’em to buy nice things for ourselves! Things like hot tubs and flatscreens and pinball machines! Who’s with me!?”

One of the marines glanced around, nervously. “But what if they have more dudes than us? What if we get blow’d up?”

“Then we won’t have any nice things!” Dash thrust a hoof in her face. “But that’s not going to happen, soldier! Not on my watch! We’re gonna show those stupid Dirt Ponies who’s boss!”

The troops thrust their weapons skyward and let out a fearsome battlecry.

“Our moment of glory is nigh, my battle-buddies! We now march forward, to... to the...” Dash glanced around. “Hey, where the heck are we, anyways?”

The commandos looked at each other for a moment, then at the abandoned city all around them. They finally shrugged.

Dash struck a dramatic pose. “We march, my fellow soldiers... to over there!”

The marines cheered again.

“Get your guns ready,” she said, “because yer gonna need ’em... to shoot bullets!”

“What about you?” one of them said. “Don’t you have a gun?”

Dash paused to look at herself. She opened her flak vest and looked inside: a tiny flare gun fell out and clattered on the ground.

“Okay, change in plans. You girls cover me while I fly the heck away.”

“But you can’t fly. There’s missile turrets.”

“Yeah... hm.” Dash stroked her chin. “Man, being a captain is way harder than I thought. Too bad I couldn’t bring that big ’ol machinegun with me when the dropship blew up.

A heavy metal object crashed into the helmet of one of the commandos, shattering the armored visor. The commando fell to the ground, unconscious or worse, and the errant assault cannon rolled next to Rainbow Dash’s hoof.

“Schweet!” She hefted the weapon, latched it to the side of her composite kevlar saddle, and slung the massive belt of ammunition over her back. “We’re good, girls!”

The six pegasus commandos charged down the road roaring at the top of their lungs. The massive command center was dead ahead but there was still at least a kilometer of highway to go. A horde of Dirt Pony marines charged to meet them, hiding behind cover and shooting out of windows and bunkers. The commandos brought their frag-grenade launchers to bear, shredding the enemy with savage efficiency. They fired bouncy-sticky grenades into nearby windows, and Dirt Pony marines were hurled out of eighth-story windows by concussive explosions.

“Buzzards, six o’clock!”

Dash spun to look at the commando. “Don’t bother me with that now: it’s not even three thirty in the afternoon!”

The commando pointed backwards at a half-dozen hoverbikes zooming close. “Are you crazy? You’re the only one with an anti-light-armor weapon! There’s—” The commando sputtered and laughed over the comm line. “Oh, yeah! I said... and you meant like...!”

Dash grinned. “Yeah. You get it now?”

“Yeah, that was pretty good. Totally worth it.” She pointed backwards. “But we still got Buzzards.”

Dash looked back and saw a half-dozen hoverbikes zooming towards them, weaving between patches of rubble as they glided over the road. Dash swung her weapon around and yanked the trigger.

“Yaaaaaaaaaa!” she screamed over the comm-line, “take that, you filthy Dirt Ponies! You killed my father! I mean pilot!”

The massive spray of metal shredded the lightly armored hoverbikes in a matter of seconds. One of the bikes swerved back and forth, avoiding most of the damage.

Whoa... this one’s pretty good.

Dash tightened her grip on the weapon and employed a special technique known only to a few elite gunners: ‘aiming’. The buzzard continued to swerve side to side, gradually accumulating damage as it drew closer and closer. With less than thirty meters to go, the pilot leaped off the bike and tumbled across the asphalt. Her discarded vehicle skidded out of control and slammed against the side of a building with a fiery explosion. The pilot leaped sideways and hid behind the rusted hulk of a demolished tank left over from a previous battle.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted, “come out and get shot in the face like a mare!”

“Wrong comm-channel, Captain,” said the commando beside her.

Dash poked at the buttons on the side of her helmet. “How about this?” Dash’s voice boomed out of the built-in loudspeaker. “Hey, cool! Check this out: Echoooo!”

“Captain?”

“Right.” Dash pointed her gun at the tank hulk. “Come out and get shot in the face like a mare, you dang dirty Dirt Pony!”

“Ain’t gonna happen, ya filthy varmint! Ah got’s ya completely surrounded!”

“Oh yeah? Well we got you outnumbered! Whaddya think of that?”

“What do ah think? Ah think one Dirt Pony’s more’n a match for ten Pegasus ponies! Why don’t y’all go get some more pals, and make it a fair fight?”

“We...? The...! Wha? Are you giving me ’tude!?” Dash looked back at her commandos. “Is she giving me ’tude? Was that... was that ’tude?”

They nodded back at her, mumbling affirmatively.

Dash turned back to the tank wreck. “Don’t you give me ’tude! We got guns and bullets and stuff!”

“It’s gonna take more’n that to put me in the ground fer good! You filthy Pegasus killed mah mammy, and I won’t stop till I’ve paid y’all back ten times over!”

Dash stamped her hoof. “Oh yeah? Well you Dirt Ponies killed my father!”

“Yeah? Well you Pegasus killed my mammy and my pappy!”

“Well you dirt ponies killed my father, my mother, and like seven of my brothers and sisters!”

“...And my granny!” the Dirt pony called back. “Did I mention that? You killed both pairs of my grand parents, all of my aunts and uncles, and a hundred ’n thirty six of mah cousins!”

Dash hopped in place. “Oh yeah!? Well, you... like... killed my parents before I was even born, and then sent a super-kill-robot back in time to kill ’em again! And then there was an infinite time loop paradox, so they actually got killed infinity times forever!”

“Yer makin’ that up!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yuh huh!”

“Nuh uh!”

One of the pegasus commandos tapped Dash’s shoulder. “Should we, uh... keep moving towards the command center?”

Dash shoved her hoof away. “Shut yer toothpaste-hole! No pegasus ever ran away from a Dirt Pony, and I won’t be the first!”

“But the command center’s behind us,” she said. “Isn’t that more important?”

Dash turned back to the Dirt pony’s hiding spot, her voice booming over the loudspeaker. “All right, let’s settle this like mares!”

“And how’s that?”

“Just you and me! I’ll tell my commandos to stay back, and you’ll come out from behind that cover! Then it’ll be just you ’n me, duking it out for the fate of the universe!”

“How do I know ya won’t pull any dirty tricks? What’s to stop you from shootin’ me before I’m ready?”

Dash reached up and offered a salute. “I swear on my honor as a Pegasus... no rush, for at least five minutes!”

“And no nukes? Ah can’t stand those things.”

“Yeah, me neither. No rush, no nukes. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal. Ah’m a comin’ out!”

Rainbow Dash turned off her microphone and glanced back at her commandos. “As soon as she comes out, everybody frag her.”

“We ran out of grenades,” one of them said.

“You ran out!? How do you run out of grenades!?”

“Well, there were a lot of bunkers and buildings and stuff on the way. Grenades are great at blowing up dudes in buildings.”

Dash frowned. “Were there actually any dudes in those buildings?”

The commando shuffled her hooves a bit. “Well... there coulda been.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, sagely. “Good point, soldier. It’s the play I woulda called. So what do you have?”

“Armor piercing rockets,” she said. “They’re great against tanks, but completely ineffective against infantry.”

Dash stared back at her, utterly expressionless.

A smile crept over her face. “Do those rockets blow up?”

The commando nodded. “Yes ma’am. They blow up real good.”

Rainbow Dash charged down the road, screaming at the top of her lungs. The Dirt Pony leaped over the tank wreck and charged towards her, screaming at the top of her lungs. Dash let loose with her assault cannon, and the dirt pony fired a pair of sawed-off shotguns at her. Dash’s pegasus commandos unleashed a massive barrage of armor piercing rockets into their general area, filling the entire roadway with a constant wave of explosions.

The two combatants ran out of ammunition without landing a single shot on each other, then tossed their weapons aside and tackled each other at full speed. They fell to the ground, kicking and biting and tugging on each others’ manes in a cloud of dust.

After a quarter-hour or so of sweaty brawling, Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony fell to the ground and gasped for breath.

A voice crackled through Dash’s headset. “Captain?”

“Whuzza?”

“We’re out of rockets.”

Dash looked at the massive field of craters all around. “Did you hit anything?”

“...Does the road count?”

Dash propped herself up and looked back at the commandos. “Did I look totally awesome, fighting with explosions all over the place?”

“Yes you did, Captain. Yes you did.”

Dash twisted around to look at the Dirt Pony. “Seeing as I’m an honorable pegasus, I’m giving you one last chance to surrender.”

“This here’s mah home and birthright and I’d sooner die than let anypony else take it from me.” She tried to stand up, but her knees wobbled and she collapsed. “Ah don’t expect a pegasus to understand how important a home really is.”

Dash looked around. “What is this place, anyways? What are you trying to protect?”

The dirt pony pulled off her bulky helmet, unleashing a huge mop of unruly, straw-blond mane. “Ya came all this way to fight a war, and ya don’t even know what yer fightin’ for?”

Dash shrugged. “I just like shootin’ machineguns. And mineral crystals: those are cool too. So what is this place, really? What’s so important?”

“Well it’s the, uh... it’s a...” The dirt pony looked around, dizzily. “Lemme get back t’you on that one.”

They lay on the ground together for several long, quiet seconds.

The dense black clouds parted far above them and a single point of brilliant blue light glided down from the sky. Rainbow Dash squinted at the strange object.

Dash glared at the Dirt Pony. “I thought we agreed on ‘no nukes’?”

She shook her head, slowly. “Not one of ours. And it definitely ain’t a nuke.”

The point of light zoomed in close, and the details of the object became laser sharp: it was a giant faceted crystal, long and pointed, with a golden framework of struts and antennae that spread out like a pair of butterfly wings. The crystal was massive, and had no obvious mechanisms or moving parts... it simply floated in the air, luminous and glittering. The crystal turned in place and pointed its tip straight down. The articulate lattice of wings spread out to each side like an umbrella.

There was a swirling vortex of light and a pair of ponies appeared on the ground. They were like no other beings Rainbow Dash had seen before: their white bodies were solid gemstone, gleaming and sparkling like pristine diamond. The female’s mane and tail were both magnificent amethyst spirals that defied euclidian geometry; the stallion’s, a flawlessly styled mane of spun gold. They were both dressed in robes made of satiny gold and decorated with sweeping patterns and exotic symbols.

Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony stared at each other for a moment, equally confused. They looked back at the crystalline ponies, who were now walking towards them at a sedate pace: the stallion remained one step behind the mare at all times.

The female crystal pony nodded to them. “We—”

Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony whipped out a pair of heavy pistols and opened fire at point-blank range, screaming at the top of their lungs. The guns cracked like lightning and the storm of fiery muzzle flashes lit up the immediate area. The projectiles ricocheted off the crystal pony’s hide with splashes of bright blue sparks.

The crystal pony pursed her lips. “This isn’t a bad moment, is it?”

Something heavy clunked to the ground in front of her, and she looked down at the round metal device resting near her hoof. She glanced at her companion, who merely shrugged. By the time she looked up the two indigenous ponies were running away at a sprint.

Her eyes glowed with psionic energy and the metal orb levitated in the air next to her head. “Wait!” she called out, “You forgot your—”

The device exploded and engulfed them both in a plume of white-hot fire and ultra-sonic neo-steel fragments. The asphalt immediately melted and caught fire, and a large section of the raised highway crumbled and collapsed to the ground six stories below.

Rainbow Dash scrambled away at top speed, with the Dirt Pony close beside her. “Think we got’em!?”

“No idea! Never seen nuthin’ like ‘em before!”

They ran around the street corner and hid behind the fortified wall of a nearby skyscraper. They pressed their backs against the wall and spent a few minutes gasping for breath.

“Aliens,” the dirt pony said. “Those were real live, honest-to-gosh aliens back there!”

Dash clenched her teeth. “We’re being invaded by outer space? Cuh-razy!”

“Are they still there?”

“Dunno. Hold on a sec.” Rainbow Dash sidled over to the edge of the wall and peeked around the corner.

Executor Rarity waited patiently as the dust and smoke were dispersed by the wind. She and Templar Blueblood were standing on a glowing, disc-shaped forcefield currently floating in the air where the surface of the collapsed highway had been moments ago. She looked down at the rubble far below, the chunks of asphalt still burning. She checked herself over briefly: her crystalline skin glowed with the light of a recently stressed forceshield.

She looked back over her shoulder. “Templar Blueblood?”

“Personal plasma shields are holding at full strength,” he said.

“Hm.” She gazed down the remaining length of highway and stroked her chin. “My, what a strange and peculiar greeting custom these natives have.”

“Greeting custom?” Blueblood said. “Executor, that device was obviously—”

“Hush,” she said and waved a hoof. “You can at least give me another twenty minutes of gratuitous denial. Besides: our defensive technology seems to exceed theirs by an order of magnitude. We can afford to be a little forgiving.”

Blueblood clenched his jaw, but nodded. “As you say, Executor. Shall we proceed?”

“Quite.”

She stepped forward, and her hooves clicked against the gleaming disc of force. The disc moved with them as they walked to the edge of the highway.

Rainbow Dash ducked back behind the building, eyes wide, teeth clenched. “Got any more grenades?”

“Fresh outta tater-mashers,” the dirt pony said, “but we’ve got a lil’ somethin’ waiting right around the corner: A whole squadron of heavy tanks, loaded to the brim with an experimental new artillery tech. All’s I gotta do is give the word, and they’ll rain fire’n brimstone like nopony’s business!”

Dash gawked at her. “Artillery!? So cool!”

“Yeah, well, they don’t got no anti-air guns on ’em. If that big floaty crystal thing-ummy-jig decides to join in, them tanks’ll be picked apart in seconds.”

“Hey, we can help with that! We got like a dozen Flying Commandos in the area, and three heavy-assault dropships waiting outside the city!”

The dirt pony’s eyes brightened. “That’d be jest dandy! How soon can they get here?”

“There’s, uh... well actually, they can’t get here. There’s missile thingies all over.”

“Oh. Right.”

They looked down at the ground, sheepishly.

“Five minute truce?” the dirt pony said.

Dash stared at her. “You’re asking me to team up with my worst enemy? I dunno... has that ever been done before?”

The dirt pony grinned. “You’ll get to see the taaaaaanks!”

“I’m sold.” She tapped at her headset again. “So what’s the code for the security grid?”

“Password123” she said.

Dash rolled her eyes. “That’s just pathetic.”

“Yeah, but it’s a capital ‘p’ instead of a lower case one.”

Dash stared at her in awe. “Whoa... talk about devious!”
The dirt pony took a bulky walkie-talkie out from under her flak vest. “I better tell my boss about this. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

Comments

[Cakebomb]

Plasma shielding is NO WERE near that powerful. NO WHERE NEAR.

[The Grey Pegasus]

This is absurd. It's... so absurd. It's... *repeats*

[nemryn]

Mmm, lots of stuff that's funny by itself, even if you don't know Starcraft! That's how you do a crossover.

[Themaskedferret]

I....are the starcraft characters normally one step above drooling morons? It's amusing...weird but amusing.

[BlueNinja]

employed a special technique known only to a few elite gunners: ‘aiming’.

I see Dash studied at the Evil Empire Gun Range.

Grenades are great at blowing up dudes in buildings.”

I thought this was Starcraft, not Command and Conquer.

3638811 No. One step up puts them head and shoulders above the usual crowd.