Twilight and Friends Save Christmas

by BronyWriter

We're Going In Loud (Which Might Be a Bad Idea)

Time slowed to a crawl as the changeling stared at the six of them. Twilight didn't make any sudden movements, hoping that it had somehow missed them and they could continue their mission with some modicum of stealth. There was still that possibility. There was always that possibility.

Then Rainbow Dash made her move.

"Alright, stealth time is over. Let's rock!"

She shot into the air and fired a burst at the changeling with little thought to precise accuracy and more embracing the long dismissed tactic of "spray and pray." In this instance it worked, as the changeling was riddled with bullets. It screeched as the force of the attack sent it flying back into a wall, and with one final twitch of its wings, it laid still.

"Aww yeah!" Rainbow cried, pumping her hoof. "Did you see that?! He was like 'whaaa?' and I was like 'let's rock!' and then he was like 'bleugh!"

"Yeah, and do you know what all of the other changelings are like?"

Rainbow looked down at the other three who were all glaring at her. "I dunno. I'm not hearing anything. Maybe they haven't heard us yet."

Suddenly the air was filled with a deafening "SKREEE" and the sound of hundreds of buzzing insectiod wings could be heard flying in their direction. Twilight pointed to the nearest window. "That. The changelings are 'like' that."

"Well, we've gotten outta worse situations than this," Applejack said, checking that her gun was good to go. "Y'all ready?"

Rainbow grinned and reloaded her gun. "I was born ready for this."

"Oh good," Twilight muttered.

Before anypony could say anything else, every single window in the room shattered as changeling drones began pouring through, teeth bared and compound eyes fixed on the four of them.

Twilight sighed and rubbed her temple. "Of course." With that, the four of them raised their guns and began firing. Twilight lit her horn and crated a shield around the group as they began randomly firing into the black mass of changelings. Pinkie kicked a large canister into the mass, splashing wood varnish onto several of them.

"Well, let's see," Pinkie said with a grin. She raised her flamethrower and shot out a wall of flame, lighting the wood varnish and setting dozens of changelings aflame as she laughed like a maniac. "Yes! Yes! Burn, filly, burn!"

"Ah'm learning so much about Pinkie," Applejack groaned as she topped off her gun.

"Well you'll never share that knowledge if we don't get out of here!" Twilight cried. She pressed the comms in her ear. "Rarity! Fluttershy! We're in a bit of a bind here!"

"We noticed that, darling," Rarity said. "We've been looking at the schematics for the workshop and have found that there should be a vent right behind the machine that makes dolls."

Twilight glanced around at her and grimaced. "Rarity, there are a lot of machines here that make dolls. What kind of dolls?!"

"Er... hang on. Oh, the Baby Talking Tattletail ones!"

"Dolls might not be the right word for those things," Applejack said. "Either way, let's get goin'!"

"Okay girls, I see the vent! Get ready to go!" Twilight cried.

Before the group could say anything, Twilight's horn flashed blinding everybody in the room before she teleported her friends into the vent. The group heard the shrill shouting of the changeling horde behind them and slowly began shimmying their way through.

"Nice going, Twilight," Rainbow Dash whispered as Twilight cast a sound spell around them. "As awesome as we were, I don't know how long we could have held out."

"Thanks, Rainbow Dash," Twilight replied before groaning and thunking her head on the floor of the vent. "Not gonna lie, between the flash spell and the teleportation of four ponies, I need a moment. If we get caught or killed then it's probably not going to be long before Rarity and Fluttershy are found, and from there it's game over. Christmas will be ruined forever."

"Well, we'll just have to make sure that that doesn't happen!" Pinkie squeaked as she reloaded. "There aren't infinite changelings, right? We had to have gotten a lot of them."

"Yeah, but did you see all of them?" Twilight said. "When we were fighting it didn't look like we were even making a dent in the mass. Chrysalis has been busy, it seems."

Applejack sighed and facehooved. "'Hey girls, how about you head on over to the North Pole and try ta save Christmas. You'll have guns, guns and more guns. Oh, and there are a ton of changelin's there. No big deal. Ah'm sure you can handle all of them. Point, shoot, and Christmas will be saved. Sure thing, Princess Celestia. Ah'm happy ta help.'" She shot Twilight a weary look. "How about next time we save Christmas by having a friendship problem at a resort somewhere."

Pinkie's ears perked up. "Yeah! I've heard about this one that has this supposedly awesome beach that--"

"How about we survive all of this first, then we'll think about how to save Christmas next year?" Twilight grumbled. "Yes? Good? All in favor?" The others all muttered agreements, and Twilight nodded. "Okay, so let's think about all of this logically. That probably wasn't even all of the changelings that are here. If we try that again, we're sure to be overwhelmed. How many vents can Santa's workshop even have? Thanks to all of this, Chrysalis definitely knows that we're here, which makes things more difficult. She'll definitely have all of them on the lookout for us."

"Gotta agree with ya there," Applejack said. "We need ta find where she's keepin' Santa Claus and maybe try for a stealthy extraction."

"Yeah, that sounds like us," Rainbow Dash muttered.

"If nothing else, we definitely can't make this into a straight fight," Twilight said. "Unless Princess Celestia wanted to firebomb most of Santa's workshop before we got in, and that would be a terrible idea. Santa Claus would probably be incinerated, not to mention the elves and everything they need to make toys. There's no point in killing Chrysalis if everything else is gone too."

"And also not her style," Pinkie pointed out.

"Currently," Twilight agreed. "There was this war about a hundred years before Luna was banished..." She waved her hoof. "Either way, we definitely can't beat them in a straight fight." She pressed her comms again. "Rarity, how well hidden are you and Fluttershy? They're definitely going to be on the lookout for anypony else after they found us."

"We've moved from our original spot to something a bit less open," Rarity said. "I've given the background pony spell my best shot, but I don't have the magic to pull it off flawlessly, especially if I have to do any shooting."

"Well, hopefully you're safe for now," Twilight replied.

"Hopefully, but I must be honest, Twilight, Ever since you triggered whatever alarm you did, they're out in force. It's not like I've been counting, but there must be hundreds if not thousands of them out here. She really did bring an army."

"I noticed," Twilight replied with a grimace. "She'd have to to take over an area as large as Santa's workshop. Have you managed to spot Santa or any of the elves?"

"Santa no, but I think I saw some of his elves being led into one of the larger buildings. It's the one that looks like a cake about three buildings to your left," Fluttershy said.

"Should we start there?" Pinkie Pie asked. "If we managed to save the elves, that would make things a lot easier for us."

"Ah don't know how many elves Santa has, but it's not like we can land a chopper there and load them all in, even if there weren't a ton of changelin's there to stop us. The LZ would be too hot, and we definitely wouldn't be able to provide support with that many enemies. Twi? How is your magic doin'?"

"Better, but I've still got a slight headache." She rubbed her temple and adjusted her helmet. "A flashbang spell of that size plus teleporting all four of us is no small feat, but I should be okay."

"Maybe if we cleared the building the elves are in of enemies, they could barricade themselves in or find some other way to keep the changelings out," Pinkie suggested. "It would definitely help us if there were a lot fewer hostages for us to have to worry about."

"True, true, but I'm not sure how we'd be able to clear it out without the entire swarm coming at us. Unless..." She pressed her comms again. "Rarity, how many changelings are around the building the elves are in versus the other ones?"

"Hold on..." The group only had to wait a few minutes before Rarity responded. "It does appear that the bulk of the forces are concentrated in that area, Twilight. It makes sense; there are the most hostages there."

"Hm." Twilight tapped her jaw, then pressed her comm. "When they attacked the building we were in, how many went there? Was it a separate part of the swarm, or did a lot of them come from other buildings to attack?"

"The swarm you had to fight all came from separate buildings," Fluttershy said. "There wasn't one place that they came from."

"Which makes sense," Twilight said. "I guess it is too much to hope that they'd leave one building completely unguarded if they wanted to attack somewhere." She took a deep breath and idly tapped the side of her helmet. "Okay, I think I have an idea. It's risky, but what isn't at this point? One wrong move will bring an army down on us, and we're hiding in a vent. We can't be in here forever. I think we need to get the elves first, then deal with the rest of them."

"What do ya got in mind?" Applejack asked.

"Okay, Rarity, is there a building with fewer of them than the rest?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, the one next to you," Rarity replied. "There appear to only be a few dozen changelings in there. No elves, as far as my helmet is telling me."

Twilight nodded. "Okay, that's good. This is still going to be risky, but I have an idea. First we--"

"ATTENTION ELEMENT SCUM!" a voice shouted out that the Mane Six all instantly recognized as Chrysalis. It was magically amplified to such a degree that they all felt as if she was almost standing next to them. "IT WAS FOOLISH OF YOU TO COME HERE! AS YOU CAN ALREADY TELL, YOU CANNOT DEFEAT MY SWARM! THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, AND I SHALL ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE IN PEACE!"

"She'd go back on that the first opportunity she got, wouldn't she?" Rainbow Dash said dryly.

"Faster than you can say 'sonic rainboom,'" Pinkie agreed.

"IF YOU DO NOT, I SHALL BEGIN EXECUTING THE ELVES! ONE FOR EVERY... Uh... HALF HOUR YOU DO NOT SURRENDER! UH... Too much time? Yeah, too much time. Ahem. FIFTEEN MINUTES! YES, THAT'S BETTER! DO THE RIGHT THING! YOU WERE FOOLISH TO COME-- No, I already used that... UH... FIFTEEN MINUTES!"

Twilight sighed and shook her head. "Well, that just made the choice for us. We'd better hurry, then."

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "I mean, she'd definitely kill us the second we threw our weapons down."

"No, she'd get in as much gloating as she wanted to, then maybe torture us a bit, maybe maybe take pictures to send to Celestia, then she'd probably torture us some more before she got bored and killed us!" Pinkie said with a smile.

"Oh, yeah, much better," Applejack grumbled.

"Either way, surrender isn't an option." Twilight teleported behind the other three, but before they could ask her what she was doing, she teleported back to the front of the line and began crawling through the vent. "This is going to require speed and discretion, so everypony be on your toes and listen to me. Rainbow, you're obviously the fastest of us, so you're going to deliver the package."

Rainbow's ears perked up. "Really?! Totally, Twilight! I can deliver whatever you want!" She frowned and tilted her head. "But, uh, what am I delivering exactly?"

"This." Twilight turned as best as she could and floated a Tattletail doll into the air. "But be very, very careful." She turned back to the doll and began weaving spells into it. "And be quiet everypony. If this goes wrong, we're all going to be the last pony everypony here ever sees again."

Rainbow Dash's confident smile slowly faded. "Uh... same question, Twilight. And how careful is 'very, very'"

"Don't bump anything. I'm going to put an invisibility spell on you, and you'll need to fly into the building next to ours and put this on a table or something like that in the middle of the room. Be quick, because I can't keep that spell up forever."

"Uh..." Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck. "S-sure thing, Twilight. You can count on me... to not bump into anything."

"Good." She teleported Rainbow Dash to the front of the group and opened a vent in front of them that led to the outside of the building. Twilight lit her horn, and Rainbow Dash turned invisible. "I should be able to keep this up for three, four minutes. That should give you plenty of time."

Rainbow bit her lip and looked down at the Tattletail. After a few seconds, she nodded and saluted, but then realized that her friends couldn't see her. After taking a deep breath, she took off.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Twooo -- Wee- eeeks?

[BronyWriter]

11560899
Okay fine, maybe it's been a while...

[Glitched Grim]

One of the rare times where I see a dead roach of a story, only for it to sprout wings and fly towards me.

[Starlight Nova]

the changeling controlled North Pole

I'm going to be very disappointed if the Krampus isn't a villain in this story.

[Booster Spice]

11560903

The scene at the spaceport in total Recall with the exploding head?

[Turbotune]

11560903
nice, an update!
possibly the longest hiatus ever that this place witnessed……
if it weren't for this story currently taking that top spot……(lol)