Ballad for the Medicpony

by Spirit Guide

Infiltration Goes BOOM

Several hours after the meeting ended, Twilight was running across the San Palomino desert with her strike force, intent on fulfilling their mission of blowing up the enemy base, dubbed Operation Friendship Explosion. The commander had introduced Twilight to her four comrades, and while she wasn't be able to call them 'friends' as she would have liked, she knew she could trust them and vice versa.

First was Raffle Tan, a turquoise earth pony who was acting as Twilight's assistant and guide. Raffle was a veteran and had been in enough fights that he had developed an in-battle perception that allowed him to read an opponent's move before they executed it.

Next was Hinny Sense. She was a hippogriff, born of a male pony and a female griffon, faithful to her allies and dispiriting to her enemies as the other soldiers claimed. Eagle-eyed and over-aware, Hinny was the team's eye-in-the-sky, watching for anypony else nearby.

Then came Ploy Rind, a unicorn engineer from the coast. He was quick and industrious and had been given the job of bomb maintenance, carrying the knowledge of how to use the explosives. Ploy showed grit and confidence in his work.

Lastly was Altar. A dragon from a southern band of mixed reptiles, he had been charged with carrying the bomb, being the only one resistant to fire. Mandate had decided that, although they wouldn't have Braith in whatever combat would erupt, Twilight should have at least one fire-breathing lizard.

That was her team and Twilight was content with them all.

"So," Hinny began, flying a few feet away on Twilight's left, "Princess—"

"Please, just call me 'Twilight'."

Hinny surprised, but regained her composure. "Okay, um... Twilight. Have you been in any battles before?"

"My friends and I have had to fight on occasion and we've used the elements of Harmony against many enemies, but generally I like to think that I've participated in few battles."

"As you should," Raffle snorted. "A ruler who revels in war is a step away from tyranny."

"That's a bit harsh," Altar huffed.

"Raffle's just being honest," Twilight defended. She turned to look at Raffle. "Right?"

The earth pony shrugged. "Honesty, a warning, a joke. Whatever you take it as, make sure it doesn't deter you from the mission." Raffle hurried forward with Hinny above him as a scout.

"He's kind of grim about it all, isn't he?" Twilight whispered to Ploy once Raffle was out of earshot. "I mean, I know we're at war, but he's taking it more seriously than I'd imagined."

"He's tired, Twilight," the engineer replied. "He just wants the fighting to be over. The threat's been preventing us from leading our normal pony lives. Raffle just wants all this fighting to be over. That's partly the reason he asked to join the strike force."

"You mean he volunteered?"

Ploy nodded. "Mandate lined up all the veterans and briefed them about our mission. The second he finished asking who would, Raffle stepped forward and offered himself for the job."

"Wow." Twilight looked forward at Raffle as he led the team up another dune. "His devotion is admirable."

"As long as it doesn't get him killed," Altar commented, "but I doubt it would. Raffle's a survivor."

He's becoming more impressive with everything I hear about him, Twilight thought to herself.

The team continued through the desert, climbing and descending the seemingly endless sand dunes. Finally, Raffle had the team stop under a rocky overhang that gave them cover from the enemy's direction. Hinny flew to the dune atop the overhang, did a three-sixty and joined the team. "All clear, Raffle."

"Good work, Hinny." Raffle gathered the others. "All right, everyone. The enemy's base is just a mile west of here. It's a fortress built into the side of mesa, hewn right into the rock itself. Reports from our scout squads tell us of the enemy's ponies disappearing into the sand like dogs. This has led us to believe that they have a network of tunnels beneath the dunes which they use to traverse the desert."

"When you say "like dogs", do you mean diamond dogs?" Twilight asked.

"I... guess you could say that."

"So the enemy is using abandoned desert diamond dog tunnels?"

"I don't know about 'abandoned'," Altar remarked. "More like 'took over' or 'moved in'. Why do you ask?"

"Think about it: what would diamond dogs be doing in a desert?"

The rest of the team feel silent as they contemplated on Twilight's question. Ploy caught on first. "Of course! Gemstone mining!"

Hinny looked confused. "Gems? In the desert?"

"Yes," Altar clarified. "Although they're mostly found in the mountainous regions of Equestria, certain kinds of gemstones do form in the harsh desert environment. While the San Palomino isn't as unrelenting and inhospitable as a desert can be, the conditions are just right for the forming of both spessartine and demantoid garnets, as well as emeralds, opals and diamonds."

"If there are gemstones in the desert, then for sure there would be diamond dogs mining for them," Twilight deducted. "I can use a spell that I learned from my friend to detect the gems. It could help us find their tunnels and, from there, the enemy's ex-diamond dog base."

Altar grinned. "If we could get into the terror tunnels, this mission will be practically made!"

"We can't be hasty," Ploy cautioned. "The terrorists are likely to have a surveillance system of sorts."

"If that's all they have, then we can bypass it no sweat," Hinny said confidently.

Raffle studied the faces of the team members, stopping on Twilight. "Can you scan the area for gem tunnels now?" he asked her.

"I'll give it a try; it's been quite some time since I last used this spell."

Twilight activated her magic and stared at the ground, the spell allowing her to see phantom images of gemstones protruding from the soil and rock. She swept her horn back and forth, pacing under the overhang and looking out onto the dunes. After a minute more of probing, the aura around her horn started pulsing.

"Over there!"

The others looked to where Twilight was pointing, but all they saw was the never-ending sands of the San Palomino. "Uh, I don't see anything, Twilight," Ploy stated.

"It's definitely there," the alicorn insisted, waving her hoof in the same direction. "About forty-five feet north from here. There are gems clustered together, poking out into a tunnel."

"That's good enough for me," Altar remarked, bending down into a runner's position. "Just give the word, Raffle, and we'll make a break for it."

"Hm... Guess it's all or nothing. Everyone, get ready. Altar, you get there first and see if you can dig it out. Twilight, help him. As along as we're out there, we're sitting ducks for any enemy sentinels."

"It's all clear out here, Raffle," Hinny reported, coming back down from her peek around. "We can hang around the hole for a bit longer if necessary."

"Okay then. Rephrasing: don't rush too much, but don't laze about."

Altar nodded. "Got it. Come on, Twilight!"

The dragon and the alicorn darted off for the indicated spot, with the other three coming up behind them. Twilight skirted the spot to give Altar space and the dragon went to work, digging furiously at the sand with his strong claws. Within seconds, he had unearthed a blocked tunnel and set about lifting the obstructing boulder, which swung open like a trap door at his touch with barely a sound.

"No wonder we can never track them," he exclaimed, peering down into the dimly-lit tunnel. "These things can be opened and closed super fast, like slippery eels."

"And now we'll slip in after them," Raffle said. "Hinny, go down slowly and see if there's anyone around."

"Aye aye." Hinny grabbed the ladder attached to the side of the tunnel and climbed down head-first. While they waited for her to report back, Twilight and the others gazed around the area, watching for any enemy ponies. Nothing happened in the time Hinny was down and she was back before they realized it.

"It opens into a small antechamber," the hippogriff announced. "As far as my ears can tell, the connecting tunnels are empty for about a hundred feet."

"Good work, Hinny. Okay, team, into the hole."

Hinny ducked back down as Altar and Ploy joined her. As she waited for there to be room on the ladder, Twilight continued her scan of the area for other ponies. She hoped and didn't expect to see anything, so she was very surprised when something ran over the dunes nearby, kicking up sand in a very indiscreet way.

"Raffle! There's somepony out there!"

Without hesitating, Raffle grabbed Twilight and shoved her unceremoniously down the hole before leaping in after her. Needless to say, things got very crowded and very uncomfortable very fast as the whole squad collapsed onto each other in a pile at the base of the ladder.

"Ugh, that was not well-thought-out," Altar grumbled, rubbing his spines.

"We can lick our wounds later. Twilight, come up with me and show me the terrorist."

"Okay." Twilight followed Raffle up the ladder and squeezed in beside him, looking out on the land. "There," Twilight whispered, pointing at the scrambling pony among the dunes. "That's the one. What do we do, Raffle?"

The veteran's hard expression softened in the dim tunnel light as he beheld the figure. "It's one of the refugees. We're fine, Twilight."

"Refugees?" Twilight repeated as she and Raffle joined the others in the tunnel.

"When the terrorists began their wave of destruction, they ended up displacing dozens of ponies who lived in the desert; nomads and hermits and others as well," Ploy explained, Raffle and Hinny looking down the tunnels around them. "They've had to abandon their small frugal homes and hide away, some retreating into Equestria. But many of them still live in the desert, hidden away, waiting for the violence to end."

Twilight felt her heart go out to all those displaced ponies. The terrorists have done the unthinkable over and over again. The moment she thought she'd had enough of their inequinity, they add another act of evil to their ever-damning crimes. That's why I'm here, she thought to herself. Me and the others are going to make it so that the terrorists will have nowhere to go. It will be their end.

"This way!" Hinny whispered, pointing down one of the branching-off tunnels.

Raffle took the lead. "This tunnel should go on for a couple hundred feet before arriving at the underground levels of the terrorists' base. We may encounter enemy ponies as we go along, so if it's not any of us, take it down quick and quiet-like."

"You mean like this?" Ploy asked, pointing to the freshly KO'd rag-dressed pony beside him. The terrorist wore a look of shock, as if he couldn't believe the small team of Equestrians had found their way into the tunnels. Or that he was taken out by a wimpy engineer.

"Yes, just like that, Ploy. Let's go, onwards!"

With that, the strike force continued through the sandy underground mining tunnels, on the road to their goal.

*

The door to the base was a twin set of huge steel sheets. It towered over Twilight and her team, its cold surface etched with frightening symbols. No sounds came from any direction and although going undetected was what the strike team wanted, the bleak silence was unnerving.

"The place should be crawling with terrorists," Altar snorted. "We haven't seen a single one since Ploy's."

"Maybe he woke up and warned them all to stay away," Ploy joked, waving a hoof threateningly.

Raffle frowned. "I fear it's worse than that. The terrorists must either all be on the surface fighting Shining Armor or cooped up in here." He gestured to the mammoth door. "If they are inside, then our mission just got a lot harder. This door won't open quietly."

"I know a silencing spell," Twilight said. "Then we could open the door without a squeak."

"Not gonna work, Twi." Hinny, who was examining the door, traced one of the symbols. "They've got anti-magic runes all over this thing. They'll negate any spell and alert every terror pony within the base.

"Oh." Twilight's face fell. "That sure sets my plan aflame."

"We can't give up, guys," Ploy insisted. "We have a mission to complete and we can't let this hunk of metal best us."

"What do you want us to do, Ploy?" Altar inquired, barely able to keep sarcasm out of his next sentence. "Wait for the enemy to open the doors for us?"

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK

With a deafening almighty groan, the huge metal doors began to open outwards. Another sound, a deep rumbling, echoed through the slowly opening doors. Twilight squinted, trying to see what lay beyond the portal that was making the noise, but Raffle realized first and found a big problem with it.

"They're coming out, in force!" he said, just loud enough that the team could hear. "We have to hide!"

Ploy swung his head around. "Where?"

"Behind the doors, between them and the walls!" Hinny called, rushing off to hide there.

The others quickly followed suit, Altar and Ploy joining Hinny behind the left door, while Twilight and Raffle ducked behind the right one. And not a moment too soon; the second Altar pulled his tail in, a mob of terrorists galloped through the doorway: stallions and mares, wearing a mixture of rags and belts which Rarity would have fainted at the sight of. Some of them carried the strange tubular weapons, while others lugged the heavy rockets or clenched their teeth on cracked blades. They made for a fearsome sight, flooding out of the base in what could only be a charge.

It felt like forever until the last terrorist ran out through the doors, the battalion of ponies disappearing down the tunnels. Twilight and her team stumbled out of their hiding places, sweat running down their shocked faces. Twilight's heart raced, keeping up with her thoughts. So many. There were so many of them. Did they spot Shining Armor and his forces? Is that why they all ran out?

"That was one of the most discomforting experiences I've had," Raffle muttered. "And I've seen Tartarus."

Ploy's knees were knocking together. "Not me. That was my first Tartarus."

"Pony up, Ploy," Altar said, hoisting the unicorn off his hooves until he stopped shaking. "We can't let this case of rats and a sinking ship deter us. We're so close."

"I'll say." Hinny peered into the base beyond the doors. "The place looks deserted; looks like they've all cleared out."

"That'll make our job easier," Raffle deduced. "We've got to find the central control room. That's where they do all their plotting and send out communications. We take it out, they're cut off."

Twilight walked over to Hinny and put a hoof around the hippogriff's shoulder. "Then let's get searching."

They plunged into the terrorist hideout and began hunting for their quarry. Staying close together, they barged through the rooms and corridors that made up the enemy base, not encountering a single soul as they explored the rat hole and steadily made their way downwards.

"Why are we going down?" Raffle questioned as they turned yet another inclined corner. "Any good communications room would be higher to better send signals."

"Well sorreee, this place only goes down," Hinny grumped at him.

"I don't get it," Twilight said. "It feels like we're going in circles and moving deeper into the ground, yet from outside we could clearly see upper floors. There should be a stairway or ladder to take ponies up there."

Ploy opened another cupboard and, finding more of the terrorists' strange weapons, promptly closed it. "If there is, we haven't found it yet. But jeez, these freaky thugs sure love their toys. This is the sixth cabinet with just weapons so far."

"Let's hope it's not an indication of how much firepower they actually have," Altar muttered. "Probably is, though."

"I just wish we'd find somewhere to plant these stupid bombs," Hinny complained, waving at the load on Altar's back. "I keep getting this tingly feeling from being too close to them, like they're about to go off any second."

"Our engineers have done a stellar job reverse engineering the explosives we've acquired from the last skirmishes," Ploy said through gritted teeth. "They will go off precisely when we tell them to."

"As soon as we find someplace to put them, you mean."

Growing tired of her teammates' bickering, Twilight trotted past them and peeked into the next room, her eyes widening at her find. Beyond the doorway she'd picked was a huge underground parking lot, lit up by lanterns made of thin slices of amethyst and jade. Parked in mostly neat rows were vehicles like the ones the terrorists had ridden in Twilight's first fight before Equestria's cliff base. Beside these were smaller, less heavy-looking vehicles and even smaller ones resembling bicycles, all of them mounted with various sizes of cannons.

"Equestria, help us."

Twilight walked into the lot, followed by the other Friendship Explosion operatives. "Sweet Celestia," Ploy breathed. "All those terrorists gone and they still have these monster trucks tucked away?"

"They must have taken at least some of them," Altar noted, pointing to several empty spots in the lot. "Still, all these other ones could mean that there are more ponies left manning the base and we should remain cautious."

As Raffle and the others looked over the vehicles and watched the exits, Twilight examined the room and its designs. Since figuring out that the terrorist base was built inside mining tunnels, she'd struggled to recall everything she knew about diamond dog architecture, hoping that some part of it could help with the mission. As she gazed at the sparkling purple-and-green lanterns, realization dawned and an idea came to her.

"Guys, huddle up!"

At her request, Raffle, Ploy, Hinny and Altar gathered with her in the middle of the lot, curious to hear what the princess had cooked up. "I just figured something out," Twilight began. "The lanterns on the walls are a special kind which diamond dogs use in only one place throughout an entire mining facility: the storage chamber."

"That's nice, Twilight," Altar said, "but how does it benefit us?"

"The gem chambers were always constructed as a center of the tunnel system, and always dug jutting out of the surface. This way, even if the tunnels collapsed, the gems would be safe in the overground storage."

Raffle nodded, scratching his chin as he tried to figure out where Twilight was going with this. "The terrorists' mesa is the only outcrop in its area. No other place would suit a gem storage. So that means—"

"The gem storage is in the foundations of the base!" Hinny cried. "We could blow the place up from down here. It'll be perfect!"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Altar said, holding up the only fingered appendages in the group. "We can't deviate from the plan like that. This pack of explosives has to be set off in the communications room to prevent further contact between the enemy's current troops and any others they may have."

"But this will be more efficient! If we take out the bottom, the entire mesa will collapse. The terrorists will have nowhere to run and their vehicles will be smashed, to boot."

"No. We're blowing the bomb in the control room and that's final."

Hinny and Altar continued to argue, claws slowly showing and gestures becoming wilder and potentially dangerous. Twilight, Raffle and Ploy exchanged looks, unsure of what to do. All opinions were changed, however, when a section of the ceiling flapped open, a ladder shot down and a rag-dressed pegasus came sliding into the lot.

"Why are you still here?" the pegasus demanded, not even noticing who he was talking to. "You should have gone out with the others! The Crystal Prince and his forces are close and we need every pony—"

The pegasus stopped talking when at last he realized who was in the room. His eyes went wide as he beheld the clearly-enemy stallions, the puffed-up hippogriff, the dragon with the bomb on his back and, last and certainly the most shocking, the purple alicorn. For several seconds the terrorist pony only stared, his mouth hanging open, but then came the screaming.

"THE ENEMY'S IN THE BASE! THEY'VE GOTTEN IN!"

Altar was first to react, belching a glob of liquid fire at the blaring pegasus but the terrorist rolled out of the way, the fireball blowing a hole in one of the armoured vehicles. The enemy pony scampered for the ladder, dodging magic bolts from Ploy and Twilight, and disappeared up the shaft in a flurry of feathers.

"We can't let him get away!" Twilight shouted, spreading her wide wings and leaping into the shaft after the enemy. "Come on!"

Hinny followed quickly, using her front claws to scale the shaft as it was too narrow for her wingspan. Raffle jumped onto the ladder and turned to the other guys. "Ploy, help Altar set the bomb. Six minutes; we'll grab that guy and take out whoever else is in here before then."

"Bu-but what if there's more and it'll take longer than six minutes?" Ploy challenged as Altar unshouldered his load.

"Six minutes!"

With that, Raffle followed the girls, leaving Ploy and Altar to set the explosives. At the head of the hunt, Twilight was gaining on the lone terrorist, swiftly turning corners and leaping over obstacles the target took longer avoiding. Soon she was only a few feet away from him and the enemy was clearly tiring out.

"Come back here!" Twilight shouted. Then added, "Come here and face justice!"

The terrorist looked over his shoulder, his eyes full of fear. "Work on your catchphrases!" he called back, kicking over a barrel. Twilight was going too fast and knocked into it, losing all her momentum. As the alicorn princess collapsed onto the floor, Hinny shot around the corner towards the barrel and its spilled contents.

"STOP!"

Hinny somehow managed to open her wings just enough to lift her over the assortment of tubes and caps scattered across the floor. This sent her careening into Twilight, making a mess of feathers and fur. Raffle, who had issued the order, bent down and inspected one of the items.

"More explosives. They have these everywhere. This place could blow up without our help." Raffle tiphoofed around the bombs and Twilight and Hinny untangled themselves. But in all the commotion, the terrorist had escaped.

"He's gone now," Twilight muttered. "How do we find him now?"

Hinny cocked her head toward the other end of the hallway, twitching as she listened. "There's a door swinging further along, he must have taken it."

"Then let's go!"

The chase resumed, not as fast as before but with just as much purpose. True to Hinny's word, they found a door swinging slightly from an entry. Twilight felt nervous as they approached it. Now they would finally apprehend one of the enemy. Maybe they could learn the motives of the terrorists at long last and find out why they sought to destroy the lives of innocent ponies.

"On three," Raffle said, hunkering beside the door with Twilight and Hinny. "One..."

"Two......."

"Three."

Hinny bucked down the door, knocking the thing off its damn hinges and into the wall. Raffle rolled into the room, crossing half of it in seconds, and Twilight leapt in behind him, horn glowing dangerously. Inside the room, their quarry shook and shuddered behind the large table in it, much like the one in the war council room. On the far side of the table, a unicorn watched the Equestrians break and enter. He showed no reactions or emotions except for a slight disappointment.

"So, you've arrived," he said in a cool voice. "I wondered how long it would be before it happened."

The first terrorist gaped at the other. "It was inevitable, to be sure," the unicorn continued. "I mean, how could a ragtag group of ponies possibly hope to hold out against the full might of the great nations of Equestria? After all, friendship is magic, isn't it?"

Twilight glared at the other pony. His tone was mocking, but she couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or openly insulting Equestria. "Who are you?" she demanded, pointing her glowing horn at him.

The unicorn merely raised an eyebrow, not at all fazed by the royal weapon of mass destruction aimed at his mug. "Nothing more than a simple pony, sharing a goal with others just like him."

"Threatening to destroy a country?" Raffle scoffed. "Hardly a worthwhile use of time."

The pony turned away from the table, ambled over to a window at the end of the room and looked out it. "As bright a thought as the rest of them. It's about time such a high opinion was snuffed out."

Raffle looked furious. "Come on, girls. Let's take these scumbags and make ourselves scarce."

"Oh yes, girls." The unicorn turned his cold eyes on Twilight, his unrelenting stare making her flinch. "The legendary Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle. My my, we must really be something to have drawn the queen bees from their hives."

"You killed innocent ponies, gryphons and dragons!" Hinny roared, her feathers puffing up into a threatening mane that forced a squeak from the timid terrorist. "You'll be lucky the Princesses don't banish you to a hydra's stomach!"

The pony barked with laughter. "What a pleasant songbird you are. Wouldn't it be nice if all gryphons shared your passion, your equine determination and resolution?

Hinny let out a harsh squawk and leapt at the unicorn. He didn't even defend himself as the twice-his-size hippogriff crashed into him, claws and beak first. When Hinny finally did let him go, the terrorist pony was unpleasantly marred, blood dripping from multiple lacerations and holes in his body. But still he continued to smile, like the Mane-iac.

"That was the best beating I've gotten in my life!" he declared.

Twilight was both horrified and disgusting by the pony's new look and his demented behavior. Nothing he did made any sense: his motives, his actions, they got him nowhere. What was his game?

"Why are you doing this?"

"Twilight, don't bother—"

"It's a waste of time, they won't ta—"

"Why are you doing this?" Twilight repeated, her rationality bubbling to the surface. She had to know why. "You don't stand to gain anything from this war. Your troops die needlessly in this conflict, far outnumbered by Equestria's nations united. What is it you're after? Is it revenge? The throne? A magical artifact? Freeing older evils? What could you possibly want that you would wage all-out warfare against the entire country?!"

The terrorist looked surprised, but his snide expression returned almost instantly. "What do we want? It's not exactly simple, princess, far from it in fact."

"Then what is it that you want?" Twilight repeated, desperate for the answer.

"What we want is.... nothing."

Tension snapped and disbelief took root. Hinny's wings fell loosely to the ground. Raffle froze, feeling like his whole world was a lie. But Twilight took it the worst. In her heart, she'd always dreaded the possibility of there being somepony out there, as evil as any of the villains she'd faced, but with no true drive or ambition, their only want being total annihilation of everything around them. Her worst fears had come true.

"We don't want anything, princess. We don't care for money, for clothes, for friendship. We don't care about anypony else. In fact, we don't care so much, we're ready to do away with you all. That's what our organization is about."

The unicorn turned, showing his profile and his cutie mark. "From the start, I knew I was destined for setting events into motion. I was one of the contributing factors to our movement, the movement that would mark the end of Equestria as all knew it. My cutie mark is a trigger, the same mechanism used to activate cannons and firearms, and even explosives."

The terrorist turned dramatically toward the window and gazed out onto the battlefield in the distance. A blood-red aura swirled around his horn. Suddenly, a plume of fire and earth exploded in the distance, accompanied by a ground-shaking boom. The strike force members could hear cries of anguish coming from the site.

"Look how easy it is!" the unicorn declared gleefully, turning back to the room occupants. "You're all blown away by a little fire and a pinch of black powder. Right now, your comrades are seeded with fear and beginning to doubt themselves and their chances."

"Why are you doing this?" Twilight questioned yet again. She'd gotten the answer, but still she didn't believe it.

"I will say it once more," the terrorist said. "We want nothing, nothing to do with you and nothing to do with your government. The purest way to deal with that is by removing you all."

"You're disgusting!" Hinny snarled.

The unicorn flashed his teeth, showing the holes where the hippogriff had knocked some out. "So?"

"Enough of this." Raffle walked towards the terrorist, pulling out a rope from his belt. "You're coming with us as a prisoner. Then we will, as you put it, 'remove' your base."

"Oh, you mean with that lovely pack of stolen explosives."

Raffle froze, his face became a mask. Twilight and Hinny exchanged mortified looks. "Oh, I know all about it," the unicorn went on, slowly walking towards the other still-quaking terrorist. "The higher-ups send an able team to plant a bomb in the enemy's base, destroying it and the only place we have left to hide in.

"But what you don't realize is that it, like so much in this world, doesn't matter. We don't need the base to continue this war. Our ponies will continue to fight, ready for the end of it all. Where our guns fail, our swords shall triumph. Even if Equestria does somehow mange to defeat us, which can only be accomplished by taking lives, the scars from the wounds we've inflicted shall never fade.

"Now, where'd that bomb go?"

The unicorn started looking at the floor, the aura around his horn throwing out blood-red rays of light. Twilight realized what he was doing; he was looking for the explosives that they'd brought with them, that they intended to use to blow up the terror base. That Ploy and Altar were arming in the lot.

"RUN!"

Though Twilight herself took her time, Hinny and Raffle obeyed and bolted from the room in seconds. Raffle whipped out his short-distance radio device and shouted into it. "Ploy, Altar, get into the tunnels, as far away from the bomb as you can! Get away from it!"

A great deal of scuffling was heard over the radio. "Why?" Ploy called back, panting as he ran. "It's not set to go off for a few more minutes."

"The enemy's detonating it, remotely!"

The unicorn terrorist's eyes suddenly sparked and the rays of his magic shone intensely through the floor. "Bingo."

"You won't get away with this," Twilight said bravely.

"'Get away with this?' My little highly-educated-but-ignorant pony, I'm doing so much more than just 'getting away with this'. In all their folly, Equestria actually let one of their four princesses go on a dangerous mission that she may not return alive from. Wait, let me correct myself: will not return from alive."

The ignorance insult slipped off Twilight, as it paled next to the terrorist's second comment. She never anticipated the possibility of her life ending or even thought about it. As an alicorn she was destined for long life, but never had she imagined that it would be cut short. Yet this war held that very prospect, making the possibility of Twilight Sparkle's death very, very real.

No.... no....

"Yes, yes, YES!" The unicorn shouted, as though he'd read her mind. "So long, Equestria!"

A second later, the tide was turned.

Author's Note:

There's nothing quite like having your mother review your fanfiction
Thanks, Mom

Comments

[Cakebomb]

They left no guards?
Are you for real?

[Spirit Guide]

7270276 Who said? There're more than enough vehicles for their to be twice the number as charged
More real then most