Chapter XI: Kapkan Park
There was a light downfall of snow and a chilling frost in the night air that betrayed the fact that they were now in the northern reaches of Equestria. Twilight could feel it reach all the way to her bones as the back hatch of the Buffalo transport lowered. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the time that Shining had taken her up to the Crystal Empire to see her former foal sitter Cadence, but it was damn near close.
Twilight pulled her cloak tighter around herself to guard against the cold. Twilight could see that Wolf was performing a similar action with her duster to ward off her own chill. Twilight considered area and she wanted her wits about her. The draw it would take on her concentration to maintain the spell was not worth the small amount of comfort it would afford.
Orion stood up from his jump seat and tapped the side of his helmet above the right ear to signal for the team to activate their communication ear pieces. These would allow for him to both recive information from the rest of the team, as well as enable him to communicate orders to specific parts of the team. Twilight quickly did as she was signaled and turned her ear piece on.
Once everyone had activated their ear piece he started to give orders, “We are dropping into Kapkan Park. Intel says we shouldn’t be expecting anyone but our contacts, but I still want us in a Perimeter Defense Formation.”
“Probably not a bad idea Orion,” Wolf commented. “Bad Intel can only screw you if you take it as gospel.”
Orion simply nodded in agreement.
Viper and Charlie hovered the transport for a second or so above the open ground that they were going to use as their landing zone. After observing the LZ and determining that it was clear of any dangers, they slowly lowered until they were wheels down.
As soon as they were back on solid ground the team performed a quick exit down the ramp taking up a pre-established circular formation as the transport lifted back into the air.
Each member of the team already knew their position to take up upon exiting the craft. A team member took up one of the six positions in the circle; 12 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 4 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 8 o’clock, and 10 o’clock. A 5 meter spread was maintained between each member and their two closest neighbors. All of Nightmare Team had weapons at the ready position, except Twilight what had a pair of magic missiles charged, and pointed outwards from the circle. They all swept their overlapping zones of coverage to ensure that there was no incoming danger. Captain Hunter took up the initial 12 o’clock position. To his right, at the 2 o’clock was Wolf. Continuing around the circle was Rainboom, then Honesty, followed by Lazarus, and finally Twilight in the 10 o’clock position to Orion’s left.
The landing zone seemed to be clear of any hostilities. Taking in her surroundings now, Twilight could take in the run down park and the surrounding buildings. The park was a fairly open rectangular shaped clearing. The buildings were so close together that the only way out of the park were very narrow alleyways. One alleyway at the midpoint of each side to the park.
The only good sources of light were one flickering lamppost and the almost full moon breaking through some of the cloud cover. The result of this was a series of long shadows across the park. The ground was covered in a modest layer of snow. Everything seemed to be in a state of disrepair. The grounds were overgrown. The shrubs had clearly not been taken care off. The concrete walking cracked and crumbling. The park was surrounded by old abandoned brick apartments that looked like they had been ground zero for a war. There were multiple scorch marks and signs of explosive damage especially around entranceways and choke points. Come to think of it, with the history of Stalliongrad being surrounded during the Griffon War, that idea that it had been a war zone was probably accurate.
The only part of park that seemed to be in any decent state was a statue near the center of the park, not more than 20 meters to the left from where Nightmare was formed up. The statue depicted a hooded figure kneeling down holding out a boxed item and a screw-gun as if to affix the box to the inside of a door frame or something. Surrounding the statue was a low wall probably no taller than three-fourths of a meter tall. The wall had three small sections, equispaced around the wall, cut out to allow access to the statue.
Leaning against the low wall was a white pegasus stallion dressed in a thick winter jacket. His slicked back mane was beat red. A bowl of some kind of red colored soup was stenciled on the arm of his jacket. Standing on either side of the stallion were a pair of earth ponies, one male and one female. They were both brandishing a pair of Ak-47s.
“Contact 10 o’clock!” Twilight called out to alert the rest of the team to the presence of the other ponies in the court yard.
Orion twisted slightly to face the same direction as Twilight.
“Contact confirmed 10 o’clock. Weapons tight! That’s our informant.” Orion barked out. “Break formation. Wolf I want you to go run a perimeter sweep. Make sure we’re operating in the green.”
“Wilco, Orion,” Wolf replied before disappearing into a nearby shadow.
I really need to learn that soon if I’m going to be the team’s Shadow-walker.
Orion turned to Twilight, “Spellblade you’re with me. The rest of you, keep your eyes out for anything unsavory.”
Twilight nodded her acknowledgement and took of walking with Orion in the direction of the three strangers.
“Why are you having me go up with you and not Wolf? She’s second in command right?” Twilight asked in a hushed tone.
Orion in an equally quite tone replied, “Yes, Normally your roles would have been reversed. However due to the fact that we haven’t had the time to teach you to shadow-walk properly I had to send Wolf. This is on us we thought we would have more time. We will correct this mistake when we return to Home Castle.”
That was where the conversation ended as the stepped closer to the waiting mobsters.
Noticing their approach, the pegasus stopped resting against the low wall and also took a few steps closer.
This must be Foresight’s contact; Borscht.
Borscht turned to face Orion and was the first to speak, “Welcome, komandir.”
He spoke with a fairly heavy northern Equestrian accent. He also extended a hand out to Orion to shake.
“You must be our Stallion. You must be Borscht right?” Orion accepted the proffered hand.
“Da, I am.” Borscht replied. He leaned to his right to look behind the captain, “I saw fire haired mare’s magic trick. Where she go? We going to have problem, you and I?”
Well, street smarts: one. Proper grammar: zero.
“No, she is simply ensuring that we are not being watched. I thought a man of your chosen career would appreciate that,” Orion replied, somehow maintaining a professional tone despite the snark that was inherent in his word choice.
“Precisely,” Twilight also added. “And how can we know that we won’t have any trouble with you? You are criminals after all.”
Borscht locked eyes with Twilight. They were cold dark eyes that showed clear evidence that they had seen hardship; death, destruction, and the chaos of battle. These eyes had watched the light drain out of others before. Twilight could tell.
“I suggest you adopt more respectful tone when you speak to Bratva. He is not as…tolerant…of disrespectful outbursts such as that,” Borscht said before turning back to Orion.
“So what can you tell us about the ponies that we have been looking for?” the Watchtower asked.
Borscht shook his head in reply. “Nyet. Not here. This area may be abandoned, but still has eyes and ears. You know what I mean?”
That put Twilight on edge. She already had a bad feeling about the abandoned area, and those words defiantly didn’t help.
“I guess we don’t have much choice,” Orion replied. “What do you propose we do, Mr. Borscht?”
“We go to Bratva. He tell you more. Come, follow me.” Borscht gestured for Nightmare team to follow him as he turned. His earth pony guards flanked him on either side as he started to walk towards one of the nearby alleys.
Twilight, following behind their escort, had just stepped foot into the alleyway when three shots pierced the stillness of the snowy night. The burst of noise was also accompanied by a plum of stone shards and dusk as a bullet struck the wall of the alley just ahead of Borsht.
Seconds later, a body flew out from a nearby shadow. Twilight would have put an ethereal blade through the body if she hadn’t recognized that it already had a bullet hole in the temple. A stream of crimson blood was streaming down the side of the clearly dead unicorn’s face. As the blood reached the torso of the unicorn, it blended with her shirt, as they were the same color.
Following quickly behind the corps was Wolf, a smoking Eclipse in one hand, and a wrecked form that may have at one point been a long riffle.
“What is meaning of this?” Borscht asked looking between Wolf and the captain. Twilight also noticed that he had produced a handgun from somewhere.
Beneath the folds of her shadow cloak, Twilight prepared to summon her shadow blades and was already calculating the quickest path to take to disarm the contact and his guards if this turned ugly.
Wolf holstered Eclipse, and readjusted her enchanted Aviator sunglasses.
“We could be asking you a similar question.” Wolf replied. “I caught this young lady here trying to take a pot shot at us. Is she one of yours?” She asked tossing the wrecked riffle at Borscht’s feet.
Twilight could now see that there was .45 caliber round lodged in the side of the riffle. Sunset had probably fired that shot first to throw off the aim of the would-be sniper. The second shot that they had heard was probably the same one that had embedded itself into the brick wall of the alley. The final round must have been the one that Wolf had put through the skull of the assailant.
Good shooting Sunset.
Borscht shook his head in frustration, “Nyet. She is not ours. Though…”
Borscht knelt down and examined the shirt that the shooter was wearing. Looking over the right sleeve he reviled a symbol stitched in yellow. A crossed hammer and horseshoe.
“Der’mo!” Borscht swore. “Is Red Army soldier. They know we are here.”
As if on cue three ponies, all dressed in red shirts, turned down the alleyway. They were all armed with AKs.
“Nightmares! Back out of the alley now! We can hold them from cover.” Orion started to command.
“Don’t know if that’s going to work Orion. We have contact rear now too.” Honesty called out over her shoulder. She readied her M249 in case they started to take fire from the advancing red shirts
“More boogies above us as well. I think I see a flyer too.” Rainboom reported.
Lazarus also informed them that there were more red shirts on either side as well.
“They were waiting for us so they could ambush us.” Twilight deduced out loud.
“Fuck, you’re right. We need cover yesterday.” Orion said firing a warning shot at one of the ponies advancing down the alley way.
“Everypony! Retreat back to that statue! Take cover behind the wall! Wolf, Spellblade, go hunting!” the Watchtower called out.
The majority of Nightmare team, along with Borscht and his guards, retreated back over the open ground of the park to the statue and the cover that its low surrounding wall could provide. As they sprinted the last few meters all hell seemed to break loose. The team started to take fire from all directions.
Everyone in the group made it to the relative safety of the wall. One of Borscht’s guards, the mare, did take a grazing blow to her left arm but seemed to be still in fighting condition.
Twilight however, did not make the run for the statue with the others. Wolf had grabbed onto her arm and pulled her off to the side off the alley.
“Why did you pull me back?” Twilight asked the flame haired mare. Twilight didn’t understand nor did she try to hide her confusion.
Wolf just looked her in the eyes. “We’ve been cleared to go hunting. That means that we detach from the rest of the team and go take out targets of opportunity.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide in realization of what this meant. “How do we do that?” she asked.
“Normally we shadow walk to targets and take them out, but we are going to have to improvise this time since we haven’t been able to teach you yet,” Wolf said. “I’m going to take you to the rooftop of one building, then I’ll go to the other side and we work to take down the snipers that are taking shots at our team. Do you have any questions?”
“Ok Wolf that sounds like a plan, Should we make sure that we both move clockwise around the park so that we can cover more ground, or both move to the same side so that we catch one side in a pincer.” Twilight asked.
“I’m going clockwise,” Wolf said, “I’ll leave your direction up to your discretion. Just get the job done. Are you ready for this Spellblade?”
Twilight nodded in confirmation. With that, Wolf grabbed Twilight in a tight embrace and stepped back into the void of light that the alleyway stretched out.
Twilight quickly found out that there is a place colder than Northern Equestria, the Shadow Realm. Initially, Twilight couldn’t make anything out in the inky darkness that made up the Shadow Realm, but slowly she could see little pockets of light, some large enough to see back into the real world. Most were no bigger than a pinprick.
Before she knew it, Wolf dropped her through one of the larger holes in the darkness. Twilight found herself back on solid ground, only now she was on a rooftop looking down at the park below.
She could see that at some point during either her talk with Wolf or their transit time that the shooting had started. There were close to a score or red shirted individuals trying to advance on the statue and its low wall that protected her team. The outside of that wall had become cratered in multiple places from bullet impacts of various weaponry. Various shotguns, pistols, rifles, and submachine guns all pointed at a group of ponies that, from the look of it, were giving just a good as they got.
Orion would sporadically pop up from behind cover and fire a round from his scoped riffle at the Red Army soldiers advancing from the north. He hadn’t been able to land a lethal round yet because, with the amount of lead flying through the air, he couldn’t risk taking the time needed to look down his scope and align a decent sight picture.
Lazarus and the mare Mafia guard were holding off the east side advancement. Twilight couldn’t be sure but by the looks of it, Lazarus was joking and tossing pickup lines at his newfound partner.
Of course he paired off with the female. Even in a firefight he’s got to try and be smooth.
Borscht and the other guard, the one that had taken the grazing round, were on taking shots at red shirts on the west. The guard still had his rifle, but all Borscht had was his pistol. That didn’t seem to hinder him too much as he was able to double tap one of rival gang members, causing the first casualty on either side.
Possibly the most effective one at keeping the attackers at bay was Honesty. She was the only one facing the southern derelict apartment building, the same one that Twilight happened to standing on top of at the moment, but the suppressing fire that the M249 could put out had all of the gangsters diving for any cover that they could find.
The only pony that Twilight could not account for was Rainboom. She wasn’t down at the statue putting out fire like the others. It wasn’t until Twilight stopped looking down that she understood.
A forest green pegasus stallion in a red shirt was trying to dive bomb the group from the air. I was a good idea after all Twilight had to admit. There statue wall provided good cover from the ground troops but none for attacks from above. A rainbow blur dashed down, from even farther above, after the attacking pegasus and forced him to abort is aerial attack. He fled to the side trying to avoid his new predator. With a 90-degree turn, Rainboom was able to stay on his six and was now gaining on him.
Turning at the speed that Rainboom had been going should not have been possible. That close to the ground, she should have crash-landed back into the dirt.
The red shirt pulled multiple maneuvers that to Twilight’s eyes, even as Permanently On Ground as they were, seemed like they should have been effective at shacking his pursuer. Rainboom, however, wasn’t even phased and maintained her position on the flyer’s 6 o’clock. Her superior speed even allowed her to continue to allow her to gain on the stallion until he was in range of her SMG. The event was too fast for Twilight to see, but the staccato of fire followed by the dropping body confirmed Rainboom’s kill.
Damn Nice flying
Rainboom was about to turn the previous Stuka dive tactic back on the gangsters, but she was quickly intercepted by a new jade colored flyer. Strangely enough this new flyer was not wearing a red shirt like all the others.
Now Rainboom was on the opposite side of the dogfight. Luckily, her superior speed was still her advantage and she simply stayed out of range of her new pursuer. One Rainbow streak was being chased after a similar jade colored blur.
A sudden shot rang out from the rooftop that Twilight was standing on, drawing her attention back to the rooftop she was on currently. Twilight turn her head slightly to the left and found that perched on the edge of the building was a unicorn stallion in a dark red shirt with a scoped rifle aiming down into the courtyard. Twilight immediately dropped to a crouch and activated her shadow cloak. With the darkness, she could have been a ghost in the night for all that could be seen of her.
Twilight waited for a few beats to make sure that the sniper had not taken notice of her presence. He never looked up from his rifle. Deciding that it was safe to move in, Twilight slinked through the snow that had accumulated on the rooftop. With a slight glow to her horn, that couldn’t be seen with her cloak activated, Twilight summoned one of her magical blades on her right arm. She only made it about 15 centimeters long. Just enough to be deadly, but not to be a hindrance to a stealthy approach.
Twilight moved to within a quarter of a meter and prepared to strike. The red shirt never even looked up from his scope.
Like a coiled snake, Twilight lunged forward, dissipating her shadow cloak as she did so. Her left arm wrapped around the unicorn’s head and pulled back. Simultaneously, Twilight drove her spell blade into the back of the stallion’s neck, ensuring that it severed the spinal column. She felt the body turn into a rag doll in her arms as the riffle dropped out of the stallions grasp and fell to the ground.
Now I understand why Wolf and Orion want me to have situational awareness. Being clueless like this one gets you killed.
Twilight laid the body down on the ground. She didn’t want to kill him, but he was trying to kill her team and she couldn’t allow that.
Twilight looked up from where she was and observed the situation again. Rainboom was still in the role of the pursued. Twilight watched as Rainboom stopped trying to pull maneuvers to shake her aggressor and just used her speed to go in a straight line. The jade pegasus was only to happy to comply. This however, turned out to be a mistake. Rainboom flared her wings and came to an abrupt stop that also raised her slightly higher into the sky. The jade blur clearly didn’t expect that and zoomed right under Rainboom. With her adversary now in front of her, Rainboom resumed her previous speed.
The rest of the team seemed to be doing well. Honesty was, however, no longer the biggest gun on the field. From down the alley way a large gray mass had appeared while Twilight had taken out the first marksman. A familiar looking minotaur was now deftly wielding his large Browning .50 cal. Honesty’s M249 was a powerful tool, but in terms of stopping power, her LMG just didn’t compare to the heavy machine gun.
Shit, that’s the minotaur from Canterlot. That probably means that the other flyer is Starfighter.
Twilight looked across the courtyard to the other rooftop where she could barely make out the form of Wolf dispatching one of the snipers. Wolf then started to move down the rooftops going in a clockwise direction as she had said she would.
Twilight now had to make the command decision on what direction she was to take. Doing the mental statistics in her head. She figured that there was a 96% chance of taking out the other two sharpshooters on the roof if they worked together, but a 45% chance that one of Nightmare team would be wounded before then. It was only a 73% chance that she could take out the other shooter alone and about a 59% chance she would get spotted and injured herself.
In the end, it was an easy choice. She couldn’t run the risk of letting one of her teammates getting shot for her own protection. Twilight also took off in a clockwise direction around the buildings. This meant that both Wolf and herself would have to take out a shooter solo. Twilight wasn’t worried about Wolf’s ability to handle it. It was her own skill that she was worried about.
Twilight took off running to the next building. She saw that there was going to be a large gap in between the building that she was currently on and the next one. Reaching the edge of the building, Twilight flared her horn. With a burst of pure arcane energy, Twilight launched herself into the air. Her forward momentum carried her forward and she landed softly in the layer of puffy snow that was covering this building.
Twilight was now on one of the two buildings that made up the west side of the park. The same side that Borscht and his stallion Mafia guard were firing on. They were doing well, especially Borscht.
He would probably have passed as a championship winning pistol shooter if he weren’t a damn criminal.
Now that she was on the new building, Twilight stopped her sprint and adopted a more crouched stance. With caution, she moved forward searching the roof for any sign of her target. She moved slowly as to not giver herself away to the shooter. Twilight much preferred to be the one throwing the surprise party for her quarry, not the other way around.
A series of hoof prints in the snow drew her attention. Twilight followed them to the edge of the roof where there was an easy to spot disturbance in the snow. It was pretty clear that whoever the sniper was had changed buildings for some reason. Perhaps they had seen that two of their fellow shooters were no longer active.
Twilight mentally noted that actually three of the shooters were dead now. She did this as she looked over to the east side buildings to see Wolf no longer prowling around the roof top, but taking up the position of high ground.
No longer burdened by the need to maintain her stealth, She was using the full capabilities of her Control Valkyrie nature and the aid of Eclipse. While each shot started out as a normal .45 round, they quickly changed form. Some turned to shards of ice that would freeze a target to the ground or make a small portion of the ground so slick that it could not be traversed. One shot formed into a bolt of lightning that chained between several red shirts, killing them all. A few even impacted the ground and were soon followed with the sudden eruption of a yellow and red fireball.
This was helping but not enough. The minotaur was using his .50 cal. To suppress the majority of Nightmare Team’s fire. This had allowed for the dozen or so remaining red shirts to advance. They were quickly closing in on the team and would soon over take them.
The fight in the air was also not going as well as the previous one. The Jade blur, that was probably the terrorist Starfighter, which Rainboom was fighting, was good. The Starfighter wasn’t quite as fast at Rainboom, but she seemed to have the maneuvering superiority.
This is bad. This is really bad. I have to find that shooter before he manages to…
A shot rang out from the far roof followed by a red plume exiting the back of the Borscht’s stallion guard. The guard flopped onto the ground like a rag doll.
…get a fatal shot off. Damn it! Why can’t I just keep everyone alive and safe! I need to kill that shooter NOW!
Like last time, Twilight launched herself across the gap that separated her current building and the one that the shooter was on. Unlike last time, she did not land gracefully. This time, Twilight hit a patch of hardened ice, slipped, and found herself face down in the layer of snow that covered the roof.
There was a scrambling of feet as Twilight got up. The sniper had clearly heard Twilights poor landing and was now aware of her presence.
Well there goes the easy option. Time to put that combat training to the test.
Twilight hurried to a nearby chimney that was sticking out of the roof. She managed to get into cover just as the ground behind her exploded from the impact of a riffle round. Twilight peaked over just long enough to spot the shooter, a hot pink mare unicorn, and the shooter’s location. It may not have been long enough for Twilight to fire a magic missile it was however, enough time for the sniper to send a round into the brick of the chimney, causing Twilight to promptly duck back down.
“I suggest that you surrender now before I have to kill you!” Twilight cried over the clamor of the battel.
“Silly southern pony, you not kill red shirt so easily and Red Army never surrenders!” came the reply.
Fine, you want to draw blood and not surrender? I’ll show you the error of your ways.
Twilight’s horn flared and she focused on the location of the shooter. In a low stress environment, teleporting was dangerous. In the chaos of battle it was almost suicidal, but Twilight was well trained enough to reduce the risk, at least she hoped so.
With a blink, Twilight found herself in a different part of the roof. She was in the right spot she saw, but facing the wrong direction. Twilight simultaneously rotated on her heel while activating her right spellblade to full short sword length. Unfortunately, the time needed to turn had given the other unicorn enough time to react. Igniting her own horn in a hot pink glow, the red shirt managed to pull a section of the nearby brick roofing in front of herself as an impromptu shield.
Twilight saw the new cover that the mare had acquired. Twilight focused on the mental concept of a fully formed spell blade and thrust her right arm at the cowering gangster.
Her arm came to an abrupt and jolting stop as the tip of her blade collided with the section of brick embedding itself five centimeters deep into the mortar and stone slab. Confusion filled Twilight’s mind as her full ethereal blade failed to cut through the piece of chimney. It should have been as smooth as a hot knife through butter. She looked down to see what could possibly have gone wrong. She was met not with the visage of the opaque blade of pure magic able to cut anything, but with the disheartening sight of the much more typical translucent variety.
How?
The sound of cackling emanated from behind the slab.
“See what I say. Ponies of the north not so easy to kill.”
Fine you want to make this hard we can make this hard.
Twilight dispelled her useless blade and instead enveloped the pink mare in a field of pure magical energy while also forming a rather large magic missile in her right palm. She then lifted the unicorn, slab of chimney and all, off the ground. Once airborne, Twilight used a large portion of her ability to hurl the magically grasped gang member down, at great speed, into the courtyard among a large group of her fellow red shirts. The large palm sized magic missile followed close behind, gaining in size as it went.
The pink unicorn landed in a plume of dirt and masonry. A split second later the ball of arcane power hit in the same spot. It did not strike with the kinetic force that a magic missile normally uses to do damage. Instead this one struck its mark and stopped. The ball, which had grown from palm sized to the diameter of a small boulder, instantly collapsed on itself. It started a strong gust as it sucked in all of the air around it as well. Once it reached the size of a pinprick in space it rapidly expanded back in a massive explosion of force and fiery.
The shooting on all sides seemed to come to a mutual pause to witness the large column of smoke and dust drift skyward. Even The minotaur stopped firing, and both Rainboom and Starfighter hung in the air, as if frozen mid-dogfight. When the air cleared, what had once been four red shirts of the Red Army gang, was now a smoldering crater a meter and a half deep and three meters wide.
Huh. I guess Shining’s old Sci-Fi shows were right. You wear a red shirt into combat, you end up dead. Need to remember that.
With that thought Twilight doubled over to vomit before falling down in the snow and passing out.
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As entertaining as the story is, it constantly has errors. Normally I can ignore them, but not this time. The second paragraph is the biggest example this time. There's a sentence or something missing in it. It goes from talking about watching Sunset adjust her jacket, to acting like Twilight had been considering a spell. It doesn't actually transition from one to the other though. It just says:
You either need to go back and proof-read more thoroughly, or find someone to do it for you. Like I said, it's an entertaining story, but the issue is breaking my interest, and I doubt I'm the only one.
8869503
Thank you for pointing that out. I'll make sure I start doing more than my quick once over before I publish from now on.
Damn...
Oh Star Trek, how we love you.