Chapter 29: Gunship Defense
The swarm of Parasprites reacted instantly to the attack, quickly scrambling out of the plasma bolts path. Even with their small bodies and quick speed, a few managed to still get skimmed by the unyielding firepower. Strider kept the pressure up, adjusting his aim to keep them from resting and constantly moving.
The parasprites tried to weave their way through another wave of bolts but immediately greeted with another wave of plasma, and another, and another. One parasprite tried to eat one of the plasma bolts, but the bolt went right through it. Strider expected to see a corpse drop to the ground, but the creature seemed to somehow vanish into thin air as if it had never been there in the first place.
As if they were all linked together like a computers coding, the rest of the parasprites immediately turned tail and flew in full retreat. They quickly became a mere speck amongst the rest of Ponyville, disbanding their massive mob and joining their brothers and sisters somewhere out of his line of sight.
Seeing that the threat had been warned off, Strider stopped firing and lowered the Z-6. The rotary cannons six barrels let out a faint stream of steam, showing just how much it had been used just then.
"Yeah you'd better run." Strider muttered, knowing full well that they couldn't hear him. And even if they did, he'd probably still say it.
Before he could return to the ship and deposite his weapon back in the cargo hold, a loud buzzing noise rang through his ears. The trooper turned and was immediately greeted with the sight of another swarm of parasprites. They were flying right towards the gunship, not slowing down like the last batch did upon noticing him.
"Wave two." Strider told himself, raising the Z-6 once more.
That was when he saw the Parasprites expressions. These ones didn't have happy smiles like the previous ones, instead they had ravenous glares and open mouths. Surprisingly, he couldn't see a single trace of teeth on any of them, raising the question as to how they were able to eat through such tough materials. But that wasn't exactly the thing he was focused on. Something deep inside clone told himself that this swarm wasn't exactly gonna be as easy to shoo away as the other one.
That didn't change how Strider was gonna deal with it though. He didn't really have much of a plan, so he open fired on the new pack of parasprites. He did his best to aim the Z-6 at the heart of the swarm, trying to make each plasma bolt take out at least one parasprite each.
This swarm of parasprites either didn't notice that their fellow brothers and sisters were getting sent into oblivion, or they simply didn't care. They pressed onwards through the heavy dropzone, their eyes remaining fixated on the gunship.
Realizing that his previous tactic wasn't working with this new set, Strider fell back until he was mere inches from the ship, making sure to keep the Z-6 live. He counted at least twenty additional casualties on their side before they seemed to finally notice him. Yet, instead of backing off or fleeing, they simply changed their course towards him instead of the ship.
"Don't any of you get the message? BUZZ OFF!" Strider shouted, pressing his attack in an attempt to retake control of the battle.
Then, in one quick motion, every parasprite grouped together in a massive company, before diving at the clone. Strider tried to roll out of the way but the mass of parasprites proved to be to large for him to avoid in time. Strider was quickly engulfed in the company of parasprites, their little legs quickly locking onto his armor.
Strider tried to shake the insect-like creatures off, but every Parasprite that fell was replaced with two more. He tried to fire the Z-6 at them, but the bulky rotary cannon proved ineffective when dealing with small creatures covering him from head to toe. Before he could do anything else, a pack of the parasprites grouped together and managed to force the Z-6 out of the clones hand, letting it fall to the ground, forgotten in favor of focusing on the large gunship first.
Even with his weapon discarded, the clone kept fighting. He tried shaking off the parasprites, swipe them off, bash them with his hands, but their grip on his armor was tight and their numbers kept his efforts on the backburner. Suddenly, Strider felt the ground escape from under his boots. It didn't take him long to figure out that the parasprites had managed to lift him off the ground and were beginning to carry him away from the gunship.
Strider thrashed about, managing to shrug off a couple of parasprites, but not nearly enough to drop him. As he struggled, he noticed the approaching forest, its branches reaching out like droid arms, as if ready to grab him.
"Oh no you don't!" Strider shouted, shoving his left hand into a pouch on his utility belt.
He fumbled with the items inside, but managed to retrieve a circular device from it with relative ease. He pressed down on a red button, causing the object to emit a loud beeping noise which managed to catch the parasprites attentions. The trooper threw the object high into the air, watching as a handful of parasprites broke off from the pack, their eyes widening in confusion and wonder at the noise.
Then, the object exploded, engulfing the small group of parasprites in a thick black cloud of smoke. There were still plenty of parasprites clinging onto the clone, but enough had departed to weaken their combined grip just enough for him to shake his way free from the pack. Strider hit the grassy field like a holoprojector, managing to spring back up on his feet before he could lose his balance and wind up laying on the ground.
Strider wasted no time in running back towards the gunship, unholstering the DC-15s he had on his utility belt along the way. He was back in a defencive position in seconds, blaster once again aimed at the pack of insects who had regrouped and recovered from his surprise detonator.
Blue plasma bolts once again littered the air around the parasprites, but the amount pales in comparison to the Z-6. Each parasprite that got hit was replaced with five more, and they closed the gap between themselves and the gunship once again. Instead of trying to remove the trooper, they flew to the roof of the gunship and landed, leaving Strider's line of sight as well as the blasters firing range.
Realizing this change, Strider halted his assault on the pack and ran towards the gunships ladder. He climbed up in record time, quick to fire two shots at two parasprites that were trying to eat a holographic projection of the gunship. After they were disposed of, he turned his focus on the roof of the ship.
The entirety of the roof was covered with parasprites, several having already eaten through the metal body and towards the wires. Strider fired at the parasprites, startling a few of them and ending a few others lunch breaks forever. But there were just to many of them.
Strider kept firing at the Parasprites until his blaster stopped releasing plasma bolts. He tried to pull the trigger once again, but the only thing to exit the barrel was a faint puff of steam. He'd overheated the blaster.
"Blast it," Strider stated, giving the blaster a few hard pats. "come on, you've still got plenty of fight left in you."
The DC-15s remained locked for a handful of seconds, each one dragged out by the loud munches from the parasprites. He was losing time, and fast. Deciding to act instead of simply standing there with an overheated weapon, Strider charged into the pack of parasprites. He tried to shove them off the gunship, but they kept coming back to their original positions to resume their meal. He smacked a good chunk of parasprites near the edge of the roof off with the blasters body, yet it hardly made a dent in their forces.
Right as the trooper began to lose hope, the alien sound of music filled the area. Both himself and the parasprites halted their actions and changed their viewpoints, hundreds of eyes locking onto the source of the sudden musical number.
Along the dirt path that led into the Everfree Forest was Pinkie Pie, instruments completely covering her body, each being used simultaneously by her. Never before had Strider witnessed such a massive feat of multitasking, even from his Jedi general. And even then, he wasn't sure if they could match the pink pony considering the fact that the music she was playing wasn't even that bad.
Before Strider could let out an audible comment, he noticed the parasprites on the roof had stopped their eating and were beginning to hover in place. The next thing he knew, the entire pack of parasprites were bouncing along in tune with Pinkie's one pony parade down the dirt path and towards the Everfree Forest.
In mere seconds, the gunship was completely absent of the insects. And upon further inspection, the clone realized that to most of the essential wires hadn't been reached in time, meaning that the ship might still be flight-worthy without needing to replace the main power cords. If that had been eaten through, then the gunship would of been grounded until he could fix it. And fixing those wires without the required resources or tools would be impossible.
Somehow, through the power of music and multitasking talent, Pinkie had managed to save his ship as well as the town from the pack of parasprites. Strider was almost completely speechless, but one lone sentence was still able to escape his mouth regardless.
"What did I just witness?"
Well, that was easy to answer. He'd witnessed a pony playing several instruments all at once, the music composed causing the entire swarm of parasprites to dance along and follow her to the Everfree Forest.
As Strider continued to space off as he questioned the legalistics of what just happened, he failed to notice a very tall white alicorn take off in a royal carriage. That was, until the carriage flew right over him, causing Strider's gaze to focus on it as Princess Celestia began to fade into the distance.
Then another thought drifted into Strider's mind, this one being shouted out into the sky.
"OH COME ON!"
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Poor Strider... maybe better luck next time.
Strider can't seen to get a break and did the parasprites eat the Z-6?
9758790
No, they just tossed it and decided to go for the bigger course first
9758861
Makes sense the gunship is a buffet and the Z-6 is an appetizer.
I tried to get into this despite the grammar and spelling issues but after Strider slept off an injured leg and then left an unsecured active weapon in a civilian's home without even removing the battery pack and then pretty much acted like an unprofessional twit everywhere he went, I just had to give up. Sorry. I won't down vote because the story had promise. It just needs work.
9759394
Thank you for telling me and I understand. Thanks for reading a few chapters though and I hope you find other stories that are better made than this one.
9758934
As for that, Strider didn't want to go back into that forest until he knew more about it, and his mind was on survival when he was still there. The ponies didn't even know there were clone bodies inside and none seemed to notice what happened to them.
9758861 hey I know you still got a long ways to go and everything but how is he going to handle chrysalis tirek Discord Shadow Tempest the Storm King and all the other villains they faced so far and is it possible he might go to the Equestria Girls World
I could somehow imagine him being a teenager with a hoarse voice and he's like oh no Force Oh no not this
Can he read Pony Books though?