Bounty Hunters 3: Genesis

by Jasper77W

Chapter 70: ...Oh.

Rainbow sat in the black car with Octavia, waiting and listening to the radio. Just a bunch of reports and the like, some final preparations. It was dark outside, she could barely see the other car in front of her- also parked inside a confined space.

Octavia whistled a soft tune, tapping her hooves on the steering wheel. There was a soft rumble that spread from deep underground, and the car rattled a little.

The HUD came online with a soft blue glow, and beeped. "We're almost at our destination." EDI chirped.

"ETA five minutes." AL specified from the same speakers.

Rainbow imagined EDI glaring at her AI counterpart for a second or two.

"Why is she in here with me?" The level three AI asked.

"I'm not actually here. I just have wireless overall control." AL replied.

"Please get her out of my system. I feel violated." EDI said.

"You'll be fine, EDI." Octavia patted the steering wheel.

"Moving our drop ships in position. You sure this'll work?" Vinyl's voice came through the speakers, a little worried.

"Very high likelihood. It's the fastest and safest way directly to the tower- we try air dropping our troops normally and it's gonna suck for us. Their aerial defense is way too advanced for our counters." Rainbow had to yell to be heard, as the area was filled with loud hydraulic whines. Whatever was going on outside, there was a lot of yelling as well.

"You idiot! I said load the damn box in the FRONT! Not with the cars!" Somepony shouted at somepony else.

"At least they aren't sulking in despair." Octavia bumped Rainbow's shoulder with a hoof.

"...yeah."

*

Earlier that day...

"Rainbow! RAINBOW!" Rainbow looked up from the table, in the middle of a conversation with Daring and Octavia. Silver and Vinyl went to cause some more havoc elsewhere in the party.

"Derpy?" Octavia looked a little surprised. "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be resti-"

"There's no time!" The grey pegasus cried, walking unsteadily towards the table. She tried to balance herself out with her wings, but was straining to even lift them up. "The doctor! He needs to see you!"

The two bounty hunters shared a look. Always listen to the doctor, no matter what. Rainbow nodded to Derpy, stood up and bolted for the door. Octavia helped the grey pegasus up and tried to calm her.

One of the guards standing by the doorway saluted as Rainbow passed. She gave a quick wave as she stormed down the hallway, leaving the sounds of the party behind her and replacing them with her own echoing hoofsteps.

*

Present time...

"Should we go over the plan one more time?" Daring spoke through the comms.

"Naw. We're fine. Don't want to over do it and have everypony panicking before we deploy." Rainbow reasoned. "But, let's run over the basics. Strike teams three, four and five; you'll take out the three main energy plants around the city. That should cut power to most of their systems- Valhalla tower has its own power source though, so ignore that. Once you're done with taking out the power, assist our ground troops in destroying the Eastern wall- we've already got that location marked and ready to go. Ground troops, bust through that wall and go straight for their shield generators. Val's plan can't work without those shields!"

"And strike teams one and two?"

"Go straight for the tower and Val. Ground troops surround the city and make sure Val can't execute her plan without taking excessive friendly damage. Team one will go straight for Val. Team two, get ready to blow the tower. From there on if anything changes we'll just have to adapt." Rainbow sighed.

"We're here." EDI said. "Welcome to enemy home base."

*

"Doctor?" Rainbow walked into the room, hanging her hat on a small stand by the door.

"I don't usually see anyone in this state." Doctor Whooves muttered, sitting in a chair with a missing leg and dressed in green hospital uniform. He coughed, and shook his head.

"You wanted to see me."

"I did." The Doctor muttered, tried to stand up; but failed and slumped down again. "It's about this situation with Val."

Rainbow nodded, eyes down.

"I've noticed something strange. The magic faction ponies were enslaved and placed underground to mine for minerals, correct?" He said, staring down at the ground and thinking to himself.

"Mostly metals and crystals with energy qualities." Rainbow replied, nodding.

"Where have these things been going to?" The Doctor asked.

Rainbow was ready to answer straight away. She knew this... But somehow, no words came out. Some forty years or more of mining... All these raw materials... She was left there with her mouth open, unable to answer the question.

"Not more space ships, no..." The Doctor said. "We have no record of more appearing. The factories were shut down since after the rebellion with Celestia, disposed because there was no longer any use for them. And yet still our ponies mined as slaves. Ground units? Perhaps- but the resistance we've encountered so far is way too weak for that. If they concentrated on strengthening their army with those materials we would've lost immediately. They weren't used in constructing cities either, most of the science faction settlements aren't even as advanced as Haven."

"Valhalla is though." Rainbow pointed out.

"Indeed, but Valhalla is almost a century old." The Doctor looked at Rainbow with a calculating gaze.

Rainbow blinked. "Valhalla was constructed five years before the mining projects began."

"Coincidence? Perhaps." The Doctor said to himself. "I took a look at a satellite view of the city. The buildings are quite spaced out, meaning there's lots of space that Valhalla isn't using despite it being the current largest city in the world."

"We haven't seen any new ships emerge. The army hasn't been expanded. These raw materials are seemingly disappearing." Rainbow listed all their points, trying to join them.

"Valhalla is the capital. That could explain why all of the science faction forces are retreating there- but why is the capital in the north west corner of the map in somewhere so remote?"

"Discrepancy." Rainbow paced around the room, tapping her chin. "Val wanted it hidden like Haven."

"But why? It's the capital! Have you seen the weapons they have? The city would've been far more effective placed in the middle of Equestria! Supply routes, long range weapons, the efficiency of all of these things could've been raised significantly if the placement of Valhalla was different." The Doctor was tapping his hooves on the arms of his chair with excitement. "Think about it! It doesn't make sense!"

"Underground." Rainbow gasped. "There has to be something important underground. Under the city." She started running through evidence the Doctor has provided to confirm her theory. "Discrepancy... Secret projects.. Project Ascension, whatever it is; but of course! Raw materials for construction- our monitoring of space and surface leaves the underground unseen, check! The city's spaced out buildings- there must be something far larger beneath the earth- check!"

"And I have a theory as to what it is."

*

Present time...

The loud hum of the drop ship's engines rang inside the car. It was producing more tension than need be.

"Drop ship is all warmed up. We're ready to go." The pilot said, his voice traveling through the ship's speakers.

"Copy that. Waiting on the others." Rainbow sighed, watching a small holographic projection EDI cast up. It showed all the drop ships as either red dots or green dots, red meaning still in preparation while green representing the units that are ready to take off.

Finally the last red light turned green, and Rainbow gave the order.

"All ships are on standby. Captain, whenever you're ready."

*

Shining Armor paced around the bridge of the M.F. ILLUSION, getting everyone in line. This was it. A strike straight into Science Faction home territory- no slip ups would be allowed.

"Captain, we're nearing Valhalla."

"Disengage cloak. Open the hangar bay doors! Drop ships, be on your way!" He yelled, waving a hoof in the air as a signal to slow the space cruiser down. "Escort fighters, you're clear for take off!"

*

"Cabin air pressure, check." Lightning Dust flicked a few switches, sitting pretty in her faithful old Apollo. "Fuel... Eh, gauge's always been broken. Check."

"Drop ships are taking off." The comms buzzed.

"Copy that." Lightning Dust watched as the relatively large drop ships hovered above ground, red flares igniting from their engines. The hangar gates, miles across; slowly slid open. The view of space outside was filtered by a light aqua colored shield, keeping the air inside the ship.

"Aaaand there they go." Lightning Dust commented as the ships left the hangar, diving down towards the earth the moment they emerged.

"Better catch up fillies and gentlecolts." She saw Cloudchaser's Apollo zoom past and fly after the ships.

"Best be on our way." She tapped the side of her helmet, and her HUD integrated visor dropped down. "Time to win this."

*

"Entering the atmosphere." Rainbow heard the report through the comms. She couldn't see anything outside the car except through the front window, mainly due to the fact that the car was encased in a special capsule made for the purposes of orbital or aerial deployment.

"Remember, keep above the cloud cover. Make sure visibility is low for their anti-air. We don't want to get shot down before we even get there." Rainbow reminded the pilots.
"Gliding over the clouds..."

*

Earlier...

"AL told me Val's been talking about this whole Genesis thing." The Doctor said, tapping his chin. "It isn't entirely impossible. Highly plausible, in fact. I know very little about this world you live in, and so far it's had its differences and similarities to mine. Since magic is actually a thing here and isn't the result of extremely advanced science, I can see how something powerful enough to control this entire universe could be birthed from combining the two. Not by pony kind, of course; we're still far too rudimentary for that. Probably an alien race from millions of years ago. Who knows where they are now, but still. They could've figured it out."

"Something buried underneath the city that could be associated with this 'Genesis'... And the Sun..." Rainbow muttered. "Wait, then how come Celestia...?"

"I believe there's been a misconception. They say Celestia is the ruler of the Sun, and Luna is of the night- however not the moon. My theory is that Celestia is the ruler of the DAY, and the two sisters manipulated planetary systems to bring about day and night. It's possible they were never truly in control of the celestial bodies themselves, which also might explain why Luna was banished to the moon and was unable to do anything about it despite the moon being 'in her control'."

"So even if there was something about the Sun, Celestia couldn't have known without actually going there for herself." Rainbow summarized.
"Exactly. Thus she wouldn't have known about Genesis."

"But Val... She knew..." Rainbow pointed out.

"I doubt an alien race advanced enough to construct Genesis would visit our solar system and not visit every single planet in it. It would be as simple as walking from A to B for them. There have to be traces."

"And Val picked up their trail." Rainbow shook her head. "Damnit, that's not important right now. What the hell is under the city?"

"From what I've heard and seen, it would seem Val knew of her corrupt space fleet since before this war. Knowing her, she isn't stupid. She would've kept tabs on everyone. With all her ships possibly sabotaged, she probably wasn't about to use any of them to get her to the sun. No, she needed a straight and safe trip." The Doctor waited for Rainbow to catch up.

"A controlled environment. She needed a ship that she could trust completely, one that she had total control over every single tiny little aspect..."

"And what better way to do that than a capital city where only the elite were allowed in, built from top to bottom with the sole purpose of giving her full control?"

*

Present time...

"Keep their radar jammed until Rainbow gives the order!" Shining Armor yelled across the bridge.

"Captain! Scouts are picking up activity from enemy anti-aircraft batteries!"

"Copy that. Rainbow, there's a chance you've been spotted." Shining Armor made his way to the giant holoscreen in the middle of the bridge. Valhalla was shown as a giant red circle in the center, blue dots and arrows around it showing different friendly squadrons and units. "Magnum, can I have a confirmation on that?"

*

"Yeah. Enemy AAs are pointing skyward." Magnum said, hidden under the stealth coat Applebloom designed. Beneath it she wore a heavy arctic suit, the helmet's visor shielding her eyes and its silver paint job blending anything not covered by the coat into the snow. She lay prone on the edge of a cliff roughly two hundred miles out from Valhalla, safely away from the battle.

"Anything else?" Shining Armor's voice buzzed through the comms. It was accompanied by a dose of static, the Arctic weather disrupting the signal.

"I'm seeing a lot of movement on the Valhalla walls." Magnum muttered, peering through the scope of her ACPW in rifle form. "You sure our ground units aren't within visual contact?"

"Negative. Nearest team is saying they don't even know which direction they're facing."

"Odd. Could be a trap of some sort... As usual."

There was a static filled sigh. "Copy that. I'll tell them to hold up until the strike teams get power to the wall cut."

"I'll keep watch in the meantime." Then she spotted something in the sky. "Uh oh. AAs are lit."

*

"Drop ships are taking fire!" Rainbow yelled. "We're gonna have to deploy soon or we'll lose too many units!" She couldn't see anything being on the inside of one of the ships, but boy was it rocking around.

"We should pull the switch now- this thing can't stand a few hits!" Octavia yelled.

Suddenly their windscreen was filled with a blinding white light, an anti-aircraft shell tearing straight through the area just before them.

"Oh... That ain't good..." Rainbow muttered, peering over the car's hood at the hole in the side of the drop ship.

"Seven's been hit! There's a major hull breach!"

"That's our que." Octavia nudged Rainbow. Bits of aircraft were being sucked outside right now, and the sounds of failing engines were traveling in pretty clear despite the car's armor and the metal egg it was locked inside.

"All units- deploy!" Rainbow yelled.

Gravity seemed to disappear completely for a second. Rainbow saw her own hair floating by her side, a few loose accessories in the car leaving their places and slowly drifting up in the air.

Then everything was shoved against her, gravity slamming against the both of them like a brick wall. It took a second for Rainbow's eyes to adjust, and the moment they did she was greeted with an overview of Valhalla outside the front windshield. Her eyes darted around, seeing the city for the first time outside of a scanned hologram.

"Crap... There goes our ride..." Octavia pointed to the left. A flaming crumbling heap of aircraft slowly fell past, a thick column of smoke following it.

"AL, report." Rainbow made a few adjustments on the car's custom installed navigation systems. It was synced with the shell around the car, a few of its components needing a computer to operate.

"All units have been deployed successfully. We have lost three drop ships, however."

"Order the rest to return immediately." Rainbow flicked a switch. "Stabilizers on."

*

"This is a stupid plan." Magnum muttered, watching through her scope. Streaks of smoke were raining down through the cloud cover down towards Valhalla, at the tip of each one a metal shell with a car incased inside of it. She could see three fireballs as well, probably unlucky drop ships.

"You have a better plan?" A voice asked from behind her.

"Yeah. But it requires everyone to be as good as me." She replied, her metal leg making a soft whine as it shifted.

"Well." The mound of snow behind her shifted. Zealo shuffled over a bit, trying to get a better look at Valhalla's eastern sector. He was using long range binoculars instead of a sniper rifle. "Can't decide if that was narcissism or arrogance. "

"Eeh... Bit of both." Magnum said, tracking the metal pods as they fell from the sky.
Strangely, they weren't taking any fire.

"You know, it's pretty cold out here..."

"Oh, psh. You're a big boy." Magnum moved her scope down to check on the AA batteries. Why weren't they firing...

Zealo shuffled a little closer. "I don't think my suit's working."

"You know, I'm starting to feel more and more like the male in the relationship." Magnum chuckled, giving him a poke in the ribs.

"That's because you're this badass world-famous sniper and I'm just a- whoa, what's going on here?" He pointed his binoculars at the Valhalla wall a little bit to the east.

"No idea." Magnum said a second later, tearing her eyes off of the burning anti-air guns.

*

"Captain!"

Shining Armor turned around. A young officer with a blue sleeked back mane approached. He nodded for him to continue.

"We're receiving reports that enemy anti-air guns have been neutralized! Along with most of their long range weaponry!" The officer said. Clearly he also seemed uncertain of this information.

Shining Armor considered that for a moment. Could it be his own troops? Probably not, as Valhalla's long range rail-guns were placed in the city center... "Get Magnum on the line." He waved.

"Yes sir!"

A second later the connection was made. Shining Armor opened his mouth to speak, but Magnum got there first.

"Captain! I don't know what's going on but- I'm looking at the eastern Valhalla wall-"

"Get me a feed from the recon team." Shining Armor gestured for the officer to move.

A large holoscreen popped up, a distant shot of the section of the wall that magic faction troops were readying to attack.

"It... It looks like the science faction is turning on itself!" Magnum's voice was a little staticky from weather interference.

Shining Armor didn't say anything for a second. He stared at the feed from the recon team- there were flashes and flares of light coming on here and there across the top of the wall, clearly from energy grenades or explosions. Occasionally he could see a streak of light or two- presumably stray fire.

"You think they're trying to fool us into attacking them?" He raised an eyebrow at the unlikely conflict.

"Dunno. Looks pretty real from here." Magnum said.

"Alright. Wait till we can get more information- we'll have the strike teams give us a trustworthy report before we go on ahead."

"Copy that."

*

"That's a pretty sight and all, but can they please hurry up and shoot them down already?" Val watched from the hole in the wall of Valhalla tower, made during her fight with Blithy. Bright sunlight shone through it and cast a warm shadow across the throne room.

Blithy followed her line of sight, up towards the cloud cover. She wasn't quite sure what she was seeing. These lines of smoke drawn from the clouds, slowly falling down towards the city- were these a part of Rainbow's plans?

They better be.

Val noticed something a little below the horizon line, down towards the city. She had a second to register what it was, before it exploded against the tower's overshield. She covered her eyes from the bright burst of light, cursing. The blue shield a few meters away flickered for a while, regaining its energy. Then it faded back to its usual invisible state. No damage done, but who the hell shot that?

"HEX? What's going on?"

"It would seem that the conspiracy theory I gave a 0.01% chance of actually happening is happening." The AI replied thoughtfully. "I should reboot."

"No, leave it be." Val held up a hand. She looked around her at the city- large columns of smoke were rising from multiple large fires, most of them coming from her beloved rail-guns. She peered at the wall- looks like anti-aircraft batteries were down too.

There was a loud electric bang, and suddenly the large screen behind the throne winked off. Lights flickered out one by one, an ever present hum that nopony noticed suddenly dying away. All was left in an eery silence, accompanied by the distant sounds of an unexpected battle in the background.

Val took a look around, her one bright cybernetic eye shining into the darkness behind her that was once the throne room. Blithy looked up, as clueless of the current situation as the Empress was.

"Well..." Val looked up at the ceiling. The empty lights seemed to stare back at her. "This is more than unexpected."

"Backup generators online." Valhalla tower's default computer voice chirped happily. The hum was brought back with a loud whir, and one by one the lights came back on again. The screen behind the throne flickered, slowly charging up.

"Warning: major power outage. Warning: overshield disabled." HEX was brought back online again, and was in a state where she wasn't fully in control of anything. That state lasted for a few seconds as she finished up a list of warning reports. "Empress, I am back in service."

"Good, good." Val said. "Updates?"

"Rogue forces have destroyed several major internal power plants. Our security forces are keeping them at bay, and I have placed the tower under lockdown."

"I have programmed you well."

"Thank you." Val could imagine HEX bowing her head. "Incoming transmission from East Valhalla. Friendly unit."

"Accept." Val waved a hand in dismissal.

"Connecting..."

A holoscreen popped up in front of the cyberpony, and she frowned.

"Empress! We're under attack! It looks like somepony organized a coup- ACK!" An explosion tore through the background. The pony speaking was a green unicorn, and Val could see the badges on his chest. Some commander of some unit. "We're being hit from all sides! We don't know who to trust-"

"Yes, yes; I can see that." Val rolled her eyes in a 'I really don't care' manner. "Give me something useful."

"I..." The commander was at a loss for words. Val watched a prism beam hit his temple, and the screen flashed. In the next shot it was on the ground, a tiny splatter of blood in the bottom left corner. A few armored hooves stomped past, loud obvious gunshots echoing through to the camera.

"I was pretty sure this city didn't have any traitors in it." Val raised an eyebrow.

"It's over Val, just give it up!" Blithy yelled from beside the throne.

"You organized this?" Val jabbed a finger outside.

"Well, no... But..." Blithy shook her head. "Whatever. You're done. Valhalla's gone, whatever your plan is it's dead!"

"Actually, my plan will always be alive as long as I live." Val shrugged. "Also, you really are adorable when you stutter like that."

"Wha...? I-I-"

'You're an idiot. Shut up already.' Valkyrie face hoofed.

Val's attention was already on the screen again, however. Somepony had picked it up, and was looking down at it. Val didn't like this camera angle- it made the pony on the other side seem a little bit more superior. Just a little.

The pony holding the camera was calm. She had a little smirk on her face, as if Val already lost the game. Despite the battle still raging on behind her, she was taking her time to enjoy the moment. She was dressed in blue Science Faction infantry armor, but she didn't have her helmet.

"Well well well..." Val folded her arms, raising an eyebrow. "Who is this little pony I haven't even heard about before?"

"You may want to look again." The pony said, her smirk twisting into a nasty grin.

There was a flash of green light.

"...Oh." Even Val was surprised.

"How are you doing... Empress Valkyrie?" A half pony half insect creature hissed. Her voice seemed to echo within itself. "I love what you've done with your city, but... I'm afraid I'm going to have to take it from here. After all, Equestria can only have one queen."

Comments

[Midnight_flame]

Did not see that come at all