> friendship and violence
>  by trebthegamer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> SPAAAAACE!!!!  ch. 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

violence and friendship ch1

Chapter 1: spaaaaaaace!


It was an exciting day in ponyville. A pony had built himself a rocket to visit the moon without magic. The fields next to ponyville were perfect for the launch. There was a big celebration in honor of the new achievement. Ponies from all over Equestria had come to see this astounding achievement. Even princess Celestia and Princess Luna had visited to see the astropony achieve this great feat. Amidst the crowd Twilight sparkle was searching for somepony.

"Who are ya looking for twilight?" Applejack asked her.

"Oh, hey Applejack. I was looking for Pinkie Pie." she said. Applejack looked confused

"Pinkie Pie? It can't be that hard to find her. Why I bet she's the center of the party as usual."

Twilight looked worried "That's just it. She's nowhere to be seen."

"Strange, usually she's everywhere at once." Applejack responded

"Let's try and find Rainbow Dash. Maybe Pinkie's hanging around her."

"Great idea!" Twilight agreed.

"I think she's trying to impress the wonderbolts. They're having a practice race near carrousel boutique."

On their way there, Applejack was becoming a bit interested in why the rocket was so popular.

"Why's this rocket so impressive? I mean, we got Pegasus ponies, and they fly all the time. Heck, we all know princess Luna was imprisoned in the moon."

"I know" said Twilight "But the pony going is an earth pony, and even the wonderbolts can't fly to space. Besides, Princess Luna imprisoned using the elements of harmony in a magical spell. The pony going is doing this without powerful magic or wings."

As they walked past all the celebrating they looked not only for Pinkie, but also for activities they might want to do after they were done looking for her. Many entertainers and sales ponies had come to ponyville. The town was crowded like never before.

"Weren't you selling apple pies?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah but its Big Mac's turn to watch the stand. Besides, the entire family is here to help out too."

As they approached the boutique, they saw a rainbow and fire line flash across the sky. Dash had convinced spitfire to race her. The race was attracting quite a crowd for their friendly match. As Dash soared past some roofs she thought to herself "Now this is what I call hanging out."

The race would end at the boutique where the other wonder bolts were waiting.

"I don't see Pinkie anywhere," Applejack started,

"But I think Rainbow Dash will know where she is, seeing as she's probably flown all over ponyville by now."

While they waited for Rainbow Dash to finish the race, they visited Rarity who had just closed her shop. Twilight looked confused

"Rarity, aren't you going to take dress orders from ponies? I'm sure there are quite a few interested in your designs."

Rarity smiled and said "Oh but I have. There were a lot of ponies here this morning. With the orders I have now, I'll be busy for months. But enough about the boutique, what brings you here?"

Twilight told Rarity about pinkie's surprising absence.

Rarity thought for a second, and asked, "Have you tried sugarcube corner?"

"Yes" Twilight responded "and Mr. and Mrs. Cake haven't seen her since she ran out this morning."

Rarity obtained a dumbfounded look on her face. "It isn't like pinkie to run off during a celebration."

"That's why we're concerned."

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Spitfire had just finished their race.

"A tie"

"A tie, are you kidding me? I know I can beat you!" yelled dash, eagerly flying back to the starting line to start another race "Second try?"

"Hold on now, we raced all across Ponyville, and beyond, and I'm completely exhausted. I can tell that you aren't exactly in the condition for another race either. Why don't we take a break?" Spitfire suggested. "We can race some other time, let's settle down and enjoy this event." With that, she turned and walked away, her figure slowly disappearing in the distance.

Applejack popped up behind Dash and said "You know she's right. You're breathing harder than Winona after a hard day's work."

"Oh yeah? Well…I still could've beaten her" Dash replied, annoyed.

Twilight jumped in "We know you could, but while you were flying, did you spot Pinkie anywhere?"

Rainbow Dash thought for a second and said "I think I saw her at Fluttershy's home."

"What is she doing there? Fluttershy's place is the only quiet place left in town. There's no party there." Twilight told them.

"Beats me." said Rainbow Dash. "Let's see if she's still there. If not, then we can ask Fluttershy." she said as she flew off, now curious as to what Pinkie Pie could be up to.

As applejack and Twilight followed, Rarity joined them, saying "I'd like to know what that pink ball of spazz is up to as well."

________________________________________________________________________
At Fluttershy's home, Fluttershy and Spike were helping the animals relax.

"Thank you again for helping, but wouldn't you like to enjoy the party?" Fluttershy asked him.

"Ah it's nothing, and besides with the crowd out there, I've been knocked around more than a beach ball. And unlike a beach ball I can feel pain." said spike as he tried to get some squirrels off his head. "Though it seems as if every animal from around ponyville is here too."

Immediately after he said that another 20 squirrels jumped on his head knocking him off balance.

Fluttershy helped Spike get the squirrels off him as she said "They came here because this is the only quiet place left."

"I know, and I feel the same way they do." Spike said, just as Twilight and the other ponies arrived.

"I see Spike is still trying to work with animals." said Twilight.

Fluttershy responded "Oh he's getting better at it. The animals seem to like him."

As Spike dizzily tried to get up, he was immediately pounced by a group of bunnies.

Twilight and the others snickered at this sight, before Twilight remembered the reason they we're here. She looked at Fluttershy and asked, "Was Pinkie Pie here a few minutes ago?"

"Why yes" Fluttershy responded "she was here asking for more party materials like confetti and balloons."

This confused Twilight "But everything has been settled already for this festival. There's no need for more party materials."

"This is Pinkie Pie we're talking about," said Dash "It's never enough party for her."

Spike jumped back up from under the many animals and stated "I'm pretty sure she'll pop out any moment. Let's just go enjoy the celebration again and I'm sure we'll find her eventually."

Twilight thought for a second, and finally said, "You're probably right, I'm worrying too much."

Applejack made a little jump and joyfully said "Then we can all go together! You're coming too, right Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy hesitated to respond but Spike cut in as he jumped on Twilights back, "Sure she will. It's not like we will be gone for long."

Fluttershy dug her hoof at the ground for a moment, and then whispered, "Ok."

_______________________________________________________________________

It was as if all of Equestria had come to ponyville. The streets were full of different colored ponies, most of them enjoying the festivities and waiting for the moment of the launch. Some ponies had come to set up small shops.

There were a few ponies going around giving flyers with info about the locations of several special performances, and about the rocket. Twilight intrigued by this new technology, so she got one and 'glued' her eyes to it. The note described some minor things like how the engines used crystals, and how they were powerful enough to get to the moon in seconds. Also noted was that Luna would hold the moon in its course, as the rocket was designed to fly in a straight line.

As the ponies walked past the many stands, they were amazed with the items they saw, some of which they had never seen before. They stopped to look at some very durable backpacks. Applejack decided to buy one, since it could be useful on Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity found a new set of high quality instruments for sewing. Applejack had agreed to carry everything they bought with her.

After looking around the stands they decided to try and talk to Princess Celestia. She was holding audiences in wait for the moment of launch. Twilight and her friends wanted to talk to Celestia, but the line was way too long to stand in.

"This reminds me a lot of the gala." Twilight said, disappointedly.

Rarity could tell Twilight was bummed out, and suggested that they look around and have some fun until the rocket launched. Twilight looked up and smiled in approval. "That sounds like a good idea. First though, I want to take a look at this rocket."

________________________________________________________________________

The giant spacecraft was well built, by several ponies. There was a Royal Guard at the door. Oddly, there was a small gift next to the guard. Rainbow Dash couldn't resist trying to get a response from one of these normally serious guards. "What's with the gift?" she asked, expecting the same silent act all the other guards gave her.

The guard was less experienced than the usual royal guards. He dropped his posture, and responded, "It's for the pony that's going to pilot the rocket. It's a gift from Princess Celestia."

Then he realized he failed to keep up his posture.

Rainbow Dash's face lit up like a candle. "Ha!! I knew somepony wouldn't be able to keep the statue act up."

"Yeah yeah, just don't go throwing the news around." The guard said, a bit annoyed at Rainbow.

When the guard saw twilight he straightened up a bit. "Miss Sparkle can you do me a favor?" he asked her.

"How can I help?"

"Well, your pink friend is in the rocket preparing a surprise for the astropony by request of Princess Celestia. She forgot to take this gift along but I can't leave my post."

"What's in this box anyway?" applejack asked.

The guard replied "Well it's a magical orb that will always point to Canterlot. She's pretty sure he won't need it but you can never be too safe. Can you bring it to your friend?"

Twilight nodded "Sure I will. I kind of want to see what the inside looks like. Mind if my friends come too?"

"As long as they don't touch anything." said the guard.

Though that got the other pony's thinking pinkie was more of a pony to do something like that.

Spike jumped off Twilights back. "If we can get this close, I want to take a closer look at those thrusters. I heard they were based off of my species."

Twilight giggled and said "They're based on adult dragons, silly."

Spike replied "I still want to see them up close, they sound awesome."

Spike ran towards the underpass built so the flames wouldn't destroy anything during the launch.

Twilight and her friends entered the rocket as the guard opened the steel door for them. He shut it behind them, just so people who weren't authorized to go in couldn't enter. When they reached the main chamber of the rocket they found Pinkie Pie on a stool trying to hang up a big banner above the front window that said in big words 'Come Home Safely'.

Fluttershy flew up to pinkie and asked her softly "Do you need any help with that?"

Pinkie pie responded "Nope. I can handle it Fluttershy."

After a small silence Pinkie realized her friends weren't supposed to be in the rocket and lost her balance, but of course Dash was already there to keep her from falling.

"Guys, you're not supposed to be in here." Pinkie told her friends sternly. Twilight explained that the guard asked them to bring the gift from Celestia.

"Oh silly me." said Pinkie cheerfully "How could I forget the most important part of this surprise?"

She took the present and placed it in a compartment under the control panel. Pinkie explained how the compartment would open when the astropony entered the main chamber.

___________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile outside Snips and Snails had snuck onto the main podium. "See, I told you I'd get us on stage." he proudly told his friend.

"Great job getting us here and all but, what exactly do we do now?" Snails asked. Snips hadn't really thought about why he wanted to be on stage in the first place, but they didn't have time to say anything before they had to hide under the stage from guards passing by. Snails used his horn to make some light under the dark stage. "Hey, check it out!" Snails exclaimed as he pointed to a strange device with only one button. "What do you think it is?" Snails asked. Snips stuck his chin up as if he was a genius and announced "Why, that's the launch button of course! Princess Celestia will press it when they launch the rocket." Snails, who was slow to understand even the simplest things, still looked a bit confused. Snips got a bit annoyed by the look on his face, and yelled "She'll press it like this!" he pressed the button. Snips then realized what he had just done. His pupils widened. "Oh crap." __________________________________________________________________

In the rocket Rarity was admiring that the floor was made out of pillows. "How royal these pillow floors are, though they would've looked better in red." "I don't think they're just for fashion or comfort Rarity." Twilight explained. just as she finished explaining the purpose to Rarity, the entire rocket started to shake and it was getting harder for the ponies to stand up. In a few minutes they were all pressed against the soft pillow floor.

After what seemed like hours the ponies could get back up, though they were floating instead of standing. "What's going on?" Rainbow Dash asked nervously. Twilight looked out the window, and said in a panicked voice, "I fear we were accidentally launched." Rarity shared the feeling. "can't you turn this thing around?" Twilight sadly admitted to them, "I don't know how to, and even if I did know, I still don't know how to land it." Then she thought of Spike "I hope Spike's ok, he was under the rocket when it launched."

________________________________________________________

Back in Equestria spike was ok but a lot of pony's were panicking. "Being fireproof saved me again." Said spike, then he looked up to see the vanishing smoke trail of the rocket. Spike shouted out "Oh no! Where's Twilight and her friends?! Were they still inside when it launched?!" The guard who was guarding the main door was in quite a shock and a bit gray from the smoke. He shook his head, and looked into the exhaust pit where he saw spike trying to get out. He swiftly flew down and brought him out of the pit. Spike was still panicking "Twilight? Rainbow Dash? AJ? Rarity? Pinkie? Fluttershy? Did any of them get out before that thing went off?" the guard shook his head.

Spike rushed to Princess Celestia hoping she could get them back. After Spike brought her the news, Celestia looked up and used all her magic to try and find Twilight and her friends. She tried so hard, she was straining. Then she stopped, looked down and said "Unfortunately, they're too far away for me to find them."

"Already?" one of the ponies who worked on the rocket asked in shock. "I knew giving it 4 of those dragon like engines was too much. Why, if the moon was in its correct place they would've smashed into it."

Princess Celestia was having a hard time keeping her patience. Nothing this serious had ever happened before. She looked around, then said as calmly as she could, "It doesn't matter what would've happened, what matters is what did happen, and what needs to happen; finding a way to get them back safely." She looked up into the sky, and hoped somehow they would land somewhere safe.

> Common Everyday Violence ch. 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

F and V chapter 2

Chapter 2: Common Everyday Violence 

In the Badlands, there were several deadly mercenaries fighting over a plot of land. Though it was as violent and bloody as any real war had been, this place was much more laidback. While everyone fired their guns, some were laughing, others taunting, and others singing or even dancing in the midst of all the violence. 

On the bridge of Teufort, (also called 2fort) a blue heavy was shooting his way towards the enemy, red's, base, proclaiming that he was bulletproof. A loud bang proved him wrong. As he crumpled to the ground, a loud Australian voice could be heard saying, "I just bagged the worlds fattest man!" On the balcony of the red base was the cool headed sniper who had just managed to execute a headshot on the blue team's heavy. He looked through the scope of his rifle and searched the field for a new target. Below him, a heavy from his side came out of the base followed closely by his Medic. The duo mowed down any blue team member standing in their way to their objective - the blue base. More red members came out of the base to follow this mighty pair into their destination. 

The Sniper relaxed a bit since the fight was now out of his hands. It was up to his teammates at this point. Still, his eyes scanned the battlefield for targets that managed to slip by the rest of his men when he suddenly felt a presence next to him. Pulling his kukri out, the Australian turned around sharply only to notice Scout, his Scout, relaxing near the metal plates. Sniper carefully drew his kukri back, relaxing his hands on the sniper rifle before taking his seat. "Aren't you going to cap the Intel?" he asked him in a calm, gruff manner. 

The Scout immediately jumped up. "Not yet, pal! I'm waiting for the right moment." 

Sniper gave the young Boston runner a quick glance before asking, "And when might that be?" 

The younger man brought a finger to his lips. The Sniper shot him a confused expression. "Shh…listen," the Scout whispered out to him, smiling suspiciously. Soon, the sound of exploding machinery filled the eerie silence. "Sentry's down!" The Scout now flashed the older a smug smile, twirling his weapon, a baseball bat, around before gripping it firmly. "Now my way is free!" He double jumped onto the roof of the bridge, beaming with pride. "Man! I am just that good!" 

"That's no skill," the Sniper scoffed, going back to his sniper rifle, "ya little gremlin."

Near the blue team's spawn room, the red soldier had just blown a blue engineer to bits. Body parts and blood splattered everywhere only to land in a disgusting, mangled heap of limbs. "You just got dominated, toymaker!" The soldier bellowed with the sound of accomplishment thick in his voice.

"Thanks for getting rid of him!" A voice called out suddenly. Soldier turned around to see that the voice came from the young Scout who had just passed him, running into the spiral staircase before a reply could be returned. He looked on quietly when Demoman clumsily stumbled in from the courtyard. Turning around with a sneer, the Soldier should have known that the Scottish man would waltz in as drunk as he's always been. Not a day went by that red team didn't see Demo in a haze of alcohol. "Drunk on the battle field again I see," said the Soldier with a disapproving tone. 

The Demoman had not quite understood what was said to him, brain barely putting any words together at this point. "Eh? Forget about that," the man said, waving the subject off to the side not with much protest from the Soldier. "Ya see, I got a great idea." A hiccup. "Look." Readying his gun, the Demo proceeded to place several stickybombs on the exit of the blue spawn. 

Soldier felt insulted. With pride rippling through his system, the code of honor thick in his soul, the gruff American spun to face his Scottish teammate. "This is not how you fight a man!" This only received a dazed and empty look from the Demo. "No! You lunge at 'em and scream loudly! You look them in the eyes before you blow him to bits! Now that is how you fight!" 

The Demo scoffed at the idea before giving in his two-cents worth. "You want me to look 'em in the eyes?" Walking up to the blue team's spawn exist, he took a gulp from his bottle and waited in an aura of confidence. A second later, a blue Heavy came out of the spawn prepared to fight. But, it wasn't the familiar walls of blue that he saw. No. In front of him, staring back, were the eyes that belonged to an enemy Demo with a drunk, delighted grin. Before Heavy could respond in a hail of bullets, the enemy went to detonate the stickybombs, the stickybombs that he failed to realize. A small spark was heard, followed by a loud, ear shattering explosion that launched giblets of the blue Heavy everywhere. 

Demoman smiled to himself, feeling rather accomplished. "See? I looked him in the eye." He placed a new bunch of stickies as he talked to the Soldier. "Now again for the eye I'm missing." The Soldier grunted, clearly annoyed.

In the blue base hub, the red Scout had finally met up with his fellow Heavy and Medic, barely winded and still filled to the brim with unused energy. All three of them where continued onward, only to be stopped by another blue Engineer who had set up his sentry in the Intel room. The Scout stared, most clearly distraught. A feeling of uneasiness managed to crawl its way up his back. "You've gotta be kiddin' me! The uber is only 50% ready, ain't it?" The young boy turned to look at the medic, a look of anger already tinting his features.

"It cannot go any faster," the medic replied in a lackluster tone. "Unless you want to donate your own blood." A hint of unnerving evil colored his words which, immediately, caused the Scout jumped back.

"Uh, no way! I have a hard time keeping all my blood inside my body thanks to those sentries. I don't need you helping their effort." 

As the two exchanged words, the Heavy had been busy wrestling with the enemy Soldier. It didn't take long until the blue team member was caught in a headlock, yelling, swearing and scrambling to get out of the Heavy's tight grip. It was all in vain. "Maybe this baby can help," he said calmly, not showing any signs of struggle as the Soldier fought against him.

"You do not frighten me!" The Soldier spat. "Pain does not hurt!" Seemingly interested, the Medic sawed his übersaw between his ribs. An unbelievable surge of fire engulfed the man's body, making every nerve to light up. "I stand corrected!" 

As the Heavy tossed the blue Soldier's body aside, Medic went to check on his uber. "That still only gets it to seventy-five percent." No sound of disappointment was evident, but a lack of a smile or even a glint of apprehension said it all. "We can build up the remaining twenty-five on the way back." The three of them nodded and turned around, switching plans and objective when they suddenly ran into the red Spy. 

He looked calm, clean and dangerous - the usual. On his back was a blue briefcase, packed with papers, precious papers, that the enemy team cherished and protected viciously. It was their intel. Spotting the three in front, the Spy went to grab the briefcase, throwing it over to the young Scout swiftly. "Take this back to base. The others and I will stall the blues." He flicked his cigarette away and immediately lit a new one. "Medic's uber will prove to be quite useful." 

Smiling as he swept the enemy intel on his back, small words of disbelief and happiness managed to sneak out of the Scout's lips. "Gotcha!" And, in a flash, he ran out of the room, his three teammates following to provide cover.

Meanwhile, in the red Intel room, the red Engineer was upgrading his dispenser. Running out of the main room to grab some extra metal after having wasted the last, an ominous beeping started to fill his ears. "A spy," he murmured to himself after the first few beeps. "A Spy is sapping my sentry!" In a rush, the Engineer sprinted back to the Intel room only to see the wispy haze of an enemy Spy that had already picked up their briefcase. The two locked eyes and, for that moment, it was clear what was at stake here. Almost instantly, they both drew their guns out but, before a single shot was fired, a beeping noise sounded followed by a loud and violent explosion coming from the sentry. The force blew the Spy to bits. 

Near the sentry was a Pyro holding the homewrecker, turning his head side to side to survey the area. Seems like the intel was safe again. "Thanks Pyro. I dropped my guard for one second," Engineer said, smiling at his teammate as he felt a load of stress lift off his shoulders. The Pyro mumbled something under his mask, something that sounded like 'watch out next time'. It was always quite difficult to decipher what the firebug was saying, or, rather, was trying to say. 

Not a few seconds had passed when the sound of soft taps started sprinting down the tiled floors. Another blue team member? Was it a heavy and a medic combo? It would spell doom seeing as how their defense, the sentry, was nearly obliterated. Both the Engineer and the Pyro looked back with agitation.

To their relief, it was only their Scout who had a grin plastered on his face. With the intel on his back, the young Boston whipped it off and threw it on over to the desk next to their own intel. As the suitcase slid across the wooden surface, a voice from the speakers announced their victory. The Scout shouted and jumped in jubilation, both Engineer and Pyro reveling in their victory in overjoyed silence.

Soon, the entirety of the red team gathered in the courtyard. "Is good day to be giant man," announced the Heavy in satisfaction. 

The Soldier saluted. "Every one of you deserves a medal!" 

This was another common day for the team. 

"Ok mates, the usual. I bet them blue wankers won't be spawning for a few hours. Get something to eat and meet back in spawn when another attack is announced," the Sniper said. If he was nearly as happy as any other member of the team, his voice didn't show it. After all, he was much more reserved than most. Turning around, the Australian went off to go to his van which was parked nearby. Once inside, he made himself a cup of refreshing and well deserved coffee.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the rocket, the ponies had kept their calm and were trying to come up with a way to get back home. Everyone except for Pinkie Pie who had started to play 'I Spy' with some binoculars she found earlier. 

"I spy with my little eye something…white!" She sounded rather amused, busying herself with her own little game as the other ponies were hard at work, trying to find a way to turn the rocket around. 

"It's a star," a voice called out. "That's been the answer for hours now!" It was the voice belonging to Rainbow Dash who, at this point, was well beyond annoyed. 

"Try asking us when it's not a star," Twilight suggested, siding with Rainbow Dash. Maybe with Pinkie Pie surveying out before them, she could tell them if she found something useful. "Okay, so messing with the controls only resulted in the engines stopping." A small pause. "I guess that counts for something." 

As Twilight continued talking, the footsteps coming from both Fluttershy and Applejack came up before them. They had just returned from a lower part of the rocket. "We checked for food and found a few apples," Applejack began, "and Fluttershy found some hay but it'll only last a day. Maybe two if we don't eat much." 

"Alright! Rarity and Rainbow Dash have been looking if there was something we can use to contact, um, well anyone!" Pinkie pie suddenly shouted. It was a brief moment of conversation however, for she soon sunk back to her little game. "Ooh, ohh! I spy with my little eye something red!" 

Twilight sighed. "Please don't let that be a comet coming our way." 

Pinkie only giggled at the comment. "Wrong. It was a barn." 

"A barn? Pinky there's no barns in space," said Applejack rather matter-o-factly. 

Pinkie giggled once more. "Of course not, but there's one now! I can even see it without my binoculars now." Before the other ponies had well realized what this meant, the rocket crashed into the barn outside of Teufort. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The crash had not gone unnoticed by the red team. After all, it would be rather hard to for the impact caused the ground beneath the men of red team to quake violently. Even the Demoman had sobered up a bit, looking around in confusion and interest. 

Looking outside almost immediately to investigate what had just happened, Sniper spotted a shadowy figure jutting out of what looked to be their barn. Whipping his sniper rifle out to get a closer look, the hazy image began to make itself clearer. It looked as if a large rocket was sitting in the middle of the barn. Well, half the barn for the crash caused half of it to crumble and break apart. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the farm, the ponies managed to get out of the rocket, falling out to the inside part of the barn that they had managed not to destroy. All of them were still dizzy from the crash, but Twilight was the first to speak up.

"Every pony ok?" Her voice was that of concern as she tried to get an understanding of her surroundings.

"I'll survive, but my mane probably didn't," said Rarity, disappointed. 

Rainbow Dash flew above them, shaking the dust and debris off of her. "I got up from worse." 

Fluttershy came out of the rocket, telling them all that she was just fine. 

Following her was an overly excited Pinkie Pie, her eyes wide and body filled with adrenaline. "Can we do that again?" 

Applejack ignored her, much more concerned about what had just happened. "Did we land in the applefarm?" 

"I doubt it. It has a lot of things in common with it though," Twilight responded as she looked around the barn. "At least they have hay here so we won't starve."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the battlements, red team had joined with Sniper to see what caused the ruckus. "Some spaceship crashed into the barn again," announced the Sniper. 

"Great! More resources from the spacemarines! I must go and collect my weapons." Soldier tried to head for the barn but sniper extended his arm out, stopping the man in his tracks.

"Last time you got lucky it didn't explode. I doubt if you go you'll have the same luck you had last time." 

Heavy, still looking towards the barn, noticed strange and unfamiliar movement. "Something came out," he told the team, steering all their attention to the crash once more. 

The Medic then took the lead. "Well Heavy, Engineer, Pyro and myself will go investigate. If it's something against us, we'll destroy it. If we find weapons, we'll see who can use them. " Before anyone could complain, medic's team had already left to check out the rocket. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the barn, the ponies had recovered from the crash and were now deciding what to do next. 

"Well, since there is a barn here, that means someone must have build it! They'll be here any second after hearing the crash and maybe they'll help us!" 

"I don't know," said Pinkie Pie with concern and doubt. "I took a look outside. The place is basically a desert. Not much buildings around." 

Applejack took a second to look around the barn. "She's right. This place doesn't look like it's been used much." Much disappointment.

"I have a suggestion," Rainbow Dash called out, flapping her wings before ascending into the air. "I can go look for someone and bring them back here to help!" 

Twilight nodded, quite pleased with the idea. "That might help, but be careful! We don't know what's out there or if it's even friendly." 

Rainbow Dash nodded, smiling as she had done so. "Oh, I'll be fine," she reassured before soaring through the air and out of view from the pony's. 

Busy with her mission, the young pony failed to realize a little group traveling towards the barn. Sniper, however, had noticed Rainbow Dash as she headed their way. 

It was quite a confusing sight. None of the members of red team had ever seen a horse of that nature. Some never even had seen a horse - period."Bloody hell," Sniper muttered under his breath as the pony continued to fly high in the sky. "It's a flying blue horse with rainbows for manes." 

"Oh, non! The new weapons were made to work against Scout," sneered Spy, quite pleased with the joke he made. 

The Scout instantly shoved Spy, a red color blooming in his cheeks. Embarrassment was not part of the game right now. "I don't care who it's for," he shouted, gritting his teeth together, "I just want to take a closer look at it!" 

"Let's take cover until it gets closer. Then, when the time comes, we'll get it down somehow," suggested Sniper. 

As the team took cover in the red base, Rainbow Dash flew over in blissful unawareness. She circled around the base looking for anything and anyone to help her and her fellow ponies out of their little predicament. Suddenly, without warning, Soldier jumped out of his cover with a loud, booming voice.

"Surrender now and you will not be harmed!" He ordered before firing a critical rocket at the pony's direction. A loud explosions sounded, sending dust and debris flying effortlessly through the air. The rest of the red team stared in disbelief before turning their emotions to that of clear and evident anger. 

"You imbecile!" 

"What is your problem?"

"We tried to get it in one piece, you mongrel. Now it's all over the place!" 

Soldier looked confused. "You wanted it down, so it's down! Mission accomplished!" 

"You lassies are all so quick to judge," Demo scoffed, waving a hand at them as if to shush them all. "I'm missing an eye and even I can see the thing is still in one piece! I think it's even alive! See?" The Scottish man pointed at the battlements in front of the base as the dust and smoke started to fade away. The entirety of red team clammered over Demo's shoulder to see the true extent of damage that had been done on the unnatural, blue pony.

Coughing, Dash was stunned that she was hit with such a force. "Anyone see the dragon that hit me?!" 

"It talks too?" Scout, who had ran closer, had heard her. He was wide-eyed with amazement and, soon, the others were following in his footsteps. 

"Maybe it can tell us what it's doing here," said the Spy. 

"These lands have been off limits ever since the fight began," Sniper mumbled, deep in thought. "It looks like a small horse, but it flies, it's blue and a crocket only stuns it. And now, apparently it can talk. What in the blazes have we found here?" 

Dash got back to her senses, shaking the dust from off of her. Standing up, she braced herself for what she feared was to come, glaring at all the men in front of her. "What did you guys throw at me? That hurt you know!" Anger was evident in her voice and she had no intentions of backing down. "Which one of you did it?" 

Deciding it was a great time to see just what they were dealing with, Demoman decided to grab the soldier, instantly pushing him forward. "This is the man that shot you." 

Soldier saw this as a request to test their new discovery and pulled out his shovel in blind, gallant bravery. "If you know what's good for you, you will run!" He approached Rainbow Dash, lifting his shovel as he made an attempt to strike down at her. But before Soldier even opened his mouth to talk, before he even whipped his shovel out, Dash knew he was bad news. Quickly, she turned around and gave him a sharp kick to the gut. The force knocked the soldier off balance and, clumsily, he fell straight in to the water. 

Demoman looked down over the bridge and, upon spotting his fallen teammate, started laughing loudly. It didn't help that Soldier started screaming for their medic - It was quite a pathetic scene. 

"Can't say he didn't deserve that," said the Sniper. 

Spy, unlike the other men, decided to try and clear a few things up for the lost and confused Dash. "Our apologies for what happened earlier. But are you by any chance from the rocket that hit the barn? And if I may be so bold as to ask what you are?" 

The pony gave him a questionable look. "What? You guys never seen a Pegasus pony before?"

Scout inspected the wings on the creature, looking incredibly interested. "Ponies, yeah. But Pegasus ones? No. Ponies here aren't blue and they don't talk...wow these are actual real wings!" 

Rainbow Dash snapped her wings shut. "Of course they're real! And they're mine! You're looking at the fastest pony in all of Equestria." 

The sniper looked at Spy who merely shrugged. "Hate to break it to you, but we never heard of a quest… mia?" 

"It's Equestria and it's filled with ponies like me. There's different kinds like…" 

Sniper interrupted Dash before she had a chance to finish. "That's okay. We don't need a history of where you're from yet. What's more important is why are you here at the Badlands?"

Dash looked at the men in front of her, and, after some time, realized that they had no intentions of actually hurting her. Not anymore anyway. "You're right," she admitted. "It's a bit of a long story." 

"Don't worry, lassie. As long as the angry lady doesn't announce another fight, we got time," reassured the Demoman. And, after he had said those words, Dash began to explain what happened to her and the rest of the ponies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy had noticed the other red team members approaching the barn, running back and frantically warning the others. Twilight jumped to the exposed part of the barn, eyes searching the lands to see the group of men coming their way. 

"They don't look too friendly. Maybe we should hide?" 

Applejack looked skeptic. "Maybe, but I think they know we're here since Rainbow Dash flew outside."

Twilight considered her words, but the hanging feeling of fear failed to dissipate.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Shouldn't we go back to base?" Heavy asked. Medic only rolled his eyes at the question.

"No, my friend. The other guys can handle it. I think I heard them blowing it up anyway." 

"Guess we'll have to piece it back together to see what it was. You know, unless it's as strong as heavy," said the Engineer. 

Medic laughed at the response. "Knowing soldier's luck with crits, it is probably all over Teufort." 

After a long walk, the group had finally reached the half destroyed barn. Pyro bravely decided to go inside first, and the rest of the small group nodded and approved his request to volunteer. 

Carrying the sharpened volcano fragments, Pyro made quite a scary sight. The ponies ran to hide the moment Pyro stepped in, his mumbling shouts not helping. 

"What was it?" asked the medic who just entered the barn behind him. Pyro mumbled under his mask something inaudible and muffled. Heavy looked confused, looking at the medic and asking for a translation.

Medic shrugged, trying hard himself to understand the unclear message. "I believe he talked of something about strange colored ponies," responded the medic. 

"A yellow or green team?" Asked engineer, laughing. 

The Pyro brought a hand to his masked face upon the abomination of a light joke, sighing in disbelief before walking to a bale of hay Fluttershy had jumped into. Pyro reached in and tried to grab her, but Applejack immediately jumped out and broke out in a sprint. 

"You leave her alone!" She yelled before kicking the Pyro into one of the stables, wood breaking and snapping underneath him. Applejack got ready to attack once more, but Heavy managed to get a hold of the pony, holding her up. 

"What is this? It is so tiny." 

Medic inspected Applejack closely, most intrigued. "It looks like a pony. But it's orange and it talks and those apples are most certainly not painted on." 

Engineer walked to the hay as the two talked about the scrambling Applejack. "Well, it's clear something's in the hay, something she's trying to protect." Engineer then tossed the hay aside, revealing a shaking Fluttershy who shrunk at the sight of the hardhat wearing man.

Now it was Twilight and Rarity's turn to jump to the rescue. Using their magic, they lifted the three red team members off the ground. The three men spat in protest, screaming, yelling and clawing frustratingly at the air surrounding them. 

It was a loud and unsuspected "Huddah!" from the Pyro that stopped everyone in their tracks. Pyro had managed to crawl out of the wreckage, mumbling a lot under everyone's sudden shift of attention. 

"Twilight, did you understand what it said?" asked Rarity in confusion. 

"I think what he is trying to say is that they want an explanation," Pinkie Pie interjected before Twilight had a chance to speak. 

Suddenly, the Engineer dropped to the ground. 

"Rarity!" 

"I-I'm sorry, Twilight!" Rarity stammered out apoligetically, looking sheepishly at the other pony. "I'm not used to making something that heavy float!" 

Engineer managed to pick himself up, looking over the group of unusual ponies. "We'll talk if you talk. We all need explanations, so let's get right to it," he suggested, wiping his dirt covered hands off on his overalls.

Applejack managed to kick her way out of Heavy's grasp and soon, the Heavy and Medic were back on their feet to start explaining everything. 

Twilight told them about their accidental launch up to Rainbow Dash's mission to fly, searching for help. The four team members of red looked at each other, each giving questionable and confused glances. It was Engineer who looked in the direction of the base. 

"So, that thing we saw flying to the base was…" 

"Yes, that was our friend. She went to get help, but it's strange she missed you guys," responded Twilight. 

Engineer took Medic closer and whispered in his ear. "You know how to tell them about, well, you know...the 'accidental' explosion?" 

"Yes, but it always ends in tears, anyway." 

"Maybe we should see how bad their friend's state is before we actually tell them, then." 

"She looked fine when she left," said Pinkie Pie who snuck into the conversation. Both Medic and Engineer stepped back, shocked at the presence of the eavesdropping pony. 

Twilight had heard Pinkie, worry now painting her features. "What are you two talking about?" She asked, her tone showing that of her emotions.

"I think we should move to the base," the Engineer said quickly. "I'll go build a teleporter to make the trip faster for us all." 

Setting out to work, the Texan quickly set up and placed a teleporter entrance before going to leave quickly. 

Twilight's anxiety was only building up at this point. "What's wrong? Did you do something to Rainbow Dash?" 

Medic stopped briefly, eyes going over to the little pony. "I'm sure we didn't hurt her, but if what they happened is true then..., well, we might have a problem. Nothing I can't fix with the right tools though and at least a few bodyparts." The last bit was muddled in a low whisper.

Rarity looked at Pyro, confusion about 'it' settling in. "Why does...this thing wear such a scary outfit?" 

"That's his safety gear. Besides a few hats, I have not seen Pyro in anything else." Rarity revolted at the idea that this was the only thing the Pyro wore. She wasn't shy to show her disgust. "I should tell you that we're not the only ones here and there might be people who look like us. But if they wear a blue outfit, you should stay away," Medic continued with a warning plea. The ponies looked confused before Fluttershy asked them why. "We'll explain back at the base."

As the Engineer approached the base, he tried to make some sense of the situation. He saw Soldier crossing the bridge to red base, soaking wet and face red with anger. "Hey, things are too quiet for a match! What were you doing in blue base?" 

Soldier looked annoyed. "I went through the wrong sewers to get back up when that damn thing kicked me down!" 

Engineer was bit relieved but, nonetheless, was worried all the same. "You mean that thing was just wounded slightly with your rocket or did it recover like us?" 

"Negatory," Soldier began, "it didn't have a scratch on it. It was only a little stunned and it packs a mean punch...or, er, kick." 

Spy came out of the base to see the Engineer, quite pleased to see someone from the four man team come back. "Ah, Engineer, did you found the rest of them at the barn?" 

"That other flying pony tell you about the ones we found at the barn?" 

"Indeed, and she's worried about them after our rude meeting. Ah, that reminds me, Soldier you cannot shoot at them. We get paid to shoot at the other team not everything that drops out of the sky." 

Soldier grabbed the Spy by his suit, visibly red and seething. "I'll shoot at anything I damn well please!"

Spy rolled his eyes, smacking the man's hand away. "You already shot it and it was practically unharmed." 

"If this is something we must fight, it'll end in another stalemate. These things are very friendly and are not quick to harm any of us," said the Engineer, jumping in between the two to avoid any further sings of hostility. "Has there been any announcements?" 

"Not really. There was a call from Miss Pauling. The Administrator has gotten sick and we have the rest of the day off. If the Administrator does not get better, Miss Pauling will do the announcing tomorrow and she has been asking what these things are." 

Engineer looked worried. "She will not like these ponies...what exactly did she say?" 

"After I told her what happened here, Miss Pauling said she likes the look of these things but she wants them gone before the administrator finds out about them." 

"Ain't that gal a sweetie? But, she's right. We don't know what the administrator will do to them or what she'll do to us when she finds out we can't harm it at all." 

The Spy lit a new cigarette. "Neither can we send them away. Their ship crashed here and if they bring civilians…well, either the pile of dead bystanders will keep rising or we'll be out of a job. The Administrator can bribe or threaten officials and inspectors, but even she will be helpless when the wrong people hear about this."

"We can always try shooting again until it works," said the Soldier in a huff, arms folded across his chest. Spy merely shook his head.

"Locking them up may be a better idea." 

"Nope," said the Engineer. "In the barn I saw, one of them lifted both Heavy and Medic at the same time with some kind of magic." 

"I hate wizards," mumbled the Soldier. 

"We'll figure something out later, but right now I need to set up an exit to get the others here," said the Engineer as he walked into the base.


After the teleporter exit was up, one by one the others came into the base. After the ponies who stayed at the barn had a happy reunion with Rainbow Dash, everyone came together in the courtyard as the ponies talked about their world. 

The Sniper called Miss Pauling again and tried to figure out if there was any place they could hide them from the Announcers ever present eyes. 

"Mr. Mundy, you're asking for a lot here. I cannot tell you the blind spots of our cameras. I'm at enough risk just letting you get rid of these ponies yourself!" 

"That's the problem, Miss Pauling. The only way I see is sending them back by fixing their ship or building a new one. Engineer can do it but it'll take at least a month, and I doubt she'll be sick for an entire month." 

"For now, you can let them sleep in the base, but tomorrow you'll have to find a way to get them away from the cameras. Also, the kill-counters have been activated." 

"Those things from the demo-soldier war?" 

"Yes, so tomorrow will have to be business as usual." 

"Not a problem. We'll find a solution tomorrow. Thanks, Miss Pauling." 

After Sniper hung up the phone, he got back to everyone and announced the situation. Twilight was a little confused about who this Administrator person was. 

"Why can't this Administrator accept us?" 

Demoman laughed hoarsely. "Ya have no idea why, lass. Even when she's nice there's a hint of evil in her." He took another gulp of his bottle and started making up a story no one believed of the Administrator. Rarity spoke up in the midst of the story telling.

"Right. Can anyone give us a real explanation?" 

Medic took the stand on the overpass of the courtyard, eyes scanning the area in front. "It's pretty simple. Her family has been the official administrator of TF industries since the idiot brothers got these lands." The ponies looked at each other confused. The Engineer who sat on his dispenser started speaking up since he knew most of the situation. 

"It started decades ago when Zepheniah Mann died and left his sons each a half of the lands." 

"That sounds nice. Each an equal amount! Evenly split!" Fluttershy said but she quickly shrunk when the Heavy sent her a dismissing look.

"If it was good story, it would end there." 

The engineer sighed. "Heavy's right. The brothers immediately started hiring mercenaries to grab the lands from each other. This story could've ended on a sad note. They could've both died and never become the men their father wanted them to be." 

"I hear a "but" coming up," Rainbow Dash interjected, Engineer solemnly nodding.

"That's when my grandpa came in. He made them a machine so they would not die. So, right now, they are sitting in their mansions, only mere shadows of what they used to be still grudgingly hoping the other will die."

Twilight looked rather sad. "That's so horrible. But what has this to do with you guys and the administrator?" 

Sniper stepped in. " She's the CEO of both RED and BLU companies. And for some reason, this endless stalemate between both companies is in her advantage. We're the professionals they hired." 

"Why do you keep this up then? It sounds so wrong." 

"It pays well," said the Demoman.

"We get to sharpen our skills for our countries and honor," Soldier proudly pronounced. 

"Pfft, I just get to hurt people," smugly added the Scout. 

Spy came out of the shadow of the stairs, arms crossed over his chest. "It's pretty much a job to us. Also, since the invention of the spawn, death became just a minor inconvenience to us. We don't question much from the people who pay us. Nowadays, we just toy around as if it were a contest." 

"From what you told me about your kingdom, I would say you have all the peace and we have war. Brace yourself while you're stuck here, because you'll see things that never happened or existed on your planet," suggested the Sniper before heading to his van. 

Heavy picked up his minigun. "I should go, too. Sasha needs rest." 

As every mercenary went home, the ponies set up their places to sleep in front of the spawn. Applejack walked over to the Engineer who was disassembling his machines.

"Er, who in tarnation is Sasha?" she asked him in confusion, ears pointed back as she asked the Texan,

"Sasha?" Engineer looked at her before suddenly smiling. "It's his gun. Take my advice and stay away from it. He loves that thing as if it's his wife...or daughter, or, well, whatever it is. It's the only family he's got anyway." 

"Wow," she muttered weakly after the Engineer explained it all to her. "You guys are crazy." 

"We've been told…nice hat you've got by the way."
> Chapter 3: Peacefully Helping the Mercs.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

F and V chapter 3

Chapter 3: Peacefully Helping the Mercs.

The night was far from easy for the ponies. None of them felt comfortable, none of them felt at home and every single of them were on edge. Why? Well, they all had their own different reasons. But, they all shared one: The violent nature of this world was giving them ill and nervous feelings.
And, out of the entire group, Rarity had the most trouble adjusting the new environment. In this deserted wasteland filled with nothing but the promise of war and slaughter, the comfort of home was nowhere to be seen. More troubling yet, fashion didn't seem at all a part of this world. This very reason made her rest her head uncomfortably, the horrible thought of it keeping her up long enough to have her drift off to sleep last.
When she woke up, a giant, ominous shadow loomed over her, scaring her instantly as she jerked her head up towards the source of her fear. Luckily, it wasn't a figure that was too unfamiliar, a shape belonging to one of the men she had met earlier. Just the blissfully and, mostly, harmless Heavy, as she assumed. "Oh, it's just Mr. Heavy," she thought as she blinked, trying to catch a better image of the man in front of her. The sunlight was blinding, illuminating the darkness at such a quick pace that it was hard for her eyes to adjust to. But, after a few seconds rolled on by, the colors and figure itself was becomingly increasingly clearer. When her eyes finally fully focused, the familiar, dusty, faint color of red wasn't what greeted her, the same color that the men of RED team was accustomed to wearing. No. Instead, a shade of blue was what was in front of her. "Do you only have different colored versions of that outfit?" Rarity asked in a dumbfounded manner, shaking the lingering feelings of grogginess off of her.
The blue heavy didn't respond but, much to the young pony's astonishment, began spinning his minigun. "Is Spy!" He boomed, eyes wide with shock. "What are you up to looking like that?!"
Rarity jumped back immediately. Unfortunately, she hit the back of a wall and, in that moment, she realized that she was absolutely cornered. She shut her eyes tight, fearing for the worst to come as she heard the click of the mini gun continue in its characteristically frightful sound...
Suddenly, a loud crashing sound filled the room, and Rarity hesitantly opened her eyes to investigate the noise. The enemy heavy had dropped his minigun, hand reaching to his back in stunned horror. When his hand was brought back to his eye's view, Rarity's as well, the color of red, crimson red, stained his fingers. Not so surprisingly, the man fell over to reveal a masked man behind him, knife held in front with blood dripping off the blade.
Rarity was stunned after witnessing the clean, quick execution. "D-did you just kill your friend?" The pony asked in a baffled manner, body still pressed up against the corner of the wall.
The Spy let out a small laugh, eyes darting quickly to her. "Did you forget what we told you yesterday?" He asked, quite obviously too amused by the question. Rarity flinched. "We had told you that there would be people here. They will look similar to us, oui, but we had also mentioned that they would be wearing blue." Spy backed up to avoid the streaming red come from the Heavy, the blood making its way over to his shoes. He wouldn't want to get his shoes dirty. "They hadn't met you and, to them, you just looked like something else on the battlefield worth shooting."
"But you still killed him."
"Ah, why yes, I did. But, do not fret. He'll be back in a few minutes, I assure you."
As the Spy said these words, something that sounded much more factual than comforting to Rarity, Scout had made his way out of their own respawn room, running at a lightning fast speed. When his eyes landed on his Spy comrade, the young Bostonian opened his mouth to speak. "Yo, Spy, they got four sentries up in their courtyard! Heavy and the doc only managed to take two of 'em down and the third got beat up pretty bad!" The Spy could be seen sighing before he signaled the Scout to join the two, something he was happy to do.
"I need you to explain miss rarity something," the Frenchman said, taking a long drag from his cigarette as he eyed the young man.
"No time," Scout replied quickly, though, rather curiously. "We need to hurry and take those things down! They already blew me and Soldier to bits, so, quit your talkin' and let's get workin'!" The younger of the two ran out of the conversation, sprinting off quickly enough to fade into the distance in just a few mere seconds.
Rarity stood there, a look of confusion painted on her face. "You mean to say he died too?"
The Spy curtly nodded in response to her question. "You see, we come back in that room over there," he started, pointing at the direction where the Scout had exited just moments before. "It happens when we are shot, burned...I'm sure you understand. We go there when we die." Rarity was even more confused, but before she had the chance to ask another question, the Spy cut her off. "It's best to understand that we cannot die. The same thing goes for our enemies." The man took his cigarette out from between his lips, a wisp of smoke trailing it. "Anyway, I believe it would be in your best interest join your friends. I promised the purple one I'd look after you until you woke up." Rarity wordlessly thanked him for his care, but the Spy continued. "Take the spiral staircase and follow the signs that read 'Intelligence'. They'll be there with the Engineer."
"Intelligence, huh?" Rarity started, eyes crossed as she looked up at him. "Isn't that supposed to be something important? Why would you have signs telling people where you keep it?"
"Administrators desire, I believe. Now, enough with the small talk. Get going before another one of the blues get here," Spy ordered, sick with the promise of talk already.
Rarity nodded and obeyed his order, making her way to the staircase before sprinting down.
In the hallway just outside the Intel room, Applejack had just picked up a box of ammo and before throwing it into the backpack she bought before they had the misfortune of crashing in this new, bizarre environment. Rarity was surprised when she saw her, but not at all displeased.
"Applejack?"
Applejack nearly bolted from the sound, fear creeping up on her. But, after registering the voice, she realized that it was friendly and familiar, turning around to see Rarity walking closer to her. "Oh! It's just you Rarity," she said, relieved at the sight of the pony. "So you finally woke up, huh?"
"Yeah," the other pony replied, though not in a very enthusiastic fashion. "But the wake-up was pretty rude. A Heavy dressed in blue found and nearly killed me! Not the best thing to say good morning to."
"You haven't seen anything yet, girl," Applejack answered, shaking her head. "You should see what the Spy can do and what Mr. Engineer can build."
Rarity picked her head up, looking directly at her companion. "Yeah...weren't you and the others supposed to be with him?"
Applejack simply nodded. "Oh, well, he asked if I could go get some metal for him 'cuz he doesn't like to leave his machines behind. Pinkie wanted him to make the teleporters go faster, so that's what we're working on at the moment."
The purpled maned pony gave her a questionable look. "Um, excuse me?"
"Oh, just follow me and see for yourself."
When the two entered the intel room, they spotted the red Engineer working hard to set up his devices, wrenching banging away at the metal. Rarity traveled further, eyes scanning her surroundings when they fell on a new frightening looking machine occupying itself in the very center of the room. Pinkie Pie was running in a haphazard fashion from one side of the room to the other where Engineer had set up his teleporters.
"Got the metal you asked for," Applejack announced as he made her way to the man.
Engineer nodded, turning his attention to the pony with a small smile. "Thank you, miss," he said before grabbing the supply from off of her back. With the last of the metal needed, he started to work the last pieces into his dispenser, humming a small tune to himself as he done so. The dispenser responded with a very positive note, metal clinking in an organized fashion as the sound of improvement filled the room. The Engineer was very pleased with the results. "Alrighty then! I can upgrade them teleporters now."
"Finally!" Pinkie yelled immediately, enthusiasm rich in her voice. She had just teleported to the other side of the room, sprinkles of red dancing off of her as she exited the platform. "Now I can go a lot faster!" And, with that, she ran back to continue her fun, teleporting once more to the other end. Engineer shook his head, amused at the sight of such an easily pleased pony, smashing his wrench down to the teleporters. Soon, Pinkie could appear and reappear endlessly, much to her satisfaction.
Applejack sighed, seeing the energetic pony dash to and from one end of the room to the other. "Why do I have the feeling she could do this back home somehow?" She muttered as she placed herself next to the dispenser.
Rainbow Dash, who had been sitting uncharacteristically silent and still in one of the corners of the room, scoffed. She had finally got her fair share of boredom with the lack of exciting events appearing before her. Quickly, she bolted up from her seat, looking over at the other ponies and Engineer. "Screw this! I'm going outside to see the action!" Her wings opened up, levitating herself off the ground with a spark of fire in her eyes. It was clear she was looking for some violence and fun, and the promise of the battle being waged outside could help her with her search. In less than a fraction of a second, Rainbow Dash cut through the room, wings slicing the air to create a sharp sound before exiting the building.
"Dash! Wait!" Called out a voice from another one of the ponies, this one coming from Fluttershy. Her eyes watched the blue pony further the distance between them, her speed exhilarating at an alarming rate.
"Dash! Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled instantly, jumping out into focus. "We're supposed to stay here!" Her voice carried authority, but the two adventure-searching ponies failed to heed her words. The pony hung her head low, muttering some inaudible words to herself before turning to face the Engineer. "I'm so sorry, sir. Would you mind if I went out to get them back?"
Engineer nodded at her, grinning. "Of course! No problem at all, ma'am."
Twilight thanked him for his permission before going off after the two.
__________________________________________

Fluttershy continued to fly, eyes scanning the open sky in front of her to see where Rainbow Dash had been. Unfortunately, she lost sight of her friend once they crossed into the blue base and was having no sort of luck finding her. Lost and confused, she scaled the skies fruitlessly, wings batting to show the extent of her fatigue. Soon enough, the pony landed near a flight of stairs to catch her breath, mumbling quietly to herself about her disappointment in not finding Rainbow Dash. In the midst of her sorrow, a small chirp could be heard from behind her, causing the pony to snap out of her trance and focus onto her surroundings once more. A dove was looking up at her with black, beady eyes, chirping again at the sight of the pony. Intrigued, Fluttershy approached the bird, tilting her to the side as the dove followed her example. "Aw...hey little guy," she whispered quietly as she continued to close in on the little bird.
But, before she got within reaching distance, the dove quickly flew into the sky, squeaking wildly as it soared higher and higher. Fluttershy's eyes follow the creature before she turned around, her face brushing against some blue fabric, much to her concern. In that moment, the warnings from the red team members flashed in her head, playing like a tape recorder. Fluttershy's mood sank even lower, concern quickly replacing the feeling of intrigue she had upon seeing the dove just seconds before. 
The enemy soldier looked down at her, a small glint making itself barely visible from under his helmet. Without hesitation, the man began to pull out his shovel when, suddenly, he was hit repeatedly by what looked to be syringes. He grunted upon each impact, his patience beginning to wear thin as he made a quick stride to jump to the left, a desperate attempt to get out of the view of his enemy.
"Did that sting?" A thick German accent shouted from behind him, amusement in his voice. "Sorry!" The red Medic stood under the overpass, holding the very syringe gun that continued to pour its syringes into the soldier, a grin plastered on his features. Fluttershy shook in fear, jumping over to the Medic's side, though trying to be careful not to get too close to her 'comrade'. "As my big friend would say: 'Pick on someone your own size'," the man said as the pony took residence beside him.
The blue Soldier grunted at the sight of the man, screaming as he came charging at the Medic with his shovel. The doctor skillfully moved to the side, the soldier missing his mark completely, a small snicker coming from Medic at the sight of the poorly executed swing. Pulling his saw out, the man was more than prepared to take on a terribly wounded Soldier. "I'm going right to saw through your bones," he said in an ominous tone before he thrusted the dangerously sharpened weapon forward, planting the tip of his ubersaw to the man's torso before slowly letting it dig deeper into the torso of the blue Soldier. The Medic's enemy let out a low growl, hands going up to reach at the bloody, painful wound, the saw still cutting deeper and deeper into his chest.
Then, with a sharp flick, the Medic retracted it. A sharp cry escaped the Soldier's throat, blood dripping off doctor's saw as the corpse of the blue team member rolled down the stair case, a streak of blood following in its wake.
Satisfied with his kill, the Medic returned his saw back to his holster, fixing his glasses and gloves before turning back to meet a pale, shaking Fluttershy. Fluttershy nearly screeched when the man pulled his medigun out, its barrel aimed directly at her. She wanted to bolt as fast as she could, but before she even had the moment to break out in that desperately needed sprint, the first of the beam hit her. She winced, expecting a burning sensation to creep up her spine but, to her surprise, the very opposite happened, and, soon, she was filled with energy. Her exhaustion finally left her. Fluttershy widened her eyes, feeling wide awake before looking at the Medic with confused eyes. 
"You found Archimedes, I see." the Medic said. Fluttershy didn't flinch this time, knowing that the doctor was here to help her rather than hurt her, accepting the fact that the gun was pointed directly at her.
"Archimedes...?" The Pony said a little confused as a stream of red made its way over to her, an aura leaving her more rejuvenated than last. She smiled a little at the extra helping of healage she received.
At that moment, the small, snow white dove flew back down, staying in front of the pony with eyes concentrated on her. "Oh! So, that was your dove?"
"Yes," the Medic began, eyes scanning the area around the two to make sure they were safe. "He seems to follow me back here a lot as of late. But, that's a thing for a later time." Fluttershy noticed a change in tone, hearing it become much more serious, a hint of anger tinting his words. "Didn't we say it was dangerous out here?"
Fluttershy averted her eyes, her reply jumbling in her head. "I-I tried to get Rainbow Dash back to the base! She flew out in front of me, but I lost sight of her." Suddenly, she felt the Medic strap something to her side in a coarse, harsh fashion.
"Well, the others are a bit busy fighting," Medic said as he finished with his objective, straightening himself back out to focus on his surroundings more so than the pony. "So, as such, you're going to help me get back to the base."
Fluttershy nearly swept the doctor off his feet from her sudden jolt. "What?! But I can't hurt anyone!"
"You don't need to," the man said, regaining his balance as he walked off the staircase, the pony following closely. "You'll be healing me instead." Medic turned on the medigun then and went to strap it carefully on Fluttershy's side. He pushed the lever forward and instructed Fluttershy to keep the lever that way until they got back in the base, an order the pony was more than happy to oblige to.
_______________________________________________

In the blue hallway just outside of the intel room, Scout was busy toying with the sentries, laughing and hooting the whole way through. He had, just earlier, downed an entire can of Bonk, leaving his body impervious to the bullets whizzing their way past him. Being so quick and light on his feet, not a single projectile met its objective. Feeling the effects of Bonk beginning to wear off, the Scout made a smart move and jumped back out of the sight of the sentry guns, panting in satisfaction.
"Wow!" A voice called, gaining the young man's attention. It was Rainbow Dash, smiling as she noticed how unharmed the Scout was. "That was kinda cool! Not a single one got you..."
The Boston runner thanked her but turned the conversation down another road. "Er, weren't you supposed to stay in our intel room?"
"I got bored," Rainbow Dash admitted, though she surely didn't sound ashamed to say it.
"I…got nothing for that," the young man replied much to Dash's pleasure. "That is a good excuse to leave a place!" And, of course he would say that. Scout's couldn't stand still for the life of them, and, in quite a few ways, Rainbow Dash and the Scout were alike. 
Shrugging the fact that the pony disobeyed orders, Scout turned to look at the entrance to the intel room. He knew for sure there was bound to be even heavier defenses and, personally, he wasn't a fan of getting caught in heavy crossfire.
"Can't you go in and destroy everything?" Rainbow Dash asked him curiously, eyes following the direction in which the Scout was looking in.
The man sighed. "Nope. That's usually the Spy's or Heavy's and Medic's job. Soldier or Demoman can do it too, you know, if they're lucky."
"So you can't destroy those things but half of your team can?" The pony nearly scoffed, shaking her head. "Gotta admit- that's lame."
"Hey!" The Scout yelled, hands on his hips with his eyes now glaring down at the little pony. "I can destroy it if it's distracted or if I'm close enough to run around it, okay? But this hallway is a deathtrap, so I ain't bettin' my money on it! Heavy just got blown to bits because he tried on his own, like a dumbass...and I ain't no dumbass."
Rainbow Dash nodded, a plan formulating in her head. "What if I distract it for you?"
The runner looked interested, nodding to himself. "Depends. Think you're fast enough?"
With a grin on her face, Dash merely replied with a "I know I am."
Scout thought about Dash's offer to help and decided to give it a try, the more time he gave it, the more it made sense. Besides, he should at least give it a shot. "Alright, so, here it is. As soon I drink my Bonk, you head down the second hallway and get close. When the sentry or, lord forbid, sentries have their sights on you, you keep their attention. And you keep their attention for as long as my Bonk affects last, alright? I'll take out the Engineer guarding his stuff, shoot the sentry to bits and take the briefcase. Okay, so, you got that?"
"Got it."
With that, the Scout took another can of the drink out, taking a generous sip of the beverage before he came into view of the sentry. Sensing the presence of the man, the large guns followed the man, unloading a hail of bullets that failed to hit its target. Seeing the man run down the hallway, Dash flew out behind him, sprinted down the second hallway and entered the intel room. The sentry detected her as a closer enemy and turned to her, much to Dash's delight - The plan was working. But, before the gun could get a clear shot on her, the pony flew around it to evade any bullets that managed to come at her direction.
Scout caught sight of the entrance to the intel room, the affects of his Bonk waning right before he took a step into the room. The enemy Engineer heard his footsteps and turned around with his pistol out, aiming the weapon to him but much too late. Quickly, the Scout unloaded two carefully placed slugs into the man's head who, in response, crashed down to the ground, bleeding profusely.
Dash flew into the room, just barely missing the perfect execution performed by the Boston Runner. "Mhm...nice shot," she commented in which the man only let out a delighted chuckle. The pony ascended higher in the room to keep the attention of the sentries focused on her, barrels completely forgetting about the Scout who was busy taking them out. After half a minute, the large guns were taken down, sparking with small flicks of fire and smoke bellowing from the rubble.
With the defense down, Scout picked up the briefcase, attaching it to his back and holstering it in place. "Alright! I got it!" He announced happily, running out of the room with the pony following closely behind. "Now, come on, let's get outta here!"
When the two reached the staircase, a small feeling of paranoia lurked up behind Rainbow Dash. "That sounds a little too easy."
"You think? They know where we are with this briefcase, so, there's the downer for you."
"And there's a simple solution for that: Stay out of reach."
"Pfft. Easy for you to say."
As they went up the stairs, Dash picked up her speed and intently rammed herself into the man's legs, having him fall backwards to land on the pony's back. Satisfied, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings harder, having the two pick up height and distance from the ground beneath them before breaking out in a sprint out into the open skies.
___________________________________________________

Back at the red team's base, Sniper was busy performing headshots by the dozen on any stray blue team members. Quick, precise and professional - To be expected from the Australian.
Twilight came out of the base's upper exit, hooves knocking the wooden floors in a noisy fashion. Sniper noticed her immediately, though his eyes didn't stray from his scope. "You looking for your friends?" The man asked, voice laced in his Australian twange.
Twilight looked at Sniper and sighed, walking closer to the man. "Yes...have you seen them?"
"Sure did," he answered much to the pony's delight. "One of 'em spooked the heck out of the blue Sniper when they flew past 'em. Pretty sure it was the blue one, the one with the rainbow mane. The yellow one followed closely behind after I shot the sniper...and that's why you never shift your concentration, mate," Sniper continued, though the last bit was not meant for Twilight.
"Oh," she said quietly, eyes looking out from beyond the base. "I've got to get them back!"
The man waves his hand out behind him to wave the little pony off. "No need."
Sniper kept his finger lingering at the trigger, scope closing in on a Medic fighting through a crowd of blu team members. To his surprise, Fluttershy was following right beside him, the medigun pointed at the German man who successfully made it through the chaos. Taking his attention away from the scope, the Sniper ran down to see the duo himself.
Medic trudged inside, much too tired for all the fighting and running he did. He was a support class - This was not in his contract.
"Oi, Doc!" The Sniper greeted, running down the staircase with a hand kept at his hat to keep it down. "You bringing her back or is she just saving you?"
The other man took a tired breath before aiming his syringe gun at an enemy Scout, squeezing the trigger to deliver a spray of syringes into the blue team member's face. "A little bit of both."
Soon, both the medic and the pony were safe and sound in their base, their fellow Soldier catching sight of them and, taking it as a sign to resume his fighting, went out to take care of the other blues left outside.
Twilight, delighted to see Fluttershy, ran over to her. With the reunited ponies happy and discussing expressions of joy, the presence of Rainbow Dash nearly boiled the emotions further. The two of them were safe once again, so, naturally, Twilight was in the throng of happiness. Sniper quickly smiled at the two before turning around to resume his work, his sniper rifle still held tightly in his hands.
Remembering the Australian, Twilight ran and went to gain the Sniper's attention who easily stopped in his tracks to listen to the little pony. 
"Yes?"
Twilight thought about what to say, thinking hard before opening her mouth to speak again."Well, I was just wondering, but why do help us so much? We're kinda just a burden to you guys after all."
The Sniper looked down at her, a look of guilt heavy on her features. He smiled a little, shaking his head. "When the administrator gets back, it might be some trouble. But, I see no reason to leave you guys helpless."
"You really don't have to-"
"You sure?"
Twilight frowned, though she was quite happy that the Australian was being very sincere and nice towards her. "I mean, I'm just surprised you want to is...what I was trying to say. You guys don't look the type."
Sniper let out a deep chuckle, taking a step on the staircase. "First impressions can be overrated. For example, I thought Soldier was a useless wackjob. But, he isn't useless." Twilight noted that he didn't excuse the 'wackjob' part, but made no effort to mention this. "I also thought Medic would rather hurt us than heal us. Well, on some occasions, He would like to, but he can set his urge to stab us aside for when we need an operation or for the enemy."
The pony shuddered, looking wide-eyed at the man. "He operates on you guys?"
"It ain't painless, but I can't complain about the results."
Just then, their Medic came out of the base, fully healed and ready for more combat. Aside from his physical state, he was also ready to deploy an ubercharge, a surge of red light radiating off oh his medigun. Heavy quickly took his place in front of the doctor, launching himself off of the roof of the building in which the Medic follow suit.
Sniper sat himself down on an empty crate, propping his sniper rifle back to where it was previously. There, he noticed a large group of blue enemies storming toward them.

The Australian grinned to himself, finger pressing gently at the trigger. "Hey, Twilight Sparkle, was it?" He called out, gaining the attention of another pony who, in response, made her way over to him. "Keep your eye on those two over there," he started, pointing at their Heavy and Medic, "and see what happens, mhm?"
Twilight didn't know what to expect, propping her chin against the open window where the Sniper was occupying himself, eyes scanning the field to see the brave duo face a large sea of blues. "That's...insane. Aren't they going to get killed?" The pony whispered quietly in astonishment as she noticed the odds of survival for the two.
But, quickly, her thoughts were changed as she saw the Medic deploy his übercharge. "They're glowing!" She cried out in disbelief as the doctor and Heavy turned a glistening color of red.
Sniper chuckled. "Yes...but, more importantly, they're invincible. A painful installment, but it provides great results."
The two continued to talk, but their attention was clearly focused on the powerful duo out on the battlefield. The Heavy and Medic proved to be of great importance as the hail of bullets cut down the enemies off the bridge, enemy bullets whizzing by and bouncing off of them.. Twilight's eyes were glued on the two until they disappeared out of view, disappearing into the BLU team's base. "Wow...," she began, still in awe at what she witnessed. "How does that work?"
"The über is a device attached to our hearts," Sniper began, leaning back into his sniper rifle to resume his sniping duties. "It was an experiment the doctor and Heavy did. Anyway...shouldn't you go talk to your friends back at the intel room?"
"Oh!" The pony replied, a little shocked that she was the only pony left on the rooftops. "Right! Uh, thanks!" Quickly, the pony turned and sprinted her way back down to the room with her friends and the Engineer.
__________________________________

After the long and tiring fight, the entirety of red team came together in the courtyard. Many of them were rather sore from the combat, but they were, for the most part, pleased with their day's work.
Scout was clearly the most ecstatic, his pride and excitement radiating off of him. "That was an awesome escape!" He shouted, fists punching up towards the sky.
Rainbow Dash shared his enthusiasm, nodding with a wide grin. "Yeah! Can we do that again?!"
Sniper laughed, arms folded across his chest as he saw the two spout off their energy."Sounds like you two had fun in the blue base."
Both Scout and Rainbow Dash bellowed, announcing the lack of enthusiasm in the Sniper's voice himself. Other team members hollered, some laughing in the process. The day was rough, and this fight was more active and violent than others before them. By no means was this time to recuperate undeserved.
Far from the celebrations outside, inside the spawn room, Medic and Fluttershy were preoccupying themselves, busy operating on the Heavy who seemed to have another undetonated rocket stuck in his gut. Fluttershy was a bit squeamish at the sight, turning away constantly to avoid the messy, bloody sight.
Medic tried his best to comfort the little pony. "It's ok," he started, hands working at the wound with amazing skill. "As long as you keep the beam aimed at him, everything will be fine. It's simple."
Fluttershy shook her head, not believing such words. "B-But his belly is wide open! Shouldn't he be asleep for this?"
Medic tried his best to pull at the rocket out with as much care as he could before placing a hand on the medigun, centering it more closely with the large, open gash. "Well, yes, he should, but this way we can still talk a bit." Fluttershy felt dumbfounded by the excuse.
Heavy lifted his head up just then, eyes trying hard to examine the extent of the damage."You get rocket out yet?"
The doctor patted the other man's shoulder, shaking his head. "Not yet. It seems to be stuck behind the pancreas...mhm, quite a predicament." Heavy said nothing and, instead, gave him a confused look. Medic sighed at the large man, digging his hands once more into the wounds."It means part of your guts is holding the rocket stuck, my friend." Fluttershy went to keep the medigun aimed at the area of focus, frowning as she had done so.
When Medic gave the rocket one last, great, big pull, the foreign item ripped out from where it was held, a stream of blood streaming off the slipper steel. Not so surprisingly, the Heavy let out a great big yell, the pain rippling through his nerves. Fluttershy, seeing and hearing such pain, shut her eyes tightly for a brief moment to focus on anything other than the 'operation'.
When her emotions were collected, she pried her eyes open again and looked over at the situation. Instantly, she noticed a problem. "Medic," she started as he looked over the rocket that was just pulled out of the still whimpering Heavy, "um, you pulled a little too much along."
Medic stared at the pony for a moment before he looked over at the rocket, noticing a kidney was just hanging off the end along with some muscles or guts of sorts. "Oh! My mistake," he said, excusing himself as he tossed it back into the Heavy's open belly. Fluttershy cringed at the scene as the doctor went to check the medigun over. "Ah, that looks good. Okay, miss Shy, may you push the lever?"
The pony nodded as she registered those words, pulling down at the lever of the gun as a burst of red came darting through the barrel, enveloping the Heavy in its healing aura. The patient's wound closed up quickly, all his organs shifting in place before his skin completely covered it over. Fluttershy smiled at the results, not seeing any evidence that the Heavy was ever hurt at all.
"See...now that wasn't so bad," the Medic told the pony, smiling before a small thumping sound came from the Heavy's stomach. All three of them stood still for a second before hearing the same tapping sound and, finally, it came to Medic's head. "Archimedes!" He shouted in disapproval. "Not again!"
"Archimedes? Is he...you know, okay all the way in there?" Fluttershy asked, seeing a small bluge pop along the Heavy's flesh along with small, hollow coos.
"He's ok," the medic began, sighing in frustration, "but I have to get him out again."
As the two worked to set up their scheme of operations, cutting the Heavy open that is, Fluttershy couldn't help but to ask a single question. She turned her face to the doctor who was busy cleaning the knives and other utensils. "Well, why is he in there to begin with?"
The man shrugged. "Ach. He likes to nest inside the patient's stomach. He always sneaks in whenever my back is turned and, last time, he got stuck in Scout."
When their small chatter was done, the doctor grabbed a sharp knife and began to inch the blade against the Heavy's stomach. As soon as the cut was large enough, the dove came bursting out, blood covering its feathers but, overall, was unharmed. 
"That wasn't a great idea..was it? I mean, cutting our patient open all over again?"
"No," Medic said, though with a lack of care and emotion, "but the medigun takes care of that. So, again, nothing to worry about."
After Heavy was closed up and healthy again, the group all went outside. They were going to meet up with the rest of the group, well, all expect for Fluttershy. She, instead, guided Archimedes to the water under the bridge of Teufort to clean him up.
Twilight looked up and noticed that the Medic and Heavy were coming out, but, at one point, Fluttershy steered the other way to walk down another road. She looked with interest, eyes following her fellow pony. "Where's Fluttershy going?" She asked the moment the doctor and his friend caught up with the group out at the courtyard.
"She's going to get Archimedes cleaned," Medic replied.
Scout turned his attention to the doctor, a frown on his face. "That damn bird still hangs around during your operations? Dude, that ain't professional."
Rarity felt disgusted just imagining what happened back in the operation room. "Can we not talk about that? Please?" The team nodded hesitantly at her plea, agreeing and pushing the subject aside. Rarity sighed, rather relieved that they all respected her say in things. "Anyway, where's Applejack?"
"The apple lassie and hardhat are tending to your way home," Demoman answered, surprisingly sober as his words carried with clarity. He had been cutting back on his drinking for the sake of the ponies. A drunk Demo was, after all, unhealthy to a group of ponies. His vision could have contorted the image of them.
Twilight smiled."Knowing what you all do, I didn't expect this much help. I wish I could write this down for when we get back home," she noted carefully, frowning.
Sniper caught her words and turned to fetch what she needed, rifling through a pile of paper before grabbing a pen. When he returned, the group had their attention focused on him. "Alright," the man started, inspecting the sheets of paper to make sure they were clean, "you can use these."
Twilight smiled, delighted that the Australian went out of his way to help her once again. Using her magic to make the pen float, she tried to write the thoughts that were busy floating in her head. After a few seconds, she stopped, a look of disappointment plain on her face. "Uh, this doesn't seem to write."
The Sniper chuckled, taking the pen before giving it a little click. "Alright, why don't you try now?"
The pony nearly blushed at her mistake, nodding as she tried to wave it off. "Oh, heh...m-my fault."
With the problem solved, Twilight went to write a little note for herself and the others, a note that claimed that, sometimes, the kind of people you expect to kick you when you're down were the ones that would help pick you back up.

> ponies phone home ch.4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4: Ponies Phone Home

A few days passed and it had been decided that the ponies would stay in the part of the barn that had managed to stay undamaged by the destruction left by the rocketship, though only for sleep. Or, more importantly yet, to avoid the watchful eyes of the administrator whose lingering presence served to keep everyone, ponies and mercenaries alike, on edge. 

Twilight had been taking notes about the Mercs to pass some time: Their weapons and their ways. She was disgusted by some of the things they did, but by now, she expected such behavior from the men.

The pony took a deep sigh as she heard the sounds of a rifle, its chamber opening and closing to accommodate a single new bullet round. “I never believe I'd get bored of seeing someone blow apart,” she solemnly admitted, pencil still scribbling along the surface of a sheet of paper.

A small chuckle. “It's because you’re not the one doing it." The Australian sniper had his eyes trained on his scope, the barrel of his gun rotating slightly to the left as he scanned the fields. "You should leave it to the professionals anyway."

Twilight quickly dodged a flying arm, ducking low as the limb came smacking against the wall behind her. “It probably helps that we know they don’t die," she started, not even bothering to observe the bloody mess behind her; she has grown accustomed to it by now. "But violence like this doesn’t exist in Equestria and I believe it’s better that way.”

Sniper smiled as he squeezed the trigger, knocking an enemy Demo onto the ground. “Your planet sounds like the Garden of Eden.”
__________________________________________________

Since Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy proved to be very helpful in assisting the mercs, the three ponies came out onto the battlements more often. Even Engy had plans. Besides setting up his designs of defense in the intel room, Applejack watching out for Spies, the Texan was also busy coming up with ideas to repair the rocketship. During one of his runs, Engineer had discovered a new source for fuel for their return trip back home. The use of gems had proven very difficult to work with, it being such a foreign concept to the engineer, and the process to change the ship to a fossil fuel based rocket had begun. The Pyro was told about the discovery, and, without a second to spare, was happy to offer up his services. What they had in mind was to build a propane tank for them, and the Engineer, quite delighted to receieve such services, thanked Pyro whole-heartedly. Now, since the group had established their new fuel source, Engi had decided it best to sell the precious stones in return for money as to purcahse new parts to repair the ship. 

It certainly made the reparing job that much easier. 

However, much to the displeasure of the ponies, Engy was busy with Medic’s recent request. Applejack watched the man scribble away at his blueprints, a frown appearng on her face. Curiosity proving to be too much, the young pony picked herself up and wandered over to Engineer. “Why not finish the rocket first?" she asked, a hint of worry in her voice. "I’m sorry if it sounds selfish, but we requested the rocket first, didn't we?”

Picking the point of his pencil from off the paper, Engineer looked up with a reassuring smile. “Let’s say it’s a surprise." Applejack seemed even more curious than ever, causing the man to let out a soft laugh before he continued working on his blueprints. "You guys won’t be able to see if the rocket's done. You'll all want to leave once that happens. But, trust me, it’d be worth it.”
____________________________________________________

In Equestria, Princess Celestia had called several meetings to try and find a way to get the ponies back. So far, every meeting came with the same answer: “Pegasus can’t travel trough space. Unfortunately, the task to build a new rocketship for their safe return would take several months." Her elegance unwavered, she spoke these words with unsurpassed clarity. "The pony that was supposed to be launched knew how to land and, if needed, fix the rocket. The ponies who are out in their place are not so fortunate.” 

The room had grown thick, heavy with dread and hopelessness. To most of them, the ponies were lost, but that was something the Princess didn’t want to hear. These weren’t regular ponies. They were the Elements of Harmony and one of them was, by far, her favorite student.

Spike had been in the castle, writing out numerous letters in the hope that they would, in some way, reach Twilight. They had, as usual, ended up with Celestia first. When they didn’t land with Celestia, they burned to ashes. Spike had repeatedly written the same letter, and unfortunately, all of them had ended up in one of two outcomes -- burnt to a crisp or delivered to the wrong destination. Spike got help from Celestia whenever she had the time, but even with her powerful abilities, she wasn't able to reach Twilight. Every attempt had ended in failure, that is, until today. 

One letter had managed to stay in tact. And, even more surprisingly, able to reach its intended destination.

“It’s gone!" Spike yelled happily, drawing the attention of everyone around him. "There must be a friendly dragon near her! It's gone, it's gone!” In unison, the group cheered, utterly distraught, but relieved nonetheless.

Help was finally on its way.
____________________________________________________

Back at the base, the mercs and ponies alike all decided to take a well deserved break and had left to grab a meal. Rarity decided not to eat that much unlike everyone else, settling with a simple snack. She was scared and missed home too much, her feelings quelling her appetite. 

Deep in her worries and thoughts, the pony nearly jumped when the spy uncloaked behind her. A stream of smoke surrounded his skinny, lean frame, hs body slowly becoming more clear as the smoke faded away. 

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Rarity shouted, heart still beating quickly in her chest.

“Pardon me," the man aplogized as politely and, yet, as strictly and coldly professional as was made possible, "but I overheard you were quite the designer back in your world.”

“Oh," the pony replied with much awe in her voice. She perked up and made herself more presentable, a smile on her face. "I’m not just any designer. I’m the best designer there is!” she exlaimed proudly.

“I see," the spy replied with not a hint of excitement in his tone. He took another drag from his cigarette and tipped the end, ashes falling off slowly to drift to the floors. "Well, would you be so kind as to create some fine headwear and perhaps maybe even a new suit?”

Rarity gave a curt nod. “That sounds like something I can do. Though I might need to find a new design and make it fitting for your shape.”

“Not a problem. Perhaps we can put together what we already have and see if you can improve it?” Spy had his arms crossed over his chest, fingers playing with the cigarette clamped between his lips.

“Yeah! Maybe we can use some of the gems to pay for it!” 

As the two continued to discuss the possible designs, Rarity couldn't help but to feel a burst of excitement bubble through his veins. The sooner they started on the outfits, the better.

While both Spy and Rarity were busying themselves with fashion and appearances, the other members of RED team had decided to continue on with their daily lives. Working, of course, was the bulk of their time, and with the knowledge that the ponies had to return back home, it seemed as though the days have dragged on even longer.

Pyro had taken out the Backburner for that day, tinkering with the weapon when, unfortunately, it started acting up on him. Disgruntled though, ever the optimist, Pyro had sought out to fix the problem as there was always a solution at hand. Pyro grabbed the Backburner and gave it a few shakes, an unprofessional way to hear for any loose bolts, but a method that worked nonetheless. Without warning however, a scroll came flying out of one of its opening, smacking right into the Pyro's mask. After shaking his head and rubbing the lenses of his mask, he bent down to pick the piece of parchment up, eyes concentrated on the printed text sprawled against it.

“Oi lassie have ya seen my sticky jumper?!” 

Pyro didn't shift his gaze and, instead of replying to the Demo directly, shook his head no. 

The Demo swore under his breath, his footsteps drawing nearer. “I’m pretty sure that pink pony took it," he said, coming to his own conclusions rather quickly. "She’s been messin' with the explosives ever since she saw soldier rocket jump.” Demoman eventually sighed, a look of contempt and exhaustion worn into his features. However, when his one eye landed on the scroll in Pyro's grip, his expression changed to that of intrigue and curiosty. “'Ey, what have you got there?”

The Pyro answered but, as expected, in his usual fumbled wording. Wearing a mask never did well with the clearity of his answers, so Demo stood there trying hard to decipher what the fellow had just said. But before he could pester the Pyro to repeat his reply, the sounds of Sniper and Twilight's voices came bustling down the hallway to interrupt their little discussion. 

"So, in theory, these other guys could be clones?”

"Mhm. The chances are high if you count in the story where we had to fight a horde of soldiers. I suspect they overspawned us using the spawnrooms," Sniper answered as the pony trotted beside him.

The two continued talking before Demoman opened his mouth to speak, drawing both of their attention towards him without a question. “Hey, you, purple pony!” the man wailed out.

"The name’s Twilight." Her voice came out a lot more agitated than normal. She glared over at the Scotsman, hooves clicking along the floor underneath them. 

Demo scoffed. “Whatever! Where's your pink friend?"

Twilight calmed herself down, stressing the important of manners even in the face of such a rude man. "You mean Pinkie Pie? I saw her at the bridge." Her words were now laced with suspicion. "Why?"

"She’s been touching my explosives, that's why!” Demoman spat out. Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but it seemed as though the man had gotten exactly what he wanted and bolted out of the room. The purple pony watched Demo leave, his figure shrinking with each step he took towards the bridge.

As Twilight's eyes remained trained on the still sprinting Demoman, Sniper had calmly waltzed his way over Pyro's shoulder, gaze lingering on the parchement in the man's hands. “What’s that?” the sharpshooter asked pointing at the scroll.

Pyro, tired of trying to explain what happened, merely shrugged and tossed it over to Sniper. The Australian accepted it though, with some hesitation, before opening the scroll. He read the first few lines to himself as the other man beside him went to continue working on his Backburner.

"Ahh," Sniper started, giving a flick to the sheet of paper. "Twilight, it’s for you."

Hearing her name, the pony tore her attention away from Demo, now making her way over to the man. "Huh? For me? What do you mean?" She looked up at Sniper who had gestured over to his hand and, the moment Twilight's eyes landed on the scroll, her heart lit up. 

In an instant, she jumped up to grab the scroll away from the sniper's grip, a little squeal of excitement just barely suppressed. "It’s from Princess Celestia!" She happily exclaimed before opening the letter over to read what was on it herself. "Wow! How did it get here?” 

Mumbling a little, Pyro turned around to the two, stopping his little maintenience with his weapon. The firebug motioned over to the Backburner before giving a small curt nod, words just barely made out to say 'from this'.

Sniper, after peicing the puzzle together, widened his eyes. "You mean to tell me that this piece of paper flew out of your Backburner?" 

The Pyro nodded in response, gloved hand patting the gas tank of the flamethrower. 

Twilight, unable to contain her excitement any longer, jumped up and down repeatedly, eyes bright. "Yes! Yes! This is great! Now we can use your backburner to tell everyone back home that we’re safe!"

Sniper put a hand on the pony's back, a gesture that told her to calm herself down. "Only one problem. Pyro’s backburner isn’t magical. We’re lucky we received that message to begin with."

Twilight, upon hearing this, remained optimistic and ever thinking. "Well, what if we channel my magic trough the backburner and attempt to send it to Princess Celestia?"

Hearing the suggestion, both Pyro and Sniper turned to look at each other, each giving their own thoughts about the issue on glances alone. After a few quick seconds, Pyro gave the pony a thumbs up followed by a 'I guess we can try' from a still wary Sniper. 

For their first try, Pyro aimed the Backburner at a scroll Twilight had written, his hand steady on the flamethrower. To make sure no one would get hurt in this experiment, the group had brought it upon themselves to place the scroll on a chair. With Twilight's command, the Pyro aqueezed the trigger to bring about a burst of red hot flames. The note caught on fire immediately, the fire scorching through the parchement quickly and effortlessly before smoldering into a pile of charcoal ash. 

The sniper brought one hand up to rub at the back of his neck. "So, did it work?"

Twilight walked to the chair before sifting through the mess. "I don’t think so. The letter isn't supposed to be burnt if I'm sending it," she replied in a discouraged voice.

Hearing that tone, Pyro began to mumble in which Sniper had, as he was accustomed to, began to translate. “Right," he nodded, one hand under his chin as he further broke down what the man had said to him. "Pyro said that it didn’t feel any different from the usual flame."

Leaving Twilight to mull over with what had just been said to her, both Spy and Rarity decided to drop into the room, the two heavy in conversation. The Frenchman was holding his fedora in his gloved hand, explaining carefully how they could improve the headpiece. But, with the smell of smoke drifting in the room, the spy had to snap himself out of the topic and shift gears. His critical eyes scanned the surroundings before landing upon the trio in front of him who were staring right back to meet his gaze. "Are we burning files?" He asked in a harsh tone, a flicker of ash falling off the end of his cigarette. "I’m pretty sure the administrator won’t like that when she gets back."

Sniper, with a sigh, began to explain to him what they were trying to do with the letter. With a small scoff and a roll of the eyes, Spy replied, “you should use the copier downstairs to duplicate the letter a couple times. That way you wouldn't need to rewrite it all the time. Simple enough, oui?"

"Ah, right. Great idea," the sniper admitted with a snap of his fingers. "How about you give me a letter and I'll go ahead and copy it for you, Twilight?”

Twilight, with a nod, wrote the Australian up a new letter, as requested, before placing it into his hands.
_________________________________________________________

Down in the intel room, Applejack and Engineer were enjoying their lunch in blissfull silence. Engineer had brought a box of apples for the ponies to enjoy, much to all of their surprise.

“Thanks a lot for bringing these apples to us!” exclaimed Applejack in wide-eyed amazement.

“You’re welcome, partner," Engineer replied with a tip of his hardhat. "I know you can get pretty sick of eating the same thing after a while, so I decided to change it up a 'lil.”

While the two continued munching down on the food, Sniper entered the room without a decent greeting. The engineer didn't seem to bothered by his presence and went on with his meal. After opening a glass sliding door to where some machinery was located, the Australian peeked his head through and scanned the room. “Engy," he called out, fingers tapping along the door frame, "how’s progress on figuring out that rocket?”

A little shrug. "We can recover the engines and retool them to use regular fuel, but we need a place where we can work on them correctly. I’m good but I can’t just build a rocket without some kind of lab to work in."

"I think we both know a place for that,” Sniper said, looking over at the Texan with a small grin.

The Engineer wagged his finger at him, catching on to what the Sniper was hinting at. "Ah, you see, I thought of that too, but, can we use it? That's the question here."

"Well, it’s not like the rockets in there are actually in use."

"Yes, but it’s also on the other side of the Badlands, in case you forgot."

Applejack, sick of being left out of the conversation, practically yelled her way into the topic. "Woah! Hold on! What are you two even talkin' about?!"

Sniper and Engineer were both equally startled as they had completely forgotten that the pony was in the room with them. Sniper started to explain, gesturing his hands as his words came out. “The Well’s is the place that we’re talking about.”

Applejack squinted, ears flickering side to side. "Well, why on earth would you talk about an old water-pit?"

Engineer jumped in, explaining calmly, "No, partner. The Well is how we call one of the factories where we fight. The Well in particular is a rocket factory." It was just one of their many bases, and Engineer was not surprised in the least that Applejack had been confused about the name. Hell, he had been too, when he’d first joined, all those years ago.

"Then why is there any trouble getting there?" Applejack asked, assuming that the place was just a trip away, or something of the like. It couldn’t be so difficult, now could it? After all, these people had so many tools at their disposals, they had to be able to do just about anything! 

Engineer put up his hand, raising three fingers. He began to tick them off, explaining these problems. "First, we need to be able to move the engines of the original rocket." This first one seemed more fixable than the other problems, though it was still an obstacle they had to overcome.

Sniper solved that quickly by saying, "I think we can rent a truck for that."

"Second, the gems are too valuable to leave behind," Engineer went on. Of course, if they were renting a truck, well, perhaps they could find room. Hopefully.

Applejack frowned, confused. "They’re not that valuable in Equestria." But then, really, nothing material was all that valuable where they came from. Not like here. Here it seemed like everything material was all that mattered. It bothered Applejack, to a certain level, to see these men care so little for other things, more important things. Things like friendship.

"Maybe not. But here these things are worth very much and make working on the rocket easy. In fact, I’ve designed a way you guys can easily control the rocket. Heck, even a kid could do it when I’m done with it." Engineer grinned proudly, pleased with himself for having figured out just what he could do to fix up this rocket. It shouldn’t be too hard, and especially so since he had his trusty wrench.

"The gems, Engy?" Applejack prodded gently, looking at him curiously. She didn’t quite see how they fit into all of this, and if they were really all that valuable, then they should give them to someone who needed them. It wasn’t like the ponies couldn’t get along without them, after all.

"Yeah, I’m getting there...in short, we need them close as funding," Engineer explained, moving faster to the point he had been trying to get to. He got the idea that the pony did not like long explanations and beating around the bush.

"They can come with the truck," Sniper said, putting the topic to rest.

"And the third?" asked Applejack, thinking that the final problem must be easy to solve too, if the others had been so simple. 

"We need to officially be fighting there." Engineer frowned, scratching underneath his helmet, confounded. He didn’t see how they could get around this one other than waiting to be reassigned there. And who knew how long that could take?

"I think I can have Miss Pauling place us there but once the administrator is back..." Sniper trailed off, looking out into the distance, contemplating the boss’s return.

"Hiding the ponies will be a problem there, too," Engineer added, considering the fact that there was no convenient barn there.

Just then, the copier finished the last piece of paper. Sniper picked up the big stack of papers, muttering, "We’ll find a way to deal with the administrator once she’s back. Her leverage covers us not questioning her authority but these ponies just tipped things in our favor."

"How so?" Engineer questioned, looking up at the Australian, pondering.

"She uses that leverage because she fears us. Even she doesn’t dare to touch Heavy’s gun. If we like these ponies it won’t prevent her from trying something but it will prevent her from taking direct actions." Sniper shrugged, looking back over to the ponies.

Applejack realized that this was serious, but she found Sniper’s last line amusing, "Aaaw I didn’t knew you guys liked us so much," she laughed.

Sniper couldn’t help but smile, saying, "Hey I can survive on my own but it doesn’t mean I don’t like someone to talk to once in a while." 

"What’s with those papers anyway?" Engineer asked, pointing to the stack in Sniper’s arms.

"Twilight thinks she can send a message home," Sniper explained, a knowing glint in his eye.

Applejack and Engineer looked at each other. The message didn’t need words to be understood, and Engineer grinned, asking, "Wanna’ go see how that works out?"

"Duh!" said Applejack, and they followed Sniper up to the others.
_____________________________________________

Twilight and the others had moved outside on the suggestions of Scout and Rainbow Dash, each who thought it might improve their chances of successfully sending a message, slim as they may be.

“So to say it again, the less there’s in your way, the more chance you have of having connection,” Scout reiterated, using hand gestures to emphasize his point, waving up at the sky.

“It’s not like cell signal, you halfwit,” Rainbow Dash quipped, rolling her eyes. Ever since she had found out about phones and the like, she’d been awed and intrigued. She thought she had the idea down, now, though. And she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Equestria ever got these things. Probably a bunch of decreases in ever really hanging out as friends do. Yeah, it wouldn’t be fun. And it would take out all the meaning in her daily trips from Cloudsdale down to Ponyville!

“I was thinking about bullets,” Scout quipped, scowling teasingly.

“What is team doing?” Heavy asked from where he stood atop the balcony with Medic and Fluttershy. 

After the others explained what they were attempting to do – and failing – the three shared their ideas. 

“Maybe she should try sending it to someone who’s closely connected to her,” Medic provided, looking thoughtfully at the stack of burnt papers.

“Maybe she could try sending it to Spike,” whispered Fluttershy.

“Da! Close relative is good!” exclaimed Heavy, his expression lighting up joyfully.

Before Fluttershy could inform Heavy of exactly who Spike was, a loud BOOM came from the BLU base.

“What’s going on in there?” asked Medic, frowning. He did not like it when the peace was disturbed. If you could call it peace. It was rare enough, anyway. 

Spy answered with a short quip, saying, “Eugh. The Demo and Soldier have been chasing the pink one.”

Rainbow Dash, who knew firsthand what damage Soldier could do, became worried about Pinkie and asked, “Why are they chasing her?” It sounded as if they wanted to hurt her, and she couldn’t stand for that, not as a true friend!

“She’s been using their explosives. I think she’s trying to use the explosions to jump like Soldier and Demoman.” Spy shrugged, appearing totally at ease with this fact. 

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Rainbow Dash asked, skeptical. How, in any way, could that be safe?

“Knowing how thick-skinned you ponies are I think it would have the same effect as when Soldier wears his boots,” explained Spy, flicking out a cigarette and lighting it, taking a long drag of the nicotine-laced smoke.

“Is that good?” she queried, pressing the Frenchman.
“I am certain she is fine,” Spy muttered, exasperated.

And just then, Pinkie Pie landed in the center of the group with a squeal of excitement.

“Wheee that was fun I want to do it again!” She exclaimed, jumping around in a circle within the group.

Medic asked Fluttershy, frowning in confusion, “Does she even know any pain?”

“I don't know. I hope not,” murmured Fluttershy in response, pawing anxiously at the dirt.

Soldier and Demoman came to join the bunch soon after, talking amongst themselves before seeing Pinkie Pie.

“Is the lassie fine?” Demoman asked, scrutinizing her, the shock plainly written on his face a few moments later.

“Of course she is!” shouted the Soldier, puffing his chest out as if he was the reason she was alright.

“You should be at least a little worried. She launched herself using six stickies and three rockets!” Demoman said, frustrated, swinging his arms down as he did so.

The two got into an argument and ignored the others, who began to converse. Twilight asked the other RED team members, “Is something going on between those two?”

“We used to mix up our original selves between RED and BLU until it got difficult to keep track of who the real ones were. They had a big friendship going on,” Spy explained, looking at the two with an expression of vague disappointment.

“What happened?” asked Twilight, looking over at Spy, before her gaze snapped back to the two arguing men.

“Well during that time Soldier was on BLU and Demoman was on RED. The Announcer doesn’t like friendships and cross-company ones make her panic.” The Frenchman shrugged, looking at the two men as well.

Dash let out a short laugh. “So? What was she going to do about it?”

“She told them something that started a war between them and offered new weapons as a bonus.” Spy shook his head disapprovingly, glancing sidelong at the rest of the team.
That quieted the ponies instantly. The very idea that something so material could ruin a friendship was saddening. Spy continued the explanation.

“Demoman easily tells us what she told him after a few drinks. Though, it’s hard to make it out among the ranting. Something about ‘Soldier had agreed first,’ some cursed weapons, and a voice calling out ‘heads’. That last one bothers me.”

“And Soldier?” Twilight asked, focusing especially on the American.

“He refuses to say anything.” Spy seemed unbothered by this, exhaling in a puff of smoke.

“They should be fine now! They’re on the same team,” exclaimed Pinkie as she shook off the dust from the earlier explosion.
“True, but they haven’t really seen eye to eye since the war.” 

“War?” asked Pinkie Pie, frowning in confusion.

“Long story short they had a fight and blew, shot, and chopped each other to bits something over six million times.” The Frenchman shrugged, shaking the ashes off of his cigarette.
The ponies were disquieted, thinking about how the battlements must’ve looked like after so much bloodshed. Probably terrible.

"So, can’t we help in any way?" asked Twilight, looking dejectedly at the pair.

"You can try. But first the matter of telling your home that you’re safe and planning on a way back is our top priority,” Spy gently reminded them, turning their attention away from the arguing men.

All together, they said, “Right!” However, Pinkie still worried about the two explosive experts. When Sniper, Engineer, and Applejack arrived, though, they returned to the attempts of sending a note home. 

After thirty attempts, Soldier came up with a different idea. "Why don’t we try Pyro’s taunt-kill? It seems closer relevant to this magical stuff than his backburner." He was actually surprised that it had taken him that many tries to figure it out, but now it seemed obvious.

"What are taunt-kills?" Twilight asked, looking over thoughtfully.

"Special moves we have. They are powerful but require a few seconds to prepare," Medic explained helpfully.

"Why Pyro’s in particular?" asked Twilight, studying the pyromaniac with a rather baffeled demeanor.

To answer Twilight’s question Pyro simply displayed his taunt-kill. The fireball that came from Pyro’s hand was strangely, uniquely green. 

"That wasn’t supposed to happen," murmured an awed Demoman.

"Yeah! Now that was a fireball!" yelled Dash excitedly, eyes wide, glinting with amazement.

"The fireball is supposed to happen. It's the color that was off," explained the Spy, rubbing his chin with his gloved hand.

Twilight jumped with joy, crying in her sheer excitement. "It means that’s where the sending magic is!” She squealed, her mane bouncing along with her.

They set up for the next try, but before they sent the note, Twilight felt need to add a second note for Spike. The two notes where bound together with a piece of rope. Pyro decided to toss it up as he prepared his taunt-kill and pulled it forward into a green ball of fire, burning the note as it came down. The note dissolved into a purple smoke and headed to the sky. In that same moment, Twilight exclaimed with much shock, "It worked!"
Scout jumped and yelled triumphantly in her wake, fists high up above him. "Aha! I told ya’ outside would be better!"

Soldier shoved him, huffing. "I think my hint gave the edge needed."

When they started arguing, Twilight asked, "Shouldn’t we stop them? I mean, everyone’s suggestions helped."

"Nah. Something like this ends and will be forgotten when the match starts," assured Sniper, shrugging, unimpressed.
___________________________________________

Back in Equestria, Spike had returned to Ponyville still hoping that Twilight and all her friends were okay. After a while, he started feeling something that he had hoped for and coughed up the messages from Twilight. He removed the first note, which happened to be for himself asking if he was alright. 

“Am I ok?" A small sigh. "She’s the one that got launched into space and she's asking if I'm okay?"

The note, after addressing him with the usual formal greeting, told him that she and the others were all safe. As Spike read on, he had also found out that that they had made some strange looking friends, and, if everything went well, that they’d be returning home very soon. Towards the end of the letter, she had noted that the second letter was intended for Princess Celestia. After Spike's eyes had went down to the very bottom of the scholl, he sent the second one off to the Princess. 

He re-read his own several times when he was alone, happy in his knowledge that Twilight and her friends were all well and fine. It would only be some time before all the ponies would be back home where they belong.

Suddenly, in the middle of his thoughts, a feeling rippled through Spike's system. After a few moments of coughing and hacking desperatly, a blue fez managed to wedge itself out of him. 

"Huh?" He started, a curious expression on his face. "What is going on out there?”
_______________________________________________

Back in TF Industries, Miss Pauling was watching over the match with her skillfull, trained eyed. While she was humoring herself after watching a blue spy lose his hat to the enemy Pyro’s tauntkill - who was still sending things to Equestria - she heard a low, grumbling, rough tone behind her that caused her to jump violently.

"You can give me my seat back now," the voice began, causing Miss Pauling to look over her shoulders with a look of grave concern etched deeply into her expression. "I have a lot of questions, and you are going to answer them."
> was this friendship a good idea? ch.5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 5: was this friendship a good idea?


The administrator had returned earlier than expected and Miss Pauling had to tell her everything; including what those ponies were doing on the battlements. 

"So you want to tell me the mercs agreed to help the ponies?"

"Yes administrator."

"How unusually nice of them. The ponies didn't stop them from fighting one another?"

"The mercs explained that neither party can die unless the match is lost, and even then they'd have to wait for the next match to begin. They also know about the other team now being mere copies of them."

"Troublesome. I leave for a few days and they bring weird animals on the battlefield and discover the workings of the spawn. This is why I never take holidays this long."

"The ponies crashed in the barn near Teufort. The mercs were going to use the rocket bay in Well to repair it."

"Well, let's relocate them then. They'll have tomorrow to do it."

"Excuse me, miss? No direct intervention?"

"This is trickier than the war we started between Demoman and Soldier; especially since every one of them is involved. Besides, the faster they're gone the better."

The Administrator turned to the screens 

"You can continue calling the matches. I don't want them knowing I'm back just yet; But I will be monitoring. I need to see what these things can do."

_____________________________________________________________________________

On the battlements, Sniper was laughing quite hard. He was chasing the same Spy Pyro was and had seen the fez disappear. 

"We sent ur mate a gift."

Twilight, now standing next to Sniper, felt responsible for the state of pyro's taunt

"I think it's best you perform it a couple of times; just to let the magic wear off."

They heard a clearing of the throat typical of Spy 

"Gentlemen and Miss Sparkle."

He held up Pinkie Pie, whose mane was burned partially. Behind him followed Rarity, scout and Rainbow Dash. Twilight was a bit concerned at the sight of Pinkie Pie's burnt mane.

"What happened to Pinkie!?" Twilight asked in a frantic tone.

Spy dropped Pinkie Pie and took out a new cigarette. 

"She followed Demo and Soldier into the blue base, but a walking bay of hay isn't something you see every day. The blue Pyro thought I was playing him for a fool. Lucky for her scout had his mad milk with him."

Dash flew over to Pinkie.

"What were you thinking going into blue base without anyone to protect you?"

"I just wanted to help Mr. Demoman and Soldier."

"Those Two haven't been in a decent conversation since the war. It always ends in an argument; as you have witnessed yesterday." said Sniper

Spy cleared his throat once more "If I may be bold as to criticize, your disguise was a joke and you moved in the middle of everyone's path. May I ask what your plan was?"

"I didn't have a plan." said the pink pony smiling

"How can she smile when she says that?" said Spy shaking his head.

Pyro proved that the tauntkill was fixed by taking down a blue scout that had come up to the group. Sniper finally spoke up, "I think it's best we go to Engy to talk about this."

Everyone agreed and went to the Intel room.

___________________________________________________________________________

The group surprised Engy and Applejack when they entered the Intel room 

"Either the spy's have made pony disguises or you guys need a semi-quiet place to talk… Did you put the pink one in the melting oven?" asked the Engineer.

"An unhappy meeting with a blue pyro. She wanted to help Demoman and Soldier."

"That there's a doomed cause. If it were a normal fight, that war would've been a fun contest. But the administrator said something to them and they lost each other's trust. That friendship is gone."

"FOREVEEER!"

Everyone stared at Pinkie Pie. She put up an awkward smile, giggled a bit, and then finally looked back at them. She realized her random ways were put up with a lot better in ponyville.

"Sorry. But I still think we can fix it, as long as we know what has been said."

"All we know is Demoman's side of the story. He claimed Soldier had agreed to kill him."

Spy gave his snobby snicker.

"I got part of Soldiers story."

"A part of it?" said Applejack.

"More than you guys have. He tells the exact same but he didn't agree when they told him Demoman had."

"Then why did he enter the war?" Sniper asked.

"That's the part I don't have. The administrator knows something about him that we don't."

"Why didn't you ask Demoman? He must know if soldier believes he told the administrator." Twilight suggested.

"That's where it gets strange. Demoman won't tell us; not even when he's drunk."

Pinkie jumped around happily "That must mean he didn't tell!"

"I believe we can assume he didn't, but they won't understand it the same way!"

The entire group was now thinking about how they could solve the problem they were faced with. Rarity took some time to think, and said,

"We are going to need both of them to figure this out."

Sniper nodded "After the match, we'll set them up in the courtyard and get to the bottom of this."

The mercs and a few of the ponies left the Intel room. Engy returned to his machines as applejack was asking,

"This is going to become ugly isn't it?"

"Anything gets worse before it gets better." He replied.

___________________________________________________________________

After the match, the mercs and ponies tried to get Demoman and Soldier into the courtyard, but it ended up turning into a fight between the 2; that is, until scout and Dash knocked them out. They then proceeded to tie them up to a chair and set them across each other. Twilight stood with a completely dumbfounded look on her face.

"What just happened? First they argued, then they started calling names, and before I knew it there were explosions everywhere."

"Bugger if I know. We never tried fixing this; It never got in the way of their jobs before. Anyone have a plan for this?"

They exchanged looks but no one had any idea what they were to do next. Engy had only one clue,

"I think we need to know what the administrator said to soldier. We need him to admit something."

Then Pinkie jumped up, and screamed,

"I got it!", then ran off before anyone could say anything.

Spy looked at her going towards the garage 

"You think she actually has a plan?"

Rarity responded quietly, "With her, who can tell?"

Heavy went up to Soldier to try his idea. 

"You! Tell me what are you hiding like spy?"

"Figure it out yourself numnuts!"

"Is Sasha going to have to ask you?"

"Whoa whoa heavy!" scout ran and stopped him. "If he dies, he'll just respawn, and I don't think he'll let himself get knocked down again."

"So, Sasha no good?"

"She's good but not in this scenario."

Heavy walked away and set Sasha on the table. Soon after, Fluttershy got up the courage to try and ask Soldier. She was quickly yelled away by him. She tried asking Demoman as well with the same results. Several hours passed by as they took turns trying to find out what broke their trust. Applejack had another suggestion for them.

"Can't we ask the administrator what she said?"

"She's not back, and even if she was we'd have more luck asking your rocket why it brought you here."

"But that can't even talk!"

"And the administrator would rather shoot us than answer questions. Which one would you rather ask now?"

Applejack looked down and quietly answered, "I'd rather ask the rocket."

After a long silence Medic asked,

"Where did the pink one… Pinkie was it? Anyway where'd she run off to again?"

As he asked that she came hopping with a plate full of cupcakes. Spy's eyes widened in interest.

"Where'd she find the ingredients for those?"

Engy looked annoyed 

"I suspect the melting furnace is going to smell of those isn't it?"

"Melting furnace?"

"We use it to melt spare weapons into new ones."

"Are you saying she used that to make those cupcakes?"

"It's the closest thing resembling an oven around here"

Scout picked one off the tray.

"Where'd you get the ingredients?"

"There's a cafeteria downstairs." Pinkie relied, bouncing around the room.

"We have a cafeteria?" scout asked.

Sniper laughed 

"I should've known. After all, this used to be fully working factory and intelligence facility. They probably had some emergency supplies."

Pinkie Pie was still hopping with the tray of cupcakes and asked 

"You want some? I can always make more."

Engy grabbed one, ate a bite, then replied,

"Them's some fine cakes. But how is this going to help us fix Soldier and Demoman's friendship?"

"Well, we need to know Soldiers secret, so I'm going to offer these cupcakes to them. I did it before, on somepony else."

Dash looked at her suspiciously.

"Was it that one time you replaced us with inanimate objects?"

Pinkie's awkward smile revealed she was right while the others only looked more confused. Spy picked the tray off Pinkies back 

"I think I know what you were trying, but it seems you… have performed it the wrong way. Allow me."

Spy walked up to the two, still struggling to get free of the ropes.

"Feeling hungry Soldier? Demoman?"

Neither responded. 

"Gentlemen, you must be hungry, because you skipped lunch to chase Pinkie who was playing with the explosives."

It was quiet enough to hear their stomachs rumble from the scent of the cupcakes. 

"Here's my offer: I'll untie and hand over all of these to the first that admits Soldiers secret."

Soldier started yelling at them,

"Of course this is in advantage of that drunken son of a…"

Scout smashed him on the head with a bat before he could finish the sentence.

"Spy isn't done yet."

"Thank you, scout. As an alternative, if you both come to an understanding, you will both get to eat. All we need is to know what's going on between you two, or for you to fix this."

Neither caved in just yet. The group waited a few hours. When night was about to fall, Engy called out to the mercs,

"This is taking too long. Those of you, who do have family in the city, call em up and tell em ur staying at work for the night."

Scout stared at Engy

"We can do that?"

"Heck yes. Sniper, you call Demoman's home. I believe there's someone watching over his mother while he's here. Now how do you guys feel about a barbecue?"

Using some old metal that lay around and an old flamethrower from Pyro, Engineer had built a makeshift barbecue in the courtyard. They took the food from the supply room Pinkie had discovered. They made some burgers for the Mercs and barbecued apples for the Ponies. Pinkie and Applejack decided to make some more cupcakes and sweet things. Demoman and Soldier had been left alone for a bit. Demoman decided to finally speak up.

"You know I wouldn't have traded you for all the cursed swords in the world. But when I heard you had agreed, that's what told me you had abandoned me."

"No, I heard you caved in and even then I told them to find another patsy."

"But you fought me. You gave me a humiliating defeat after our war. You agreed to kill me."

"Not easily like you did. They showed me the video of you agreeing while telling them I was a bad friend. You even told them I was a civilian."

"I never told them that. If I told them I would've told Spy while he was here with them treats."

Spy decided to uncloak. He held his head up in disappointment. "Gentlemen, was that civilian thing really the big secret?"

They both had been caught on this. 

"I cannot believe this. You are both incompetent fools. Soldier! Do you honestly think I could not have known you've never been in the army?"

"But my medals…"

"You made those medals yourself. Only heavy would've been fooled by them. The army doesn't give out a medal for most bloodshed on the battlefield."

"Nonetheless it was still my secret and he promised not to tell anyone."

"And I still haven't, mate. We've been had."

"But the administrator, she…"

"Soldier, this is an intelligence facility. There are more scattered all over the badlands. Finding out you were never in the army must've been a routine job for them."

"You are still soldier, right?"

The rest had gathered near them everyone looking angry at heavy for drawing their attention. 

"What? He still is, our soldier."

Twilight was curious 

"Well, now that this much is cleared up, I think we can all safely say that the administrator has lied to you guys."

"I believe these ropes are unnecessary now." Spy said as he cut both Demoman and Soldier free. 

"If Demoman really had told your secret around, why would he bother hiding it from us?"

Both had to agree it sounded right. Demoman stuck out his hand saying "Well I guess we can let this silliness behind us. Ye won fairly. Forgive and forget?"

Soldier grabbed Demo's hand "Only if you let me buy our tickets to the next weapons expo."

They laughed hardy laughs, and then looked at the rest of the group.

"I believe there was talk of a barbecue?"

"You mean your friendship isn't lost forever?" said Pinkie happily leading the two to the food.

The two looked at the pink pony and nodded.

Twilight asked Sniper with confusion, "Why does the administrator disapprove of friendship?" She wrote at least a letter a week to Princess Celestia, telling what lessons she had learned about friendship; she was not used to the idea that such a wonderful thing could be looked down upon.

"I have no idea." He said in reply.

_________________________________________________________________

They barbecued deep into the night, telling stories, showing tricks, laughing. Engineer even played a song on his guitar. In this moment, it seemed as if they all felt like a regular group, just having a party. But the Administrator had been following the entire thing. She was disgusted by everything she had seen. 

"It seems just getting these things to go home won't be fast enough. I should place the objective for the blue team to destroy them."

"Um.. Administrator?"

"Yes Miss Pauling?"

"The soldier already attempted to destroy one the day they arrived. His critrocket was unsuccessful."

"You can have that with the Heavy class. It just means you'll have to hit it again, more and often."

She thought over the situation.

"I'll send some men that are unrelated to TFindustries first, that way they can't tell I sent them."

"Administrator If I may ask, why do you think friendship is a bad thing?"

"Friends? Friends are just enemies who don't have the guts to kill you. Mr. Mundy should know this."

"The Sniper, ma'am?"

"He had the motto that at the end of the day, when there's two people left on the planet, one is going to want the other dead. You haven't noticed, Miss Pauling, but they have changed. Even the heavy seems calmer. They are thinking and talking. They will eventually think and talk about us. In fact, the purple one is already asking a lot about us."

She stood up and walked towards the exit 

"You can go home for today, Miss Pauling. I'll just have to make one call."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Back at the Party Rarity had placed herself on the overpass. 

"Attention everyone! I have prepared a surprise for you all."

Spy came up with a small box. Scout noticed something different.

"Hey spy, are those gems in the belt of your fedora?"

"Scout, not now."

Rarity continued.

"Mr. Spy has explained me the idea behind medals, so I felt I must make you all one."

She took nine medals, each made out of a gem, out of the box Spy was carrying. 

"I made one specifically for each of you."

Every gem had the emblem of a class in it. Twilight was amazed, so she asked Rarity,

"How did you get those shapes in the gems?"

"Well I was practicing a spell for that shortly before the festival. I managed to perfect it yesterday."

After every merc got his medal, they celebrated a bit more until they grew tired. Twilight took a look at Demoman, who had decided to end the party by making some fireworks using rockets and stickybombs. Using both they had created remotely detonable rockets. Twilight was writing down in a little notebook Sniper had found lying around. 

"They seem happier than usual." She said with a smile.

"They got loads of fun to catch up on." Sniper told her.

Twilight nodded as she wrote down that rekindled Friendships often burn brighter than before.
> Highway fight ch.6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

by ~trebthegamer

Chapter 6 Highway fight







Just outside the Badlands was a big rest stop. It had everything: a bar, minimarket, restaurant, garage, etc... You may have thought it was overdone. But people who come through the Badlands often knew they needed to stop there. No one wanted to have their car break down between a bunch of guns and rocket launchers. This is where Sniper took stops often. He had rented a truck to transport the rocket parts. They found an old semi-trailer at Teufort, so he only had to rent the truck itself. He bought a few things for the ponies; a hairbrush being one of the items, because Rarity asked him buy one for her… she asked for it all the time. An unfriendly looking guy had seen Sniper buy this stuff. 
"Hey! Liking girly stuff?" he asked with a devilish smirk on his face.
Sniper ignored him as he paid the cashier. 
"Are you hearing me, sissy?"
The guy grabbed a book sniper had just bought took a look at it.
"An Encyclopedia of modern arms? You don't need to learn about guns."
Sniper pulled his SMG and shoved the barrel under the guys nose 
"Your right, mate. I don't need to. It's for a friend. Now give it back."
The cashier looked the guy holing the book. "Just give him the book back. I don't want to clean another body of the floor."
The guy slowly gave sniper the book back. As Sniper left, the rest stop the guy turned to the cashier.
"You know that guy?"
"Oh yes, and you should learn to know him, too."
"Why?"
"He's one of the guys that made the Badlands look like a warzone."
"That guy? He bought hairpins and candy!"
"And I believe it's for a friend. Trust me these guys are trouble if you mess with them. The small guy of the bunch got into the bar here once. He caused a fight and got killed in the process. Next day, the guy that killed him had his head batted in; by the same small guy."
"You're telling me these guys can come back from the dead?"
"Well, they cannot be killed permanently."
A shady character came up to the thug.
"I may have a job for you."
__________________________________________________________________

Back in Teufort the mercs and ponies were already loading up the parts. Medic was searching the facility from top to bottom. 
"Heavy, have you seen Archimedes?"
"No doctor."
"Where is that bird?"
"Mr. Medic! Archimedes is with me."
The small dove popped out of Fluttershy's hair. 
"I see you taught him to stay somewhere else."
"Yes but I haven't been able to get him to make his own nest, with the lack of trees and such."
"At least he doesn't get into open wounds as often as he used to."
They went to the barn where the Engineer was busy closing up a last box. 
"Now that there's a fine piece of work."
"Never thought them shiny rocks could be so valuable."
Said Applejack, who had been assisting Engy. 
"They're very rare around here. It's hard to believe these just grow like potatoes on your planet."
"Well, then dragons eat them, so they have to come back somehow. By the way, what's in the other box?"
"What?"
"The one I saw you carry from the garage this morning."
"That there's Medic's request. I'll show you guys in the well."
Applejack was interested, but Twilight interrupted to check
up on their progress 
"Mr. Engineer, are the boxes ready to be loaded onto the truck?"
"Yeah!"
"Great! There will be room for us in the back. Are you sure these are the parts we need? I mean, is the Rocket really that broken?" Applejack asked, looking at the remnants of their ride here.
"That isn't the thing missy. You see, the Well already has a rocket, but its engines and coordinates aren't right, among other things"
"How so?"
"The engines can't get the rocket into space, but if I replace them with the engines from your rocket they'll not only launch you into space; they will do it in a record time and with minimum fuel."
"And about the coordinates?"
"I don't know where your planet is, but I think this thing might tell me."
Engy pulled out the orb Princess Celestia had made. 
"That's the orb that points to Canterlot!"
"So I was right. This does point to your world."
"We completely forgot about that thing."
"Anyway if it really does point to your planet, I can try and find its coordinates. The only other thing I need to do is transform the rocket into a non-exploding one. After that we can load it into Steel for the launch."
Pinkie came into the barn, but not hopping like she usually does. In fact, she waggled around until she saw twilight 
"Hey… I didn't know you had a twin sister!" she said, in a shaky voice.
"Spy?!" Twilight asked with sudden alertness in her voice.
They looked around but saw absolutely nothing. 
"Applejack! Mr. Hardhat! You have one too!"
Engineer looked at her closer. "Is she…?"
"What? Is Pinkie Pie sick?" asked Twilight, worried.
"I guess you can call it that." The engineer replied.
Applejack stared at Engy. "Excuse me?"
"She's drunk. Like the Demoman."
"DRUNK?!" they asked in unison.
"Is that bad Mr. Engineer?"  Twilight asked fearfully.
"Not yet. But don't worry, she won't die of it."
"What did she drink?"
"Alcohol, beer, but I suspect scrumpy; Demoman's favorite drink. He has several cases in every facility."
Applejack looked at Pinkie who tried shaking hoofs with Applejack's non-existing twin. "Are you sure she'll be all right?" she asked him.
"You may want to keep an eye on her." He replied.
Pinkie waddled around the room "Everything is so woozy."
Engineer though for a moment and said, "Maybe we better ask medic what we should do with her."
"Agreed!" the two replied.
They guided the drunken Pinkie out of the barn.
________________________________________________________________
Just outside the barn, Sniper had arrived with the truck. Everyone had gathered and, of course, Demoman was to blame for Pinkies state. Demoman had returned to drinking his usual amount and had convinced Pinkie to try it too. Most of the mercs found the situation funny, but the ponies were worried about her. Sniper decided there was not much they could do about it now.
"Just get in the truck and let Pinkie sleep it off." He suggested.
Getting Pinkie in the truck proved harder than expected. She was still energetic as ever and jumped around singing,
"Oh, give me cakes! So many, many cakes!"
The booze made her drowsier than usual and she eventually fell asleep. Soldier carried her to the back of the truck. Sniper gathered the group one last time in the barn to pick up the last few boxes, but more pressingly to announce something. 
"When Miss Pauling called to give the ok for our transportation, she suggested we use our earpieces."
"What are earpieces?" Twilight asked him.
"They are little radios with which you can tell your teammates anything, even when they're not near you."
"Why haven't you been using them?"
"We use them for serious matches, and as long as we all do our thing in the team, we're solid. But the thing is this; they never suggest us to use earpieces. Miss Pauling must fear something will go wrong on this transportation."
"Is it because of the gems?" Rarity asked.
"I'm not sure." Heavy said "Maybe it's because of little Ponies" 
Dash rushed over to him "You think we might betray you guys?!"
"No!" 
"I think what heavy's trying to say is that you guys have been compromised." Engy told her.
Medic then said, "Even if the nearby towns fear us, I think the Ponies could catch quite the price if captured. Am I right Heavy?"
"Da!"
"I'm surprised by how we might be looked at by other people, and even more surprised Mr. Heavy Weapons guy was the first to realize this." Applejack said.
Engy patted Applejack "Allow me to stun you even more. The Heavy has a PhD in Russian literature. It's a high academic grade. He's way smarter than he looks, or talks in that matter."
Sniper laughed when the ponies' jaws dropped. "Ok back to serious business. If someone else knows about the ponies, it means someone here talked."
"I doubt anyone of us could talk about colorful ponies and get someone who believes it. Those who do believe it are smart enough not to tell." the Medic stated
"We better watch out when on the road." Engy said, as he loaded up another box.
They loaded up the last boxes and got on board. Sniper and Twilight would be in the front and the rest got into the back; except for Scout and Rainbow Dash.  Medic opened his window and called out to them,
"Are you not coming with us?"
"Nah. We'll get there by ourselves. We're fast enough."
"Be careful you two."
"Aww doc, I didn't know you cared."
"I care about my objectives, and they currently are to get these parts, these gems, and these ponies to the Well safely."
"No problem."
"Remember! When you die you won't spawn in the truck. You'll spawn at the nearest spawn point."
"There are some battlements along the way."
"Dash you better know how to dodge like Scout. If he dies you'll be on your own while he respawns and gets back to you."
"I can handle it!" Rainbow Dash replied as she and Scout took a head start. 
"Fess…"
Sniper saw them pass by with ease.
"What are those two thinking they're doing?"
"They plan on going on their own."
Medic said over the radio as he closed the back. Sniper grumbled as he started the truck. Twilight was a little worried.
"Be honest Sniper. How much trouble are we in?"
"Can't tell, we have to know who's after us first."
When they passed Scout and Rainbow dash he rolled down the window and yelled, 
"You prancin' show ponies!"
Then he looked at Twilight, who wore a little smile on her face.
"No offence mate."
"None taken, sir."
____________________________________________________________________
Scout and Dash sped after the truck.
"You know, I can catch up to them. This is mere jogging to me." Scout told her.
"Oh yeah? I bet I can get by them faster."
Before they could start a match, scout heard a familiar voice in the distance and stopped at a fork in the road.
"Hey! Are you tired already?" Rainbow asked smugly. 
"No but… Let's go this way. There's something I want to check."
"Do I have a choice? You're the one who knows the way." She reminded him.
"Good point." he replied.
Scout ran down the direction where he heard the sound. Rainbow Dash flew after him. When they neared a T-junction their jaws nearly dropped. Hundreds of people armed to the teeth with weapons from MannCo. They were on bikes and armored jeeps. 
"Aw Crap!"
Scout and Dash hid behind a Rock when scout heard the voice again. 
"Mission begins in ten seconds!"
Scout looked and saw the administrator's messenger with the usual TV-screen strapped to his chest. 
"You've got to be kidding me! When did she get back?"
"Is that..?"
"The administrator. Yes. Oh man she was the one that knows about you guys."
"She looks shady, and why does she carry a TV-screen?"
"That's the messenger. The administrator is the one on the screen."
"Oh. Um… Scout."
"What?"
"They're moving."
"What?!"
The army of goons headed towards the road the truck was following. 
"Hey, we've gotta stop them!"
Scout shouted that too loud and the goons noticed him. Luckily the Messenger had already left. But the goons had noticed Dash too. 
"Damn! She was right. They do have some rare animals with them."
Scout jumped on Rainbow Dash and they flew towards the truck. Scout contacted the others and told them what he had seen.
____________________________________________________________________
"Bugger!" Shouted Sniper, after he heard what scout told him. In the back the others had heard too.
Medic thought for a second, and said, "So she was already back?"
"Seems like it." Heavy said, while stomping open the doors. "We let tiny men come! I kill them!"
Just then, there was a bump in the road that tossed everyone up. Heavy lost grip on his minigun and it fell out the back 
"Noooooo! Sasha!"
Fluttershy quickly flew out and grabbed it. She had a difficult time getting back to the truck, as it weighed a lot. 
"Come little pony! Bring it back!" Heavy shouted at her encouragingly.
Fluttershy was about to give up when the minigun suddenly became lighter. Dash and Scout had arrived to help carry it. They tossed it into Heavy's arms. Heavy immediately gave the minigun a big hug and whispered apologies to it. 
Applejack approached the exhausted Fluttershy. "What were you thinking girl?!"
"But heavy was going to lose Sasha."
"It's a gun! He can get a new one. That thing could've smashed you into the road."
"But he'd be sad."
"YOU!" heavy yelled, who had set Sasha in the back while Engy looked to fix any damage. 
Heavy Hugged Fluttershy shouting,
"Thank you! Little Fluttershy is credit to team!"
"Guys, is that gun good to go? Because those morons are here!" yelled the scout, still running after the truck.
"She's good to fire!" Engy yelled back.
"Horosho!" Heavy yelled. He let Fluttershy go and grabbed his minigun. "Here I come!"
He started firing at the goons. Soldier set up next to heavy to fire his rockets, while Pyro fired flares on the other side. Behind them, Demoman fired his pipe bombs. As Engy set up a dispenser in the middle of them, he shouted 
"Hey Spy! Medic! Open that one crate I brought along!"
Spy and Medic tried this immediately. But medic soon had to assist in healing since the dispenser wasn't enough. 
"Hey I require assistance here!"
Rarity came up and tried to use her magic to force the box open. The lid flew off nearly missing heavy, but taking out a few biker goons. 
"Fine job miss rarity."
"Thank you monsieur Spy."
Engy finished upgrading his dispenser and rushed to the box. He pulled out another box, with strange marks on it. 
"Fluttershy, the medic requested this, now stand still."
"Oh, are you sure it's for me? I mean, is it ok?"
"More than ok." He said with a smile.
Engineer placed the box on Fluttershy's back and it deployed. 
"Going up!" he yelled.
Soon Fluttershy had a new type of medigun. There were two small mediguns on each side of her and a battery on her back to supply the power to both. On the box was a drawing of Fluttershy's cutiemark. 
"You should be able to fly with it. But for now just try it on them fellas protecting you."
"Thank you. Um are you sure? I mean…."
"Get going!" 
"Right it's only a competition after all." she assured to herself.
Fluttershy immediately tried her new personal minigun out on the Demoman 
"Eey! Thanks lass. But you should try the guys in front of me. They need it more." 
"Oh! Ok!" She focused now on healing the mercs in the opening of the truck.
The fight was wild. Soldiers' rocket took down several jeeps, while the heavy mowed down anyone who came close. Pyro had to change tactics and air blast incoming rockets. Scout was running among the bikers and smacked anyone who came near him, while dodging their bullets. Dash kept an eye out in the sky. Whenever Scout would be in trouble she could come down and get him out of it. Some goons had started picking up speed, passed the cargo part and attempted to board the front of the truck. Sniper grabbed his SMG and shot a guy off the side. Twilight kept her side safe with a spell. When another goon jumped onto sniper's side of the truck he recognized the guy from the store. 
Sniper laughed "There was you, very full of yourself."
Sniper aimed his SMG "Then briefly surprised." 
He fired "Then, dead." 
He turned on his headset 
"Guys! Finish them off! It won't be long until we're there."
"Very good!" yelled heavy.
"Demoman, may I make a suggestion?!" Spy pointed at the empty box that until recently held Fluttershy's medigun. 
"Ah I see." the scot snickered as he disabled his sticky limit and filled the box with active stickybombs. They pushed the box out of the truck, and the stickies flew in all directions when the first motorcycle hit the it. Shortly after, Demoman detonated them. 
"I don't think they saw that one coming'!" he laughed as he sat down next to the sleeping Pinkie. Soldier looked at her.
"I can't believe she slept through all that." 
"She had quite a few drinks too." Demoman laughed.
"Yeah about that, never offer her a drink again." 
_______________________________________________________________________________
As they drove in Pinkie had still not woken up.  Soldier and Demoman carried her to the resupply room and had placed her on the bench. When she did wake up she was experiencing a hangover. 
"Oooh, I feel horrible."
"He he, I guess scrumpy isn't your thing."
"Oooow not so loud. My head hurts." She told him.
Soldier walked up to her. "What you feel is the punishment of drinking too much."
"Why doesn't Demoman have it?" she asked.
"Well um…"
"Demoman had to put up with hangovers for years before he got used to it. He still gets them but he gets over them faster." said medic, who was followed by Fluttershy and Heavy.
"We can't leave her like that. She seems to feel very bad." Fluttershy walked forward and used her medigun. 
"Ach, you are too kind." medic told her.
After a while under the medibeam, Pinkie Pie started feeling a lot better. 
"Hey is that like Medic's Medigun? It looks so nice! The small mediguns look so cute!"
"The sizes of the mediguns are not just cute, they're practical."
Engy told her, while he placed the gem box in the corner. 
"This way they don't get in the way of your wings. The normal medigun is too big and heavy for you, let alone two mediguns. The decrease in size also lowered their weight and power necessity, but I did have to leave several parts out."
"Is that bad?" Fluttershy asked, with slight concern.
"Not really. It just means you can't use über. You should still be able to overheal."
"Assuming this is our gift, I don't think she'll need the über. That is, unless you want me to install the überdevice on every pony in your group."
"No thanks!" Fluttershy replied quickly. 
Pinkie wondered "What is he talking about?"
"It's a thing that causes every one of them to become invincible."
"Oooh! Is that the thing that makes you all shiny? I want that!"
"Wunderbar!" said medic. 
He pulled out his bonesaw, and Pinkie quickly changed her mind. 
"On second thought, no thanks!"
She ran out of the room 
"Ah, what a shame. I believe your hearts would be strong enough not to explode."
"What?" Heavy asked.
"Nothing, Heavy, Just thinking out loud."
_________________________________________________________________
Pinkie ran out the base and bumped into Twilight and sniper who were unloading some crates with rocket parts. 
"Pinkie Pie, You're awake!"
"Strange. I thought she'd be cringing in pain by now."
"What?? Why would she be doing that?"
"Remember that hangover thing I explained to you?"
"Oh right. Still, it's good to see she's ok."
Pinkie Pie jumped up "I was feeling very sick, but I'm fine now, thanks to Fluttershy's new device! When did she get that?"
"They gave it to her during the fight."
"What fight? When was there a fight?"
"You slept through the entire thing. Apparently the administrator is back and the guys had to fight off a lot of people."
"I missed a special match?"
"I guess it was a surprise match." 
Sniper didn't mention it wasn't a match. Otherwise he'd have to admit that those goons didn't respawn. Pinkie Pie was a little annoyed. 
"So because I drank so much scrumpy, I missed the entire thing, and the moment they gave out gifts?!" 
Sniper took out a bag of candies 
"Fluttershy's was a special gift since she's teaching Archimedes to stay out of our guts when medic's operating. You can have these tough."
"Thank you!"
She took the bag of candies and hopped away.
"Is that really the reason she got it?"
"Well, medic and Engy like to experiment too, and I guess you can say we've grown to like you guys. I got this book for you."
"Encyclopedia of modern arms?"
"I've heard from Applejack you're quite the bookworm, so I thought you might want to learn about our equipment."
"Thank you! I was interested in the workings of those things." 
"You're welcome." 
______________________________________________________________________
The administrator looked at the screens, streaming the cameras from the well.  
"They already got the mercenaries on their side. My mercenaries!"
She took a drag from her cigarette. 
"Dead these things would be better."
"Administrator, I should remind you of Soldiers attempt. We talked about it."
"I know. But just because that idiot didn't succeed in one try doesn't mean someone else can't."
The administrator left her chair and walked to the door 
"If you'll excuse me, I have to make visit to an old friend. I am not looking forward to this."
"Shouldn't I just call him?"
"Miss Pauling I'm pretty sure you like those animals too. I'm afraid I can't trust you with these tasks until they are gone. See it as your turn to take a vacation."
"Excuse me, Administrator?"
"I will call you when you can return to your tasks."
As she left the facility, she talked to herself.
"That Australian idiot better do this. Those things are hard to get rid of, and I'm running out of ideas."
> rainbows make me die ch 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7 rainbows make me O_O

Three days had passed since the highway problems. Everything had been quiet since then; too quiet for Sniper’s taste. 
“We haven’t had any matches since Teufort.”
Twilight looked up from her encyclopedia 
“Is that bad? I like the silence; it’s relaxing.”
“Things must be serious if the announcer left us to our business.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“I don’t like this one bit!” 
“What is the big problem? We all get to do something we like. Engy and Applejack have time for the rocket. Pinkie, Demoman and Soldier are in the desert trying out something they built. Rarity and Spy are working with the gems to see what they can make. Dash and Scout are running between BLU base and here. Heavy, medic and Fluttershy are practicing with her little medigun. I have no idea what Pyro is doing though.”
“He’s probably reading a magazine while playing with a lighter.”
“Ok so everyone is keeping busy. No problem.”
Sniper mumbled to her, “That just means the problem will be bigger when it comes.”
__________________________________________________________________________
At the rocket applejack was strapped to a cart that held various parts from the rocket that Engineer was removing. 
“That’s a lot of stuff you’re throwing out,” she said.
“Most of it I can recycle into new parts, but I need the dangerous stuff out before I can turn this into a transport rocket.”
“What did it originally do?”
“Blow up.”
“And we’re supposed to ride that home?”
“What are you worried about? I’m taking the explosives out.”
“Does that mean those things in my cart can explode?”
“Yes and you can take them to Demoman, Soldier and Pinkie. They asked if they could use the explosives.”
“These things won’t go off will they?” 
“Nope!” 
“I hope you’re right.”
Applejack pulled the cart of explosives into the desert just outside the Well. Soldier and Demoman were there, fiddling with a strange backpack device. Pinkie bounced around, eager to try it out. 
“Hey y’all, I brought the explosives you asked for.”
“Thanks private AJ!” 
“What?”
“Never mind that, Applejack.  He calls me that too.” Pinkie told her.
Applejack returned to the well. On her way in, sniper stuck his head out the window 
“Oi, have any idea what those three are making?”
“Not a clue, it looks like it should become a black table, or something similar.”
Twilight looked at sniper, and said,
“They’d better be careful. From what I heard from Rainbow Dash, those explosions hurt.”
“And us flying to bits didn’t hint ya?”
“That too, but you don’t seem to mind it much.” 
“Well, since we don’t have any matches, I might as well use the training area behind the factory.”
“You can practice here?”
“There’s a practice area somewhere near every location. They’re usually used as storage too.”
“Can I come?” 
“Sure, but I want to see how Engineer is doing first.” 
They joined Applejack in the atrium and went down the hall to the rocket silo. Engineer had just finished installing the engines of the ponies’ old rocket. 
“Done already Engineer?” yelled Sniper. 
“The motors need a test, but it’s far from done. The upper half is empty; it needs a guidance system and easy to use controls. I also need to use the building’s computers to contact the satellite dish in Frontier.”
“Why do you need that?” asked Twilight
“I got some readings off that orb you guys brought along, but I need the satellite to pinpoint your world more accurately. With a little more effort I can install easy controls so you won’t have to smash into someone’s barn to land.”
“Please do! I don’t want this thing to be my farm’s newest attraction,” spurted Applejack.
“Problem is… I may need some australium for it.”
“Australium?” the ponies asked in unison.
“Australium is a rare metal that can adapt and transform into different shapes and states, as well as enhancing the user’s mental and physical capabilities.”
“That last part meaning… what exactly?”
“It makes them stronger and smarter. The smarter part would be a bonus but the metal itself could be useful for the controls; which by the way are not easy enough.”
“What are you implying?”
“Can you fly a plane?”
“A what?”
“Never mind. All I’m saying is I want these controls to be so easy all you have to do is press a button to land.”
“That’s very simple.”
“And I’m nowhere near it.”
“Didn’t you find several caches of australium?” Asked sniper.
“I used most of them in the life extender machine. What I had left I used to create the inventions my grandfather designed; like the gunslinger.”
“Can you handle without it?”
“Sure, but it will take longer. Enough about the rocket; it’s strange that no match has been announced.”
“Well, Twilight and I are going to the training room to pass the time a bit.”
“Is she going to practice?” Sniper laughed, pulling up her hoof. 
“Right!” Engy thought for a second, before finally saying suggesting, “What if she used the gunslinger? With the australium in it, it should adjust to her hooves.”
“Are you saying we can fire your guns using this gunslinger thingamabob?”
“Yeah, and training does not require you to shoot live things. It’s possible, but we can leave that function off.”
Engineer picked up a few gunslingers and joined the others in the training room. 
“I had to rewire a bit, but it should fit now.”
Applejack let Engy place the robotic hand on her hoof, and the moment it touched, she felt a sensation before suddenly being able to move the metallic fingers. 
“Whoa! This feels strange!”
Twilight tried one herself and felt the same. 
“Wow, that felt like something shocked me.”
“Alright Applejack, let me show you how you’re supposed to use the shotgun.”
As Engy explained firing and reloading. Sniper handed his gun to Twilight. He pressed a button and a wooden board with a blue heavy painted on popped up. 
“All you have to do is practice hitting the board. It won’t matter if you miss or hit it here, though.”
Twilight sat down, placed the rifle on the wooden fence and looked down the scope just as she’d seen Sniper do every match. She searched for the fake Heavy, and when she found it in the scope, she locked on and fired the gun. The plank of wood flew to bits.
“What did I hit?”
“Console says it’s a body shot.” 
“What does that mean?” 
“You probably hit anything but the head.” 
“Oh… that’s still good isn’t it?” 
“For a pony, it’s amazing you even fired the gun.” 
Sniper pressed another button and this time a plank with a soldier popped up 
“I’d try to aim for the head. The red dot that appears shows you what you are going to hit.”
“I’ll remember that,” she told him. She aimed and tried to shoot, but her sniper rifle didn’t fire “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Sniper picked up the gun and reloaded it. 
“I didn’t teach you to reload,” he told her.
“That’s ok; I’ll only try one more time.”
This time, she waited for the red dot to fully appear and carefully aimed. She fired again and the plank flew to bits. 
“How was that one?”
“Headshot! Nice job mate.”
Twilight gave Sniper his gun back and removed the gunslingers.
“That was interesting.”
“Whoa! Watch out Twilight,” Yelled Applejack who was wobbling on her hind legs.
Sniper looked surprised “Are you going to try everything standing upright?”
“I am going to try, gosh darn it.” She said still a bit unbalanced.
“Don’t look at me friend I suggested she sat down,” Said the Engineer as he called up a closer placed Spy plank. 
“I can do this!” 
Applejack held the gun like Engy had shown her and fired. She flew back and fell. 
“AJ! You ok partner?”
“I’m fine! Did I hit it?”
“Nope! You missed.”
“What?!”
“You missed it when the kickback knocked you over.”
“But Twilight didn’t miss.” 
Sniper laughed 
“She sat down, and she probably felt it in her shoulder.”
“Now that you mention it, It did press against my shoulder every time I fired,” Said Twilight. Applejack got up. 
“I can do this.”
“Maybe we should practice standing upright first” suggested Sniper
_________________________________________________________________
Outside Rarity and Spy where finishing their project. Spy held up a knife they had made out of gems.
“Magnificent, this gem blade.”
“I still think it’s a waste that you’re going to get blood on it,” Said Rarity disapproving.
“Not to worry miss Rarity. If I clean it off right away, there should be no stains” 
“That helps a bit I guess.” 
Spy took a watch out of his pocket and offered it to Rarity.
“This cloak and dagger is one I had extra, but I think you’ll like it.”
“Oh it looks absolutely marvelous! How do I use it?”
“You can use your magic to twist the button on the side.”
Rarity tried and turned invisible. 
She reappeared saying “It’s wondrous, but it’s not fitting for a pony that wants to be seen.”
“That makes it harder for you to hide. Miss Rarity, you’re a real eye catcher, but what about when you need to sneak? That would prove difficult for you, no?”
“That’s true, and I can remember a few times when I just wanted to disappear.”
“Perhaps this might be a better gift.” 
Spy placed a Fedora on her head.
“Oh nice. Do you have a mirror?” 
“Certainly.” 
When he handed Rarity the mirror she seemed a little disappointed. 
“Not to be rude but this color doesn’t fit me.”
Spy took the fedora and looked at it. 
“Perhaps it would look better in a deep commitment to purple or an extraordinary abundance of tinge.” 
Spy noticed Rarity looking at him questioningly and quickly explained, “Purple or white. I just named the titles of their paints.”
Just then they heard scout scream out in joy. They rushed to where scout was and where nearly hit by a bypassing Rainbow Dash.
“What are you two doing?” asked Spy.
“Dude you have got to see this! She can fly as fast as a jet! A JET, MAN!”
“Preposterous!”
“See for yourself.”
Spy couldn’t believe his eyes. When Rainbow dash flew across the sky, she was indeed at speeds muscle power normally couldn’t reach. 
“This is impossible. That fast on her own power?”
“She can go faster. Believe me, I know,” Said Rarity. 
“Even faster? I think she’s already at Mach speed.”
Rainbow Dash stopped in front of them.
“Hey guys! Come to see my awesome speeds?”
“Darling I’ve seen you do better than that many times before,” Said rarity.
Suddenly, they were interrupted by an explosion in the distance. They saw pinkie fly towards them. “What is she doing?” they asked each other.
As soon as pinky landed, she smiled at everyone. 
“Hey, did you see me? I was flying!”
She was wearing a metal box on her back. It had four tubes that where attached to each of her legs. 
“Is that what Demoman and Soldier were working on?”
“Yes indeedy!  I call it the box of boom. I can jump using explosions like Demoman and Soldier!”
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“No. Mr. Demoman fixed up something he uses in his sticky jumper.”
Both Demoman and Soldier came running
“Great job Private Pie.” 
“Thanks Mr. Soldier,” She giggled
“Private Pie?” Scout asked, trying to hide a grin.
Soldier glared at Scout from under his helmet.
“Sir! Thank you Sir!” yelled pinkie gleefully
Rarity looked at pinkie “Honey, are you feeling well?” 
“Of course! This is how soldiers talk. Mr. Soldier told me stories about soldiers fighting for their country and loved ones. They were all heroes.”
Scout laughed, “And how do you know even half of what he said was true?”
“Mr. Demoman was there to correct.” She jumped around and started singing a song soldier had taught her:
“We pull upon the risers,
We fall upon the grass.
We never land upon our feet,
We always hit our ass.
Highty tighty, Christ almighty
Who the hell are we,
Zim-Zam god damn, 
We’re Airborne Infantry”
Spy then asked, “why Airborne?” 
Soldier felt annoyed by that question. “I haven’t seen you fly around the battlements unless it was pyro’s air blast, stickies or my rockets blowing you away.” He said as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
Meanwhile, Rarity neared Rainbow Dash, and asked, “Why don’t you show them your best trick?”
“The buccaneer blaze?”
“No dear. The sonic Rainboom.”
“Oh, right.”
“You can make a sonic boom?” asked scout who had heard their conversation. “That is something I want to experience.” 
“Don’t you mean see?”
“No I’m going to be joining you when you perform it.”
“I guess I can try performing it with a passenger. But it was so difficult mastering it on my own. I’m not sure I can pull this off no matter how light you are.”
“Oh I’m sure you can handle it Dash. After all you’ve carried me and the wonderbolts afterwards. Once you performed it you had strength to spare. You can at least try.” said Rarity
Dash thought about it and felt challenged. “I won’t try it. I’ll DO it.” 
Everyone there was ready to see her perform her trick. Rainbow Dash flew off in the distance with Scout on her back. She felt a little nervous even thought this wasn’t a contest or big performance.
Scout noticed this, and said, “Hey if it fails you can try again without me.” 
“No, I can do this! I’m sure of it,” Said Rainbow dash as she turned to start her trick.
“Then you got this.” Said scout looking in the distance. “Hey I can see my base from here!” 
“And you’ll be there in a few seconds!” shouted Rainbow Dash as they set off. 
They rushed faster and faster. Dash felt pain in her manes from scout holding on tightly, but this was not important. She had to go faster. She felt the pressure in front of her rise, when suddenly the giant bang announced she had succeeded. On the ground the mercs where amazed at the sight of the rainbow colored sonic boom. Dash flew around the base encircling it with a rainbow.
Back in the training room a while earlier, Heavy, Medic and Fluttershy had joined the trainees. In the end, Applejack had to settle for Heavy holding her up. 
“Fascinating,” said medic, “You can bend in strange ways but your muscle and balance don’t allow for long upright walking. It’s like they’re made of rubber.”
“You gonna rub it in even more?” Applejack asked annoyed.
“I’m not taunting you. I am merely amazed by your autonomy.”
“Mr. Heavy, can you put me down for a second?” 
Heavy put Applejack down. She turned to Medic.
“I’m not sure I trust this one anymore. Every time he opens his mouth it’s like he says he wants to cut us open.”
But for some reason no one was keeping a straight face. In fact everyone was grinning and trying not to laugh.
“What’s so darn funny about that?”
Twilight got closer to Applejack “It was quite serious, and no offence, but it’s hard to take you seriously when you’re walking on those gunslingers like that.” 
Applejack looked down to the gunslingers. She had made them form fists. She now realized it looked as if she was imitating a gorilla.
They all burst out into laughter and when they settled down Sniper spoke up,
“We know Medic is a bit of a sadist, but he’s an ok guy and he can keep his urges down for his friends and teammates.”
“What about Heavy? I heard medic cut him open in front of Fluttershy.”
“There’s a difference in cutting open a person just to see his insides and cutting him open to remove an object that does not belong there,” Medic assured her.
“But you keep eying us, and you almost would’ve cut pinkie open.”
“But I didn’t and I believe that was because she wanted to be able to über.”
“Look, I think we can trust that Mr. Medic won’t try anything without our consent,” Twilight said.
“I hope you’re right Twilight, because Fluttershy hangs around him a lot.”
This got medic yelling. “Are you insinuating that I want to harm Miss Shy?!”
“You’re more interested in our guts than our safety, and you’re not hiding that fact!”
Both Medic and Applejack Where silenced when Heavy loudly yelled, “ENOUGH!”
Everyone looked at him and noticed Fluttershy was hiding behind him. “You are scaring tiny Fluttershy.” Both Medic and Applejack apologized to Fluttershy, but they still glared at each other.
They got back to training. Engy activated several more targets. “Let’s see you get rid of these as fast as you can now.” Heavy picked Applejack back up. Sniper was about to hand her the shotgun when they heard a loud bang that shattered all the targets. 
“What in the sam hell just happened?!” 
Twilight looked up through the windows as the rainbow wave passed by “It’s Rainbow Dash! She’s performing her sonic Rainboom!” She said happily. She rushed outside and was followed by the others Except for Engineer and Applejack. “Mr. Engineer, can you remove these gunslingers?” Applejack asked.
“Sure, and you can stop saying ‘Mr. Engineer’. Engy is easier to say, isn’t it?”
“Thanks… Engy.” 
“And it’s cute you’re worried bout yer friend, but it’s unnecessary.”
“How can you say that? The guy clearly has a passion for cutting things open.”
“He has a passion for cutting people open.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t think his Doves would stay around him if he cut them open for his own amusement.”
Applejack had no time to respond as they had to catch up with the others.
_____________________________________________________________________
Back outside the others were still amazed by the sight. Rainbow Dash landed near the amazed mercs. “Quite a feat huh?” The praise and compliments where interrupted by the Spy laughing like crazy.
“Why are you laughing?” asked Rainbow Dash
Spy couldn’t respond because he was laughing to hard. Soldier walked up to Dash “I think I know. It’s an inside joke.” 
Dash jumped back when Soldier picked a Bleeding hand out of her mane.
“What? I-is that…?”
“Probably the scout. Must have been the force of the sonic boom that ripped him apart,” Said soldier.
“I thought since you know about the sonic boom… I thought it existed here.”
“Sure it does, but no one ever did it with just the clothes on his back.”
Rainbow Dash was shocked by what she had done. The others noticed and the joy had been traded for silence.
“It wasn’t your fault Dashie,” Pinkie Pie told her, trying to cheer her up.
“He’ll be back in a few seconds. All you did was kill a man,” Soldier said.
Demoman shoved him for that insensitive comment.

The others arrived, and Twilight yelled, “How did you like the sonic Rainboom?”
Demoman ran to them, signaling that they should tone it down.
“It was amazing lass, but there was a little accident.”
“Is Rainbow Dash ok?! I know she can crash hard, but she usually gets right back up.”
“She didn’t crash lassie.”
“Then what happened?”
“Scout wanted to go along for the ride.”
“And?”
“Well he popped.”
Twilight looked confused “What?”
“Well.” Demoman held up Scouts hand “This is all that stayed with Rainbow Dash when she landed.” 
Twilight Was Surprised by this “And Dash! what about her?”
“She takes it pretty rough. It didn’t help that Spy was having a blast with it.”
“Where is Spy?” Heavy asked.
That’s when they noticed Spy wasn’t there anymore. Neither was Rarity.
__________________________________________________________________
In the resupply room Scout respawned and was greeted by the Spy. 
“Oh you’re the last person I wanna see now.”
“I know. I had a blast.” Spy grinned. “Rainbows make me die.” 
“Great you had your fun.” Said Scout frustrated. “I’m going home.”
“No you are not,” Spy said, now on a more serious tone.
“We went over this and don’t you dare….”
“I wouldn’t want to have to tell your mother that you left a friend behind with guilt.”
Scout pointed his bat at the Spy and said “I told you not to bring ma up when we’re having an argument.”
Spy snatched the bat out of his hands, “It helps keeps you in the discussion.”
“What is it? I’m already embarrassed I went through with the stupid idea of riding her through the sound barrier. What more do you want?”
“Do you blame her?”
“Why would I? It was my idea.”
“You should tell her that.”
“Why? You want her to laugh at your lame “rainbows make me die” joke?”
“Not exactly. I want her to laugh, But not at my jokes.”
“Man, make some sense will you?”
“Dash is blaming herself for your death.”
“So?”
“Scout, these ponies aren’t killers like us! You may enjoy blowing someone’s head off but they don’t. Even during the highway chase anyone she knocked off their bike, she made sure they were still alive.” 
“Are you sure?”
“I’m a guy who prefers to fight close. After the yellow one got her present I had nothing else to do. I even saw her fly back to check on one of those idiots.”
“These guys are too friendly for this place.”
The room was filled with an uncomfortable silence until scout walked to the resupply closet and grabbed out his sandman and baseball.
“What are you planning to about it?”
“Something I definitely wouldn’t do for you.”
“Then I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Scout rushed out of the room and Spy made sure he was gone before saying, “Rarity why did you follow me?”
“How did you know?” said Rarity as she uncloaked
“I noticed you used up the energy of your cloak. You are lightly visible during that time. Now please answer my question.”
“I was curious what you were planning to do. You walked off as soon as you heard Dash’s voice shake. So you knew.”
“your stories made it clear that murder on your planet is as rare as the gems are to us. Killing someone for the first time never feels good.”
“You don’t seem to mind it much.”
“I’ve grown quite cold over the years, and these people don’t fear death anymore. Thanks to the spawn, death has become another plaything to us.”
“These people? What about those on the highway?”
“Merde.”
“So they don’t have a respawn.”
“They were after what we had. They were after you. For once, we didn’t kill for our jobs.”
“You did it to protect us?”
“Yes, and you can return the favor by not making your friends panic about this. We just saw how Dash reacted to an accident that is easily fixed.”
“You have my word. Besides, what was that about you knowing scouts mother?”
“We are very close.”
“Are you scout’s…?”
“No. I met his mother after I met Scout. Although, he was on blu team back then, and his mother dressed accordingly.”
“Why does his mother support him killing people?”
“She isn’t all for it. That’s one reason she allows it,”said Spy, pointing at the spawnroom.
“The spawnroom?” 
“Yes that and this job gives him quite a bank account. If this job were to be over tomorrow he’d already have enough to live in a villa for years.”
“That does sound appealing, but I still don’t see this being worth it.”
“You are clearly not a mother.”
“Pardon?”
“The spawnroom is part of the contract. It will ensure we don’t die of any violence. If it kept us from aging we would be able to live forever.”
“You make it sound as if they’ve almost handed you eternal happiness.”
“Possibly. They lead me to Scout’s mother too.”
“I can see why you do what you do, but I cannot see myself doing it.”
“I’m starting to wish you guys would stay. I would show you the city where I grew up; Paris! You would love it there.”
“Really?”
“It has the crème the la crème of all our fashion and very refined restaurants.”
“That sounds Lovely.”
“We should go see the other guys. They probably wonder where we are.”
They left the resupply room, Rarity still hanging on Spy’s lips as he told her about Paris.
_________________________________________________________________________
Scout joined the others again in the battlements, with a loud, “Yo Dash!” Dash rushed to Scout as soon as she heard him “Scout I’m so sorry.” 
“It’s alright pal. I forgive ya.”
“But I killed you.”
“You gave me a ten second inconvenience. It’s not like you did something that would be a big problem to me.”
“But I still…”
“Make it up to me by not letting it get to ya anymore.”
“Deal,” She said, teary-eyed.
“Besides, unlike other people we can respawn.”
Twilight noticed his words “I thought everyone on this planet used the spawn technology.”
Sniper face palmed and grunted annoyingly.
The other mercs there got uncomfortable and scout realized he had said something he wasn’t supposed to say.
“What about those people on the highway?” asked Applejack.
“Those that Dash knocked off survived.” Said Medic.
“And the others?” 
“Met our bullets and were not so lucky.”
“What about the ones I blocked off?” Twilight asked
“They tried a stupid stunt and hurt themselves.” Said Sniper
“Hey cheer up it’s not like any of you actually helped to kill them.”
In the back a silent voice said, “I did… I did help.” Everyone looking saw Fluttershy sadly staring at the ground as tears slowly filled her eyes. “I healed Soldier and pyro as they…”  She then ran off into the blu base. Medic immediately followed her. Applejack wanted to give chase but was stopped by Engy who pulled her tail. “What gives?”
“Trust him for a second will ya.”
“Trust him? How can I trust you when you never told us those people on the highway don’t come back?”
“Do you like the news?”
“NO!”
“Then you know why we didn’t tell.”
Applejack stared at the floor, still angry.
Twilight asked Sniper “I’m more worried about Fluttershy, and what should we tell Rarity?”
“Medic’s a clever man. He’ll come up with something. As for Rarity…” 
“She knows!” said Spy uncloaking with Rarity behind them. “She found out a few minutes ago.”
“Scout blurted it out then too?”
“No that was my mistake. I got her to promise to keep it secret but that seems unnecessary now.”
Rarity looked at the blu base “Are you sure Medic is fit to talk to her about this?”
“Of all of us, he’s the one that kills the least.”
After waiting several hours into the night, Medic suddenly called for heavy’s help. They came back With Fluttershy sleeping in heavy’s arms.
“I think she cried herself to sleep. She was hiding on top of some machines.” Said Medic to the others. They decided to retreat to the barracks where they had been sleeping since their arrival in Well.
“It is sad day!” Said heavy as he picked a little medic doll out of his personal closet and gave it to Fluttershy who was sleeping in one of the bunk beds.
Little did he know the next day would get worse.
____________________________________________________________
In a mansion far from there, the administrator was waiting with two butlers for the owner to come home.
“The master will be home soon miss,” Said Bidwell.
“You’ve been saying that for three days now.” Said the administrator annoyed.
“I’m sure he’s there this time because I hear a rhino stampeding.”
Shortly after, a rhino bashed through the doors of the mansion. The buff man riding it announced his name; “SAXTON HAAAAAAAAAALE!” before then proceeding to finish the massive animal off. None of the bystanders were impressed.
Once the rhino was dead Saxton hale started shouting orders. “Bidwell! Put this thing with the rest.”
Reddy rushed to hale “Sir someone has taken your place as the fourth richest man.”
“The usual congratulatory bouquet and this time send him the “I’m coming for you next” form letter with it.”
The administrator spoke in her usual annoyed tone “I see you’re still as insane as ever.”
“I recognize that voice! That smell! That coldhearted tone!” Hale turned around with open arms and yelled “HELEEEN! Have you come for my offer?”
She sidestepped the giant man’s hug and answered with a cold “No.”
“Then what brings you here? New weapons for your patsies? You usually just call for that.”
“No, but It pleases me you still like to endanger animals.” She said looking at the rhino corpse.
“You have animal problems?”
“Yes. And these aren’t normal ones. Rockets have proven nearly ineffective. To make matters worse. The mercs have become attached to these things and are starting to protect them.”
“One animal extinction at your service.”
“One more thing; I’ll place the mercs in arena mode. Once you’ve taken care of them the animals are just a matter of punching hard enough.”
“The animals aren’t vicious?” 
“No but I think they have several similarities to something you hate.”
“Hippies?”
The Administrator nodded.
“OOOOH I’m going to enjoy this. Bidwell! Reschedule all my appointments.” 
“Even the Grizzly sir?”
“No I’ll handle that one immediately.”
“Your match begins tomorrow in the evening. Do not fail me,” Said the Administrator as she left the mansion.