Chapter 1: Amethyst Star
Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun 4: Tetralogy
Admiral Biscuit
Portal guns are dangerous tools, which was why Derpy kept it in the closet.
It probably would have been smarter to just get rid of it: the first portal gun had gotten Derpy in trouble with Princess Celestia, and this one—the replacement—was slightly unstable, having been made of marzipan by a sugar-fueled maniac. Besides, Derpy, Amethyst Star, Dinky, and Chell had eliminated all the humans from Equestria, so it really served no purpose anymore.
Hindsight is of course 20/20, and Amethyst Star had plenty of time to reflect on the misfortunes in her life that had led her to this sorry state of affairs. She'd simply been intending to get a scarf from the closet after a rogue storm in the Everfree brought a spring chill to Ponyville, but her hoof had slipped, and she'd accidentally pulled down the portal gun as well.
A small chunk of marzipan broke off the hoof-grip as it hit the closet floor, and for one brief moment, Amethyst Star thought she'd escaped completely unscathed, but it was not to be. She saw a bright flash of light as the gun portalized her and the next thing she knew, she was falling.
Amethyst Star had fast reflexes, and she cast out her telekinesis in an attempt to grab onto something—anything—that would save her.
All she got was a lousy scarf.
She slammed to the ground in a desert wasteland, knocking the wind right out of her. It took her a moment to shake her head clear, and in that moment her opportunity to quickly return home vanished—the portal winked out as if it had never been there.
At this point, most ponies would be cursing their luck, or perhaps praying to Celestia for deliverance. Stuck in a desert, with no supplies except a wool scarf, her chance of survival was already exceedingly low.
Amethyst was not such a pony. She had a very special set of skills, and world-hopping was old hat to her. She knew rescue would be forthcoming; all she had to do was hold out until then.
Her entire assessment of her situation hadn't taken much more than a few seconds, although it was almost a few seconds too long. A familiar whizzing noise caught her ears and she dropped back to the ground, wincing as a bullet took a notch out of her ear.
Exposed on a battlefield, she might last only a few seconds. She could play dead, but for all she knew whoever or whatever was holding that gun knew that trick and would make sure that she was completely dead before approaching her.
She got her hooves back under her, and quickly fired off a burst of light from her horn—it wasn't much, but predator's eyes were drawn to light and to movement, and it would buy her enough time to get behind a rock, hopefully.
Amethyst Star was halfway to the rock when she felt a couple of shards of rock pepper her hind legs, and then a bullet went clear through her tail as she dove the last few feet, but it didn't matter; she had a brief bit of time to plan her next move.
Her foe must have realized that, too, because the shots stopped after a futile fusillade against her flinty fortress. Anypony else might have thought that her opponent had given up, but she wasn't an idiot—whoever it was would be looking for an opportunity to flank her, or waiting for her to stick her head above the rock to try and get a bead on her enemy, or any of a number of other options which would not end well for her.
She gritted her teeth—until she got her hooves on a weapon, she didn't have much of a chance.
• • •
Mark was sitting where he usually did on a Saturday night—at his computer desk, playing Battlefield. He had what was, by all accounts, a wicked setup: dual flatscreen monitors, lighted gaming keyboard, mouse with programmable side buttons, a wireless headset, and a really comfortable chair with cupholders prominently featured.
Outside, a thunderstorm was raging, but his awareness of the world was only what he could see on his monitors. He was currently making his way through a building, trying to get to the top floor, where he'd have a good look at the battlefield map.
He shot the lock off a door and kicked it open, then lobbed a grenade inside. It exploded, and he charged through, darting up a flight of stairs and ducking back as gunfire hailed down from above. For a moment he thought he was going to make it, and then he got shot in the back.
Mark took the opportunity to have a drink of Mountain Dew Code Red while he was waiting to respawn, and then rushed right back in, attempting the assault again.
And again.
And again.
Even the worst-laid plans sometimes succeed, and on his tenth attempt he actually managed to get up the stairway, with the assistance of a rocket from one of his teammates that cleared the upstairs room for him.
Mark's eyrie wasn't going to be tenable for all that long, but it was long enough to help his teammates out, and he managed a couple of beautiful sniper shots before the opposing team noticed where the gunfire was coming from and dispatched him with a coordinated assault on his citadel.
He respawned once again at the edge of the map and sprinted along the old, familiar route to the building, when he heard one of his teammates shout that there was something off to the west, and then the link dissolved into static.
A moment later, the game froze completely, and he looked over at his router, a frown on his face. Thunderstorms don't usually take out my internet.
There was a bright flash of lightning, and then the thunder crashed loudly enough to shake the house to its foundation. He turned back to the screen in time to see a strange, orange-bordered hole in one of his HP Omen monitors, and, rather unwisely, he touched his finger to it.
• • •
It had only taken Amethyst Star a second to decide that if she didn't act quickly, she was a dead mare. So she stuck her head up above the rock long enough to make herself a target again, and ducked back down just in time—another burst of gunfire chipped a few thousands of years’ worth of geology off the rock. It didn't matter; she now knew for sure the bearing on her enemy. Even better, she knew that he had an elevated position, so maybe he wouldn't give it up that easily. And even if he did, it would take him time to come down from there, and that was time that she wasn't going to let him have.
She was actually glad for her scarf, because it would give her just enough diversion to do what she needed to do. A quick, sloppy illusion on it and it looked kind of pony-like. Not enough to fool anyone for any length of time, but enough to work for a moment, and that was all she needed.
She cast a come-to-life spell on it, as well, and when she was good and ready, she fired off another light spell to her left, then kicked the scarf to her right, motivating it. Her enemy had already seen this trick, and she could imagine him tracking maybe halfway to the light burst, and then catching the movement of the scarf out of the corner of his eye—its erratic movements probably made it look like it was wounded.
A fool might have waited for the gunfire to start, but she didn't. She knew it was coming, so she stuck her head out of the left side of the rock, long enough to get a glance at the building and balcony, and then she struck.
Distant demolition wasn't a spell that was terribly useful, but every now and then a mare could find herself needing to collapse a support beam, and she did, grabbing the one right under his feet and yanking it sharply out and down.
The sound of his gun changed as he lost his footing, and then the whole balcony came crashing down in a billowing cloud of dust, bringing the metal awning along for the ride.
Amethyst didn't need an invitation; she came out from behind her rock at a full gallop, making for what cover that building offered. Her scarf, somewhat lacking in intelligence, began to slither along behind her like a snake. It couldn't feel pain, which was just as well, because the man on the balcony had hit it several times.
She found him at the base of the rubble, still alive but unconscious. While it was usually unwise to keep an enemy alive, she did need information, so the first thing she did was take all his weapons away from him, and once she was sure he couldn't get to them, she proceeded to take his flak jacket and helmet as well.
He didn't have any rope, which was a pity. Rope was always useful.
He did have shoelaces in his combat boots, and she unlaced them and used them to tie him somewhat securely to a cast iron drain pipe, then she got out his canteen and splashed a little bit of water on him to see if she could bring him around.
• • •
Mark found himself in a familiar world: one that he had spent thousands of hours looking at through a computer screen. Luckily for him, he discovered that whatever magic had caused him to become a character in one of his favorite games had also seen fit to give him appropriate attire, which was probably just as well. A t-shirt with nacho cheese stains, shorts, and Crocs wouldn't have served him very well in the world of the game. He also had a pistol.
He'd arrived somewhat distant from the action, near the edge of the map. Obviously, the developers couldn't have made a level that went on forever, and when he thought about it, it would have been stupid if they did. What if his character re-spawned fifty miles from where his teammates were? What if he had to walk all that way?
A rapid burst of machine-gun fire drew his attention, and he watched in awe as a distant helicopter swooped over the battlefield and raked the ground, then tried to evade as a retaliatory rocket sought out its engine. It failed, dropping to the ground like a crippled bird.
Mark was in heaven. He quickly checked his own weapons, and rushed towards the combat. Which, it turned out, was further from him that he'd thought.
That was for the best. While his character normally had unlimited endurance, when he was actually there, he didn't. After only a couple of blocks, his legs started to hurt, and he was breathing more heavily.
If he'd been wiser, he would have figured out right then and there that if he was in the game, he was playing for keeps. However, his enthusiasm overcame the warning bells in his head, and he vaulted over a railing and started running up a flight of stairs, then across the empty room on the other side.
He took a quick glance around for loot drops, in the hopes of getting a better gun or something, but he didn't see any, so he sprinted across the room.
At the far end was an open window frame, and rather than backtrack, Mark employed his favorite technique for quickly getting out of buildings—he jumped.
In the game, as long as he wasn't more than a story or two up, this had little consequence. His character would take a little bit of damage; if he was low on health, he'd use a medkit, and then keep on going.
After it was too late to change his course of action, the rational part of Mark's brain finally kicked into 'oh shit' mode as he went out the window, and reminded him that falling hurt, quite a lot, actually, and perhaps this hadn't been a wise decision.
When he smashed into the ground, his world turned to pain. Even though he'd flexed his knees, which prevented any serious damage, Mark still pitched forward and landed on his face. Rationality had a moment to say 'told you so,' before all the various parts of his body he'd injured reported in, and he let out a high-pitched, rather girlish scream that would have gone on for quite a while, except that that landing had mostly knocked the wind out of him as well.
He dragged himself back to the wall of the building, figuring if he had something to lean against, it might hurt less. And when he'd gotten there, he rummaged through his pockets until he found a medkit.
Mark thought Use Medical Kit, and nothing happened. It was still there in his hand, and he still felt like he'd just gotten out of a rock tumbler.
He picked it up and looked at it more closely. There was a zipper on the side, so he opened it up.
How to actually use the medkit to regain health was a great mystery to him. He recognized most of the contents; he'd watched House and Scrubs, after all. None of it did him any good, though: he had no wounds to bandage, had no idea how to use the sutures, and the kit was strangely lacking in good painkillers. There was aspirin, which he supposed was better than nothing.
Mark took two of them and dry-swallowed them, wincing at the bitter taste in his mouth, and then zipped the medkit back closed and set it down.
In the game, he'd respawn if he died. And he had a way to make that happen . . . but he was beginning to wonder if maybe that technique wouldn't work now. Maybe if he got killed, he'd stay dead.
He wasn't sure he wanted to risk it.
So he got unsteadily back to his feet, picked the medkit back up and shoved it in his pants pocket, and then he limped around the outside of the building, looking for someplace good to hide.
• • •
Amethyst hadn't learned too much from the first soldier, although she'd gotten a few new weapons. On top of that, while she was interrogating him, her wounded scarf had finally made it back to her, and she de-spelled it and draped it across her back. It was no towel, but maybe in a pinch, she could use it for something else.
She glanced around behind her once again, just to make sure that nobody was coming, and then bent down long enough to undo the temporary bindings around her former captive. No sense in leaving the shoelaces behind, either; they might be useful, too. And it wasn't like she had to worry about him coming after her any more.
She lit her horn and lifted up enough rubble to make a small path to the window she'd noticed before collapsing the balcony, and then she vanished inside the pile, dropping the rubble back in place once she was past.
The inside of the building had been pretty well picked through by previous soldiers—nothing inside was of any use to her, so she went up the stairs, her ears swiveling around for any noise that might indicate a possible ambush. The soldier had said he was alone in the building, but she wasn't sure she could trust him. Captives often tell you what they think you want to hear, not the truth.
The top of the stairs might be a deathtrap. Anybody could be on either side, just waiting for her to poke her head around the edge, or there could be a tripwire, a boobytrap—really, anything. If she'd had some grenades, she would have lobbed them upstairs, but she didn't, so she couldn’t.
Amethyst Star moved quickly but cautiously up the stairs and breathed a little sigh of relief as she got into the top floor still intact.
A ladder went up to the roof, and while ladders weren't exactly pony-friendly, Amethyst could use one in a pinch. She stuck her head up above for just a moment, hoping that there weren't any snipers keeping close watch, but just in case she made a little shield around her head. A mirror would have been really useful, but the soldier she’d killed hadn’t had one, and his knife had a matte finish.
She got lucky, and nobody took a potshot at her. And even better, there was a coaming around the entire perimeter, which gave her decent cover in three directions.
It wasn't so good on the fourth side where there were taller buildings, which meant that a sniper could fire down on her.
She saw all that in an instant, and then she was back inside, relatively safe. A burst of gunfire raked across the roof—somebody had been watching. They’d been more trigger-happy than they ought to have been; they should have waited for her to expose herself all the way.
Amethyst trotted across the room, towards a window that looked towards the tall buildings. She didn't make the mistake of going all the way to the window; that would be an invitation to be shot. Instead, she stayed back, studying the terrain around her as well as she could. Getting to the high building would be her first priority, and then she'd have a better viewpoint and maybe could figure out a way to escape.
• • •
From the outside, the building didn't look like much. It was pocked and scarred from countless bullets and artillery rounds, but that wasn't unique. And the front door was wide open, much like the mouth of a dragon who was about to devour somepony. To go in that way was death, she knew that. A boobytrap, or a pair of soldiers flanking the door—there would be something there.
The second floor window probably wasn't guarded, though. Not as well as the front door would be. And it was a jumpable distance.
She unstrapped the Glock from her tactical vest, and checked to make sure that the magazine was full and a round was in the chamber, then set it on the floor and brought her M1 around, cycling the action to make sure it was ready to go as well.
The pistol went out the window first, and then her field guided it to her left. Even though she couldn't see it, she could feel it, and she sent it a little ways down the narrow alleyway, somewhat close to the death door. She was committed now—any moment they'd see it, and the longer they had to think about it, the more likely they'd figure out what she was doing. So she tugged at the trigger as she started to gallop, the machine gun off on her right side.
Disciplined soldiers would have kept to their posts until their help was called for, but these weren't. The three men who were in the upstairs room had all been drawn to the adjacent windows, hoping to figure out who was in the street, shooting at the entrance. It was an opportunity not to be missed, and Amethyst brought her gun to bear on each one in turn, dropping them before they even knew what had hit them, and then she was across the room, ducking into a corner that shared a wall with the door. If reinforcements were to come, that was the way they'd arrive.
She kept her M1 trained at the door as she quickly stole all the weapons that the soldiers had been carrying, which were more than a fair replacement for the Glock she'd lost. Frustratingly, every time she went to pick up a second copy of a weapon she already had, it simply disappeared, although the ammunition at least appeared in the pockets in her vest.
After she'd gotten herself fully equipped, she moved towards the door frame and considered her options. She had to assume that the rest of the soldiers knew where she was and were grouping up for a counterstrike, and the longer she waited the more effective it would be.
Luckily, among all the weapons she'd just grabbed were a few grenades.
She pulled the pins on two of them and sent them left and right outside the doorway, hoping that the wall was strong enough to stop the blast. It felt strong, but a mare could never be sure.
It was. She heard a shout, almost instantly followed by a pair of explosions and the rattling of shrapnel up and down the hallway, and Amethyst was out the door, one gun pointed forward and the second spraying down the hallway, covering her back. It was a huge waste of ammunition, but at the moment she was outnumbered and outgunned and if things went like she hoped, she was about to get a lot more ammunition anyways.
She didn't stay in the hallway long enough to examine her hoofiwork; there would be time for that later. Instead, she trotted down the hallway and stuck her nose down the staircase, yanking it back just as quickly. The soldiers downstairs were covering the staircase rather effectively, and she was lucky they'd aimed high. They wouldn't make that mistake again.
Casting illusory sounds was foal's play, and making something that she was familiar with was simple. She even added in a bit of echo to the hooffalls, which wasn't really necessary, but completed the illusion. Meanwhile, she slowly and quietly backed up, vanishing into the shadows of the hallway, her gun held at the ready.
The men downstairs would have had to be superhuman to not fall for the aural illusion, and they weren't. She let the first one go by, and when the second crested the top of the stairs, she shot him in the head, and then got the other one in the back before he could even turn around.
She shoved the bodies down the stairs—it was getting crowded in the hallway—and when she didn't hear any new cries from below, she risked another quick peek. The room was now blessedly empty.
There was no way of knowing how many there were in the building, but she didn't really care. She now had quite a collection of guns, a rather large supply of ammunition, and more grenades than she'd had a moment ago. One of the men had even had a rocket launcher strapped across his back, which was quite the prize.
It didn't take her too long to get to the top of the building. The soldiers weren't all that clever, and apparently had no wards against magic. That was a terrible oversight on their part, but she wasn't going to complain about her good fortune. It was about time that something went right for her.
The top room was the toughest nut to crack. It had a reinforced steel door, which was closed. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if she opened it, something bad would happen to her, although she couldn't foresee what that might be. A mine, perhaps, or a couple of grenades lobbed out in the hallway, or perhaps just withering gunfire. However many people were up there had to be nervous, and fully prepared for her to come in through the front door.
There was more than one way to make a stormcloud, though, and she retreated down the staircase. A dead soldier had kindly provided her with plenty of explosives, and she had a plan.
Stringing charges in the room below didn't take her very long at all, and she covered most of the perimeter of the room, paying particular attention to the corners, since that was the best place for people to hide. Then she carefully inserted detonators into each block of C4 and unwound the spool of detacord as she went out into the hallway and back upstairs.
Ideally, she wanted to be right by the door so she could finish off anyone that the blast didn't get, but she was a little bit worried about the integrity of the walls, and had no desire to be hoist by her own petard. So she stayed at the far end of the hallway, alongside a nice, safe outside wall, and felt around the door, hoping that they'd left it unlocked, which would make things much easier for her.
They had, which further reinforced her belief that to open the door would be death.
She pinned her ears down and counted to three in her head, twisted the handle and yanked, and the moment she heard the first burst of gunfire, pushed the button on her detonator.
The effects of the explosion were all that she could have hoped for—half a soldier tumbled across the hallway, along with a blast of fire and shrapnel, and she felt the building quake under her hooves as the floor fell out from under everyone in the room.
To her good fortune, the rest of the building remained standing, and when there were no more sounds from inside the room, she shook all the bits of loose plaster out of her mane and went down the hallway to peer through the doorframe.
Not too bad, Sparkler, she thought as she admired what was left of the room. The floor had collapsed completely, just like she'd hoped. There was one small section still clinging to the edge of the building, enough that their tripod-mounted gun had survived the explosion, but otherwise the room was nothing more than a smoking crater.
That hadn't been ideal—she'd destroyed the observation post she'd hoped to use—but she'd come out of it unscathed, so overall that counted as a win in her book.
• • •
Mark saw her from his hidey-hole, and at first mistook her for a packhorse. She was festooned with guns, and grenades, and he scooted back a little bit, worried that whoever was using her might be on the hunt for him. But as she slowly crossed his field of view and he saw no-one else, he slowly came to realize that she was on her own.
He should have shot her then and there, but he didn't. Instead, he whistled, because he thought that was how you got a horse to come to you.
Her ears snapped around and she dove behind the remains of a wall, and Mark's hopes sank as he saw an M1 come up above the rock, surrounded by a strange lavender glow. But it didn't fire, and his hopes began to rise, briefly.
Then a rocket launcher came up alongside the gun, and Mark did the only sensible thing. He surrendered unconditionally.